Phantom Fortune by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ereader iphone TXT) 📕

count for very little in such a case. It is the tone, it is the melody of a voice, it is the magic of the hour that tells.

The tide came, in the person of Mr. Smithson, and parted these two weeds that were drifting towards the great mysterious ocean of fate.

'I have been hunting for you everywhere,' he said, cheerfully. 'If you want another waltz, Lady Lesbia, you had better take the next. I believe it is to be the last. At any rate our party are clamouring to be driven home. I found poor Lady Kirkbank fast asleep in a corner of the drawing-room.'

'Will you give me that last waltz?' asked Don Gomez.

Lady Lesbia felt that the long-suffering Smithson had endured enough. Womanly instinct constrained her to refuse that final waltz: but it seemed to her as if she were making a tremendous sacrifice in so doing. And yet she had waltzed to her heart's content during the season that was waning, and knew all the waltzes played by all the fashionable bands. She gave a little sigh, as she said--

'No, I must not indulge myself. I must go and take care of Lady Kirkbank.'

Mr. Smithson offered his arm, and she took it and went away with him, leaving Don Gomez to follow at his leisure. There would be some delay no doubt before the drag started. The lamps had gone out among the foliage, and the stars were waning a little, and there was a faint cold light creeping over the garden which meant the advent of morning. Don Gomez strolled towards the lighted house, smoking a cigarette.

'She is very lovely, and she is--well--not quite spoiled by her _entourage_, and they tell me she is an heiress--sure to inherit a fine fortune from some ancient grandmother, buried alive in Westmoreland,' he mused. 'What a splendid opportunity it would be if--if the business could be arranged on the square. But as it is--well--as it is there is the chance of an adventure; and when did a Montesma ever avoid an adventure, although there were dagger or poison lurking in the background? And here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovely woman, and an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough to disgrace and ruin an archbishop. Poor Smithson! How very unlucky that I should happen to come across your pathway in the heyday of your latest love affair. We have had our little adventures in that line already, and we have measured swords together, metaphorically, before to-night. When it comes to a question of actual swords my Smithson declines. _Pas si bête._'


CHAPTER XXXVII.


LORD HARTFIELD REFUSES A FORTUNE.

A honeymoon among lakes and mountains, amidst the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale, in a little world of wild, strange loveliness, shut in and isolated from the prosaic outer world by the vast and towering masses of Skiddaw and Blencathara--a world of one's own, as it were, a world steeped in romance and poetry, dear to the souls of poets. There are many such honeymoons every summer; indeed, the mountain paths, the waterfalls and lakes swarm with happy lovers; and this land of hills and waters seems to have been made expressly for honeymoon travellers; yet never went truer lovers wandering by lake and torrent, by hill and valley, than those two whose brief honeymoon was now drawing to a close.

It was altogether a magical time for Mary, this dawn of a new life. The immensity of her happiness almost frightened her. She could hardly believe in it, or trust in its continuance.

'Am I really, really, really your wife?' she asked on their last day, bending down to speak to her husband, as he led her pony up the rough ways of Skiddaw. 'It is all so dreadfully like a dream.'

'Thank God, it is the very truth,' answered Lord Hartfield, looking fondly at the fresh young face, brightened by the summer wind, which faintly stirred the auburn hair under the neat little hat.

'And am I actually a Countess? I don't care about it one little bit, you know, except as a stupendous joke. If you were to tell me that you had been only making fun of poor grandmother and me, and that those diamonds are glass, and you only plain John Hammond, it wouldn't make the faintest difference. Indeed, it would be a weight off my mind. It is an awfully oppressive thing to be a Countess.'

'I'm sorry I cannot relieve you of the burden. The law of the land has made you Lady Hartfield; and I hope you are preparing your mind for the duties of your position.'

'It is very dreadful,' sighed Mary. 'If her ladyship were as well and as active as she was when first you came to Fellside, she could have helped me; but now there will be no one, except you. And you will help me, won't you Jack?'

'With all my heart.'

'My own true Jack,' with a little fervent squeeze of his sunburnt hand. 'In society I suppose I shall have to call you Hartfield. "Hartfield, please ring the bell." "Give me a footstool, Hartfield." How odd it sounds. I shall be blurting out the old dear name.'

'I don't think it will much matter. It will pass for one of Lady Hartfield's little ways. Every woman is supposed to have little ways, don't you know. One has a little way of dropping her friends; another has a little way of not paying her dressmaker; another's little way is to take too much champagne. I hope Lady Hartfield's little way will be her devotion to her husband.'

