The Mad Love Part 38

After that evening in the Alhambra he never kissed her; he never sought any _tete-a-tete_ with her. She had had many lovers, as was only natural for a beauty and a great heiress. None of them had been so cool, so self-contained as Lord Chandos.

Lady Lanswell managed well; she ought to have been empress of some great nation; her powers of administration were so great. She persuaded them to have the wedding in the month of September, and to travel until that came.

"It will be a change from the common custom," she said; "most people are married in England, and go to the Continent for their honey-moon; you will be married in the Continent, and go to England for the honey-moon."

It was some little disappointment to Lady Marion; like all girls she had thought a great deal of her marriage. She had always fancied it in the grand old church at Erskine, where the n.o.ble men and women of her race slept their last sleep, where the Erskines for many generations had been married. She had fancied a long train of fair, young bridemaids, a troop of fair, fond children strewing flowers; and now it would be quite different. Still she was content; she was marrying the man whom she loved more than any one, or anything else in the world.

She had wondered so much why the countess desired the wedding to take place in Paris. She had even one day ventured to ask her, and Lady Lanswell answered first by kissing her, then by telling her that it was best for Lord Chandos. That was quite enough to content the loving heart, if it were better for him in any way. She did not inquire why.

She would sacrifice any wish or desire of her own.

So the day of the wedding came, and a grand ceremonial it was. The n.o.blest and most exclusive English in Paris attended it, and everything was after the wish of Lady Lanswell's heart. There had never been a fairer or more graceful bride. There had never been a handsomer or more gallant bridegroom. One thing struck the Countess of Lanswell and made her remember the day with a keen sense of pain, and it was this: when the bride retired to change her superb bridal dress for a traveling costume she had time to notice how white and ill her son looked. He was one of the most temperate of men; she did not remember that he had ever in his life been in the least degree the worse for wine, but she saw him go to the buffet and fill a small gla.s.s with strong brandy and drink it--even that, strong as it was, did not put any color into his face.

Then he came to speak to her. She looked anxiously at him.

"Lance," she said, "I do not like asking you the question--but--have you really been drinking brandy?"

She never forgot the bitter laugh that came from his lips.

"Yes, I have indeed, mother. It is just as well a gla.s.s of poison did not stand there; I should have drunk it."

She shuddered at the words, and it must be owned they were not cheerful ones for a wedding-day.

The bride and bridegroom drove away; slippers and rice were thrown after them. And the pity is that every woman inclined to put faith in the vows and promises of a man was not there to see how they were kept.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

"I LEAVE THEM MY HATRED AND MY CURSE."

Leone was alone when the letter of the Countess of Lanswell was delivered to her: she had been wondering for some days why no news came from Lord Chandos--why he did not write. She had written most urgent and affectionate letters to him, praying for news of him, telling him how bravely and happily she was bearing the separation from him, only longing to know something of him.

The warm, sultry month of August had set in, and she was working hard as ever; there was but one comfort to her in this long absence--the longer he was away from her, the more fit she should be to take her place as his wife when he did return. She felt now that she could be as stately as the Countess of Lanswell herself, with much more grace.

She had been thinking over her future when that letter came; it found her in the same pretty room where he had bidden her good-bye. When the maid entered with the letter on a salver, she had looked up with a quick, pa.s.sionate sense of pleasure. Perhaps this was to tell her when he would come. She seized the dainty envelope with a low cry of intense rapture.

"At last," she said to herself, "at last. Oh, my love, how could you be silent so long?"

Then she saw that it was not Lance's writing, but a hand that was quite strange to her. Her face paled even as she opened it; she turned to the signature before she read the letter; it was "Lucia, Countess of Lanswell." Then she knew that it was from her mortal enemy, the one on whom she had sworn revenge.

She read it through. What happened while she read it? The reapers were reaping in the cornfields, the wind had sunk to the lightest whisper, some of the great red roses fell dead, the leaves of the white lilies died in the heat of the sun, the birds were tired of singing; even the b.u.t.terflies had sunk, tired out, on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the flowers they loved; there was a golden glow over everything; wave after wave of perfume rose on the warm summer air; afar off one heard the song of the reaper, and the cry of the sailors as the ships sailed down the stream; there was life, light, lightness all around, and she stood in the middle of it, stricken as one dead, holding her death warrant in her hand. She might have been a marble statue as she stood there, so white, so silent, so motionless.

She read and reread it; at first she thought it must be a sorry jest; it could not be true, it was impossible. If she took up the Bible there, and the printed words turned blood-red before her eyes, it would be far less wonderful than that this should be true. A sorry, miserable jest some one had played her, but who--how? No, it was no jest.

