"And vain desires, and hopes dismayed,
And fears that cast the earth in shade,
My heart did fret."
Night is waning! Dies pater, Father of Day, is making rapid strides
across the heavens, creating havoc as he goes. Diana faints! the stars
grow pale, flinging, as they die, a last soft glimmer across the sky.
Now and again a first call from the birds startles the drowsy air. The
wood dove's coo, melancholy sweet--the cheep-cheep of the robin--the
hoarse cry of the sturdy crow.
"A faint dawn breaks on yonder sedge,
And broadens in that bed of weeds;
A bright disk shows its radiant edge,
All things bespeak the coming morn,
Yet still it lingers."
As Lady Swansdown and Baltimore descend the stone steps that lead to the
gardens beneath, only the swift rush of the tremulous breeze that stirs
the branches betrays to them the fact that a new life is at hand.
"You are cold?" says Baltimore, noticing the quick shiver that runs
through her.
"No: not cold. It was mere nervousness."
"I shouldn't have thought you nervous."
"Or fanciful?" adds she. "You judged me rightly, and yet--coming all at
once from the garish lights within into this cool sweet darkness here,
makes one feel in spite of oneself."
"In spite! Would you never willingly feel?"
"Would you?" demands she very slowly.
"Not willingly, I confess. But I have been made to feel, as you know.
And you?"
"Would you have a woman confess?" says she, half playfully. "That is
taking an unfair advantage, is it not? See," pointing to a seat, "what a
charming resting place! I will make one confession to you. I am tired."
"A meagre one! Beatrice," says he suddenly, "tell me this: are all women
alike? Do none really feel? Is it all fancy--the mere idle emotion of a
moment--the evanescent desire for sensation of one sort or another--of
anger, love, grief, pain, that stirs you now and then? Are none of these
things lasting with you, are they the mere strings on which you play
from time to time, because the hours lie heavy on your hands? It seems
to me----"
"It seems to me that you hardly know what you are saying," said Lady
Swansdown quickly. "Do you think then that women do not feel, do not
suffer as men never do? What wild thoughts torment your brain that you
should put forward so senseless a question?--one that has been answered
satisfactorily thousands of years ago. All the pain, the suffering of
earth lies on the woman's shoulders; it has been so from the
beginning--it shall be so to the end. On being thrust forth from their
Eden, which suffered most do you suppose, Adam or Eve?"
"It is an old story," says he gloomily, "and why should you, of all
people, back it up? You--who----"
"Better leave me out of the question."
"You!"
"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the
back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"
"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I
thought--I believed, that you at least--understood me."
"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and
are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful.
Great heavens! if he only knew--could he then probe, and wound, and
tempt!
"If you do----" begins he--then stops short, and passing her, paces to
and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown
leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears--eyes "wild with
all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this
man--this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.
"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"
There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the
arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does
he mean? To her--to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf,
blind, mad--or only cruel?
A sort of recklessness seizes upon her. Well, if he doesn't know, he
shall know, though it be to the loss of her self-respect forever!
"Never," says she, leaning a little forward until the moonbeams gleam
upon her snowy neck and arms. "Never--never--until----"
The pause is premeditated. It is eloquence itself! The light of heaven
playing on her beautiful face betrays the passion of it--the rich
pallor! One hand resting on the back of the seat taps upon the iron
work, the other is now in Baltimore's possession.
"Until now----?" suggests he boldly. He is leaning over her. She shakes
her head. But in this negative there is only affirmation.
His hand tightens more closely upon hers. The long slender fingers yield
to his pressure--nay more--return it; they twine round his.
"If I thought----" begins he in a low, stammering tone--he moves nearer
to her, nearer still. Does she move toward him? There is a second's
hesitation on his part, and then, his lips meet hers!
It is but a momentary touch, a thing of an instant, but it includes a
whole world of meaning. Lady Swansdown has sprung to her feet, and is
looking at him with eyes that seem to burn through the mystic darkness.
She is trembling in every limb. Her nostrils are dilated. Her haughty
mouth is quivering, and there--are there honest, real tears in those
mocking eyes?
