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

falls upon him for a second, and Crystal’s heart

gives a leap. Big, broad-shouldered, ruddy, bearded, in the familiar

round hat and suit of tweed—how much it looked like Terry. Oh! to see

Terry once more—dear old, ever kind Terry! oh, to see any of them from

home—even sharp Elizabeth Jane or snappish old Belinda. What a long,

long time it seems since her wedding day!

 

Her wedding day! It is only six weeks—six little weeks, and how happy

she had been! That day, with all its details, returns to her with a pang

of remembrance that pierces her heart. She recalls Terry’s parting words

with strange vividness now—in all these weeks she has never thought of

them before.

 

“If in the time that is coming, you are ever in trouble, if you ever

need a friend, will you send for me? All our lives we have been as

brother and sister—by the memory of the past, let me be the one to help

you if you ever stand in need.”

 

She had laughed in her happy incredulity then—ah, how true his words

had come. But she could never send for him, or for any one on earth; her

trouble was a trouble she could only take to the good God. He alone

could befriend her here. How had the change come about?—was she to

blame? She could not tell. Her mind went over, in a dazed, helpless sort

of way, all her brief married life, and the fault had not been

hers—that she knew. They had been so happy in Brittany, so intensely

happy—with a happiness that, as a quaint English writer says, “Spread

out thin, might have covered comfortably their whole lives.” They had

been happy—intensely—for one week; happy in a more moderate degree, on

Eric’s part, the second. The third set in with steady drizzling rain,

and wild wintry winds, and before its close the bridegroom was yawning

in the face of the bride. He was as fond of Crystal as ever, no doubt,

but four days of incessant rain in a dull Breton town are apt to be

trying to the frivolous masculine mind.

 

“Oh, I say, Chris,” Eric said, with a prolonged yawn, “this is awfully

slow, you know. I can’t stand much more of St. Malo and this infernal

weather—upon my word I can’t. It’s a beastly dull hole at any time; a

fortnight’s as long as any rational being could survive it. I say, let’s

go to Paris.”

 

If Eric had said, “Let us go, like Hans Pfaal, up to the moon in a

balloon, and live there,” Crystal would have looked up in her lord’s

handsome, bored face, with blue eyes of adoring delight, put on her

things, and gone. Paris, or St. Malo, or the moon, were all alike to

this worshipping, little three weeks’ wife. Next day they came to Paris,

and Crystal’s troubles began. The first four days all was well. He drove

with her in the Bois, his vanity tickled by the profound admiration her

delicate blonde loveliness everywhere excited. He took her to the

Louvre, to the Tuileries, to a ball at the English Embassy, to a dinner

at the Earl of Albemarle’s.

 

The fourth evening was windy and wet; she had a slight headache, and

could not go out. Eric was to dine at the Jockey Club, of which he was a

member. After dinner, with a couple of friends, he went to the Varieties

to see Felicia in her new piece, “The Golden Witch.” He went, and

Crystal’s doom was sealed.

 

“It’s rather odd,” Eric said, as he and his friends took their places in

the stalls, “that I’ve never seen this celebrated Felicia. She had

finished her engagement and left London before I came. Is she really the

great irresistible she’s called?”

 

“Ah! wait until you see,” one of his companions answered. “If you are

made of anything like the inflammable materials I wot of of old, one

flash from her black eyes will finish you.”

 

Eric laughed.

 

“We have changed all that, mon ami. I have outlived my taste for black

beauties, and can defy all the sorceresses that ever bounded before the

footlights.”

 

There was a glow at his heart as he said it. A vision rose up before

him, of the pure, sweet face, crowned with its halo of pale gold hair,

that he had left at home. Ah yes! these dark daughters of the earth had

had their day—he was his little white wife’s forever now. Then the

curtain rose, and the “La Sorci�re d’Or,” in a triumphant burst of

music, bounded before them. The lights flashed up, a thunder of welcome

shook the house, their favorite was smiling and kissing hands to her

friends. Eric Dynely looked with critical eyes. Her scant drapery was as

if woven of cloth of gold—she seemed robed in a sunburst. Her

magnificent black hair fell in a rippling shower to her slim waist,

clasped back with brilliants. The great, dark Southern eyes seemed to

outflash the diamonds. Whatever her age, under the gaslights she did not

look a day over eighteen.

 

“By Jove!” Eric said, his breath fairly taken away; “she’s handsome,

Argyll!”

 

Argyll smiled.

 

“Look out for your counter-charm, old fellow. The fair Felicia slays,

and spares not. She is handsome—yes as a tigress or panther is

handsome—and as merciless.”

 

She danced—it was the very poetry of grace and motion. She sang—and

her magnificent contralto filled the building. It was the merest trifle

of a play, but she threw herself with wonderful abandon and passion

into her part, carrying her audience with her. At the close, when the

“Golden Witch” is tried, condemned, and found guilty of witchcraft, when

she is sentenced to be bound to the stake, when the sacrificial fire is

kindled about her, when, with wild agony and despair in the beautiful,

ghastly face, she chants her own weird death song, a silence that is

painful and oppressive fills the house. The mimic flames mount high—the

death song dies out in an unearthly wail of anguish as the curtain

falls. The “Golden Witch” has been burned alive.

