Wyllard's Weird/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW SUCH THINGS END.
"An old desire of her heart," repeated Dora wonderingly. "What could that be? I am sure she had but one wish in this world, and that was to make your life happy."
"If that had been so, if she had been single-hearted, she would not have been so easily frightened away from me," argued Bothwell. "She would have laughed Valeria to scorn, strong in the power of her own love. No, it was because she was half-hearted that she gave way. There was this old desire of her heart, which could only be gratified by throwing me over."
"Bothwell, you are unworthy of her when you talk like that."
"She has proved herself unworthy of me," retorted Bothwell savagely. "Perhaps, after all, it was that beardless cub, young St. John, she cared for—an Etonian of nineteen, with a pretty face and missish manners. Perhaps it was of him she was thinking when she wrote about an old desire of her heart."
"Bothwell, I am ashamed of you. Hilda's heart is one of the truest that ever beat in a woman's breast. This very foolishness in running away from her own happiness is only a new proof of her noble nature."
"An old desire of her heart," harped Bothwell; "read me that riddle if you can."
"I can only read it in one way," answered Dora, after a thoughtful silence. "Ever so long before your return from India, Hilda had an ambition to do something great in music. She had been told that her voice was of the finest quality, and only required severe training in order to become an exceptional voice. She wanted to go abroad—to Milan, Leipsic, Paris—she talked of different places in her castle-building—and to give herself up to the study of music and the cultivation of her voice. The only difficulty was, that as Mr. Heathcote's sister, and with an independence inherited from her mother, there was no excuse for her taking up music as a profession, while it would have seemed unreasonable to leave her friends and her home merely to improve herself as an amateur. We often discussed this question together, and I used to advise her to abandon the idea of leaving her brother, whose life would have been altogether lonely without her. I told her that if ever Mr. Heathcote married again, she would then be free to do what she liked with her life. But by and by you appeared upon the scene, and Hilda resumed her love for fox-hunting, and neglected her piano. After this I heard no more of her yearning for a higher school of music than she could find in England."
"Perhaps you are right," said Bothwell, with a penitent look. "There is only one person to whom Hilda would be likely to go in Plymouth, and that is her old singing mistress."
"Mdlle. Duprez; yes, that is a person whom she would naturally consult," answered Dora. "I know all about Mdlle. Duprez, a sweet little woman."
"Dora, will you let one of your people drive me to the station, in time for the next train?"
"With pleasure. But you must have something to eat before you go. You look as if you had not had any lunch."
"I daresay I look very miserable. No, I have not been in the humour for eating since I got Hilda's letter this morning. I walked half a mile to meet the postman, in my impatience for my true love's letter, and when it came it was a staggerer."
"And you have ridden all the way from Trevena, and have had nothing to eat?"
"I forgot all about it; but I will take a crust and a glass of wine before I start. Has Wyllard heard of Hilda's disappearance?"
"Yes, he has been very much troubled about it. He had set his heart upon this marriage, and on its celebration while he is well enough to be present. God knows how long he may have strength enough to bear even as much fatigue as that. He is very angry with Hilda."
"He must not be angry with her. It is my sin that has caused this misery. I have sown the wind, and I have reaped the whirlwind. You are very good to bear with me in my trouble, Dora."
She was infinitely patient with him, sitting by him while he took a sandwich and a tumbler of claret; soothing him in his indignation against Lady Valeria; listening to his remorseful confession of wrong-doing in the past; bearing with that most tedious of all human creatures, an unhappy lover. But she had a sense of relief when he was gone, and she heard the dog-cart wheels rolling along the avenue. Her thoughts of late had been so concentrated upon her husband and his suffering that it was painful to be obliged to think of anything outside that sick-room and its sadness.
Bothwell found only disappointment at Plymouth. The little maid-servant had been thoroughly coached by Mdlle. Duprez before she left, and had been warned against any mention of Miss Heathcote.
She faced Bothwell with a stolid countenance, prepared to commit any enormity in the way of false statements; for she was one of those faithful creatures who, although the soul of truthfulness upon their own account, will lie valiantly to serve those they love. She said that Mdlle. Duprez had gone away on business.
"Was she alone?" asked Bothwell.
"Yes, sir."
"You are sure of that?"
"Quite sure, sir."