Baltimore, too, has risen. His face is very white, very full of
contrition. That he regrets his action toward her is unmistakable, but
that there is a deeper contrition behind--a sense of self-loathing not
to be appeased betrays itself in the anguish of his eyes. She had
accused him of falsity, most falsely up to this, but now--now----His
mind has wandered far away.
There is something so wild in his expression that Lady Swansdown loses
sight of herself in the contemplation of it.
"What is it, Baltimore?" asks she, in a low, frightened tone. It rouses
him.
"I have offended you beyond pardon," begins he, but more like one
seeking for words to say than one afraid of using them. "I have angered
you----"
"Do not mistake me," interrupts she quickly, almost fiercely. "I am not
angry. I feel no anger--nothing--but that I am a traitor."
"And what am I?"
"Work out your own condemnation for yourself," says she, still with that
feverish self-disdain upon her. "Don't ask me to help you. She was my
friend, whatever she is now. She trusted me, believed in me. And after
all----And you," turning passionately, "you are doubly a traitor, you
are a husband."
"In name!" doggedly. He has quite recovered himself now. Whatever
torture his secret soul may impress upon him in the future, no one but
he shall know.
"It doesn't matter. You belong to her, and she to you."
"That is what she doesn't think," bitterly.
"There is one thing only to be said, Baltimore," says she, after a
slight pause. "This must never occur again. I like you, you know that.
I----" she breaks off abruptly, and suddenly gives way to a sort of
mirthless laughter. "It is a farce!" she says. "Consider my feeling
anything. And so virtuous a thing, too, as remorse! Well, as one lives,
one learns. If I had seen the light for the first time in the middle of
the dark ages, I should probably have ended my days as the prioress of a
convent. As it is, I shouldn't wonder if I went in for hospital nursing
presently. Pshaw!" angrily, "it is useless lamenting. Let me face the
truth. I have acted abominably toward her so far, and the worst of it
is"--with a candor that seems to scorch her--"I know if the chance be
given me, I shall behave abominably toward her again. I shall leave
to-morrow--the day after. One must invent a decent excuse."
"Pray don't leave on Lady Baltimore's account," says he slowly, "she
would be the last to care about this. I am nothing to her."
"Is your wish father to that thought?" regarding him keenly.
"No. I assure you. The failing I mention is plain to all the world I
should have thought."
"It is not plain to me," still watching him.
"Then learn it," says he. "If ever she loved me, which I now disbelieve
(I would that I had let the doubt creep in earlier), it was in a past
that now is irretrievably dead. I suppose I wearied her--I confess,"
with a meagre smile, "I once loved her with all my soul, and heart, and
strength--or else she is incapable of knowing an honest affection."
"That is not true," says Lady Swansdown, some generous impulse forcing
the words unwillingly through her white lips. "She can love! you must
see that for yourself. The child is proof of it."
"Some women are like that," says he gloomily. "They can open wide their
hearts to their children, yet close it against the fathers of them.
Isabel's whole life is given up to her child: she regards it as hers
entirely; she allows me no share in him. Not," eagerly, "that I grudge
him one inch the affection she gives him. He has a father worthless
enough. Let his mother make it up to him."
"Yet he loves the father best," says Lady Swansdown quickly.
"I hope not," with a suspicion of violence.
"He does, believe me. One can see it. That saintly mother of his has not
half the attraction for him that you have. Why, look you, it is the way
of the world, why dispute it? Well, well," her triumphant voice
deepening to a weary whisper. "When one thinks of it all, she is not too
happy." She draws her hand in a little bewildered way across her white
brow.
"You don't understand her," says Baltimore frigidly. "She lives in a
world of her own. No one would dare penetrate it. Even I--her husband,
as you call me in mockery--am outside it. I don't believe she ever cared
for me. If she had, do you think she would have given a thought to that
infamous story?"
"About Madame Istray?"
"Yes. You, too, heard of it then?"
"Who hasn't heard. Violet Walden was not the one to spare you." She
pauses and looks at him, with all her heart in her eyes. "Was there no
truth in that story?" asks she at last, her words coming with a little
rush.
"None. I swear it! You believe me!" He has come nearer to her and taken
her hand in the extremity of this desire to be believed in by somebody.
