The suit of my Lord of Dunstanwolde--if suit it was--during these months appeared to advance somewhat.All orders of surmises were made concerning it--that Mistress Clorinda had privately quarrelled with Sir John and sent him packing;that he had tired of his love-making,as 'twas well known he had done many times before,and having squandered his possessions and finding himself in open straits,must needs patch up his fortunes in a hurry with the first heiress whose estate suited him.But 'twas the women who said these things;the men swore that no man could tire of or desert such spirit and beauty,and that if Sir John Oxon stayed away 'twas because he had been commanded to do so,it never having been Mistress Clorinda's intention to do more than play with him awhile,she having been witty against him always for a fop,and meaning herself to accept no man as a husband who could not give her both rank and wealth.
"We know her,"said the old boon companions of her childhood,as they talked of her over their bottles."She knew her price and would bargain for it when she was not eight years old,and would give us songs and kisses but when she was paid for them with sweet things and knickknacks from the toy-shops.She will marry no man who cannot make her at least a countess,and she would take him but because there was not a duke at hand.We know her,and her beauty's ways."But they did not know her;none knew her,save herself.
In the west wing,which grew more bare and ill-furnished as things wore out and time went by,Mistress Anne waxed thinner and paler.
She was so thin in two months'time,that her soft,dull eyes looked twice their natural size,and seemed to stare piteously at people.
One day,indeed,as she sat at work in her sister's room,Clorinda being there at the time,the beauty,turning and beholding her face suddenly,uttered a violent exclamation.
"Why look you at me so?"she said."Your eyes stand out of your head like a new-hatched,unfeathered bird's.They irk me with their strange asking look.Why do you stare at me?""I do not know,"Anne faltered."I could not tell you,sister.My eyes seem to stare so because of my thinness.I have seen them in my mirror.""Why do you grow thin?"quoth Clorinda harshly."You are not ill.""I--I do not know,"again Anne faltered."Naught ails me.I do not know.For--forgive me!"Clorinda laughed.
"Soft little fool,"she said,"why should you ask me to forgive you?
I might as fairly ask you to forgive ME,that I keep my shape and show no wasting."Anne rose from her chair and hurried to her sister's side,sinking upon her knees there to kiss her hand.
"Sister,"she said,"one could never dream that you could need pardon.I love you so--that all you do,it seems to me must be right--whatsoever it might be."Clorinda drew her fair hands away and clasped them on the top of her head,proudly,as if she crowned herself thereby,her great and splendid eyes setting themselves upon her sister's face.
"All that I do,"she said slowly,and with the steadfast high arrogance of an empress'self--"All that I do IS right--for me.Imake it so by doing it.Do you think that I am conquered by the laws that other women crouch and whine before,because they dare not break them,though they long to do so?I am my own law--and the law of some others."It was by this time the first month of the summer,and to-night there was again a birth-night ball,at which the beauty was to dazzle all eyes;but 'twas of greater import than the one she had graced previously,it being to celebrate the majority of the heir to an old name and estate,who had been orphaned early,and was highly connected,counting,indeed,among the members of his family the Duke of Osmonde,who was one of the richest and most envied nobles in Great Britain,his dukedom being of the oldest,his numerous estates the most splendid and beautiful,and the long history of his family full of heroic deeds.This nobleman was also a distant kinsman to the Earl of Dunstanwolde,and at this ball,for the first time for months,Sir John Oxon appeared again.
He did not arrive on the gay scene until an hour somewhat late.But there was one who had seen him early,though no human soul had known of the event.
In the rambling,ill-cared for grounds of Wildairs Hall there was an old rose-garden,which had once been the pride and pleasure of some lady of the house,though this had been long ago;and now it was but a lonely wilderness where roses only grew because the dead Lady Wildairs had loved them,and Barbara and Anne had tended them,and with their own hands planted and pruned during their childhood and young maiden days.But of late years even they had seemed to have forgotten it,having become discouraged,perchance,having no gardeners to do the rougher work,and the weeds and brambles so running riot.There were high hedges and winding paths overgrown and run wild;the stronger rose-bushes grew in tangled masses,flinging forth their rich blooms among the weeds;such as were more delicate,struggling to live among them,became more frail and scant-blossoming season by season;a careless foot would have trodden them beneath it as their branches grew long and trailed in the grass;but for many months no foot had trodden there at all,and it was a beauteous place deserted.
In the centre was an ancient broken sun-dial,which was in these days in the midst of a sort of thicket,where a bold tangle of the finest red roses clambered,and,defying neglect,flaunted their rich colour in the sun.
And though the place had been so long forgotten,and it was not the custom for it to be visited,about this garlanded broken sun-dial the grass was a little trodden,and on the morning of the young heir's coming of age some one stood there in the glowing sunlight as if waiting.