“ye are a long time writing this letter,” said the earl, closing the door; then he saw his wife as she stood in the shadows of the bookcase, huddled together.
for a second there was complete silence; then my lord spoke.
“why did you not come into the withdrawing-room, madam? i thought you upstairs.”
she answered quickly.
“so i was—till this moment. i came to select a book to distract me, not knowing i was disturbing mr. lyndwood.”
her lie came too glibly, and the readiness of it made marius wince.
the earl crossed the room. he looked from his brother to his wife, and then down at the blank sheet of paper and the newly sharpened unstained quill upon the desk.
“what is the matter, marius?” he asked, with a slight smile.
“matter, sir?”
the countess was rigid in her own defence, but marius interrupted.
“hush!” he said, almost sternly; then he turned to his brother.
“the countess lavinia was my aspasia,” he said manfully and simply. “you will remember, my lord—she hath come down here to ask me to leave her house. old memories are ofttimes painful. i will go to london with the dawn.”
the countess sank heavily into the chair against the wall.
“you are a fool! oh!” she cried stormily, twisting her fingers. “oh, fool!”
my lord pressed his handkerchief to his beautiful mouth. he was silent, gazing with dark eyes on marius, ignoring his wife.
the younger man forced himself into speech again.
“there is no one to blame, sir, is there?” he now smiled, and it maddened the countess. she could have understood anything but that. her husband had never been remotely within her reach, and now marius stepped beyond it. that they should smile!
“i had an intuition of what had happened when i entered the room,” said my lord. “tragedy on the heels of the ludicrous! certainly it is no one’s fault, marius.”
the countess rose with the fierce intent of dragging their emotions on to a level that she could understand, but for the second time marius hushed her with a glance and a movement of his hand.
“i met my lady when she was miss hilton,” he said firmly, looking at his brother, “and between us was some folly that might have been everything and was nothing—too small a matter to have been mentioned, my lord, had not—we—i—been surprised by this meeting.”
the earl’s gaze was grave, but curiously tender too. he leant rather heavily against the mantelshelf, and there was a very faint smile on his lips.
“do not suppose that i do not understand,” he said, and his beautiful voice was soft.
it seemed to the countess that they both ignored her, that they spoke a language she could not comprehend; that she stood an alien before them.
“do you understand?” she directly addressed her husband. “do you understand my position?”
she pushed back the dark hair from her face, and her long brown eyes were bright.
my lord gave her one glance.
“yes, you are my wife,” he said.
“since a month ago”—a painful colour beat in her cheeks—“what of my feelings?”
ardently, yet almost unconsciously, she desired to bring things to an issue, to force these two into action, to make a scene, to have a chance of expressing her own inarticulate passion; so had she wished to bring marius to a pitch of she knew not what emotion when she came down to the library, knowing him there alone and unprepared.
“what of me?” she cried again.
“i’ faith i know not,” answered my lord. “what of you? ’tis in your own hands.”
she felt he slighted her as a creature of another world, and the quick red deepened beneath her eyes.
“nothing to you, this!” she spoke with raised voice, as if she denounced him. “what do you care where my affections lie? what is it to you the name i hold in my heart?”
“my lady!” cried marius. then he turned to his brother. “ye must a little longer listen to me, my lord. it cannot be left to seem that i go to london on the instant because once my lady thought too highly of me.” he held his head proudly, though his lips trembled. “the countess came to tell me how utterly she had forgotten one miss hilton once honoured with some slight acquaintance.”
lady lyndwood listened, baffled, incredulous; the delicate gallantry of the speech had for her no meaning. she swept aside the fine words he used for her defence.
“i came to you to say i had not forgotten,” she said passionately.
still she did not get within the guard of either.
“’tis hardly so long ago, madam,” answered the earl, “and i dare swear that you remember very well. it makes no difference to what marius has said, and to what i can for myself see and understand.”
the countess came round the table.
“i think ye seek to put me off,” she cried.
rose lyndwood straightened himself against the mantelshelf.
“and you, madam,” he demanded, “what do you seek to make of this matter? you speak too late. this should have come some months ago, then you had not found me deaf.” and he smiled bitterly.
the countess twisted her hands together and pressed them on her bosom.
she felt that she had been cheated of everything—of her youth, her freedom, her lover, her husband, even of the right to complain.