 

“Best thing they could do with her,” growls Argyll; “it’s a thousand

pities they don’t try it in reality. There are a good many _belle dames

sans merci_ in this one city, but I’ll take my oath she’s the wickedest

woman in Paris. Wake up, Dynely. On my word, the fellow’s in a trance!”

 

The theatre shook with its thunders of applause. “Felicia! Felicia!” a

hundred voices called. She came, gliding out before them, smiling and

bowing once more, with a serpentine smoothness of motion, a supple

grace, that was very pantheresque. A shower of bouquets were flung

upon the stage—then with a last brilliant smile she vanished, and

everybody arose to go.

 

“Will you come behind and be presented, Dynely?” his friend said; “you

rather look as if you’d like it. I have the entr�e. There’s to be a

supper, and Felicia’s little suppers are things to dream of. She and I

are old acquaintances,” he laughs as he lights his cigar; “any friend of

mine is sure of a welcome.”

 

To turn from the voice of the tempter was an act of self-sacrifice Eric

had never striven to do in his life. He did not strive now. Certainly he

would go and be presented to the adorable Felicia.

 

“By Jove! Argyll, old fellow, she is a stunner and no mistake,” he

said.

 

So they went, and the lovely Felicia, all smiles and darkling, sparkling

glances, proffers her hospitality to Mr. Argyll’s friend. Eric accepts.

For one instant the pale slumbering face of his wife rises before him

reproachfully, but he puts the thought impatiently away. She is asleep

long ago—what odds will an hour or two make to her to-morrow. It is, as

Argyll says, a chef d’oeuvre of a supper—the cuisine,

perfection—the guests the wittiest, cleverest men, the most beautiful

and successful actresses in Paris. And in a state of wild intoxication,

that comes more from Felicia’s smiles and looks than her sparkling

wines, Eric reaches his rooms as the new day grows gray in the east.

Next morning—is it by chance?—they meet in the Bois—Lord Dynely on

horseback, Felicia in a fairy chariot, drawn by two coal-black Arabs,

handling the lines like “Four-in-hand Fossbrooke” himself. The brilliant

smiles and glances are showered on Lord Dynely once more in dazzling

profusion—he becomes her attendant cavalier, and they take the Bois in

dashing style, the observed of all observers. In a delicious bonnet—a

work of art in itself—behind a flimsy dotted veil, madame still looks

eighteen—no more. Her violet velvets, her rich sables, set off her dusk

beauty well; all eyes follow her, very audible French exclamations of

admiration reach her gratified ears. Hats fly off at her

approach—gentlemen innumerable salaam before her, and the graceful head

bends like a queen’s to it all. Ladies look on the other side, it is

true—but what will you! She is a dancer, and men adore her—two

unforgivable sins in their eyes; a coquette of the first water—farther

than that slander itself will not go. The sheep dog—the demure-faced

curate’s widow—occupies the other side, as they fly along, down the

great wooded drive of the Bois de Boulogne.

 

And little Crystal’s doom was sealed! Neglect, coldness,

impatience—there was nothing left for her but these. Evening after

evening, upon one pretext or another, he was absent; evening after

evening she sat while the long, dragging, miserable hours wore by, and

waited, waited, waited, for one who did not come. Many madnesses of this

sort had held him before, but none so utterly, recklessly mad as this.

What did it mean? What had she done? She could not understand the change

in him. Was Eric growing tired of her already? The childish blue eyes

would lift to his face in bewildered, pathetic questioning, the childish

lips would quiver. He could not meet those glances. He avoided her more

and more—her meek, uncomplaining patience was the keenest reproach she

could make. Then the bewildered questioning died out of the eyes, and a

dark despair took its place. Even to her, secluded as a nun, vague

rumors of the truth came. Eric had tired of her—another woman had

caught his eye and fancy. All was over for her. “Milor’s” infatuation

for the actress was the gossip of the very servants, the magnificent

presents he gave her, his constant attendance upon her; and in some way

it all floated to Crystal’s ears. Her own maid looked upon her with

pitying eyes—all Paris knew that she was a bride forsaken before the

honeymoon had waned. She uttered no word of complaint—no reproach, only

the color died out of her face, the light from her eyes—to her it was

death—her life had come to an end—just that.

 

She sits alone this evening as usual—she is always alone now. She

accepts no invitations—she receives no visitors. But there is a visitor

for her to-night, however, a tall gentleman, at whom Marie, the maid,

casts glances of admiration as she announces him. Crystal rises,

bewildered, from the window—she has not caught the name. Under the

light of the chandelier her visitor stands, and a great cry of amaze and

delight fills the room.

 

“Terry!” she cries; “oh, Terry!”

 

She rushes forward, and fairly flings her arms around his neck. She is

so utterly lonely, so homesick and desolate, poor child, and Terry is

the big brother who has always been so good to her—nothing else.

 

His face flushes under the swift caress. Then she recollects herself,

and lets him go, and puts back her loose, falling hair in blushing

confusion.

 

“I–-it was so sudden, and I—I am so