Kitabı oku: «The Shadow of a Sin», sayfa 5

"It soon dies," she replied.

"Yes; and girls brought up in the artificial atmosphere of modern society, and its worship of Mammon, its false estimates, its love of sensation and excitement, soon die to all that is fairest and best in life. You," he continued, "enjoy – see, your face tells tales, Hyacinth – you enjoy the sunshine, the flowers, the music, the lake."

"Yes, indeed I do," she confessed.

"If you had danced and flirted through one or two London seasons, you would not enjoy nature as you do; it would pall upon you – you would be apt to look at it through an eye-glass, and criticise the color of the water and the tints of the flowers – you would detect motes in the sunbeam and false notes in music."

She laughed. "I should not be so keen a critic, Mr. Darcy."

"One who can criticise is not always one who enjoys most," he said. "I like to see people honestly enjoying themselves, and leaving criticism alone."

The gardens were not crowded; there were seldom visitors enough at the hotel to form a crowd; but Hyacinth was struck by the pleasant, high-bred faces and elegant dresses.

"Do you see that lady there in the gray dress," said Mr. Darcy – "the one with two children by her side?" Hyacinth looked in the direction indicated.

"That is the Princess Von Arten, the daughter of a queen. How simple and unassuming she is! She is staying here with her children. The gentleman now saluting her is the eminent Weilmath."

Her face lighted up.

"I am glad to have seen him," she said; "I have read of him so often. Do you admire him?"

"I admire bravery," he replied, "but not unscrupulous daring. Do you see that lady sitting under the ilex tree?"

"The one with the sad, thoughtful face?" asked Hyacinth.

"Yes. Twelve months ago she was the leading star of the most brilliant court in Europe; now she has no home that she can call her own."

Hyacinth turned her face to his.

"Mr. Darcy," she said, "is the world then so full of reverses? I thought that, when one was happy and prosperous, sorrow and trouble did not approach. What is stable if money, and friendship, and happiness fail?"

"Just one thing," he replied, with the beautiful luminous smile she had never seen on any other face – "Heaven!"

CHAPTER XI

Hyacinth Vaughan repeated one sentence over and over again to herself – they were always the same words – "Thank Heaven, Adrian does not know what I have done."

For, as the days passed on, she learned to care for him with a love that was wonderful in its intensity. It was not his personal beauty that impressed her. By many people Claude Lennox would have been considered the handsomer man of the two. It was the grandeur of Adrian Darcy's character, the loyalty and nobility of his most loyal soul; the beauty of his mind, the stretch and clearness of his intellect, that charmed her.

She had never met any one like him – never met so perfect a mixture of chivalry and strength. She learned to have the utmost reliance upon him. His most lightly spoken word was to her as the oath of another. She saw that every thought, every word, every action of his was so perfectly correct that his least judgment was invaluable. If he said a thing was right, the whole world could not have made her think it wrong; if he disapproved of anything, so entire was her reliance upon him, that she could not be brought to consider it right.

It seemed so strange that she should have been so ready to run away, so as to escape this Adrian Darcy; and now the brightest heaven of which she could dream was his friendship – for his love, after she understood him, she could hardly hope.

"How can he care for a child like me," she was accustomed to ask herself, "uninformed, inexperienced, ignorant? He is so great and so noble, how can he care for me?"

She did not know that her sweet humility, her graceful shyness, her naïveté, her entire freedom from all taint of worldliness, was more precious to him, more charming, than all the accomplishments she could have displayed.

"How can I ever have thought that I loved Claude?" she said to herself. "How can I have been so blind? My heart never used to beat more quickly for his coming. If I had had the same liberty, the same amusements and pleasures which other girls have, I should never have cared for him. It was only because he broke the monotony of my life, and gave me something to think of."

Then in her own mind she contrasted the two men – Adrian, so calm, so dignified, so noble in thought, word, and deed, and so loyal, so upright; Claude, all impetuosity, fire, recklessness and passion – not to be trusted, not to be relied upon. There was never a greater difference of character surely than between these two men.

