Marion Arleigh's Penance by Charlotte Mary Brame (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

/> "Artists before now have loved great ladies, and by their genius have immortalized them. But I am mad to say such things. This is the age of money-worship, and art is no longer valued as in those times."

"I do not value money," she said, in a clear, sweet voice. "I value many things a thousand times more highly."

"You are an angel!" he cried. "Even though my love tortures me, I would not change it for the highest pleasures other men enjoy. The poets learn by suffering what they teach in song; so it will be with me. Sorrow will make me a great artist; whereas, if I had been a happy man, I might never, perhaps, have risen much above the common level. I am resigned to suffer all my life."

"I do not like to hear you speak so," she said. "Life will not be all suffering."

"I have raised my eyes, looked at the sun, and it has dazzled me," he said. "Ah, lady, I have had such dreams, of love that overleaped all barriers, as Art has rendered loveliness immortal for all time. I have dreamed of loves such as Petrarch had for Laura, Dante for Beatrice, and I wake to call myself mad for indulging in such dreams."

She was deeply interested. This was exactly as heros spoke in novels; they always had a lofty contempt for money, and talked as though love was the only and universal good. She looked half shyly at him; he was very handsome, this young artist who loved her so, and very sad. How dearly he loved her, and how strange it was! In all this wide world there was not one who cared for her as he did; the thought seemed to bring her nearer to him. No one had ever talked of loving her before. Perhaps the beauty of the May evening softened her and inclined her heart to him; for after a few minutes' silence she said to him:

"We are forgetting the very object for which I consented to see you."


CHAPTER VI.


"It is no wonder," replied Allan Lyster. "I forget everything in speaking to you. You do well, lady, in making me remember myself."

"Do not mistake me," she said gently. "I only thought time is flying, and I have not said yet what I promised your sister I would say."

They had walked down the orchard, and they stood now under the spreading boughs of a large apple tree--the pink and white blossoms made the loveliest frame for that most fair face. She was lovely as the blossoms themselves.

"I feel like a criminal," said Allan Lyster; "and as though you were my judge. I tremble to know what you have to say."

"Yet it is not very terrible, Mr. Lyster. Your sister is my dearest friend, and she tells me that you are thinking of going abroad. She is very miserable over it. She fancies she should never see you again. I promised her that I would persuade you to stay."

His face flushed--his eyes flashed--he bent over her.

"See what little white hands yours are," he said; "yet they hold a life--a strong man's life. If you bade me stay, I would remain though death were the penalty. If you bade me go, I would go and never look upon a familiar face again."

"I do not like to say go, or stay," she replied, hesitatingly. "It is a serious thing to interfere with a man's life."

"I have dared already more than I ever dreamed of daring. I have told how rashly I have ventured to raise my eyes to the sun--you know my presumption. I have dared to kneel at your feet, and tell you that you are the star of my idolatry, the source of all my inspiration. You know that, yet you will not punish my presumption by telling me to go?"

"I will not," she replied, gently.

"Then you are not angry with me? I did not know life held such happiness as that. You know I love you? You are not angry?"

A sudden breeze stirred the apple blossoms, and they fell like a shower on her fair head.

"You must pardon me if I am beside myself with joy. Looking on your face, I grow intoxicated with your beauty, as men do with rare wines. Ah, lady! in the years to come and in the great world people may love you; but you shall look, and look in vain, for a love so true, so deep, so devoted as mine."

"I believe it," she replied.

"You believe it, yet you are not angry with me? You hold my life in your hands yet will not bid me go?"

He bent over her, his handsome face was glowing, his dark eyes flashing fire.

"I could fancy myself in a dream," he said; "it is too strange, too sweet to be true. There must be some intoxication in these apple blossoms. Dare I ask you one more grace?"

"I have not been very unkind," she said.

"Will you let me sometimes see you? I will not presume upon your kindness. Your face is to me what sunshine is to flowers. Do not turn its light from me."

"You see me at the lessons," she said.

"Pardon me, I do not. I never dare to look at you; if I did, Miss Carleton would soon know my secret. I am an artist, practiced to admire. I may say what in others would be simple impertinence. You look so beautiful, Miss Arleigh, with the sunlight falling on you through the apple blossoms. Will you let me make a picture of you, just as you are now? I could paint it well, for my whole heart would be in the work."

