May Agnes Fleming

“ She went on up-stairs to the inhabited part of the building, followed by Mrs. Weymore, who seemed to grow more and more agitated with every word the housekeeper said.
"This is Sir Noel's room," said Mrs. Hilliard, in an awe-struck whisper, as if the dead man still lay there; "no one ever enters here but me."
She unlocked it as she spoke, and went in. Mrs. Weymore followed, with a face of frightened pallor that struck even the housekeeper.
"Good gracious me! Mrs. Weymore, what is the matter? You are as pale as a ghost. Are you afraid to enter a room where a person has died?" ”

“ Miss Jocyln held herself aloof from the young baronet for the remaining hours of the ball. She had known as well as he the words that were on his lips when May Everard interposed, and her eyes flashed and her dark cheek flushed dusky red to see how easily he had been deterred from his purpose. For him, he sought her once or twice in a desultory sort of way, never noticing that he was purposely avoided, wandering contentedly back to devote himself to some one else, and in the pauses to watch May Everard floating—a sunbeam in a rosy cloud—here and there and everywhere. ”

“ I may be unfortunate; but, I pray God, never a villain! Right is right; my brother Guy is the rightful heir—not I!"
"And Aileen?" Col. Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he spoke his daughter's name.
Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face, quite ghastly now.
"It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to honor me for doing right."
"It shall be as I say," returned Col. Jocyln, with a voice that rang and an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless race, and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out, young man. ”

“ Nature had intended him for an artist, not country squire; he cared little for riding, or hunting, or fishing, or farming, or any of the things wherein country squires delight; he liked better to lie on the warm grass, with the summer wind stirring in the trees over his head, and smoke his Turkish pipe, and dream the lazy hours away. If he had been born a poor man he might have been a great painter; as it was, he was only an idle, listless, elegant, languid dreamer, and so likely to remain until the end of the chapter.
Lady Thetford's ball was a very brilliant affair, and a famous success. ”

“ The hue of death had settled on her face; she sat cold and rigid, staring with that blank, fixed gaze into the fire. Ceaselessly beat the rain; wilder grew the December day; steadily the moments wore on, and still she sat in that fixed trance. The armula clock struck two—the sound aroused her at last.
"I must!" she said, setting her teeth. "I will! My boy shall not lose his birthright, come what may!"
She rose and rang the bell—very pale, but icily calm. Her maid answered the summons.
"Eliza," my lady asked, "at what hour does the afternoon train leave St. Gosport for London!" ”

“ Jocyln:—We are in the greatest trouble. Poor Lady Thetford died with awful suddenness this morning in one of those dreadful spasms. We are all nearly distracted. Rupert bears it better than any of us. Pray come over as soon as you can.
"May. Everard."
Aileen Jocyln sunk back in her seat, pale and trembling.
"Dead! Oh, papa! papa!"
"It is very sad, my dear, and very shocking and terribly unfortunate that it should have occurred just at this time. A postponed wedding is ever ominous of evil."
"Oh! pray, papa, don't think of that! Don't think of me! Poor Lady Thetford! Poor Rupert! ”

“ The pretty, fleet-footed pony and his bright little mistress were by no means rare visitors at Jocyln Hall, and Miss Jocyln was always elaborately civil to Miss Everard. Very pretty little May looked—all her tinseled curls floating in the breeze, like a golden banner; the blue eyes more starily radiant than ever, the dark riding-habit and jaunty hat and plume the most becoming things in the world. She saw Miss Jocyln at the window, kissed her hand and resigned Arab to the groom. A minute more and she was saluting Aileen with effusion. ”

“ I dare not die with my promise unkept. This very night," Lady Thetford cried, sitting up, flushed and excited, "my boy shall know all—he shall not marry in ignorance of whom he really is. Aileen has the fortune of a princess; and Aileen will not love him less for the title he must lose. When he comes home, Mrs. Weymore, send him to me, and send your son with him, and I will tell them all." ”

“ When they were with their nurse, or my lady, the governess sat alone in the east parlor, looking out dreamily at the summer landscape, with her own brooding thoughts.
One evening when she had been at Thetford Towers over a fortnight, Mrs. Hilliard, coming in, found her sitting dreamily by herself neither reading nor working. The children were in the drawing-room, and her duties were over for the day.
"I am afraid you don't make yourself at home here," said the good-natured housekeeper; "you stay too much alone, and it isn't good for young people like you." ”

