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

tense tone. “Do you mean

Felicia—that utterly vile and abandoned creature? Is it possible you

pity her?”

 

“With all my heart, Gordon—more, almost, than I pity myself, and I do

pity myself,” France said, with a wistful sort of pathos in her voice.

“I was so happy—so happy!”

 

He stood for a moment silent—struggling, it seemed, with his own

rebellious heart. The angry glow faded from his face. In its place an

infinite sadness came.

 

“When did she come? Will you tell me what she said?” he asked.

 

“She came this afternoon—about three. It seems like a whole lifetime

ago, somehow,” France answered, in the same weary way, passing her hand

across her eyes; “and she told me she was your—your wife.”

 

And then suddenly her strength breaks down, her voice falters and fails,

and she clenches her hands together, and is silent.

 

“She is no wife of mine!” he says, fiercely. “Years ago the law freed me

from the maddest marriage ever madman made. France, why should we

sacrifice the happiness of our whole lives to her? Let us set her at

defiance. She is no more to me—and you know it—than any of the painted

women who danced with her last night. She shall not part us. She shall

not blight your life as she has mine. France, I cannot give you

up—don’t look at me like that—I tell you I will not give you up. You

shall be my wife.”

 

She made no struggle as he held her hands. She stood and looked at him,

in grave calm.

 

“Let me go, Gordon!” is all she says, and with a sort of groan, he

obeys. “I can never be your wife now, and you know it. I am sorry for

you, sorry for myself, sorrier than I can say; only if we are to part

friends, never speak to me again like that.”

 

He turned from her, his brows knit, his lips set.

 

“Forgive me,” he said, bitterly; “I will not offend again. It is easy

for you, no doubt, to give me up; I was but a doubtful prize from first

to last—no one knows it better than I; but you see it is not quite so

easy for me. I have grown to love you, in the mad and idiotic way in

which I have done most things all my life; and that woman (whom you

honor with your pity, by the way,) has made such an utter failure of the

best part of it, that now, when hope and happiness were mine once more,

it seems rather hard she should crop up to make an end of it all. I

have earned my retribution richly, I am aware—all the same, it is

bitter to bear.”

 

She looked down at him with eyes of sorrowful wonder and reproach. Was

this Gordon—her hero, her “man of men?”

 

“Easy for me!” she repeated, her lips quivering. “You were but a

‘doubtful prize’ from the first! Ah, I have not deserved that. I don’t

know whether hearts break—I suppose not, but I feel as if mine were

breaking to-night. See, Gordon! I love you so dearly—so greatly, that

there is nothing on earth I would not do for you, suffer for you,

only—commit a crime. And to marry a man whose divorced wife lives, is

to my mind one of the blackest, most heinous crimes any woman can

commit. All my life I will love you—I could not help that if I

would—all my life I will be true to you, all my life I will pray for

you. Only don’t say bitter and cynical things any more—it is hard

enough to bear without that.”

 

Her words, her tone, touch him strangely and tenderly. The anger, the

fierce temptation—each dies out, never to return. There is even the

shadow of a smile on his lips as he looks up.

 

“‘I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honor more!’”

 

he murmurs. “Forgive me, France; you are right, as you always are—you

are all that is brave, and noble, and womanly. Only—that does not make

the losing you any the easier.”

 

And then there is silence, and both look out at the gaslit panorama

below, while the heavy minutes pass. So long the silence lasts, that

France grows frightened, and breaks it with an effort.

 

“You knew her last night?” she asks.

 

“At once,” he answers, in a dull, slow way; “the very moment she

appeared. France, do you recollect the night of Lady Dynely’s ball last

autumn? I saw her portrait that night—the vignette, you remember, on Di

Venturini’s waltzes; and I recognized the face. But I would not

believe it—it seemed too horrible to be true. It was some one who

resembled her, I said to myself—a relation, perhaps; but she was

dead—dead beyond doubt. It is easy to believe what we wish to believe.

I never thought of her again until she stood before me on the stage.”

 

“I knew by your face something had happened,” France says, softly, “but

I never dreamed of that.”

 

“How could you? Oh, my poor child, it is not alone that she spoils my

life, but to think she should have power to spoil yours! To think that

you should suffer for my sins at this late day.”

 

“We all suffer for the sins of others,” France says, and somehow says it

bravely. “We might all safely take the battle-cry of the strong old

Crusaders for our staff of strength, ‘God Wills It.’ It is

inevitable—don’t let us talk of it—since it is no longer a question of

talking, but endurance. You saw her this morning?”

 

“I did. I wished to make assurance doubly sure, as they say, before I

came to you. For I knew what you would say—that the decree of divorce,

which freed me seventeen years ago, would be no freedom in your eyes.

And, my darling, the thought of losing you was, and is, more bitter than

the bitterness of death.”

 

“Don’t!” she says, with a gasp, “don’t! don’t!”

