Kitabı oku: «A Mad Love», sayfa 17

CHAPTER XLVII.
THE COMPACT OF FRIENDSHIP

The one set of quadrilles had been danced, and Leone said to herself that there was more pain than pleasure in it, when Lady Marion, with an unusual glow of animation on her face, came to Leone, who was sitting alone.

"Madame Vanira," she said, "it seems cruel to deprive others of the pleasure of your society, but I should like to talk to you. I have some pretty things which I have brought from Spain, which I should like to show you. Will it please you to leave the ballroom and come with me, or do you care for dancing?"

Leone smiled sadly; tragedy and comedy are always side by side, and it seemed to her, who had had so terrible a tragedy in her life, who stood face to face with so terrible a tragedy now, it seemed to her absurd that she should think of dancing.

"I would rather talk to you," she replied, "than do anything else." The two beautiful, graceful women left the ballroom together. Leone made some remark on the magnificence of the rooms as they passed, and Lady Chandos smiled.

"I am a very home-loving being myself. I prefer the pretty little morning-room where we take breakfast, and my own boudoir, to any other place in the house; they seem to be really one's own because no one else enters them. Come to my boudoir now, Madame Vanira, and I will show you a whole lot of pretty treasures that I brought from Spain."

"From Spain." She little knew how those words jarred even on Leone's heart. It was in Spain they had intrigued to take her husband from her, and while Lady Marion was collecting art treasures the peace and happiness of her life had been wrecked, her fair name blighted, her love slain. She wondered to herself at the strange turn of fate which had brought her into contact with the one woman in all the world that she felt she ought to have avoided. But there was no resisting Lady Marion when she chose to make herself irresistible. There was something childlike and graceful in the way in which she looked up to Madame Vanira, with an absolute worship of her genius, her voice, and her beauty. She laid her white hand on Leone's.

"You will think me a very gushing young lady, I fear, Madame Vanira, if I say how fervently I hope we shall always be friends; not in the common meaning of the words, but real, true, warm friends until we die. Have you ever made such a compact of friendship with any one?"

Leone's heart smote her, her face flushed.

"Yes," she replied; "I have once."

Lady Chandos looked up at her quickly.

"With a lady, I mean?"

"No," said Leone; "I have no lady friends; indeed, I have few friends of any kind, though I have many acquaintances."

Lady Marion's hand lingered caressingly on the white shoulder of Leone.

"Something draws me to you," she said; "and I cannot tell quite what it is. You are very beautiful, but it is not that; the beauty of a woman would never win me. It cannot be altogether your genius, though it is without peer. It is a strange feeling, one I can hardly explain – as though there was something sympathetic between us. You are not laughing at me, Madame Vanira?"

"No, I am not laughing," said Leone, with wondering eyes. How strange it was that Lance's wife, above all other women, should feel this curious, sympathetic friendship for her!

They entered the beautiful boudoir together, and Lady Marion, with pardonable pride, turned to her companion.

"Lord Chandos arranged this room for me himself. Have you heard the flattering, foolish name for me that the London people have invented? They call me the Queen of Blondes."

"That is a very pretty title," said Leone, "they call me a queen, the Queen of Song."

And the two women who were, each in her way, a "queen," smiled at each other.

"You see," continued Lady Chandos, "that my husband used to think there was nothing in the world but blondes. I have often told him if I bring a brunette here she is quite at a disadvantage; everything is blue, white, or silver."

Leone looked round the sumptuous room; the ceiling was painted by a master hand; all the story of Endymion was told there; the walls were superbly painted; the hangings were of blue velvet and blue silk, relieved by white lace; the carpet, of rich velvet pile, had a white ground with blue corn-flowers, so artistically grouped they looked as though they had fallen on the ground in picturesque confusion. The chairs and pretty couch were covered with velvet; a hundred little trifles that lay scattered over the place told that it was occupied by a lady of taste; books in beautiful bindings, exquisite drawings and photographs, a jeweled fan, a superb bouquet holder, flowers costly, beautiful, and fragrant; a room that was a fitting shrine for a goddess of beauty.

