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

just the same, and he should return to her.

"He is weak of purpose," she said to herself when she had read the last word; "he loves me still; he will come back to me; he will make me his wife in the eyes of the law as he has done in the sight of Heaven. But he is weak of purpose. The Countess of Lanswell has put difficulties in his way, and he has let them conquer him."

Then came to her mind those strong words:


"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel."


For the second time her servants found her cold and senseless on the ground; but this time she had an open letter in her hand.

The pity was that the whole world could not see how women trust the promises of men, and how men keep theirs.


CHAPTER XXXI.


A MAN OF WAX.

It is not pleasant to tell how the foundations of a noble building are sapped: to tell how the grand, strong trunk of a noble tree is hacked and hewn until it falls; how the constant rippling of water wears away a stone; how the association with baser minds takes away the bloom from the pure ones; how the constant friction with the world takes the dainty innocence of youth away. It is never pleasant to tell of untruth, or infidelity, or sin. It is not pleasant to write here, little by little, inch by inch, how Lord Chandos was persuaded, influenced, and overcome.

The story of man's perfidy is always hateful--the story of man's weakness is always contemptible. Yet the strongest of men, Samson, fell through the blandishments of a woman. Lord Chandos was neither as strong as Samson nor as wise as Solomon; and that a clever woman should get the upper hand of him was not to be wondered at.

He was a brave, gallant, generous gentleman, gay and genial; he could not endure feeling unhappy, nor could he bear the thought of any other person's unhappiness; he had no tragedy about him; he was kind of heart and simple of mind; he was clever and gifted, but he was like wax in the hands of a clever woman like Lady Lanswell.

He was singularly unsuspicious, believed in most things and most persons; he never misjudged or gave any one credit for bad qualities. He had no more intention of deserting Leone when he left England than he had of seizing the crown of Turkey. His honest, honorable intention was to return to her and marry her on the first hour that such a marriage could be legal. He would have laughed to scorn any one who would have hinted at such a thing. His love then was his life, and he had nothing beside it.

Gradually, slowly but surely, other interests occupied him. A great writer says: "Love is the life of a woman, but only an episode in the life of a man." That was the difference--it was Leone's life; to him it had been an episode--and now that the episode was somewhat passed, other interests opened to him. He meant to be faithful to her and to marry her; nothing should ever shake that determination; but he had ceased to think it need be so hurriedly done; he need not certainly forego the pleasure of the tour and hurry home for his birthday; that was quixotic nonsense; any time that year would do. After his marriage he should lose his mother and Lady Marion; he would enjoy their company as long as he could; Leone was right, she had a luxurious home, the assurance of his love and fidelity, the certainty of being his wife--a few weeks or months would make but little difference to her. He did not think he had done any great harm in going to Spain. One might call it a broken promise; but then most promises are made with a proviso that they shall be kept if possible; and this was not possible; he would have been very foolish--so he said to himself--if he had made matters worse by refusing to go with his mother to Spain. It would have increased her irritation and annoyance all to no purpose.

He tried to convince himself that it was right; and he ended by believing it.

He felt rather anxious as to what Leone would say--and the tone of her letter rather surprised him. She had thought, long before she answered him, reproaches were of no avail--they never are with men; if he had not cared to keep his promise no sharply written words of hers could avail to make him keep it. She made no complaint, no reproaches; she never mentioned her pain or her sorrow; she said nothing of her long watch or its unhappy ending; she did not even tell him of the delayed letter--and he wondered. He was more uncomfortable than if her letter had been one stinging reproach from beginning to end. He answered it--he wrote to her often, but there was a change in the tone of her letters, and he was half conscious of it.

He meant to be true to her--that was his only comfort in the after years; he could not tell--nor did he know--how it first entered his mind to be anything else. Perhaps my lady knew--for she had completely changed her tactics--instead of ignoring Leone she talked of her continually--never unkindly, but with a pitying contempt that insensibly influenced Lord Chandos. She spoke of his future with deepest compassion, as though he would be completely cut off from everything that could make life worth living; she treated him as though he were an unwilling victim to an unfortunate promise. It took some time to impress the idea upon him--he had never thought of himself in that light at all. A victim who was giving up the best mother, the kindest friend, everything in life, to keep an unfortunate promise. My lady spoke of him so continually in that light at last he began to believe it.

