CHAPTER XVIII.THE LADY OF MARSTON COURT.
I sprang forward like a hunted animal, through ante-rooms, chambers, halls, and galleries. At last I stood panting and wild as an uncaged bird, in what seemed a little summer parlor, opening upon the most blooming nook of a flower garden. Broad sash windows led to the ground, flooding the room with cheerful light. If I remember correctly, for nothing but a dizzy sense of luxurious elegance reached me at the time, the apartment was filled with rich, old-fashioned furniture, which required the graceful relief of embroidered cushions, and a lavish supply of flowers to make it so cheerful as it seemed.
All the doors in that house opened without noise, and, though I rushed in madly enough, the carpets were too thick for any sound of my tumultuous approach to precede me. A lady sat in one of the low windows reading. I started and held my breath—not from fear, that from infancy had been a sentiment unknown to me—but a terrible sensation, which even now I can neither explain nor describe, seized upon me. The face of that woman was the one I had seen, in the miniature. The same grandeur of forehead, the same eyes—not beautiful in repose, but full of all the latent elements of beauty. The same blended strength and sweetness in the mouth and chin was there.
She was in deep mourning. A crape bonnet and veil lay on the sofa by her side, and her golden hair contrasted with the sweeping sable of her bombazine dress. She was neither handsome nor young, yet the strange mesmeric influence that surrounded that woman had a thousand times more power over those who could feel it, than youth or the most perfect loveliness of form and features could have secured. Her influence over me was a sort of enchantment. I held my breath, and remember feeling a deep sentiment of pity for my mother. I had no reason for this, and was a mere child in all things, but the moment my eyes fell on that woman they filled with tears of compassion for my mother.
She was reading and did not know of my presence; but after a moment Lord Clare came hastily forward in pursuit of me, and though his footsteps gave forth no sound, and his movements were less rapid than mine, I could see that shefelthis approach; for her pale cheek grew scarlet, and I saw the book tremble like a leaf in her hand. He passed me, for I stood close to the wall, and entered the room before she looked up. Then their eyes met, and hers, oh, how warmly they sparkled beneath the drooping lids after that first glance!
Lord Clare checked his footsteps, stood a moment irresolute, then advanced toward her. She rose, and I saw that both trembled, and their voices were so broken that some murmured words passed between them which escaped me. The first sentence that I understood was from the lady.
“I thought that your sister had arrived, and drove over, notwithstanding your uncousinly neglect of my note.”
“She is expected every moment,” answered Lord Clare, in a gentle but firm voice, for his self-possession had returned.
He sat down as if forced to do the honors of his house, and made some cold inquiries after the lady’s health, but without looking at her. The lady was greatly agitated, I could see that plainly enough. Her color came and went, and if she attempted to speak, her lips trembled and uttered no sound. Her eyes were fixed upon Lord Clare, and, in my whole life, Ihave never seen anything so full of the soul’s grandeur as those eyes while they slowly filled with tears. They had not uttered a word for some moments, then with a quiver not only of the lips, but of all her features, she uttered his name.
“Clarence.”
He looked up shivering like a leaf to the sound, and well he might, for never did a proud woman’s soul go more eloquently forth in a single word.
“What would you with me, Lady Jane Morton?” he said, with that measured firmness which often precedes the breaking down of a man’s stern will.
“I would say,” answered Lady Jane, and the tears rolled one by one down her burning cheeks as she spoke, “I would say that my pride, my stubbornness has wronged you.”
“It has indeed,” was the still cold reply.
“I would—I would speak of my regret.”
“What can regret avail? Lady, tell me if you have the power—what can atone for years of wasted youth—affections trampled to the dust, a life disturbed?”
“Ah, Clarence.”
How strangely the name sounded. I had never heard it in my life before, and I am sure my poor mother was ignorant that he was called Clarence. This among the rest he had hoarded from her.
“Oh, Clarence, I feel—I have long felt how cruel, how ungrateful, how miserably proud I was—but I, I, do you thinkIhave not suffered?”
Lord Clare looked at her suddenly. An expression of painful surprise came over his pale features.
“Why should you have suffered?” he questioned, almost sternly, “because you pitied the man you had scorned?”
“Because I loved him!” The words seemed wrung from the very depths of her heart. Her face fell forward, and she buried its shame in her hands.
Lord Clare sprang to his feet. A glow of such joy as I have never seen on a human face before or since, transfiguredhim. His eyes absolutely blazed; and a smile, oh, the glory of that smile poured its sunshine over his features. It lasted but a moment, the next that beautiful joy went out. Some sharp memory convulsed his features, and he dropped back in his seat again. His eyes had fallen upon me.