"I believe you," says she, gently. Her voice is so low that he can catch
the words only; the grief and misery in them is unknown to him.
Mercifully, too, the moon has gone behind a cloud, a tender preparation
for an abdication presently, so that he cannot see the two heartbroken
tears that steal slowly down her cheeks.
"That is more than Isabel does," says he, with a laugh that has
something of despair in it.
"You tell me, then," says Lady Swansdown, "that you never saw Mme.
Istray after your marriage?"
"Never, willingly."
"Oh, willingly!"
"Don't misjudge me. Hear the whole story then--if you must," cries he
passionately--"though if you do, you will be the first to hear it. I am
tired of being thought a liar!"
"Go on," says she, in a low shocked tone. His singular vehemence has
compelled her to understand how severe have been his sufferings. If ever
she had doubted the truth of the old story that has wrecked the
happiness of his married life she doubts no longer.
"I tell you, you will be the first to hear it," says he, advancing
toward her. "Sit down there," pressing her into the garden seat. "I can
see you are looking overdone, even by this light. Well----" drawing a
long breath and stepping back from her--"I never opened my lips upon
this subject except once before. That was to Isabel. And she"--he
pauses--"she would not listen. She believed, then, all things base of
me. She has so believed ever since."
"She must be a fool!" says Lady Swansdown impetuously, "she could
not----"
"She did, however. She," coldly, "even believed that I could lie to
her!"
His face has become ashen; his eyes, fixed upon the ground, seemed to
grow there with the intensity of his regard. His breath seems to come
with difficulty through his lips.
"Well," says he at last, with a long sigh, "it's all over! The one
merciful thing belonging to our life is that there must come, sooner or
later, an end to everything. The worst grief has its termination. She
has been unjust to me. But you," he lifts his haggard face, "you,
perhaps, will grant me a kindlier hearing."
"Tell it all to me, if it will make you happier," says she, very gently.
Her heart is bleeding for him. Oh, if she might only comfort him in some
way! If--if that other fails him, why should not she, with the passion
of love that lies in her bosom, restore him to the warmth, the sweetness
of life. That kiss, half developed as it only was, already begins to
bear fatal fruit. Unconsciously she permits herself a license in her
thoughts of Baltimore hitherto strenuously suppressed.
"There is absurdly little to tell. At that time we lived almost entirely
at our place in Hampshire, and as there were business matters connected
with the outlying farms found there, that had been grossly neglected
during my grandfather's time, I was compelled to run up to town, almost
daily. As a rule I returned by the evening train, in time for dinner,
but once or twice I was so far delayed that it was out of my power to do
it. I laugh at myself now," he looks very far from laughter as he says
it, "but I assure you the occasions on which I was compulsorily kept
away from my home were----" He pauses, "oh, well, there is no use in
being more tragic than one need be. They were, at least, a trouble to
me."
"Naturally," says she, coldly.
"I loved her, you see," says Baltimore, in a strange jerky sort of way,
as if ashamed of that old sentiment. "She----"
"I quite understand. I have heard all about it once or twice," says Lady
Swansdown, with a kind of slow haste, if such a contradiction may be
allowed. That he has forgotten her is evident. That she has forgotten
nothing is more evident still.
"Well, one day, one of the many days during which I went up to town,
after a long afternoon with Goodman and Smale, in the course of which
they had told me they would probably require me to call at their office
to meet one of the most influential tenants at nine the next morning, I
met, on leaving their office, Marchmont--Marchmont of the Tenth, you
know."
"Yes, I know."
"He and a couple of other fellows belonging to his regiment were going
down to Richmond to dine. Would I come? It was dull in town, toward the
close of the season, and I was glad of any invitation that promised a
change of programme--anything that would take me away from a dull
evening at my club. I made no inquiries; I accepted the invitation, got
down in time for dinner, and found Mme. Istray was one of the guests.
I----"
He hesitates.
"Go on."
"You are a woman of the world, Beatrice; you will let me confess to you
that there had been old passages between me and Mme. Istray--well, I
swear to you I had never so much as thought of her since my
marriage--nay, since my engagement to Isabel. From that hour my life had
been clear as a sheet of blank paper. I had forgotten her; I verily
believe she had forgotten me, too. At that dinner I don't think she
exchanged a dozen words with me. On my soul," pushing back his hair with
a slow, troubled gesture from his brow, "this is the truth."
