CHAPTER X.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

Lord Carthew spoke as he did of his friend’s prospects and intentions with perfect frankness and loyalty, never for one moment suspecting the effect which his words might produce in the mind of Stella Cranstoun.

He really believed that Hilary had the bad taste to dislike that young lady, and he was certainly not ill-pleased by such a manifestation of feeling on the part of his handsome friend. Not for an instant did the suspicion cross his mind that two persons present were listening with intense, even breathless, interest to his careless words.

“I must go up to town the first thing to-morrow morning,” he said, presently, “to find out how Hilary is. Of course he is enormously strong, but for that very reason he is the more likely to overestimate his powers of recuperation. Early in the autumn he will be going out to settle in Canada on a farm which has been left to him, and I believe he proposes to spend some years there, so that we shall not long have a chance of being together. He is a capital business man, as long-headed and keen-sighted over a bargain as most Yorkshiremen are, and I have no doubt that he will carry out his expressed determination, and make the property pay.”

“By which time, probably, he will modify his views on the marriage state sufficiently to permit of his mating with some honest, robust person in his own rank of life, who will rear for him a squarely built and solid brood of Anglo-Canadian olive-branches,” remarked Sir Philip, still with his eyes furtively watching his daughter.

“Here is to your friend the farmer’s health and prosperity,” he added, sipping his brown sherry with the air of a connoisseur. “A man in that position is very wise in deferring marriage as long as possible. In the case of the lower middle-class, too often ‘a young man married is a man that’s marred.’”

“One must always take Anne Hathaway into consideration when one recalls Shakespeare’s reflections on the marriage state,” observed Lord Carthew. “A man who at eighteen marries a woman of six-and-twenty, beneath him in rank, and of questionable character, is hardly likely to entertain a high opinion of wedded life. Speaking for myself, I have always looked forward with out-of-date eagerness and interest to the day when I should bring home my bride. And I am most anxious to see my father and mother on the subject at the present time.”

His eyes rested lovingly upon Stella, but as he had not directly used her name, she could hardly utter a disclaimer. The blood rushed to her cheeks as she realized that she was being placed in a wrong position altogether. Lord Carthew treated her, spoke to her, and alluded to her, as though there were some compact between them; and yet, as she had promised nothing, there was nothing to retract. If she were to assure him again privately, after dinner, that she did not love him, that would but be repeating what she had said to him before; he had said that he did not expect her love, and was glad to be content as yet with merely her liking. How could she say:

“This morning I hardly knew that I had fallen in love with your friend at first sight, and I believed he disliked me extremely; also, the prospect of an escape from the Chase, and from my father’s tyranny, for both my mother and myself, seemed too good to be missed. But after you had spoken to me, and I had more than half encouraged you, your friend kissed me, and instantly I knew that I loved him with all my heart, as he loved me, and that marriage with you was absolutely impossible.”

Clearly she could not make such a statement, especially in the face of what Lord Carthew himself had said of Hilary’s rooted aversion against marriage, together with the significant fact of his hasty departure from the Chase, without so much as telling her in so many words that he loved her.

Stella was intensely miserable that evening. Every now and then she told herself, in passionate self-reproach, that hers was the fault, that Hilary had not loved her, had not meant to kiss her. It was merely, as he himself had said, like a part of his dream; it was that little gesture of hers toward him which had hastened that one quick embrace of which he had already so plainly repented. She almost cried aloud in humiliation at the thought, and the blushes coursed over her cheeks under her lowered lashes so swiftly and unaccountably that poor Lord Carthew was to be pardoned if he began to lay the dear delight to his soul that she was thinking of him. Of what else, indeed, could she be thinking? he asked himself, as he noted her evident abstraction, her strange reserve, and those sudden changes of color.

When Lady Cranstoun and Stella retired to the drawing-room, the former, settling herself upon her sofa, motioned to the young girl to draw her low stool up beside her, and tenderly stroked her hair.

“I am so glad, my dear,” she murmured, while her gentle eyes filled with tears, “so very, very glad. And I like him extremely. He is the ideal son I always wished to have. I cannot tell you what a relief it all is to my mind. He is my own relation, too. I have not felt so happy for many, many years.”

“What do you mean, mamma dear?” stammered Stella, feeling terribly guilty.

“Ah, my child, you know well enough. And now I will tell you something, dear; if I have often seemed rather selfish in the way in which I have taken care of myself, and tried to avoid excitement and ward off attacks of illness, it has been because of my awful dread of leaving you with _him_--your father. Heaven knows, I have been always a poor companion for a lovely, bright, young girl, and not much protection for you against his anger. But still, you have always felt, have you not, that your mother was with you, that she loved you, and sympathized with you, and suffered with you? You have never felt the bitter loneliness of being without a friend to love you among enemies? When I have been feeling tired, ill, and worn out, I have said to myself, ‘I must not give way; I must not die until my Stella is happily provided for.’ I could not die and leave you with _him_. But now if, as Lord Carthew suggests, the marriage takes place almost immediately--and, indeed, what is there to hinder it?--I shall have my mind at peace, knowing that you will be safe under the protection of a good man’s love. I can die quietly, happily, and thankfully, remembering that.”

