A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader android .TXT) đ
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you married and the settlements, and youâll have them, you know, to the
end of the chapter, so you wonât break your heart.â
He had whistled to his dogs and walked moodily off, saying no more; and
his wife, listening with pale cheeks and dilated eyes, asked no
questions. She was not strong, either mentally, morally, or physically;
she shrank from pain of all sorts, with almost cowardly fear. If Lord
Dynely had wicked secrets, she wanted to hear none of themâshe desired
no confessionsâit was cruel of him to talk of making them. As he had
kept his dreadful masculine secrets in life, let him keep them in death.
She stood vaguely thinking this where Gordon Caryll had left her,
looking like some spirit of the moonlight in her white robes, her light,
floating hair, and colorless face. And even while she thought it, the
messenger was drawing near to summon her to hear that secret told.
The stable clock chiming loudly eleven awoke her from her thoughtful
trance. She started. How late it was, how chilly it had grown! She
shrank with the first sensation she had felt of cold and damp, and
turned to go. But she stopped, for the sylvan silence of the summer
night was loudly broken by the ringing clatter of horsesâ hoofs dashing
up the avenue. Was it Gordon coming back? Little things disturbed
herâher heart fluttered as she listened. Horse and rider came in view;
the man espied her and vaulted off. No, this small, middle-aged man,
was not her tall cousin, but Mr. Squills, the village apothecary.
âMy lady!â
He took off his hat and stood bowing before her. In the moonlight my
lady could see the frightened look the manâs face wore.
âWhat is it?â she asked.
âOh, my ladyâI donât want to alarm you, Iâm sureâthey told me to break
it to you, but itâs so hard to break things. Thereâs been an accident,
my lady. The 9.50 express from Plymouth, and donât let me frighten you,
my ladyâhis lordship was in it, andâ-â
She laid her hand over her heart, turning for a moment sick and faint.
Then she rallied.
âLord Dynely was on that train? There was an accident, you say. Was
heâ-â
âOh, my lady, prepare yourself. Itâitâs a dreadful thing to break
things toâ-â
âWas Lord Dynely hurt?â she asked.
âYes, my lady, very badly hurt, Iâm sorry to say.â
âDangerously?â
âWeâre afraid so, my lady. Mr. Glauber is with him, and theyâve
telegraphed to London for Doctorââ
âHe is alive?â she interrupted, her voice sharp with horror and pain.
âAlive, my lady, butâit is best you should know the truthâhe wonât be
alive by morning. The clergyman is with him, but he calls, my lady,
continually for you.â
âWhere is he?â
âAt the inn, in the villageâthe âKiddle-a-wink.â And, my lady, there is
not a moment to lose.â
She turned from him and ran to the house. On the way she met one of the
grooms, and ordered the carriage at once. She fled up to her room, threw
a dark mantle over her white evening-dress, put on her bonnet with
trembling fingers, and turned to depart. A sudden thought came to
herâshe turned into an adjoining roomâthe nursery, where her boy lay
asleep.
The night-light burns low; he lies in his downy, lace draped bed, a
lovely baby-vision of health and beauty. Flushed, dimpled, his golden
curls falling over the pillow, a smile on the rosy lipsâhe is a sight
to make any motherâs heart leap. She stoops and kisses him with
passionate love. âOh, my baby, my angel!â she whispers, âyou are all I
have on earth. While I live, no harm, that I can avert, will ever come
to you.â
Then she flits out of the roomâout of the house. The carriage is
waiting, and in a moment more she is rapidly whirling through the still,
white midnight to the village inn where her husband lies dying.
They lead her to the room. Physician and priest fall back, and give way
to the wife. The wounded man lies propped by pillows, his head bandaged,
his face awfully bloodless and ghastly in the wan light. She has heard
no details of the accident, she has asked none. He is dyingâall is said
in that.
His eyes light as they turn on her, but his brow is frowning.
âSend them all away,â are his first words.
She motions them out of the room. She sinks on her knees by the bedside.
Her dark drapery slips off; her white dress, her soft laces, her fair,
floating hair, seem strangely to contradict the idea of death. She is
trembling from head to footâher teeth chatter with nervous horror, her
eyes fix themselves, all wild and dilated, upon his face. She never
speaks a word.
He lies and looks at herâa long, steadfast, frowning gaze.
âI am dying,â he says; âyou know it. You never cared for meâno,
neverânot even in your wedding hour. You never cared for meâwhy should
I care for you? Why should I hesitate to tell you the truth?â
It has been the thorn in his rose-crowned lifeâthis fact, that the
portionless girl he married, never gave him her heart.
âTell me now,â he says, still with that dull, frowning gaze, âI was too
great a coward ever to ask you beforeâtell me nowâyou married the rank
and the rent-roll, not the man?â
âI did wrong,â she says, huskily, âbut I have tried to do my duty as
your wife. Forgive me, Alexis.â
âAh!â he answers bitterly, âwe have both something to forgiveâit makes
us quits. I have been a coward, a coward to you, a coward to her. It
is hard to say which has been wronged most. But you shall hear the truth
now, and you shall do as you see fit after. Draw near.â
She bends closer above him. He takes her hand in his cold fingers, and
whispers, hoarsely and brokenly, his death-bed confession.
