Volume Ii Part 46 (1/2)

'Tell me--one word, Mary, and I shall know what to do, and will not hara.s.s nor grieve you.'

'Grieve me! You!' exclaimed Mary, in an inexpressibly incredulous tone.

'Enough! It is as it was before!' and he drew her into his arms, as unresistingly as five years ago, and his voice sank with intense thankfulness, as he said, 'My Mary--my Mary! has He not brought it to pa.s.s?'

The tears came dropping from her eyes, and then she could speak.

'Louis, my dear father withdrew his anger. He gave full consent and blessing, if you still--'

'Then nothing is wanting--all is peace!' said Louis. 'You know how you are longed for at home--'

'That you should have come--come all this way! That Lord Ormersfield should have spared you!' exclaimed Mary, breaking out into happy little sentences, as her tears relieved her. 'Oh, how far off all my distress and perplexity seem now! How foolish to have been so unhappy when there you were close by! But you must see Dona Rosita,' cried she, recollecting herself, after an interval, 'I must tell her.'

Mary hurried into another room by a gla.s.s door, and Louis heard her speaking Spanish, and a languid reply; then returning, she beckoned to him to advance, whispering, 'Don't be surprised, these are the usual habits. We can talk before her, she never follows English.'

He could at first see no one, but presently was aware of a gra.s.s hammock swung from the richly-carved beams, and in it something white; then of a large pair of black eyes gazing full at him with a liquid soft stare. He made his bow, and summoned his best Spanish, and she made an answer which he understood, by the help of Mary, to be a welcome; then she smiled and signed with her head towards him and Mary, and said what Mary only interpreted by colouring, as did Louis, for such looks and smiles were of all languages. Then it was explained that only as a relation did she admit his Excellency el Visconde, before her evening toilette in her duelos was made--Mary would take care of him. And dismissing them with a graceful bend of her head, she returned to her doze and her cigarito.

Mary conducted Louis to the cool, shaded, arched doorway, opening under the rich marble cloister of the court-yard, where a fountain made a delicious bubbling in the centre. She clapped her hands--a little negro girl appeared, to whom she gave an order, and presently two more negroes came in, bringing magnificent oranges and pomegranates, and iced wine and water, on a silver tray, covered with a richly-embroidered napkin. He would have felt himself in the Alhambra, if he could have felt anything but that he was beside Mary.

'Sit down, sit down, you have proved yourself Mary enough already by waiting on me. I want to look at you, and to hear you. You are not altered!' he cried joyfully, as he drew her into the full light. 'You have your own eyes, and that's your very smile! only grown handsomer.

That's all!'

She really was. She was a woman to be handsomer at twenty-seven than at twenty-one; and with the glow of unexpected bliss over her fine countenance, it did not need a lover's eye to behold her as something better than beautiful.

And for her! who shall tell the marvel of scarcely-credited joy, every time she heard the music of his softly-dropped distinct words, and looked up at the beloved face, perhaps a little less fair, with rather less of the boyish delicacy of feature, but more n.o.ble, more defined--as soft and sweet as ever, but with all the indecision gone; all that expression that had at times seemed like weakness. He was not the mere lad she had loved with a guiding motherly love, but a man to respect and rely on--ready, collected, dealing with easy coolness with the person who had domineered over that house for years. He was all, and more than all, her fondest fancy had framed; and coming to her aid at the moment of her utmost difficulty, brought to her by the love which she had not dared to confide in nor encourage! No wonder that she feared to move, lest she should find herself awakened from a dream too happy to last.

'But oh, Louis,' said she, as if it were almost a pledge of reality to recollect a vexation, 'I must tell you first, for it will grieve you, and we did not take pains enough to keep him out of temptation. That unhappy runaway clerk--'

'Is safe at Callao,' said Louis, 'and is to help me to release you from the meshes they have woven round you. Save for the warning he sent home, I could never have shown cause for coming to you, Mary, while you would not summon me. That was too bad, you know, since you had the consent.'

'That was only just at last,' faltered Mary. 'It was so kind of him, for I had disappointed him so much!'

'What? I know, Mary; his letters kept me in a perpetual fright for the last year; and not one did you write to poor little Clara to comfort us.'

'It was not right in me,' said Mary; 'but I thought it might be so much better for you if you were never put in mind of me. I beg your pardon, Louis.'

'We should have trusted each other better, if people would have let us alone,' said Louis. 'In fact, it was trust after all. It always came back again, if it were scared away for a moment.'

'Till I began to doubt if I were doing what was kind by you,' said Mary. 'Oh, that was the most distressing time of all; I thought if I were out of the way, you might begin to be happy, and I tried to leave off thinking about you.'

'Am I to thank you?'

'I _could_ not,--that is the truth of it,' said Mary. 'I was able to keep you out of my mind enough, I hope, for it not to be wrong; but as to putting any one else there--I was forced at last to tell poor papa so, when he wanted to send for Mr. Ward; and then--he said that if you had been as constant, he supposed it must be, and he hoped we should be happy; and he said you had been a pet of my mother, and that Lord Ormersfield had been a real friend to her. It was so kind of him, for I know it would have been the greatest relief to his mind to leave things in Mr. Ward's charge.'

Mary had been so much obliged to be continually mentioning her father, that, though the loss was still very recent, she was habituated to speak of him with firmness; and it was an extreme satisfaction to tell all her sorrows, and all the little softening incidents, to Louis. Mr.

Ponsonby had shown much affection and grat.i.tude to her during the few closing days of his illness, and had manifested some tokens of repentance for his past life; but there had been so much pain and torpor, that there had been little s.p.a.ce for reflection, and the long previous decline had not been accepted as a warning. Perhaps the intensity of Mary's prayers had been returned into her bosom, in the strong blindness of filial love; for as she dwelt fondly on the few signs of better things, the narration fell mournfully on Louis's ears, as that of an unhopeful deathbed.

An exceeding unwillingness to contemplate death, had prevented Mr.

Ponsonby from making a new will. By one made many years back, he had left the whole of his property, without exception, to his daughter, his first wife having been provided for by her marriage settlements, and now, with characteristic indolence and selfishness, he had deferred till too late the securing any provision for his Limenian wife; and only when he found himself dying, had he said to Mary, 'You will take care to provide for poor Rosita!'

So Mary had found herself heiress to a share in the miserably-involved affairs of Dynevor and Ponsonby; and as soon as she could think of the future at all, had formed the design of settling Rosita in a convent with a pension, and going herself to England.

But Rosita was not easily to be induced to give up her gaieties for a convent life; and, moreover, there was absolutely such a want of ready money, that Mary did not see how to get home, though Robson a.s.sured her there was quite enough to live upon as they were at present. Nor was it possible to dispose of the mines and other property without Mr.