Kitabı oku: «A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette», sayfa 32

CHAPTER LXX
THE PRICE OF A SECRET

He went one step nearer to her and looked at her with an evil smile; his heart was full of passion – half intense love, half furious anger.

"You thought to deceive me," he said, and the breath came like hot flame from his lips. "You thought to blind and dupe me, but I know you now – I have known you all along, though I could not believe the evidence of my own senses."

He never forgot the regal grace with which she drew her slight frame to its utmost height, the anger, the haughty pride that flashed from her eyes.

"I do not understand you," she replied; "and I repeat my question; when I gave orders that I should be denied to all visitors, how dare you enter here?"

"It is late, Lady Doris," he said, "too late for that kind of thing now, I repeat that I know you – to the rest of the world you may be Lady Doris Studleigh, to me you are simply the girl who lived with me and ran away from me."

She looked at him; if a glance from those proud eyes could have slain him, he would have lain that instant dead at her feet. He continued:

"You may deny it, you may continue to carry on the same concealment, the same deceit, but it will be all in vain; I know you, and I know you for what you are. You can say anything you please, if you think it advisable to waste words; I repeat that it will be in vain." She grew white, even to the lips, as she listened to the insolent words. "I felt sure – convinced of your identity from the very moment I saw you at the opera," he continued. "I watched you then; I have watched you ever since."

Her white lips opened, but all sound died away from them – he heard nothing.

"I have admired your talent for acting," he continued; "it is a grand one. It is ten thousand pities that you are not upon the stage; you would be its brightest ornament. I was not wholly, but half deceived, by your superb nonchalance; then I determined to find out the truth for myself. I have done so."

He waited to see if she would utter one word of denial, one word of explanation. She stood before him – pale, beautiful, silent as a marble statue.

"I have tracked you," he said, triumphantly. "I can tell you the whole story of your life; how you lived as a child at Brackenside; how you carried on a pretty little love affair with your poet and gentleman, until I saw you; how you went to Florence with me, in total ignorance of your true origin; how on the morning I left you by the river side, some one came from England, told you the true story of your birth, and brought you back here. I have been to Brackenside; I am not speaking without proof."

If she could have spoken, she would have told him that no one at Brackenside would ever betray her; she would have liked to cast his words back in his teeth, but the strength to speak was no longer hers.

"You thought then of being very clever. If you had never heard the true story of your birth, you would have been content to abide with me all the days of your life – you would have thought your lot a brilliant one. But you were too clever, Dora; you thought to escape and to live as though you had never heard of me. It could not be done. Did you speak?"

He might as well ask the question, for a sound that resembled no ordinary, no human sound, came from her lips. He went on:

"Why were you not frank and honest with me, Dora? – why did you not await my return, and tell me? – why did you not trust me? Do you know what I should have done if you had so trusted me? I should have said that my proposition to you had been made under a great mistake, not knowing your true name; and I should have released you then and them from all ties that bound you to me."

She saw her mistake then; saw what short-sighted, miserable policy hers had been; but it was all too late.

"Surely," he continued, "you had lived with me long enough to know that I had some semblance of a gentleman, some faint notions of honor. There is no need to sneer, my lady; men do not reckon honor when they deal with what you were then."

"I know it," she cried, with sudden bitterness, in a voice that had no resemblance to her own.

"Why did you not trust me! I cannot – I shall never forgive you for the way in which you deserted me. Had you left me one line – only one line – telling me your true parents had claimed you, Doris, it would have saved all this."

"I had not time."

"Because you did not wish to make it. Even suppose that, to avoid detection, you had hurried from Florence, you might surely have sent me a line from England; even if you could not trust me with your name and address, you might have done that."

"I see it now. I might, nay, I should have done it. Will that admission satisfy you?"

"There is nothing in it to satisfy me," he said, angrily; "you had no right to desert me as you did, to treat me as you did – none in the world. Do you know what you cost me? Do you know that I went mad over losing you? that I searched for you day after day, month after month, hating my life itself because you no longer formed part of it! Do you know that the loss of you changed me from a good-tempered man into a fiend? – can you realize that, Lady Doris Studleigh?"

"No," she replied, "I cannot."

"It is true. Fair, bright, frivolous women like you cannot realize a man's love – they cannot even estimate it! And strange – oh! strange to say – women like you win strong, passionate love, for which the pure and noble of your sex seek in vain."

Alas! that she had given him the right to speak thus to her – that she had placed herself in the power of such a man! Oh! fatal, foolish, and wicked sin! Yet true to herself, true to her own light, frivolous nature, it was not the bitter sin she repented so much as its discovery.

He drew nearer to her, and placed one hand on her arm.

