LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE".
CHAPTER XXXIX.RIVALRY.
Was it a scene of enchantment?—such as those we read of in the Arabian Nights? Indeed it seemed like it. The assembly rooms, brilliant with light, with garlands, with mirrors and beautiful statues, were thrown open to the outside, where the hanging terraces, redolent with the perfume of the night flowers, reposed so calmly in the moonlight. If only from the contrast, the scene would have told upon the heart and upon the senses. The garish rooms, speaking of the world and its votaries, hot, noisy, turbulent in their gaiety; the calm cool night, lying clear and still under the starred canopy of the blue heavens! Fairy forms were flitting in the rooms, strains of the sweetest music charmed the ear; hearts were beating, pulses quickening; and care, in that one dizzy spot, seemed to have gone from the world.
These Seaford assembly rooms were made gay for that one night. A fête in aid of some local charity had been projected, and the first names amidst the visitors at Seaford were down as patrons of it. The Right Honourable the Countess of Oakburn's headed the list, and amidst the rest might be read those of Lieutenant-General and Mrs. Vaughan. The Vaughans and the Oakburn family had become acquainted. General Vaughan's eldest son came to join them at Seaford, and he remembered his one night of introduction years before to Lord Oakburn's house. Lady Grey and Mrs. Vaughan were also intimate—the intimacy, you know, that we form at watering places, warm while it lasts, but ceasing when the sojourn is over. So Lucy Chesney and Miss Helen Vaughan had been brought into repeated contact, and—if the truth must be told—desperately jealous were they of each other. Lucy heard the rumours obtaining in Seaford—that Mr. Frederick Grey was "in love" with Helen Vaughan. She looked around her and saw, or thought she saw, many proofs to confirm it. That Frederick Grey was the one object of attraction to half the young ladies staying at Seaford could not be disputed; the chief part of his time was spent with them without any seeking of his own. They sought him; they laid their pretty little plans to meet him, to form engagements with him, to get him to their side. In the morning lounge, on the sands, in the walk, in the ride or drive of the afternoon, in some of the réunions of gaiety of the night, there would he be with some or other of them; more especially would he be with Helen Vaughan. Do not fancy he disliked it, although it was the fault of the young ladies more than of his; Frederick Grey was no more insensible to the charms of pretty girls than are other men.
And Lucy saw all this; saw it with the bitterest pain, with fierce resentment. It might be, that things looked a great deal worse to her than they would have looked to unprejudiced eyes, for jealousy, you remember, makes the food it feeds on. He had not spoken to her; he had not told her that he loved; and it may be excused to Lucy if she took up the notion that he never had loved her; that the sweet consciousness that it was so, recently filling her heart, had been altogether a mistake; and her cheeks tingled at the thought with a scarlet shame.
Frederick Grey himself helped on the delusion. Lucy's manners had so altered to him, had become so unaccountably cold and haughty, that he was avoiding her in very resentment.
Ah, who knew?—the intricacies of this subtle heart of ours are so cunningly profound!—it might be that this haunting of the other demoiselles, this making love to them—if his flirtations could be called such—was but done to plague Lucy Chesney, and bring her love back to him. In the midst of it all, Lady Oakburn had become acquainted with the state of affairs. By the merest accident, her eyes, so long shut, were suddenly opened, and she saw that Lucy loved Frederick Grey. She had little doubt that he returned the love; she as little doubted that the passion was of some standing. There occurred to her dismayed memory the intimacy that had subsisted between them all in town; the interviews without number, in which he could have made love to Lucy had he chosen so to do.
The countess sat down aghast. She liked Frederick Grey herself beyond anyone she knew; but what of Lady Jane? Would she deem him a suitable parti for Lucy? Would she not rather condemn him as entirely unsuitable?—and how should she herself answer to Lady Jane for her lax care of Lucy? Care?—as applied to love? Lady Oakburn in her self-condemnation forgot that the one is rarely a preventive to the other. She did the best that she could do. In her open straightforwardness she wrote that hasty letter