She learned to look with Adrian's eyes, to think with his mind; and she became a noble woman.

Life at Bergheim was very pleasant; there was no monotony, no dreariness now. Her first thought when she woke in the morning, was that she should see Adrian, hear him speak, perhaps go out with him. Quite unconsciously to herself, he became the centre of her thoughts and ideas – the soul of her soul, the life of her life. She did not know that she loved him; what she called her "love" for Claude had been something so different – all made up of gratified vanity and love of change. The beautiful affection rapidly mastering her was so great and reverent, it filled her soul with light, her heart with music, her mind with beauty. She did not know that it was love that kept her awake throughout the night thinking of him, bringing back to her mind every word he had spoken – that made her always anxious to look well.

"I always thought," she said to him one day, "that grave and thoughtful people always despised romance."

"They despise all affectation and caricature of it," he replied.

"Since I have been out in the world and have listened to people talking, I have heard them say, 'Oh, she is romantic!' as though romance were wrong or foolish."

"There is romance and romance," he said; "romance that is noble, beautiful and exalting; and romance that is the overheated sentiment of foolish girls. What so romantic as Shakespeare? What love he paints for us – what passion, what sadness! Who more romantic than Fouque? What wild stories, what graceful, improbable legends he gives us! Yet, who sneers at Shakespeare and Fouque?"

"Then why do people apply the word 'romantic' almost as a term of reproach to others?"

"Because they misapply the word, and do not understand it. I plead guilty myself to a most passionate love of romance – that is, romance which teaches, elevates, and ennobles – the soul of poetry, the high and noble faculty that teaches one to appreciate the beautiful and true. You know, Hyacinth, there are true romance and false romance, just as there are true poetry and false poetry."

"I can understand what you call true romance, but not what you mean by false," she said.

"No; you are too much like the flower you are named after to know much of false romance," he rejoined. "Everything that lowers one's standard, that tends to lower one's thoughts, that puts mere sentiment in the place of duty, that makes wrong seem right, that leads to underhand actions, to deceit, to folly – all that is false romance. Pardon my alluding to such things. The lover who would persuade a girl to deceive her friends for his sake, who would persuade her to give him private meetings, to receive secret letters – such a lover starts from a base of the very falsest romance; yet many people think it true."

He did not notice that her beautiful face had suddenly grown pale, and that an expression of fear had crept into her blue eyes.

"You are always luring me into argument, Hyacinth," he said, with a smile.

"Because I like to hear you talk," she explained. She did not see how full of love was the look he bent on her as he plucked a spray of azalea flowers and passed it to her. Through the tears that filled her downcast eyes she saw the flower, and almost mechanically took it from his hand, not daring to look up. But in the silence of her own room she pressed the flowers passionately to her lips and rained tears upon them, as she moaned, "Oh, if he knew, what would he think of me? what would he think?"

CHAPTER XII

Hyacinth Vaughan was soon to learn more of Mr. Darcy's sentiments. He was dining with them one day, when the conversation turned upon some English guests who had arrived at the hotel the evening before – Lord and Lady Wallace.

"She looks quite young," said Lady Vaughan. "She would be a nice companion for Hyacinth."

Mr. Darcy, to whom she was speaking, made no reply. Lady Vaughan noticed how grave his face had grown.

"Do you not think so, Adrian?" she asked.

"Since you wish me to speak, my answer is, no; I do not think so."

"Do you mind telling me why?" pursued Lady Vaughan "I have been so long out of the world I am ignorant of its proceedings."

"I would rather you would not ask me, Lady Vaughan," he said.

"And I would rather hear what you have to tell," she persisted, with a smiling air of command that he was too courteous not to obey.

"I do not think Lady Wallace would be a good companion for Hyacinth, because she is what people of the period call 'fast.' She created a great sensation three years ago by eloping with Lord Wallace. She was only seventeen at the time."

Lady Vaughan looked slightly disgusted; but Hyacinth, who perhaps felt in some measure that she was on her trial, said: "Perhaps she loved him."

