Lord Trafford went down with Lord Selvaine to Belfayre next day. During the journey of a little over five hours Trafford was very thoughtful—he was never at any time very talkative, though he could on occasion be as bright and light-hearted as most young men—and he sat in his corner of the carriage with a magazine in his hand; but the page did not get turned very often.
Marry Miss Chetwynde! It was a momentous sentence. It meant so much. Some men regard marriage lightly; they look upon it as a necessity, a duty, more or less pleasant, which has to be performed, and there’s an end of it. But Trafford, Marquis of Trafford, was rather different to the ordinary run of men. With him marriage was a sacred thing, and a marriage without love a hideous business. If he could have married where he pleased, he would have asked Ada Lancing to be his wife. They had known each other since childhood; she had called him more than once, in girlish play, her husband. He was a modest man, without an ounce of vanity, but he suspected that she loved him. But he had known all along that a marriage with Ada Lancing was impossible.
She was the daughter of a Scotch peer, as poor as he was proud—and to those who can boast acquaintance with Scotch peers this will say a great deal.
If Trafford had been a wealthy man, if he had possessed,[87] or was going to inherit, one fortieth of the wealth that used to flow into the Belfayre coffers, he would have asked Ada Lancing to be his wife long ago. Both she and he knew that it was impossible, and both of them must have foreseen that sooner or later Trafford would have to marry money.
But he had never had the inevitable fact brought home to him so plainly until last night. Lord Selvaine had, so to speak, driven the steel home.
Marry Miss Chetwynde!
Trafford recalled her as he gazed at the page that he certainly was not reading. He could not deny that she was very beautiful; indeed, he was ready to admit that she was the loveliest girl he had ever seen; Lord Selvaine had said that she was charming; and Trafford had not been insensible to the charm which lay in Esmeralda’s perfect self-unconsciousness and freshness. An atmosphere of the mountains, of the wide, free valleys from whence she had come, seemed to surround her. Her very movements, the turn of her head, the gestures of her shapely hand, were eloquent of the free, untrammeled life which she had lived. The frank, candid eyes looked up at him from the printed page, and seemed to look reproachfully, as if she knew the nature of the sordid bargain he was advised to offer her.
After all, it was very easy to say, “Marry Miss Chetwynde;” but was it so easy to accomplish? Would she marry him? He was a man of the world, and he knew that there were very few women who would refuse an offer of his hand, though it contained a coronet with the jewels missing; but perhaps this girl from the wilds was one of those few?
He threw the magazine away from him, and looked wearily out of the window. Lord Selvaine glanced at him pensively. Lord Selvaine never read during a journey, and was far too wise to bore himself and his companion by straining his voice in an attempt to talk through the rattle of the train. He smoked an occasional cigarette, and passed a portion of the time in peaceful slumber. Looking at him one would have imagined him to be the most innocent and unsophisticated, middle-aged young gentleman in the world; but his acute brain was hard at work, and it is scarcely too much to say that he was following every train of thought as it passed through Trafford’s mind.
He was the master-mind of the Belfayre family, and had always guided its destinies since he was quite a young man; but it was not a very easy task to guide Trafford, and Lord Selvaine did not underestimate the task he had undertaken.[88] He had been very careful not to mention Miss Chetwynde’s name that morning, and he looked as placid and serene as if he were quite unconscious of the problem which his companion was turning over and over in his mind.
When they reached Belmont, which is about four miles from Belfayre, they found a heavy barouche and pair, with its full complement of liveried servants, awaiting them. They were received on the station with a respectful attention, which was as marked and as freely offered as if they had been royal personages; the station-master fluttered forward, the porters hurried after the luggage, and the footmen stood at the carriage door to assist the illustrious travelers to alight.
Lord Selvaine received all this obsequious attention quite easily, and as if it were his due; but Trafford, although he had been used to it all his life, always found it rather irksome. He got out of the carriage unaided, and nodded to the saluting porters, and looked at the heavy chariot with an expression of distaste.
