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

may say there is an end to the race of Lanswell. Think twice before you take such an important step!"

"No one thinks for me!" cried Lady Marion.

"Yes, I think of you and for you. Give me your promise that for a week at least you will say nothing to the Duke of Lester. Will you promise me that, Marion?"

"Yes," said Lady Chandos, wearily; "I promise you that, but not one day longer than a week; my heart is breaking! I cannot bear suspense!"

"I promise you that in a few days there shall be an end of all your trouble," said the countess, who had secretly made her own resolves. "Now, Marion, put your trust in me. You have had no breakfast this morning, I am sure."

Raising the delicate figure in her arms, the countess kissed the weeping face.

"Trust in me," she repeated; "all will be well. Let me see you take some coffee."

The countess rang and ordered some coffee; then, when she had compelled Lady Marion to drink it, she kissed her again.

"Do you know how it will end?" she said gently, "all this crying and fasting and sorrow? You will make yourself very ill, and then Lance will never forgive himself. Do be reasonable, Marion, and leave it all with me."

But after the countess had left her, Lady Marion still felt very ill; she had never felt so ill; she tried to walk from her dressing-room to her bedroom, and to the great alarm of her maid, she fell fainting to the ground.

The doctor came, the same physician who had attended her for some years since she was a child, and he looked very grave when he heard of the long deathlike swoon. He sat talking to her for some time.

"Do you think I am very ill, doctor?" she asked.

He answered:

"You are not very well, my dear Lady Chandos."

"Do you think I will die?"

"Not of this illness, please God," he said. "Now, if you will promise me not to be excited, I will tell you something," and, bending down, he whispered something in her ear.

A flood of light and rapture came in her face, her eyes filled with joy.

"Do you mean it? Is it really true?" she asked.

"Really true; but remember all depends on yourself;" and the doctor went away, leaving behind him a heart full of emotion, of pleasure, of pain, hope, and regret.

Meanwhile, the countess for the second time had sought her son. Her stern, grave face, her angry eyes, the repressed pride and emotion that he saw in every gesture, told him that the time for jesting or evasion had passed.

"Lance," said my lady, sternly, "you are a man now. I cannot command you as I did when you were a boy."

"No, mother; that is quite true. Apropos of what do you say that?"

"I am afraid the sin of your manhood will be greater than the follies of your youth," she said.

"It is just possible," he replied, indifferently.

"You have heard that you have been mentioned for the vacant Garter, and that it is highly probable you may receive it?"

"I have heard so," he answered, indifferently.

"I want to ask you a straightforward question. Do you think it worth your while to risk that, to risk the love and happiness of your wife, to risk your fair name, the name of your race, your position, and everything else that you ought to hold most dear? Do you think it worth while to risk all this for the sake of spending three months in Berlin, where you can see Madame Vanira every day?"

Lord Chandos looked straight in his mother's face.

"Since you ask me the question," he replied, "most decidedly I do."

My lady shrunk back as though she had received a blow.

"I am ashamed of you," she said.

"And I, mother, have been ashamed of my cowardice; but I am a coward no longer."

"Are tears and prayers of any avail?" asked Lady Lanswell; and the answer was:

"No."

Then my lady, driven to despair between her son and his wife, resolved some evening to seek the principal cause of the mischief--Madame Vanira herself.


CHAPTER LVII.


A PROUD WOMAN HUMBLED.

The Countess of Lanswell had never in all her life been defeated before; now all was over, and she went home with a sense of defeat such as she had never known before. Her son refused not only to obey her, but to listen to her remonstrances; he would not take heed of her fears, and my lady saw nothing but social disgrace before them. Her own life had been so crowned with social triumphs and success she could not realize or understand anything else. The one grand desire of her heart since her son's marriage had been that he should become a Knight of the Order of the Garter, and now, by the recent death of a famous peer, the desire was on the eve of accomplishment; but if, on the very brink of success, it were known that he had left all his duties, his home, his wife, to dance attendance on a singer, even though she were the first singer in Europe, it would be fatal to him. It would spoil his career. My lady had carried herself proudly among the mothers of other sons; hers had been a success, while some others had proved, after all, dead failures; was she to own to herself at the end of a long campaign that she was defeated? Ah, no! Besides which there was the other side of the question--Lady Marion declared she would not see him or speak to him again if he went to Berlin, and my lady knew that she would keep her word. If Lord Chandos persisted in going to Berlin his wife would appeal to the duke, would in all probability insist on taking refuge in his house, then there would be a grand social scandal; the whole household would be disbanded. Lady Chandos, an injured, almost deserted wife, living with the duke and the duchess; Lord Chandos abroad laughed at everywhere as a dupe.

