A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader android .TXT) 📖

stead of sleep. He makes a careful toilet, has a cup of coffee

and a roll, and goes out of the house before any of his womankind are

stirring.

 

The bright sunshine and bustle of the streets help him. He smokes, and

that soothes him. As eleven chimes from all the city clocks, he is

altogether himself again, the excitement and agitation of last night

over and done with. He is very pale—beyond that there is no change in

him.

 

He feels no anger against the woman he is going to see—he is just

enough for that. The fault has been all his—all his also must be the

atonement. But he will see her, and then—.

 

He cannot quite think—steady as he has forced himself to be—of what

will come after. It is very early yet to make a call, but he cannot

wait. It is not difficult to discover the address of the most popular

actress in Paris; he does discover it, walks steadfastly there, and

encounters madame’s tall chasseur in his gorgeous uniform of carmine and

gold.

 

Madame sees no one at this hour, monsieur is politely told; it is

doubtful if madame has arisen.

 

But madame will see him, monsieur is quite certain. Will this Parisian

“Jeames De La Pluche” be good enough to forward monsieur’s card to

madame.

 

The chasseur looks doubtful, but something in the English monsieur’s

face causes him to comply. The card is passed onward, and inward, until

it reaches the hand of madame’s maid, and by madame’s maid is presented

to madame.

 

Madame has arisen—early as is the hour, has even breakfasted. She lies

back in her dusk-shaded drawing-room, looking rather fagged after last

night’s unusual excitement, with deep bistre circles surrounding her

eyes. Her lady companion sits near reading aloud. She lies back with

closed eyes, not listening, but thinking of Gordon Caryll’s face as she

saw it last night looking down upon her.

 

“A visitor for madame—a gentleman,” Pauline announces.

 

“I can see no one, it is too early,” madame says crossly; “is it M. Di

Venturini?”

 

“No, madame. An English gentleman, tall and fair—who has never been

here before.”

 

Madame sits suddenly up, and seizes the card. Her pale face flushes dark

red as she reads the name. She does not quite know what she has

expected—certainly not this. For a moment her heart beats fast.

 

“I will see the gentleman, Pauline,” she says. “Mrs. Hannery, you must

be tired of that stupid book. The morning is fine—suppose you take

Pandore [the poodle] and go for a walk. It will do you both good, and I

shall not need you.”

 

Thus dismissed, the lady companion rises and goes; madame turns to her

maid:

 

“Where is my new prot�g�e?” she asks. “Miss Donny.”

 

“In her room, madame, reading.”

 

“See that she does not leave it then, see that she does not enter here.

Now show the gentleman up.”

 

The maid departs. Madame springs up, darkens the room yet a little more,

looks at herself in one of the full-length mirrors, and is back in her

seat with drooping, languid eyes before the door re-opens. But her heart

is beating fast, and her topaz eyes are gleaming savagely under their

white-veiled lids.

 

The door opens, and he comes in. And so again, after many years, this

man and woman, once husband and wife—are face to face.

 

The first thing he sees in that twilight of the room is his own picture.

It hangs directly opposite the door, and the sunshine, as it opens,

falls for a moment upon it. Like that they parted, like this they meet

again! He stands for a second motionless, looking at it, and she is the

first to speak.

 

“A very good picture, and very well painted; but I don’t think, I can’t

think, I ever wore such a face of despair as that. You ought to know,

though, better than I.”

 

The slow, sweet voice was as smooth and even as though the heart beneath

were not throbbing at fever heat. A cruel, lingering smile was on her

face, and the yellow, stealthy eyes were watching him greedily. He

turned as she spoke and looked at her.

 

“Rosamond!”

 

She started at the name, at the low, even gentle tone, in which it was

spoken. The blood rose again over her face, and for a second she found

no voice to answer. Then she laughed.

 

“Ma foi!” she said, “how droll it sounds to hear that! I had almost

forgotten that once was my name, so long is it since I have heard it?

Ah, Dieu! how old it makes one feel.”

 

A real pang went through her heart. Growing old! Yes, surely, and to

grow old was the haunting terror of this woman’s life.

 

“You have changed,” she said, looking at him full, “changed more than I

have. You do not resemble very greatly the slender, fair-haired

stripling I knew so long ago in Toronto. And yet I should have known you

anywhere. Mon ami, will you not sit down?”

 

“Thanks,” he answered in the same low, level voice, “I will not detain

you but a moment. Last night, for the first time since we parted at

Quebec, I saw you—”

 

“And the sight was a shock, was it not, monsieur?” she gayly

interrupted.

 

“It was,” he replied gravely, “since I thought you dead. Since I was

sure of it.”

 

“Ah, yes! that railway accident. Well, it was touch and go—I never

expect to be so near death, and escape again. But I did escape,

and—here I am!”

 

She looked at him with her insolent smile, her eyes gleaming with evil

fire.

