Lord Rokesle sat down upon the long, high-backed bench, beside the fire,
and facing Lady Allonby's arm-chair.
Neither he nor Lady Allonby spoke for a while.
In a sombre way Lord Rokesle was a handsome man, and to-night, in brown
and gold, very stately. His bearing savored faintly of the hidalgo; indeed,
his mother was a foreign woman, cast ashore on Usk, from a wrecked Spanish
vessel, and incontinently married by the despot of the island. For her,
Death had delayed his advent unmercifully; but her reason survived the
marriage by two years only, and there were those familiar with the late
Lord Rokesle's [Footnote: Born 1685, and accidentally killed by Sir
Piers Sabiston in 1738; an accurate account of this notorious duellist,
profligate, charlatan, and playwright is given in Ireson's _Letters_.]
peculiarities who considered that in this, at least, the crazed lady was
fortunate. Among these gossips it was also esteemed a matter deserving
comment that in the shipwrecks not infrequent about Usk the women sometimes
survived, but the men never.
Now Lord Rokesle regarded Lady Allonby, the while that she displayed
conspicuous interest in the play of the flames. But by and by, "O
vulgarity!" said Lady Allonby. "Pray endeavor to look a little more
cheerful. Positively, you are glaring at me like one of those disagreeable
beggars one so often sees staring at bakery windows."
He smiled. "Do you remember what the Frenchman wrote--_et pain ne voyent
qu'aux fenêtres?_ There is not an enormous difference between me and the
tattered rascal of Chepe, for we both stare longingly at what we most
desire. And were I minded to hunt the simile to the foot of the letter,
I would liken your coquetry to the intervening window-pane,--not easily
broken through, but very, very transparent, Anastasia."
"You are not overwhelmingly polite," she said, reflectively; "but, then, I
suppose, living in the country is sure to damage a man's manners. Still, my
dear Orson, you smack too much of the forest."
"Anastasia," said Lord Rokesle, bending toward her, "will you always be
thus cruel? Do you not understand that in this world you are the only thing
I care for? You think me a boor; perhaps I am,--and yet it rests with you,
my Lady, to make me what you will. For I love you, Anastasia--"
"Why, how delightful of you!" said she, languidly.
"It is not a matter for jesting. I tell you that I love you." My Lord's
color was rising.
But Lady Allonby yawned. "Your honor's most devoted," she declared herself;
"still, you need not boast of your affection as if falling in love with me
were an uncommonly difficult achievement. That, too, is scarcely polite."
"For the tenth time I ask you will you marry me?" said Lord Rokesle.
"Is't only the tenth time? Dear me, it seems like the thousandth. Of
course, I couldn't think of it. Heavens, my Lord, how can you expect me to
marry a man who glares at me like that? Positively you look as ferocious as
the blackamoor in the tragedy,--the fellow who smothered his wife because
she misplaced a handkerchief, you remember."
Lord Rokesle had risen, and he paced the hall, as if fighting down
resentment. "I am no Othello," he said at last; "though, indeed, I think
that the love I bear you is of a sort which rarely stirs our English blood.
'Tis not for nothing I am half-Spaniard, I warn you, Anastasia, my love is
a consuming blaze that will not pause for considerations of policy nor even
of honor. And you madden me, Anastasia! To-day you hear my protestations
with sighs and glances and faint denials; to-morrow you have only taunts
for me. Sometimes, I think, 'tis hatred rather than love I bear you.
Sometimes--" He clutched at his breast with a wild gesture. "I burn!" he
said. "Woman, give me back a human heart in place of this flame you have
kindled here, or I shall go mad! Last night I dreamed of hell, and of souls
toasted on burning forks and fed with sops of bale-fire,--and you were
there, Anastasia, where the flames leaped and curled like red-blazoned
snakes about the poor damned. And I, too, was there. And through eternity I
heard you cry to God in vain, O dear, wonderful, golden-haired woman! and
we could see Him, somehow,--see Him, a great way off, with straight, white
brows that frowned upon you pitilessly. And I was glad. For I knew then
that I hated you. And even now, when I think I must go mad for love of you,
I yet hate you with a fervor that shakes and thrills in every fibre of
me. Oh, I burn, I burn!" he cried, with the same frantic clutching at his
breast.
Lady Allonby had risen.
"Positively, I must ask you to open a window if you intend to continue in
this strain. D'ye mean to suffocate me, my Lord, with your flames and your
blazes and your brimstone and so on? You breathe conflagrations, like a
devil in a pantomime. I had as soon converse with a piece of fireworks. So,
if you'll pardon me, I will go to my brother."
At the sound of her high, crisp speech his frenzy fell from him like a
mantle. "And you let me kiss you yesterday! Oh, I know you struggled, but
you did not struggle very hard, did you, Anastasia?"
"Why, what a notion!" cried Lady Allonby; "as if a person should bother
seriously one way or the other about the antics of an amorous clodhopper!
Meanwhile, I repeat, my Lord, I wish to go to my brother."
"Egad!" Lord Rokesle retorted, "that reminds me I have been notably remiss.
I bear you a message from Harry. He had to-night a letter from Job Nangle,
who, it seems, has a purchaser for Trevor's Folly at last. The fellow is
with our excellent Nangle at Peniston Friars, and offers liberal terms if
the sale be instant. The chance was too promising to let slip, so Harry
left the island an hour ago. It happened by a rare chance that some of my
fellows were on the point of setting out for the mainland,--and he knew
that he could safely entrust you to Mrs. Morfit's duennaship, he said."