“you can say that now,” she answered hoarsely. “now it is too late, as you say, too late.” she loosened her hands and grasped the edge of the table. “but i think i had stood a poor chance. you wanted the money.”
the earl made a little movement, and the candle-light on his pink silk shimmered.
she spoke again, in a tone of rage and deliberate insult.
“’tis easy now for you to ignore me, to preach at me, for you have the money—my father’s money—your price.”
even as the words left her lips, she knew they were what he would never forgive, and through her wrath she felt a touch of fear. half-shrinking, she glanced at marius.
he uttered a sound under his breath, and turned his back on her, moving towards the window.
“your father’s money,” said lord lyndwood quietly, looking at her with dangerous eyes, “bought what your father most desired, and what i thought you also desired, since ye did not protest. it is a thing done with.”
“it is a thing but begun,” she answered fiercely. “bought! do ye care to use that word?”
the earl’s breath came hurriedly. the passion she had longed to evoke was bared now in his face and voice.
“mr. hilton’s daughter had not received my name as a gift,” he said. “what should we wed for with you save our convenience?”
at the scorn in his gaze she shrank.
“we sink low enough when we barter with traders,” continued my lord, “and when we mate with them. but it is not a degradation you can estimate, nor, by god, is there any obligation—even if your father’s money had been ten times as much. you are my wife.”
she hated him. but she could not answer. her lips were dry, and her limbs trembled as she caught herself back against the bookcase.
rose lyndwood came forward, dominating the room.
“this is the last time, madam, we bandy words upon this or any other subject. i do not love dissension in my house. you will remember this. i am usually obeyed.”
she looked at marius. as she read it, here was his chance. he could turn on his brother now. surely he would dignify her by a champion, redeem the scene by a challenge, a duel.
but he remained with his back to her, looking out into the darkness.
“mr. lyndwood!” she said unsteadily.
there was no answer. my lord crossed to the door and opened it.
“will you leave us the chamber, madam? i desire to speak with my brother.”
slowly she took her gaze from marius. she knew that she hated him also—ah, bitterly!—and that her heart sickened for vengeance on both of them.
but she was conquered. she dared no more open defiance.
“i have no wish to stay,” she said, in a shaking voice.
the earl moved away from the door, and she passed him and went out.
he did not speak to her, nor look at her as she left the room. as he closed the heavy door he gave a half-shudder, and the colour faded from his cheeks.
“marius!” he said, and his voice had changed again to softness.
the younger man turned sharply round.
“forgive me, my lord,” he said wildly. “forgive me!”
“what have i to forgive?” answered the earl sadly. “i am sorry for it, marius. god knows that i am sorry for it—for you, i mean.”
“but it could never have been,” continued my lord. “she—it is not there, marius.”
he crossed wearily to the desk and seated himself before the blank sheet of paper and the new quill.
“i perceive it,” whispered marius.
the earl moved the candle on the desk further away from him, as if the light troubled his eyes.
“you must not altogether blame me, marius; i think in no case would your idyll have survived.”
his back was towards his brother, who did not look in his direction but straightly out at the darkness beyond the window; they had never been intimate, nor had either often been in the other’s thoughts, but now the kinship told, there was a sense of perfect understanding between them that required no words to make plain.
“you had better go to london as you proposed,” said my lord. “there is nothing for you to do here, and lord willouby will be expecting to see you.”
marius came up to the desk.
“yes, i will go, sir—only, this——”
he stopped; the earl pushed back his chair and looked up.
marius was flushed, his lips taut and his forehead strained to a frown; he appeared piteously young to have such an expression of gravity on his fair face.
“what would you say?” asked his brother gently.
“the money,” said marius huskily and bluntly. “i could not—mr. hilton’s money—her money;” he seemed to choke over the word, then added desperately, “she taunted us with it.”
“for the last time,” answered my lord quietly, gazing with resolute grey eyes at the younger man’s troubled countenance, “and she shamed herself, not us—what is she but a boarding-school miss? and the money is mine, marius, no gift, but something earned, by god, earned.”