 

“Here I am,” she repeated with slow, lingering enjoyment; “and it spoils

your life for you—does it not? As you spoiled mine for me that

night.”

 

She pointed to the picture—the vengeful delight she felt shining in her

great eyes.

 

“You were merciless that night, Gordon Caryll, and I vowed revenge, did

I not? Well the years have come and the years have gone; we both lived,

and revenge was out of my reach. I never forgave you and I never will;

but what could I do? Now we meet, and I need do nothing. The very fact

that I am alive is vengeance enough. It parts you from her—does it not?

Ah, you feel that! Monseigneur, I wonder why you have come here this

morning? It is certainly an honor I did not expect.”

 

“I came to make assurance certainty,” he answered. “I had no doubt,

and still—”

 

“And still you would stand face to face with me once more. Well—there

is no doubt, is there? I am Rosamond Lovell—Rosamond Caryll—the girl

you married, and whose heart you so nearly broke, seventeen years ago.

Oh, don’t look so scornful! I mean it! Even I had a heart, and I loved

you. Loved you so well that if I had been able I would have gone down to

the river and drowned myself after you left me that night. Fortunately I

was not able. I could laugh now when I look back and think of my

besotted folly. We outlive all that at five-and-thirty.”

 

“You were not able,” he repeated; “that means—”

 

“That my child was born twelve hours after we parted,” she interrupted

once more. “Did they tell you in Quebec that?”

 

“Yes, they told me. And the child is with you now.”

 

“Who told you so?” she demanded, sharply.

 

“I know it—that is enough. You ask me why I came here to-day—one

reason was to see her.”

 

She laughed contemptuously.

 

“And do you fancy I will let you? Why, I meant that child from her birth

to avenge her mother’s wrongs. And she shall—I swear it.”

 

“You refuse to let me see her?”

 

“Most emphatically—yes. When the time comes you shall see her to your

cost—not before.”

 

He turned to go. She rose up and stood before him.

 

“What! so soon,” she said, with a laugh, “and after so many years’

separation? Well, then, go—actions, not words, are best between us. But

I think, Gordon Caryll, my day has come. Miss France Forrester is a

very proud and spotless young lady—so they tell me. Have you told her

yet who Felicia the actress is?”

 

He made no reply. Without speaking to her, without looking at her, he

passed out of the greenish dusk of the perfumed drawing-room into the

sparkling sunshine, and fresh, cool wind of the fair spring day.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

A MORNING CALL.

 

It is just one hour later, and France Forrester stands with hands

clasped loosely before her at the window of Mrs. Caryll’s invalid room,

gazing with weary wistfulness at the bright avenue below, a strained,

waiting, listening expression on her face. For since they parted last

night so strangely at the entrance of the theatre she has not seen her

lover, and when has that chanced between them before? Something has

happened! Something wrong and unpleasant—she feels that vaguely,

although she cannot define her own feeling. How oddly he looked last

night, how strangely he spoke, how singularly he acted. Did he too know

Madame Felicia? Then she smiled to herself. Of course not—had he not

said so a dozen times. Madame Felicia might have power over the weak and

unstable, such as Eric Dynely; over men of the stuff Gorden Caryll was

made, no more than the ugliest hag that prowled Paris.

 

But why did he not come?

 

Last night, long after the rest had retired, she had waited up in the

salon wistfully anxious for the good-night she so rarely missed. And he

had entered very late, and had passed on at once to his room, although

he must have known she would wait. Had he not been belated times

before, and had she ever failed to wait—had he ever failed to seek her

out? She had gone to bed vexed and disappointed. But she was not one

easily to take offence, and it would be all right to-morrow. He might

have looked into the salon, but he did not—and—there was an end to it.

To-morrow at breakfast he would tell her, whatever it might be. So she

rose happy and light-hearted, the fag-end of a tune between her lips,

with no presentiment of all that was so near shadowing her happy girl’s

heart.

 

Breakfast hour. She ran down eagerly. Gordon was never late. He was

always to be found in dressing-gown and slippers reading Galignani at

this hour. But his favorite arm-chair this morning was vacant, and only

Lady Dynely met her across the crystal and the silver.

 

“Has Gordon turned lazy, I wonder?” the elder lady said, carelessly; “it

is something new to miss his face at the end of the table. Eric and his

wife are coming to-day. France and I had counted on Gordon for you. We

are going to Saint Cloud, and if Gordon does not return—”

 

“In any case I do not think I shall go,” France answered, rather

wearily. “One grows so bored of perpetual sight-seeing. I shall stay at

home with grandmamma Caryll.”

 

She had no appetite for breakfast, and when it was over she ran up to

say good-morning to “grandmamma.” No, Gordon had not been there

either—his mother’s first question was for him.

 

“It is the very first day he has failed to pay me a before breakfast

call,” Mrs. Caryll said, with a half-laugh, and yet dissatisfied. “Can

he have gone out, or where is he?”

 

“I do not know,” France answered, vaguely