A Heart-Song of To-day (Disturbed by Fire from the 'Unruly Member'): A Novel

"Very well, give orders instantly that Sir Tilton Everly's traps be taken to Miss Tompkins' appartments. Assist this lady to Sir Tilton's room, the boy also, and bid a servant drive this clergyman to the village. Admit _no one_ to my presence." "Yes ma'am," said the discreet maid, not moving a muscle of her face. "I shall send for you both ere this time to-morrow," said the priest, shaking hands kindly with Lionel. "You would make a good general officer, fair madame, where speedy dispatch was necessary," said Lionel gallantly. "Twas easy, a man and woman sleep-double, a priest and a nun are parted; make yourself comfortable on yonder lounge, I am coming to look at and talk to you, my long lost star, my king." "Most fellows would envy me," he thought, stretching, himself on the lounge for he was really fatigued, and if he is made prisoner, may as well rest. "George would kill me, could he see me," thought Kate, seating herself on a pile of cushions close to his chest, "but what did he tease me about going off with a Cousin for, I know it was false, but if I can even now win the love of this man, I shall defy him and pretend to have taken him literally." And letting her lace wraps fall about her, sinking into the cushions, leaning forward, both arms folded on his chest, this recklessly, impulsive; black-browed woman looked her prisoner full in the eyes. Being a man, his face softened. She saw it, and there was a moment's silence save for the cooing of the lovebirds hanging in their gilded cage in the roseate light. "Could I not content you my king? you have been cruel to me; cease to be so, and though I can be fierce, cruel, and vindictive to others, I shall be always gentle to you; you know by my letters that my love is unchanged, let me rest here, my king," and the head with its shining black tresses sank to his chest, "and I shall teach you so to love me that you will lose even the memory of other women. Speak, my king, but only to tell me you accept my all," and her voice sank to a whisper. "How can I, you poor little woman?" and he smiled, but sadly, for he thought for one moment of how weak is poor humanity, with the boy Cupid's fingers on one's heartstrings; the next, he determined to heal the wounded heart at his feet--though with the lance. "Your fancy, will pass, _chere madame_, and your husband is my friend," and he added in her ear, "you have a man whom you honour with especial favor." "But why do I?" she said, almost fiercely and starting to a sitting posture, "why, I only admitted him for distraction's sake; you know full well 'twas you I loved and not the man I have married, or the lover you credit me with," she said, in an aggrieved tone, forgetting the years ere she had met him. "I hoped by so doing to drink of the waters of Lethe; but it has not been so, though losing myself at times in a whirl of excitement; your name, your face, with your wonderful eyes, from nearly every album I handled, and I was again in subjection; perchance you had been recalled to my memory by some idle word in the moonlight when I became an iceberg to my companion, and my whole being going out to meet yours, when, for return, an aching loneliness. Listen, my king, my master," and she started to her feet powerfully agitated, every pulse throbbing, Trevalyon stood up quickly, coming to her side, taking her hand in his while one arm supported her, for she trembled. "Calm yourself, you poor little woman, this passion will soon pass; I shall be away, other men will teach you to forget me, be kind to poor Haughton for my sake (if I may say so) and your own, and now, dear, that your passionate heart is beating slower, let me bring you to the _salons_ ere you are missed." "Your voice is full of music, else I would not stay so still," and again he feels her tremble for she thinks of the flying moments of her losing game, and of her fierce lover as victor. "But there is no time to be-so sweetly still," and her voice sinks to a whisper, "or else I could be forever so, see, I kneel to you; nay, you must let me be," and the words came brokenly and more passionately than any ever having passed her lips, "you, and you only, have ever had the power to subdue me." Here her face changed to a sickly pallor as of faintness, a tremor ran through her whole frame, and saying in a breathless whisper, "Great heavens! your life is in danger, follow my cue; will you take care of the boy?" "I will, Mrs. Haughton; pray arise." While he was speaking, crash, crash, went the plate glass in the window behind him, and black Delrose, looking like a very fiend, bounded in, taking up a bronze statue of Achilles, hurled it at Trevalyon, who only escaped from the fact of having stooped with the utmost apparent _sang-froid_ to pick up a rose his fair companion had dropped from her corsage. Achilles, instead of his head, shattering the greater part of a costly mirrored wall, with ornaments on a Queen Anne mantel-piece. "This will settle him," he now yelled furiously, and about to fire from, a pocket pistol. "Hold!" cried Kate, "'twas no love scene." "By heaven, 'tis well, or he had been a dead man," he said furiously, lowering his arm. "Explain yourself, Trevalyon, or you--" "Beware, George," said Kate, breathlessly. "I shall not, Kate; you have maddened me and by the stars he shall say why you knelt to him. I suppose you would like me, forsooth! to admire the _nonchalante_ manner of his posing at the time," and turning like a madman to Trevalyon, shaking his clenched fist in his face, said fiercely, "by the stars you shall speak. Why did she kneel to you?" "Calm yourself, Delrose," he answered quietly, for the first time pitying this passionate woman, "Mrs. Haughton is the wife of my friend!" "Men always respect such