Lady Earle thought her son looked graver and sadder that day than she had ever seen him. She had not the clew to his reflections; she did not know how he was haunted by the thought of the handsome, gallant young man who must be his heir—how he regretted that no son of his would ever succeed him—how proud he would have been of a son like Lionel. He had but two children, and they must some day leave Earlescourt for homes of their own. The grand old house, the fair domain, must all pass into the hands of strangers unless Lionel married one of the beautiful girls he loved so dearly.
Lady Helena understood a little of what was passing in his mind when he told her that he had met Lionel Dacre, who was coming to dine with him that day.
"I used to hope Beatrice might like him," said Lady Earle; "but that will never be—Lord Airlie has been too quick. I hope he will not fall in love with her; it would only end in disappointment."
"He may like Lillian," said Lord Earle.
"Yes," assented Lady Helena. "Sweet Lily—she seems almost too pure and fair for this dull earth of ours."
"If they both marry, mother," said Ronald, sadly, "we shall be quite alone."
"Yes," she returned, "quite alone," and the words smote her with pain. She looked at the handsome face, with its sad, worn expression. Was life indeed all over for her son—at the age, too, when other men sunned themselves in happiness, when a loving wife should have graced his home, cheered and consoled him, shared his sorrows, crowned his life with love? In the midst of his wealth and prosperity, how lonely he was! Could it be possible that one act of disobedience should have entailed such sad consequences? Ah, if years ago Ronald had listened to reason, to wise and tender counsel—if he had but given up Dora and married Valentine Charteris, how different his life would have been, how replete with blessings and happiness, how free from care!
Lady Earle's eyes grew dim with tears as these thoughts passed through her mind. She went up to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
"Ronald," she said, "I will do my best to make home happy after our bonny birds are caged. For your sake, I wish things had been different."
"Hush, mother," he replied gently. "Words are all useless. I must reap as I have sown; the fruits of disobedience and deceit could never beget happiness. I shall always believe that evil deeds bring their own punishment. Do not pity me—it unnerves me. I can bear my fate."
Lady Helena was pleased to see Lionel again. She had always liked him, and rejoiced now in his glorious manhood. He stood before the two sisters, half dazzled by their beauty. The fair faces smiled upon him; pretty, white hands were outstretched to meet his own.
"I am bewildered by my good fortune," he said. "I shall be the envy of every man in London; people will no longer call me Lionel Dacre. I shall be known as the cousin of 'Les Demoiselles Earle.' I have neither brother nor sister of my own. Fancy the happiness of falling into the midst of such a family group."
"And being made welcome there!" interrupted Beatrice. Lionel bowed profoundly. At first he fancied he preferred this brilliant, beautiful girl to her fair, gentle sister. Her frank, fearless talk delighted him. After the general run of young ladies—all fashioned, he thought, after one model—it was refreshing to meet her. Her ideas were so original.
Lord Airlie joined the little dinner party, and then Lionel Dacre read the secret which Beatrice hardly owned even to herself.
"I shall not be shipwrecked on that rock," he said to himself. "When Beatrice Earle speaks to me her eyes meet mine; she smiles, and does not seem afraid of me; but when Lord Airlie speaks she turns from him, and her beautiful eyes droop. She evidently cares more for him than for all the world besides."
But after a time the fair, spirituelle loveliness of Lillian stole into his heart. There was a marked difference between the two sisters. Beatrice took one by storm, so to speak; her magnificent beauty and queenly grace dazzled and charmed one. With Lillian it was different. Eclipsed at first sight by her more brilliant sister, her fair beauty grew upon one by degrees. The sweet face, the thoughtful brow, the deep dreamy eyes, the golden ripples of hair, the ethereal expression on the calm features, seemed gradually to reveal their charm. Many who at first overlooked Lillian, thinking only of her brilliant sister, ended by believing her to be the more beautiful of the two.
They stood together that evening, the two sisters, in the presence of Lord Airlie and Lionel Dacre. Beatrice had been singing, and the air seemed still to vibrate with the music of her passionate voice.
"You sing like a siren," said Mr. Dacre; he felt no diffidence in offering so old a compliment to his kins-woman.
"No," replied Beatrice; "I may sing well—in fact, I believe I do. My heart is full of music, and it overflows on my lips; but I am no siren, Mr. Dacre. No one ever heard of a siren with dusky hair and dark brows like mine."
"I should have said you sing like an enchantress," interposed Lord Airlie, hoping that he was apter in his compliments.
"You have been equally wrong, my lord," she replied, but she did not laugh at him as she had done at Lionel. "If I were an enchantress," she continued, "I should just wave my wand, and that vase of flowers would come to me; as it is, I must go to it. Who can have arranged those flowers? They have been troubling me for the last half hour." She crossed the room, and took from a small side table an exquisite vase filled with blossoms.
"See," she cried, turning to Lionel, "white heath, white roses, white lilies, intermixed with these pale gray flowers! There is no contrast in such an arrangement. Watch the difference which a glowing pomegranate blossom or a scarlet verbena will make."
