Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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Mary rejoined Louis, to speak to him of the kind and noble man who so
generously and resolutely bore the wreck of his hopes. They walked
up and down together in the cool shade of the trees in the Consul's
garden, and they spoke of the unselfishness which seemed to take away
the smart from the wound of disappointment. They spoke sometimes,
but the day was for the most part spent in the sweetness of pensive,
happy silence, musing with full hearts over this crowning of their
long deferred hopes, and not without prayer that the same protecting
Hand might guide them, as they should walk together through life.

By-and-by Mary disappeared. She would perhaps have preferred her
ordinary dress--but the bridal white seemed to her to be due both to
Louis and to the solemn rite and mystery; and when the time came, she
met him, in her plain white muslin and long veil, confined by a few
sprays of real orange flowers, beneath which her calmly noble face
was seen, simple and collected as ever, forgetting in her earnestness
all adjuncts that might have been embarrassing or distressing.

The large hall was darkening with twilight, and the flowers and
branches that decked it showed gracefully in the subdued light.
Prayer and praise had lately echoed there, and Louis and Mary could
feel that He was with them who blessed the pair at Cana, far distant
as they were from their own church--their own home. Yes, the Church,
their mother, their home, was with them in her sacred ritual and her
choice blessings, and their consciences were free from self-will, or
self-pleasing, such as would have put far from them the precious
gifts promised in the name of their Lord.

When it was over, and they first raised their eyes to one another's
faces, each beheld in the other a look of entire thankful content,
not the less perfect because it was grave and peaceful.

'I think mamma would be quite happy,' said Mary.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MARVEL OF PERU.

Turn, Angelina, ever dear,
My charmer, turn to see
Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here,
Restored to love and thee,
GOLDSMITH.

Lord Ormersfield sat alone in the library, where the fire burnt more
for the sake of cheerfulness than of warmth. His eyes were weary
with reading, and, taking off his spectacles, he turned his chair
away from the table, and sat gazing into the fire, giving audience to
dreamy thoughts.

He missed the sunny face ever prompt to watch his moods, and find or
make time for the cheerful word or desultory chat which often broke
and refreshed drier occupation. He remembered when he had hardly
tolerated the glass of flowers, the scraps of drawing, the
unbusinesslike books at his son's end of the table, but the room
looked dull without them now, and he was ready to own the value of
the grace and finish of life, hindering the daily task from absorbing
the whole man, as had been the case with himself in middle life.

Somewhat of the calm of old age had begun to fall on the Earl, and he
had latterly been wont to think more deeply. These trifles could not
have spoken to his heart save for their connexion with his son, and
even Louis's tastes would have worn out with habit, had it not been
for the radiance permanent in his own mind, namely, the thankful,
adoring love that finds the true brightness in "whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report." This spirit it was which had kept his heart fresh, his
spirit youthful, and changed constitutional versatility into a power
of hearty adaptation to the least congenial tastes.

Gentleness, affection, humility, and refinement were in his nature.
Mrs. Frost had trained these qualities into the beauty of Christian
graces; and Mrs. Ponsonby and her daughter had taught him to bring
his high principles to supply that which was wanting. Indolence of
will, facility of disposition, unsteadiness of purpose, inconsiderate
impulses without perseverance, had all betokened an inherent
weakness, which the Earl's cure, ambition, had been powerless to
remedy; but duty had been effectual in drawing strength out of what
had been feeble by nature. It was religion that had made a man of
Louis; and his father saw and owned it, no longer as merely the
woman's guide in life and the man's resource chiefly in death, to be
respected and moderately attended to, but never so as to interfere
unreasonably with the world. No; he had learnt that it was the only
sure and sound moving-spring: he knew it as his son's strengthening,
brightening thread of life; and began to perceive that his own course
might have been less gloomy and less harsh, devoid of such dark
strands, had he held the right clue. The contrast brought back some
lines which, without marking, he had heard Louis and his aunt reading
together, and, albeit little wont to look into his son's books, he
was so much haunted by the rhythm that he rose and searched them
out--

Yea, mark him well, ye cold and proud,
Bewildered in a heartless crowd,
Starting and turning pale
At rumour's angry din:
No storm can now assail
The charm he bears within.
Rejoicing still, and doing good,
And with the thought of God imbued,
No glare of high estate,
No gloom of woe or want,
The radiance may abate,
Where Heaven delights to haunt.

