A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader android .TXT) đ
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look about him. Only two years since he had stood here lastâtwo years.
Nothing had changedânothing but his life, and the hot fever of his own
youthful fancyâthe fair, treacherous face of a woman had spoiled that
forever.
He lifted the heavy bronze knocker and sent the echoes ringing dully
down the great hall. The man who opened the door, an old family servant,
started back with a cry of surprise and delight.
âSure to goodness, if it isnât Mr. Gordon come back!â
âMr. Gordon come backâbad shillings always came back, donât they? How
are you, Norton? Is my mother in?â
âYes, Mr. Gordon. In her own rooms. You know the wayââ
âGo and tell her I am here, Norton, and be quick about it, will you?
Iâll wait.â
The man stared, but obeyed. Gordon Caryll stood in the long, echoing,
deserted hall, staring moodily out at the moonlight, and not at all
sure, in spite of his letter, whether his mother would deign to see him
or not. But his doubts were speedily set at rest. Norton reappeared.
âMy mistress will see you, Mr. Gordon, sir. She bids you come to her at
once in her morning room.â
He waited for no more; she would see him; he had hardly dared hope it;
she might forgive himâwho knew? He ran lightly up the stairs and
tapped at the familiar door.
âCome in,â his motherâs calm voice said, and, hat in hand, he entered.
Mother and son stood face to face. A cluster of wax-lights lit the room
brilliantly. In their full glow Mrs. Caryll stood, her tall figure
upheld at its tallest, her widowâs weeds trailing the carpet, her
widowâs cap on her dark, unsilvered hair, her face like a face cut in
white stone. In that moment, if he could have but seen it, she bore a
curious, passing likeness to himself as he had stood, pale and
relentless, before the girl who had been his wife.
âMother!â
She made a sudden, hasty motion for him to stand still and back, a
motion again like his own as he had repelled his most miserable wife. He
obeyed, closing the door, and knowing his whole fate in that second of
time.
She stood for fully a minute, silently looking at him, never softening
one whit. She saw the cruel changes those two years had made plainly
enough, the youthful face grown grave and worn, the hollow eyes, the
colorless cheeks. He had sinned, but he had also suffered. Well, it was
right; here and hereafter is not suffering the inevitable penalty of
sin?
âMother,â he said, âforgive me.â
She made a motion of her hand toward the picture above the mantel.
âYou know that he is dead?â were her first words.
âI know it. Oh, mother, I acknowledge all my wrongdoing, my shame, my
sin, if you will call it so. I was mad. All I could do to atone, I have
done. Mother, forgive me, if you can!â
âForgive you!â Her eyes blazed out upon him for one moment with a lurid
fire. âI will never forgive you so long as we both live!â
He walked over to the low mantel, laid his arm upon it, and his bowed
face on his arm. She stood and looked at him, her breast heaving with
strong, repressed emotion, her eyes glowing like fire in her pale face.
âFor three hundred years,â she said, in that tense tone of suppressed
passion, âthe Carylls have been born, have lived and died beneath this
roof, brave men, noble gentlemen always. It was left for my son to bring
shame and dishonor at last. The name was never approached by disgrace
until you bore it. Your grandfather married a dukeâs daughter; you, the
last of your name, take a wife from the sweepings of New York cityâan
actressâa street-walkerâa creature whose vile, painted face was
displayed nightly in the lowest theatre of the worst of American cities.
My son, did I call you? I take it back. After to-night I have no son!â
He never moved; he never spoke. His hidden face she could not see. That
very silence was as oil to fire.
âOne month ago your father diedâdied of your shame. You stand there as
much his murderer as though you had stabbed him to the heart. He died
unforgiving youâevery rood of land, every shilling of fortune left away
from you. Not an inch of Caryllynne is entailedâthat you knowânot one
farthing of the noble inheritance that was your birthright shall you
ever possess. The name you dishonor is yours beyond power to recall; but
that aloneânot one thing more. And after to-night you never cross this
threshold again.â
Still no replyâstill he stood like a figure of stone.
âYou say you have atoned,â his mother went on, in that low, passionate
voice. âAtoned! That means you have dragged the name of Caryll through
the mire and filth of a divorce courtâthat your story and hers, that
lost wretch, is in the mouths of all men in Canada and England. Your
atonement is worse than your crime. Your atonement shall last your life
long. Now go! All I wish to say, I have saidâI will never forgive
youâI will never look upon your face again!â
The very words he had spoken to his divorced wife! What fatality was at
work here? She ceased speaking, and Gordon Caryll lifted his haggard
face and looked at herâto the day of her death a look to haunt her with
a pain sharper than death itself.
âIt shall be as you say,â he answered, very quietly. âI donât think I
expected anything elseâI suppose I deserve nothing better. I will not
trouble you again. For the name I have dishonored, have no fearâit
shall be dishonored by my bearing it no more. I leave it behind with all
the rest. Good-night, mother, and good-by.â
And then he was gone. The door closed gently behind him, and she was
alone. Alone! she would be alone her life-long now.
