A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader android .TXT) đ
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and play. Mr. Locksley makes his adieux speedily and departs.
âHow have you come to pick up Locksley, France?â Eric asks, later on.
âPick him up? I donât quite understand. He painted the picture of the
year, sold it for a fabulous sum, was overflowing with orders, and, as a
special favor to Lady Dynely, consented to throw over everything else,
follow us down here and paint my portrait.â
She speaks with a certain air of constraint, which Lord Dynely does not
fail to notice.
âAh, very kind of him, of course. Very fine fellow, Locksley, and very
clever artist, but a sort of reserve about him, a sort of mystery,
something on his mind and all that. One of the sort of men who have an
obnoxious wife hidden away in some quarter of the globe, like Warrington
and Rochester in the novels. I must see the portraitâis it a good one?â
âVery good, I believeâI have given but two or three sittings as yet.â
âHow long has he been here?â
âA fortnight.â
A pause. He looks at her as he leans over the back of her chair. She is
slightly pale still, rather grave, but very handsomeâvery handsome.
She has improved, Eric thinks, complacently, and dark beauties are his
style, naturally. A very credible wife, he thinks; a fine, high-bred
face to see at oneâs table; and if there be a trifle more brains than
one could wish, one can excuse that in a wife.
âI must get Locksley to make me a duplicate,â he says, bending over her,
and putting on his tender look. âFrance, you have not said you are glad
to see me yet.â
âIs it necessary to repeat that formula?â she answers, carelessly. âThat
is taken for granted, is it not?â
âI was detained at Saint Jean,â he goes on. âI have been longing to see
you once more; how greatly, you can imagine.â
âYes, I can imagine,â France answers, and suddenly all her reserve gives
way, and she looks up and laughs in his face. âI can imagine the burning
impetuosity, the fever of longing with which you rushed across the
Pyrenees, across France, and home. Eric, that sort of thing may do very
well in Spain, but donât try it with me.â
âMerciless as ever. Your London season has agreed with you, France. I
never saw you look so well. And the fame of your conquests have reached
even the other side of the Pyrenees. How others slew their thousands and
Miss Forrester her tens of thousands. How men went down before her
dark-eyed glances like corn before the reaper.â
âMy dear Eric,â Miss Forrester replies, politely shrugging with a yawn,
âdonât you find it fatiguing to talk so much? It was never a failing of
yours to make long speeches. But I suppose two yearsâ hard practice of
the language of compliments must tell.â
âCome out on the terrace,â is what he says, and in spite of her faint
resistance he leads her there. He is growing more and more charmed every
momentânot deeply in love, just ïżœpris of this new and pretty face. He
is as much fascinated now as he was by madame last week, as he may be by
anyone else you please next, and thoroughly in earnest at the moment.
Why should he delay? Why not come to the point at once? Really, France
would do credit to any man in England.
The moonlight is flooding the terrace with glory, the trees are silver
in its light, the stone urns gleam like pearls, the flowers waft their
fragrance where they stand.
âOh!â France sighs, âwhat a perfect night!â
âYes,â Eric assents, looking up with his poetic blue eyes to the sky;
âvery neat thing in the way of moonshine. And moonlight hours were made
for love and all that; the poet says so, doesnât he, France?â
âThe poet, which poet? Donât be so vague, Lord Dynely.â
âAh, France, you may laugh at meââ
âI am not laughing; I never felt less facetious in my life. My principal
feeling, at present, is that it is half-past eleven, that I am tired
after two hoursâ croquet, and that I shouldâand will say good-night,
and go to bed.â
âNot just yet.â He takes her hand and holds it fast. âWhat a pretty hand
you have,â he says, tenderly; âa model for a sculptor. Will you let me
put an engagement ring among all those rubies and diamonds, France? I
wanted to once beforeâin Rome, you remember, and you wouldnât allow
me.â
France laughs, and looks at him, and draws away her hand.
âThere came a laddie here to woo,
And, dear, but he was jimp and gay;
He stole the lassieâs heart away,
And made it all his ain, Oh.â
âYou certainly lose no time, Lord Dynely. Really the haste and ardor of
your love-making takes oneâs breath away. I have more rings now than I
know what to do withâanother would be the embarrassment of riches.
Eric, let us end this farce. You donât care a straw for me. You donât
want to marry me any more than I want to marry you. Why should we bore
each other with love-making that means nothing. It will disappoint two
good women a littleâbut that is inevitable. Go to your mother, like a
good boy, and tell her she must make up her mind to another
daughter-in-law.â
His eyes lightâopposition always determines him for right or wrong.
