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

guessed at once that you must be Leone Noel. I must repeat my congratulations; how hard you must have worked."

Her eyes wandered over the magnificent face and figure, over the faultless lines and graceful curves, over the artistic dress, and the beautiful, picturesque head.

"You have done well," said the countess. "Years ago you thought me hard, unfeeling, prejudiced, cruel, but it was kindness in the end. You have achieved for yourself fame, which no one could have won for you. Better to be as you are, queen of song, and so queen of half the world of fashion, than the wife of a man whose family and friends would never have received you, and who would soon have looked on you as an incumbrance."

"Pray pardon me, Lady Lanswell, if I say that I have no wish whatever to hear your views on the subject."

My lady's face flushed.

"I meant no offense," she said, "I merely wished to show you that I have not been so much your enemy as you perhaps have thought me," and by the sudden softening of my lady's face, and the sudden tremor of her voice, Leone knew that she had some favor to ask.

"I think," she said, after a pause, "that in all truth, Madame Vanira, you ought to be grateful to me. You would never have known the extent of your own genius and power if you had not gone on the stage."

"The happiness of the stage resembles the happiness of real life about as much as the tinsel crown of the mock queen resembles the regalia of the sovereign," replied Leone. "It would be far better if your ladyship would not mention the past."

"I only mention it because I wish you to see that I am not so much your enemy as you have thought me to be."

"Nothing can ever change my opinion on that point," said Leone.

"You think I was your enemy?" said the countess, blandly.

"The most cruel and the most relentless enemy any young girl could have," said Leone.

"I am sorry you think that," said my lady, kindly. "The more so as I find you so happy and so prosperous."

"You cannot answer for my happiness," said Leone, briefly.

"I acted for the best," said the countess, with more meekness than Leone had ever seen in her before.

"It was a miserable best," said Leone, her indignation fast rising, despite her self-control. "A wretched best, and the results have not been in any way so grand that you can boast of them."

"So far as you are concerned, Madame Vanira, I have nothing to repent of," said my lady.

Leone's dark eyes flashed fire.

"I am but one," she said, "your cruelty made two people miserable. What of your son? Have you made him so happy that you can come here and boast of what you have done?"

My lady's head fell on her breast. Ah, no, Heaven knew her son was not a happy man.

"Leone," she said, in a low, hurried voice, "it is of my son I wish to speak to you. It is for my son's sake I am here--it is because I believe you to be his true friend and a noble woman that I am here, Leone--it is the first time I have called you by your name--I humble myself to you--will you listen to me?"


CHAPTER LVIII.


"BEHOLD MY REVENGE!"

Even as she spoke the words Lady Lanswell's heart sunk within her. No softening came to the beautiful face, no tenderness, no kindliness; it seemed rather as though her last words had turned Leone to stone. She grew pale even to her lips, she folded her hands with a hard clasp, her beautiful figure grew more erect and dignified--the words dropped slowly, each one seeming to cut the air as it fell.

"You call me noble, Lady Lanswell! you, who did your best to sully my fair name; you call me your son's best friend, when you flung me aside from him as though I had been of no more worth than the dust underneath his feet!"

Lady Lanswell bent forward.

"Will you not forget that?" she said. "Let the past die. I will own now that I was harsh, unjust, even cruel to you; but I repent it--I have never said as much before--I repent it, and I _apologize_ to you! Will you accept my apology?"

The effort was so great for a proud woman to make, that the countess seemed almost to struggle for breath as she said the words. Leone looked on in proud, angry scorn.

"You apologize, Lady Lanswell! You think that a few words can wash away the most cruel wrong one woman did to another? Do you know what you did?--you robbed me of my husband, of a man I loved as I shall love no other; you blighted my fair name. What was I when that marriage was set aside? You--you tortured me--you broke my heart, you slew all that was best in me, and now all these years afterward you come to me, and think to overwhelm me with faint, feeble words of apology. Why, if you gave me your heart's blood, your very soul, even, it would not atone me! I had but one life, and you have spoiled it! I had but one love, you trampled on it with wicked, relentless feet! Ah, why do I speak? Words are but sound. No, Lady Lanswell, I refuse your apology now or at any time! We are enemies, and shall remain so until we die!"

The countess shrunk from the passion of her indignant words.

"You are right in some measure," she said, sadly. "I was very hard, but it was for my son's sake! Ah, believe me, all for him."