She was ghastly whiteâashen white to the lips. Butâshe had done her
duty! That thought must console her in all the long, lonely years to
come. She stood for nearly half an hour in the spot where he had left
her, stock-still. Then she slowly turned, walked across the room, lifted
a velvet curtain, and entered what seemed an oratory. Over a sort of
altar, a painting of the Madonna di San Sisto hungâan exquisite copy;
and the heavenly mother, with the serene, uplifted face, holding the
child-Christ in her arms, was there before the earthly mother, who for
one rash act, had cast her only son off forever.
On a prayer-desk, before this altar, a Bible lay. At random she opened
itâin a blind sort of way seeking for comfort. And this is what she
read:
âBehold the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. And the victory that
day was turned into mourning unto all the people, for the people heard
say that day how the king was grieved for his son. But the king covered
his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, âOh, my son Absalom! Oh,
Absalom, my son, my son!ââ
CHAPTER VI.
GORDON CARYLLâS STORY.
His trial was over, his sentence was passed, and Gordon Caryll went out
from his motherâs presence an outcast and banished man.
âAll for love, and the world well lost,â he said to himself, with
something that was almost a smile. âAh, well! Come what will, I have
been blessed. For four months I had my foolâs paradiseâlet that thought
console me, in all the years of outlawry that are to come.â
He did not leave the house directly. On the landing he paused a moment
irresolute, then turned, ran up another stairway, opened one of the many
doors that flanked the long corridor, and entered the rooms that had
been his own. Only the moonlight lit them, but that was brilliant almost
as day. With that slight, sad smile on his lips he walked through them.
Everywhere traces of his dead fatherâs pride in him, his motherâs love
for him, were scattered with lavish hand. More luxurious almost were
those rooms than his motherâs own.
âThey will serve for my motherâs heir,â the young soldier
thoughtââwhoever that may be. Lucia Dynelyâs little son Eric, very
likely. She was always fond of Lucia; so, for that matter, was I. My
pretty cousin! It is but seven miles distant, and there is time and to
spare. Suppose I look her up for the last time before I go forth into
the outer darkness, and be heard of no more?â
He selected a few trifles, a picture of this mother, another of this
âCousin Luciaâ of his thoughts, a gold-mounted meerschaum pipeâthen
with a last backward glance of farewell at the pretty moonlit rooms, he
ran down the stairs, out of the silent house, the great door closed with
a clang behind him, and all was over.
He made his way to the stables, startling grooms and stable boys as
though he had been a ghost.
âSaddle Dark Diamond, Morris,â he ordered; âIâm going to Dynely Abbey,
and will leave him there behind me. You can go over for him to-morrow.â
He vaulted lightly into the saddle, cantered down the avenue, out of the
great gates, and beyond the far-stretching park that was never to call
him master.
As he stopped for one last look, never, it seemed to him, had the old
ancestral home looked so noble and desirable as on this August night,
under the yellow light of the summer moon.
âA fair and stately heritage to yield for a girlâs face,â he thought,
bitterly. âMay my successor be wiser than I, and be kept from that
maddest of all manâs madnessâloving a woman!â
His horse was a fleet oneâhe spurred him on to a gallop. For miles, as
he rode, the woods of Caryllynne stretched, on the other hand the
cottage lights twinkled, the village forge flamed forth lurid red, old
familiar landmarks met him everywhere, and far beyond the broad sweep of
the silver-lighted sea.
Less than half an hour brought him to his destination, Dynely Abbey, the
seat of Viscount Dynelyâa huge historic pile, that long centuries ago
had been a Cistercian monastery, in the days when the âKeys and Cross
and Triple Crownâ held mighty sway through all broad England. As he rode
at a gallop up the entrance avenue, in view of the great gray Abbey,
pearly white in the moonlight, his horse shied at some white object, so
suddenly and violently as almost to unseat his rider. Gordon Caryll
laughed as he leaped off and patted him soothingly on the head.
âSo ho, Diamond! Easy, old fellow. Does the sight of my pretty Cousin
Lucia, in her white dress and shawl, upset your nervous system like
this?â
He threw the bridle over a tree, and advanced to where a lady, in a silk
dinner dress, and wrapped in a white fleecy shawl, stood.
âLady Dynely,â he said, lifting his hat, âgood-evening.â
She had been slowly pacing, as though for an evening constitutional,
round and round a great ornamental fish-pond. As horse and rider
appeared she had paused in some alarmâthen, as the unexpected visitor
approached, and the bright light of the moon fell on his face, she had
uttered a low cry of great surprise and delight, and held out to him
both hands.
âGordon!â she cried. âOh, Gordon! Can it be you?â
She was a
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