Only a Girl's Love. Garvice Charles
very glad you have, it won't be so lonely for Mr. Etheridge. And is there anything else you want, miss? You must excuse me for bringing you into my own room; I'll have a room ready for you to-night, your own room, and the luggage, miss——"
Stella smiled and blushed faintly.
"I have none, Mrs. Penfold. I ran—I left quite suddenly."
"Dearie me!" murmured Mrs. Penfold, puzzled and sympathetic. "Well, now, it doesn't matter so long as you are here, safe, and sound. And now I'll go and get you something to eat! You can find your way down?"
"Yes," Stella said. She could find her way down. She stood for a moment looking through the window, her long hair falling in a silky stream down her white shoulders, and the soft, dreamy look came into her eyes.
"Is it true?" she murmured. "Am I really here at home with someone to love me—someone whom I can love? Or is it only a dream, and shall I wake in the cold bare room and find that I have still to endure the old life? No! It is no dream, it is true!"
She wound up the long hair and went down to find that Mrs. Penfold had already prepared the table, her uncle standing beside and waiting with gentle impatience for her appearance.
He started as she entered, with a distinct feeling of renewed surprise; the relief from uncertainty as to her welcome, the kindness of her reception had already refreshed her, and her beauty shone out unclouded by doubt or nervousness.
The old man's eyes wandered with artistic approval over the graceful form and lovely face, and he was almost in the land of dreams again when Mrs. Penfold roused him by setting a chair at the table, and handing him a cobwebbed bottle and a corkscrew.
"Miss Stella must be starving, sir!" she said, suggestively.
"Yes, yes," he assented, and both of them set to work exhorting and encouraging her to eat, as if they feared she might drop under the table with exhaustion unless she could be persuaded to eat of everything on the table.
Mr. Etheridge seemed to place great faith in the old port as a restorative, and had some difficulty in concealing his disappointment when Stella, after sipping the first glass, declined any more on the score that it was strong.
At last, but with visible reluctance, he accepted her assertion that she was rescued from any chance of starvation, and Mrs. Penfold cleared the table and left them alone.
A lamp stood on the table, but the moonbeams poured in through the window, and instinctively Stella drew near the window.
"What a lovely place it is, uncle!" she said.
He did not answer, he was watching her musingly, as she leant against the edge of the wall.
"You must be very happy here."
"Yes," he murmured, dreamily. "Yes, and you think you will be, Stella."
"Ah, yes," she answered, in a low voice, and with a low sigh. "Happier than I can say."
"You will not feel it lonely, shut up with an old man, a dreamer, who has parted with the world and almost forgotten it?"
"No, no! a thousand times no!" was the reply.
He wandered to the fireplace and took up his pipe, but with a sudden glance at her laid it down again. Slight as was the action she saw it, and with the graceful, lithe movement which he had noticed, she glided across the room and took up the pipe.
"You were going to smoke, uncle."
"No, no," he said, eagerly. "No, a mere habit——"
She interrupted him with a smile, and filled the pipe for him with her taper little fingers, and gave it to him.
"You do not want me to wish that I had not come to you uncle?"
"Heaven forbid!" he said, simply.
"Then you must not alter anything in your life; you must go on as if I had never dropped from the clouds to be a burden upon you."
"My child!" he murmured, reproachfully.
"Or to make you uncomfortable. I could not bear that, uncle."
"No, no!" he said, "I will alter nothing, Stella; we will be happy, you and I."
"Very happy," she murmured, softly.
He wandered to the window, and stood looking out; and, unseen by him, she drew a chair up and cleared it of the litter, and unconsciously he sat down.
Then she glided to and fro, wandering round the room noiselessly, looking at the curious lumber, and instinctively picking up the books and putting them in something like order on the almost empty shelves.
Every now and then she took up one of the pictures which stood with their faces to the wall, and her gaze would wander from it to the painter sitting in the moonlight, his white hair falling on his shoulders, his thin, nervous hands clasped on his knee.
She, who had spent her life in the most artistic city of the world, knew that he was a great painter, and, child-woman as she was, wondered why the world permitted him to remain unknown and unnoticed. She had yet to learn that he cared as little for fame as he did for wealth, and to be allowed to live for his art and dream in peace was all he asked from the world in which he lived but in which he took no part. Presently she came back to the window, and stood beside him; he started slightly and put out his hand, and she put her thin white one into it. The moon rose higher in the heavens, and the old man raised his other hand and pointed to it in silence.
As he did so, Stella saw glide into the scene—as it was touched by the moonbeams—a large white building rearing above the trees on the hill-top, and she uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"What house is that, uncle? I had no idea one was there until this moment!"
"That is Wyndward Hall, Stella," he replied, dreamily; "it was hidden by the shadow and the clouds."
"What a grand place!" she murmured. "Who lives there uncle?"
"The Wyndwards," he answered, in the same musing tone, "the Wyndwards. They have lived there for hundreds of years, Stella. Yes, it is a grand place."
"We should call it a palace in Italy, uncle."
"It is a palace in England, but we are more modest. They are contented to call it the Hall. An old place and an old race."
"Tell me about them," she said, quietly. "Do you know them—are they friends of yours?"
"I know them. Yes, they are friends, as far as there be any friendship between a poor painter and the Lord of Wyndward. Yes, we are friends; they call them proud, but they are not too proud to ask James Etheridge to dinner occasionally; and they accuse him of pride because he declines to break the stillness of his life by accepting their hospitality. Look to the left there, Stella. As far as you can see stretch the lands of Wyndward—they run for miles between the hills there."
"They have some reason to be proud," she murmured, with a smile. "But I like them because they are kind to you."
He nodded.
"Yes, the earl would be more than kind, I think——"
"The earl?"
"Yes, Lord Wyndward, the head of the family; the Lord of Wyndward they call him. They have all been called Lords of Wyndward by the people here, who look up to them as if they were something more than human."
"And does he live there alone?" she asked, gazing at the gray stone mansion glistening in the moonlight.
"No, there is a Lady Wyndward, and a daughter—poor girl."
"Why do you say poor girl?" asked Stella.
"Because all the wealth of the race would not make her otherwise than an object of tender pity. She is an invalid; you see that window—the one with the light in it?"
"Yes," Stella said.
"That