"He should not have done so," Lady Allonby observed, as if in a contention
of mind. "He--I will go to Mrs. Morfit, then, to confess to her in
frankness that, after all these rockets and bonfires--"
"Why, that's the unfortunate part of the whole affair," said Lord Rokesle.
"The same boat brought Sabina a letter which summoned her to the bedside
of her husband, [Footnote: Archibald Morfit, M.P. for Salop, and in 1753
elected Speaker, which office he declined on account of ill-health. He was
created a baronet in 1758 through the Duke of Ormskirk's influence.] who,
it appears, lies desperately ill at Kuyper Manor. It happened by a rare
chance that some of my fellows were on the point of setting out for the
mainland--from Heriz pier yonder, not from the end of the island whence
Harry sailed,--so she and her maid embarked instanter. Of course, there was
your brother here to play propriety, she said. And by the oddest misfortune
in the world," Lord Rokesle sighed, "I forgot to tell her that Harry
Heleigh had left Usk a half-hour earlier. My memory is lamentably
treacherous."
But Lady Allonby had dropped all affectation. "You coward! You planned
this!"
"Candidly, yes. Nangle is my agent as well as Harry's, you may remember.
I have any quantity of his letters, and of course an equal number
of Archibald's. So I spent the morning in my own apartments,
Anastasia,--tracing letters against the window-pane, which was, I suppose,
a childish recreation, but then what would you have? As you very justly
observe, country life invariably coarsens a man's tastes; and accordingly,
as you may now recall, I actually declined a game of _écarté_ with you in
order to indulge in these little forgeries. Decidedly, my dear, you must
train your husband's imagination for superior flights--when you are Lady
Rokesle."
She was staring at him as though he had been a portent. "I am alone," she
said. "Alone--in this place--with you! Alone! you devil!"
"Your epithets increase in vigor. Just now I was only a clodhopper. Well,
I can but repeat that it rests with you to make me what you will. Though,
indeed, you are to all intent alone upon Usk, and upon Usk there are many
devils. There are ten of them on guard yonder, by the way, in case your
brother should return inopportunely, though that's scarcely probable.
Obedient devils, you observe, Anastasia,--devils who exert and check their
deviltry as I bid 'em, for they esteem me Lucifer's lieutenant. And I grant
the present situation is an outrage to propriety, yet the evil is not
incurable. Lady Allonby may not, if she value her reputation, pass to-night
at Stornoway; but here am I, all willingness, and upstairs is the parson.
Believe me, Anastasia, the most vinegarish prude could never object to Lady
Rokesle's spending to-night at Stornoway."
"Let me think, let me think!" Lady Allonby said, and her hands plucked now
at her hair, now at her dress. She appeared dazed. "I can't think!" she
wailed on a sudden. "I am afraid. I--O Vincent, Vincent, you cannot do
this thing! I trusted you, Vincent. I know I let you make love to me, and
I relished having you make love to me. Women are like that. But I cannot
marry you, Vincent. There is a man, yonder in England, whom I love. He does
not care for me any more,--he is in love with my step-daughter. That is
very amusing, is it not, Vincent? Some day I may be his mother-in-law. Why
don't you laugh, Vincent? Come, let us both laugh--first at this and then
at the jest you have just played on me. Do you know, for an instant, I
believed you were in earnest? But Harry went to sleep over the cards,
didn't he? And Mrs. Morfit has gone to bed with one of her usual headaches?
Of course; and you thought you would retaliate upon me for teasing you. You
were quite right, 'Twas an excellent jest. Now let us laugh at it. Laugh,
Vincent! Oh!" she said now, more shrilly, "for the love of God, laugh,
laugh!--or I shall go mad!"
But Lord Rokesle was a man of ice, "Matrimony is a serious matter,
Anastasia; 'tis not becoming in those who are about to enter it to exhibit
undue levity. I wonder what's keeping Simon?"
"Simon Orts!" she said, in a half-whisper. Then she came toward Lord
Rokesle, smiling. "Why, of course, I teased you, Vincent, but there was
never any hard feeling, was there? And you really wish me to marry you?
Well, we must see, Vincent. But, as you say, matrimony is a serious matter.
D'ye know you say very sensible things, Vincent?--not at all like those
silly fops yonder in London. I dare say you and I would be very happy
together. But you wouldn't have any respect for me if I married you on a
sudden like this, would you? Of course not. So you will let me consider it.
Come to me a month from now, say,--is that too long to wait? Well, I think
'tis too long myself. Say a week, then. I must have my wedding-finery,
you comprehend. We women are such vain creatures--not big and brave and
sensible like you men. See, for example, how much bigger your hand is
than mine--mine's quite lost in it, isn't it? So--since I am only a vain,
chattering, helpless female thing,--you are going to indulge me and let me
go up to London for some new clothes, aren't you, Vincent? Of course you
will; and we will be married in a week. But you will let me go to London
first, won't you?--away from this dreadful place, away--I didn't mean that.
I suppose it is a very agreeable place when you get accustomed to it. And
'tis only for clothes--Oh, I swear it is only for clothes, Vincent! And you
said you would--yes, only a moment ago you distinctly said you would let me
go. 'Tis not as if I were not coming back--who said I would not come back?
Of course I will. But you must give me time, Vincent dear,--you must, you
must, I tell you! O God!" she sobbed, and flung from her the loathed hand
she was fondling, "it's no use!"
"No," said Lord Rokesle, rather sadly. "I am not Samson, nor are you
Delilah to cajole me. It's of no use, Anastasia. I would have preferred
that you came to me voluntarily, but since you cannot, I mean to take you
unwilling. Simon," he called, loudly, "does that rascal intend to spin out
his dying interminably? Charon's waiting, man."
From above, "Coming, my Lord," said Simon Orts.