A Mad Marriage, May Agnes Fleming [best big ereader .TXT] 📗

is midnight when he reaches the Court. He goes to his room, but not

to bed. He sits staring abstractedly out, and smoking no end of

cigarettes. Wonderful to relate, he is thinking. It is something which,

on principle, Lord Dynely never does, but he does it to-night. The

result is the writing of a letter. He flings away his last cigarette,

sits down to his writing-desk, and dashes this off:

 

“CARRUTHERS COURT, August 5th, 1870.

 

“MY DEAR FRANCE:—Since we parted I have been thinking over what

you said, and I have come to the conclusion that you were right,

that it is unjust and ungenerous to hold you to a compact made

without your consent. I love you devotedly—that I must ever do;

but I shall never compel you to marry me if you do not love me in

return. No, France, at any cost to myself, at any suffering—and

that I shall suffer need I say?—I will resign all claim to your

hand. Unless you feel that the devoted affection I offer, you can

return, then far be it from me to force you into a loveless union.

I may be wretched, but you shall be free.

 

“I see plainly now how selfish I have been in urging my claims upon

you in the past. Unless your own heart responds, believe me, they

shall never be forced upon you in the future. Write to me here—it

will be less painful for both of us than a personal interview. If

you can care for me, then call me back, and I will fly to you, with

what joy you can imagine; if you find you cannot, then I bow my

head and submit to your decision.

 

“Ever devotedly,

 

“ERIC.”

 

Here was a generous piece of composition! Lord Dynely actually felt in a

glow of admiration over his own nobility, generosity and self-sacrifice,

as he sealed and addressed it. Not every man would give up the girl he

loved in this heroic fashion and resign himself to life-long misery! Not

many, by Jove! and so France must think. Only—this in some alarm—she

was an odd girl; he hoped she wouldn’t feel called upon to be equally

generous and insist upon accepting him whether or no.

 

By next morning’s post this letter went off to Devonshire. The train

that would take away Terry started about 12:50. A few hours later,

irreproachable in the negligent elegance of his costume, Lord Dynely

presented himself at the vicarage door.

 

They were all very jolly girls, except the three eldest, who were

scraggy and old; but Crystal was a pearl among pebbles. She improved

upon acquaintance he found; she sang for him in a sweet mezzo-soprano;

she wandered with him in the garden, and inserted one of her rosebuds in

his button-hole. She was altogether delicious, and next day his lordship

came again.

 

That evening’s post brought him a letter. He turned cold as he looked at

it—France’s bold, firm hand, and the seal and crest of the Forresters.

It looked big and square, and belligerent, and altogether formidable.

Still it must be read—six crossed pages at the least, he thought with a

groan. Girls never lose an opportunity of inflicting that sort of thing

on their victims. He opened it. It consisted of three words—three of

the shortest in the language:

 

“DYNELY ABBEY, Thursday, August 7th.

 

“DEAR ERIC: Who is she? Affectionately.

 

“FRANCE.”

 

CHAPTER IX.

 

TELLING TERRY.

 

On the evening of the day that was to bring Terrence Dennison to the

Abbey, Lady Dynely sat alone by her chamber window waiting. It had been

a sultry August day; the air, even now, was oppressive, sky and

atmosphere heavily charged with that electricity which precedes a

thunderstorm. In the breathless gloaming, not a bough stirred, not a

leaf trembled, not the faintest puff of wind came to relieve the

oppressed lungs or cool the hot forehead. Lady Dynely leaned wearily

against the glass. At all times pale, she was almost ghastly in the

livid twilight as she sat here. She was waiting for Terry, and in all

the years that were gone, in all the years that were to come, she was in

all probability the only woman who had ever trembled or faltered at the

approach of Terry. It was not Terry she feared, but that which she had

to tell Terry, that which had lain on her conscience, destroyed her

peace of mind, embittered every day of her life for the past sixteen

years. A secret that, when given into her keeping first, had been the

secret of another’s wrongdoing and cruelty, but which had since become

the secret of her sin. She was a good woman, a conscientious woman,

doing her duty to all men according to her light; a kind mistress,

charitable benefactress, a loving mother, a loyal friend. In all her

life she had wilfully wronged but one fellow-creature, and that one the

man who venerated and loved her above all women on earth—Terry.

 

But she was a weak woman, weak in her pride and the intensity of her

love for her son. That pride and that love had stood between her and

duty, had sealed her lips, and led her into sin. She had wronged Terry,

deeply and deliberately wronged him, and she had paid the penalty in a

remorse that never left her, that preyed on health of body and mind at

once, that made her life miserable. The burden of her guilt was a burden

to be borne no longer—this evening the truth should be told; then, come

what might, her conscience would be free.

 

But it was hard—how bitterly, humiliatingly hard, only her proud heart

knew. She dared not think of her dead husband, lest she should be

tempted to hate his memory; she dared not think of her son, and of the

passionate anger and reproach with which he would overwhelm her, should

this ever reach his ears. She hardly dared think of Terry—the loyal,

true-hearted lad, who trusted her so utterly, who believed in her so

implicitly, whose affection and gratitude were so profound. On all sides

the path was beset with thorns, but the path must be trodden.

