LORD LUMLEY'S CONFESSION
"Mother, don't you think that Miss Briscoe is a very strange girl?"
Lady St. Maurice looked up from her work quickly. Nine o'clock was just
striking, and her son only a moment before had replaced his watch in his
pocket with an impatient little gesture.
"Yes, I do think so," she answered quietly. "I think her very strange
indeed. Why do you ask me?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I don't know exactly. It seems odd that she should want to spend
all her evening alone, and that she should have so many long letters to
write. Do you think that she quite understands that you would like her
to come down with us?"
"I am quite sure that she does, Lumley. I even objected to having her
come here as a governess at all. Her mother was a dear friend of mine
many years ago, and I told Margharita from the first that I would rather
have her here as my daughter. She would have been very welcome to a home
with us. It was only her pride which made her insist upon coming as
Gracie's governess, and I suppose it is the same feeling which prompts
her to keep herself so much aloof from us. I am sorry, but I can do no
more than I have done toward making her see things differently."
Lord Lumley fidgeted about for a minute or two on the hearthrug. There
was a certain reserve in his mother's manner which made the task which
he had set himself more difficult even than it would have been under
ordinary circumstances. Besides, he felt that from her low seat she was
watching him intently, and the knowledge did not tend toward setting him
more at his ease.
"You loved her mother, then?"
"I did. She was my dearest friend."
"And yet--forgive me if I am wrong--but sometimes I fancy that you do
not even like Miss Briscoe."
"She will not let me like or dislike her, Lumley."
He shook his head.
"It isn't that exactly. I have seen you watching her sometimes--as for
instance when she sang that Sicilian song here--as though you
were--well, almost afraid of her; as though there was something about
her which almost repelled you."
The Countess laid down her work, and looked steadfastly into the fire.
There was a moment's silence.
"You have been a close watcher, Lumley."
"I admit it. But, tell me, have I not watched to some purpose. There is
no mistaking the look in your face sometimes, when she comes into the
room unexpectedly. If the thing were not absurd, I should say that you
were afraid of her."
Lady St. Maurice held her hand to her side for a moment, as though she
felt a sudden pain. She repeated her son's words without looking up at
him.
"Afraid of her! No, no, Lumley. I am afraid of something else, something
of which her face continually reminds me. It is the shadow of the past
which seems to follow her footsteps."
A tragic note had suddenly been struck in the conversation between
mother and son. Lord Lumley, who had been altogether unprepared for it,
was full of interest.
"The past!" he repeated. "Whose past? Tell me all about it, mother."
She looked up at him, and he saw that her face was unusually pale.
"Lumley, it is only a little while ago since your father and I told you
the story of our strange meeting and marriage. You remember it?"
"Every word! Every word, mother!"
"You remember the duel which the Count di Marioni sought to force upon
your father, but which I prevented? You remember the means which I was
driven to use to prevent it, and the oath of vengeance which
Leonardo--the Count di Marioni--swore against us both?"
"Yes."
"Lumley, twenty-five years have passed away, and he is free."
"But, Miss Briscoe?" he asked, bewildered. "How does all this concern
her?"
"She is his niece."
"His niece! his niece!"
Lord Lumley could say nothing. With all the swift selfishness of a man
his thoughts were centered round one point. Would this new development
hinder his purpose, or was it favorable to him?
"Leonardo's sister, Lumley, was my dear friend. She married a man named
Briscoe, and died very soon afterward. Margharita is their daughter,
and, Lumley, there is no English blood in her veins. She is a Marioni! I
can see his eyes and his forehead every time I look at hers. They seem
to tell me that that wild oath still lives; that some day he will
stretch out his hand and redeem that murderous threat. Lumley, there
have been times when it has terrified me to look at that girl."
His face was clearing. A smile even began to dawn upon his lips.
"Why, mother, don't you see that so far as Miss Briscoe is concerned
that is all fancy," he said. "You feel in that way toward her simply
because she happens to resemble the Count di Marioni. Isn't that a
little unfair to her? What can she know of an oath which was sworn
five-and-twenty years ago, long before she was born. Why, I don't
suppose that she ever heard of it."