“Don’t, don’t talk about dying!” cried Stella, bursting into a flood of tears, and covering Lady Cranstoun’s wasted hands with kisses. “I could not lose you--you must not die! And--and I don’t love Lord Carthew. I never shall. I know he is good and clever, and all that you say, but--but I cannot marry him!”

Lady Cranstoun sat upright on her sofa, looking very white and wan.

“Don’t, darling, for my sake, be capricious any more,” she whispered. “As to disliking him because he is a viscount instead of a farmer, as you thought at first, that is foolish and beneath you. You are only joking, my dear, are you not? You would not disappoint me so bitterly, after all our talk this morning, about that voyage to the Cape, and how I was to come and stay with you, and--and----”

The words died upon her lips. An ashen gray tint spread over her face, and she fell back among her cushions in a fainting-fit. Her feeble frame was not equal to the strain of the day’s excitement, culminating in the shock of Stella’s refusal to carry out the contract to which she seemed so willing a party in the morning, and on which Lady Cranstoun had set her heart.

Stella overwhelmed herself with reproaches as she assisted Margaret to restore the invalid to consciousness. The gentlemen were still in the dining-room; they were, indeed, discussing the question of marriage settlements in a highly amicable manner. But to Stella’s great relief, Dr. Morland Graham returned from town just at the moment when his patient recovered consciousness, and by his advice she was taken off to bed, where she soon fell asleep, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day.

“I want to talk to you about your dear mamma,” said Dr. Graham, in his most benevolent professional manner, as he accompanied Miss Cranstoun back to the drawing-room. “I don’t think even you quite realize her extreme weakness. Her heart is in such an enfeebled state that she must on no account be exposed to the slightest shock. She may die in a fainting-fit similar to the one she had to-night, and the finest medical skill in the world would not save her. She must not be thwarted or disappointed, if her life is to be prolonged, say for a year or two longer. May I ask whether there was any apparent reason for her last seizure?”

“Yes,” answered Stella, after a moment’s hesitation. “We--we were talking about an offer of marriage which I have just received.”

“Indeed! That is most interesting. May I be allowed to congratulate you? And who is the happy man?”

“Wait, please! The man is Lord Carthew, who for some silly freak changed names with his friend when he came here last night.”

The doctor laughed, a long, low, comfortable, and self-satisfied laugh.

“The young gentleman did not deceive _me_,” he said, complacently. “I know Lord Northborough well, and the family likeness between him and his son is remarkable.”

“Apparently,” said the young lady, angrily, “_I_ was the only person whom it was deemed necessary to deceive. In the name of Pritchard, Lord Carthew asked me to marry him, and I told him I would think about it. I _did_ think about it, and I decided against him, but in the mean time he had had interviews with my father and mother in which he appears to have presented himself in the light of an accepted suitor. But I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying him. In fact,” she added, vigorously, “the very idea of it makes me _hate_ him!”

“I really,” began the doctor, “can see nothing in the young gentleman’s manners or style to justify your dislike----”

“It isn’t that!” she interrupted, eagerly. “Dr. Graham, you are a clever man--you understand men and women. Don’t you know quite well that it is possible to like people very much as friends, but to _loathe_ them in the suggested capacity of husbands or wives?”

“Certainly, certainly. But in this case the match appears so exceptionally happy--however, the subject in discussion is your mamma’s health. You tell me you were talking over the proposed marriage with her. I suppose that she is in favor of it?”

“She has set her heart upon it,” said Stella, with a sigh. “And as soon as I told her my objections she fainted.”

“One thing is quite certain,” said Dr. Graham, emphatically. “If you wish to preserve her life, you must at least affect to fall in with her views for the present.”

“But they want to marry me off at once,” she cried, desperately, “even before I am presented at Court!”

“Well, well!” returned the doctor, soothingly, “I shouldn’t think your fate such a _very_ hard one, after all. The Earl of Northborough is one of the most distinguished statesmen in England, in high favor at Court, with a wife who brought him about a million, and Lord Carthew is the only son. All the beautiful and well-bred girls in London have been setting their caps at him for the past two years.”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “These things are nothing, less than nothing, to me. So far from coveting wealth and rank, I would avoid them. My ideal of marriage is quite--quite different.”

She stopped short and blushed deeply.

“I cannot make you understand,” she said again, and turned away.

“I can understand two things, Miss Stella,” he answered, gravely; “caprice on the one hand, and duty on the other.”

She turned sharply round and faced him.

“Duty!” she repeated, coldly. “I don’t understand you.”

