Only a Girl's Love

"You – you – changed them!" said Stella, with a feeling of mild horror. "Lord Guildford asked me just now what I considered the most audacious act a man would commit. I know now."

He smiled.

"I changed something else," he said.

Stella looked at him inquiringly. There was a bold smile in his dark eyes.

He pointed to the little tablet bearing his name.

"This. I found it over the way there, next to that old lady in the emeralds. She is a dreadful old lady – beware of her. She is a politician, and she always asks everybody who comes near her what they think of the present Parliament. I thought it would be nicer to come over here."

The color crept slowly into Stella's face, and her eyes dropped.

"It was very wrong," she said. "I am sure Lady Wyndward will be angry. How could you interfere with the arrangements? They all seem so solemn and grand to me."

He laughed softly.

"They are. We always eat our meals as if they were the last we could expect to have – as if the executioner was waiting outside and feeling the edge of the ax impatiently. There is only one man here who dares to laugh outright."

"Who is that?" asked Stella.

He nodded to Lord Guildford, who was actively engaged in bending his head over his soup with the air of a hungry man. "Charlie," he said – "Lord Guildford, I mean. He laughs everywhere, don't you, Charlie?"

"Eh? Yes, oh, yes. What is he telling you about me, Miss Etheridge? Don't believe a word he says. I mean to have him up for libel some day."

"He says you laugh everywhere," said Stella.

Lord Charles laughed at once, and Stella looked round half alarmed, but nobody seemed to faint or show any particular horror.

"Nobody minds him," said Lord Leycester, balancing his spoon. "He is like the King's Jester, licensed to play wheresoever he pleases."

"I'm fearfully hungry," said Lord Charles. "I've been in the saddle since three o'clock – is that the menu, Miss Etheridge? Let us mark our favorite dishes," and he offered her a half-hold of the porcelain tablet on which was written the items of the various courses.

Stella looked down the long list with something like amused dismay.

"It's dreadfully long," she said. "I don't think I have any favorite dishes."

"No; not really!" he demanded. "What a treat! Will you really let me advise you?"

"I shall be most grateful," said Stella.

"Oh, this is charming," said Lord Guildford. "Next to choosing one's own dinner, there is nothing better than choosing one for someone else. Let me see;" and thereupon he made a careful selection, which Stella broke into with an amused laugh.

"I could not possibly eat all these things," she said.

"Oh, but you must," he said. "Why, I have been most careful to pick out only those dishes suitable for a lady's delicate appetite; you can't leave one of them out, you can't, indeed, without spoiling your dinner."

"My dear," said the countess, bending forward, "don't let him teach you anything, except to take warning by his epicureanism; he is only anxious that you should be too occupied to disturb him."

Lord Charles laughed.

"That is cruel," he said. "You take my advice, Miss Etheridge; there are only two things I understand, and those are a horse and a good dinner."

Meanwhile the dinner was proceeding, and to Stella it seemed that "good" scarcely adequately described it. One elaborate course after another followed in slow succession, borne in by the richly-liveried footmen on the massive plate for which Wyndward Hall was famous. Dishes which she had never heard of seemed to make their appearance only to pass out again untouched, excepting by the clergyman, Lord Guildford, and one or two other gentlemen. She noticed that the earl scarcely touched anything beyond a tiny piece of fish and a mutton cutlet; and Lord Guildford, who seemed to take an interest in anything connected with the dinner, remarked, as he glanced at the stately head of the house —

"There is one other person present who is of your way of thinking, Miss Etheridge – I mean the earl. He doesn't know what a good dinner means. I don't suppose he will taste anything more than the fish and a piece of Cheshire. When he is in town and at work – "

"At work? said Stella.

"In the House of Lords, you know; he is a member of the Cabinet."

Stella nodded.

"He is a statesman?"

"Exactly. He generally dines off a mutton chop served in the library. I've seen him lunching off a penny biscuit and a glass of water. Terrible, isn't it?"

Stella laughed.

"Perhaps he finds he can work better on a chop and a glass of water," she said.

"Don't believe it!" retorted Lord Guildford. "No man can work well unless he is well-fed."

"Guildford ought to know," said Lord Leycester, audibly. "He does so much work."

