CHAPTER XXVIILady Jean is right. Keith Athelstone hasnotleft England. His passage was taken, all his preparations made, and then the very day before he was to sail he found himself laid prostrate by brain fever.He was taken ill in Liverpool, and his servant, being one of that rare class who can give faithful attendance, nursed him devotedly. For weeks he lay hovering between life and death, the strength and vigour of the body fighting against the ravages of mental suffering, and the long, painful strain on brain and heart against which he had so long struggled. In his delirious frenzy his whole cry was for Lauraine. It was pitiful to see that strong young manhood bowed down to a child's weakness. As dependent as an infant on the hired services which his wealth procured, but which was so different to the tender ministry of love and friendship.The discreet valet at times felt inclined to send to Lady Vavasour, and acquaint her with his young master's danger; but prudence withheld him. He knew she was married, and he feared to draw down his master's anger by officious interference.At last the doctors gave hope, and Keith struggled back by slow degrees into convalescence, and saw his life given back to his own keeping once more—life dull of hue and sad enough, with all its gladness and colour painted out by the ruthless hand of disappointment—life for which he was in no way glad or grateful to the mercy that had spared it; but still, life that he had to accept and take up, with all its tangled threads and broken hopes.In the long, dreary days of convalescence he thought of Lauraine as he had never thought of her yet—for a wide gulf seemed to stretch between them now. He saw the headlong and undisciplined passion of his love for her in its true colours—saw to what lengths it would have gone, to what ruin it would have dragged her, and a sense of shame and self-reproach filled his heart.Some such thoughts as these came to Keith now as he lay stretched on his couch during these dark winter days. He felt weak enough to have uttered any prayer just for Lauraine's presence, just to see the pity in her eyes, to hear the thrill in her voice as she would look at his changed face, and speak her gentle compassion. At times like these the slow hot tears of weakness would creep into his eyes until he was fain to turn his head away from his attendant's gaze, and make pretence of sleep in order to have freedom to indulge his grief at leisure."I must never see her again, never, unless I have grown dull and cold, and can greet her as a stranger," he thinks to himself. "How strange that I should love her so. I wonder will I ever be cured, or will this be the 'one passion of my life,' going down to my grave with me even as it has filled all my days and hours? Somehow, I think it will. I find it so hard to forget anything concerning her. Forget! Why there is not a look in her eyes, a word from her lips, not a dress or a flower she has worn that I can forget; not a summer day or a spring morning, not a season in the year that is not full of some memory of her. Oh, my love, my love, and to think that you can be nothing to me—nothing!"Shall I ever be old, I wonder?—and then shall I have ceased to care? Out of all the world of women will there be only one for whom my heart will beat, my pulses thrill, my whole soul long and love? I have tried to love other women—I have told them I love them; but I don't think for one moment I deceived myself, or them. Men say the sins and follies of youth come back to smite us as scourges in the after years; but I suppose my love has kept me pure in a way, and will do so. It was never sin to me till her own act made it so, for she seemed always mine in my thoughts and dreams, and I alone seemed to have the right to her. But now—well, she was wiser than I when she bade me leave her. This last year has only made us both more wretched. And she is not happy—my darling! Ah, when she loved me there was not that sad look in her eyes, and that brute is not even faithful. But of that she knows nothing, and, bad as I am, I wouldn't tell her so. Let her keep her faith unshaken, and live her life of duty. Why should I make it harder than it is? .... Every year now will take her further and further from me, and yet I know she loves me. I wonder what held me back when I bade her farewell? I could have taught her forgetfulness then, if never before; and yet—and yet, thank God, I did not. I think to see her eyes reproach me would be worse than this; I should feel inclined to kill myself and—her. Oh, God! what fools men can be for a woman's sake!"Some one comes softly into the room; it is Andrews the careful and attentive. He brings a letter in his hand, and lays it down on the table by his young master's side. Keith turns towards him, and holds out a thin transparent hand for the missive. He tears open the envelope, and as he looks at the address a flush of colour steals over his face."Falcon's Chase, Brockfield,"Northumberland."MY DEAR ATHELSTONE,"We have only just heard of your illness, and are much concerned about it, more especially as you are alone at an hotel, and must be dependent on quite alien services. As soon as ever your health permits, will you come to us here, and let us try to nurse you back to health once more? As the weather is so unusually mild, I do not think you will find the air of Northumberland too bracing. Lauraine, of course, joins with me in this invitation. In fact, we