She looked up and only saw the last miserable expression of his face. A faint groan burst from her lips, and you could see her noble form shrink with a sense of humiliation.
“I know—I know,” she cried, clasping her hands, and making a strong effort to subdue the anguish of disappointment that seized upon her—“my cruelty has done its work—even the poor privileges of friendship cannot be ours.”
“It is too late—too late,” said Lord Clare, turning his eyes almost fiercely upon my little form where it crouched by the wall.
“Still,” said Lady Jane, with more firmness, “I must not be condemned as heartless and unprincipled where my motives were all good, and my judgment only in fault. That which was self-sacrifice must not rest in your heart as perfidy. I was proud, unreasonable, but as I live all this was from a solemn conviction of right. I believed that the love you expressed for me”——
“Expressed!” said Lord Clare, in a tone of bitter reproach.
“Feltfor me then—for I am satisfied that you did love me once.”
Here Lady Jane’s assumed strength gave way. When we speak of love as a thing that has been, what woman’s heart is there which does not swell with regret?
“I did love you,” said Lord Clare, turning his eyes away from the sight of her tears.
“And do so no longer?” was the earnest, almost supplicating reply. How full of soul that woman was—what strange fascination lay about her!
“It is too late—I cannot.” He met the expression of her eyes, those pleading, wonderful eyes, and added, “I dare not!”
She understood him. She felt that her empire in that heart was there still, though it might be in ruins. Still she struggled hard to suppress the exhibition of this wild delight, but it broke through her tears like lightning among rain-drops. It dimpled her mouth—oh, shewasbeautiful then! She strove to conceal this heart-tumult, and kept her eyes upon the floor, but the lids glowed like rose-leaves, and flashes as if from great diamonds came through her dark lashes. Yes—yes, she was beautiful then! One moment of expression like that is worth a life-time of the symmetrical prettiness which ordinary men admire in common-place women. With the conviction of his continued affection Lady Jane recovered much of her composure. Her manner, unconsciously perhaps to herself, became gentle, pleading, almost tender. If she wept, smiles brightened through her tears. Now and then her voice was almost playful, and once as she lifted her eyes to his, there was a faint reflection of her mood upon Lord Clare’s face. Alas! my poor mother!
“We may never mention this subject again,” she said, with sweet meekness, “and now let me say one word in my own exculpation. We were inmates of the same family—you full of youth in its first bright vigor—I your elder by some years. It was a safe companionship—our families never dreamed of danger. I full of worldly wisdom, strong in the untaxed strength of a heart that had never truly loved, but fancied itself tried to the utmost, would have smiled in scorn had any one predicted that which followed. You loved me notwithstanding my years, my want of beauty, my poverty, you loved me—and I loved you—God only knows how completely, how fatally!”
“Go on,” said Lord Clare, who listened breathlessly.
“You,” continued Lady Jane, “brave, noble, generous, had no dread, no false shame. You would have made me lady of this mansion, the partaker of your bright young life. You gloried in the passion that won forgetfulness of all disparity between us, believing that it would secure happiness to usboth. You offered me a hand which the proudest lady of England would have gloried in accepting. Listen to me, Clarence, I would at that moment have given up all my after existence, could I have been your wife one year, certain that the love you expressed would have endured—that you would never regret the sacrifice so readily made for me. Still, I refused you—nay, turned from professions of affection that were the sweetest, dearest sounds that ever filled my ear. You were young—I no longer so. You were rich—I a poor dependent on your father’s bounty. I was a coward, I had no courage to brave the whispers which would say that, treacherous to the hospitality of my relative, mercenary, grasping, I had used my experience to entrap the young heir of a rich earldom into an unsuitable marriage. I could not endure that the disparity of our years and my poverty should become subjects of common gossip.”
“How little I cared for that!” said Lord Clare, with a constrained smile.
“I know it—but this very generosity, this self-abnegation frightened me, I could not believe in its permanency. It seemed to me more the thanklessness of youth than a stern, settled purpose. You had forbearance for my maturity, but I, ungrateful that I was, had no faith in your youth.”
“Did you deem love a thing of years?”
“Not now, but then I did! My own feelings shocked and terrified me; they seemed unnatural, I could not forgive my heart that they had found lodgment there. So much more absorbing than anything I had ever known, they seemed like a hallucination. I distrusted the sweet madness that possessed me, and by one rash, wicked act, sought to wrench our souls apart, thinking all the time that your happiness required the effort. I left your father’s house—I—I placed an unloved man between you and me. I was mad, wicked. In one month after, when your father died, and I had not his scorn to dread, I would have given the world—but no matter what or how I have suffered—you are avenged—I am punished.”
“Why should we revert to this?” said Lord Clare, gently. “The past is the past.”