“ Rupert, I have ceased to think so since May Everhard's return."
The young man's face flushed suddenly and hotly, but he made no reply.
"How any man in his senses could possibly prefer May to Aileen, is a mystery I cannot solve; but then these things puzzle the wisest of us at times. Mind, my boy, I don't really say you do prefer May—I should be very unhappy if I thought so. I know—I am certain you love Aileen best; and I am equally certain she is a thousand times better suited to you. Then, as a man of honor, you owe it to her. ”

“ And so," folding the fairy hands and nodding her little ringleted head, "here I am."
"But, good heavens!" cried Sir Rupert, aghast, "you never mean to say, May, you have come alone?"
"All alone," said May, with another nod. "I'm used to it, you know; did it last vacation. Came across and spent it with Mrs. Weymore. I don't mind it the least; don't know what sea-sickness is; and oh! didn't some of the poor wretches suffer this time! Isn't it fortunate I'm here for the ball? And, Rupert, good gracious! how you've grown!"
"Thanks. I can't see that you have changed much, Miss Everard. ”

“ Legard himself took the matter much more coolly than any one else; smoked cigars philosophically, criticised Sir Rupert's pictures, did a little that way himself, played billiards with his host and chess with Miss Everard, rode with that young lady, walked with her, sang duets with her in a deep melodious bass, made himself fascinating, and took the world easy.
"It is no use getting into a gale about these things," he said to Miss Everard when she wondered aloud at his constitutional phlegm; "the crooked things will straighten of themselves if we give them time. What is written is written. ”

“ But the clergyman, Sir Noel—the clergyman. Shall we not send for him?"
"No!" said Sir Noel, sharply. "What do I want of a clergyman? Leave me, both of you. Stay, you can give me something, Gale, to keep up my strength to the last? I shall need it. Now go. I want to see no one but Lady Thetford."
"My lady has come!" cried Mrs. Hilliard, starting to her feet; and at the same moment the door was opened by Arneaud, and a lady in a sparkling ball-dress swept in. She stood for a moment on the threshold, looking from face to face with a bewildered air. ”

“ CHAPTER X. ASKING IN MARRIAGE.
A fire burned in Lady Thetford's room, and among piles of silken pillows my lady, languid and pale, lay, looking into the leaping flame. It was a hot July morning, the sun blazed like a wheel of fire in a sky without a cloud, but Lady Thetford was always chilly of late. She drew the crimson shawl she wore closer around her, and glanced impatiently now and then at the pretty toy clock on the decorated chimney-piece. The house was very still; its one disturbing element, Miss Everard, was absent with Sir Rupert for a morning canter over the sunny Devon hills. ”

“ Little May must learn to be good."
Little May put one rosy finger in her mouth, and set her head on one side like a defiant canary. She was one of the prettiest little fairies imaginable, with her pale, flaxen curls, and sparkling light-gray eyes, and apple-blossom complexion; but she was evidently as much spoiled as little Sir Rupert Thetford himself.
Lady Thetford sat in the long drawing-room, after her solitary dinner, and little Sir Rupert played with his rocking-horse and a pile of picture-books in a remote corner. ”

“ Miss Jocyln answered, truthfully.
"No, you never do feel inclined unless I come and drag you out by force; you sit in the house and grow yellow and jaundiced over high-church novels. I declare I never met so many lazy people in all my life as I have done since I came home. One don't mind mamma, poor thing! shutting herself up and the sunshine and fresh air of heaven out; but, for you and Rupert! And, speaking of Rupert," ran on Miss Everard in a breathless sort of way, "he wanted to commence his great picture of 'Fair Rosamond and Eleanor' yesterday—and how could he when Eleanor never came? ”

“ Whiter than the pillows, whiter than snow, Ada, Lady Thetford, lay, hovering in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; that other feeble little life seemed flickering, too—it was so even a toss up between the great rival powers, Life and Death, that a straw might have turned the scale either way. So slight being that baby-hold of gasping breath, that Mr. Knight, in the absence of any higher authority, and in the unconsciousness of the mother, took it upon himself to baptize it. ”

“ That was all; we may feel inexpressibly, but we can only utter commonplaces. Lady Thetford was very, very pale, but her pallor told nothing of the dreary pain at her heart.
"Would you like to see little May? I will send for her."
Little May was sent for and came. A brilliant little fairy as ever, brightly dressed, with shimmering golden curls and starry eyes. By her side stood Sir Rupert—the nine-year-old baronet, growing tall very fast, pale and slender still, and looking at the colonel with his mother's dark, deep eyes.
Colonel Jocyln held out his hand to the flaxen-haired fairy. ”