"But she was to meet some one at the station, perhaps. There was some one going away from Plymouth with her."
"I think not, sir. I feel sure Mdlle. Duprez would have told me if there had been any one going with her."
"When was Miss Heathcote last here?" asked Bothwell abruptly. "You know Miss Heathcote—a pupil—a young lady from Bodmin?"
The girl put on a countenance of profound thought, as if she were calling upon her memory for a stupendous effort, looking back into the night of ages.
"I'm sure I can't say, sir; but it was a long time ago—quite early in the summer."
"You are sure she was not here yesterday?"
"O yes, sir. Mademoiselle left Plymouth a week ago, and nobody called yesterday."
"O, she left Plymouth a week ago, did she, and nobody called yesterday?" repeated Bothwell, with a despairing helplessness which smote the slavey's heart.
It seemed a cruel thing to deceive such a nice-looking, outspoken gentleman—about his young lady, too—for it was evident to Mary Jane that Miss Heathcote must have been keeping company with this gentleman, and that she had broken off with him. If Mary Jane's fidelity to the little Frenchwoman had not been firm as a rock, she would have given way at this point, and told Bothwell the truth.
"Kindly give me Mdlle. Duprez's address," he said. "I have very important business with her, and should like to telegraph immediately."
"Mademoiselle did not leave any address, sir."
"Not leave any address? A woman of business! But she would have her letters sent after her, surely," urged Bothwell.
"No, sir. She did not wish her letters to be sent. She would be on the move, she said; and she would rather risk leaving the letters here than having them follow her from place to place."
There was an air of reality about these particulars that convinced Bothwell, whereby he showed his inexperience; for liars always go into particulars, and prop up their falsehoods with a richness of detail that is rare in truthful statements.
"Then you really don't know where Mdlle. Duprez is to be found?"
"No, sir; but I am expecting her home at any moment. She might walk in while we are standing here."
"I wish she would," said Bothwell. "I want much to see her."
He left his card, and went away, cruelly disappointed.
And now he set his teeth, like a man who is going to meet his foe, as he turned his face towards that white-walled villa on one of the hills above the town, that fair and pleasant place where he had dawdled away so many summer afternoons, all the while wishing himself anywhere rather than in that Armida garden, feeling himself a knave and a dastard for being there. He hated the place now with a deadly hatred. It seemed to him that those white walls had been built of dead men's bones, as if the house within and without savoured of the charnel.
The good old man, so fooled, so wronged by a false wife and false friend, was gone, lying at rest in the cemetery yonder, and Armida reigned alone in her enchanted garden.
Bothwell walked to Fox Hill at his fastest pace, hurrying on with bent brow, unobservant of anybody or anything that he passed on his way, as if he would walk down the angry devil within him. But the devil was not subjugated when Bothwell entered the classic portico. His livid countenance, his gloomy eyes scared the sleek young footman from his after-dinner listlessness.
Yes, Lady Valeria was at home. Bothwell was ushered into the shadowy drawing-room—a place of summer darkness, sea-green plush and tawny satin, an atmosphere of perfume. The verandah beyond the richly-curtained windows was filled with exotics; creamy-white blossoms were languishing in Venetian vases on tables and piano. A Japanese embroidered curtain draped the door of an inner room, and, as Bothwell entered, this curtain was lifted by those slender fingers he knew so well, and Valeria stood before him, very pale, seeming taller and slimmer than of old, in her black cashmere gown. She wore no crape to-day, only that plain cashmere, silkily soft, of densest, most funereal black, falling in straight folds from the graceful shoulders, clasped at the throat with a large jet cross, the thin white arms showing like marble under the long loose sleeves, which fell open from above the elbow. The flowing draperies had a conventual air, as of an abbess of some severe order; but the uncovered head, with its coils of soft brown hair, was like the head of a Greek statue.
Bothwell uttered no word of greeting. He took Hilda's letter from his breast-pocket, and handed it open to Lady Valeria.
"This is your work," he said.
She read the letter slowly, deliberately, and not a sign of emotion stirred the marble pallor of her face as she read. She seemed to weigh every syllable.
"A very sensible little letter," she said. "I did not think it was in Miss Heathcote to take so broad and generous a view of our position. She is a noble girl, and I shall honour her all the days of my life. She has cut the knot of a great difficulty."