 

“Help me, oh, Heaven!” was the bitter prayer of her heart; “my cross

seems heavier than I can bear.”

 

There came a step she well knew down the corridor—the step for which

she waited and watched. There came a tap at the door. A moment she

paused to gather strength. Then, “Come in,” she said, faintly, and

Dennison entered.

 

She shrank back into the shadow of the curtains. In the obscurity of the

twilit room he could not see the fixed pallor of her face; yet something

in her manner, as she sat there, startled him. He advanced and took her

hand.

 

“There is nothing the matter?” he anxiously asked. “You are not ill?”

 

“I am not ill,” she answered, in that faint voice. “Sit down, Terry. I

am going to tell you a story to-night. I should have told you long ago,

but I have been a coward—a weak and wicked coward—and I dared not—I

dared not.”

 

He seated himself on a hassock at her feet, and looked up at her in

silent wonder and alarm.

 

“You have trusted me, Terry, been grateful to me, loved me. Ah! my poor

boy! that trust and love of yours have been bitter to bear. I have

deserved neither from you—nothing from you but contempt and scorn.”

 

“Lady Dynely!”

 

“I have prayed for strength,” she went on, “but strength did not come. I

saw my duty to you and to Heaven, and to my own conscience, but I would

not do it. I have concealed the truth, and gone on in secrecy and

wronged you from first to last.”

 

“Wronged me! my dear Lady Dynely!” he exclaims, in consternation. “Do

you know what you are saying?”

 

“Ah! do I not?” she answers, bitterly. “It sounds strangely, Terry; but

wait until you have heard all. Then you will despise me a thousand times

more than you have ever loved me.”

 

“That I will never do,” he answered, steadily. “Tell me what you will,

nothing will ever alter the affection and gratitude I feel for you. It

has grown with my growth; it is part of my life; I could almost as soon

lose faith in Heaven. When I cease to believe in your goodness I shall

cease to believe in all goodness on earth.”

 

“Don’t! don’t!” she says, in a voice of sharpest pain. “Wait until you

hear. Terry, has it ever occurred to you to wonder why I took you from

the Irish cabin and charged myself with your care and education through

life?”

 

“Well,” the young man answers, in a troubled voice, “at times—yes. But

I took it for granted the meagre story I heard of myself was the true

one. I am the orphan son of some distant connection of your late

husband, and, in your goodness of heart, you sought me out and provided

for me. That is the story, is it not?”

 

“Ah, no, no, no!—not the story at all. My goodness of heart! What

bitter satire it sounds from your lips. A distant connection of my late

husband! Terry—you are his son!”

 

“Lady Dynely!”

 

“His son, Terry—his elder son!”

 

He sat stricken mute, looking at her. Was Lady Dynely insane? What was

this she was telling him? Lord Dynely’s son? And then over Terry’s face

there came a sudden, deep, burning flush. Lord Dynely’s son.—And his

mother had been a peasant girl. What need to say more?—all the story

was told in that.

 

He dropped his face in his hands like a man stunned by a blow. There are

few men, even the worst, who do not venerate more or less, the memory of

their mothers. To Terry’s simple soul she had been a tender, idealized

memory—to keep in his heart of hearts, to speak of never. And now his

father had been Lord Dynely!

 

“Lady Dynely,” he said, huskily, “why have you told me this?”

 

She laid her hand upon his bowed head.

 

“It is not as you think, Terry,” she said, sadly. “I know what you

mean—it is not that. Your mother was Lord Dynely’s wife, as truly as

ever I was. You are Lord Dynely’s son, as truly as Eric is. More—you

are Lord Dynely’s heir.”

 

He scarcely heard the last words, so swift and great a rush of joy and

thankfulness flooded his heart at the first.

 

“Thank Heaven!” she heard him whisper; “that would have been hard to

bear. But—Lord Dynely’s son! Oh, Lady Dynely, pardon me, but I find

this very hard to believe.”

 

“It is a surprise, no doubt. But do you fully understand, Terry?—You

are not only Lord Dynely’s son, but Lord Dynely’s heir.”

 

“His heir?” he repeated, bewildered.

 

“You are three years older than Eric. Do you not see? Your mother was

Lord Dynely’s wife; you are not Terrence Dennison, but Viscount Dynely.”

 

He lifted his head and looked at her, a sort of horror in his eyes. “And

Eric is—what?”

 

“Yes—what?” Eric’s mother cried, wildly. “He is Eric Hamilton—the

younger son, with a portion about half of what he spends yearly for

cigarettes and bouquets. You are the heir and the lord of the land; he

is the younger son and brother. That is the secret I learned to my cost

sixteen years ago, by your father’s death-bed—the secret of my

so-called generosity to you, the secret that has poisoned and blighted

my whole life. If I had been as strong in my wickedness as I am