The description went to his heart, so well did it agree with Louis.
Yet there was a sad feeling, for the South American mail had been
some days due, and he had not heard of his son since he was about to
land at Callao. Five months was a long absence; and as the chances
of failure, disappointment, climate, disease, and shipwreck arose
before him, he marvelled at himself for having consented to peril his
sole treasure, and even fancied that a solitary, childless old age
might be the penalty in store for having waited to be led heavenward
by his son.

It was seldom that the Earl gave way, and, reproaching himself for
his weakness, he roused himself and rang the bell for better light.
There was a movement in the house, and for some moments the bell was
not answered; but presently the door was opened.

'Bring the other lamp.'

'Yes, my Lord.'

The slow, soft voice did not belong to Frampton. He started up, and
there stood Louis!

'My dear father,' he said; and Lord Ormersfield sprang up, grasped
his son's hand, and laid the other hand on his shoulder, but durst
ask no questions, for the speedy return seemed to bespeak that he had
failed. He looked in Louis's face, and saw it full of emotion, with
dew on the eyelashes; but suddenly a sweet archness gleamed in the
eyes, and he steadied his trembling lip to say with a smile,

'Lady Fitzjocelyn!'

And that very moment Mary was in Lord Ormersfield's arms.

'My children! my dear children, happy at last! God bless you! This
is all I ever wished!'

He held a hand of each, and looked from one to the other till Mary
turned away to hide her tears of joy; and Louis, with his eyes still
moist, began talking, to give her time to recover.

'You will forgive our not writing? We landed this morning, found the
last mail was not come in, and could not help coming on. We knew you
would be anxious, and thought you would not mind the suddenness.'

'No, indeed,' said his father; 'if all surprises were like this one!
But you are the loser, Mary. I am afraid this is not the reception
for a bride!'

'Mary has dispensed with much that belongs to a bride,' said Louis.
'See here!' and, seizing her hand, he began pulling off her glove,
till she did it for him; 'did you ever see such a wedding-ring?--a
great, solid thing of Peruvian gold, with a Spanish posy inside!'

'I like it,' said Mary; 'it shows--'

'What you are worth, eh, Mary? Well! here we are! It seems real at
last! And you, father, have you been well?'

'Yes, well indeed, now I have you both! But how came you so quickly?
You never brought her across the Isthmus?'

'Indeed I did. She would come. It was her first act of rebellion;
for we were not going to let you meet the frosts alone--the October
frosts, I mean; I hope the Dynevor Frosts are all right?'

Frampton was here seen at the open door, doubtful whether to intrude;
yet, impelled by necessity, as he caught Fitzjocelyn's eye, he,
hesitating, said--

'My Lord, the Spanish gentleman!'

'The greatest triumph of my life!' cried Louis, actually clapping his
hands together with ecstacy, to the butler s extreme astonishment.

'Why, Frampton, don't you know him?'

'My Lord!!!'

'Let me introduce you, then, to--Mr. Thomas Madison!' and, as
Frampton still stood perplexed, looking at the fine, foreign-looking
man, who was keeping in the background, busied with the luggage,
Louis continued, 'You cannot credit such a marvel of Peru!'

'Young Madison, my Lord!' repeated Frampton, slowly coming to his
senses.

'No other. He has done Lady Fitzjocelyn and all of us infinite
service,' continued Louis, quickly, to prevent Madison's reception
from receiving a fall in proportion to the grandeur of the first
impression. 'He is to stay here for a short time before going to his
appointment at Bristol, in Mr. Ward's counting-house, with a salary
of 180 pounds. I shall be much obliged if you will make him welcome.'

And, returning in his glee to the library, Louis found Mary
explaining how 'a gentleman at Lima,' who had long professed to covet
so good a clerk as Madison, had, on the break-up of their firm,
offered him a confidential post, for which he was well fitted by his
knowledge of the Spanish language and the South American trade, to
receive the cargoes sent home. 'In truth,' said Louis, coming in,
'I had reason to be proud of my pupil. We could never have found our
way through the accounts without him; and the old Cornish man, whom
we sent for from the mines, gave testimony to him such as will do Mr.
Holdsworth's heart good. But nothing is equal to Frampton's taking
him for a Spanish Don!'

'And poor Delaford's witness was quite as much to his credit,' said
Mary.

'Ay! if Delaford had not been equally willing to depose against him
when he was the apparent Catiline!' said Louis. 'Poor Delaford! he
was very useful to us, after all; and I should be glad to know he had
a better fate than going off to the diggings with a year's salary in
his pocket!'