Half an hour passes, an hour, another, and still from that closed room
there is no sound. It is very strange. Mr. Glauber, the doctor, and Mr.
Texton, the rector, think uneasily, looking at their watches, outside.
It is quite impossible Lord Dynely, in his fast-sinking state, can be
talking all this timeâimpossible, also, that he can have fallen asleep.
Presently Mr. Texton takes heart of grace, and taps at the door. There
is no reply. He taps again. Still silence. He opens the door and goes
in. Lord Dynely has fallen back among his pillows, dead, that frown
forever frozen on his face; my lady still kneels by the bedsideâas
rigid, as upright, as white, as cold, as though turned to stone.
âMy lady!â She does not speak or stir. âMy dear Lady Dynely,â the rector
says, in an unutterably shocked tone.
She moves for the first time, and lifts two sightless eyes to his face.
He holds out his arms, for she sways unsteadily, and catches her, as
without word or sound she slips heavily back, and faints away.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
The brilliant noontide of a brilliant May day was passedâall London
looked bustling and bright under a sky as cloudless as that of Italy. In
Trafalgar Square there was a mighty gathering of carriages, an army of
coachmen and footmen in liveries, of all sorts and colors, for it was
the opening day of the Royal Academy.
The rooms were fullâfull to repletion, filled with a jostling crowd of
well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, but then âa mob is a mob though
composed of bishops.â Languid, dilettante-looking swells, with
eye-glasses; painters with long hair, and picturesque faces; art
critics, book and pencil in hand; academicians, receiving
congratulations; picture dealers, marking the quarry on which they meant
presently to swoop; stately dowagers, sweeping their silken trains over
the crimson drugget; slim, young English girls, with milk-and-rose
complexions and gilded hair.
The clock of St. Martinâs-in-the-fields was striking four as there
entered two ladies and a gentleman, who moved slowly through the swaying
throng, and who, even there, attracted considerable attention. One of
the ladies was approaching middle age, a fair, pale, pensive, passïżœe
looking woman, with a stamp of high rank on every faded feature, in
every careless gesture. She was not the attraction. The escort was a
very tall, very broad-shouldered, very powerful-looking young man,
muscular Christianity personified, with a certain military air, that
bespoke his calling, a thick, reddish beard and mustache, reddish,
close-cropped hair, and two light, good-humored eyes. He was not the
attraction. Terry Dennisonâs face was as well known about town as
Landseerâs couchant lions around Nelsonâs pillar, in the square beyond.
It was the third of the trio, a girl, tall and slender, and very
graceful, with a figure that was rarely perfect, and a way of carrying
herself that was altogether imperial. A dark beauty, with a warm,
creamy, colorless skin, two vivid, hazel eyes, a profusion of hazel
hair, arranged ïżœ la mode, a handsome, decided, square-cut mouth, and a
general air of imperious command that said to all
âIncedo Regina!
I move a queen.â
She was dressed en passant, as it were, with a careless simplicity
that was the perfection of high art. An Indian muslin robe, a scarf of
black lace, caught up on one shoulder with a knot of yellow rosesâon
her head a touch of point-lace, with just one yellow rose over the ear,
and in her pearl-kidded hand a bunch of the same scented yellow roses.
A covey of idle, elegant dandies of the Foreign Office, and guardsmen,
lounging in one of the doorways, put up their glasses and turned to
look again, roused for the moment almost to interest.
âSomething new in Vanity Fair,â one said, âand the best thing Iâve seen
this season. Know who she is, any one?â
No one knew.
âAltogether new, as you say, Danby. Jove! what a regal air! There is
nothing on the wallsânot a nymph or goddess of them all, with a
lovelier face. Who is she?â
âHer companion is Lady Dynely,â remarked a third.
âAnd her escort is Terry Dennison. He has placed them before the
picture of the year, that thing by Locksley, and has left them. Here he
comes. I say, Dennison! who is she?â
âWho is who?â asked Mr. Dennison, the sandy-haired and whiskered young
man, approaching. ââWho is she?â isnât that the question the cynical
old French party always asked, when any fellow he knew came to grief?â
âDonât be analytical, Terry, it isnât your mïżœtier?. Who is that lady
you accompany? Handsomest thing out.â
âThat,â answered Terry, thoughtfully stroking his beard, âis my Lady
Dynely; and where have you kept your eyes all these years not to know
itââ
âThat will do. We donât want chaff. Who is that girl?â
âAll yellow roses and black lace, like a picture by Titian,â another
murmured.
âWho is she, Terry?â chorus all.
âOh!â said Terry, opening his light blue eyes with an innocent air,
âthatâs what you mean, is it? That girl is France Forrester.â
âFrance? Named after the dominion of his Imperial Majesty, Nap the
Third?â
âHer name is FranceâFrances, if you like it better,â answered calmly
Mr. Dennison.
âBut who is she? Who is she, Terry? Sheâs new to all of us, and the
handsomest debutante of the season. Open the mysteries a little, old
man; and end our agonizing
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