"My own room," said Lady Chandos, with a smile, as she closed the door; "and what a luxury it is, Madame Vanira – a room quite your own! Even when the house is full of visitors no one comes here but Lord Chandos; he always takes that chair near those flowers while he talks to me, and that is, I think, the happiest hour in the day. Sit down there yourself."

Leone took the chair, and Lady Chandos sat down on a footstool by her side. It was one of the most brilliant and picturesque pictures ever beheld; the gorgeous room, with its rich hangings, the beautiful, dark-eyed woman, with the Spanish face, her dress like softened sunbeams, the fire of her rubies like points of flame, her whole self lovely as a picture, and the fair Queen of Blondes, with the golden hair and white roses – a picture that would have made an artist's fortune.

"How pleasant this is," said Lady Chandos, "a few minutes' respite from the music and dancing! Do you love the quiet moments of your life, Madame Vanira?"

Leone looked down on the fair, lovely face with a deep sigh.

"No, I think not," she replied; "I like my stage life best."

Lady Chandos asked, in a half pitying tone:

"Why did you go on the stage? Did you always like it?"

And Leone answered, gravely:

"A great sorrow drove me there."

"A great sorrow? How strange! What sorrow could come to one so beautiful, so gifted as you?"

"A sorrow that crushed all the natural life in me," said Leone; "but we will not speak of it. I live more in my life on the stage than in my home life; that is desolate always."

She spoke unconsciously, and the heart of the fair woman who believed herself so entirely beloved warmed with pity and kindness to the one whose heart was so desolate.

"A great sorrow taught you to find comfort in an artificial life," she said, gently; "it would not do that to me."

And her white hand, on which the wedding-ring shone, caressed the beautiful white arm of Madame Vanira.

"What would it do to you?" asked Leone, slightly startled.

"A really great trouble," replied Lady Chandos, musingly, "what would it do for me? Kill me. I have known so little of it; I cannot indeed remember what could be called trouble."

"You have been singularly fortunate," said Leone, half enviously.

And the fair face of the Queen of Blondes grew troubled.

"Perhaps," she said, "all my troubles are to come. I should not like to believe that."

She was quite silent for some few minutes, then, with a sigh, she said:

"You have made me feel nervous, and I cannot tell why. What trouble could come to me? So far as I see, humanly speakingly, none. No money troubles could reach me; sickness would hardly be a trouble if those I loved were round me. Ah, well, that is common to every one." A look of startled intelligence came over her face. "I know one, and only one source of trouble," she said; "that would be if anything happened to Lord Chandos, to – to my husband; if he did not love me, or I lost him."

She sighed as she uttered the last words, and the heart of the gifted singer was touched by the noblest, kindest pity; she looked into the fair, flower-like face.

"You love your husband then?" she said, with a gentle, caressing voice.

"Love him," replied Lady Chandos, her whole soul flashing in her eyes – "love him? Ah, that seems to me a weak word! My husband is all the world, all life to me. It is strange that I should speak to you, a stranger, in this manner; but, as I told you before, my heart warms to you in some fashion that I do not myself understand. I am not like most people. I have so few to love. No father, no mother, no sisters, or brothers. I have no one in the wide world but my husband; he is more to me than most husbands are to most wives – he is everything."

Leone looked down on that fair, sweet face with loving eyes; the very depths of her soul were touched by those simple words; she prayed God that she might always remember them. There was infinite pathos in her voice and in her face when she said:

"You are very happy, then, with your husband, Lady Marion?"

"Yes, I am very happy," said the young wife, simply. "My husband loves me, I have no rivals, no jealousies, no annoyances; I may say I am perfectly happy."

"I pray God that you may always be so!" said Leone, gently.

And with an impulse she could not resist she bent down and kissed the sweet face.

Then Lady Chandos looked up.

"I am afraid," she said, "that our pleasant five minutes' chat is ended. We must go back to the ballroom. I am afraid all your admirers will be very angry with me, Madame Vanira."

"That is a matter of perfect indifference?" she replied. "I know you better, Lady Marion, for those five minutes spent here than I should have done during a century in ballrooms."

"And you promise that we shall always be friends," said the fair woman who called herself Lady Chandos.