(Footnote. A recent writer relates that he found the near relation
of a nobleman gaining a scanty livelihood as shoe-black at the
diggings. Query. Might not this be Mr. Delaford?)

'Then everything is settled?' asked his father.

'Almost everything. The mines are off our hands, and the transfer
will be completed as soon as Oliver has sent his signature; and
there's quite enough saved to make them very comfortable. You have
told me nothing of them yet?'

'They are all very well. James has been coming here twice a-week
since I have been at home, and has been very attentive and pleasant;
but I have not been at the Terrace much. There never was such a
houseful of children. Oliver's room is the only place where one is
safe from falling over two or three. However, they seem to like it,
and to think, the more the better. James came over here the morning
after the boy was born, as much delighted as if he had had any
prospects.'

'A boy at last! Poor Mr. Dynevor! Does he take it as an insult to
his misfortunes?'

'He seems as well pleased as they; and, in fact, I hope the boy may
not, after all, be unprovided for. Mr. Mansell wrote to offer to be
godfather, and I thought I could not do otherwise than ask him to
stay here. I am glad I did so, for he told me that now he has seen
for himself the noble way they are going on in, he has made up his
mind. He has no relation nearer than Isabel, and he means to make
his will in favour of her son. He asked whether I would be a
trustee, but I said I was growing old, and had little doubt you would
be glad enough. You will have plenty of such work, Louis. It is
very dangerous to be known as a good man-of-business, and good-
natured.'

'Pray, how does Jem bear it?'

'With tolerable equanimity. It may be many years before the child is
affected by it, if Mrs. Mansell has it for her life. Besides, James
is a wiser man than he used to be.'

'He has been somewhat like Robinson Crusoe's old goat,' said Louis.
'Poor Jem! the fall and the scanty fare tamed him. I liked him so
well before, that I did not know how much better I was yet to like
him. Mary, you must see his workhouse. Giving up his time to it as
he does, he does infinite good there.'

'Yes, Mr. Calcott says that he lives in fear of some one offering him
a living,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'And the dear old Giraffe?' said Louis.

'Clara? She is looking almost handsome. I wish some good man would
marry her. She would make an excellent wife.'

'I am not ready to spare her yet,' said Mary; 'I must make
acquaintance with her before any excellent man carries her off.'

'But there is a marriage that will surprise you,' said the Earl;
'your eldest cousin, whose name I can never remember--'

'Virginia,' cried Louis. 'Captain Lonsdale, I hope!'

'What could have made you fix on him?'

'Because the barricades could not have been in vain, and he was an
excellent fellow, to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude. He kept
my aunt's terrors in abeyance most gallantly; and little Virginia
drank in his words, and built up a hero! But how was it?'

'You remember that Lady Conway would not take our advice, and stay
quietly at home. On the first steamer she fell in with this captain,
and it seems that she was helpless enough, without her former butler,
to be very grateful to him for managing her passports and conducting
her through Germany. And the conclusion was, that she herself had
encouraged him so far, that she really had not any justification in
refusing when he proposed for the young lady, as he is fairly
provided for.'

'My poor aunt! No one ever pities her when she is 'hoist with her
own petard!' I am glad poor Virginia is to be happy in her own way.'

'I shall send my congratulations to-morrow,' said the Earl, smiling
triumphantly, 'and a piece of intelligence of my own. At H. B. M.
Consul's, Lima--what day was it, Louis?'

Mary ran away to take off her bonnet, as much surprised by the Earl's
mirth as if she had seen primroses in December. Yet such blossoms
are sometimes tempted forth; and affection was breathing something
like a second spring on the life so long unnaturally chilled and
blighted. If his shoulders were bowed, his figure had lost much of
its rigidity; and though his locks were thinned and whitened, and his
countenance slightly aged, yet the softened look and the more
frequent smile had smoothed away the sternness, and given gentleness
to his dignity.

No sooner was she out of the room than Lord Ormersfield asked, 'And
what have you done with the Spanish woman?'

The answer excited a peal of laughter, which made Louis stand aghast,
both at such unprecedented merriment and at the cause; for hitherto
he had so entirely felt with Mary, as never to have seen the
ludicrous aspect of the elopement. Presently, however, he was amused
by perceiving that his father not merely regarded it as a relief from
an embarrassing charge, but as an entire acquittal for his own
conscience for any slanders he had formerly believed of Dona Rosita.