can't hear of a refusal. I will meet you in London, and come down with you as soon as ever your physicians give you permission for the journey. With my kindest regards, and sympathy from all mutual friends here,"Believe me, very sincerely yours,"FRANCIS S. VAVASOUR."Keith reads the letter steadily through to the end, and his face grows white as the paper as he so reads it. But a new, stern look comes into his eyes, and his lips close tight under their thick moustache."What does it mean?" he thinks, as he reads the subtle tempting. "Can Laurainereallyhave had any hand in this? I don't believe it. No; I will not go. The snare is too plainly set." And before he can have time to alter his mind he asks for pen and ink, and dashes off a firm but courteous refusal on the plea of his physicians ordering him to a warm climate."She shall never have to reproach me again if I can help it," he says to himself, as exhausted with even this small exertion, he sinks back on his pillows. "She called me selfish once. Will she do so now?—now, when for her sake——"There is only a very small house party at Falcon's Chase when Keith Athelstone's letter arrives, and the master of the house reads it with a clouded brow. He has insisted upon his wife's asking Lady Jean down, and, despite her recent bereavement, the Lady Jean accepts the invitation. She is very subdued, very mournful, lives a great deal in her own rooms, and altogether affords a very unobtrusive spectacle of chastened sorrow. She is more than ever gracious to her hostess, and dignified to her host, and even Lady Etwynde's observant eyes can see nothing in any way suspicious.On the morning that Keith's letter arrives Lady Jean is not at the breakfast-table and Sir Francis is impatient to tell her the news—so impatient in fact, that for once he forgets the prudence she has so strictly enjoined, and sends her a note by her maid asking her to come into the small study adjoining the library as soon as she can.Lady Jean is annoyed at his imprudence, and in no way hurries herself to suit his wishes. When she at last enters the study she finds Sir Francis fuming at being kept waiting, and decidedly unamiable."Well, what is it?" she asks.He hands her Keith's letter, and she reads it through. Her brows cloud; she throws it aside impatiently."The young fool!" she mutters.On entering the smaller room she has drawn the door after her, but not quite closed it. The velvet curtains sweep down, and no one from the library can see them, but the sound of their voices is audible. It happens that Lauraine enters the outer room for a book, and is just taking it down from the case when the sound of her own name, uttered by Lady Jean's voice, strikes sharply on her ear."Does Lauraine know?""No," answers her husband's voice. "As you advised, I said nothing about it. Had Athelstone accepted, I would have told her that I had heard of his dangerous illness, and asked him here to set him up again.""How excessively provoking!" continues Lady Jean. "Depend on it, Frank, this is a blind. Either Keith suspects we know of his love for your wife, or she has been beforehand.""My dear Jean!" exclaims Sir Francis.Lauraine waits to hear no more. Astonishment has kept her spellbound. Now she turns from the room with a sickening, horrible sense of shame in her heart, with the blood dyeing her white face, with all the dignity and pride of womanhood stung and outraged by this unexpected discovery. Her husband and Lady Jean are cognizant of Keith's mad passion for herself, have actually plotted to bring him under her roof, to throw them together once again. For what purpose?Like a lightning flash the whole terrible truth seems to burst upon her. Suspicions, hints, all take new shape by the light of this new discovery—her husband's long friendship for Lady Jean, his indifference to herself. But that he could have stooped so low as to plan his wife's dishonour for the sake of his own freedom—— It seems to her almost incredible.The whole pitfall opened for her feet now confronts her fully and clearly. If Keith had accepted, if he had come here—she unconscious of the invitation, and unable to oppose it once so accepted—what then?"Oh, my darling," she half sobs, "thank God you were brave and true to your better self! They may suspect our love, but, as there is a Heaven above, they shall never shame it to their own baseness!"She kneels by her bed in an agony of weeping. Fear, shame, rage, disgust, sweep over her by turns. She sees the whole plot, and her own long blindness, and yet she knows she is powerless to resent either! If her husband accuses her of loving Keith she cannot deny it, and to explain to a mind so coarse and base the struggle and the sufferings that love has cost her, would only bring down ridicule and win her no belief.She feels quite helpless. Her enemy knows her secret, and her evil mind will colour it and send it flying abroad, and she is powerless to resent, or to deny.A loathing, a horror of herself—of them—comes upon her. It seems to her scarcely possible that they could have sunk so low, could have plotted anything so evil. And then bitter thoughts come into her mind. Of what use to try and do right, to struggle, and sacrifice as she has done? Duty has brought to her only added shame, only a crueller trial!There is but one grain of comfort to her now in all her sorrow. It is that Keith has been brave and true to his word, that forhersake he has forfeited self for once."Had