"So I do," retorts Lord Charles. "Stay and keep you in order, and if that isn't hard work I don't know what is!"

This was very amusing for Stella; it was all so strange, too, and so little what she imagined; here were two peers talking like school-boys for her amusement, as if they were mere nobodies and she were somebody worth amusing.

Every now and then she could hear Lady Lenore's voice, musical and soft, yet full and distinct; she was talking of the coming season, and Stella heard her speak of great people – persons' names which she had read of, but never expected to hear spoken of so familiarly. It seemed to her that she had got into some charmed circle; it scarcely seemed real. Then occasionally, but very seldom, the earl's thin, clear, high-bred voice would be heard, and once he looked across at Stella herself, and said:

"Will you not try some of those rissoles, Miss Etheridge? They are generally very good."

"And he never touches them," murmured Lord Charles, with a mock groan.

She could hear her uncle talking also – talking more fluently than was his wont – to Lady Wyndward, who was speaking about the pictures, and once Stella saw her glance in her direction as if they had been speaking of her. The dinner seemed very long, but it came to an end at last, and the countess rose. As Stella rose with the rest of the ladies, the old Countess of Longford locked her arm in hers.

"I am not so old that I can't walk, and I am not lame, my dear," she said, "but I like something young and strong to lean upon; you are both. You don't mind?"

"No!" said Stella. "Yes, I am strong."

The old countess looked up at her with a glance of admiration in her gray eyes.

"And young," she said significantly.

They passed into a drawing-room – not the one they had entered first, but a smaller room which bore the name of "my lady's." It was exquisitely furnished in the modern antique style. There were some beautiful hangings that covered the walls, and served as background for costly cabinets and brackets, upon which was arranged a collection of ancient china second to none in the kingdom. The end of the room opened into a fernery, in which were growing tall palms and whole miniature forests of maidenhair, kept moist by sparkling fountains that fell with a plash, plash, into marble basins. Birds were twitting and flitting about behind a wire netting, so slight and carefully concealed as to be scarcely perceptible.

No footman was allowed to enter this ladies' paradise; two maids, in their soft black dresses and snowy caps, were moving about arranging a table for the countess to serve tea upon.

It was like a scene from the "Arabian Nights," only more beautiful and luxurious than anything Stella had imagined even when reading that wonderful book of fairy-tales.

The countess went straight to her table and took off her gray-white gloves, some of the ladies settled themselves in the most indolent of attitudes on the couches and chairs, and others strolled into the fern house. The old countess made herself comfortable on a low divan, and made room for Stella beside her.

"And this is your first visit to Wyndward Hall, my dear?" she said.

"Yes," answered Stella, her eyes still wandering round the room.

"And you live in that little village on the other side of the river?"

"Yes," said Stella, again. "It is very pretty, is it not?"

"It is, as pretty as anything in one of your uncle's pictures. And are you quite happy?"

Stella brought her eyes upon the pale, wrinkled face.

"Happy! Oh, yes, quite," she said.

"Yes, I think you are," said the old lady with a keen glance at the beautiful face and bright, pure eyes. "Then you must keep so, my dear," she said.

"But isn't that rather difficult?" said Stella, with a smile.

Lady Longford looked at her.

"That serves me right for meddling," she said. "Yes, it is difficult, very difficult, and yet the art is easy enough; it contains only one rule, and that is 'to be content.'"

"Then I shall continue to be happy," said Stella; "for I am very content."

"For the present," said the old lady. "Take care, my dear!"

Stella smiled; it was a strange sort of conversation, and there was a suggestion of something that did not appear on the surface.

"Do you think that I look very discontented, then?" she asked.

"No," said the old lady, eying her again. "No, you look very contented – at present. Isn't that a beautiful forest?"

It was an abrupt change of the subject, but Stella was equal to it.

"I have been admiring it since I came in," she said; "it is like fairy land."

"Go and enter it," said the old countess – "I am going to sleep for exactly ten minutes. Will you come back to me then? You see, I am very frank and rude; but I am very old indeed."

Stella rose with a smile.

"I think you are very kind to me," she said.

The old countess looked up at the beautiful face with the dark, soft eyes bent down on her; and something like a sigh of regret came into her old, keen eyes.

"You know how to make pretty speeches, my dear," she said. "You learnt that in Italy, I expect. Mind you come back to me."

