A Mad Love by Charlotte Mary Brame (online e book reading TXT) 📖

was but a woman; and these sweet voices of nature could not leave her quite unsoftened. She wondered where Lance was. She remembered him a fair-haired, laughing, defiant boy, playing there under the trees when the red light fell. She started suddenly when one of her well-trained footmen opened the door, and said a lady wished to see her. The countess looked at him in haughty vexation.

"Why do you bring a message so vague? I see no lady who gives neither card nor name."

"I beg pardon, my lady," said the man, humbly. "I did not forget. The lady herself said you did not know her, but that her business was most important."

"You must say that I decline to see any one who gives neither name nor card," said the countess. Then, seeing the man look both anxious and undecided, she added, sharply: "Is it a lady?"

He looked greatly relieved.

"It is, my lady. She is young and beautiful," he would have added, if he had dared.

"You would surely be able to discriminate between a lady and--a person of any other description?" said the countess.

The man bowed.

"The lady wishes me to add that her business was of great importance, and that she had traveled some distance to see you."

"Show her in here," said the countess.

The red light of the setting sun had moved then, and fell over her in great gleams on her dark velvet dress, on her exquisite point lace, and fine, costly gems. She looked regally proud, haughty, and unbending--the type of an English aristocratic matron, true to her class, true to her order, intolerant of any other. As she stood in the heart of the rosy light the door opened, and this time the countess of Lanswell was startled out of her calm. There entered the most beautiful girl she had ever beheld--tall, slender, graceful, exquisitely dressed, moving with the most perfect grace and harmony; her face like some grand, passionate poem--a girl lovely as a houri, who walked up to her with serene and queenly calm, saying:

"Lady Lanswell, I am your son's wife."

The countess, taken so entirely by surprise, looked long and keenly into that beautiful face--looked at the clear, bright eyes, so full of fire and passion--at the lovely, imperial mouth, and the whole face so full of tragedy and beauty; then in a clear, distinct voice, she answered:

"My son has no wife."

Leone drew the glove from her left hand, holding it before my lady's eyes.

"Will you look at my wedding-ring?" she asked.

A scornful smile played round my lady's lips.

"I see a ring," she said, "but not a wedding-ring. There can be no wedding-ring where there is no marriage."

"Do you believe that marriages are known in Heaven?" Leone asked. "Do you believe that if a marriage had been contracted in the presence of Heaven, witnessed by the angels, do you suppose that a mere legal quibble can set it aside?"

"You choose your arguments badly," said the countess. "If you appeal to Heaven, so can I. One of the greatest commandments given from there says, 'Children, obey your parents.' My son is commanded by a divine voice to obey me, and I forbid him to marry until he is of age."

"You have not the power!" cried Leone.

"You are mistaken; not only the power is mine, but I have used it. The foolish ceremony you choose to call your marriage is already set aside."

Leone drew one step nearer to her with flashing eyes.

"You know that in your heart you cannot believe it. You cannot think it," she cried. "You know that I am your son's wife. You have brought the great strong arm of the law upon me. You have taken from me my husband's name. Yet neither you, nor any human power can make me less his wife. He married me," she continued, her eyes flashing, her face flushing, "he married me before God, and I say that you cannot undo that marriage. I defy you."

"True, I could not undo it, but the law both can and has done so. Half-educated young ladies, who wish to make such grand marriages, should have common sense first. No youth under age, like my son, can legally marry without the consent of his parents."

The flush faded from the beautiful face, and gave place to a white horror. Leone looked at the countess.

"You do not surely think that I married your son for any other reason except that I loved him?" she cried.

"Pray, believe that I have never troubled myself in the least to think of your motive," said my lady.

"I loved him, Lady Lanswell, you could never know how much. You are proud and haughty; you love a hundred things. I loved but him. I love him with my whole heart and soul. If he had been a peasant, instead of an earl, being what he is, I should have loved him just the same."

Lady Lanswell's face darkened with scorn.

"I am willing to listen to anything you may wish to say, but I beg of you leave all such nonsense as love out of the discussion. You have probably come to see me because you want money. Let us come to the point at once."

The pride that flushed the beautiful face of the girl startled the haughty patrician who stood before her.

"Money," cried Leone, "I have never thought of money. I do not understand. Why should I want money from you?"