My lady writhed again in anguish as she thought of it. It must not be. She said to herself that it would turn her hair gray, that it would strike her with worse than paralysis. Surely her brilliant life was not to end in such a fiasco as this. For the first time for many years hot tears blinded those fine eyes that had hitherto looked with such careless scorn on the world.

My lady was dispirited; she knew her son well enough to know that another appeal to him would be useless; that the more she said to him on the subject the more obstinate he would be. A note from Lady Chandos completed her misery, and made her take a desperate resolve--a sad little note, that said:

"DEAR LADY LANSWELL,--If you can do anything to help me, let it be
done soon. Lance has begun to-day his preparations for going to
Berlin. I heard him giving instructions over his traveling trunk.
We have no time to lose if anything can be done to save him."

"I must do it," said the countess, to herself, with desperation. "Appeal to my son is worse than useless. I must appeal to the woman I fear he loves. Who could have imagined or prophesied that I should ever have been compelled to stoop to her, yet stoop I must, if I would save my son!"

With Lady Lanswell, to resolve was to do; when others would have beaten about the bush she went direct.

On the afternoon of that day she made out Leone's address, and ordered the carriage. It was a sign of fear with her that she was so particular with her toilet; it was seldom that she relied, even in the least, on the advantages of dress, but to-day she made a toilet almost imperial in its magnificence--rich silk and velvet that swept the ground in superb folds, here and there gleaming a rich jewel.

The countess smiled as she surveyed herself in the mirror, a regal, beautiful lady. Surely no person sprung from Leone's class would dare to oppose her.

It was on a beautiful, bright afternoon that my lady reached the pretty house where Madame Vanira lived. A warm afternoon, when the birds sung in the green shade of the trees, when the bees made rich honey from the choice carnations, and the butterflies hovered round the budding lilies.

The countess drove straight to the house. She left her carriage at the outer gates, and walked through the pretty lawn; she gave her card to the servant and was shown into the drawing-room.

The Countess of Lanswell would not have owned for the world that she was in the least embarrassed, but the color varied in her face, and her lips trembled ever so little. In a few minutes Leone entered--not the terrified, lowly, loving girl, who braved her presence because she loved her husband so well; this was a proud, beautiful, regal woman, haughty as the countess herself--a woman who, by force of her wondrous beauty and wondrous voice, had placed the world at her feet.

The countess stepped forward with outstretched hands.

"Madame Vanira," she said, "will you spare me a few minutes? I wish to speak most particularly with you."

Leone rang the bell and gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. Then the two ladies looked at each other. Leone knew that hostilities were at hand, although she could not quite tell why.

The countess opened the battle by saying, boldly:

"I ought, perhaps, to tell you, Madame Vanira, that I recognize you."

Leone looked at her with proud unconcern.

"I recognize you now, although I failed to do so when I first saw you. I congratulate you most heartily on your success."

"On what success?" she asked.

"On your success as an actress and a singer. I consider you owe me some thanks."

"Truly," said Leone, "I owe you some thanks."

The countess did not quite like the tone of voice in which those words were uttered; but it was her policy to be amiable.

"Your genius has taken me by surprise," she said; "yet, when I recall the only interview I ever had with you, I recognize the dramatic talent you displayed."

"I should think the less you say of that interview, the better," said Leone; "it was not much to your ladyship's credit."

Lady Lanswell smiled.

"We will not speak of it," she said. "But you do not ask me to sit down. Madame Vanira, what a charming house you have here."

With grave courtesy Leone drew a chair near the window, and the countess sat down. She looked at the beautiful woman with a winning smile.

"Will you not be seated, madame?" she said. "I find it so much easier to talk when one is seated."

"How did you recognize me?" asked Leone, abruptly.

"I cannot say truthfully that I recognized your face," she said; "you will not mind my saying that if I had done so I would not have invited you to my house, neither should I have permitted my daughter-in-law to do so. It has placed us all in a false position. I knew you from something my son said about you. I