Louis briefly explained that, the poor lady being provided for by
Robson's investments in America, he had thought it right that the
Ponsonby share of the firm should bear the loss through these
embezzlements; and he had found that her extravagance had made such
inroads on the property, that while the Dynevor share (always the
largest) resulted in a fair competence, Louis had saved nothing out
of the wreck of the Ponsonby affairs but Mary herself. 'Can you
excuse it, father?' he said, with all the old debonnaire manner.

'You will never be a rich man, Louis. You and she will have some
cares, but--' and his voice grew thick--'you are rich in what makes
life happy. You have left me nothing more to ask or wish for!'

'Except that I may be worthy of her, father. You first taught me how
she ought to be loved. You have been very patient with me all this
time. I feel as if I must thank you for her--' and then, changing
his tone as she opened the door--'Look at her now she has her bonnet
off--does not she look natural?'

'I am sure I feel so,' said Mary. 'You know this always seemed more
like home than anything else.'

'Yes, and now I do feel sure that I have you at last, Mary. That
Moorish castle of yours used to make me afraid of wakening: it was so
much fitter for Isabel's fantastic Viscount. By-the-bye, has she
brought that book out?'

'Oh, yes, and James is nearly as proud of it as he is of his son. He
actually wanted me to read it! He tells me it is selling very well,
and I hope it may really bring them in something.'

'Now, then--there's the tea. Sit down, Mary, and look exactly as you
did the morning I came home and found you.'

'I'm afraid I cannot,' said Mary, looking up in his face with an
arch, deprecating expression.

'Why not?'

'Don't you know that I am so much happier?'

Before breakfast next morning Fitzjocelyn must visit his farm, and
Mary must come with him.

How delicious was that English morning after their voyage; the slant
rays of the sun silvering the turf, and casting rainbows across the
gossamer threads from one brown bent to another; the harvest fields
on the slopes dotted with rich sheaves of wheat; the coppices, in
their summer glory, here and there touched with the gold of early
autumn, and the slopes and meadows bright with lively green, a
pleasant change for eyes fresh from the bare, rugged mountain-side
and the rank unwholesome vegetation of Panama. Shaggy little
Scottish oxen were feeding on the dewy grass, their black coats
looking sleek in the sun beyond the long shadows of the thorns; but
as Mary said, laughing, 'Only Farmer Fitjocelyn's cattle came here
now,' and she stopped more than once to be introduced to some notable
animal, or to hear the history of experiments in fatting beasts.

'There! they have found you out! That's for you,' said Louis, as a
merry peal of bells broke out from the church tower, and came
joyously up through the tranquil air. 'Yes, Ormersfield, you are
greeting a friend! You may be very glad, old place! I wish Mr.
Holdsworth would come up to breakfast! Is it too wet for you this
way, Mary?'

This way was into Fernydell, and Mary answered, 'Oh, no--no; it is
where I most wanted to go with you. We have never been there
together since--'

'No, you never would walk with me after I could go alone!' said
Louis, with a playful tone of reproach, veiling deep feeling.

In silence he handed her down the rocky steps, plunging deeper among
the hazels and rowan-trees; then pausing, he turned aside the
luxuriant leaves of a tuft of hartstongue, and showed her, cut on a
stone, veiled both by the verdure and the form of the rock, the
letters--

Deo Gratias,
L. F. 1847.

'I like that!' was all that Mary's full heart allowed her to say.

'Yes,' said Louis, 'I feel quite as thankful for the accident as for
the preservation.'

'And that dear mamma was with us,' added Mary. 'Between her and you,
it was a blessing to us all. I see these letters are not new; you
must have cut them out long ago.'

'As soon as I could get here without help,' he answered. 'I thought
I should be able to find the very spot where I lay, by remembering
the cross which the bare mountain-ash boughs made against the sky;
but by that time they were all leaf and flower; and now, do you see,
there they are, with the fruit just formed and blushing.'

'Like other things,' said Mary, reaching after the spray, 'once all
blossom, now--'

'Fruit very unripe,' as he said, between a smile and a sigh; 'but
there is some encouragement in the world after all, and every project
of mine has not turned out like my two specimens of copper ore. You
remember them, Mary and our first encounter?'

'Remember it!' said Mary. 'I don't think I forgot a day of that
summer.'

'What I brought you here for,' said Louis, 'was to ask you to let me
do what I have long wished--to let me put the letter M here?'

'I think you might have done it without leave,' said Mary.

