“Well, I don’t know how it may be, my dear,” answered Miss Beaumont, “I may be mistaken; but I cannot help thinking that Sir Oswald has changed his mind about you. I need not tell you that my opinions are opposed to a professional career for any young lady brought up in my establishment, however highly gifted. I’m sure my blood actually freezes in my veins, when I think of any pupil of mine standing on a public stage, to be gazed at by the common herd; and I told Sir Oswald, when he first proposed bringing you here, that it would be necessary to keep your destiny a profound secret from your fellow-pupils; for I assure you, my love, there are mammas and papas who would come to this house in the dead of the night and carry off their children, without a moment’s warning, if they were informed that a young person intended to appear on the stage of the Italian Opera was receiving her education within these walls. In short, nothing but your own discreet conduct, and Sir Oswald’s very liberal terms, could have reconciled me to the risk which I have run in receiving you.”
The first year of Honoria Milford’s residence at “The Beeches” expired, and another year began. Sir Oswald’s visits became more and more frequent. When the accounts of his protégée’s progress were more than usually enthusiastic, his visits were generally followed very speedily by the arrival of some costly gift for Miss Beaumont’s pupil — a ring — a bracelet — a locket — always in perfect taste, and such as a young lady at a boarding-school might wear, but always of the most valuable description.
Honoria Milford must have possessed a heart of stone, if she had not been grateful to so noble a benefactor. She was grateful, and her gratitude was obvious to her generous protector. Her beautiful face was illuminated with an unwonted radiance when she entered the drawing-room where he awaited her coming: and the pleasure with which she received his brief visits was as palpable as if it had been expressed in words.
It was midsummer, and Honoria Milford had been a year and a quarter at “The Beeches.” She had acquired much during that period; new accomplishments, new graces; and her beauty had developed into fresh splendour in the calm repose of that comfortable abode. She was liked by her fellow-pupils; but she had made neither friends nor confidantes. The dark secrets of her past life shut her out from all intimate companionship with girls of her own age.
She had, in a manner, lived a lonely life amongst all these companions, and her chief happiness had been derived from her studies. Thus it was, perhaps, that she had made double progress during her residence with the Misses Beaumont.
One bright afternoon in June, Sir Oswald’s mail-phaeton and pair drove past the windows of the school-room.
“Visitors for Miss Milford!” exclaimed the pupils seated near the windows, as they recognized the elegant equipage.
Honoria rose from her desk, awaiting the summons of the schoolroom-maid. She had not long to wait. The young woman appeared at the door in a few moments, and Miss Milford was requested to go to the drawing-room.
She went, and found Sir Oswald Eversleigh awaiting her alone. It was the first time that she had ever known Miss Beaumont to be absent from the reception-room on the visit of the baronet.
He rose to receive her, and took the hand which she extended towards him.
“I am alone, you see, Honoria,” he said; “I told Miss Beaumont that I had something of a serious nature to say to you, and she left me to receive you alone.”
“Something of a serious nature,” repeated the girl, looking at her benefactor with surprise. “Oh, I think I can guess what you are going to say,” she added, after a moment’s hesitation; “my musical education is now sufficiently advanced for me to take some new step in the pathway which you wish me to tread.”
“No, Honoria, you are mistaken,” answered the baronet, gravely; “so far from wishing to hasten your musical education, I am about to entreat you to abandon all thought of a professional career.”
“To abandon all thought of a professional career! You would ask me this, Sir Oswald — you who have so often told me that all my hopes for the future depended on my cultivation of the art I love?”
“You love your art very much then, Honoria?”
“More than I love life itself.”
“And it would grieve you much, no doubt, to resign all idea of a public career — to abandon your dream of becoming a public singer?”