Adrian turned to her eagerly. "That is what I was trying to explain to you the other day – false romance – how the truest, the purest, the brightest romance would have been, not eloping – which is the commonplace instinct of commonplace minds – but waiting in patience. Think of the untruths, the deceit, the false words, the underhand dealings that are necessary for an elopement!"

"But surely," said Lady Vaughan, "there are exceptions?"

"There may be. I do not know. I am only saying what I think. A girl who deceives all her friends, who leaves home in such a fashion, must be devoid of refinement and delicacy – not to mention truth and honesty."

"You are very hard," murmured Hyacinth.

"Nay," he rejoined, turning to her with infinite tenderness of manner; "there are some things in which one cannot be too hard. Anything that touches the fair and pure name of a woman should be held sacred."

"You think highly of women," she said.

"I do – so highly that I cannot bear even a cloud to shadow the fairness and brightness that belong to them. A woman's fair name is her inheritance – her dower. I could not bear, had I a sister, to hear her name lightly spoken by light lips. What the moss is to the rose, what green leaves are to the lily, spotless repute is to a woman."

As he spoke the grave words, Hyacinth looked at him. How pure, how noble the woman must be who could win his love!

"Ah me, ah me!" thought the girl, with a bitter sigh, "what would he say to me if he knew all? Who was ever so near the scandal he hated as I was? Oh, thank Heaven, that I drew back in time, and that mine was but the shadow of a sin!"

There were times when she thought, with a beating heart, of what Lady Vaughan had said to her – that it was her wish Adrian Darcy should marry her. The lot that had once seemed so hard to her was now so bright, so dazzling, that she dared not think of it – when she remembered it, her face flushed crimson.

"I am not worthy," she said over and over again to herself – "I am not worthy."

She thought of Adrian's love as she thought of the distant stars in heaven – bright, beautiful, but far away. In her sweet humility, she did not think there was anything in herself which could attract him. She little dreamed, how much he admired the loveliness of her face, the grace of her girlish figure, the purity, the innocence, the simplicity that, despite the shadow of a sin, still lingered with her.

"She is innately noble," he said one day to Lady Vaughan. "She is sure always to choose the nobler and better part; her ideas are naturally noble, pure, and correct. She is the most beautiful combination of child and woman that I have ever met. Imagination and common sense, poetry, idealisms and reason, all seem to meet in her."

Years ago, Adrian Darcy had heard something of Lady Vaughan's half-expressed wish that he should marry her granddaughter. He laughed at it at the time; but he remembered it with a sense of acute pleasure. His had been a busy life; he had studied hard – had carried off some of the brightest honors of his college – and, after leaving Oxford, had devoted himself to literary pursuits. He had written books which had caused him to be pronounced one of the most learned scholars in England. He cared little for the frivolities of fashion – they had not interested him in the least – yet his name was a tower of strength in the great world.

Between Adrian Darcy and the ancient Barony of Chandon there was but the present Lord Chandon, an old infirm man, and his son, a sickly boy. People all agreed that sooner or later Adrian must succeed to the estate; great, therefore, was the welcome he received in Vanity Fair. Mothers presented their fairest daughters to him; fair-faced girls smiled their sweetest smiles when he was present; but all was in vain – the world and the worldly did not please Adrian Darcy. He cared more for his books than woman's looks; he had never felt the least inclination to fall in love until he met Hyacinth Vaughan.

It was not her beauty that charmed him, although he admitted that it was greater than he had ever seen. It was her youth, her simplicity, her freedom from all affectation, the entire absence of all worldliness, the charm of her fresh, sweet romance, that delighted him. She said what she thought, and she expressed her thoughts in such beautiful, eloquent words that he delighted to listen to them. He was quite unused to such frank, sweet, candid simplicity – it had all the charms of novelty for him. He had owned to himself, at last, that he loved her – that life without her would be a dreary blank.

"If I had never met her," he said to himself, "I should never have loved anyone. In all the wide world she is the only one for me." He wondered whether he could speak to her yet of his love. "She is like some shy, bright bird," he said to himself, "and I am afraid of startling her. She is so simple, so child-like, in spite of her romance and poetry, that I am half afraid."