"Do you know, Doris," he said, "that when you left me I had begun, even then, to love you with such a passionate love that every pulse of my heart was wrapped up in it."

She shook his hand from her as though there were contamination in his touch.

"I did not know it. I do not believe it. You never loved me – you have loved nothing on earth one half so dearly as you have loved yourself!"

His face grew dark with anger.

"Remembering how entirely you are in my power," he said, "I ask you, is it wise to anger me?"

"You never loved me," she repeated; "Earle loved me, and would have died any day to save my fair name! You never loved me, you loved yourself!"

"I repeat it, I loved you with a passion so terrible, so fierce, so violent, it frightened me! I loved you so, that I would have lost wealth, fortune, position – ah! life itself – for you!"

Her white lips smiled scornfully; that calm, proud, scorn drove him beside himself.

"You have been some time in discovering it," she said.

"That is your mistake," he replied; "do you know, Doris, I swear what I am saying is true. Do you know why I was so gay, so happy, so light of heart on the day you left me? It was because my love had beaten down my pride, and on that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife."

"I do not believe it," she cried.

"It is true; I swear it on the faith and honor of a gentleman. I swear it on the word of a man."

"I should need a stronger oath than that," she said.

"I swear it then by your own falseness, and by your own deceit; can any oath be stronger than that? On that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife. I was determined to make our union legal. I loved you so that I could not live without you."

She made no reply for one minute, but looked steadily at him: then she said:

"I do thank Heaven that I have been spared the degradation of becoming your wife."

"Yet you were content to be my companion," he said.

Her face flushed hotly at the words.

"I have lost you, how long, Dora, how many months? Do you think my love has grown less in that time? Do you think it has faded or grown cold. If you imagine so, you do no justice to your own marvelous beauty; you do no justice to your own fascination; a thousand times no! It is a burning torrent now that carries all before it: it is a tempest that will know no abatement – Dora, you had lost your usual shrewdness when you thought that absence would cure such love as mine."

"My name is Lady Studleigh, not Dora," she said proudly. "Once for all, Lord Vivianne, your love does not in the least interest me."

"You will have to take an interest in it," he replied; "I swear, for the future, you shall know no other love."

"I will never know yours," she replied.

He laughed contemptuously.

"It is no use, Dora," he said; "you must really excuse me; I cannot help enjoying my triumph; I would not laugh if I could help it, but, my dear Dora, I cannot help it. Did you ever see a fly in a spider's web? Did you ever watch it struggle and fight and strive to escape, while the spider, one could fancy, was shaking his filmy sides with laughter? Have you ever seen that terrible phenomenon in natural history? You, my poor Dora, are the helpless little fly, I am the spider. It is not an elegant comparison, but it is perfectly true; you are in my power completely, thoroughly, and nothing can take you from me."

She looked at him quite calmly, her courage was rising, now that the first deadly shock had passed away.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will tell me what you want. Spare me any further conversation with you; it does not interest me. Tell me, briefly as you can, what you want."

"What do I want?" he repeated.

"Yes, just that – neither more nor less – what do you want? I own you have me in your power, I own that you hold a secret of mine. What is to be its price? I cannot buy your silence with money. You are a gentleman, a man of honor, having my fair name in your power – what shall you charge me for keeping it? I am anxious to know the price men exact for such secrets as those. You wooed me and won me, after your own honorable fashion – what are you going to exact now as the price of your love and my mad folly? I was vain, foolish, untruthful, but, after all, I was an innocent girl when you knew me first. What shall be the price of my innocence? Oh, noble descendant of noble men – oh, noble heritor of a noble race. Speak – let me hear!"

Her taunts stung him almost to fury; his face grew livid with rage; yet, the more insolent she, the more deeply he loved her; the more scornful she, the deeper and wilder grew his worship of her.

"I will tell you the price," he said; "I will make you my wife. Consent to marry me, and I will swear to you, by heaven itself, that I will keep your secret faithfully, loyally, until I die."

"I cannot marry you," she replied; "I do not love you. I cannot help it, if you are angry. I do not even like you. I should be most wretched and miserable with you, for I loathe you. I will never be your wife."

"All those," he replied, slowly, "are objections that you must try to overcome."

"What if I tell you I love some one else?" she said.

"I should pity him, really pity him, from the depths of my heart; but, all the same, I should say you must be my wife!"

She longed to tell him that she loved and meant to marry Earle, but she was afraid even to mention his name.

"I shall conquer all your objections in time," he said. "It is nothing to me that you say you dislike me; it is even less that you say you like another."

But he never even thought that she really liked Earle. Had she not run away from him?

CHAPTER LXXI
THE COWARD'S THREAT

"That is the first part of your declaration," said Lady Doris, with the calm of infinite contempt; "if I will promise to be your wife, you will promise to marry me. What if I refuse?"

