A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader android .TXT) đ
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face, a profusion of pale blonde hair, a tall, willowy, fragile figure.
The fair face, the pale blue eyes, lit up now with genuine delight.
âI, Lady Dynely. You hardly looked for me to-night, did you? And yet,
you must have known I would come.â
Her color rose. She withdrew the hand he held still.
âI did not know it. How could I tell? Your mother was here to-dayâshe
said nothing about it. When did you come?â
âTwo hours ago. And as to-morrow morning, by the first train, I leave
again for good, I ran the risk of not finding you at home, and rode over
to say good-by. By the way, itâs rather a coincidence, but one August
night two years ago, you and I shook hands and parted on this very spot.
You were dressed in white that night, too, I remember, and looked as you
always do look, belle cousine, fair and sweet, and pale as a lily.â
Again her color rose, but the blue, startled eyes fixed themselves on
his face.
âSay good-byâleave for good!â she repeated. âWhat is it you mean?
Gordon, have you seen your mother?â
âYes, Lucia, I have seen my mother. I have just come from Caryllynne. I
have bidden farewell to it and to my mother forever.â
She stood looking at him in painful silenceâthat sensitive rose-pink
color coming and going in her cheeks. In the crystal moonlight she could
see the great and saddening change in him. She clasped both hands around
his arm, and looked up at him with soft, pitiful eyes.
âGordonâcousin,â she said, gently, âis it true, this story they tell,
that is in the papers, that all London rang with before we left? It must
be true, and yetâoh, Gordon! unless you tell me with your own lips I
cannot believe.â
âThen I tell you,â he moodily answered, âit is true.â
âThat you married an actressâanâoh, Gordon!â she said passionately, âI
would rather see you dead!â
âYou are not alone in that, I fancy,â he said, with a drearily reckless
laugh. âAll the same, I have done it. All the same, too, I have had
enough of reproach and bitterness for one nightâit is my last,
rememberâdonât you take up the cry against me. Those gentle lips of
yours, ma belle, were never made to say cruel things. We have been
good friends alwaysâlet us so part.â
She sighed wearily, her hands still loosely clasped his arm, her blue,
pitying eyes still fixed on his face. His gloomy gaze was bent on the
water-lilies in the pond, whose pale heads he was mercilessly switching
off with his riding whip.
âI am sorryâI am sorry. But your mother, Gordon, surely she pities you
and forgives you. I know how stern and resolute she can be where she
thinks her duty is concerned; but you, her only son, whom she loves so
dearlyââ
âShe has disinherited and cast me off forever. It is all right, Lucia. I
donât deny the justice of my sentence, only you see one looks rather for
mercy than for justice from oneâs mother.â
âBut she does not mean itâshe speaks in anger. She will repent and call
you back.â
He smiledâa slow, hard, inexorable smile.
âIt is a little late for all that. What is done is done. I will never go
back. She says truly, I have disgraced the nameâthe only atonement I
can make is to renounce it. She has ordered me from her sight and her
home foreverâone does not wait to be told that twice.â
âHow could sheâhow could she!â his cousin murmured, the soft blue eyes
filling and brimming over; âyou, her only sonâall she has leftâwhom
she loved so dearly. Oh! how could she do it! Gordon, I, too, have a
son, my little Eric, and I love him so devotedly, so entirely, that I
feel, I know, no crime he could commit, though it were murder itself,
could ever for one second change that love. Do what he mightâyes, the
very worst man can do, I would still love him and take him to my heart.â
Her pale face glowed, her pale eyes lit, her voice arose. Her cousin
looked at her tenderly.
âI can believe that,â he said; âbut you see, Lucia, there are mothers
and mothersâand Viscountess Dynely and Mrs. Caryll are of two very
different orders. I never did prefer the Spartan sort myself, ready to
run the knife through their nearest and dearest at a momentâs notice.
Still, I repeat, my sentence has been deserved, and is just.â
âGordon, tell me all about it, will you? I know so little, I read the
papers, of course, but stillââ
âIs it worth while, Lucia? It is not a pleasant or profitable story. Do
you really care to know?â
âGordon!â
âOh, I know all your affectionate interest in me and my concerns,
fairest cousin, and I donât mind boring you with the details of a young
foolâs folly. Folly! good heaven above! What a fool I was! What a
gullible, wooden-headed, imbecile idiot I must have been!â
âYouâyou loved her, Gordon?â
âWell, yes, I suppose it was love, that blind and besotted fever her
beauty and her witcheries threw me into. She was a sorceress whose
accursed spells sent every man she met under sixty straightway out of
his senses. Why she threw the rest over for me (she had half the
battalion at her feet) was clear enough. I was the youngest, the
richest, and the greatest ass in Toronto. She turned scores of other
heads, but not to that pitch of idiocy which proffers wedding rings. I
had only seen her six times when I asked her to marry meâyou may
faintly guess the depth and breadth of my imbecility when I tell you
that.â
âShe was handsome, Gordon?â
âShe was more than handsome, Lucia. She had a beautïżœ du diable whose
like I have never seenâthat no man could resistâa dark,
richly-colored, Southern sort of beauty, of the earth earthy. She was
small and slender, with a waist you could snap like a pipe-stem, two
large black eyes, like a pantherâs, precisely, and a smile that sent you
straight out of your senses. All the fellows in Toronto raved of
herâshe was the toast of the mess, the talk of the town. Only the women
fought shy of herâthey took her gauge by intuition, I suppose. Before
she had been a week in Toronto, Major Lovell and his daughter were the
topic, in ball-room, and boudoir, and barracks.â
âShe was a Miss Lovell?â Lady Dynely asked, in a constrained sort of
tone. One hand still rested on his arm, and as they talked they walked
slowly round and round the fish-pond. In the days that were gone she had
been very fond of her dashing boy cousin and playmateâvery fondâwith
sisterly fondness she told herselfânothing more.