Then, as Stella moved away, the old lady looked after her.

"Poor child!" she murmured – "poor child! she is but a child; but he won't care. Is it too late, I wonder? But why should I worry about it?"

But it seemed as if she must worry about it, whatever it was, for after a few minutes' effort to sleep, she rose and went across to the tea-table.

Lady Wyndward was making tea, but looked up and pushed a chair close beside her.

"What is it?" she asked, with a smile.

"Who is she?" asked the countess, taking a cup and stirring the tea round and round, very much as Betty the washerwoman does – very much indeed.

Lady Wyndward did not ask "Who?" but replied in her serene, placid voice directly:

"I don't know. Of course, I know that she is Mr. Etheridge's niece, but I don't know anything about her, except that she has just come here from Italy. She said that she was not happy there."

"She is very beautiful," murmured the countess.

"She is – very," assented Lady Wyndward.

"And something more than distinguished. I never saw a more graceful girl. She is only a child, of course."

"Quite a child," assented Lady Wyndward again.

There was a pause, then the old countess said, almost abruptly:

"Why is she here?"

Lady Wyndward filled a cup carefully before replying.

"She is a friend of Lilian's," she said; "at least she invited her."

"I thought she was rather a friend of Leycester's," said the old lady, dryly.

Lady Wyndward looked at her, and a faint, a very faint color came into her aristocratic face.

"You mean that he has noticed her?" she said.

"Very much! I sat next to him at dinner. Was it wise to put him next to her? A child's head is quickly turned."

"I did not arrange it so," replied Lady Wyndward. "I put his tablet next to Lenore's, as usual; but it got moved. I don't know who could have done it."

"I do," said the old lady. "It was Leycester himself. I am sure of it by the way he looked."

Lady Wyndward's white brow contracted for a moment.

"It is like him. He will do or dare anything for an hour's amusement. I ought to be angry with him!"

"Be as angry as you like, but don't let him know that you are," said the old lady, shrewdly.

Lady Wyndward understood.

"How beautiful Lenore looks to-night," she said, looking across the room where Lady Lenore stood fanning herself, her head thrown back, her eyes fixed on a picture.

"Yes," assented the old countess. "If I were a man I should not rest until I had won her; if I were a man – but then men are so different to what we imagine them. They turn aside from a garden lily to pluck a wayside flower – "

"But they come back to the lily," said Lady Wyndward, with a smile.

"Yes," muttered the old countess, suavely; "after they have grown tired of the wild flower and thrown it aside."

As she spoke the curtains were withdrawn and the gentlemen came sauntering in.

No one rests long over the wine, nowadays; the earl scarcely drank a glass after the ladies left; he would fill his glass – fill two perhaps, but rarely did more than sip them. Lord Leycester would take a bumper of claret – the cellars were celebrated for the Chateau Margaux. To-night it seemed as if he had taken an additional one, for there was a deeper color on his face, and a brighter light in his eyes than usual; the light which used to shine there in his school-days, when there was some piece of wildness on, more mad than usual. Lord Guildford came in leaning lightly upon his arm, and he was talking to him in a low voice.

"One of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen, Ley: not your regular cut-out-to-pattern kind of face, but fresh and – and – natural. The sort of face Venus might have had when she rose from the sea that fine morning – "

"Hush!" said Lord Leycester, with a slight start, and he thought of the picture in his room, the picture of the Venus with the pale, fair face, across which he had drawn the defacing brush that night he had come home from his meeting with Stella. "Hush! they will hear you! Yes, she is beautiful."

"Yes, beautiful! Take care, take care, Ley!" muttered Lord Charles.

Leicester put his hand from him with a smile.

"You talk in parables to-night, Charlie, and don't provide the key. Go and get some tea."

He went himself toward the table and got a cup, but his eyes wandered round the room, and the old countess and Lady Wyndward noticed the searching glance.

"Leycester," said his mother, "will you ask Lenore to sing for us?"

He put down his cup and went down the room to where she was sitting beside the earl.

"My mother has sent me as one of her ambassadors to the queen of music," he said. "Will your majesty deign to sing for us?"

She looked up at him with a smile, then gave her cup to one of the maids, and put her hand upon his arm.