 

“I saw her,” he went on, “and I knew all hope was at an end. The girl I

had married seventeen years ago in Canada was before me—Madame Felicia.

I lingered but a few moments—it was her hour of vengeance, and I think

even she was satisfied. And the child is with her—did she tell you

that?”

 

“Yes—she told me. Oh, Gordon! if she would but give her up.”

 

“She shall give her up,” Gordon Caryll said, his mouth setting hard

and tense beneath his beard; “if not by fair means, then by foul. She is

no fit guardian for any young girl. Terry Dennison will help me here;

and, one way or other, my daughter shall come into my keeping.”

 

“Terry?” Miss Forrester said, in surprise.

 

As briefly as possible Caryll narrated the odd manner in which Terry

had been instrumental in bringing the girl to her mother.

 

“Dennison can keep a secret—I know no man I would trust as I do him.

You will not mind my telling him all, France? All?”

 

“No,” she answered; “you may tell Terry, but—not Eric.”

 

“Eric!” Caryll repeated contemptuously; “Eric is a fool! And my mother

must know.”

 

“Your mother, of course. Ah, poor grandmamma! it will be a blow to her.”

 

He caught at her words.

 

“Must I really go, France—really and truly—and leave you and my mother

alone?”

 

“Gordon, you know you must.”

 

“I don’t know it,” he said, recklessly; “if you cannot be my wife, at

least we can be friends, and together—”

 

“We can never be together. You can do as you please,” her head drooping,

her voice faltering; “it is your place to stay with your mother, of

course. I will ask Lady Dynely to take me back to England at once.”

 

“Stay, France!” he said, rising hastily. “Forgive me once more. No, I

will go—it will be best so; and immediately—to-morrow.”

 

Then again silence fell, and both stood apart, neither able to speak the

words that must come next. In five minutes they must say good-by and

forever.

 

A carriage whirled up before the hotel. The door opened, and Eric,

looking unutterably bored by his day’s “on duty,” got out and assisted

his wife and mother to alight.

 

“Here they are,” Caryll exclaimed, starting back. “I cannot meet then,

any of them. Make my adieux to Lucia to-morrow; tell her, if you like, I

shall not see her again. France—”

 

And then he was clasping both her hands hard, and looking in her face

with that straining gaze we look on the face we love best the instant

before the coffin-lid is shut down.

 

“Oh, Gordon!” she cried out, “where will you go?”

 

“I don’t know, I don’t care—what does it matter?”

 

“You will write to—to your mother?”

 

“Yes, I will write. I will see her now and say good-by. I will see

Dennison, too, before I leave Paris. Oh, my France! my France! how can I

give you up!”

 

There were footsteps and voices in the hall—on the stairs. One moment

and the Dynelys would be upon them.

 

“Good-by, France! good-by! good-by!”

 

And then he was gone. And France, breathless, and white, had fallen upon

the sofa, feeling as though the whole world had come to an end.

 

CHAPTER X.

 

“IF ANY CALM, A CALM DESPAIR.”

 

If they would not come in, if she could be alone—that seemed the only

thought of which France was conscious, as she lay there, utterly unable

for the time being to speak or move, knowing, in a dazed sort of way,

what a ghastly face the wax-lights would show them. Oh, to be alone—to

be alone!

 

She had her wish. A swish of silk, a flutter of perfume, the saloon door

flung wide, and Lady Dynely’s voice saying, impatiently:

 

“All darkness, and coldness, and solitude. Where can they be? where is

France?”

 

“With Mrs. Caryll, mamma,” Crystal’s soft voice suggests. “It looks

dreary—that great, gilded saloon; let us go up to your boudoir.”

 

So they go, and France feels as though she had escaped some great

danger. She rises, feeling stiff and strange, and gropes her way out

through the darkness, and up to her own room. She has to pass Mrs.

Caryll’s door; she pauses a moment, while a passionate longing to enter

there, at all risks, to look on his face once more, even to bid him

stay, seizes her. Her wedding day is so near—oh, so near—and they have

been so infinitely happy together. What right has that wicked, dancing,

painted woman to come and tear them apart? For a moment she listens to

the tempter, then she clasps her hands over her eyes, and rushes up to

her room. Lights are burning here; she locks the door, and throws

herself on the bed, there to lie motionless, sleepless, all the long

night through.

 

The Dynelys dine alone. No one can tell, it seems, what has become of

the Carylls and Miss Forrester. Mrs. Caryll’s room is forbidden—her

mistress is ill to-night, the maid gravely tells Lady Dynely. Even she

cannot be admitted. Miss Forrester’s door is locked, and Miss Forrester

may be deaf or dead for all the attention she pays to knocks or calls.

It is really very odd, and Lady Dynely wonders about it, all through the

rather dull family dinner, to her son and daughter.

 

Rather dull! It is horribly dull to Eric. He forfeits a banquet at

Francetti’s this evening, with half a dozen congenial spirits, for this

“bosom-of-his-family” sort of thing, and