“The daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and granddaughter of the Duke of Lanark is not in a position to marry for mere caprice any person she may happen to take a fancy to,” he said. “_Noblesse oblige._ You must keep up the traditions of your family and marry some one in your own rank of life. It is a duty which you owe to your family, your training, and your parents. In your case, the duty is all the more clearly marked out for you, as Lady Cranstoun’s health depends entirely upon your fulfilment of her clearly expressed wishes; if you disappoint her in her very natural and loving wish to see you happily married to so intellectual and high-minded a nobleman as Lord Carthew, her death may lie at your door.”

Stella rose from her chair and walked away from him toward the window. She felt that a net was being drawn about her feet, and her former liking for Lord Carthew turned to a resentful dislike. With her heart throbbing in her bosom at the very thought of another man, with every fibre of her being tingling with passionate love for him, how could she tamely endure the suggestions that, even for her mother’s sake, she must marry Lord Carthew? It was useless to reason with her. The gypsy Carewe blood in her veins was burning with unreasoning passion. She loved Hilary Pritchard, loved him with such unquestioning ardor that she would only too gladly have left her home that night to follow him, penniless and barefooted, throughout the world. Arguments were wasted upon such a nature. There was no trace of the cold and proud Douglas element in _her_ temperament; eccentric, strong-willed Cranstoun, and wild, lawless Carewe had united to produce this strange, half-tamed creature, with only a coating of education and repressive training over the primeval passions, the wandering instincts, and the marked rebellion against all constituted authority which characterize her race.

All the gypsy in her was dominant to-night as, with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes, she went up to her harp, and striking a few effective chords, sat down before it, and broke into a Hungarian air, which had greatly taken her fancy among some new music which had arrived from town during her father’s absence. Perhaps her strange meeting with old Sarah Carewe had put the thought of the gypsy race into her head; or else it was that in her present excitable, rebellious, and agitated mood, the wild Zingari music appealed to her feelings; certain it is that she threw all the repressed intensity of her nature into the song. She was an excellent musician, and played from memory, suggesting the air, now wild, now plaintive, by a succession of chords. The words, too, a lament supposed to be uttered by a dying “Egyptian,” chimed in with her own frame of mind sufficiently well to enable her to throw her whole soul into her voice.

Even that well-regulated person, Dr. Morland Graham, was astonished and excited by her performance. How came the daughter of Lady Gwendolen to possess such dramatic intensity and fire? he asked himself, while the girl’s sweet soprano notes clove the air, and the strange wailing pathos of her tones brought actual tears to his eyes.

Two other listeners had entered the room. Stella sang on, unheeding them, while Lord Carthew watched her, entranced in admiration, and her father regarded her with a heavy scowl of intense disapprobation.

The picture she made, sitting there in her slender, girlish beauty, her cheeks pale with excitement, her eyes aglow, her dusky hair framing her small, sensitive face, and that sweet, pathetic voice ringing out the wild love, the longing for liberty, and the loneliness of the dying gypsy--all these things, which filled the other two men present with wondering admiration, irritated Sir Philip beyond measure. How dared she sing gypsy songs in his presence? Above all, how dared she reveal in her singing that warm southern nature which he so strongly mistrusted, and the possession of which in his daughter he regarded as something in the light of a disgrace?

The song ceased. The singer drooped her head, as though exhausted by the effort, while her fingers still lingered about the strings. A burst of applause, coming simultaneously from Lord Carthew and Dr. Graham, caused her to start violently. She had completely forgotten that she was not quite alone.

“I have never heard singing like yours,” the young viscount said, coming to her side. “You made me cry, and I am not very easily moved. It is not only your voice which is lovely, but your expression. Do you know what you made me think of as you sat there, telling of your longing for fresh air and freedom, and the joys of life?”

“No.”

“Of that line I told you of this morning, when Tennyson’s heroine saw the lovers pass:

“‘“I am half sick of shadows,” said The Lady of Shalott.’”

She looked up at him, and smiled involuntarily. He certainly understood at least a portion of what was in her mind.

“Your daughter is a most accomplished musician, and a beautiful singer,” Dr. Graham was saying to Sir Philip.

“I do not approve of that class of song,” Sir Philip’s rasping voice made answer. “It is theatrical and tawdry in sentiment, and in my opinion not a song for a gentlewoman to sing.”

Stella glanced at her father. Seeing that he appeared to be engaged in conversation by Dr. Graham, she resolved to tell Lord Carthew that his friend Hilary Pritchard was not in London, but lying at the inn near the lodge gates of the Chase.

“I have something I want to say to you,” she began, speaking very softly, lest her father might overhear her. But she was not quick enough for the gray wolf. In an instant he had left the doctor and joined her.

“I understand,” he said, addressing Lord Carthew with an affectation of geniality, “that you are a good chess-player. Dr. Graham here is a great authority on chess, and one of the best players in London. Will you and he have a game while I go with my daughter to see how my wife is now?”

His guests could do no less than follow his suggestion, while Stella, her heart beating fast with apprehension, followed her father out of the room.

As soon as the door was closed, he turned upon her harshly.

“Come to my study,” he said. “I have something to say to you.”