âI will never tell her that. I love you, Franceâhave loved you
alwaysâyou alone shall be my wife.â
âEric, do you expect me to believe that?â
âI expect you to believe the truth. And if after all these yearsâafter
what has passed between us, you mean to throw me overââ
âAfter what has passed between us!â she repeats, looking at him full, âI
donât understand that, Eric. What has ever passed between us?â
âYou know I have loved youâyou did not quite cast me offâyou know it
has always been an understood thing we were to marry.â
âAnd you mean to hold me to such a compact as that?â
âI mean I love you, and will be most miserable if you do not become my
wife.â
âUngenerous,â she says, under her breath. âYou will hold me to this
tacit understandingâto which I have never been a party, mindâwhether I
will or no?â
He only repeats:
âI love you, France. I want you for my wife.â
She stands looking at the softly luminous night, at the dark trees and
white shadows, her face pale, her lips set, her eyes darkly troubled.
âIt is unfairâit is ungenerous,â she cries out, presently, âto hold me
to a compact to which I have never consented. I will not do anything
dishonorable, but, Eric, it is most unkind. You do not love meâah,
hushâif you protested forever I would not believe you. I know you, I
think, better than you know yourself. You mean it at this momentânext
week you may forget my very existence. I am not the sort of wife for
youâyou want an adoring creature to sit at your feet and worship you as
a god. There!â she turns impatiently away; âlet me alone. I can give you
no answer to-night. The dew is falling; let us go in. I hate to grieve
Mrs. Caryll, I hate to disappoint your motherâfor your disappointment,
if any there be, I donât care a whit.â
âFrance, you are heartless,â he says, angrily.
âNoâI only speak the truth. Give me up. Let me go, Ericâit will be
better for us both.â
âI will never let you go,â he answers, sullenly. âIf you throw me over,
well and goodâI must submitâonly it will not be like France Forrester
to play fast and loose with any man.â
Her eyes flash upon him in the moonlight their angry fire.
âYou do well to say that,â she retorts. âYou of all men! Give me a week;
I cannot answer to-night. If at the end of that time you are still of
the same mind, come to me for your answer.â
She passes him, returns to the drawing-room, and leaves him on the
terrace alone.
CHAPTER VII.
A WEEKâS REPRIEVE.
Miss Forrester goes to her room and sits at the window, after the
fashion of girls, and looks out. She had never taken this affair of the
proposed alliance seriously for a moment before. She had said, and with
truth, that she understood Eric better than he understood himself.
Somewhere in his wanderings he felt he would come upon some gypsy,
girlish face, that would captivate his susceptible, romantic heartâno,
not heartâ_fancy_; and very probably there might be an impromptu
marriage, and an end of all worry for her. He was just the sort of man
to sneer at matrimony, because it was a cynical, worldly, correct sort
of thing to do, and rush headlong into it upon the slightest
provocation. To be âoff with the old love and on with the new,â at a
momentâs notice, was my Lord Ericâs forte.
She had not disliked Eric, she had rather liked him, indeedâlaughed at
his love-making, parodied his pretty speeches, mimicked his languid
drawl, and weary, used-up manner; treated him much as she treated Terry,
with a sort of fun-loving, elder-sister manner; only she had a real
respect for Dennison she never felt for Dynely.
âI never could marry such a man as you, Eric,â she was wont to say. âYou
have a great deal fairer complexion than I have, and I donât like dolly
men. You curl your hair; you wax that little callow mustache of yours;
you perfume yourself like a valet; you think more about your toilet and
spend longer over it than a young duchess; and you havenât an ounce of
brains in you from top to toe. Now if I have a weakness, it is
thisâthat the man I marry shall be a manly man and a clever man. You,
my poor Eric, are neither, and never will be. And besides youâre too
good-looking.â
âFirst time a lady ever objected to that in the man who adored her,â
Eric drawled.
âYouâre too good-looking,â Miss Forrester repeats with a regretful sigh;
âand over-much good looks are what no man can bear. Youâre a coxcomb, my
precious boy, of the first waterâa dandy par excellence. Why, you
know yourself,â cries France, indignantly, âyour sobriquet at Eton was
âPretty Face?ââ
âI know itâyes,â Eric answers, with an irrepressible smile.
âThen you see itâs quite impossibleâutterly impossible and
preposterous, Eric,â Miss Forrester was wont to conclude; âso let us say
no more about it. I donât object to your making love to me in a general
wayâitâs your only earthly mission, poor fellow, and to veto that would
be cruel. But let it be generalâlet us have no more foolish talk of
present engagements and prospective weddings, and that nonsense. Because
you know it can never be.â
âNever, Franceâreally?â
âNever, Ericâreally; never, never, never. I wouldnât marry you if you
were the last man on earth, and to refuse involved the awful doom of
old-maidenhood. I like you too well ever to love you. And I mean to love
the man I marry.â
âReally!â Eric repeats, lifting his eyebrows, and pulling the waxed ends
of the yellow mustache, intensely amused.
âYes, Eric, with all my heart. Ah, you may smile in the superior
god-like wisdom of manhood, but I mean it. He is to be a king among
menââ
âSans peur
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