She smiled a little sadly.
"Lumley, I do not attempt to defend my feeling. Of course it is absurd
to connect her with it, really."
"I was sure that you would say so, mother."
"But, Lumley, although I cannot defend it the feeling remains. Listen.
No woman has known greater happiness than I have. My life has been
sometimes almost too perfect, and yet I never altogether forgot those
passionate words of Leonardo's. They lay like a shadow across my life,
darkening and growing broader as the years of his confinement passed
away. The time of his release came at last--only a few months ago, and
only a few months ago, Lumley, I saw him."
"You saw him! Where?"
"In London, Lumley! Why did he come, almost on the day of his release,
here to England? It was a country which he hated in his younger days,
and yet, instead of visiting his old home, his love for which was almost
a passion, instead of lingering in those sunny southern towns where many
friends still remained who would have received him with open arms, he
came straight to London alone. I found him at a hotel there, broken
down, and almost, as it were, on the threshold of death! Yet, when he
saw me, when he heard my voice, the old passion blazed out. Lumley, I
prayed to him for forgiveness, and he scorned me. He had never
forgotten! He would never forgive! He pointed to his person, his white
hairs, to all the terrible evidences of his long imprisonment, and once
more, with the same passion which had trembled in his tone twenty-five
years ago, he cursed me! It was horrible! I fled from that place like a
haunted woman, and since then, Lumley, I have been haunted. Every
feature in the girl's magnificent face, and every movement of her
figure, reminds me that she is a Marioni!"
She had risen and was standing by his side, a beautiful, but a suffering
woman. He took her into his arms and kissed her forehead.
"Mother, you have too much imagination," he said gently. "Look at the
matter seriously. Granted that this old man still harbors a senseless
resentment against you. Yet what could he do? He forgets the days in
which he lives, and the country to which you belong! Vendettas and
romantic vengeances, such as he may have dreamt of five-and-twenty years
ago, are extinct even in his own land; here, they cannot be taken
seriously at all!"
She shivered a little, and looked into his face as though comforted in
some measure.
"That is what I say to myself, Lumley," she said; "but there are times
when the old dread is too strong for me wholly to crush it. I am not an
Englishwoman, you know; I come of a more superstitious race!"
"I am sorry that Miss Briscoe should be the means of bringing these
unpleasant thoughts to you," he remarked thoughtfully. "Mother!"
"Yes, Lumley."
"Would it be a great trouble to you if--some day--I asked you to receive
her as a daughter?"
She stood quite still and shivered. Her face was suddenly of a marble
pallor.
"You--you mean this, Lumley?"
"I mean that I care for her, mother."
"You have not--spoken to her?"
"No. I should not have said anything to you yet, only it pained me to
think that there was anything between you--any aversion, I mean. I
thought that if you knew, you would try and overcome it."
"I cannot!"
"Mother!"
"Lumley, I cannot! She looks at me out of his eyes; she speaks to me
with his voice; something tells me that she bears in her heart his hate
toward me. You do not know these Marionis! They are one in hate and one
in love; unchanging and hard as the rocks on which their castle frowns.
Even Margharita herself, in the old days, never forgave me for sending
Leonardo to prison, although I saved her lover's life as well as mine.
Lumley, you have said nothing to her?"
"Not yet."
"She would not marry you! I tell you that in her heart she hates us all!
Sometimes I fancy that she is here--only----"
"Mother!"
He laid his hand firmly upon her white trembling arm. She looked around,
following his eyes. Margharita, pale and proud, was standing upon the
threshold, with a great bunch of white hyacinths in the bosom of her
black dress.
"Am I intruding?" she asked quietly. "I will come down some other
evening."
Lord Lumley sprang forward to stop her; but his mother was the first to
recover herself.
"Pray don't go away, Margharita," she said, with perfect
self-possession. "Only a few minutes ago we were complaining that you
came down so seldom. Lumley, open the piano, and get Miss Briscoe's
songs."
He was by her side in a moment, but he found time for an admiring glance
toward his mother. She had taken up a paper knife, and was cutting the
pages of her book. It was the _savoir-faire_ of a great lady.