'I'm afraid I shall end by being a nuisance to you, for I shall love you ridiculously,' answered Mary, gaily; 'and from what you have told me about society, it seems to me that there can be nothing so unfashionable as an affectionate wife. Will you mind my being quite out of fashion, Jack?'

'I should very much object to your being in the fashion.'

'Then I am happy. I don't think it is in my nature to become a woman of fashion; although I have cured myself, for your sake, of being a hoyden. I had so schooled myself for what I thought our new life was to be; so trained myself to be a managing economical wife, that I feel quite at sea now that I am to be mistress of a house in Grosvenor Square and a place in Kent. Still, I will bear with it all; yes, even endure the weight of those diamonds for your sake.'

She laughed, and he laughed. They were quite alone among the hills--hardy mountaineers both--and they could be as foolish as they liked. She rested her head upon his shoulder, and he and she and the pony made one as they climbed the hill, close together.

'Our last day,' sighed Mary, as they went down again, after a couple of blissful hours in that wild world between earth and sky. 'I shall be glad to go back to poor grandmother, who must be sadly lonely; but it is so sweet to be quite alone with you.'

They left the Lodore Hotel in an open carriage, after luncheon next day, and posted to Fellside, where they arrived just in time to assist at Lady Maulevrier's afternoon tea. She received them both with warm affection, and made Hartfield sit close beside her sofa; and every now and then, in the pauses of their talk, she laid her wasted and too delicate fingers upon the young man's strong brown hand, with a caressing gesture.

'You can never know how sweet it is to me to be able to love you,' she said tenderly. 'You can never know how my heart yearned to you from the very first, and how hard it was to keep myself in check and not be too kind to you. Oh, Hartfield, you should have told me the truth. You should not have come here under false colours.'

'Should I not, Lady Maulevrier? It was my only chance of being loved for my own sake; or, at least of knowing that I was so loved. If I had come with my rank and my fortune in my hand, as it were--one of the good matches of the year--what security could I ever have felt in the disinterested love of the girl who chose me? As plain John Hammond I wooed and was rejected; as plain John Hammond I wooed and won; and the prize which I so won is a pearl above price. Not for worlds, were the last year to be lived over again, would I have one day of my life altered.'

'Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied, I wanted you for Lesbia, and I have got you for Mary. Best of all, I have got you for myself. Ronald Hollister's son is mine; he is of my kin; he belongs to me; he will not forsake me in life; he will be near me, God grant, when I die.'

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, as far as in me lies, I will be to you as a son,' said Lord Hartfield, very solemnly, stooping to kiss her hand.

Mary came away from her tea-table to embrace her grandmother.

'It makes me so happy to have won a little of your regard,' she murmured, 'and to know that I have married a man whom you can love.'

'Of course you have heard of Lesbia's engagement?' Lady Maulevrier said presently, when they were taking their tea.

'Maulevrier wrote to us about it.'

'To us.' How nice it sounded, thought Mary, as if they were a firm, and a letter written to one was written to both.

'And do you know this Mr. Smithson?'

'Not intimately. I have met him at the Carlton.'

'I am told that he is very much esteemed by your party, and that he is very likely to get a peerage when this Ministry goes out of office.'

'That is not improbable. Peerages are to be had if a man is rich enough; and Smithson is supposed to be inordinately rich.'

'I hope he has character as well as money,' said Lady Maulevrier, gravely. 'But do you think a man can become inordinately rich in a short time, with unblemished honour?'

'We are told that nothing is impossible,' answered Hartfield. 'Faith can remove a mountain; only one does not often see it done. However, I believe Mr. Smithson's character is fairly good as millionaires go. We do not inquire too closely into these things nowadays.'

Lady Maulevrier sighed and held her peace. She remembered the day when she had protested vehemently, passionately, against Lesbia's marriage with a poor man. And now she had an unhappy feeling about Mr. Smithson's wealth, a doubt, a dread that all might not be well with those millions, that some portion of that golden tide might flow from impure sources. She had lived remote from the world, but she had read the papers diligently, and she knew how often the splendour of commercial wealth has been suddenly obscured behind a black cloud of obloquy. She could not rejoice heartily at the idea of Lesbia's engagement.

'I am to see the man early in August,' she said, as if she were talking of a butler. 'I hope I may like him. Lady Kirkbank tells me it is a brilliant marriage, and I must take her word. What can _I_ do for my granddaughter--a useless log--a prisoner in two rooms?'

'It is very hard,' murmured Mary, tenderly, 'but I do not see any reason why Lesbia should