His manner to her was so chivalrous that it was like the wooing of some gracious king. She contrasted him over and over again with Claude – Claude, who had respected her girlish ignorance and inexperience so little. So the sunny days glided by in a dream of delight. Adrian spent all his time with them; and one day Lady Vaughan asked him what he thought of his chance of succeeding to the Barony of Chandon.

"I think," he replied slowly, "that sooner or later it must be mine."

"Do you care much for it?" she asked. "Old people are always inquisitive, Adrian – you must forgive me."

"I care for it in one sense," he replied; "but I cannot say honestly that title or rank give me any great pleasure. I would rather be Adrian Darcy, than Baron Chandon of Chandon. But, Lady Vaughan, I will tell you something that I long for, that I covet and desire."

"What is it?" she asked, looking at the handsome face, flushed, eager, and excited.

"It is the love of Hyacinth Vaughan," he answered. "I love her – I have never seen anyone so simple, so frank, so spirituelle. I love her as I never thought to love any woman. If I do not marry her, I will never marry anyone. I have your permission, I know; but she is so shy, so coy, I am afraid to speak to her. Do you think I have any chance, Lady Vaughan?"

She raised her fair old face to his.

"I do," she replied. "Thanks to our care, the girl's heart is like the white leaf of a lily. No shadow has ever rested on her. She has not been flirted with and talked about. I tell you honestly, Adrian, that the lilies in the garden are not more pure, more fair, or fresh than she."

"I know it," he agreed; "and, heaven helping me, I will so guard and shield her that no shadow shall ever fall over her."

"She has never had a lover," continued Lady Vaughan. "Her life has been a most secluded one."

"Then I shall try to win her," he said; and when he had gone away Lady Vaughan acknowledged to herself that the very desire of her heart was near being gratified.

CHAPTER XIII

It may be that Hyacinth Vaughan read Adrian Darcy's determination in his face, for she grew so coy and frightened that had he not been brave he would have despaired. If by accident she raised her eyes and met his glance her face burned and her heart beat; when he spoke to her it was with difficulty she answered him. She had once innocently and eagerly sought his society – she had loved to listen to him while he was talking to Lady Vaughan – she had enjoyed being with him as the flowers enjoy the sunlight. But something was awake in her heart and soul which had been sleeping until now. When she saw Adrian, her first impulse was to turn aside and fly, no matter whither, because of the sweet pain his presence caused her. He met her one morning in the broad corridor of the hotel; she looked fresh and bright, fair and sweet as the morning itself. Her face flushed at his coming, she stopped half undecided whether to go on or turn and fly.

"Hyacinth," he said, holding out his hand in greeting, "it seems an age since I have had any conversation with you. Where do you hide yourself? What are you always doing?"

Then he paused and looked at her – admiration, passion, and tenderness unspeakable in his eyes. She little knew how fair a picture she presented in her youthful loveliness and timidity – how graceful and pure she was in her girlish embarrassment.

"Have you not one word of greeting, Hyacinth? It is the morning of a fresh day. I have not seen you since the noon of yesterday. Speak to me – after your own old bright way. Why, Hyacinth, what has changed you? We used to laugh all the sunny summer day through, and now you give me only a smile. What has changed you?"

She never remembered what answer she made him, nor how she escaped. She remembered nothing until she found herself in her own room, her heart beating, her face dyed with burning blushes, and her whole soul awake and alarmed.

"What has changed me?" she asked. "What has come over me? I know – I know. I love him!"

She fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands – she wept passionately.

"I love him," she said – "oh, Heaven, make me worthy to love him!"

She knelt in a kind of waking trance, a wordless ecstasy. She loved him; her heart was awake, her soul slept no more. That was why she dreaded yet longed to meet him – why his presence gave her pain that was sweeter than all joy.

This paradise she had gained was what, in her blindness and folly she had flown from; and she knew now, as she knelt there, that, had all the treasures of earth been offered to her, had its fairest gifts been laid at her feet, she would have selected this from them.