'So I might at first, but by the time I came here again, Mary, you
had become in my estimation 'a little more than kin,' and less than-
no, I wont say that, but one could not treat you as comfortably as
Clara. I lost a cousin one August day, and never found her again!'

'Never?'

'Never--but the odd thing is, that I cannot believe that what I did
find has been away these seven years.'

'Yes, that is very strange,' said Mary; 'I have felt it so. Wo do
seem to understand and guess each other's thoughts as if we had been
going on together all this time. I believe it is because you gave me
the first impulse to think, and taught me the way.'

'And I know who first taught me to think to any purpose,' said Louis,
smiling. 'But who is this descending on us?'

It was the Spanish gentleman, reddening all over at such an
encounter, in mid-career towards her at the Terrace, and muttering
something, breathless and almost surly, about begging pardon.

'Look here, Tom,' said Louis, lifting the leaves to show the letters.
'That is all I ever could feel on that matter, and so should you.
There, no more about it,--you want to be on your way; and tell Mr.
Frost that we shall be at Northwold in the afternoon.'

About half an hour after, Clara was delicately blowing the dust out
of the wreath of forget-me-nots on the porcelain shepherdess's hat,
when a shriek resounded through the house, and, barely saving the
Arcadian in her start, she rushed downstairs. James, in his shirt-
sleeves, was already on his way to the kitchen. There Kitty was
found, too much frightened, to run away, making lunges with the
toasting-fork at a black-bearded figure, who held in his arms
Charlotte Arnold, in a fit of the almost forgotten hysterics. The
workhouse girl shrieked for the police; Jane was at Master Oliver's
door, prepared for flight or defence; Isabel stood on the stairs,
with her baby in her arms, and her little flock clinging to her
skirts, when Clara darted back, laughing too much to speak
distinctly, as she tried to explain who the ruffian really was.

'And Louis is coming, and Mary! Oh! Isabel, he has her at last! Oh!
Jem! Jem! did we ever want dear granny so much! I always knew it
would come right at last! Jane, Jane, do you hear, Lord Fitzjocelyn
is married! Let me in; I must go and tell Uncle Oliver!'

James looked at Isabel, and read in her smile Clara's final acquittal
from all suspicions beneath the dignity of both. Uncle Oliver would
have damped her joy, had it been in his power. He gave up his
affairs as hopeless, as soon as he found that young Fitzjocelyn had
only made them an excuse for getting married, and he was so
excessively angry with her for being happy, that she found she must
carry her joyous face out of his sight.

It was not easy to be a dignified steady governess that morning, and
when the lessons were finished, she could have danced home all the
way. She had scarcely reached the Terrace gate, when the well-known
sound of the wheels was heard, and in another moment she was between
the two dear cousins; Fitzjocelyn's eyes dancing with gladsomeness,
and Mary's broad tranquil brow and frank kindly smile, free from the
shadow of a single cloud! Clara's heart leapt up with joy, joy full
and unmixed, the guerdon of the spirit untouched by vanity or
selfishness, without one taint that could have mortified into
jealous, disappointed pain. It was bliss to one of those whom she
loved best, it was the winning of a brother and sister, and perhaps
Clara's life had never had a happier moment.

Lord Ormersfield could have thanked her for that joyous, innocent
welcome. He had paid her attentions for his son's sake, of which he
had become rather ashamed; and as Louis and Mary hastened on to meet
James and Isabel, he detained her for a moment, to say some special
words of kindness. Clara, perhaps, had an intuitive perception of
his meaning, and reference to her past heiress state, for she laughed
gaily, and said, 'Yes, I never was more glad of anything! He was so
patient that I was sure he deserved it! I always trusted to such a
time as this, when he used to talk to me for want of dear
grandmamma.'

Mary was led upstairs to be introduced to the five children, while
the gentlemen went over the accounts in Oliver's room. Enough had
been rescued from the ruin to secure, not wealth, but fair
competence; the mines were disposed of to a company which would pay
the value by instalments, and all the remainder of the business was
in train to be easily wound up by Mr. Ward. Mr. Dynevor's gratitude
was not overpowering: he was short and dry, privately convinced that
he could have managed matters much better himself, and charging all
the loss on Fitzjocelyn's folly in letting Robson escape. But,
though James was hurt at his unthankfulness, and Lord Ormersfield
could have been very angry, the party most concerned did not take it
much to heart; he believed he had done his best, but an experienced
eye might detect blunders, and he knew it was hard to trust affairs
out of one's own hands.

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