"I promise, and I will keep my word," said the beautiful singer, who had believed herself to be his wife.

And with those words they parted.

CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE HUSBAND'S KISS

Lady Marion never did anything by halves. It was seldom that her calm, quiet nature was stirred, but when that happened she felt more deeply, perhaps, than people who express their feelings with great ease and rapidity. She was amused herself at her own great liking for Madame Vanira; it was the second great love of her life; the first had been for her husband, this was the next. She talked of her incessantly, until even Lord Chandos wondered and asked how it was.

"I cannot tell," she replied; "I think I am infatuated. I am quite sure, Lance, that if I had been a gentleman, I should have followed Madame Vanira to the other side of the world. I think her, without exception, the most charming woman in the world."

She raised her eyes with innocent tenderness to his face.

"Are you jealous because I love her so much?" she asked.

He shuddered as he heard the playful, innocent words, so different from the reality.

"I should never be jealous of you, Marion," he replied, and then turned the conversation.

Nothing less than a visit to Madame Vanira would please Lady Chandos. She asked her husband if he would go to the Cedars with her, and wondered when he declined. The truth was that he feared some chance recognition, some accidental temptation; he dared not go, and Lady Marion looked very disappointed.

"I thought you liked Madame Vanira," she said. "I am quite sure, Lance, that you looked as if you did."

"My dear Marion, between liking persons and giving up a busy morning to go to see them there is an immense difference. If you really wish me to go, Marion, you know that I will break all my appointments."

"I would not ask you to do that," she replied, gently, and the result of the conversation was that Lady Chandos went alone.

She spent two hours with Leone, and the result was a great increase of liking and affection for her. Leone sang for her, and her grand voice thrilled through every fiber of that gentle heart; Leone read to her, and Lady Chandos said to herself that she never quite understood what words meant before. When it was time to go, Lady Chandos looked at her watch in wonder.

"I have been here two hours," she said, "and they have passed like two minutes. Madame Vanira, I have no engagement to-morrow evening, come and see me. Lord Chandos has a speech to prepare, and he asked me to forego all engagements this evening."

"Perhaps I should be in the way," said Leone; but Lady Marion laughed at the notion. She pleaded so prettily and so gracefully that Leone consented, and it was arranged that she should spend the evening of the day following at Stoneland House.

She went – more than once. She had asked herself if this intimacy were wise? She could not help liking the fair, sweet woman who had taken her place, and yet she felt a great undercurrent of jealous indignation and righteous anger – it might blaze out some day, and she knew that if it ever did so it would be out of her control. It was something like playing with fire, yet how many people play with fire all their lives and never get burned!

She went, looking more beautiful and regal than ever, in a most becoming dress of black velvet, her white arms and white shoulders looking whiter than ever through the fine white lace.

She wore no jewels; a pomegranate blossom lay in the thick coils of her hair; a red rose nestled in her white breast.

She was shown into the boudoir she had admired so much, and there Lady Chandos joined her.

Lord Chandos had been busily engaged during the day in looking up facts and information for his speech. He had joined his wife for dinner, but she saw him so completely engrossed that she did not talk to him, and it had not occurred to her to tell him that Madame Vanira was coming, so that he was quite ignorant of that fact.

The two ladies enjoyed themselves very much – they had a cup of orange Pekoe from cups of priceless china, they talked of music, art, and books.

The pretty little clock chimed ten. Lady Chandos looked at her companion.

"You have not tried my piano yet," she said. "It was a wedding present from Lord Chandos to me; the tone of it is very sweet and clear."

"I will try it," said Madame Vanira. "May I look through the pile of music that lies behind it?"

Lady Chandos laughed at the eagerness with which Leone went on her knees and examined the music.

Just at that moment, when she was completely hidden from view, the door suddenly opened, and Lord Chandos hastily entered. Seeing his wife near, without looking around the room, in his usual caressing manner, he threw one arm round her, drew her to him, and kissed her.

It was that kiss which woke all the love, and passion, and jealousy in Leone's heart; it came home to her in that minute, and for the first time, that the husband she had lost belonged to another – that his kisses and caresses were never more to be hers, but would be given always to this other.

