LADY PELHAM’S STORY.
“I was sixteen and a half when my mother died. In England I should
have been looked upon as a mere girl; in Spain I was a woman. Can
you imagine my lot alone, poor, so young, so helpless? I thought my
father must have relatives and friends in this far-off England; but I
did not know how to reach them. At last the English consul at Madrid
wrote for me; he said that the late Captain Payton belonged to the
noble old English family of Pelhams, and that if my story were known
I should be adopted by some of them. While waiting for the reply, I
went to live with the only relative I had in the world--a cousin of my
mother--a cross, proud, stiff, elderly lady, Donna Maria de Borga, who
hated every one in the world younger than herself. I was so wretched,
so unutterably wretched, that I wished myself dead over and over again.
You can fancy a flower shut out from the sunshine and left to die in
the cold. You can imagine a bird deprived of light and liberty. With my
mother, life had been all poetry and happiness; now it was all gloom.
“An answer came from England, saying the only member of my father’s
family living was Sir Alfred Pelham, and he was traveling on the
Continent; that he would make a point of seeing me, and seeing what
could be done for me, before he returned.
“One day the sun was shining down on Granada, and the myrtles were all
in bloom; my aunt, as Donna Maria wished me to call her, had fallen
fast asleep, and I went down to the fountain that stood under the shade
of tall, spreading trees, the silvery spray reached the leaves and
wetted them, then fell with what seemed a laugh at its own graceful
waywardness. I liked to watch the spray, when the sun shone through it;
it was like a diamond shower. The music of falling water always carries
me back to that day. I was looking intently into the water, thinking
the thousand thoughts that fill a young girl’s mind, when I was
startled suddenly by seeing in the water the reflection of a face close
to my own. Had the face been less handsome I might have sprung away in
startled alarm; as it was, I looked, and looked again, so meeting my
fate. It was an English face, laughing, careless, debonair, with a kind
of frank beauty that seemed to me perfection. The eyes were laughing,
large and blue, with a certain expression that said: ‘I defy you not to
like me, try as you will.’ The hair was of a rich, golden brown; as he
stood there in the sunshine there seemed to be threads of gold running
through it. I could not see what the mouth was like, for the golden
mustache drooped over and hid it. I was then only just seventeen, and I
had seen no one in all my life to be compared to this handsome stranger.
“‘Am I mistaken,’ said a deep, rich voice, ‘or is this my young
kinswoman, Miss Payton?’
“The English tongue was not new to me, for my mother had loved it well;
but his words struck me; they moved the deep waters of my soul--they
called into life a hundred thoughts that had lain dormant.
“‘I am Sir Alfred Pelham,’ he continued, ‘and a letter received some
time since tells me I have a beautiful young kinswoman here in Granada.
Is it true?’
“‘Yes,’ I stammered, ‘quite true. I am Captain Payton’s daughter. Will
you come in and see my aunt, Donna Maria?’
“I was old enough to understand the deep admiration his eyes expressed
for me.
“‘Yes, I will go in,’ he said, ‘but not just yet. Stay out in the
sunshine a little longer.’
“I stayed; it would have been well for me if I had died there by the
side of that rippling fountain before greater harm came to me. Sir
Alfred Pelham was then what perhaps people think him now, one of the
handsomest and most fascinating of men. I believe he could do anything
that he made up his mind to do. I do not think any one could resist
him. He had--perhaps has--a charm of manner, in which no one ever
surpassed him. I stayed with him in the sunshine, and that one-half
hour changed the whole current of my life. I learned during it a lesson
that was very fatal to me. He talked to me about England, about my
mother, of everything he thought would interest me, and my girlish
heart went out to him, as it had never gone out before. He knew, he
understood. Then, when he had heard my simple little story, and had
drawn from me every little detail of my life, he went in to see Donna
Maria.”
She stopped suddenly, and looked shyly at Kenelm.
“I wonder,” she said, “if you will think me very vain for telling
you that in those days I was very beautiful; people said wondrously
beautiful. I am obliged to tell you, so as to make my story clear, and
to make you understand why a brilliant, polished, worldly man like Sir
Alfred Pelham married me.”
“I have good sight of my own,” said Mr. Eyrle, gravely, while Miss
Hanson nodded and said:
“I have never seen a face one-half so fair as yours, my love.”
Juliet Payton smiled faintly.
“Beauty has been of but little use to me,” she said. “I am not even
proud that it once was mine.
“Sir Alfred went to see my aunt, and soon captivated her. She spoke of
no one else--he was so handsome, so generous, so noble. If she praised
him, hoping to make me like him, and so to get rid of me, it was very
cruel, and I pray to God to forgive her.
“Perhaps I need not dwell longer on my story. In a short time Sir
Alfred became my lover, and I should say no girl ever had such a
lover before. He was so gallant, so attentive, so devoted--he was so
polished, with his high-bred, graceful manner; he was so different
from every one else I knew. At first he bade me keep this love a
secret from my aunt. I was not to give her the least hint of it, but
after a time he changed his intentions, and told her he wished to make
me his wife.
“Do not be shocked if I tell you how dearly I loved him. A girl’s
first love is, I think, the most beautiful thing in life; and, Heaven
help me! I did love him, my whole heart clung to him. I had no other
thought, sleeping or waking, night or day.
“I used to watch for his coming, and at the first sound of his
footsteps ran away, unable to meet him, dreading to meet him, lest
he should see how passionately I loved him. I was too young and
inexperienced to even ever so faintly imagine that he wanted to marry
me for anything but love. Yet one thing recurs to my mind. We were in
the garden, and I wanted to press some very beautiful leaves that had
fallen from a plant. He took a bundle of what looked like old letters
from his pocket and, tearing one in half, gave it to me.
“‘Save the leaves in that,’ he said. ‘It is a letter I wrote, but never
sent.’
“Days afterward, when I went to fetch the leaves and press them, I read
in his own handwriting these words:
“‘In the present state of affairs, such a marriage would be an
excellent speculation for me.’
“Yet it never occurred to me that he was writing of his own
marriage--his marriage with me. I remember going to my mother’s grave
and bending over the long flowers to tell her that I was so happy, so
happy that earth seemed like heaven; that a noble, princely Englishman
had come from over the seas and was going to make me his wife; that I
loved him. Then I failed for want of words; even to my mother among
the angels in heaven I could not say how much, how dearly, how well I
loved him. I could only bury my head in the flowers, and tell her of
my deep, unutterable joy.
“It seemed like a dream--a poet’s dream--all beautiful and all unreal.
I remember the white gleams of moonlight, when my lover, with his
handsome Saxon face, all in a glow, would tell me of Shakespeare’s
Juliet, and how Romeo loved her, swearing that I was a thousand times
more fair. Is it a wonder that I hate my own name when I remember all
he said of it?”