Phantom Fortune Part 53

'I don't think I have given you anything since we were engaged, Mary,'

he said, as he seated himself by her side.

Mary blushed, remembering how Clara, the maid, had remarked upon this fact.

'You gave me my ring,' she said, looking down at the ma.s.sive band of gold, 'and you have given me ever so many delightful books.'

'Those were very humble gifts, Molly: but to-day I have brought you a wedding present.'

He opened the bag and took out a red morocco case, and then half-a-dozen more red morocco cases of various shapes and sizes. The first looked new, but the others were old-fas.h.i.+oned and pa.s.sing shabby, as if they had been knocking about brokers' shops for the last quarter of a century.

'There is my wedding gift, Mary,' he said, handing her the new case.

It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beautiful woman, in a large oval locket set with sapphires.

'You have asked me for my portrait, dearest,' he said. 'I give you my mother's rather than my own, because I loved her as I never thought to love again, till I knew you. I should like you to wear that locket sometimes, Mary, as a kind of link between the love of the past and the love of the present. Were my mother living, she would welcome and cherish my bride and my wife. She is dead, and you and she can never meet on earth: but I should like you to be familiar with the face which was once the light of my life.'

Mary's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the miniature.

It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty--a face of exquisite refinement, of calm and pensive beauty.

'I shall treasure this picture always, above all things,' she said: but 'why did you have it set so splendidly, Jack? No gems were needed to give your mother's portrait value in my eyes.'

'I know that, dearest, but I wanted to make the locket worth wearing.

And now for the other cases. The locket is your lover's free gift, and is yours to keep and to bequeath to your children. These are heirlooms, and yours only during your husband's lifetime.'

He opened one of the largest cases, and on a bed of black velvet Mary beheld a magnificent diamond necklace, with a large pendant. He opened another and displayed a set of sprays for the hair. Another contained earrings, another bracelets, the last a tiara.

'What are they for?' gasped Mary.

'For my wife to wear.'

'Oh, but I could never wear such things,' she exclaimed, with an idea that these must be stage jewellery. 'They are paste, of course--very beautiful for people who like that kind of thing--but I don't.'

She felt deeply shocked at this evidence of bad taste on the part of her lover. How the things flashed in the suns.h.i.+ne--but so did the crystal drops in the old Venetian girondoles.

'No, Molly, they are not paste; they are Brazilian diamonds, and, as Maulevrier would say, they are as good as they make them. They are heirlooms, Molly. My dear mother wore them in her summer-tide of wedded happiness. My grandmother wore them for thirty years before her; my great grandmother wore them at the Court of Queen Charlotte, and they were worn at the Court of Queen Anne. They are nearly two hundred years old; and those central stones in the tiara came out of a cap worn by the Great Mogul, and are the largest table diamonds known. They are historic, Mary.'

'Why, they must be worth a fortune.'

'They are valued at something over seventy thousand pounds.'

'But why don't you sell them?' exclaimed Mary, opening her eyes wide with surprise, 'they would give you a handsome income.'

'They are not mine to sell, Molly. Did not I tell you that they are heirlooms? They are the family jewels of the Countesses of Hartfield.'

'Then what are you?'

'Ronald Hollister, Earl of Hartfield, and your adoring lover!'

Mary gave a cry of surprise, a cry of distress even.

'Oh, that is too dreadful!' she exclaimed; 'grandmother will be so unhappy. She had set her heart upon Lesbia marrying Lord Hartfield, the son of the man _she_ loved.'

'I got wind of her wish more than a year ago,' said Hartfield, 'from your brother; and he and I hatched a little plot between us. He told me Lesbia was not worthy of his friend's devotion--told me that she was vain and ambitious--that she had been educated to be so. I determined to come and try my fate. I would try to win her as plain John Hammond. If she was a true woman, I told myself, vanity and ambition would be blown to the four winds, provided I could win her love. I came, I saw her; and to see was to love her. G.o.d knows I tried honestly to win her; but I had sworn to myself that I would woo her as John Hammond, and I did not waver in my resolution--no, not when a word would have turned the scale.

She liked me, I think, a little; but she did not like the notion of an obscure life as the wife of a hardworking professional man. The pomps and vanities of this world had it against love or liking, and she gave me up. I thank G.o.d that the pomps and vanities prevailed; for this happy chance gave me Mary, my sweet Wordsworthian damsel, found, like the violet or the celandine, by the wayside, in Wordsworth's own country.'

'And you are Lord Hartfield!' exclaimed Mary, still lost in wonder, and with no elation at this change in the aspect of her life. 'I always knew you were a great man. But poor grandmother! It will be a dreadful disappointment to her.'

'I think not. I think she has learned my Molly's value; rather late, as I learned it; and I believe she will be glad that one of her granddaughters should marry the son of her first lover. Let us go to her, love, and see if she is reconciled to the idea, and whether the settlement is ready for execution. Dorncliffe and his clerk were working at it half through the night.'

'What is the good of a settlement?' asked Mary. 'I'm sure I don't want one.'

'Lady Hartfield must not be dependent upon her husband's whim or pleasure for her milliner's bill or her private charities,' answered her lover, smiling at her eagerness to repudiate anything business-like.

'But I would rather be dependent on your pleasure. I shall never have any milliner's bills; and I am sure you would never deny me money for charity.'

'You shall not have to ask me for it, except when you have exceeded your pin-money I hope you will do that now and then, just to afford me the pleasure of doing you a favour.'

'Hartfield,' repeated Mary, to herself, as they went towards the house; 'shall I have to call you Hartfield? I don't like the name nearly so well as Jack.'

'You shall call me Jack for old sake's sake,' said Hartfield, tenderly.

'How did you think of such a name as Jack?'

'Rather an effort of genius, wasn't it. Well, first and foremost I was christened Ronald John--all the Hollisters are christened John--name of the founder of the race; and, secondly, Maulevrier and I were always plain Mr. Morland and Mr. Hammond in our travels, and always called each other Jack and Jim.'

'How nice!' said Mary; 'would you very much mind our being plain Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, while we are on our honeymoon trip?'

'I should like it of all things.'

'So should I. People will not take so much notice of us, and we can do what we like, and go where we like.'

'Delightful! We'll even disguise ourselves as Cook's tourists, if you like. I would not mind.'

They were at the door of Lady Maulevrier's sitting room by this time.

They went in, and were greeted with smiles.

'Let me look at the Countess of Hartfield that is to be in half an hour,' said her ladys.h.i.+p. 'Oh, Mary, Mary, what a blind idiot I have been, and what a lucky girl you are! I told you once that you were wiser than Lesbia, but I little thought how much wiser you had been.'

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

'OUR LOVE WAS NEW, AND THEN BUT IN THE SPRING.'

Henley Regatta was over. It had pa.s.sed like a tale that is told; like Epsom and Ascot, and all the other glories of the London season. Happy those for whom the glory of Henley, the grace of Ascot, the fever of Epsom, are not as weary as a twice-told tale, bringing with them only bitterest memories of youth that has fled, of hopes that have withered, of day-dreams that have never been realised. There are some to whom that mad hastening from pleasure to pleasure, that rush from scene to scene of excitement, that eager crowding into one day and night of gaieties which might fairly relieve the placid monotony of a month's domesticity, a month's professional work--some there are to whom this Vanity Fair is as a treadmill or the turning of a crank, the felon's deepest humiliation, purposeless, unprofitable, labour.