There was one moment – only one moment of silence; but while it lasted a sharp sword pierced her heart; the next, Lady Chandos, with a laughing, blushing face, had turned to her husband, holding up one white hand in warning.

"Lance," she cried, "do you not see Madame Vanira?"

She wondered why the words seemed to transfix him – why his face paled and his eyes flashed fire.

"Madame Vanira!" he cried, "I did not see that she was here."

Then Leone rose slowly from the pile of music.

"I should ask pardon," she said; "I did not know that I had hidden myself so completely."

It was like a scene from a play; a fair wife, with her sweet face, its expression of quiet happiness in her husband's love; the husband, with the startled look of passion repressed; Leone, with her grand Spanish beauty all aglow with emotion. She could not recover her presence of mind so as to laugh away the awkward situation. Lady Chandos was the first to do that.

"How melodramatic we all look!" she said. "What is the matter?"

Then Lord Chandos recovered himself. He knew that the kiss he had given to one fair woman must have stabbed the heart of the other, and he would rather have done anything than that it should have happened. There came to him like a flash of lightning the remembrance of that first home at River View, and the white arms that were clasped round his neck when he entered there; and he knew that the same memory rankled in the heart of the beautiful woman whose face had suddenly grown pale as his own.

The air had grown like living flame to Leone; the pain which stung her was so sharp she could have cried aloud with the anguish of it. It was well nigh intolerable to see his arm round her, to see him draw her fair face and head to him, to see his lips seek hers and rest on them. The air grew like living flames; her heart beat fast and loud; her hands burned. All that she had lost by woman's intrigue and man's injustice this fair, gentle woman had gained. A red mist came before her eyes; a rush, as of many waters, filled her ears. She bit her lips to prevent the loud and bitter cry that seemed as though it must escape her.

Then Lord Chandos hastened to place a chair for her, and tried to drive from her mind all recollection of the little incident.

"You are looking for some music, madame," he said, "from which I may augur the happy fact that you intended to sing. Let me pray that you will not change your intention."

"Lady Chandos asked me to try her piano," she said shyly.

"I told Madame Vanira how sweet and silvery the tone of it is, Lance," said Lady Chandos.

And again Leone shrunk from hearing on another woman's lip the word she had once used. It was awkward, it was intolerable; it struck her all at once with a sense of shame that she had done wrong in ever allowing Lord Chandos to speak to her again. But then he had pleaded so, he had seemed so utterly miserable, so forlorn, so hopeless, she could not help it. She had done wrong in allowing Lady Marion to make friends with her; Lady Marion was her enemy by force of circumstances, and there ought not to have been even one word between them. Yet she pleaded so eagerly, it had seemed quite impossible to resist her.

She was roused from her reverie by the laughing voice of Lady Marion, over whose fair head so dark a cloud hung.

"Madame Vanira," she was saying, "ask my husband to sing with you. He has a beautiful voice, not a deep, rolling bass, as one would imagine from the dark face and tall, stalwart figure, but a rich, clear tenor, sweet and silvery as the chime of bells."

Leone remembered every tone, every note of it; they had spent long hours in singing together, and the memory of those hours shone now in the eyes that met so sadly. A sudden, keen, passionate desire to sing with him once more came over Leone. It might be rash – it was imprudent.

"Mine was always a mad love," she said to herself, with a most bitter smile. "It might be dangerous – but once more."

Just once more she would like to hear her voice float away with his. She bent over the music again – the first and foremost lay Mendelssohn's beautiful duet. "Oh, would that my love." They sang it in the summer gloamings when she had been pleased and proud to hear her wonderful voice float away over the trees and die in sweetest silence. She raised it now and looked at him.

"Will you sing this?" she asked; but her eyes did not meet his, and her face was very pale.

She did not wait for an answer, but placed the music on a stand, and then – ah, then – the two beautiful voices floated away, and the very air seemed to vibrate with the passionate, thrilling sound; the drawing-room, the magnificence of Stoneland House, the graceful presence of the fair wife, faded from them. They were together once more at the garden at River View, the green trees making shade, the deep river in the distance.

But when they had finished, Lady Chandos was standing by, her face wet with tears.

