"I LEAVE THEM MY HATRED AND MY CURSE."
Leone was alone when the letter of the Countess of Lanswell was
delivered to her: she had been wondering for some days why no news came
from Lord Chandos--why he did not write. She had written most urgent and
affectionate letters to him, praying for news of him, telling him how
bravely and happily she was bearing the separation from him, only
longing to know something of him.
The warm, sultry month of August had set in, and she was working hard as
ever; there was but one comfort to her in this long absence--the longer
he was away from her, the more fit she should be to take her place as
his wife when he did return. She felt now that she could be as stately
as the Countess of Lanswell herself, with much more grace.
She had been thinking over her future when that letter came; it found
her in the same pretty room where he had bidden her good-bye. When the
maid entered with the letter on a salver, she had looked up with a
quick, passionate sense of pleasure. Perhaps this was to tell her when
he would come. She seized the dainty envelope with a low cry of intense
rapture.
"At last," she said to herself, "at last. Oh, my love, how could you be
silent so long?"
Then she saw that it was not Lance's writing, but a hand that was quite
strange to her. Her face paled even as she opened it; she turned to the
signature before she read the letter; it was "Lucia, Countess of
Lanswell." Then she knew that it was from her mortal enemy, the one on
whom she had sworn revenge.
She read it through. What happened while she read it? The reapers were
reaping in the cornfields, the wind had sunk to the lightest whisper,
some of the great red roses fell dead, the leaves of the white lilies
died in the heat of the sun, the birds were tired of singing; even the
butterflies had sunk, tired out, on the breasts of the flowers they
loved; there was a golden glow over everything; wave after wave of
perfume rose on the warm summer air; afar off one heard the song of the
reaper, and the cry of the sailors as the ships sailed down the stream;
there was life, light, lightness all around, and she stood in the middle
of it, stricken as one dead, holding her death warrant in her hand. She
might have been a marble statue as she stood there, so white, so silent,
so motionless.
She read and reread it; at first she thought it must be a sorry jest; it
could not be true, it was impossible. If she took up the Bible there,
and the printed words turned blood-red before her eyes, it would be far
less wonderful than that this should be true. A sorry, miserable jest
some one had played her, but who--how? No, it was no jest.
She must be dreaming--horrible dreams come to people in their sleep; she
should wake presently and find it all a black, blank dream. Yet, no--no
dream, the laughing August sunlight lay all round her, the birds were
singing, there was the flash of the deep river, with the pleasure-boats
slowly drifting down the stream. It was no dream, it was a horrible
reality; Lord Chandos, the lover whom she had loved with her whole
heart, who ought, under the peculiar circumstances, to have given her
even double the faith and double the love a husband gives his wife; he,
who was bound to her even by the weakness of the tie that should have
been stronger, had deserted her.
She did not cry out, she did not faint or swoon; she did not sink as she
had done before, a senseless heap on the ground; she stood still, as a
soldier stands sometimes when he knows that he has to meet his death
blow.
Every vestige of color had faded from her face and lips; if the angel of
death had touched her with his fingers, she could not have looked more
white and still. Over and over again she read the words that took from
her life its brightness and its hope, that slew her more cruelly than
poison or steel, that made their way like winged arrows to her heart,
and changed her from a tender, loving, passionate girl to a vengeful
woman.
Slowly she realized it, slowly the letter fell from her hands, slowly
she fell on her knees.
"He has forsaken me!" she cried. "Oh, my God! he has forsaken me, and I
cannot die!"
No one cares to stand by the wheel or the rack while some poor body is
tortured to death; who can stand by while a human heart is breaking with
the extremity of anguish? When such a grief comes to any one as to
Leone, one stands by in silence; it is as though a funeral is passing,
and one is breathless from respect to the dead.
The best part of her died as she knelt there; the blue of the sky, the
gold of the shining sun, the song of the birds, the sweet smell of
flowers were never the same to her again. Almost all that was good and
noble, brave and bright, died as she knelt there. When that letter
reached her, she was, if anything, better than the generality of women.
