A Mad Love, Charlotte Mary Brame [read this if txt] 📗

much; he looked taller and stronger; the handsome face was covered with a golden beard and mustache; he looked quite three years older than before his marriage.

He was a handsome stripling when his mother kissed him and sent him, with many injunctions as to study, to Dr. Hervey's, a handsome stripling, with golden down on his lip, and the hue of a ripe peach on his face; now he was a man of the world, assured, confident, easy in his carriage and bearing.

He looked at his mother with half-defiance, half-amusement in his eyes.

The strong, handsome woman, whose brave nature had never known fear, trembled for one moment when she remembered what she had to tell her son.

He bent down to kiss her, and for one moment her heart relented to her son. She steeled herself with the recollection that what she had done was for his benefit.

"I have good news for you, Lance," she said, with her stately grace; "very excellent news."

"I am glad to hear it, mother," replied Lord Chandos, thinking to himself how much more this interview resembled that of a queen and a crown prince than of mother and son.

"You have traveled quickly and would probably like some refreshment--you would like a glass of Madeira?"

The truth was that her ladyship herself, with all her courage, felt that she required some artificial stimulant--the courage and pride of the proudest woman in England ebbed; she feared what she had to say.

"An honor has been bestowed on you," she said, "one which would make any peer in England proud."

His face brightened--he was keenly susceptible to the flattery implied in his mother's words.

"You have been asked, together with Lord Dunferline, to represent our gracious sovereign at the marriage of the Princess Caroline at Hempsburg. Such an invitation, I need not tell you, is equivalent to a royal command."

"I know it, mother, and I am delighted," he said, wondering in his own mind if he should be able to take Leone with him.

"The notice is rather short," continued the countess; "but that is owing to some delay on the part of Lord Dunferline. I hear that you are the envy of every man at the club. You will have to leave England for Germany in three days; to-morrow you must be at the palace. I congratulate you, Lance; it is very seldom that a man so young as you receives so signal a favor."

He knew it, and was proud accordingly; yet he said to himself that Leone must go with him; he could not live without Leone.

Lady Lanswell continued:

"Your father is delighted over it; I cannot tell you how pleased he is."

Then Lord Chandos looked wonderingly around.

"Where is my father?" he said. "I have not seen him yet."

Lady Lanswell knew that he would not see him. The earl had fled ignominiously; he had declined to be present at the grand fracas between his wife and his son; he had left it all in my lady's hands.

"Your father had some business that took him away this morning; he knew that I could say for him all that he had to say."

Lord Chandos smiled, and the smile was not, perhaps, the most respectful in the world. My lady did not observe it.

"I am quite sure," he said, "that you can interpret all my father's ideas."

It was then, with her son's handsome face smiling down on her, that the countess grew pale and laid her hand, with instinctive fear, on the papers spread before her. She nerved herself for the struggle; it would never do to give way.

"I have other news for you, Lance," she said, and he looked with clear, bright, defiant eyes in her face.

She drew herself to her full height, as though the very attitude gave the greatest strength; there was no bend, no yielding in her. Stern, erect, proud, she looked full in her son's face; it was as though they were measuring their strength one against the other.

"I have never said to you, Lance, what I thought of this wretched mistake you call your marriage," she began; "my contempt and indignation were too great that you should dare to give the grand old name you bear to a dairy-maid."

Leone's beautiful Spanish face flashed before him, and he laughed at the word dairy-maid; she was peerless as a queen.

"Dare is not the word to use to a man, mother," he retorted.

"Nor should I use it to a man," said my lady, with a satirical smile. "I am not speaking to a man, but to a hot-headed boy; a man has self-control, self-denial, self-restraint, you have none; a man weighs the honor of his name or his race in his hands; a man hesitates before he degrades a name that kings have delighted to honor, before he ruins hopelessly the prestige of a grand old race for the sake of a dairy-maid. You, a hot-headed, foolish boy, have done all this; therefore, I repeat that I am not speaking to a man."

"You use strong language, mother," he said.

"I feel strongly; my contempt is strong," she said. "I know not why so great a humiliation should have fallen on me as that my son--the son of whom I was proud--should be the first to bring shame on his name."

"I have brought no shame on it, mother," he said, angrily.