There was a pause, and then the girl answered, in a dreamy tone —
“I don’t know. I have never thought of the public. I have never imagined the hour in which I should stand before a great crowd, as I have stood in the cruel streets, amongst all the noise and confusion, singing to people who cared so little to hear me. I have never thought of that — I love music for its own sake, and feel as much pleasure when I sing alone in my own room, as I could feel in the grandest opera-house that ever was built.”
“And the applause, the admiration, the worship, which your beauty, as well as your voice, would win — does the idea of resigning such intoxicating incense give you no pain, Honoria?”
The girl shook her head sadly.
“You forget what I was when you rescued me from the pitiless stones of the market-place, or you would scarcely ask me such a question. I have confronted the public — not the brilliant throng of the opera-house, but the squalid crowd which gathers before the door of a gin-shop, to listen to a vagrant ballad-singer. I have sung at races, where the rich and the high-born were congregated, and have received their admiration. I know what it is worth, Sir Oswald. The same benefactor who throws a handful of half-pence, offers an insult with his donation.”
Sir Oswald contemplated his protégée in silent admiration, and it was some moments before he continued the conversation.
“Will you walk with me in the garden?” he asked, presently; “that avenue of beeches is delightful, and — and I think I shall be better able to say what I wish there, than in this room. At any rate, I shall feel less afraid of interruption.”
Honoria rose to comply with her benefactor’s wish, with that deferential manner which she always preserved in her intercourse with him, and they walked out upon the velvet lawn. Across the lawn lay the beech-avenue, and it was thither Sir Oswald directed his steps.
“Honoria,” he said, after a silence of some duration, “if you knew how much doubt — how much hesitation I experienced before I came here to-day — how much I still question the wisdom of my coming — I think you would pity me. But I am here, and I must needs speak plainly, if I am to speak at all. Long ago I tried to think that my interest in your fate was only a natural impulse of charity — only an ordinary tribute to gifts so far above the common. I tried to think this, and I acted with the cold, calculating wisdom of a man of the world, when I marked out for you a career by which you might win distinction for yourself, and placed you in the way of following that career. I meant to spend last year upon the Continent. I did not expect to see you once in twelve months; but the strange influence which possessed me in the hour of our first meeting grew stronger upon me day by day. In spite of myself, I thought of you; in spite of myself I came here again and again, to look upon your face, to hear your voice, for a few brief moments, and then to go out into the world, to find it darker and colder by contrast with the brightness of your beauty. Little by little, the idea of your becoming a public singer became odious to me,” continued Sir Oswald. “At first I thought with pride of the success which would be yours, the worship which would be offered at your shrine; but my feeling changed completely before long, and I shuddered at the image of your triumphs, for those triumphs must, doubtless, separate us for ever. Why should I dwell upon this change of feeling? You must have already guessed the secret of my heart. Tell me that you do not despise me!”
“Despise you, Sir Oswald! — you, the noblest and most generous of men! Surely, you must know that I admire and reverence you for all your noble qualities, as well as for your goodness to a wretched creature like me.”
“But, Honoria, I want something more than your esteem. Do yo
u remember the night I first heard you singing in the market-place on the north road?”
“Can I ever forget that miserable night?” cried the girl, in a tone of surprise — the question seemed so strange to her—”that bitter hour, in which you came to my rescue?”
“Do you remember the song you were singing — the last song you ever sang in the streets?”
Honoria Milford paused for some moments before answering It was evident that she could not at first recall the memory of that last song.
“My brain was almost bewildered that night,” she said; “I was so weary, so miserable; and yet, stay, I do remember the song. It was ‘Auld Robin Gray.’”
“Yes, Honoria, the story of an old man’s love for a woman young enough to be his daughter. I was sitting by my cheerless fire-side, meditating very gloomily upon the events of the day, which had been a sad one for me, when your thrilling tones stole upon my ear, and roused me from my reverie. I listened to every note of that old ballad. Although those words had long been familiar to me, they seemed new and strange that night. An irresistible impulse led me to the spot where you had sunk down in your helplessness. From that hour to this you have been the ruling influence of my life. I have loved you with a devotion which few men have power to feel. Tell me, Honoria, have I loved in vain? The happiness of my life trembles in the balance. It is for you to decide whether my existence henceforward is to be worthless to me, or whether I am to be the proudest and happiest of men.”