"Do you know that this is the first time you have spoken to me since – since – I cannot remember?"

"One does not dare intrude upon royalty too frequently; it would be presumptuous," he said.

"In what am I royal?" she asked.

"In your beauty!" he said, and he was the only man in the room who would have dared so pointed a reply.

"Thanks," she said, with a calm smile; "you are very frank to-night."

"Am I? And why not? We do not hesitate to call the summer sky blue or the ocean vast. There are some things so palpable and generally acknowledged that to be reserved about them would be absurd."

"That will do," she said. "Since when have you learnt such eloquent phrases? What shall I sing, or shall I sing at all?"

"To please me you have but to sing to please yourself!" he said.

"Find me something then," she said, and sat down with her hands folded, looking a very queen indeed.

He knelt down beside the canterbury, and, as at a signal, there was a general gathering round the piano, but she still sat calm and unconscious, very queen-like indeed.

Leycester found a song, and set it up for her, opened the piano, took her bouquet from her lap, and waited for her gloves, the rest looking on as if interference were quite out of the question.

Slowly she removed her gloves and gave them to him, touched the piano with her jeweled fingers, and began to sing.

At this moment Stella, who had been wandering round the fernery, came back to the entrance, and stood listening and absorbed.

She had never heard so beautiful a voice, not even in Italy. But presently, even while a thrill of admiration was running through her, she became conscious that there was something wanting. Her musical sense was unsatisfied. The notes were clear, bell-like, and as harmonious as a thrush's, the modulation perfect; but there was something wanting. Was it heart? From where she stood she could see the lovely face, with its dark violet eyes upturned, its eloquent mouth curved to allow the music vent, and the loveliness held her inthralled, though the voice did not move her.

The song came to an end, and the singer sat with a calm smile receiving the murmurs of gratitude and appreciation, but she declined to sing again, and Stella saw Lord Leycester hand her her gloves and bouquet and stand ready to conduct her whither she would.

"He stands like her slave, to obey her slightest wish," she thought. "Ah! how happy she must be," and with a something that was almost a sigh, she turned back into the dim calm of the fernery; she felt strangely alone and solitary at that moment.

Suddenly there was a step behind her, and looking up she saw Lord Leycester.

"I have found you!" he said, and there was a ring of satisfaction and pleasure in his voice that went straight to her heart. "Where have you been hiding?"

She looked up at the handsome face full of life and strong manhood, and her eyes fell.

"I have not been hiding," she said. "I have been here."

"You are right," he said, seating himself beside her; "this is the best place; it is cool and quiet here; it is more like our woods, is it not, with the ferns and the primroses?" and at the "our" he smiled into her eyes.

"It is very lovely here," she said. "It's all lovely. How beautifully she sings!" she added, rather irrelevantly.

"Sings?" he said. "Oh, Lenore! Yes, she sings well, perfectly. And that reminds me. I have been sent to ask you to make music for us."

Stella shrank back with a glance of alarm.

"I? Oh, no, no! I could not."

He smiled at her.

"But your uncle – "

"He should not!" said Stella, with a touch of crimson. "I could not sing. I am afraid."

"Afraid! You?" he said. "Of what?"

"Of – of – everything," she said, with a little laugh. "I could not sing before all these people. I have never done so. Besides, to sing after Lady Lenore would be like dancing a hornpipe."

"I should be content if you would dance a hornpipe," he said. "I should think it good and wise."

"Are you laughing at me?" she said, looking up at the dark eyes. "Why?"

"Laughing at you?" he repeated. "I! I could not. It is you who laugh at me; I think you are laughing at me most times. You will not sing, then?"

"I cannot," she said.

"Then you shall not," he responded; "you shall not do anything you do not like. But some time you will sing for us, will you not? Your uncle has been telling us about your voice, and how you came by it," and his own voice grew wonderfully gentle.

"My father, he meant," said Stella, simply. "Yes; he could sing. He was a great musician, and when I think of that, I am inclined to resolve never to open my lips again."

There was a moment's pause. Stella sat pulling a piece of maidenhair apart, her eyes downcast; his eyes were reading her beautiful face, and noting the graceful turns of the white neck. Someone was playing the grand piano, and the music floated in and about the tall palms. It was an intoxicating moment for him! The air was balmy with perfumes from the exotics, the warm blood was running freely in his veins, the beauty of the girl beside him seemed to entrance him. Instinctively his hand, being idly near her, went toward hers, and would have touched it, but suddenly one of the maids entered, and with a slow, respectful air approached them. She held a silver salver, on which lay a small note, folded in a lover's knot.