She must be dreaming--horrible dreams come to people in their sleep; she should wake presently and find it all a black, blank dream. Yet, no--no dream, the laughing August sunlight lay all round her, the birds were singing, there was the flash of the deep river, with the pleasure-boats slowly drifting down the stream. It was no dream, it was a horrible reality; Lord Chandos, the lover whom she had loved with her whole heart, who ought, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances, to have given her even double the faith and double the love a husband gives his wife; he, who was bound to her even by the weakness of the tie that should have been stronger, had deserted her.

She did not cry out, she did not faint or swoon; she did not sink as she had done before, a senseless heap on the ground; she stood still, as a soldier stands sometimes when he knows that he has to meet his death blow.

Every vestige of color had faded from her face and lips; if the angel of death had touched her with his fingers, she could not have looked more white and still. Over and over again she read the words that took from her life its brightness and its hope, that slew her more cruelly than poison or steel, that made their way like winged arrows to her heart, and changed her from a tender, loving, pa.s.sionate girl to a vengeful woman.

Slowly she realized it, slowly the letter fell from her hands, slowly she fell on her knees.

"He has forsaken me!" she cried. "Oh, my G.o.d! he has forsaken me, and I cannot die!"

No one cares to stand by the wheel or the rack while some poor body is tortured to death; who can stand by while a human heart is breaking with the extremity of anguish? When such a grief comes to any one as to Leone, one stands by in silence; it is as though a funeral is pa.s.sing, and one is breathless from respect to the dead.

The best part of her died as she knelt there; the blue of the sky, the gold of the shining sun, the song of the birds, the sweet smell of flowers were never the same to her again. Almost all that was good and n.o.ble, brave and bright, died as she knelt there. When that letter reached her, she was, if anything, better than the generality of women.

She had n.o.ble instincts, grand ideas, great generosity, and self-sacrifice; it was as though a flame of fire came to her, and burned away every idea save one, and that was revenge.

"He loved me," she cried; "he loved me truly and well; but he was weak of purpose and my enemy has taken him from me."

Hours pa.s.sed--all the August sunlight died; the reapers went home, the cries of the sailors were stilled, the birds were silent and still. She sat there trying to realize that for her that letter had blotted the sun from the heavens and the light from her life; trying to understand that her brave, handsome, gallant young love was false to her, that he was going to marry another while she lived.

It was too horrible. She was his wife before G.o.d. They had only been parted for a short time by a legal quibble. How could he marry any one else?

She would not believe it. It was a falsehood that the proud mother had invented to part her from him. She would not believe it unless she heard it from others. She knew Mr. Sewell's private address; he would know if it were true; she would go and ask him.

Mr. Sewell was accustomed to tragedies, but even he felt in some degree daunted when that young girl with her colorless face and flashing eyes stood before him. She held out a letter.

"Will you read this?" she said, abruptly. "I received it to-day from Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, and I refuse to believe it."

He took the letter from her hands and read it, then looked at the still white face before him.

"Is it true?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, "perfectly true."

"Will you tell me who it is that is going to marry my husband?" she asked.

"If you mean will I tell you whom Lord Chandos is to marry, I am sorry to say my answer must be 'No.' I am not commissioned to do so. You may see it for yourself in the newspapers."

"Then it is true," she said slowly; "there is no jest, no doubt, no mistake about it?"

"No, none. And as you have shown me your letter," said Mr. Sewell, "I may as well show you the one I have received, and you may see for yourself what Lady Lanswell's intentions about you are. Take a chair,"

added the lawyer, "I did not notice that you were standing all this time; you took me by surprise. Pray be seated."

She took the chair which he had placed for her, and read the letter through. She laid it down on the table, her face calm, white, the fire in her eyes giving place to utter scorn.

"I thank you," she said. "The letter written you is cruel and unjust as the one written to me. I decline the thousand per annum now and for all time. My husband loved me and would have been quite true to me, but that his mother has intrigued to make him false. I refuse her help, her a.s.sistance in any way; but I will have my revenge. If I had money and influence I would sue for my rights--ah, and might win then. As it is, and for the present, I am powerless; but I will have my revenge. Tell Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, so from me."

The pa.s.sion, the dramatic force, the eager interest, the power of her beautiful face, struck him. In his heart he felt sorry for this girl, who he knew had been cruelly treated.

"I would not think about revenge," he said; "that is a kind of thing one reads about in novels and plays, but it is all out of date."

"Is it?" she asked, with a slow, strange smile.

"Yes. Take the advice of a sensible man who wishes to see you do well.

Yours is a false position, a cruel position; but make the best of it--take the thousand per annum, and enjoy your life."