Bothwell looked at her incredulously, as if he doubted his own ears.
"Do you suppose that I shall abide by this letter?" he asked, in harsh husky tones, which made his voice seem altogether unfamiliar to Valeria, as if a stranger were speaking to her in Bothwell's semblance.
"Naturally, my poor Bothwell," she answered, with her easiest air. "I cannot think that your engagement to this very good commonplace girl was anything more than a pis aller. You were afraid of your position here, and it seemed to you that the only safety was in a respectable marriage. The young lady has a little money, I understand, just enough to keep the wolf from the door, but not enough for any of the delights of life. And you told yourself that you would do penance for those happy days up at the hills, that you—you, Bothwell Grahame—would would settle down into a grinder of mathematics. A curious fancy—like that of some knight of old who, after a youth of passion and storm, turns hermit, and vegetates in a cave. No, Bothwell, I do not for a moment believe that you ever seriously cared for this country-bred girl."
"Your estimate of my feelings in this matter can be of very little consequence to either of us," replied Bothwell, without relaxing a muscle of his moody countenance. "It is Miss Heathcote I mean to marry, and no other woman living. You have stooped so low as to come between me and my plighted wife. You have put off my marriage, hindered my happiness, frustrated the desire of my heart; but nothing that you or any one else can do will lessen my love for the girl I have chosen. If I cannot win her back, I shall go down to my grave a broken-hearted man. This is what you have done for me, Lady Valeria."
She was silent for some moments, while she stood looking at him with her pale fixed face, her large violet eyes full of reproachfulness.
"This is what I have done for you," she said slowly, after a long pause: "This is what I have done for you. I have tried to secure to you a life of independence, wealth, the respect of your fellow-men, who in these days have but one standard of merit—success. I have flung myself at your feet, with all the advantages of my birth and fortune—friends who could help you—an assured position; I have offered myself to you as humbly as an Indian dancing-girl, have debased myself as low, made as little of my merits and my position. And all I have asked of you is to keep the solemn vows you made to me in that sweet time when we were both so happy. I have asked you to be true to your word."
"After you had released me from its obligations, Lady Valeria, after you had flung away the old love-token. Was not that an end of all things between us?"
"It might have been. I accepted my doom. And then Fate changed all things. I was free, and there was nothing to hinder our happiness, except your falsehood—your double falsehood. You were false to your truest friend, my husband, when you loved me; and now that you could love me with honour you are false to me."
"I am as God made me," answered Bothwell gloomily, "weak and false in the days gone by, when my love for you was stronger with me than gratitude or honour, but loyal and true to the girl who won me away from that false love. Shall I go back to the old love now because it is my interest to do so? O Valeria, how you would despise me! how all good and true women would scorn me if I could be base enough to be false to that dear engagement which redeemed me from a false position, which set me right in my own esteem and before my fellow-men! Granted that I have been weak and inconstant, that I have proved myself unworthy of the regard with which you honoured me," he went on, with a touch of tenderness in the voice that had been so hard just now, moved to compassion perhaps by that pale, despairing look of hers, "granted that I am a poor creature, you can hardly wonder that my soul sickened at a tie which involved blackest treason against a good man, and my best friend; you can hardly wonder that I welcomed the dawning of a new love, a love which I could confess before the world, and on my knees to my God. That love meant redemption, blessing instead of cursing. And do you suppose that I am afraid of poverty, or hard work, or a life of obscurity, for the sake of my true love?"
"You have not changed your mind, then?" said Valeria, trying to be supremely cool, though the hectic spot upon that ashen cheek told of passionate anger. "You mean to marry Miss Heathcote, and teach dull lads in a Cornish village for the rest of your life?"
"With God's help I mean to win back the girl from whom you have parted me. I came here this afternoon to tell you that your work has been only half successful. You have hindered my marriage, but you have not changed the purpose of my life. Farewell, Valeria, and I pray God that word between you and me may mean for ever."
"Farewell," she answered mockingly. "Fare according to your deserts, truest, most generous of men."
She put her finger on the little ivory knob of the electric bell, and the sustained silvery sound vibrated in the silent house. Then, with a haughty inclination of her head, she disappeared through the curtained archway as Bothwell left the room by the opposite door.