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.