“i would it had not happened,” answered marius unsteadily. “i do not love to know things are like this—’tis as if i saw a mirror for the first time and saw myself there—a fool.”
rose lyndwood was silent; he picked up the quill in his fine slack hand and toyed with it.
“my lord,” continued marius, breathing heavily, “it was not she—i never—i mean aspasia.”
the earl lifted his gaze from the idle pen and gave one of his sweet, swift smiles.
“you will find aspasia yet, my dear.”
the painful colour deepened in his brother’s face.
“that is not what i mean to say—last summer—you may have thought, might think, but she was never more than gracious—we only met by chance, that time. i—i never more than took her hand.”
he turned away abruptly, and the earl saw his shoulders heave.
“my lady was nothing but honoured by homage such as thine, marius.”
a little silence fell, the bronze clock struck nine, and the unsnuffed candles cast a strong fluttering light over the two quiet figures and sent faint curls of smoke towards the high dark ceiling.
marius faced his brother again, containing himself by an extreme effort of his fierce young pride.
“is there anything i can do?” he said gallantly. “anything i ought to say?”
“oh, marius!” said my lord in his charming low voice, “’tis all as clear as glass!”
“’tis all miserable and horrible!” burst out marius. “i would not have it so,” his eyes were passionate and his voice rough, with tears maybe.
rose lyndwood very faintly smiled, his lids had a weary droop, but under them his glance was keenly on his brother, who had begun to fumble in the ruffles at his breast.
“you must take this now,” he said more quietly, and pulled out a locket on a blue ribbon, “her picture”—he unfastened the ribbon and laid the miniature on the desk; “not like her, though—but like enough.”
“if you would care to keep it,” said my lord, never lowering his eyes from the other’s face.
“i do not care,” answered marius, “that vision is over,” he made an obvious attempt to speak quietly; “will you tell them that i have gone to london—i do not wish to see our lady mother about it, no, nor yet susannah.”
the earl rose.
“i will tell them, but say good-bye to my lady or i shall be sorely blamed.”
he hesitated a moment, then with that modest, half-shy air with which he ever approached things, and which showed so pleasingly on his splendour, he half held out his hand.
“you will always come to me—for anything, marius?” he said. “i have done no good to you or to any, god knows; but since there are only two of us in the world—well, all this will be forgotten a year hence, but do not forget i am always there.”
he paled a little as he spoke, and a look of vast unhappiness troubled his deep eyes. marius caught his hand and kissed it.
“my lord, believe me, though i cannot speak,” he choked and turned away.
rose lyndwood leant against the back of the chair from which he had risen.
“good-night,” he said.
“good-night, my lord; i shall not see you in the morning—there is no more to be said?”
“nothing.”
“good-night,” this from the door.
“i shall see you in london, soon; till then fare ye well, marius.”
“farewell, my lord.”
the massive door opened and closed; the earl was alone in the stately silent room with the ticking of the patient clock, the only sound beside his own movements to disturb the summer stillness.
he went to the window, opened it on the sweet mysterious dark and stood erect, looking out; he considered his wife, she had behaved as he had expected—it afforded him some bitter amusement to contrast her with selina boyle. how would she have acted in this wretched scene they had just brought to an end?—she, elusive, spiritual, delicate in manners, softest and proudest of women.
and it might as well have been, they might as well have left it altogether and found amid the dreamy luxury of venice stately happiness.
my lord came back to the desk and picked up the miniature marius had worn so many weeks next his heart.
the pure and steady breeze, entering like a welcome visitant through the open window, turned the candles into smoky torches and stirred the pomaded curls of rose lyndwood on his shoulders as he bent over the picture of his wife.
for a moment he was quite still and the emotion that took him was beyond thoughts as thoughts are beyond words; he made a quick movement of his hand to his heart, and any desperate thing seemed possible.
one of the candles blew out.
my lord gave a start and looked round; a sigh escaped him, then he bitterly smiled and quietly laid the picture down.
it was none of it great or heroic; as marius had said, there was nothing to do but to go on. meanwhile the countess agatha must be told.
he extinguished the other light and went in search of susannah chressham.