"No shame!" said the countess, bitterly. "I can read, fancy, the short annals of the Lanswells--'Hubert, Earl Lanswell, died while fighting loyally for his king and his country; Ross, Earl Lanswell, was famed for political services; Lancelot, Earl Lanswell, married a dairy-maid.' I would rather," she cried, with flashing eyes, "that you had died in your childhood, than lived to bring such bitter shame on a loyal race."

His face grew pale with anger, as the bitter words were hurled at him.

"Will you understand, once for all, mother, that I have _not_ married a dairy-maid?" he cried. "My wife is a wonder of beauty; she is dainty and lovely as a princess. Only see her, you would change your opinion at once."

"I hope never to do that. As for seeing her, I shall never so far lose my own self-respect as to allow such a person to speak to me."

Lord Chandos shook his head with a rueful smile.

"If you had ever seen Leone, mother, you would laugh at the idea of calling her a person," he said.

Lady Lanswell moved her hand with a gesture of superb pride.

"Nay, do not continue the subject. If the girl was not actually a dairy-maid, in all probability she was not far removed from it. I have no wish to discuss the question. You have stained the hitherto stainless name of your family by the wretched mistake you call a marriage."

"I do not _call_ it a marriage; it _is_ one," he said.

And then my lady's face grew even paler.

"It is not one. I thank Heaven that the law of the land is just and good; that it very properly refuses to recognize the so-called marriage of a hot-headed boy. You have ignored our letters on the subject, you have laughed at all threats, treated with disdain all advice; now you will find your level. The judicial decree has been pronounced; the marriage you have talked of with such bravado is no marriage; the woman you have insulted me by mentioning is not your wife."

She neither trembled nor faltered when he turned to her with a white, set face.

"Pardon me; I must speak plainly; that which you have said is a lie!"

"You forget yourself, Lord Chandos," she said, with cold dignity.

"You force me to use words I do not like, mother," he cried "Why do you irritate me--why say those things?"

"They are perfectly true; here on the table lie the papers relative to the suit; the judicial opinion has been pronounced; our petition is granted, and your marriage, as you choose to call it, is set aside, is pronounced illegal, null, void!"

The fierce, white anger of his face startled her.

"It shall not be!" he cried.

"It must be," she repeated; "you cannot prevent it. You must have been singularly devoid of penetration and knowledge not to know from the first that it must be decided against you; that no minor can marry without the consent of his parents. A wise law it is, too; there would soon be an end of the aristocracy of England if every hot-headed, foolish boy of nineteen could marry without the consent of his parents or guardian."

If his antagonist had been a man, there would have been hot, angry words, perhaps blows; as it was, to a lady, and that lady his mother, he could say nothing. He sunk back with a white face and clinched hands; his mother resolutely stifled all pity, and went on, in her clear voice:

"The law has decided for us against you; you know now the truth. If you have any respect for that unfortunate girl, you will not see her again; she is not your wife, she is not married to you. I need not speak more plainly; you know what relationship she will hold to you if you do not leave her at once."

The handsome face had in these five minutes grown quite haggard and worn.

"My God!" he cried; "I refuse to believe it, I refuse to believe one word of it!"

With her clear, pitiless voice, she went on telling him what would happen.

"You have one resource," she said, "and I tell you quite honestly about it; when you are of age you can remarry this person if you wish."

He sprung from his seat with a cry of wounded pain and love.

"Mother, is it really true?" he asked. "I married that young girl before Heaven, and you tell me that if I persist in returning to her she loses her fair name! If it be so, you have done a very cruel thing."

"It is so," said my lady, coldly. "I grant that it seems cruel, but better that than tarnish the name of a whole race."

"I shall remarry Leone, mother, the day after I am twenty-one," he said.

The countess raised her eyebrows.

"The same man does not often make a simpleton of himself in the same fashion, but if you will do it, you will. For the present, if you have any regard for the person who is not your wife, you will let her go home again. I will return and talk over your journey with you."

So saying, the Countess of Lanswell quitted the room, leaving her son overwhelmed with a sense of defeat.


CHAPTER XVI.


LEONE'S DETERMINATION.

Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, stood alone in the superb drawing-room at Cawdor. It was evening, one of the warmest and brightest in September. Nearly three months had passed since the fatal marriage which had grieved and distressed her, and now she fondly hoped all her distress was ended. The decree had gone forth that the marriage was null and void; was, in fact, no marriage, Lord Chandos being under age when it was contracted. She said to herself all was null now. True, her son was in a most furious rage, and he had gone to consult half the lawyers in London, but she did not care for that;