For Woman's Love Part 74

"You are very kind. Thank you. I will break a parting bottle of wine with you willingly."

In double-quick time the broiled partridges were served, the wine placed, and all was ready for the two men.

"Go and tell Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence that I wish them to come here.

You will find them somewhere in the house," said Mr. Rockharrt.

"Beg pardon, sir; both gentlemen have gone over to the works," replied the waiter.

This was true. Both "boys" had gorged themselves with cold ham, bread and cheese, washed down with quarts of brown stout, and were in no appet.i.te to enjoy partridge and Johannisberg, even if they had been found in the hotel.

"Glad they have found out that they must be attentive to business. You and I, duke, will discuss the good things on the table before us. Come."

The two lingered over the luncheon until it was time for the duke to start for the depot.

"I will send over for my two sons, that you may bid them good-by," said Mr. Rockharrt, and he turned to the waiter, and told him to go and dispatch a messenger to that effect.

Messrs. Fabian and Clarence soon put in an appearance, and expressed their surprise and regret at the sudden departure of their father's guest, and their hope and trust to see him again in the near future.

Neither of them seemed to know that the betrothal declared at the dinner table on the night before had no foundation in fact. The duke thanked them for their good wishes, invited them to visit him if they should find themselves in England, and then he took a final leave of the Rockharrts, entered the carriage, and drove off, through a pouring rain, to the railway station--and out of their lives forever.

"A fine thing Mistress Rothsay has done!" exclaimed the Iron King, when his guest had gone, and he explained Cora's action.

Corona had spent the day at Rockhold drearily enough. She felt reasonably sure that her rejection of the duke's hand would deeply offend her grandfather and precipitate a crisis in her own life. When she had finished her letter to her brother, in which she told him of the death of Mr. Rockharrt's wife and added her own resolution soon to set out to join him in his distant fort, she began to make preparations for her journey in the event of having to leave Rockhold suddenly. She knew her grandfather's temper and disposition, and felt that she must hold herself in readiness to meet any emergencies brought about by their manifestations. So she set about her preparations.

She had not much to do. The trunks that she had packed and dispatched to the North End railway station three months before at the hour when her own journey was arrested by the accident to her grandfather, had remained in storage there ever since.

The contents of her large valise, which was to have been her own traveling companion in her long journey to and through the "Great American Desert," and which was well packed with several changes of clothes and with small dressing, sewing and writing cases, supplied all her wants during the three months of her further sojourn at Rockhold.

She had only now to collect these together, cause all the soiled articles to be laundered, and then repack the valise. This occupied her all the afternoon of the short November day.

At six o'clock she came down into the parlor to see that the lamps were trimmed and lighted, and the coal fire stirred up and replenished, so that her grandfather should find the room warm and comfortable on his return home. Then she brought out his dressing gown and slippers, hung the first over his arm chair and put the last on the warm hearthstones.

At length the carriage wheels were heard faintly over the soft, wet avenue and under the pouring rain.

Old John, waiting in the hall to be ready to open the door in an instant, did so before the Iron King should leave the carriage, and hoisting a very large umbrella, he went out to the carriage door and held it over his master while they walked back to the house and entered the hall.

"Here! take off my rubber cloak! Take off my overcoat! Now my rubber boots! What a night!" exclaimed the old man, as he came out of his sh.e.l.l, or various sh.e.l.ls.

Corona had the pitcher of punch on the table now with a cut-gla.s.s goblet beside it.

"I hope you have not taken cold, grandfather," she said, drawing his easy chair nearer the fire.

"Hold your tongue! Don't dare to speak to me! Leave the room this instant! John! come in here. Pour me out a gla.s.s of that punch, and while I sip it draw off my boots and put on my slippers," said the Iron King, throwing himself into his big easy chair and leaning back.

Corona was more pained than surprised. She had expected something like this from the Iron King. She replied never a word, but pa.s.sed into the adjoining dining room and sat down there. Through the open door she could see the old gentleman reclining at his ease, and sipping his fragrant hot punch while old John drew off his boots, rubbed his feet, and put on his warm slippers. Presently the waiter brought in the soup, put it on the table, and rang the dinner bell. Mr. Rockharrt put down his empty gla.s.s, and arose and came to the table. Cora took her place at the head of the board, hardly knowing whether she would be allowed to remain there. But her grandfather took not the slightest notice of her.

She filled his plate with soup, and put it on the waiter held by the young footman, who carried it to his master. In this manner pa.s.sed the whole dinner in every course. Corona carved or served the dishes, filled the plate for her grandfather, which was taken to him by the footman.

At the end of the heavy meal the Iron King arose from the table and said:

"I am going to my own room. Mistress Rothsay, I shall have something to say to you in the morning;" and he went out.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CORONA'S OPPORTUNITY.