At last the great joy, the great mystery, the crowning pleasure of woman's life, was hers. She called to mind all that the poets had written of love. Was it true? Ah, no! It fell a thousand fathoms short. Such happiness, such joy as made music in her heart could not be told in words, and her face burned again as she remembered the feeble sentiment that she had dignified by the name of love. Now that she understood herself, she knew that it was impossible she could ever have loved Claude Lennox; he had not enough grandeur or nobility of character to attract her.

When she went down to the salon, Sir Arthur and Adrian were there alone; she fled like a startled fawn. He was to dine with them that day, and she spent more time than usual over her toilet. How could she make herself fair enough in the eyes of the man who was her king? Very fair did she look, for among her treasures she found an old-fashioned brocade, rich, heavy, and beautiful, and it was trimmed with rich point lace. The ground was white, with small rosebuds embroidered on it. The fair, rounded arms and white neck shone out even fairer than the white dress; a few pearls that Lady Vaughan had given her shone like dew-drops in the fair hair. She looked both long and anxiously in the mirror, so anxious was she to look well in his eyes.

"Miss Vaughan grows quite difficult to please," said Pincott to her mistress, later on; and Lady Vaughan smiled.

"There may be reasons," she returned; "we have all been young once – we must not quite forget what youth is like. Ah – there is the dinner-bell."

But, as far as the mere material dinner was concerned, Adrian did not show to great advantage; it was impossible to eat while that lovely vision in white brocade sat opposite to him.

"She flies from me – she avoids me," he thought; "but she shall listen. I have tamed the white doves – I have made the wildest, brightest song-birds love me and eat from my hands. She shall love me, too."

He could not succeed in inducing her to look at him; when he spoke she answered, but the sweet eyes were always downcast.

"Never mind. She shall look at me yet," he thought.

After dinner he asked her to sing. She saw with alarm that if she did so she would be alone with him – for the piano was at the extreme end of the room. So she excused herself, and he understood perfectly the reason why.

"Will you play at chess?" he asked.

Not for the wealth of India could she have managed it.

"I shall win you," his eyes seemed to say. "You may try to escape. Flutter your bright wings, my pretty bird; it is all in vain."

Then he asked her if she would go into the grounds. She murmured some few words of apology that he could hardly hear. A sudden great love and sweetest pity for her youth and her timidity came over him. "I will be patient," he said to himself; "the shy bird shall not be startled. In time she will learn not to be so coy and timid."

So he turned away and asked Sir Arthur if he should read the leading article from the Times to him, and Sir Arthur gratefully accepted the offer. Lady Vaughan, with serenely composed face, went to sleep. Hyacinth stole gently to the window; she wanted no books, no music; a fairyland was unfolded before her, and she had not half explored it. She only wanted to be quite alone, to think over and over again how wonderful it was that she loved Adrian Darcy.

"Come out," the dewy, sleepy flowers seemed to say. "Come out," sung the birds. "Come out," whispered the wind, bending the tall magnolia trees and spreading abroad sweet perfume. She looked round the room; Lady Vaughan was fast asleep, Sir Arthur listening intently, and Adrian reading to him. "No one will miss me," she thought.

She took up a thin shawl that was lying near, opened the long window very gently, and stepped out. But she was mistaken: some one did miss her, and that some one was Adrian. No gesture, no movement of hers ever escaped him. She was gone out into the sweet, dewy, fragrant gloaming, and he longed to follow her.

He read on patiently until – oh, pleasant sight! – he saw Sir Arthur's eyes begin to close. He had purposely chosen the dryest articles, and had read slowly until the kind god Morpheus came to his aid, and Sir Arthur slept. Then Adrian rose and followed Hyacinth. The band was playing at the further end of the gardens, and Mozart's sweet music came floating through the trees.

It was such a dim pleasant light under the vines, and the music of the dripping water was so sweet. His instinct had not deceived him: something white was gleaming by the rock. He walked with quiet steps. She was sitting watching the falling waters, looking so fair and lovely in that dim green light. He could contain himself no longer; he sprung forward and caught her in his arms.

"I have found you at last, Hyacinth," he said – "I have found you at last."