“I think I’ll walk, Selvaine,” he said.
“Do,” said Lord Selvaine, cheerfully. “It will give you an appetite; I’ve a good mind to accompany you, but”—with his little smile—“I’ve a better mind to ride.”
Trafford walked off with his easy stride, and Lord Selvaine, as the carriage rolled by, waved his hand with a pleasant smile. The road from the station to Belfayre is one of the most beautiful in England. It runs through leafy lanes with banks upon which the ferns grow as luxuriantly as if they were in Lady Blankyre’s conservatory. After a mile or two it emerges from the lane and crosses a heath almost Scotch in its extent and coloring.
Beyond the heath the road climbs a hill, upon the brow of which stands the great house or palace of Belfayre, its white vastness standing out so conspicuously that it dominates, but not vulgarly, the whole scene.
On the left of Trafford lay the sea, shining as blue as a sapphire, and rolling softly in upon the sands of Belfayre Bay. On the right stretch, for mile upon mile, meadows and park, park and meadows. The village lay behind Belfayre. Every inch of the land for miles—the golden sands beneath him, the softly undulating hills, the red cliffs, all belonged to the great duke—or the money-lenders.
Every inch of the village, every house, cottage, inn—it might almost be said every man, woman and child—belonged to Belfayre—or the money-lenders.
Now and again a shepherd or a small farmer, or a woman[89] with a little child, or a boy with a sack, met him, and they, one and all, knew him, and stood aside to let him pass, touching their hats or courtesying with silent respect as if he were a prince; and now and again Trafford stopped and said a few words in his pleasant, grave voice, and the individuals thus favored went on their way glowing with pride to tell, as quickly as they could, how they had just met the marquis, and that he had spoken to them “quite friendly and sociable-like.”
When he reached the first lodge, an exquisitely beautiful little building, kept with such scrupulous neatness—the ivy closely clipped, the lattice windows shining like diamonds, the stone mullion white and spotless, the garden like a toy, with its spring flowers—that it looked as if it had been built yesterday, instead of a century ago, the lodge-keeper’s wife came out and opened the gates, and courtesied with a subdued little smile, as if she were glad to see him, but wouldn’t for the world be so disrespectful as to show it.
Trafford paused a moment to ask after her husband and children, then went on his way. He walked on a broad road of carefully laid gravel, rolled and swept until its surface was almost as smooth as marble. Noble elms, carefully tended, formed an avenue whose branches made a green arch high above his head. Between the trees he could still catch glimpses of the sapphire sea; the red deer fled as he approached, a rabbit scuttled across his path. The avenue wound round in serpentine lengths, making the ascent to the house easy; and suddenly the great place came into view.
It looked like marble as it shone in the sunlight and the clear air. Since a grateful nation had bestowed Belfayre upon the famous man who first bore the title, successive owners had added to and enriched it, until it had become a palace of which England, the land of palaces, was proud, and to which foreigners and Americans—who are not foreigners—made eager pilgrimage. The road opened out into a vast semi-circle, from this rose a flight of white marble steps, which led to the wide terrace, also of marble, upon which stood marvels of statuary, collected at fabulous cost from the ancient homes of art.
The palace rose from the terrace, and was not unlike a Greek temple in its grand severity. The door-way, flanked by the long line of tall windows, was almost as vast as that of a cathedral, and was fronted by a porch of carved marble, and a peristyle of such beauty that travelers always found it[90] difficult to pass it even for the treasures of art which were enshrined in the house beyond.
Trafford stood on the terrace, and looked round at the magnificent scene gravely and sadly. It was all so splendid, so eloquent of power, and wealth, and human greatness; and yet, what a mockery it was! The power, the wealth, the greatness, where were they? If they had not already passed, they were swiftly passing away.
He entered the vast hall. Coming from the bright sunlight o............