Volume Ii Part 50 (1/2)

No sooner was she out of the room than Lord Ormersfield asked, 'And what have you done with the Spanish woman?'

The answer excited a peal of laughter, which made Louis stand aghast, both at such unprecedented merriment and at the cause; for hitherto he had so entirely felt with Mary, as never to have seen the ludicrous aspect of the elopement. Presently, however, he was amused by perceiving that his father not merely regarded it as a relief from an embarra.s.sing charge, but as an entire acquittal for his own conscience for any slanders he had formerly believed of Dona Rosita.

Louis briefly explained that, the poor lady being provided for by Robson's investments in America, he had thought it right that the Ponsonby share of the firm should bear the loss through these embezzlements; and he had found that her extravagance had made such inroads on the property, that while the Dynevor share (always the largest) resulted in a fair competence, Louis had saved nothing out of the wreck of the Ponsonby affairs but Mary herself. 'Can you excuse it, father?' he said, with all the old debonnaire manner.

'You will never be a rich man, Louis. You and she will have some cares, but--' and his voice grew thick--'you are rich in what makes life happy. You have left me nothing more to ask or wish for!'

'Except that I may be worthy of her, father. You first taught me how she ought to be loved. You have been very patient with me all this time. I feel as if I must thank you for her--' and then, changing his tone as she opened the door--'Look at her now she has her bonnet off--does not she look natural?'

'I am sure I feel so,' said Mary. 'You know this always seemed more like home than anything else.'

'Yes, and now I do feel sure that I have you at last, Mary. That Moorish castle of yours used to make me afraid of wakening: it was so much fitter for Isabel's fantastic Viscount. By-the-bye, has she brought that book out?'

'Oh, yes, and James is nearly as proud of it as he is of his son. He actually wanted me to read it! He tells me it is selling very well, and I hope it may really bring them in something.'

'Now, then--there's the tea. Sit down, Mary, and look exactly as you did the morning I came home and found you.'

'I'm afraid I cannot,' said Mary, looking up in his face with an arch, deprecating expression.

'Why not?'

'Don't you know that I am so much happier?'

Before breakfast next morning Fitzjocelyn must visit his farm, and Mary must come with him.

How delicious was that English morning after their voyage; the slant rays of the sun silvering the turf, and casting rainbows across the gossamer threads from one brown bent to another; the harvest fields on the slopes dotted with rich sheaves of wheat; the coppices, in their summer glory, here and there touched with the gold of early autumn, and the slopes and meadows bright with lively green, a pleasant change for eyes fresh from the bare, rugged mountain-side and the rank unwholesome vegetation of Panama. s.h.a.ggy little Scottish oxen were feeding on the dewy gra.s.s, their black coats looking sleek in the sun beyond the long shadows of the thorns; but as Mary said, laughing, 'Only Farmer Fitzjocelyn's cattle came here now,' and she stopped more than once to be introduced to some notable animal, or to hear the history of experiments in fatting beasts.

'There! they have found you out! That's for you,' said Louis, as a merry peal of bells broke out from the church tower, and came joyously up through the tranquil air. 'Yes, Ormersfield, you are greeting a friend! You may be very glad, old place! I wish Mr. Holdsworth would come up to breakfast! Is it too wet for you this way, Mary?'

This way was into Fernydell, and Mary answered, 'Oh, no--no; it is where I most wanted to go with you. We have never been there together since--'

'No, you never would walk with me after I could go alone!' said Louis, with a playful tone of reproach, veiling deep feeling.

In silence he handed her down the rocky steps, plunging deeper among the hazels and rowan-trees; then pausing, he turned aside the luxuriant leaves of a tuft of hartstongue, and showed her, cut on a stone, veiled both by the verdure and the form of the rock, the letters--

Deo Gratias, L. F. 1847.

'I like that!' was all that Mary's full heart allowed her to say.

'Yes,' said Louis, 'I feel quite as thankful for the accident as for the preservation.'

'And that dear mamma was with us,' added Mary. 'Between her and you, it was a blessing to us all. I see these letters are not new; you must have cut them out long ago.'

'As soon as I could get here without help,' he answered. 'I thought I should be able to find the very spot where I lay, by remembering the cross which the bare mountain-ash boughs made against the sky; but by that time they were all leaf and flower; and now, do you see, there they are, with the fruit just formed and blus.h.i.+ng.'

'Like other things,' said Mary, reaching after the spray, 'once all blossom, now--'

'Fruit very unripe,' as he said, between a smile and a sigh; 'but there is some encouragement in the world after all, and every project of mine has not turned out like my two specimens of copper ore. You remember them, Mary and our first encounter?'

'Remember it!' said Mary. 'I don't think I forgot a day of that summer.'

'What I brought you here for,' said Louis, 'was to ask you to let me do what I have long wished--to let me put the letter M here?'