facts," sneered Delrose; "no, that won't go down; Kate, you or he shall tell me or I shall not answer for the consequences." Kate, fearing for Trevalyon, answered quickly: "I was imploring him to look after your boy, and not allow the priest to spoil him for a soldier." "You swear this?" "You, I know, are satisfied with nothing else." "That won't do; do you swear you asked him to do this as you knelt," he said, slowly and jealously. "I do." "And what says this squire _des dames_?" he continued sneering and turning suspiciously to Trevalyon. "That Mrs. Haughton has condescended to explain the situation or I shouldn't, and that a gentleman never questions the word of a lady," he answered coolly, and haughtily continuing, "may I be your escort back to the _salons_, Mrs. Haughton." Kate seeing the look of impatient hate settling in the eyes of her lover, said hastily, "Thanks; no, Sir Lionel;" she would have added more but for the jealous gaze of Delrose, who said as she went to Trevalyon's assistance in opening the spring lock. "Yes; go, Kate, to your last act in the farces of Haughton Hall, you must then come to my assistance with the drop curtain." While he speaks the hands of the man, impatient to be with the love of his life, and of the woman, sorry to let him go, meet in the folds of the hangings, the woman sighing as she presses his hand to her heart and so they part. CHAPTER XLVI. DISCORD ENDS; HEART'S-EASE AT LAST. With quick steps and eager glances at the groups of gay revellers, whom he passes with a few hurried words of greeting and thanks for their congratulations on his "hidden wife," he looks in vain for Vaura. At last, and his handsome face and mesmeric eyes are lit with happiness, her voice comes to him from a music-room. He pushes his way through the crowds, for poor Chancer has been doomed to disappointment in his wish to have this fair woman sing to him alone, for when the now full rich notes, now sweet to intoxication, of her mezzo-soprano voice fell on the air, the languid, sentimental or gay stayed their steps to listen. Lionel has now reached the piano, and stands beside Lord Rivers, who leans on his arms, noting with critical and admiring eye Vaura's unequalled charms. "Yes," was his mental verdict, "never saw more lovely bust and shoulders; then her throat, poise of her head, like a goddess, glorious eyes, lips full and velvety as a peach." A warmer light comes to the large dark eyes and tender curves to the lips as the sweet singer meets the gaze of her betrothed husband. One look and he feels that the words are for him: "Thou can'st with _thy_ sunshine _only_ calm this tempest of my heart." More than one man were at one with Lord Rivers and Chancer in feeling the advent of Trevalyon to be extremely inopportune, when at the closing words he drew nearer, and Vaura, with her own bewildering smile, allowed him to carry her off. Just as they move away Everly hurried towards them, handing to Vaura a tiny three-cornered note, with a whispered "from Blanche," and he was gone. The recipient, glancing in the direction, sees in the distance the pink eyes and wee mouse-face peering through the crowd and gesticulating distinctly to Vaura to "read at once." Her written words were: "Bid Sir Lionel take you to the north tower instanter; it's all O.K., warm as toast and lighted, so the ghosts won't have a show; but you will. Such a picnic! As soon as I can tire out, Sir Peter in our waltz I'll be on hand. B. EVERLY." "Well, darling, what say you?" and the handsome Saxon head is bent for her reply. "Yes, Lion, dear, and at once. It just occurs to me it may throw some light on a mysterious conversation I overheard in the library, and which the excitement of the night had well nigh caused me to forget." "Indeed; then we shall hasten, love." And turning their steps in the direction of the tower, first through corridors bright with the light from myriads of gas jets, which lit up Vaura's warm beauty and the brown sheen of her hair, followed by admiring, loving, or envious eyes, they now reach the more dimly-lighted halls, and turn into one at the foot of the spiral staircase, which they ascend slowly, Lionel's arm around his fair companion, her trail skirts thrown over her left arm. The stairway is lighted as Blanche had said. "Not even a ghost, my own," and his face is bent to hers. "Only one of a past longing, dearest; how I longed for you in the tower of St. Peter's. Oh! the view from the top, Lion." "I know it well, love; but say you missed me, my love, ascending with yours, even this arm supporting you." "I did dearest, even there, and you know it well, as also I longed for the sympathy of heart to heart, soul to soul in a view which lifts one to the heavens, and would take a poet to describe." "My own feelings, love; the majesty of the view, and from such a height, overpowers one. Yes, sweet; dual solitude, as now, is paradise. Do the stairs fatigue you, my own?" "No, Lion," and for a moment they stand still, his arm around her. The soft white hands draw his face near her own, "no, darling," and the sweet tones are a whisper, "'tis only the languor of intense happiness; in ecstatic moments, as now, one feels so." For answer his lips press hers in a long kiss, and she is taken up in his strong arms and not loosed until the ascent is made and the octagon room reached; there he leads her to a seat, and throws himself on a cushion at her feet. "What a Hercules I am about to bestow my fair person upon," she said, gaily, "for I am no light weight for a maiden. Ah! poor Guy; that reminds me, darling, I have something to tell you which--" "Which will have to wait until you are my own dear wife, for," and his head is wearily laid on her knees, "I can wait no longer. You know, Vaura, dear, what my life has been, since as a little fellow in jacket