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

/> "Then we will remain enemies," he replied. "I will never give up a true friend for the caprice of any woman," he replied, "even though that woman be my wife."

"Neither will I consent to go to Berlin," she answered, gravely.

"Then I must go alone," he said; "I will not be governed by caprices that have in them neither reason nor sense."

"Then," cried Lady Marion, "it is war to the knife between us!"

"War, if you will," said Lord Chandos; "but always remember you can put an end to the warfare when you will!"

"I shall appeal to Lady Lanswell and to the Duke of Lester," said Lady Marion, and her husband merely answered with a bow.

With them it was indeed "war to the knife." Such was the Gordian knot that Lady Lanswell had to untie, and it was the most difficult task of her life.

On the same evening when that conversation took place, Lord Chandos went to the opera, where Leone was playing "Anne Boleyn." He waited until she came out and was seated in her carriage; then he stood for a few moments leaning over the carriage door and talking to her.

"How you tremble, Leone," he said. "Your face is white and your eyes all fire!"

"The spell is still on me," she answered. "When I have thrown my whole soul into anything, I lose my own identity for many hours. I wish," she continued, "that I did not so thoroughly enter into those characters. I hardly realize this moment whether I am Anne Boleyn, the unhappy wife of bluff King Hal, or whether I am Leone, the singer."

"I know which you are," he said, his eyes seeking hers with a wistful look. "All King Hal's wives put together are not worth your little finger, Leone. See how the stars are shining. I have something to say to you. May I drive with you as far as Highgate Hill?"

The beautiful face, all pale with passion, looked into his.

"It is against our compact," she said; "but you may if you wish."

The silent stars looked down in pity as he took his place by her side.

"Leone," he said, "I want to ask you something. A crisis is come in our lives; my wife, who was told about that day on the river, has asked me to give up your acquaintance."

A low cry came from the beautiful lips, and the face of the fairest woman in England grew deadly pale.

"To give me up," she murmured; "and you, Lord Chandos, what have you said?"

"I said 'No,' a thousand times over, Leone; our friendship is a good and pure one; I would not give it up for any caprice in the world."

A great, tearless sob came from her pale lips.

"God bless you a thousand times!" she said. "So you would not give me up, and you told them so?"

"Yes; I refused to do anything of the kind," he replied; "why should I, Leone? They parted us once by stratagem, by intrigue, by working on all that was weakest in my character; now we are but friends, simply honest friends; who shall part us?"

She clasped his hand for an instant in her own.

"So you will not give me up again, Lance?" she said.

"No, I will die first, Leone. There is one thing more I have to say. I said that I would go to Berlin, and I have asked my wife to go with me; she has refused, and I have said that I would go alone. Tell me what you think?"

"I cannot--I think nothing; perhaps--oh, Heaven help me!--perhaps as your wife has told you she will not go with you, your duty is to stay with her."

"My duty," he repeated; "who shall say what a man's duty is? Do you think I have no duty toward you?"

"Your first thought should be--must be--your wife. If she would have countenanced our friendship, it would have been our greatest pride and pleasure; if she opposes it, we must yield. She has the first right to your time. After all, Lance, what can it matter? We shall have to part; what can it matter whether it is now or in three months to come? The more we see of each other the harder it will be."

A flush as of fire came over his face.

"Why must we part?" he cried. "Oh, Heaven, what a price I pay for my folly!"

"Here is Highgate Hill," said Leone; "you go no further, Lord Chandos."

Only the silent stars were looking on; he stood for a few minutes at the carriage door.

"Shall I go to Berlin?" he whispered, as he left her, and her answer was a low, sad:

"Yes."


CHAPTER LVI.


AN APPROACHING TEMPEST.

The Countess of Lanswell was in despair. Any little social difficulty, the exposing of an adventuress, the setting aside of a marriage, intrigues, or a royal invitation, "dropping" people when it was convenient to do so, and courting them when she required them, to all and each of these deeds she was quite equal; but a serious case of cruel jealousy, a heart-broken, desolate wife on the one hand, an obstinate husband on the other, was past her power of management. Lady Chandos had written to ask her to come to Stoneland House that day.

"I have something of the greatest importance to say to you," she wrote. "Do not delay; to-morrow may be too late."

Lady Lanswell received this urgent note just as she was sipping her chocolate, luxuriously robed in a dressing-gown of silk and softest velvet, a pretty morning-cap of finest Mechlin lace on her head. Her handsome, haughty face grew pale as she read it.