âYou will hear. I had been a year in Toronto before she came, a dull and
dreary year enough, with nothing but the daily drill, the parade, the
routine of military life, the provincial balls and dinner parties, the
provincial flirtations with dark Canadian belles to break the monotony.
All at once she came, and everything changed. Major Lovell brought his
daughter among usâand it seemed to me my life began. He was a
disreputable old duffer enough, this Lovell, a drunkard, a sharper at
cards, a rooker at billiards, living on his half-pay and his whole wits.
He was a widower, with a daughter out in Bermuda with her motherâs
friends, who declined to live with her rascally old father. He was in
the habit of disappearing and reappearing in Toronto at odd timesâthis
time, after a longer absence than usual, he reappeared with his
daughter.
âHe met me one bleak autumn night lounging aimlessly down one of the
principal streets, dressed for a heavy sacrificial dinner party, yawning
at the boredom in prospective, wishing all civilian dinner-givers at the
deuce, and, willy-nilly, he linked his seedy old arm in mine.
ââEn route for Rogersâ, dear boy?â he said, with a grin, âand looking
ennuied to death even at the thought of what is in store for you. Why
make a martyr of yourself, Gordon, my ladâwhy sacrifice yourself on
the altar of acquaintanceship? Throw over the bloated timber merchant,
come to my lowly wigwam, and letâs have a friendly game at ïżœcartïżœ, Iâll
give you a deviled kidney, and a glass of sherryâyou can drop in at
Rogersâ when the heavy feedingâs over. Besides,ââafter a pause, this,
and with a sidelong glanceââI want to show you my little girlâbless
her! Sheâs come to keep house for her old dad at last.â
âI made some faint resistanceâonly faint, and yielded. I had a weakness
for ïżœcartïżœ; the major was past-master of the game, although he made his
lessons rather expensive to youngsters like myself.
ââNeville and Dalton and two or three more of Yours are coming,â he
said, as he inserted his latch key. âRosie will give you a bit of supper
by and by, and sing you a song, if you like that sort of thing. Come in,
Gordonâcome in, my boy, and thrice welcome to the old manâs modest
mansion.â
âAnd then I was in, out of the cold, dark Canadian night, in a fire-lit,
lamp-lit parlor, looking with dazzled eyes down upon the loveliest face,
I thought, that firelight or sunlight ever shone on.
âShe had sprung up at our entranceâshe had been crouched in kittenish
fashion on the hearth rug, and two big, wonderful eyes, of tawny
blackness, were looking up at me. I thought of Balzacâs âGirl with the
Golden Eyesââthese were black or yellow, just as the shifting firelight
rose or fell. As I stood staring in a stupefied trance of wonder and
admiration, the majorâs fat, unctuous old voice droned in my ear.
ââRosamond, my childâmy young friend, Mr. Caryll, of Caryllynne, Devon,
England, and Her Majestyâsâthe Royal Rifles, Toronto, Canada. Gordon,
my boyâmy little daughter Rosie.â
âThen a little brown hand slipped out to me, the dark luminous eyes and
the red dimpling lips smiled together.
ââI am very pleased to meet Mr. Gordon Caryll of â- whatâs all the
rest, papa? Very pleased to meet anybody, Iâm sure, in this cold, nasty,
dreary Canada.â
ââYou donât like Canada then, Miss Lovell?â I managed to stammer. âI am
sorry for that. We must try and change your opinion of it before long.
What with skating and sleighing, it isnât half a bad place.â
âShe pouted and laughed like a child. She was singularly childish in
form and face, hardly looking sixteen.
ââNot half a bad place! Where you grill alive three summer months and
shiver to death nine winter ones. Oh, my dear Bermuda! Where the hearts
were as warm as the climate, and the faces as sunny as the skies. No
fear of being lonely, or miserable, or neglected there. If papa would
let file, I would go back to-morrow.â
ââBut papa wonât,â the major put in with a chuckle; âpapa canât spare
his one ewe lamb yet. Mr. Caryll here, I am sure, will do his best to
make time pass, little one. Hark! I hear a knocking in the south
entryâthe other fellows at last.â
âThen with much laughter, and stamping and noise, three or four military
men came clattering in out of the cold and damp darkness, and were
presented to âMy daughter, Rosamond.â
âI donât know how it was with them; I can answer for myselfâfrom the
first moment I looked on Rosamond
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