"Your music breaks my heart," she said; but she did not know the reason why.

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE WOUND IN HER HEART

If Leone had been wiser after that one evening, she would have avoided Lord Chandos as she would have shunned the flames of fire; that one evening showed her that she stood on the edge of a precipice. Looking in her own heart, she knew by its passionate anguish and passionate pain that the love in her had never been conquered. She said to herself, when the evening was over and she drove away, leaving them together, that she would never expose herself to that pain again.

It was so strange, so unnatural for her – she who believed herself his wife, who had spent so many evenings with him – to go away and leave him with this beautiful woman who was really his wife. She looked up at the silent stars as she drove home; surely their pale, golden eyes must shine down in dearest pity on her. She clinched her white, soft hands until the rings made great red dents; she exhausted herself with great tearless sobs; yet no tears came from her burning eyes.

Was ever woman so foully, so cruelly wronged? had ever woman been so cruelly tortured?

"I will not see him again," she cried to herself; "I cannot bear it."

Long after the stars had set, and the crimson flush of dawn stirred the pearly tints of the sky, she lay, sobbing, with passionate tears, feeling that she could not bear it – she must die.

It would have been well if that had frightened her, but when morning dawned she said to herself that hers had always been a mad love, and would be so until the end. She made one desperate resolve, one desperate effort; she wrote to Lord Chandos, and sent the letter to his club – a little, pathetic note, with a heart-break in every line of it – to say that they who had been wedded lovers were foolish to think of being friends; that it was not possible, and that she thought they had better part; the pain was too great for her, she could not bear it.

The letter was blotted with tears, and as he read it for whom it was written, other tears fell on it. Before two hours had passed, he was standing before her, with outstretched hands, the ring of passion in his voice, the fire of passion in his face.

"Leone," he said, "do you mean this – must we part?"

They forgot in that moment all the restraints by which they had surrounded themselves; once more they were Lance and Leone, as in the old days.

"Must we part?" he repeated, and her face paled as she raised it to his.

"I cannot bear the pain, Lance," she said, wearily. "It would be better for us never to meet than for me to suffer as I did last evening."

He drew nearer to her.

"Did you suffer so much, Leone?" he asked, gently.

"Yes, more almost than I can bear. It is not many years since I believed that I was your wife, and now I have to see another woman in my place. I – I saw you kiss her – I had to go away and leave you together. No, I cannot bear it, Lance!"

The beautiful head drooped wearily, the beautiful voice trembled and died away in a wail that was pitiful to hear; all her beauty, her genius, her talent – what did it avail her?

Lord Chandos had suffered much, but his pain had never been so keen as now at this moment, when this beautiful queenly woman wailed out her sorrow to him.

"What shall I do, Leone? I would give my life to undo what I have done; but it is useless – I cannot. Do you mean that we must part?"

The eyes she raised to his face were haggard and weary with pain.

"There is nothing for it but parting, Lance," she said. "I thought we could be friends, but it is not possible; we have loved each other too well."

"We need not part now," he said; "let us think it over; life is very long; it will be hard to live without the sunlight of your presence, Leone, now that I have lived in it so long. Let us think it over. Do you know what I wanted to ask you last evening?"

"No," she replied, "what was it?"

"A good that you may still grant me," he said. "We may part, if you wish it, Leone. Leone, let us have one happy day before the time comes. Leone, you see how fair the summer is, I want you to spend one day with me on the river. The chestnuts are all in flower – the whole world is full of beauty, and song, and fragrance; the great boughs are dipping into the stream, and the water-lilies lie on the river's breast. My dear love and lost love, come with me for one day. We may be parted all the rest of our lives, come with me for one day."

Her face brightened with the thought. Surely for one day they might be happy; long years would have to pass, and they would never meet. Oh, for one day, away on the river, in the world of clear waters, green boughs and violet banks – one day away from the world which had trammeled them and fettered them.

"You tempt me," she said, slowly. "A day with you on the river. Ah, for such a pleasure as that I would give twenty years of my life."