he listened, had he come, he would have been a coward," she says to herself, and then the thought of his danger, his weakness, comes over her, and she weeps wildly and passionately in her loneliness. She dares say no word of sympathy, dares show no sign; she, too, must appear cold, unmoved, uncaring."Oh, dear Heaven!" she prays in her sorrow and her pain. "Where will it end—where will it end? Will my strength endure for my life?"She had never felt so helpless, so desperate as now.She could not think of any course of action to pursue, and yet she knew she could not overlook this outrage to herself. That she should have under her roof as guest a woman whose position with her own husband she could no longer doubt, was impossible. All her pride rose in arms against such a possibility, and yet beyond all things she dreaded to explain to Sir Francis her reasons, and hear his hateful taunts and sneers against herself."And I am not blameless," she moans, pressing her hands against her hot and throbbing temples. "What can I say for myself?" As she kneels there, a knock comes at her door. She rises hurriedly, and opens it, and confronts—her husband.He comes in. He does not look at her."Lauraine," he begins, "I just wanted to say a word to you. I have heard some bad news of young Athelstone I wanted to tell you. He has been dangerously ill—is lying alone and friendless at an hotel in Liverpool. I wish you would write and ask him to come here as soon as he can travel—it seems such a sad thing, you know."He stops abruptly. He has repeated his lesson, and feels a little uncomfortable.Lauraine lifts her head very proudly. Her voice, as she speaks, goes through him like the touch of ice."Has Lady Jean counselled you to say all this? Her anxiety and—yours, for Mr. Athelstone are really most praiseworthy. All the same, you have hadhisanswer to your disinterested invitation. It is scarcely necessary for me to repeat it, even if I wished."He looks at her with a dark flush mounting to his brow, but flinches beneath the steady challenge of her eyes."What do you mean?" he demands hoarsely."I was in the library half-an-hour ago," says Lauraine calmly. "Only for a moment—do not fancy I stooped to intentional eaves-dropping. I think it is for you to say whether Lady Jean Salomans—or I—leave your house immediately."
Lady Jean is right. Keith Athelstone hasnotleft England. His passage was taken, all his preparations made, and then the very day before he was to sail he found himself laid prostrate by brain fever.
He was taken ill in Liverpool, and his servant, being one of that rare class who can give faithful attendance, nursed him devotedly. For weeks he lay hovering between life and death, the strength and vigour of the body fighting against the ravages of mental suffering, and the long, painful strain on brain and heart against which he had so long struggled. In his delirious frenzy his whole cry was for Lauraine. It was pitiful to see that strong young manhood bowed down to a child's weakness. As dependent as an infant on the hired services which his wealth procured, but which was so different to the tender ministry of love and friendship.
The discreet valet at times felt inclined to send to Lady Vavasour, and acquaint her with his young master's danger; but prudence withheld him. He knew she was married, and he feared to draw down his master's anger by officious interference.
At last the doctors gave hope, and Keith struggled back by slow degrees into convalescence, and saw his life given back to his own keeping once more—life dull of hue and sad enough, with all its gladness and colour painted out by the ruthless hand of disappointment—life for which he was in no way glad or grateful to the mercy that had spared it; but still, life that he had to accept and take up, with all its tangled threads and broken hopes.
In the long, dreary days of convalescence he thought of Lauraine as he had never thought of her yet—for a wide gulf seemed to stretch between them now. He saw the headlong and undisciplined passion of his love for her in its true colours—saw to what lengths it would have gone, to what ruin it would have dragged her, and a sense of shame and self-reproach filled his heart.
Some such thoughts as these came to Keith now as he lay stretched on his couch during these dark winter days. He felt weak enough to have uttered any prayer just for Lauraine's presence, just to see the pity in her eyes, to hear the thrill in her voice as she would look at his changed face, and speak her gentle compassion. At times like these the slow hot tears of weakness would creep into his eyes until he was fain to turn his head away from his attendant's gaze, and make pretence of sleep in order to have freedom to indulge his grief at leisure.
"I must never see her again, never, unless I have grown dull and cold, and can greet her as a stranger," he thinks to himself. "How strange that I should love her so. I wonder will I ever be cured, or will this be the 'one passion of my life,' going down to my grave with me even as it has filled all my days and hours? Somehow, I think it will. I find it so hard to forget anything concerning her. Forget! Why there is not a look in her eyes, a word from her lips, not a dress or a flower she has worn that I can forget; not a summer day or a spring morning, not a season in the year that is not full of some memory of her. Oh, my love, my love, and to think that you can be nothing to me—nothing!