"It is a wretched piece of business from beginning to end," she said to herself. "Now here is my peace of mind for the day gone. I was to have seen Madame Adelaide soon after noon about my dresses, and the dentist at three. I know absolutely nothing which I can say to a jealous wife, I know nothing of jealousy. Most of the wives whom I know are pleased rather than otherwise when their husbands are away from home. Marion takes things too seriously. I shall tell her so."

But any little speech of that kind she might have tried to make was forgotten when she caught the first glimpse of Lady Marion's white, tragic face.

"My dear child, what is the matter? What a face! why, you have been crying for hours, I am sure," said the countess. "Marion, you should not go on in this way, you will kill yourself."

"Lady Lanswell, I wish that I were dead; my husband has ceased to love me. Oh, God, let me die!" cried poor Lady Marion, and the countess was seriously alarmed.

"My dear child, pray be reasonable," she cried; "how can you say that Lance has ceased to love you?"

"It is true," said the unhappy wife; "he refused to give up Madame Vanira, and what seems to me more dreadful still, she is going to Berlin, and he insists on going also. I cannot bear it, Lady Lanswell!"

"We must reason with him," said the countess, grandly, and despite the tragedy of her sorrow, Lady Marion smiled.

"Reason with him? You might as well stand before a hard, white rock and ask roses to bloom on it; you might as well stand before the great heaving ocean and ask the tide not to roll in, as to try to reason with him. I do not understand it, but I am quite sure that he is infatuated by Madame Vanira; I could almost fancy that she had worked some spell over him. Why should he care for her? Why should he visit her? Why should he go to Berlin because she is there?"

The countess, listening, thanked Heaven that she did not know. If ever that secret became known, it was all over with the House of Lanswell.

"I have said all that I can say," she continued, rising in great agitation; "and it is of no use; he is utterly shameless."

"Hush, woman! I will not have you say such things of my son; he may like and admire Madame Vanira, but I trust him, and would trust him anywhere; you think too much of it, and you make more of it than you need. Let me pray of you to be prudent; want of prudence in a wife at such a juncture as this has very often occasioned misery for life. Are you quite sure that you cannot be generous enough to allow your husband the pleasure of this friendship, which I can certify is a good one?"

The countess sighed; the matter was indeed beyond her. In her artificial life, these bare, honest human passions had no place.

"Over the journey to Berlin," she said, "you are making too much of it. If he enjoys madame's society, and likes Berlin, where is the harm of his enjoying them together?"

So she spoke; but she shrunk from the clear gaze of those blue eyes.

"Lady Lanswell, you know all that is nonsense. My husband is mine, and I will not share his love or his affection with any one. Unless he gives up Madame Vanira, I shall leave him. If he goes to Berlin, I will never see him again."

"You are very foolish, my dear. I heard yesterday, on very good authority, that my son, Lord Chandos, will be offered the vacant Garter. I believe it is true, I feel sure of it. I would not for the world anything should happen now, any disgrace of any kind; and these matrimonial quarrels are disgraceful, Marion. You should trust your husband."

"I have done so, but he does not love me, Lady Lanswell; my mind is quite made up. If he goes to Berlin, I shall never see or speak to him again."

"But, my dearest Marion," cried the countess, "this is terrible. Think of appearances, think of the world--what will the world say? And yours was supposed to be a love-match. It must not be. Have you not the sense to see that such a course of proceeding would be simply to throw him into Madame Vanira's hands? You will be your own worst enemy if you do this!"

"I shall do what my own heart prompts," she said; "no matter what the world says; I care nothing for the world's opinion. Oh, Lady Lanswell, do not look so angry at me. I am miserable; my heart is broken!"

And the unhappy girl knelt at Lady Lanswell's feet, and laid her head on the silken folds of her dress.

If there was one creature in this world whom Lady Lanswell loved more than another, it was her son's wife, the fair, gentle girl who had been a most loving daughter to her; she could not endure the sight of her pain and distress.

"I have made up my mind," sobbed Lady Marion; "I shall appeal to the Duke of Lester; he will see that justice is done to me!"

"My dearest Marion, that is the very thing you must not do. If you appeal to the duke, it becomes at once a serious quarrel, and who shall say how such a quarrel may end? If you appeal to the duke, the whole thing will be known throughout the land; there is an end to all my hopes of the vacant Garter; in fact, I