“Would my love make you happy, Sir Oswald?”
“Unutterably happy.”
“Then it is yours.”
“You love me — in spite of the difference between our ages?”
“Yes, Sir Oswald, I honour and love you with all my heart,” answered Honoria Milford. “Whom have I seen so worthy of a woman’s affection? From the first hour in which some guardian angel threw me across your pathway, what have I seen in you but nobility of soul and generosity of heart? Is it strange, therefore, if my gratitude has ripened into love?”
“Honoria,” murmured Sir Oswald, bending over the drooping head, and pressing his lips gently on the pure brow—”Honoria, you have made me too happy. I can scarcely believe that this happiness is not some dream, which will melt away presently, and leave me alone and desolate — the fool of my own fancy.”
He led Honoria back towards the house. Even in this moment of supreme happiness he was obliged to remember Miss Beaumont, who would, no doubt, be lurking somewhere on the watch for her pupil.
“Then you will give up all thought of a professional career, Honoria?” said the baronet, as they walked slowly back.
“I will obey you in everything.”
“My dearest girl — and when you leave this house, you will leave it as
Lady Eversleigh.”
Miss Beaumont was waiting in the drawing-room, and was evidently somewhat astonished by the duration of the interview between Sir Oswald and her pupil.
“You have been admiring the grounds, I see, Sir Oswald,” she said, very graciously. “It is not quite usual for a gentleman visitor and a pupil to promenade in the grounds tête-à-tête; but I suppose, in the case of a gentleman of your time of life, we must relax the severity of our rules in some measure.”
The baronet bowed stiffly. A man of fifty does not care to be reminded of his time of life at the very moment when he has just been accepted as the husband of a girl of nineteen.
“It may, perhaps, be the last opportunity which I may have of admiring your grounds, Miss Beaumont,” he said, presently, “for I think of removing your pupil very shortly.”
“Indeed!” cried the governess, reddening with suppressed indignation. “I trust Miss Milford has not found occasion to make any complaint; she has enjoyed especial privileges under this roof — a separate bed-room, silver forks and spoons, roast veal or lamb on Sundays, throughout the summer season — to say nothing of the most unremitting supervision of a positively maternal character, and I should really consider Miss Milford wanting in common gratitude if she had complained.”
“You are mistaken, my dear madam; Miss Milford has uttered no word of complaint. On the contrary, I am sure she has been perfectly happy in your establishment; but changes occur every day, and an important change will, I trust, speedily occur in my life, and in that of Miss Milford. When I first proposed bringing her to you, you asked me if she was a relation; I told you he was distantly related to me. I hope soon to be able to say that distant relationship has been transformed into a very near one. I hope soon to call Honoria Milford my wife.”
Miss Beaumont’s astonishment on hearing this announcement was extreme; but as surprise was one of the emotions peculiar to the common herd, the governess did her best to suppress all signs of that feeling. Sir Oswald told her that, as Miss Milford was an orphan, and without any near relative, he would wish to take her straight from “The Beeches” to the church in which he would make her his wife, and he begged Miss Beaumont to give him her assistance in the arrangement of the wedding.
The mistress of “The Beeches” possessed a really kind heart beneath the ice of her ultra-gentility, and she was pleased with the idea of assisting in the bringing about of a genuine love-match. Besides, the affair, if well managed, would reflect considerable importance upon herself, and she would be able by and bye to talk of “my pupil, Lady Eversleigh;” or, “that sweet girl, Miss Milford, who afterwards married the wealthy baronet, Sir Oswald Eversleigh.” Sir Oswald pleaded for an early celebration of the marriage — and Honoria, accustomed to obey him in all things, did not oppose his wish in this crisis of his life. Once more Sir Oswald wrote a cheque for the wardrobe of his protégée, and Miss Beaumont swelled with pomposity as she thought of the grandeur which might be derived from the expenditure of a large sum of money at certain West-end emporiums where she was in the habit of making purchases for her pupils, and where she was already considered a person of some importance.