Lord Leycester looked up; the interruption came just in time.

"For me?" he said.

"For Miss Etheridge, my lord," replied the maid, with a courtesy.

"For me?" echoed Stella, taking the note.

"I can guess who it is from," he said, with a smile. "Lilian is growing impatient – if she is ever that."

Stella unfolded the note. This was it: "Will you come to me now, if you care to?"

"Oh, yes, I will go at once," she said, standing up.

He rose with a sigh.

"It is the first time I have envied Lilian anything," he said, in a low voice.

"This way, if you please, miss," said the maid.

"A moment – a moment only," said Lord Leycester, and as Stella stopped, he gathered a few sprays of maidenhair from the margin of the fountain.

"It is a peace-offering. Will you take it to her? I promised that I would ask you to go directly after dinner," he said, softly.

"Yes," said Stella, and as she took it there rose once more in her mind the word Jasper Adelstone had spoken – "infamous." This man who sent his sister such a message in such a voice!

"Thanks," he said. "But it was scarcely necessary. I have sent her something more beautiful, more precious."

Stella did not understand far a moment, then as her eyes met his, she knew that he meant herself, and the color flooded her face.

"You should not say that," she said, gravely, and before he could answer she moved away, and followed the maid.

The maid led her through the hall and up the broad stairs, across the corridor and knocked at Lady Lilian's door.

Stella entered, and a grave peace seemed to fall upon her.

Lady Lilian was lying on the couch by the window, and raised herself to hold out her hand.

"How good of you to come!" she said, eagerly, and as the voice broke on Stella's ear, she knew what Lady Lenore's voice wanted. "You think me very selfish to bring you away from them all do you not?" she added, still holding Stella's hand in her white, cool one.

"No," said Stella, "I am very glad to come. I would have come before, but I did not know whether I might."

"I have been waiting, and did not like to send for you," said Lady Lilian, "and have you had a pleasant evening?"

Stella sank into a low seat beside the couch, and looked up into the lovely face with a smile.

"I have had a wonderful evening!" she said.

Lady Lilian looked at her inquiringly.

"Wonderful," said Stella, frankly. "You see I have never been in such a place as this before; it all seems so grand and beautiful – more beautiful than grand indeed, that I can scarcely believe it is real."

"It is real – too real," said Lady Lilian, with a smile and a little sigh. "I daresay you think it is very nice, and I – do you know what I think?"

Stella shook her head.

"I think, as I look down at your little cottage, how beautiful, how nice your life must be."

"Mine!" said Stella. "Well, yes, it is very nice. But this is wonderful."

"Because you are not used to it," said Lady Lilian. "Ah! you would soon get tired of it, believe me."

"Never," breathed Stella, looking down; as she did so she saw the maidenhair, and held it up.

"Lord Leycester sent these to you," she said.

A loving light came into Lady Lilian's eyes as she took the green, fragrant sprays.

"Leycester?" she said, touching her cheek with them. "That is like him – he is too good to me."

Stella looked across the room at a picture of the Madonna rising from the earth, with upturned, glorious eyes.

"Is he?" she murmured.

"Oh, yes, yes, there never was a brother like him in all the wide world," said Lady Lilian, in a rapt voice. "I cannot tell you how good he is to me; he is always thinking of me – he who has so much to think of. I fancy sometimes that people are apt to deem him selfish and – and – thoughtless, but they do not know – "

"No," said Stella again. The voice sounded like music in her ears – she could have listened forever while it sung his song; and yet that word suddenly rang out in discord, and she smiled. "He seems very kind," she said – "he is very kind to me."

Lady Lilian looked at her suddenly, and an anxious expression came into her eyes. It was not many nights ago that she had implored Leycester to see no more of the girl with the dark eyes and silky hair; and here was the girl sitting at her feet, and it was her doing! She had not thought of that before; she had been so fascinated by the fresh young beauty, by the pure, frank eyes, that she had actually acted against her own instincts, and brought her into Leycester's path!