He did not answer her, because he dared not. He waited until his heart was calm and at rest again, then he said:

"Let us go to-morrow, Leone, no one knows what twenty-four hours may bring forth. Let us go to-morrow, Leone. Rise early. How often we have gone out together while the dew lay upon the flowers and grass. Shall it be so?"

The angel of prudence faded from her presence as she answered, "Yes." Knowing how she loved him, hearing the old love story in his voice, reading it in his face, she would have done better had she died there in the splendor of her beauty and the pain of her love than have said, "Yes." So it was arranged.

"It will be a beautiful day," said Lord Chandos. "I am a capital rower, Leone, as you will remember. I will take you as far as Medmersham Abbey: we will land there and spend an hour in the ruins; but you will have to rise early and drive down to the river side. You will not mind that."

"I shall mind nothing that brings me to you," she said, with a vivid blush, and so it was settled.

They forgot the dictates of honor; he forgot his duty to his wife at home, and she forgot prudence and justice.

The morning dawned. She had eagerly watched for it through the long hours of the night; it wakes her with the song of the birds and the shine of the sun; it wakes her with a mingled sense of pain and happiness, of pleasure and regret. She was to spend a whole day with him, but the background to that happiness was that he was leaving a wife at home who had all claims to his time and attention.

"One happy day before I die," she said to herself.

But will it be happy? The sun will shine brightly, yet there will be a background; yet it shall be happy because it will be with him.

It was yet early in the morning when she drove to the appointed place at the river side. The sun shone in the skies, the birds sang in the trees, the beautiful river flashed and glowed in the light, the waters seemed to dance and the green leaves to thrill.

Ah, if she were but back by the mill-stream, if she were but Leone Noel once again, with her life all unspoiled before her; if she were anything on earth except a woman possessed by a mad love. If she could but exchange these burning ashes of a burning love for the light, bright heart of her girlhood, when the world had been full of beauty which spoke to her in an unknown tongue.

God had been so good to her; he had given to her the beauty of a queen, genius that was immortal, wit, everything life holds most fair, and they were all lost to her because of her mad love. Ah, well, never mind, the sun was shining, the river dancing far away in the sun, and she was to spend the day with him. She had dressed herself to perfection in a close-fitting dress of dark-gray velvet, relieved by ribbons of rose pink; she wore a hat with a dark-gray plume, under the shade of which her beautiful face looked doubly bewitching; the little hands, which by their royal gestures swayed multitudes, were cased in dark gray. Lord Chandos looked at her in undisguised admiration.

"The day seems to have been made on purpose for us," he said, as he helped her in the boat.

Leone laughed, but there was just the least tinge of bitterness in that laugh.

"A day made for us would have gray skies, cold rains, and bleak, bitter winds," she said.

And then the pretty pleasure boat floated away on the broad, beautiful stream.

It was a day on which to dream of heaven; there was hardly a ripple on the beautiful Thames; the air was balmy, sweet, filled with the scent of hay from the meadows; of flowers from the banks; it was as though they had floated away into Paradise.

Lord Chandos bent forward to see that the rugs were properly disposed; he opened her sunshade, but she would not use it.

"Let me see the beautiful river, the banks and the yews, while I may," she said, "the sun will not hurt me."

There was no sound save that of the oars cleaving the bright waters. Leone watched the river with loving eyes; since she had left River View – and she had loved it with something like passion – it seemed like part of that married life which had ended so abruptly. They passed by a thicket, where the birds were singing after a mad fashion of their own.

"Stop and listen," she said, holding up her hand.

He stopped and the boat floated gently with the noiseless tide.

"I wonder," said Leone, "if in that green bird kingdom there are tragedies such as take place in ours?"

Lord Chandos laughed.

"You are full of fanciful ideas, Leone," he said. "Yes, I imagine, the birds have their tragedies because they have their loves."

"I suppose there are pretty birds and plain birds, loving birds, and hard-hearted ones; some who live a happy life, filled with sunlight and song – some who die while the leaves are green, shot through the heart. In the kingdom of birds and the kingdom of men it is all just the same."

"Which fate is yours, Leone?" asked Lord Chandos.

"Mine?" she said, looking away over the dancing waters, "mine? I was shot while the sun shone, and the best part of me died of the wound in my heart."