She had noble instincts, grand ideas, great generosity, and
self-sacrifice; it was as though a flame of fire came to her, and burned
away every idea save one, and that was revenge.
"He loved me," she cried; "he loved me truly and well; but he was weak
of purpose and my enemy has taken him from me."
Hours passed--all the August sunlight died; the reapers went home, the
cries of the sailors were stilled, the birds were silent and still. She
sat there trying to realize that for her that letter had blotted the sun
from the heavens and the light from her life; trying to understand that
her brave, handsome, gallant young love was false to her, that he was
going to marry another while she lived.
It was too horrible. She was his wife before God. They had only been
parted for a short time by a legal quibble. How could he marry any one
else?
She would not believe it. It was a falsehood that the proud mother had
invented to part her from him. She would not believe it unless she heard
it from others. She knew Mr. Sewell's private address; he would know if
it were true; she would go and ask him.
Mr. Sewell was accustomed to tragedies, but even he felt in some degree
daunted when that young girl with her colorless face and flashing eyes
stood before him. She held out a letter.
"Will you read this?" she said, abruptly. "I received it to-day from
Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, and I refuse to believe it."
He took the letter from her hands and read it, then looked at the still
white face before him.
"Is it true?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, "perfectly true."
"Will you tell me who it is that is going to marry my husband?" she
asked.
"If you mean will I tell you whom Lord Chandos is to marry, I am sorry
to say my answer must be 'No.' I am not commissioned to do so. You may
see it for yourself in the newspapers."
"Then it is true," she said slowly; "there is no jest, no doubt, no
mistake about it?"
"No, none. And as you have shown me your letter," said Mr. Sewell, "I
may as well show you the one I have received, and you may see for
yourself what Lady Lanswell's intentions about you are. Take a chair,"
added the lawyer, "I did not notice that you were standing all this
time; you took me by surprise. Pray be seated."
She took the chair which he had placed for her, and read the letter
through. She laid it down on the table, her face calm, white, the fire
in her eyes giving place to utter scorn.
"I thank you," she said. "The letter written you is cruel and unjust as
the one written to me. I decline the thousand per annum now and for all
time. My husband loved me and would have been quite true to me, but that
his mother has intrigued to make him false. I refuse her help, her
assistance in any way; but I will have my revenge. If I had money and
influence I would sue for my rights--ah, and might win then. As it is,
and for the present, I am powerless; but I will have my revenge. Tell
Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, so from me."
The passion, the dramatic force, the eager interest, the power of her
beautiful face, struck him. In his heart he felt sorry for this girl,
who he knew had been cruelly treated.
"I would not think about revenge," he said; "that is a kind of thing one
reads about in novels and plays, but it is all out of date."
"Is it?" she asked, with a slow, strange smile.
"Yes. Take the advice of a sensible man who wishes to see you do well.
Yours is a false position, a cruel position; but make the best of
it--take the thousand per annum, and enjoy your life."
He never forgot the scorn those wonderful eyes flashed at him.
"No," she said, "I thank you; I believe when you give me that advice you
mean well, but I cannot follow it. If I were dying of hunger I would not
touch even a crumb of bread that came from Lady Lanswell. I will never
even return to the house which has been my own. I will take no one
single thing belonging to them. I will leave them my hatred and my
curse. And you tell Countess Lucia, from me, that my hatred shall find
her out, and my vengeance avenge me."
She rose from her chair and took the letter she had brought with her.
"I will never part with this," she said; "I will keep it near me always,
and the reading of it may stimulate me when my energy tires. I have no
message for Lord Chandos; to you I say farewell."
"She is going to kill herself," he thought; "and then, if it gets into
the papers, my lady will wax wroth."
She seemed to divine his thoughts, for she smiled, and the smile was
more sad than tears.
"I shall not harm myself," she said: "death is sweeter than life, but
life holds 'vengeance.' Good-bye."