Corona Rothsay stood behind her chair at the head of the breakfast table, waiting for Mr. Rockharrt. He entered presently, and returned no answer to her respectful salutation, but moodily took his seat, raised the cover from the hot dish before him, and helped himself to a broiled partridge. After the gloomy meal was finished the Iron King arose from the table and pushed back his chair so suddenly and forcibly as to nearly upset his servant.

"Come into the library! I wish to have a decisive talk with you!" he said, in a harsh voice, to his granddaughter, as he strode from the dining room.

Corona, who had finished her own slight breakfast some minutes before, immediately arose and followed him. On reaching the bookery, old Aaron Rockharrt sank heavily into his big leathern armchair, and pointed, sternly, to an opposite one, on which Corona obediently seated herself.

"Look at me, mistress!" he said, placing his hands upon the arms of his chair, bending forward and gazing on her with fixed, keen eyes, that burned like fire beneath the pent roof of his s.h.a.ggy iron-gray brows.

Corona looked up at him.

"Do you know, madam, that in rejecting the hand of the Duke of c.u.mbervale you have offered me an unpardonable affront?"

"No, grandfather, I did not know it; and certainly I never meant--never could possibly have meant--to affront you," said Corona, deprecatingly.

"If I have been so unhappy as to disappoint your wishes, I am very sorry, my dear grandfather, but--"

He harshly interrupted her.

"Do not you dare to call me grandfather, either now or ever again! I disclaim forever that relations.h.i.+p, and all relations.h.i.+p with the false, flirting, coquettish, unprincipled creature that you are! Your late suitor may forgive your treachery to him, beguiling him by your once pretended preference to pa.s.s by all eligible matches and cross the ocean for your sake! Yes; he may forgive you, because he is a fool (being a duke)! But as for me--I will never pardon the outrageous affront you have put upon me, in rejecting the man of my choice! Never, as long as I live, so help me--"

"Oh!--oh, grandfather!" cried Corona, arresting his half-sworn oath, "don't say that! I am sorry to have crossed your will in this matter, or in any way; but, oh, my dear grandfather--"

"Stop there!" vociferated the Iron King, with a stamp. "I am no grandfather of yours! How dare you insult me with the name when I have forbidden you to do so?"

"I beg your pardon, sir. It was a mere slip of the tongue. I spoke impulsively. I had forgotten your prohibition. I shall not certainly offend in that way again," said Corona, quietly.

"You had better not!"

"I was about to say, when you interrupted me," resumed Cora, earnestly, "that I am grieved to have been compelled to disappoint you by rejecting the Duke of c.u.mbervale; but, sir, I could not do otherwise. I could not accept a man whom I could not love. To have done so would have been a great sin. Surely, sir, you must know it would have been a sin,"

pleaded Corona.

"Stuff and nonsense!" roared the Iron King. "Don't dare to talk such sentimental rubbish to me! You can't love him, can't you? Tell that to an idiot, not to me! When we were in London, two or three years ago, you loved him so well that you were ready to break your engagement with your betrothed husband, Regulas Rothsay, in order to marry this duke. Yes; and you would certainly have done so if I had not put a stop to the affair by having an explanation with the suitor, telling him of your prior engagement, and also of your want of fortune, and bringing you back home to your forgotten duties."

"Oh, sir, I deserve all your reproaches for that forgetfulness. I was very wrong then," said Cora, with a sigh.

"Bos.h.!.+ You are always wrong!" sneered old Aaron Rockharrt. "And you always will be wrong! You were wrong when you wished to break your engagement with Regulas Rothsay to marry the Duke of c.u.mbervale, and you are wrong, now that you are free, to reject the man. Why, look at it: Now that you have been a widow for more than two years, and c.u.mbervale has proved his constancy by remaining a bachelor two years for your sake, and crossing the ocean and coming down here to propose for you again, and even after I--I myself--have positively promised him your hand, and have given a family dinner in honor of the occasion, and have announced the engagement, and after speeches have been made and toasts have been drank to the happiness and prosperity of your married life, and all due formalities of betrothal had been observed, then, mistress, what do you do?" severely demanded old Aaron Rockharrt.

"Only my duty under the circ.u.mstances. I was not in the least bound or compromised by or responsible for anything that was said or done at that dinner table," replied Corona.

"This is what you do: You dare to set me at defiance! You dare to set your will against mine! You dare to reject the man whom I chose for your husband, whom I announced as your betrothed husband! You dare to drive him away from my house, grieved, disappointed, humiliated, to become a wanderer over the face of the earth for your sake, even as you drove Regulas Rothsay from the goal of his ambition into exile, and--"

A sharp cry from Corona suddenly stopped him in full career.