"And yet----"
"And yet," interrupting her with now a touch of vehement excitement, "a
garbled, a most cursedly false account of that dinner was given her. It
came round to her ears. She listened to it--believed in it--condemned
without a hearing. She, who has sworn, not only at the altar, but to me
alone, that she loved me."
"She wronged you terribly," says Lady Swansdown in a low tone.
"Thank you," cried he, a passion of gratitude in his tone. "To be
believed in by someone so thoroughly as you believe in me, is to know
happiness indeed. Whatever happens, I can count on you as my friend."
"Your friend, always," says she, in a very low voice--a voice somewhat
broken. "Come," she says, rising suddenly and walking toward the distant
lights in the house.
He accompanies her silently.
Very suddenly she turns to him, and lays her hand upon his arm.
"Be my friend," says she, with a quick access of terrible emotion.
Entreaty and despair mingle in her tone.
"Forever!" returns he, fervently, tightening his grasp on her hand.
"Well," sighing, "it hardly matters. We shall not meet again for a long,
long time."
"How is that? Isabel, the last time she condescended to speak to me of
her own accord," with an unpleasant laugh, "told me that she had asked
you to come here again next February, and that you had accepted the
invitation. She, indeed, made quite a point of it."
"Ah! that was a long time ago."
"Weeks do not make a long time."
"Some weeks hold more than years. Yes, you are right; she made quite a
point about my coming. Well, she is always very civil."
"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil."
"She is proud," coldly.
"You will come?"
"I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up
with her."
"The very essence of improbability."
"While I--shall not have made it up with my husband."
"One seems quite as possible as the other."
"Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her.
Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh,
"is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with
him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money
than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes
here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I
have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my
unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown.
If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have
nothing belonging to him."
"His name."
"Oh, as for that--does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent
right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a
child he would have made a persecution of it--and so I am better off as
it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of
yours. However----"
"Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture----"
"Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue
the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"--with bitter
meaning--"'sleeping dogs lie.'"
Baltimore laughs shortly.
"That is severe," says he.
"It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If,"
turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with
ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me,
it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him."
She takes her hand from his arm and motions him to ascend the steps
leading into the conservatory.
"But you?" says he, surprised.
"Let me remain here a little while. I am tired. My head aches, I----"
"Let me stay with you."
"No," smiling faintly. "What I want is to be alone. To feel the silence.
Go. Do not be uneasy about me. Believe me you will be kind if you do as
I ask you."
"It is a command," says he slowly. And slowly, too, he turns away from
her.
Seeing him so uncertain about leaving her, she steps abruptly into a
dark side path, and finding a chair sinks into it.
The soft breaking of the dawn over the tree tops far away seems to add
another pang to the anguish that is consuming her. She covers her face
with her hands.
Oh! if it had all been different. Two lives sacrificed! nay, three! For
surety Isabel cannot care for him. Oh! if it had been she, she
herself--what is there she could not have forgiven him? Nay, she must
have forgiven him, because life without him would have been
insupportable. If only she might have loved him honorably. If only she
might ever love him--successfully--dishonorably!
The thought seems to sting her. Involuntarily she throws up her head and
courts the chill winds of dawn that sweep with a cool touch her burning
forehead.
She had called her proud. Would she herself, then, be less proud? That
Isabel dreads her, half scorns her of late, is well known to her, and
yet, with a very passion of pride, would dare her to prove it. She,
Isabel, has gone even so far as to ask her rival to visit her again in
the early part of the coming year to meet her present friends. So far
that pride had carried her. But pride--was pride love? If she herself
loved Baltimore, would she, even for pride's sake, entreat the woman he
singled out for his attentions to spend another long visit in her
country house? And if Isabel does not honestly love him, why then--is he
not lawful prey for one who can, who does not love him?
One--who loves him. But he--whom does he love?
Torn by some last terrible thought she starts to her feet, and, as
though inaction has become impossible to her, draws her white silken
wrap around her, and sweeps rapidly out of all view of the waning
Chinese lamps into the gray obscurity of the coming day that lies in the
far gardens.