“I have wounded your pride to save mine,” exclaimed Lady Jane, and her eyes sparkled with tears again. “It is your turn now, but if you knew—if you knew all, this bitter humiliation would be some atonement.”
“I would not soothe my wounded pride at your expense, Lady Jane, still I thank you. It is something to know that a passion which cost me so much was not altogether scorned.”
She was about to answer with some eagerness, but the sound of a carriage sweeping round the broad gravel walk to the front entrance, interrupted her. They both listened, looking earnestly at each other. Then she reached forth her hand, and said, smiling through her tears, “Cousin Clarence, we cannot be enemies, that is too unnatural”——
He wrung her hand with a sort of passion, dropped it, and rushed from the room. She stood a moment weeping, then her mouth brightened and curved into a smile, and with a proud air she swept by me, darkening the sunshine with her long, black garments. I followed her with my eyes, creeping on my hands and knees across the threshold that I might see her again, and be sure it was no fairy play I had witnessed. Then I sat down on the carpet, buried my face in the embroidery of my scarlet frock, and began to cry.
After a time, I could not tell how long, for my little soul was overflowing with emotions, I felt a hand laid gently on my head. I started, shook the long curls back from my face, and there was my father bending over me. His face was so pale and stern that I shrunk away, but he lifted me up by the arm, and grasping my hand till it pained me, led me forth.
As we approached the hall, I saw servants passing to and fro, removing packages, lap-dogs, and cushions from a travelling carriage at the door. A waiting-maid stood in the entrance, chatting directions in French and broken English, with a pretty King Charles held close to her bosom, which was amusing himself with the pink ribbons of her cap.
“Where is Tip? Will no one bring up Tip?” cried a voice from the staircase, and directly I saw a tall, spare woman, with the faintest pink in her cheeks, and the faintest blue in her eyes, coming down the steps. She had drawn off her gloves and untied her travelling bonnet. A few long, flaxen curls streamed down her shoulders with the purple ribbons, and one sickly white hand glided down the ebony balustrades.
“Bring up Tip, I cannot do anything without Tip,” she continued to say, leaning forward and reaching out her arms for the dog, which the maid obediently brought to her.
I had a full view of this woman as she mounted the staircase fondling her dog, and from that moment loathed her from my soul. It was Lord Clare’s sister.
My father paused and drew me suddenly back as his sister appeared on the stairs. The moment she was gone we moved rapidly through the hall, took a back entrance, and entered the grounds. He walked on with long, stern strides, clasping my hand, but unconscious that I was almost leaping to hold my pace even with his. We entered the wilderness, and then, for the first time, my father spoke.
“Zana,” he said, “look at me here, in my eyes.”
I lifted my gaze to his steadily. His eyes were inflamed and full of trouble; they fell before mine, and left my little heart burning with strange triumph.
“Zana, you saw the lady?”
“Yes.”
“And heard all that she was saying?”
“Yes.”
“What was she talking about? Can you tell me?”
“I can tell you what she said, and what you answered.”
“Word for word?” questioned my father, anxiously.
“Yes, sir, word for word.”
“And you will repeat this to—to your mother?”
“No, I will not.”
“Indeed,” said Lord Clare, and I saw that his eye brightened with a look of relief, “and why not?”
“Because I will not. She would hate that dark lady as I do—she would cry more and more—she would know all about it!”
“About what?”
“About”—I hesitated, no words came to express the ideas that were fixed upon my mind so firmly. I knew as well as he did that he loved that lady, and that my mother was a burden, but how could the infant words at my command express all this? My father seemed relieved by my hesitation, and said more gently,
“Well, well, go home, tell your mother that I have company—my sister, you will remember—and that I may not be able to see her this evening.”
“She can wait!” I answered, swelling with indignation.
He led me to the verge of our garden, pointed along the path I should take, and turned back without kissing me. I was glad of this, though he had never done it before. My little soul was up in arms against him.
I did not go home, but wandered about the wilderness searching for birds’ nests, not because I enjoyed it, but a dread of seeing my mother for the first time kept me in the woods.
Her life was more quiet than ever after this, but you would not have known her for the same being. Her eyes grew larger andsowild; her figure became lithe and tall again; all the luxuriance of her beauty fled. She suffered greatly, even a child could see that.
Greenhurst was filled with company, and we seldom saw Lord Clare. Turner came to us every day, but he too seemed changed. The rich, dry humor so long a part of his nature forsook him. His visits were short, and he said little. Thus the season wore on, and I suffered with the rest. How many hours did I remain at the foot of some great oak or chestnut, thinking of that proud lady and her interview with my father. I kept my secret; not once had I alluded to that strange visit to the hall. It weighed upon me—at times almost choked me, but I felt that it must remain my own burden.