"I am willing," she said.

"And you will let me keep the picture when it is finished, and once or twice before the lovely summer fades you will come out here and see me again?"

"Yes," she said, "I will come again."

"I shall keep those few penciled words you sent me until I die," he said, "and then they shall be buried with me."

Allan Lyster was a wise general; he knew exactly when it was time to retreat. He would fain have lingered by her side talking to her, looking in her lovely face, but prudence told him that he had said enough. He looked across at the trees and signed to his sister, unseen and unknown to Miss Arleigh. Adelaide, quick to take the hint, joined them at once.

"I shall not show you my sketch, Allan," she said laughingly; "it will not show well by the side of yours. Marion, we must go. Have you accomplished my heart's desire--persuaded my brother to stay?"

"He did not want much persuasion," she replied, suddenly remembering with surprise how little had been said about the matter.

"I hope Allan has made no blunder," thought the sister; aloud she said, "I know it. I knew that one look from you would do all that my prayers failed to accomplish. We must go, Marion; it is time to re-enter the house."

"Miss Arleigh," said Allan Lyster, "when I wake to-morrow, I shall fancy all this but a dream. Will you give me something to make me remember that it is indeed a happy reality?"

"What shall I give you?" asked the girl.

"You have held that spray of apple blossoms in your hand all the evening," he said, "give me that."

She laughed and held it out to him.

"Thank you," he said; "now that you have touched it it ought not to die."

"Do all artists talk like you, Mr. Lyster?"

"When the same subject inspires them," he replied, and then Adelaide reminded them again that time was flying, and they must be gone.

A few more minutes and the handsome young artist was walking quickly down the high road. He had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. He felt as sure of winning the beautiful young heiress as though he had placed already a wedding ring upon her finger. He laughed to himself to think how easy the task was; so easy, in fact, that he felt a touch of contempt for that which was so easily won.

"It will be a good thing for me," he said to himself. "If I succeed, painting may go. I shall not trouble myself about anything but spending money. If I succeed, Adelaide shall have her reward." And he pleased himself by thinking how, out of his forty thousands, he would give her a fortune.

"She deserves it. She has worked hard for me, and she shall not be forgotten."

It did not occur to him that there would arise any serious difficulty. Of course, no steps could be taken until she was twenty-one. He could not marry her without the consent of her guardian, and to ask for it was, of course, nonsense. He would bind her to himself with the most solemn of promises, and the very day she was of age they would be married. As he walked toward his humble lodgings he amused himself by thinking what he should do when he became master of Hanton Hall. No sentiment troubled Allan Lyster; he could make love in any style he liked to anyone who suited him. As to any remorse over the girl his sister had betrayed and they had both deceived, he felt none.

"How do you like him, Marion?" asked Adelaide Lyster, as the two walked home.

"He is very handsome and very clever," was the grave reply.

"Add to that--he is more deeply in love than any man ever was yet," said Miss Lyster, laughingly. "Marion, he worships you--his love is something that frightens me."

Miss Arleigh avowed that it was true.

"He will go home," continued Adelaide, "and instead of going to sleep like a sensible man, he will walk about all night, composing grand poems about you."

"Does he write poetry?" asked Marion, with increased admiration.

"He is a poet and artist both," said his sister, with a little touch of pride that amused the heiress.

That was Miss Arleigh's first interview with her admirer, the second was, he assured her, for the sake of the picture--the third, that he might see how the picture was going on--the fourth, that she might see it completed--the fifth, because she found the flattery of his love so irresistible she could no longer do without it--the sixth, because she began to fall in love with him herself--and then she lost all count, she lived for those interviews, and nothing else.

"I want to impress one thing upon you," said Adelaide to her brother; "bear it always in mind. When you think you have made sufficient advances in her favor to ask her to marry you, do not rest satisfied with her spoken word, make her write it. It will be of no use to you unless you do that."

"Explain a little further, my wisest of sisters," said Allan.

"A written promise of marriage is the only security a man has. Women change like the wind, without rhyme or reason. But if you have her own word pledged to you, her promise of marriage written so that there shall be no mistake, then it will be worth a fortune to you."

"Even if she should refuse to fulfil"--

"You are not very worldly wise, Allan," said his sister with the slightest tinge of contempt in her voice. "If she fulfils it,