It was holiday-time at “The Beeches,” and almost all the pupils were absent. Miss Beaumont was, therefore, able to devote the ensuing fortnight to the delightful task of shopping. She drove into town almost every day with Honoria, and hours were spent in the choice of silks and satins, velvets and laces, and in long consultations with milliners and dressmakers of Parisian celebrity and boundless extravagance.
“Sir Oswald has intrusted me with the supervision of this most important business, and I will drop down in a fainting-fit from sheer exhaustion before the counter at Howell and James’s, sooner than I would fail in my duty to the extent of an iota,” Miss Beaumont said, when Honoria begged her to take less trouble about the wedding trousseau.
It was Sir Oswald’s wish that the wedding should be strictly private. Whom could he invite to assist at his union with a nameless and friendless bride? Miss Beaumont was the only person whom he could trust, and even her he had deceived; for she believed that Honoria Milford was some fourth or fifth cousin — some poor relative of Sir Oswald’s.
Early in July the wedding took place. All preparations had been made so quietly as to baffle even the penetration of the watchful Millard. He had perceived that the baronet was more than usually occupied, and in higher spirits than were habitual to him; but he could not discover the reason.
“There’s something going on, sir,” he said to Victor Carrington; “but I’m blest if I know what it is. I dare say that young woman is at the bottom of it. I never did see my master look so well or so happy. It seems as if he was growing younger every day.”
Reginald Eversleigh looked at his friend in blank despair when these tidings reached him.
“I told you I was ruined, Victor,” he said; “and now, perhaps, you will believe me. My uncle will marry that woman.”
It was only on the eve of his wedding-day that Sir Oswald Eversleigh made any communication to his valet. While dressing for dinner that evening, he said, quietly —
“I want my portmanteaus packed for travelling between this and two o’clock to-
morrow, Millard; and you will hold yourself in readiness to accompany me. I shall post from London, starting from a house near Fulham, at three o’clock. The chariot must leave here, with you and the luggage, at two.”
“You are going abroad, sir?”
“No, I am going to North Wales for a week or two; but I do not go alone. I am going to be married to-morrow morning, Millard, and Lady Eversleigh will accompany me.”
Much as the probability of this marriage had been discussed in the Arlington Street household, the fact came upon Joseph Millard as a surprise. Nothing is so unwelcome to old servants as the marriage of a master who has long been a bachelor. Let the bride be never so fair, never so high-born, she will be looked on as an interloper; and if, as in this case, she happens to be poor and nameless, the bridegroom is regarded as a dupe and a fool; the bride is stigmatized as an adventuress.
The valet was fully occupied that evening with preparations for the journey of the following day, and could find no time to call at Mr. Eversleigh’s lodgings with his evil tidings.
“He’ll hear of it soon enough, I dare say, poor, unfortunate young man,” thought Mr. Millard.
The valet was right. In a few days the announcement of the baronet’s marriage appeared in “The Times” newspaper; for, though he had celebrated that marriage with all privacy, he had no wish to keep his fair young wife hidden from the world.
“On Thursday, the 4th instant, at St. Mary’s Church, Fulham, Sir Oswald Morton Vansittart Eversleigh, Bart., to Honoria daughter of the late Thomas Milford.”
This was all; and this was the announcement which Reginald Eversleigh read one morning, as he dawdled over his late breakfast, after a night spent in dissipation and folly. He threw the paper away from him, with an oath, and hurried to his toilet. He dressed himself with less care than usual, for to-day he was in a hurry; he wanted at once to communicate with his friend, Victor Carrington.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 427