To do her justice, the countess shrunk from the words.

"I should suppose," she said, "that you will require some provision made for you, now that you are leaving my son?"

It was with difficulty that Leone controlled herself. Her whole frame trembled with indignation. Then the color receded from her face and left her white, silent, and motionless.

"I have been too hard," thought the countess, "no one can suffer beyond her strength."

She motioned the girl to take a chair, sitting down herself for the first time since the interview began. There was no feeling of pity in her heart, but she felt there were certain things to be said, and the best way would be to say them and have it all over.

Leone did not obey. She stood silent for a few minutes. Then she said, simply:

"I would never take money from you, Lady Lanswell, not even if I were dying of hunger. You do not like me; you are cruel to me."

Lady Lanswell interrupted her with a superb gesture of scorn.

"I could not possibly like or dislike you," she said; "you are less than nothing to me. It was natural that I should think you came to me for money. If that be not your object, may I ask what it is?"

"Yes; I will tell you. I thought, as you were a woman, I might appeal to you."

My lady smiled haughtily.

"You are the first that has ever ventured to address me as a woman. What appeal do you want to make to me?"

The passion of despair seemed to die away from her. A great calm came over her. She went up to Lady Lanswell, and knelt at her feet. The countess would have given much for the power of moving away, but there was that in the beautiful, colorless face raised to hers which compelled her to listen.

"I humble myself to you," pleaded the sweet voice. "I pray of you, who are so great, so powerful, so mighty, to have pity upon your son and upon me. One word from you will go so far; you can undo all that has been done. If you will give your consent all will be well."

Lady Lanswell looked at her in silent wonder. Leone went on:

"I plead to you. I pray to you, because I love him so. In my heart I am as proud as you, may be prouder; but I lay my pride under my feet, I humble myself. I pray of you to take pity upon your son, and on myself. I love him so well, he loves me too. Life would hold nothing for either of us if we are parted. For the sake of all the love you have ever felt for husband, father, brother, son--for God's sake, I pray you to take pity on us, and do not separate us."

The passionate torrent of words stopped for one minute; tears streamed down the beautiful upraised face; then she went on:

"I would do all that you wished me; I would try hard to improve myself; I would work so hard and work so well that no one would even guess, ever so faintly, that I belonged to a different class. I would be the most devoted of daughters to you; I would live only to please you, I----"

The countess held up her hand with a warning gesture.

"Hush!" she said; "you are talking the most arrant nonsense."

But Leone this time would not be controlled. All the passion and love within her seemed to find vent in the next few words. They might have burned the lips which uttered them, but they fell unheeded on the ears of the proudest woman in England.

"Hush," she said again. "Neither pleading nor prayers will avail with me. I speak the simple truth when I say that I would rather see my son dead than see you his wife."


CHAPTER XVIII.


A WRONGED WOMAN'S THREAT.

For some five minutes there was silence, and the two who were to be mortal enemies looked at each other. Leone knew then that all prayers, all pleadings were in vain; that they were worse than useless; but in the heart of the foe there was no relenting, no pity, nothing but scorn and hate. She had poured out the whole of her soul in that supplication for pity, and now she knew that she had humbled herself in vain; the mother's cruel words smote her with a pain like that of a sharp sword. She was silent until the first smart of that pain was over, then she said, gently:

"Why do you say anything so cruel?--why do you hate me?"

"Hate you?" replied my lady, "how can you be so mistaken? It is not you I hate, but your class--the class to which you belong--although the word hate is much too strong. I simply hold them in sovereign contempt."

"I cannot help my class," she said, briefly.

"Certainly not; but it is my place to see that my son takes no wife from it. To you, yourself, I can have no dislike; personally I rather like you; you have a pleasant face, and I should take you to be clever. But you have not even one of the qualifications needful--absolutely necessary for the lady whom my son calls wife."

"Yet he chose me," she said, simply.

"You have a nice face, and my son has fancied it," said the countess contemptuously. "You ought to be grateful to me for separating you from my son now. I am doing for him the kindest thing that any one could do. I know Lord Chandos better than any one else, and I know that he tires of everything in a short time. He would have wearied of you by Christmas, and would have loathed the chains he had forged for himself. When he was a child he tired of a new toy