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

in

vain, his dress always looked as though it were a part of himself.

 

He looked up gayly at Dennison’s approach. He was in high good humor

this morning—at peace with all the world. Yesterday’s irritation had

entirely passed away. Crystal’s father might be exasperating to the last

degree, but Crystal herself was entirely satisfactory. And when Crystal

was his wife he would take care the Vicar of Starling and his family saw

uncommonly little of her. For Terry—well, looking at it

dispassionately, after an excellent dinner and a prime Manilla, he was

forced to admit that Terry, poor beggar! had some little cause of

complaint. Something very like foul play had been done on his part,

something the codes of his order and his honor would hardly recognize.

Still, what was done, was done. Crystal he would resign to no man

living, and Dennison must make the best of it. This unexpected

opposition had but strengthened his passion; he had never been so

thoroughly in earnest before about any love affair in his life. He was

going to see his mother to-day and bring her to reason. She would prove

a little restive on his hands at first, on France’s account, but he

would speedily bring her around. For France—well, he winced a little at

the thought of meeting France. To be laughed at was horrible, and he

could see France’s dark, mischievous, satirical eyes, France’s cynical

little laugh, hear France’s sarcastic, cutting speeches. “Who was she?”

indeed. The girl must be a witch. Your sharp girl, your clever girl, was

an outrage on nature. Women were made for man’s use, benefit and

pleasure; why, then, were half of them as man didn’t like them? Crystal,

without two ideas in her pretty head and loving heart, was his ideal of

womankind. Yes, he would bring his mother round, fetch her down here to

see Crystal, have the marriage arranged to take place before Christmas,

all on the quiet, and spend the Winter rambling about sunny Italy. And

next season Lady Dynely would burst upon London the loveliest thing out,

a pride to her husband, an honor and credit to his taste.

 

All this in rambling, disconnected, self-satisfied fashion, Lord Dynely

had thought over last night. Now he lay rolling up a cigarette, with

white, practised fingers, a smile on his lips and in his handsome blue

eyes as he looked up at Mr. Dennison.

 

“How are you, Terry?” he said, genially. “Come in; knock those things

off the chair, and sit down. I’m in the midst of an exodus, you see—off

to Devonshire. Any commission for France or the madre?”

 

“I will send a note by you to Lady Dynely,” Terry answered. He was

looking very grave, and rather pale, Eric could see at second glance,

his mouth set and stern under his tawny beard and mustache. “It may be

some time before I see her in person. I join my regiment this week at

Windsor.”

 

“Ah! leave of absence expired? Be off, Norton, and order round the trap.

Only ten minutes to starting time now. Very inhospitable of me,

Terry—you don’t pay morning calls at Carruthers Court often—but I

really must cut it short. Twenty-five minutes to starting time, and you

know what the drive to the station is.”

 

“I won’t detain you,” Terry answers, setting his lips still harder under

his leonine beard. “I came to say a few words about Crystal.”

 

Lord Dynely’s cigarette was quite ready now. He looked up at his

companion with that slow, indolent smile of his that had so much of

latent insolence in it, struck a fuse and lit up.

 

“About Crystal? Let us hear it, Terry. You couldn’t choose a more

interesting subject. How is the little darling this morning?”

 

“I won’t say anything about your conduct in this matter, Lord Dynely,”

Terry began; “you know best whether it has been the conduct of a man of

honor or not. Crystal, perhaps, is not to blame.”

 

“How magnanimous! ‘Crystal is not to blame.’ You have never asked her to

marry you, and because she honors me by her preference and acceptance,

she is not to blame. And don’t you think—as her friend, now, Terry—she

makes a rather better match in marrying Lord Dynely than she would in

marrying Terry Dennison?”

 

That angry gleam was lighting again Eric’s sleepy eyes, but his soft,

slow tones never rose as he spoke. He watched Terry from behind the

wreaths of scented smoke, and saw the flush that arose and overspread

his whole face.

 

“Yes,” Terry answered, after a pause, in a slow, strange voice, “you are

right; she makes a better match in marrying Lord Dynely than in marrying

Terry Dennison. As I had never, in so many words, asked her to be my

wife, whatever may have been understood, I repeat I hold her blameless

in this. She loves you—she never did me. I might have foreseen, but—I

trusted you both.”

 

“Don’t seem to see it,” Lord Dynely drawled, looking at his watch. “Only

seven minutes, Mr. Dennison; very sorry to cut it short, I repeat,

but—”

 

“But you shall hear what I have come to say,” Terry exclaimed, turning

upon him. “It is this: I know how you hold women—I know how it is you

have treated them—I know you hold it fair sport to win hearts and fling

them away. What I have come to say is—don’t do it here. She has no

brother or father capable of protecting her. I will be her brother, if I

may be no more. For your mother’s sake, you are the last man on earth I

would wish to raise my hand against, but this I say, this I mean—if you

trifle with Crystal as you have trifled with others, Eric, you shall

answer to me!”