"You are placing a very painful alternative before me," he replied.

"Never mind the pain, my lord; we will waive that. I wish to know the alternative."

"If you will marry me I will keep your secret, Lady Doris Studleigh, faithfully, until death."

"Then I clearly, distinctly, and firmly refuse to marry you. What then?"

"In that case I shall be compelled to take the most disagreeable measures – I shall be compelled to hold your secret as a threat over you, if you refuse to be my wife. I tell you, quite honestly, that I will make you the laughing-stock of all London. You – fair, beautiful, imperial – you shall be an object of scorn; men shall laugh at you, women turn aside as you pass by. Even the most careless and reckless shall refuse to receive you – shall consider you out of the pale. I will tell the whole world, if you compel me to do it, what you were to me in Florence; I will tell the handsome earl, your father, whose roof in that case will no longer shelter you. I will tell your proud, high-bred step-mother – the haughty duchess who presented you at court – nay, even the queen herself, she who values a woman's good name far above all worldly rank."

"You would do all that?" she said.

"Yes, just as soon as I would look at you."

"And you call that honor?"

"No; it is, on the contrary, most dishonorable. Do not imagine that I seek to deceive myself. It would be about the most dishonorable thing any person could do; in fact, nothing could be more base; I grant that. But, if you drive a man mad with love, what can he do? You compel me to take the step, or I would not take it."

She could not grow paler; her face was already ghastly white; but from her eyes there shot one glance that might, from its anger and its fire, have struck him blind.

"You would not spare me," she said, "because it was you yourself who led me to ruin."

"I love you so madly," he said, "that I cannot spare you at all."

"Have you thought," she asked, "what, if you do this deed, the world will say of you and to you? Have you weighed this well?"

"I am indifferent," he said; "I care for nothing on earth but winning you."

"Do you realize that in destroying me you destroy yourself; that you will make yourself more hated and despised than any man ever was before? Do you not see that?"

"I repeat that nothing interests me save winning you, Dora; I am quite willing to be destroyed with you."

"What will the world say to a man who deliberately destroys and ruins a girl as you did me?"

"My dearest Dora, the world hears such stories every day and, I am afraid, rather admires the heroes of them."

"What does it say, then, of cowardly men who, having won such a victory, boast of it?"

"I own that the world looks askance on such a man, and very properly too. It is a base, cowardly thing to do. What other course is left me? You drive me to it: I have no wish to play such a contemptible part; I have no wish to boast of a victory – I shall hate myself for doing it; but what else is there for it? Listen, once and for all. Dora – I cannot help calling you by the old familiar name – I will have you for my wife: I will marry you; nothing, I swear, except death, shall take you from me. I will make you happy, I will see that every desire of your heart is fulfilled; but I swear you shall be my wife. There is no escape – no alternative; either that or disgrace, degradation, and ruin. Do not think I shall hesitate from any fear of ruin to myself; I would ruin myself to-morrow to win you. You might as well try to stem the force of a tide as to alter my determination."

She saw that she was conquered; mortifying, humiliating as it was, she was conquered – there was no help for her.

She stood quite still for one moment; then she said slowly:

"Will you give me time?"

His face flushed hotly; his triumph was coming. A smile played round his lips and brightened his eyes.

"Time? Yes; you can have as much time as you like. You see the solution plainly, do you not? Marry me, and keep your fair name, your high position; defy me, and lose it all. You see it plainly?"

"Yes, there is no mistake about it – you have made it most perfectly plain," she said, in a low, passionless voice. "I quite understand you. Give me time to think it over – I cannot decide it hurriedly."

"What time do you require?" he asked. "I shall not be willing to wait very long."

"It is June now," she continued; "you cannot complain if I say give me until the end of August."

"It shall be so, Dora. Will you give me your hand upon it?"

"No," she replied, "I will not give you my hand. Come at the end of August, and I will give you your answer."

"I shall not be deprived of the happiness of seeing you until then, Dora?"

"I cannot say; I will not be followed, I will not be watched. I claim my perfect freedom until then."

"You shall have it. Do not think worse of me than I deserve, Dora. If I had found you married, I would not have spoken, I would never even have hinted at the discovery; but you are not married, darling, nor, while I live, shall any man call you wife except myself."

How bitterly at that moment she regretted not having been married! If she had known – if she had only known, he should have found her the wife of Earle!

"I have no wish to injure you, or to do anything except make life pleasant for you; but my love for you has mastered me, it has conquered me. You must be mine!"

Such passion shone in his eyes, gleamed in his face, that she shrunk back half frightened. He laughed, as he said:

"It is one thing, you see, Dora, to light a fire, another to extinguish it."

