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

a moment.” The man salaams and

departs. “Go to your room, Crystal,” he says, less harshly; “and, for

Heaven’s sake try and get rid of that face. You look like a galvanized

corpse. You will have them thinking here I adopt the good old British

custom of beating my wife. Put on rouge—anything—get your maid to do

it, only don’t fetch that woe-begone countenance to France Forrester’s

sharp eyes.”

 

With this pleasant and bridegroom like adjuration he leaves her and goes

to the salon to receive their guest. He is humming a popular Parisian

street song as he goes, a half smile on his lips, all his old sunny

debonnaire self once more:

 

“Ma m�re est � Paris.

Mon p�re est � Versailles,

Et moi je suis ici,

Pour chanter sur la paille—”

 

he sings as he enters. France sits in a great ruby velvet chair,

charmingly dressed, looking fresher, fairer, more brightly, saucily

handsome, Eric thinks, than he has ever seen her. “How blessings

brighten as they take their flight.” What did he see in his faded,

pass�e, pallid little wife, to prefer her to this brilliant, dark

beauty? For my lord’s taste has changed, and “black beauties” are

decidedly in the ascendant again.

 

“My dear France,” he says, holding both her hands, “this is an

astounder. We knew you were coming, but not so soon. When did you

arrive, and where are you located?”

 

“We arrived late last night, and have apartments in the Faubourg St.

Honore, near the British Embassy. And with my usual impetuosity, and my

usual disregard of les convenances, I ran the risk of finding you

still asleep, and rushed away immediately after breakfast. You are

up, I see, for which, oh, be thankful. And now where is Crystal?”

 

“Crystal will be here in a moment. How well you are looking, France,”

he says, half-regretfully; “being in love must be a great

beautifier—better than all Madame Rachel’s cosmetics.”

 

“Must be!” she laughs; “you don’t know from experience then? I can

return the compliment—you are looking as if life went well with you—”

 

“His ‘and was free, his means was easy,

A finer, nobler gent than he,

Ne’er rode along the shons Eleesy,

Or paced the Roo de Rivolee!”

 

quotes France, after her old fashion; “but then, of course, we are in

the height of our honeymoon, and see all things through spectacles

couleur de rose.”

 

Eric laughs, but rather grimly. He is thinking of the honeymoon-like

t�te-�-t�te her coming ended.

 

“And how are they all?” he inquires—“the Madre and Mrs. Caryll? Mrs.

Caryll is here, I suppose?”

 

“Grandmamma is here—yes. And better than you ever saw her. And your

mother is well and dying to see you, and how matrimony agrees with you.

Do you know, Eric,” laughing, “I can’t fancy you in the r�le of

Benedick the married man.”

 

He laughs too, but it is not a very mirthful laugh.

 

“Caryll is with you?” he says, keeping wide of his own conjugal bliss;

“Of course he is, though—lucky fellow! I needn’t ask if he is well?”

 

“You need not, indeed,” France says, and into her face a lovely rose

light comes; “but you will soon see for yourself—they will all call

later. What does keep Crystal—I hope she is not so silly as to stay and

make an elaborate toilet for me?”

 

“No, no—she will be down in a moment. She has a headache—is rather

seedy this morning—late hours and dissipation will tell on rustic

beauty, you know. By the bye, apropos of nothing, do you know Terry

Dennison is here—at this hotel? We are quite a family party, you see,”

he laughs again rather grimly.

 

“Terry here! dear old Terry! how glad I shall be to see him. When did he

get over?”

 

“Last night also. It appears to have been a night of arrivals. Ah, here

is Crystal now.”

 

He looks rather anxiously as he says it. He knows of old how keen Miss

Forrester’s hazel eyes are—he feels that she has already perceived

something to be wrong. That she has heard nothing he is quite sure. Her

manner would certainly not be so frankly natural and cordial if one

whisper of the truth had reached her.

 

Crystal has done her best. She has exchanged her white wrapper for a

pink one that lends a faint, fictitious glow to her face. The suggestion

about rouge she has not adopted—rouge, Crystal looks upon as a device

of the evil one. Something almost akin to gladness lights her sad eyes

as she comes forward and into France’s wide, open arms.

 

“My dear Lady Dynely! My dear little Crystal!” and then France stops and

sends her quick glance from her face to Eric’s, and reads trouble

without a second look. She is honestly shocked, and takes no pains to

hide it.

 

Eric winces. Has Crystal so greatly changed then for the worse? All

his selfish, unreasoning anger stirs again within him.

 

“You have been ill?” she says, blankly. “You—you look wretchedly.”

 

“I told you she had a headache,” Eric interrupts, irritably. “I told you

late hours and Paris dissipation will tell upon rustic beauty. There is

nothing the matter. Open your lips, oh, silent Crystal! and reassure

Miss Forrester.”

 

“I am quite well, thank you,” Crystal says, but no effort can make the

words other than faint and mournful. Then she sits down with her face

from the light, and leans back in her great carved and gilded chair,

looking so small, and fragile, and childish, and colorless that a great

compassion for her, and a great, vague wrath against him, fills France’s

heart. She does not know what he has done, but she knows he has done

something, and is wroth accordingly. Why, the child has gone to a

shadow—looks utterly crushed and heart-broken. Is he tired of her

already?—is he—but no, that is too bad to think even of fickle

Eric—he cannot be neglecting her for a rival.

