The love child, p.28
The Love Child, page 28
“Ah! Dear ma’am!” cried Karr, and ran up to her to kiss her. He would have kissed her cheek, but she extended a hand to forestall him, as she frequently did.
“Kindly do not make a spectacle of this. I am only behaving according to the dictates of logic. A bride chosen from the populace cannot be welcomed into the family of a duke. A bride who is the daughter of an Italian peer and the grand-daughter of the Earl of Baddesleigh is another matter. Mind you, I have heard of more illustrious matches—with all due respect to Lady Stanton…but this one will serve.”
Karr turned to the assembled company, a broad smile upon his handsome lips. “You see how perfectly my mother has learned diplomacy? She yields, yet contrives to sound as if she yielded nothing.” And with this, he saluted her hand once more. “And now, if you will all pardon me, I think I must set out upon a journey.”
“At this hour, my son?” the duchess objected at once.
“This moment,” he replied, and turned to leave the room. Just as he did so, however, a knock was heard at the drawing-room doors. The servants, of course, had been instructed to allow no one to leave; so the footman who now entered did so carefully.
“Your Grace,” he said, going up to Karr directly. He murmured something to the master of the castle, then stood back respectfully.
“Providence!” exclaimed Karr; “the hand of Providence is in it. Yes, yes, man—let her in. Beg her to come in at once, I pray you.”
The footman went upon this errand while everyone stared at the duke. “One moment, one moment,” was all he would say. “You will see who it is.” And before five minutes had gone by, indeed, another knock was heard at the door, and Lotta Chilton passed in to the drawing-room.
“Dear sir,” she said, going up to Karr at once. “I had asked to see you alone.”
“Ah, my dear, how beautiful you are!” said Karr, fairly transported by her sudden reappearance. And she did look beautiful, in truth: she wore travelling clothes, and had evidently come a good distance; but the excitement of seeing the duke again had brought an exquisite, delicate flush into her translucent cheeks, and a deep glow into her eyes. “Forgive me, but I could not greet you alone—you will see why in a moment. Mother, if you will be so good as to ask Miss Chilton your question—?”
Lotta, weary from her journey and with a score of emotions in her breast, hardly knew which way to turn. She had told the footman to beg for a private interview with His Grace; now, instead of that, she was faced with all the guests at Grasmere. Moreover, Karr appeared to wish her to submit to some sort of interrogation by the duchess. It was rather perplexing, but she did as the duke desired. “Your Grace?” she said, curtseying to the dowager.
“Miss Chilton,” said the duchess, without any sort of prologue, “what is your father’s name?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked the surprised young lady.
“Your father’s name,” repeated the duchess, glancing briefly at Miss Cawley. The suspense in the drawing-room was painful.
“My natural father?” asked Lotta.
“Good heavens yes, girl!” exclaimed Her Grace impatiently.
“Lodovico del Silandro,” Lotta answered at last, wonderingly. “But I don’t see—”
But Miss Chilton—or rather, Miss del Silandro—never got to finish this sentence. She was swept off her rather fatigued feet by His Grace, who rushed upon her with an unearthly whoop of joy. He was so excited that it was some minutes before she understood what significance her response had to their mutual future. “You will marry me, won’t you?” His Grace demanded abruptly, suddenly realizing that for all he knew, Lotta no longer desired to be his wife under any circumstances.
She spoke in a low tone, so that only he could hear her. “That is why I came,” she said. “I could not bear it any longer—I had to be near you. Will you forgive me for not answering your letters?” she added. “I was trying to forget you altogether, but as you can see, it was no use.”
Karr nodded a hearty affirmative, and took hold of her hand.
“And now, my dear,” Lotta continued, “try not to think me a simpleton, but I did not quite understand what you said about my parents. Why, exactly, am I now permitted to be your wife?”
His Grace regarded his betrothed in silence, then led her to where Lady Stanton sat. “Will you explain, madam?” he asked.
“Ah, my dear!” cried Lady Stanton, whose sentiments of pain and pleasure had never been more confused. “My dear, an explanation in a moment. But first—tell me when your father died. Do you know?”
Again, Lotta’s confoundment was as manifest as it was understandable. “When I was an infant,” she replied. “He was killed in an accident when I was two or three.”
“Two or three?” the other lady took up. “Not five? You are quite certain it was before you were five?”
“Quite certain,” said Lotta mildly. “Why?”
“Thank God, thank God,” rejoiced her ladyship. “Walker—can you imagine? Do you hear? It is all settled now; it is all done, and well done. Dear Amabel—dear Chauncey—your mother did not wrong you so terribly after all!” And after Lady Stanton had embraced both these children, she stood up and embraced her eldest (who was, reasonably, rather startled by the action). She asked Lotta to come out of the drawing-room with her and grant her a private interview; which having been accomplished, Lotta was informed of her own history where she could hear it without an audience. Karr, who could not bear to be away from his betrothed for very long, followed the two ladies half an hour later, and discovered them in the Rose Saloon, their hands joined and both pairs of eyes shining with tears. Lotta, who had thought her mother long dead, had never even considered the possibility of such an encounter as the one she now experienced, and the whole thing maintained the tenor of a dream for her for a number of days.
By the close of the following se’ennight, however, a good deal had been sorted out, and her sense of reality had returned to her. She explained to her new-found mother that her father, del Silandro, had left the baby with the Chiltons one day while he went on a brief excursion. The Chiltons, it seemed, were people whose acquaintance he had made after Lady Anne had quitted Italy. Though the journey he took was not long, the accident that befell him in its course was fatal. The Chiltons, having expected to keep the child several days, ended by keeping her twenty years. Whether del Silandro had run off with the infant in order to spare Lady Anne the discomfort of an ill-conceived marriage, or to spare himself, or for any other reason, Lotta could not say. She doubted indeed if the Chiltons knew, for it did not seem the sort of information del Silandro would have been likely to share.
Lady Stanton, to say truth, did not care a very great deal. It was enough to her to know that her daughter was alive and well, and to know that she had committed no sin through her second marriage. This latter fact had an interesting effect on the fate of the Countess Tremini: since the Stantons found (to their surprise) that in spite of everything they were not ruined, they rather lost their desire to press charges against the contessa. To bring her to justice, after all, would be to expose the irregularity of Lady Stanton’s youth to a public to whom she disliked to reveal such intelligence. It was decided, then, to allow the contessa to resume her adventuring as best she might. She was cautioned, though, that if any one of the guests then at Grasmere ever heard of her pursuing such criminal activities again, the Stantons would be informed of her relapse and would assuredly reveal the scheme she had worked against them. Unhappily, it was impossible to demand that she return the money she had extorted; she no longer had it. On the other hand, as Lady Stanton reflected contentedly, the Stantons were about to acquire a very wealthy son-in-law. “And the way Wyborn spoke, you know, about not crying off,” said her ladyship privately to her (second) husband, “I don’t think we need fret about the dowry.”
“My dear,” said his lordship, “we are about to acquire two very wealthy sons-in-law. Surely you don’t think Karr will let us starve!”
Lady Stanton looked at him, puzzled. “Karr? But he is to marry—oh dear! You are very right; I never even thought of it! And I never welcomed him to our family…How dreadful of me. Excuse me, my dear,” she smiled, rising. She gave Lord Stanton a light, gay kiss and tripped happily out of the room upon her errand, as glad and bright a girl again (in her heart at least) as either of her daughters.
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Fiona Hill, The Love Child