"Your son," retorted Leone; "you make your son the excuse for your own vanity, pride, and ambition. What you did, Lady Lanswell, proved how little you loved your son; you parted us knowing that he loved me, knowing that his whole heart was bound up in me, knowing that he had but one wish, and it was to spend his whole life with me; you parted us knowing that he could never love another woman as he loved me, knowing that you were destroying his life, even as you have destroyed mine. Did love for your son actuate you then?"

"What I believed to be my love for my son and care for his interests alone guided me," said Lady Lanswell.

"Love for your son!" laughed Leone. "Have you ever read the story of the mother of the Maccabees, who held her twin sons to die rather than they live to deny the Christian faith? Have you read of the English mother who, when her fair-haired son grew pale at the sound of the first cannon, cried, 'Be brave, my son, death does not last one minute--glory is immortal.' I call such love as that the love of a mother for her son--the love that teaches a man to be true, if it cost his life; to be brave, if courage brings him death; to be loyal and noble. True motherly love shows itself in that fashion, Lady Lanswell."

The proud head of Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, drooped before this girl as it had never done before any power on earth.

"What has your love done for your son, Lady Lanswell?" she asked. "Shall I tell you? You made him a traitor, a coward, a liar--through your intrigues, he perjured himself. You made him disloyal and ignoble--you made him _false_. And yet you call that love! I would rather have the love of a pagan mother than such as yours.

"What have you done for him?" she continued, the fire of her passion rising--"what have you done for him? He is young and has a long life before him. Is he happy? Look at his face--look at his restless, weary eyes--listen to the forced bitter laugh! Is he happy, after all your false love has done for him? You have taken from him the woman he loves, and you have given him one for whom he cares so little he would leave her to-morrow! Have you done so well, Lady Lanswell for your son?"

"No, indeed I have not!" came with a great sigh from Lady Lanswell's lips. "Perhaps, if it were to be--but no, I will not say that. You have noble thoughts and noble ideas--tell me, Leone, will you help me?"

"Help you in what?" she asked, proudly.

The countess flung aside the laces and ribbons that seemed to stifle her.

"Help me over my son!" she cried; "be generous to me. Many people in my place would look on you as an enemy--I do not. If you have ever really loved my son you cannot be an enemy of mine. I appeal to the higher and nobler part of you. Some people would be afraid that you should triumph over them--I am not. I hold you for a generous foe."

"What appeal do you wish to make to me?" asked Leone, quite ignoring all the compliments which the countess paid her.

Lady Lanswell looked as she felt--embarrassed; it was one thing to carry this interview through in fancy, but still another when face to face with the foe, and that foe a beautiful, haughty woman, with right on her side. My lady was less at ease than she had ever been in her life before, her eyes fell, her lips trembled, her gemmed fingers played nervously with her laces and ribbons.

"That I should come to you at all, Leone, proves that I think you a noble woman," she said; "my trouble is great--the happiness of many lives lies in your hands."

"I do not understand how," said Leone.

"I will tell you," continued the countess. "You are going to Berlin, are you not?"

She saw a quiver of pain pass over the beautiful face as she asked the question.

"Yes," replied Leone; "I have an engagement there."

"And Lord Chandos, my son, has said something about going there, too?"

"Yes," replied Leone; "and I hope he will; he knows the city well, and I shall be glad to see a familiar face."

There was a minute's silence, during which Lady Lanswell brought all her wit and courage to bear on the situation. She continued:

"Lady Chandos does not wish my son to go to Berlin. I suppose it is no secret from you that she entirely disapproves of her husband's friendship with you?"

Leone bowed her proud, beautiful head.

"That is a matter of little moment to me," she said.

My lady's face flushed at the words.

"I may tell you," she went on, "that since Lady Chandos heard of this friendship, she has been very unhappy."

"No one cared when I was unhappy," said Leone; "no one pleaded for me."

"I do plead for Lady Marion," said the countess, "whatever you may think of me. She has done you no harm; why should you make mischief between her and her husband?"

"Why did you make mischief between me and mine?" retorted Leone; and my lady shrunk as she spoke.

"Listen to me, Leone," she said; "you must help me, you must be my friend. If my son goes to Berlin against his wife's prayers and wishes, she has declared that she will never speak to him or see him again."

"That cannot concern me," said Leone.

"For Heaven's sake listen, and do not speak to