 

Her cordial manner changes at once—a constraint has fallen upon them.

All Eric’s attempts at badinage, at society small talk, fall flat. He

rises at last, looks at his watch, pleads an engagement, and prepares to

go.

 

“I know you and Crystal are dying to compare notes,” he says, gayly,

“and that I am in the way. Only Crystal’s notes will be brief, I warn

you, France; she has not your gift of tongue. Lady Dynely is the living

exemplification of the adage that speech is silver, and silence is

gold.”

 

“Shall you be in when your mother and Gordon call, Eric?” France asks,

rather coldly. “If not, I am commissioned to tender an impromptu

invitation to dine with Mrs. Caryll.”

 

“Awfully sorry,” Eric answers, “but we stand pledged to dine at the

Embassy. I must put in an appearance, whether or no, and Crystal will

also—headache permitting. Crystal rather shrinks from heavy dinner

parties and goes nowhere.”

 

“I thought late hours and Paris dissipation were telling on her,”

retorts France, still coldly. And Eric laughs and goes, with a last

severe, warning glance at his wife—a glance which says in its quick

blue flash:

 

“Tell if you dare!”

 

It is a needless warning—Crystal has no thought of telling—of

complaining of him to any one on earth. She lies back in her big chair,

her little hands folded, silent and pale, while the sounds of ringing

life reach them from the bright, gay boulevard below, and the jubilant

sunlight fills the room.

 

“How thin you have grown, Crystal,” France says at last, very gently.

“Paris does not agree with you I think. We must make Eric take you home

to Dynely.”

 

Her eyes light eagerly—something like color comes into the colorless

face. She catches her breath hard.

 

“Oh!” she says, “if he only would!”

 

France is watching her intently.

 

“You don’t like Paris, then?”

 

“Like it!” the gentle eyes for an instant flash. “I hate it.”

 

There is a pause. France’s heart is hot within her. Fickle, unstable,

she had always known Eric to be; selfish to the core and cruel in his

selfishness; but an absolute brute, never before.

 

“Do you go out much?” she asks.

 

“No—yes.” Crystal falters. She hardly knows which answer to make in her

fear of committing Eric. “I don’t care to go out—dinner parties are a

bore—I never was used to much society, you know, at home.”

 

“I am afraid you must be very lonely.”

 

“Oh, no! that is—not very. I read and play—a little—and then, Eric—”

 

But her voice breaks, it is not trained to the telling of falsehoods,

and the truth she cannot tell.

 

“Yes,” France says quietly, “Eric is out a great deal naturally—he is

not a domestic man; but once you return to Dynely all that will be

changed. We must try and prevail upon him to take you home at once.”

 

The sad blue eyes give her a grateful glance. Then a troubled,

frightened look comes into them.

 

“Perhaps—perhaps you had better not,” she says; “he will think you are

dictating to him, and he cannot bear to be dictated to. He likes

Paris—I am sure he will be angry if he is urged to go.”

 

“We can survive that calamity,” Miss Forrester answers, cynically; “and

your health—and, yes, I will say it—happiness, are the things to be

considered first.”

 

“But I am happy,” cries Crystal, in still increasing alarm, “indeed I

am. How could I be otherwise so soon?”

 

Her traitor voice breaks again. France looks at her in unutterable

compassion.

 

“Ah, how indeed!” she answers, “you poor little pale child! Well, I must

go—they really don’t know where I am, and we are all to go sight-seeing

to the Luxembourg. Do come with us, Crystal; you look as though you

needed it.”

 

But Lady Dynely shakes her small, fair head.

 

“I cannot,” she says. “Eric may return, and be vexed to find me out.”

 

“Eric! Eric!” thinks France, intolerantly; “I should like to box Eric’s

ears!”

 

“Besides, sight-seeing tires me,” Crystal goes on, with a wan little

smile, “and I don’t think I care for pictures. We visited the

Luxembourg, and the Louvre, and the Tuileries, and all the rest of the

show places, when we first came, and I remember I was ill all day with

headache after them. I like best to stay at home and read—indeed I do.”

 

France sighs.

 

“My little Crystal! But you will be lonely.”

 

“Oh, no. Eric may come to luncheon—he often does—and Terry will drop

in, I dare say, by and by. You know Terry is here?” interrogatively.

 

“Yes; Eric told me. I wish I could take you with me all the same, little

one. I hate to leave you here in this hotel alone. It is a shame!—a

shame!” says France, in her hot indignation.

 

But Crystal lifts a pained, piteous face.

 

“Please don’t speak like that, France. It is all right,” she says, with

a little gasp; “I—I prefer it.”

 

“Do come!” France persists, unheedingly. “We will leave you at home with

grandmamma Caryll, while we do the sight-seeing. You will love her,

Crystal—she is the dearest, best old lady in Europe. Then we will dine

comfortably together, en famille, and go to the Varieties in the

evening, to see this popular actress Paris raves about—Madame Felicia.”

 

But, to France’s surprise, Crystal suddenly withdraws her hands and

looks up at her with eyes that absolutely flash.

 

“I will never go to the Varieties!” she cries; “I will never go to see

Madame