"Shall I ever be old, I wonder?—and then shall I have ceased to care? Out of all the world of women will there be only one for whom my heart will beat, my pulses thrill, my whole soul long and love? I have tried to love other women—I have told them I love them; but I don't think for one moment I deceived myself, or them. Men say the sins and follies of youth come back to smite us as scourges in the after years; but I suppose my love has kept me pure in a way, and will do so. It was never sin to me till her own act made it so, for she seemed always mine in my thoughts and dreams, and I alone seemed to have the right to her. But now—well, she was wiser than I when she bade me leave her. This last year has only made us both more wretched. And she is not happy—my darling! Ah, when she loved me there was not that sad look in her eyes, and that brute is not even faithful. But of that she knows nothing, and, bad as I am, I wouldn't tell her so. Let her keep her faith unshaken, and live her life of duty. Why should I make it harder than it is? .... Every year now will take her further and further from me, and yet I know she loves me. I wonder what held me back when I bade her farewell? I could have taught her forgetfulness then, if never before; and yet—and yet, thank God, I did not. I think to see her eyes reproach me would be worse than this; I should feel inclined to kill myself and—her. Oh, God! what fools men can be for a woman's sake!"
Some one comes softly into the room; it is Andrews the careful and attentive. He brings a letter in his hand, and lays it down on the table by his young master's side. Keith turns towards him, and holds out a thin transparent hand for the missive. He tears open the envelope, and as he looks at the address a flush of colour steals over his face.
"Falcon's Chase, Brockfield,"Northumberland.
"MY DEAR ATHELSTONE,
"We have only just heard of your illness, and are much concerned about it, more especially as you are alone at an hotel, and must be dependent on quite alien services. As soon as ever your health permits, will you come to us here, and let us try to nurse you back to health once more? As the weather is so unusually mild, I do not think you will find the air of Northumberland too bracing. Lauraine, of course, joins with me in this invitation. In fact, we can't hear of a refusal. I will meet you in London, and come down with you as soon as ever your physicians give you permission for the journey. With my kindest regards, and sympathy from all mutual friends here,
"Believe me, very sincerely yours,"FRANCIS S. VAVASOUR."
Keith reads the letter steadily through to the end, and his face grows white as the paper as he so reads it. But a new, stern look comes into his eyes, and his lips close tight under their thick moustache.
"What does it mean?" he thinks, as he reads the subtle tempting. "Can Laurainereallyhave had any hand in this? I don't believe it. No; I will not go. The snare is too plainly set." And before he can have time to alter his mind he asks for pen and ink, and dashes off a firm but courteous refusal on the plea of his physicians ordering him to a warm climate.
"She shall never have to reproach me again if I can help it," he says to himself, as exhausted with even this small exertion, he sinks back on his pillows. "She called me selfish once. Will she do so now?—now, when for her sake——"
There is only a very small house party at Falcon's Chase when Keith Athelstone's letter arrives, and the master of the house reads it with a clouded brow. He has insisted upon his wife's asking Lady Jean down, and, despite her recent bereavement, the Lady Jean accepts the invitation. She is very subdued, very mournful, lives a great deal in her own rooms, and altogether affords a very unobtrusive spectacle of chastened sorrow. She is more than ever gracious to her hostess, and dignified to her host, and even Lady Etwynde's observant eyes can see nothing in any way suspicious.
On the morning that Keith's letter arrives Lady Jean is not at the breakfast-table and Sir Francis is impatient to tell her the news—so impatient in fact, that for once he forgets the prudence she has so strictly enjoined, and sends her a note by her maid asking her to come into the small study adjoining the library as soon as she can.
Lady Jean is annoyed at his imprudence, and in no way hurries herself to suit his wishes. When she at last enters the study she finds Sir Francis fuming at being kept waiting, and decidedly unamiable.
"Well, what is it?" she asks.
He hands her Keith's letter, and she reads it through. Her brows cloud; she throws it aside impatiently.
"The young fool!" she mutters.
On entering the smaller room she has drawn the door after her, but not quite closed it. The velvet curtains sweep down, and no one from the library can see them, but the sound of their voices is audible. It happens that Lauraine enters the outer room for a book, and is just taking it down from the case when the sound of her own name, uttered by Lady Jean's voice, strikes sharply on her ear.