"Now, will you leave me, Lord Vivianne? You have placed the pleasing alternative very plainly before me; we have agreed upon a time until you come for my answer – that will be at the end of August. Until then your own good sense will show you the proper course to pursue; you need neither seek nor avoid me."

He bowed.

"I hope, Lady Studleigh, you will have overcome your great objection to my presence before you see me again. I will now go. Let me give you one word of warning. A desperate man is not to be trifled with; if you attempt to escape me, if you place yourself in any way legally out of my reach, you shall answer to me, not only with your fair name, but with your life! You hear?"

"I hear," she replied, calmly, "but I do not come of a race that heeds threats. Good-morning, my lord."

"Dora," he said, "for the sake of old times – of the old love – will you not give me one kiss?"

"I would rather see you dead!" was the reply, given with an angry bitterness she could not control.

He laughed aloud.

"I shall soon see that pretty spirit humbled," he said. "Good-morning, my lady."

And the next minute he was gone.

She stood for some little time where he had left her. Such fiery passion and anger surging in her heart as almost drove her mad. Her face flushed crimson with it, her eyes flamed, she twisted her white hands until the gemmed rings made great dents in them. She hated him with such an intensity of hatred, that she would have laughed over his death. Her graceful figure shook with its heavy strain of anger – her lips parted with a low, smothered cry.

"I pray Heaven to curse him!" she cried, "with a terrible life and a terrible death; to send him a thousandfold the torture he has given to me! I – I wish I could kill him!"

In the might of her wrath she trembled as a leaf upon a tree. She raised her right hand to heaven.

"I swear I will never marry him," she said. "Let him threaten, punish, disgrace, degrade me as he will, I swear that I will never marry him. I will lose love, happiness, wealth, position, nay even life first; but I swear also that I will torture him and pay him for all he has made me suffer!"

She walked to and fro, never even seeing the brilliant blossoms and the glossy leaves, trampling the fragrant flowers she gathered underfoot, moaning with a low, piteous wail. It was too cruel – too hard. She had sinned – yes, she knew that – sinned greatly; but surely the punishment was too hard. Others sinned and prospered; why was she so heavily stricken? She was young when she sinned – careless, ignorant, heedless; now she was to lose all for it. She had beauty that made all men her slaves; she had wealth such as she had never dreamed of; she had one of the highest positions in the land; she had, above all, the love of Earle, the love and fealty of Earle. Now, in punishment for this one sin, she must lose all. Would Heaven spare her?

Was it of any use in this her hour of dire need, praying? Why, in all her life – her brief, brilliant life – she had never prayed; was it of any use her beginning now? She did not even remember the simple words of the little prayer she had been used to say with Mattie at her mother's knee – it was all forgotten. She knew there was a God in heaven, although she had always laughed and mocked at religion, deeming it only fit for tiresome children and old women; surely there was more in it than this.

She knelt down and stretched out her hands with a yearning look, as though some voice in the skies would surely speak to her; then she could not remember how it happened, the fragrance of the flowers seemed to grow too strong for her, the glass roof, the green, climbing plants, the brilliant blossoms, seemed to fall on her and crush her. With a long, low cry she fell with her face on the ground, a streaming mass of radiant white and golden hair.

It was there, that, going in an hour afterward, Earle found her, and raising her from the floor, thought at first that she was dead.

Great was the distress, great the consternation; servants came hurrying in, the doctor was sent for. The earl and the countess returning, were driven half frantic by the sight of that white face and silent figure. It hardly reassured them to hear that it was only a fainting fit.

"Brought on by what?" asked the earl, in a fever of anxiety.

"Nothing more than the reaction after too great physical fatigue," replied the doctor.

"The Lady Doris looks stronger than she really is; the best advice I can give is, that she should leave London at once, and have some weeks of perfect rest in the country. Medicine is of no use."

Lady Linleigh quite agreed in this view of the subject, and the earl declared impetuously that they should go at once – to-morrow if she is better, he said, "I should not like such another fright."

That evening when Lady Doris lay on the little couch in Lady Linleigh's boudoir, and Earle sat by her side, he said to her:

"What caused that sudden illness, my darling? Did anything frighten you?"

"No; I was only tired, Earle."

"Tired! I am beginning to dread the word. Do you know what they told me, Doris?"

"No," she replied, looking at him with frightened eyes; "what was it?"

"One of the servants said she was quite sure that she had heard some one talking to you in the conservatory; but when I went in you were quite alone. Had any one been there?"

"What nonsense," she cried evasively; time and experience had taught her that it was foolish to risk the truth recklessly.

"I thought it was a mistake," said loyal Earle. "Who would be likely to be with you there, when you had reserved the morning for me?"

She closed her tired eyes, and said to herself how thankful she should be when all this was over.