He laid two or three fine photographs of Virgie, taken in different att.i.tudes, before her, as he concluded, and then leaned back in his chair watching her attentively to see what effect that beautiful face would have upon her.
Her ladyship adjusted her eyegla.s.ses with English precision, and taking up one of the pictures regarded it with all the indifference which she could muster. She was not, however, quite prepared for what she saw; and the quick, curious, half-admiring gleam which shot into her eye told that she had not failed to acknowledge the exceeding loveliness of that fair face, and the natural grace and dignity displayed in the young wife"s att.i.tude.
She took up each picture separately, and her brother could see her indifference gradually melting away, a keen and critical look taking its place.
"Who was she?" she at length condescended to ask, though somewhat curtly.
"The daughter of a California gentleman," Sir William answered, quietly.
"A California gentleman!" with a scornful accent upon the last word.
"You speak of him as of an equal."
"Certainly," returned the baronet, a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt slightly curling his lips, "Mr. Abbot was my equal, if not my superior, in point of intellect, and all that goes to make a gentleman, while his daughter is in no wise my inferior."
"How can you make such an absurd statement, William?" demanded his sister, impatiently. "The idea of an American plebeian being the equal of a Heath of Heathdale!"
Sir William laughed outright; then he said:
"Your loyalty to your family does you credit, Miriam, but I imagine, if you should ever visit America--which I trust for your own sake, you will do some time--that you will return much wiser than you went. Your ideas regarding people and things, in that grand republic are very crude and incorrect. But how do you like the face that I have shown you?"
"The face is well enough," Lady Linton was forced to admit.
There is nothing weak about it?"
"N-o."
"It is not lacking in intelligence or character?"
"Not so far as I am able to judge from a simple picture", the woman confessed, rather reluctantly.
"And yet it does not flatter her; you do not often see a face like that even among the n.o.ble families of England, and she is as lovely in mind as in person," said Sir William, fondly, as he took up one of the photographs and gazed upon it with his heart in his eyes.
"Humph! if you are so proud of your American bride, why did you not bring her home with you?" Lady Linton inquired, in a mocking tone, and then could have bitten her tongue through for having allowed herself to betray her curiosity so far.
Sir William flushed hotly. It was evident that his sister was no more reconciled since seeing Virgie"s pictures than before. Her pride of birth had received a shock which she could neither overlook nor forgive.
"Lady Heath was not able to travel. Her physician told me that if she crossed the ocean it would be at the risk of her life. Miriam, Virgie will soon become a mother, G.o.d willing."
Lady Linton started and shot a swift look of astonishment at her brother upon this unexpected announcement.
This information was disagreeable in the extreme, for it made certain plans, which her fertile brain had begun to weave as soon as she had learned that her brother had returned without his wife, all the more complicated, if not well-nigh impossible.
"It was a great trial for me to return without her," Sir William went on, with a regretful sigh, "but your summons was so very imperative that I felt obliged to do so. My darling bore it very bravely, however; she regarded it as my duty to hasten to my mother, even though she would be left alone, a stranger in a great city, and at such a critical time."
"Of course it was your duty to return to our mother," Lady Linton responded emphatically, as if the young wife away upon the other side of the Atlantic was not worthy of consideration. "And," she added, flashing a look of defiance at her companion, "I am free to confess to a feeling of relief that you had to come alone--"
"Miriam, I--"
"Hear me out, if you please," she interposed. "Mamma"s heart has been nearly broken at the thought of this ill-a.s.sorted marriage, and I believe the excitement and grief would have killed her outright, if you had brought her," with a withering glance at Virgie"s picture, "to Heathdale to reign as mistress."
Sir William was tried almost beyond endurance. It was more than a minute before he could control himself sufficiently to speak, after his sister"s insulting remarks regarding his marriage.
"Miriam," he at length said, in a voice that made her quail in spite of her effrontery, "you will please never speak like this again; it is, both to my wife and me, an insult which I will not tolerate. Virgie is a lady in every sense of the word; even my critical mother could pick no flaw in her were she to see her, and the moment that I am at liberty to do so I shall return to the United States and bring my darling back with me. And let me here repeat what I said a while ago--I expect and demand that she be received with all proper respect by the entire household."
"The household knows nothing of your marriage."
"What!" cried the young baronet, astonished.
"No one, save mamma and I, knows anything of this--this alliance."
"By whose authority have you kept such a matter secret?" Sir William demanded, in great wrath.
"We--we thought it best," faltered his sister, shrinking beneath his anger--she had never seen him so aroused before. "Mamma was so unhappy, and I was so--so unreconciled, that we determined to wait until you wrote definitely regarding your coming."
"You have overstepped all bounds, you have presumed beyond excuse,"
retorted her brother, in a voice of thunder. "I know that you are my senior by fifteen years, and as a boy I was taught to look up to you, and to render you the respect due an elder. But I am a child no longer. I am a man, and you forget that I am not only my own master, but the master of Heathdale as well. I have a right to choose for myself in all matters, and you are not to consider that I am in leading strings, as I was before your marriage, when you exercised, to a certain extent, authority over me. And now if--I abhor thrifts, but I wish you to distinctly understand me--if you cannot bring yourself to regard my marriage in a proper and sensible light, and make up your mind to receive my wife as becomes a sister of the house, the doors of Heathdale will henceforth be closed to you."
Lady Linton was astounded at this outburst.
Her brother, heretofore, had always been a pattern of amiability and gentleness, and had allowed her to have her own way mostly in the house.
In minor matters she had always ruled him, and she had never imagined that he could rise to such a height as this.
She saw that she had gone too far, that she must change her tactics, or forever lose all influence with him, and make an enemy of him.
She could ill afford to do this for several reasons.
She was the widow of Lord Percival Linton, who had married her chiefly for her large dowry.
He had been a fast, unprincipled man, who had run through his own property and most of hers before death put an end to his mad career.
They had one son, Percy, and a daughter, Lillian, and Lady Linton, with her two children, had been largely dependent upon the generosity of her brother ever since her husband"s death, and he was even now bearing all the expense of the education of his nephew and niece.
They had made their home chiefly at Heathdale, because Lady Linton"s pride could not tolerate life at Linton Grange when they had no means to keep it up in proper style, and it was very pleasant and comfortable to be in her brother"s home, where there was abundance of everything, and where she had been allowed to manage the household in her own way.
It would therefore be very mortifying to have its hospitable doors closed against her, and, finding herself liable to be ignominiously checkmated if she persisted in her present course, she resolved to "right about face"
with the greatest grace possible, at least until she was obliged to yield her position to the future mistress of Heathdale.
"Fie, William, don"t allow yourself to get in such a pa.s.sion," she said, in a conciliatory tone. "Perhaps I have expressed myself more freely than I ought, but you ought to make allowance for our great disappointment.
Remember that you are the pride of an old and honored family, and it is but natural that we should wish you to marry in your own station. But do not fear. When Lady Heath comes to take her place as mistress here she shall be received in a becoming manner."
Her ladyship arose as she ceased speaking, her eye falling as she did so upon the lovely upturned face upon the table, and she vowed in her heart that if she could prevent it, the girl should never set her foot over the threshold of Heathdale.
How she was to carry out this vow she had as yet no idea; but all the malice and enmity of her heart had been aroused against her, and it should go hard with her if she could not find some way to vent it upon her.
"Thank you, Miriam," Sir William responded, as he opened the door for his sister to pa.s.s out, but he spoke somewhat coldly.
He could not lightly forgive and overlook the scorn that had been heaped upon the darling of his heart, while the fact that his marriage had been kept a secret angered him exceedingly, and placed him in a very unpleasant position.