“ Gradually people fell off; they grew tired of that sullen coldness in which Lady Thetford wrapped herself as in a mantle, until Mr. Knight and Dr. Gale grew to be almost her only visitors. "Mariana, in the Moated Grange," never led a more solitary and dreary existence than the handsome young widow, who dwelt a recluse at Thetford Towers; for she was very handsome still, of a pale moonlit sort of beauty, the great, dark eyes, and abundant dark hair, making her fixed and changeless pallor all the more remarkable. ”

“ Are you not inspired, sir artist?"
She lifted a flitting, radiant glance, a luminous smile, and the star-like face, drooped again—and the white hands took to reckless breaking off sweet sprays of myrtle.
"My inspiration is nearer," looking down at the drooping face. "Aileen——" and there he stopped, and the sentence was never destined to be finished, for a shadow darkened the moonlight, and a figure flitted in like a spirit and stood before them—a fairy figure, in a cloud of rosy drapery, with shimmering golden curls and dancing eyes of turquoise blue. ”

“ Another sunset, red and gorgeous, over swelling English meadows, waving trees, and grassy terrace, lighting up with its crimson radiance the gray forest of Thetford Towers.
In the pretty, airy summer drawing-room, this red sunset streams through open western windows, kindling everything into living light. It falls on the bright-haired, girlish figure, dressed in floating white, seated in an arm-chair in the center of the room: too childish looking, you might fancy, at first sight, to be mamma to that fat baby she holds in her lap; but she is not a bit too childish. ”

“ Come here, little May, and bid papa good-bye."
"Let papa come to May," responded his daughter, still rocking. "I can't get off."
Captain Everard laughed, went over, bent down and kissed her.
"Good-bye, May; don't forget papa, and learn to be a good girl. Good bye, baronet; try and grow strong and tall. Farewell, Lady Thetford, with my best thanks."
She held his hand, looking up in his sun-burned face with tears in her dark eyes.
"We may never meet again, Captain Everard," she said hurriedly. "Tell me before we part that you forgive me the past."
"Truly, Ada, and for the first time. ”

“ A grand old place for that puny child to inherit. The staunch old warrior-blood of the Thetfords is sadly adulterated in his pale veins, I fancy. Well, my little May, and how are you going to like all this?"
The child, a bright-faced little creature, with great sparkling eyes and rose-bloom cheeks, was looking in delight at a distant terrace.
"See, papa! See all the pretty peacocks! Look, Ellen," to the nurse, "three, four, five! Oh, how pretty!"
"Then little May will like to live here, where she can see the pretty peacocks every day?" ”

“ Kneeling there, with her face still turned to that luminous East, the blissful bride fell asleep; slept, and dreamed dreams as joyful as her waking thoughts, and no shadow of that sweeping cloud that was to blacken all her world so soon fell upon her.
Hours passed, and still Aileen slept. Then came an imperative knock at her door—again and again, louder each time; and then Aileen started up, fully awake. Her room was flooded with sunshine, and countless birds sang their glorias in the swaying green gloom of the branches, and the ceaseless sea was all a-glitter with sparkling sun-light. ”

“ You have paid Miss Jocyln such attentions as no honorable gentleman should pay any lady, save the one he means to make his wife."
Lady Thetford's son rose abruptly, and stood leaning against the mantle, looking into the fire.
"Rupert, tell me truly, if May Everard had not come here, would you not ere this have asked Aileen to be your wife?"
"Yes—no—I don't know! Mother!" the young man cried, impatiently, "what has May Everard done that you should treat her like this?"
"Nothing; and I love her dearly, and you know it. But she is not suited to you—she is not the woman you should marry." ”

“ The years had gone by like a slow dream; life was stagnant enough in St. Gosport, doubly stagnant at Thetford Towers, whose mistress rarely went abroad beyond her own gates, save when she took her little son out for an airing in the pony phaeton.
She had taken him out for one of those airings on a July afternoon, when he had nearly accomplished his seventh year. They had driven seaward some miles from the manor-house, and Lady Thetford and her little boy had got out, and were strolling leisurely up and down the hot, white stands, while the groom waited with the pony-phaeton just within sight. ”