He was like wax in her hands; despite his warm and true love for his wife that idea became firmly engraved on his mind--he was a victim.

When once she had carefully impressed that upon him my lady went further; she began to question whether really, after all, his promise bound him or not.

In her eyes it did not--certainly not. The whole thing was a most unfortunate mistake; but that he should consider himself bound by such a piece of boyish folly was madness.

So that the second stage of his progress toward falsehood was that, besides looking on himself as a kind of victim, he began to think that he was not bound by his promise. If it had been an error at first it was an error now; and the countess repeated for him very often the story of the Marquis of Atherton, who married the daughter of a lodge-keeper in his nineteenth year. His parents interfered; the marriage was set aside. What was the consequence? Two years after the girl married the butler, and they bought the Atherton Arms. The marquis, in his twenty-fifth year, married a peeress in her own right, and was now one of the first men in England. My lady often repeated that anecdote; it had made a great impression on her, and it certainly produced an effect on Lord Chandos.

My lady had certainly other influences to bring to bear. The uncle of Lady Erskine, the Duke of Lester, was one of the most powerful nobles in England--the head of the Cabinet, the most influential peer in the House of Lords, the grandest orator and the most respected of men. My lady enjoyed talking about him--she brought forward his name continually, and was often heard to say that whoever had the good fortune to marry Lady Erskine was almost sure to succeed the duke in his numerous honors. Lord Chandos, hearing her one day, said:

"I will win honors, mother--win them for myself--and that will be better than succeeding another man."

She looked at him with a half-sad, half-mocking smile.

"I have no ambition, no hope for you, Lance. You have taken your wife from a dairy--the most I can hope is that you may learn to be a good judge of milk."

He turned from her with a hot flush of anger on his face. Yet the sharp, satirical shaft found its way to his heart. He thought of the words and brooded over them--they made more impression on him than any others had done. In his mother's mind he had evidently lost his place in the world's race, never to regain it.

The duke--who knew nothing of the conspiracy, and knew nothing of the young lord's story, except that he had involved himself in some tiresome dilemma from which his parents had rescued him--the Duke of Lester, who heard Lord Chandos spoken of as one likely to marry his niece, took a great fancy to him; he had no children of his own; he was warmly attached to his beautiful niece; it seemed very probable that if Lord Chandos married Lady Erskine, he would have before him one of the most brilliant futures that could fall to any man's lot. Many people hinted at it, and constant dropping wears away a stone.

The last and perhaps the greatest hold that the countess had over her son was the evident liking of Lady Marion for him. In this, as in everything else, she was most diplomatic; she never expressed any wish that he should marry her; but she had a most sympathetic manner of speaking about her.

"I doubt, Lance," she said one day, "whether we have done wisely--at least whether I have done wisely--in allowing Lady Marion to see so much of you; she is so sweet and so gentle--I am quite distressed about it."

"Why, mother? I see no cause for distress," he said, abruptly.

"No, my dear; men all possess the happy faculty of never seeing that which lies straight before their eyes. It is one of their special gifts--you have it to perfection."

"Do speak out what you mean, mother; that satire of yours puzzles me. What do I not see that I ought to see?"

"Nothing very particular. What I mean is this, Lance, that I am almost afraid Lady Marion has been too much with us for her peace of mind. I think, when you go back to England on this wild-goose chase of yours, that she will feel it deeply."

He looked anxiously at her.

"Do you, mother, really think that?" he asked.

"I do, indeed. Of course I know, Lance, no words of mine will ever avail; but it seems to me you are in this position--if you leave Lady Marion and return to your pretty dairy-maid that Lady Marion will never be happy again. If you marry Lady Marion and dower that young person with a good fortune she will marry some one in her own rank of life and be much happier than she could be with you."

"Ah, mother," he said, sadly, "you do not know Leone."

"No, and never shall; but I know one thing--if I stood in your place and was compelled to make one or the other unhappy, I know which it would be. In marrying Lady Marion you make yourself at once and you delight me, you gratify every one who knows and loves you. In marrying that tempestuous young person you cut yourself adrift from fame, friends, and parents."

"But honor, mother, what about my honor?"

"You lose it in marrying a dairy-maid. You preserve it in