"Does Lauraine know?"
"No," answers her husband's voice. "As you advised, I said nothing about it. Had Athelstone accepted, I would have told her that I had heard of his dangerous illness, and asked him here to set him up again."
"How excessively provoking!" continues Lady Jean. "Depend on it, Frank, this is a blind. Either Keith suspects we know of his love for your wife, or she has been beforehand."
"My dear Jean!" exclaims Sir Francis.
Lauraine waits to hear no more. Astonishment has kept her spellbound. Now she turns from the room with a sickening, horrible sense of shame in her heart, with the blood dyeing her white face, with all the dignity and pride of womanhood stung and outraged by this unexpected discovery. Her husband and Lady Jean are cognizant of Keith's mad passion for herself, have actually plotted to bring him under her roof, to throw them together once again. For what purpose?
Like a lightning flash the whole terrible truth seems to burst upon her. Suspicions, hints, all take new shape by the light of this new discovery—her husband's long friendship for Lady Jean, his indifference to herself. But that he could have stooped so low as to plan his wife's dishonour for the sake of his own freedom—— It seems to her almost incredible.
The whole pitfall opened for her feet now confronts her fully and clearly. If Keith had accepted, if he had come here—she unconscious of the invitation, and unable to oppose it once so accepted—what then?
"Oh, my darling," she half sobs, "thank God you were brave and true to your better self! They may suspect our love, but, as there is a Heaven above, they shall never shame it to their own baseness!"
She kneels by her bed in an agony of weeping. Fear, shame, rage, disgust, sweep over her by turns. She sees the whole plot, and her own long blindness, and yet she knows she is powerless to resent either! If her husband accuses her of loving Keith she cannot deny it, and to explain to a mind so coarse and base the struggle and the sufferings that love has cost her, would only bring down ridicule and win her no belief.
She feels quite helpless. Her enemy knows her secret, and her evil mind will colour it and send it flying abroad, and she is powerless to resent, or to deny.
A loathing, a horror of herself—of them—comes upon her. It seems to her scarcely possible that they could have sunk so low, could have plotted anything so evil. And then bitter thoughts come into her mind. Of what use to try and do right, to struggle, and sacrifice as she has done? Duty has brought to her only added shame, only a crueller trial!
There is but one grain of comfort to her now in all her sorrow. It is that Keith has been brave and true to his word, that forhersake he has forfeited self for once.
"Had he listened, had he come, he would have been a coward," she says to herself, and then the thought of his danger, his weakness, comes over her, and she weeps wildly and passionately in her loneliness. She dares say no word of sympathy, dares show no sign; she, too, must appear cold, unmoved, uncaring.
"Oh, dear Heaven!" she prays in her sorrow and her pain. "Where will it end—where will it end? Will my strength endure for my life?"
She had never felt so helpless, so desperate as now.
She could not think of any course of action to pursue, and yet she knew she could not overlook this outrage to herself. That she should have under her roof as guest a woman whose position with her own husband she could no longer doubt, was impossible. All her pride rose in arms against such a possibility, and yet beyond all things she dreaded to explain to Sir Francis her reasons, and hear his hateful taunts and sneers against herself.
"And I am not blameless," she moans, pressing her hands against her hot and throbbing temples. "What can I say for myself?" As she kneels there, a knock comes at her door. She rises hurriedly, and opens it, and confronts—her husband.
He comes in. He does not look at her.
"Lauraine," he begins, "I just wanted to say a word to you. I have heard some bad news of young Athelstone I wanted to tell you. He has been dangerously ill—is lying alone and friendless at an hotel in Liverpool. I wish you would write and ask him to come here as soon as he can travel—it seems such a sad thing, you know."
He stops abruptly. He has repeated his lesson, and feels a little uncomfortable.
Lauraine lifts her head very proudly. Her voice, as she speaks, goes through him like the touch of ice.
"Has Lady Jean counselled you to say all this? Her anxiety and—yours, for Mr. Athelstone are really most praiseworthy. All the same, you have hadhisanswer to your disinterested invitation. It is scarcely necessary for me to repeat it, even if I wished."
He looks at her with a dark flush mounting to his brow, but flinches beneath the steady challenge of her eyes.
"What do you mean?" he demands hoarsely.
"I was in the library half-an-hour ago," says Lauraine calmly. "Only for a moment—do not fancy I stooped to intentional eaves-dropping. I think it is for you to say whether Lady Jean Salomans—or I—leave your house immediately."