"You do not like such quiet harmony?" said Lionel, smiling, thinking how characteristic the little incident was.
"No," she replied; "give me striking contrasts. For many years the web of my life was gray-colored, and I longed for a dash of scarlet in its threads."
"You have it now," said Mr. Dacre, quietly.
"Yes," she said, as she turned her beautiful, bright fact to him; "I have it now, never to lose it again."
Lord Airlie, looking on and listening, drinking in every word that fell from her lips, wondered whether love was the scarlet thread interwoven with her life. He sighed deeply as he said to himself that it would not be; this brilliant girl could never care for him. Beatrice heard the sigh and turned to him.
"Does your taste resemble mine, Lord Airlie?"
"I," interrupted Lord Airlie—"I like whatever you like, Miss Earle."
"Yourself best of all," whispered Lionel to Beatrice with a smile.
As Mr. Dacre walked home that evening, he thought long and anxiously about the two young girls, his kins-women. What was the mystery? he asked himself—what skeleton was locked away in the gay mansion? Where was Lord Earle's wife—the lady who ought to have been at the head of his table—the mother of his children? Where was she? Why was her place empty? Why was her husband's face shadowed and lined with care?
"Lillian Earle is the fairest and sweetest girl I have ever met," he said to himself. "I know there is danger for me in those sweet, true eyes, but if there be anything wrong—if the mother is blameworthy—I will fly from the danger. I believe in hereditary virtue and in hereditary vice. Before I fall in love with Lillian, I must know her mother's story."
So he said, and he meant it. There was no means of arriving at the knowledge. The girls spoke at times of their mother, and it was always with deep love and respect. Lady Helena mentioned her, but her name never passed the lips of Lord Earle. Lionel Dacre saw no way of obtaining information in the matter.
There was no concealment as to Dora's abode. Once, by special privilege, he was invited into the pretty room where the ladies sat in the morning—a cozy, cheerful room, into which visitors never penetrated. There, upon the wall, he saw a picture framed a beautiful landscape, a quiet homestead in the midst of rich, green meadows; and Lillian told him, with a smile, that was the Elms, at Knutsford, "where mamma lived."
Lionel was too true a gentleman to ask why she lived there; he praised the painting, and then turned the subject.
As Lady Earle foresaw, the time had arrived when Dora's children partly understood there was a division in the family, a breach never to be healed. "Mamma was quite different from papa," they said to each other; and Lady Helena told them their mother did not like fashion and gayety, that she had been simply brought up, used always to quietness and solitude, so that in all probability she would never come to Earlescourt.
But as time went on, and Beatrice began to understand more of the great world, she had an instinctive idea of the truth. It came to her by slow degrees. Her father had married beneath him, and her mother had no home in the stately hall of Earlescourt. At first violent indignation seized her; then calmer reflection told her she could not judge correctly. She did not know whether Lord Earle had left his wife, or whether her mother had refused to live with him.
It was the first cloud that shadowed the life of Lord Earle's beautiful daughter. The discovery did not diminish her love for the quiet, sad mother, whose youth and beauty had faded so soon. If possible, she loved her more; there was a pitying tenderness in her affection.
"Poor mamma!" thought the young girl—"poor, gentle mamma! I must be doubly kind to her, and love her better than ever."
Dora did not understand how it happened that her beautiful Beatrice wrote so constantly and so fondly to her—how it happened that week after week costly presents found their way to the Elms.
"The child must spend all her pocket money on me," she said to herself. "How well and dearly she loves me—my beautiful Beatrice!"
Lady Helena remembered the depth of her mother's love. She pitied the lonely, unloved wife, deprived of husband and children. She did all in her power to console her. She wrote long letters, telling Dora how greatly her children were admired, and how she would like their mother to witness their triumph. She told how many conquests Beatrice had made; how the proud and exclusive Lord Airlie was always near her, and that Beatrice, of her own fancy, liked him better than any one else.
"Neither Lord Earle nor myself could wish a more brilliant future for Beatrice," wrote Lady Helena. "As Lady Airlie of Lynnton, she will be placed as her birth and beauty deserve."
But even Lady Helena was startled when she read Dora's reply. It was a wild prayer that her child should be saved—spared the deadly perils of love and marriage—left to enjoy her innocent youth.
"There is no happy love," wrote poor Dora, "and never can be. Men can not be patient, gentle, and true. It is ever self they worship—self-reflected in the woman they love. Oh, Lady Helena, let my child be spared! Let no so-called love come near her! Love found me out in my humble home, and wrecked all my life. Do not let my bright, beautiful Beatrice suffer as I have done. I would rather fold my darlings in my arms and lie down with them to die than live to see them pass through the cruel mockery of love and sorrow which I have endured. Lady Helena, do not laugh; your letter distressed me. I dreamed last night, after reading it, that I placed a wedding veil on my darling's head, when, as it fell round her, it changed suddenly into a shroud. A mother's love is true, and mine tells me that Beatrice is in danger."
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