 

He brought his clenched hand down upon the inlaid table, the veins of

his forehead swollen and dark, with the intensity of feeling within him.

Lord Dynely laughed softly, and flung his cigarette out through the open

window.

 

“Bon! But would it not be well to intimate as much quietly. You do it

very well, my dear boy, for an amateur; but one gets so much of that

kind of thing at the theatre, and they do it better there. You mean

well, I dare say—sentiments do you honor, and all that; but this

tremendous earnestness is in such deuced bad form—in August, of all

months, particularly.”

 

“I have said my say,” was Dennison’s response. “It is part of your

creed, I know, to make a jest of all things; jest if you like, but hear

and remember. As surely as we both stand here—if there is any foul play

in this business, your life shall answer it. You shall not play with

her, fool her and leave her, as you have done with so many. You shall

not break her heart, and go unpunished of God and man. If all is not

open and above board here, you shall pay the penalty—that I swear.”

 

“Time’s up,” said Eric, looking at his watch again. He replaced it,

arose to his feet, and laid his hand on Terry’s shoulder, with that

winning smile of his that made his face so charming.

 

“Look here, Terry,” he said, “I am not such a scoundrel, such a

Lovelace, such a Don Giovanni, as you try to make me out. I’m ready to

go with little Crystal to the St. George’s slaughter-house, or the

little church down among the trees yonder, this very morning if I might.

You’re a good fellow, and, as I said before, your sentiments do you

honor, and so on. You feel a little sore about this business,

naturally—I would myself, in your place; but all’s right and on the

square here. I never was in earnest before—I am now. I’m going up for

my mother—she must come here and receive Crystal as her daughter. And

when the wedding comes off, you shall be the best man, ‘an’ ye will,’

Terry—that I swear, since swearing seems the order of the day. And

now, dear old man, don’t lecture any more; it’s too hot—give you my

word it is, and I want to reserve all my strength for the journey.

Here’s seltzer and sherry. Compose your feelings with that liquid

refreshment, and dash off your note to the madre while I get into my

outer garments.”

 

There was no resisting Eric in this mood, it was not in human nature.

The charming smile, the charming voice, the affectionate, frankly

cordial manner, would have moved and melted a Medusa.

 

“No, Crystal was not to blame,” Terry thought, with a sigh, glancing

over at their two images in the glass—it was in the nature of things

that women should fall in love at sight with Eric.

 

He scrawled off the note in a big, slap-dash sort of hand, each long

word filling a whole line; folded, sealed it, and gave it to Eric just

as he sprang up into the trap.

 

“Bye-bye, old boy,” he said, gayly. “When shall I tell the madre to

expect you? Not before Christmas? Oh, nonsense! She couldn’t survive

without you half the time. Well, as you won’t be here when I return,

adieu and au revoir. Love to everybody.”

 

The groom touched the horses. They sped down the avenue like the wind,

and Terry was alone.

 

*

 

“It is very odd we don’t hear from Eric—that he doesn’t return. I can’t

understand it at all. It is three weeks since he left; he was to be back

in one. There’s something very singular about it, to say the least.”

 

Thus petulantly Lady Dynely to Miss Forrester. They were together in the

drawing-room—her ladyship reclining upon a sofa, a book in her hand.

Miss Forrester looking charming in palest amber tissue and white roses,

lying back in a vast downy arm-chair before the open window, putting the

finishing touches to a small sketch.

 

“The house is like a tomb since he and Terry left. It is most

incomprehensible indeed, Eric’s staying all this time. If you understand

it, France, and feel satisfied, it is more than I do. My dear child, do

put down that tiresome drawing and listen. Ever since Mr. Locksley’s

advent, I believe you have given yourself wholly to art.”

 

The color rose in Miss Forrester’s clear, dark face. She looked up from

her drawing at once.

 

“I beg your pardon, Lady Dynely. What was it you said?”

 

“About Eric. It’s three weeks since he went away—he was to be back in

one. And he never writes to me at least. Perhaps he treats you

better—France, what are you laughing at? Eric has written to you?”

 

Miss Forrester’s musical, merry laugh chimed out.

 

“Oh, yes, ma m�re, Eric has written to me.”

 

“And you never told me. What does the wretched boy say?”

 

“I don’t think he is wretched. It was a very pleasant letter. He merely

wrote to give me up.”

 

“France!” in horror.

 

“Yes, mamma—he came to his senses down in Lincolnshire. Couldn’t think

of forcing my inclinations—if the proposed alliance of the noble houses

of Dynely and Forrester were distasteful to me, then, at any cost to

himself and his own lacerated heart, he resigned me. It read like one of

Lord Chesterfield’s masterpieces—was a model of polite and chivalric

composition.”

 

“Good Heaven! and you—France, what did you say?”

 

Again Miss Forrester’s laugh rang out.

 

“I answered in three words, mamma—terse, pithy, and to the point. I

wrote, ‘Dear Eric: Who is she?’ That epistle he has not done me the

honor of answering. I think I see his