A WEED BY THE WYESIDE.
"Only she--but she!" he repeats, grasping the bottle by the neck, and
pouring more brandy into the tumbler.
Though speaking _sotto voce_, and not supposing himself overheard, he
is, nevertheless--by a woman, who, coming forth from the house, has
stepped silently behind him, there pausing.
Odd-looking apparition she, seen upon the Wyeside; altogether unlike a
native of it, but altogether like one born upon the banks of the Seine,
and brought up to tread the Boulevards of Paris--like the latter from
the crown of her head to the soles of her high-heeled boots, on whose
toes she stands poised and balancing. In front of that ancient English
manor-house, she seems grotesquely out of place--as much as a
costermonger, driving his moke-drawn cart among the Pyramids, or smoking
a "Pickwick" by the side of the Sphinx.
For all there is nothing mysterious, or even strange in her presence
there. She is Lewin Murdock's wife. If he has left his fortune in
foreign lands, with the better part of his life and health, he has
thence brought her, his better-half.
Physically a fine-looking woman, despite some ravages due to time, and
possibly more to crime. Tall and dark as the daughters of the Latinic
race, with features beautiful in the past--even still attractive to
those not repelled by the beguiling glances of sin.
Such were hers, first given to him in a _cafe chantant_ of the
Tuileries--oft afterwards repeated in _jardin_, _bois_, and _bals_ of
the demi-monde, till at length she gave him her hand in the Eglise La
Madeleine.
Busied with his brandy, and again gazing at Llangorren, he has not yet
seen her; nor is he aware of her proximity till hearing an
exclamation:--
"_Eh, bien?_"
He starts at the interrogatory, turning round.
"You think too loud, Monsieur--that is if you wish to keep your thoughts
to yourself. And you might--seeing that it's a love secret! May I ask
who is this _she_ you're soliloquising about? Some of your old English
_bonnes amies_, I suppose?"
This, with an air of affected jealousy she is far from feeling. In the
heart of the _ex-cocotte_ there is no place for such a sentiment.
"Got nothing to do with _bonnes amies_, young or old," he gruffly
replies. "Just now I've got something else to think of than sweethearts.
Enough occupation for my thoughts in the how I'm to support a
wife--yourself, madame."
"It wasn't me you meant. No, indeed. Some other, in whom you appear to
feel a very profound interest."
"There you're right, it was one other, in whom I feel all that."
"_Merci, Monsieur! Ma foi!_ your candour deserves all thanks. Perhaps
you'll extend it, and favour me with the lady's name? A lady, I presume.
The grand Seigneur Lewin Murdock would not be giving his thoughts to
less."
Ignorance pretended. She knows, or surmises, to whom he has been giving
them; for she has been watching him from a window, and observed the
direction of his glances. And she has more than a suspicion as to the
nature of his reflections; since she is well aware as he of that
something besides a river separating them from Llangorren.
"Her name?" she again asks, in tone of more demand, her eyes bent
searchingly on his.
Avoiding her glance, he still pulls away at his pipe, without making
answer.
"It is a love secret, then? I thought so. It's cruel of you, Lewin! This
is the return for giving you--all I had to give!"
She may well speak hesitatingly, and hint at a limited sacrifice. Only
her hand; and it more than tenderly pressed by scores--ay hundreds--of
others, before being bestowed upon him. No false pretence, however, on
her part. He knew all that, or should have known it. How could he help?
Olympe, the belle of the Jardin Mabille, was no obscurity in the
_demi-monde_ of Paris--even in its days of glory under Napoleon le
Petite.
Her reproach is also a pretence, though possibly with some sting felt.
She is drawing on to that term of life termed _passe_; and begins to
feel conscious of it. He may be the same. Not that for his opinion she
cares a straw--save in a certain sense, and for reasons altogether
independent of slighted affection--the very purpose she is now working
upon, and for which she needs to hold over him the power she has
hitherto had. And well knows she how to retain it, rekindling love's
fire when it seems in danger of dying out, either through appeal to his
pity, or exciting his jealousy, which she can adroitly do, by her artful
French ways and dark flashing eyes.
As he looks in them now, the old flame flickers up, and he feels almost
as much her slave as when he first became her husband.
For all he does not show it. This day he is out of sorts with himself,
and her, and all the world besides; so instead of reciprocating her sham
tenderness--as if knowing it such--he takes another swallow of brandy,
and smokes on in silence.
Now really incensed, or seeming so, she exclaims:--
"_Perfide!_" adding with a disdainful toss of the head, such as only the
dames of the _demi-monde_ know how to give, "Keep your secret! What care
I?" Then changing tone, "_Mon Dieu!_ France--dear France! Why did I ever
leave you?"
"Because your dear France became too dear to live in."
"Clever _double entendre_! No doubt you think it witty! Dear, or not,
better a garret there--a room in its humblest _entresol_ than this. I'd
rather serve in a cigar shop--keep a _gargot_ in the Faubourg
Montmartre--than lead such a _triste_ life as we're now doing. Living in
this wretched kennel of a house, that threatens to tumble on our heads!"
"How would you like to live in that over yonder?"
He nods towards Llangorren Court.
"You are merry, Monsieur. But your jests are out of place--in presence
of the misery around us."
"You may some day," he goes on, without heeding her observation.
"Yes; when the sky falls we may catch larks. You seem to forget that
Mademoiselle Wynn is younger than either of us, and by the natural laws
of life will outlive both. Must, unless she break her neck in the
hunting-field, get drowned out of a boat, or meet _some other
mischance_."
She pronounces the last three words slowly and with marked emphasis,
pausing after she has spoken them, and looking fixedly in his face, as
if to note their effect.
Taking the meerschaum from his mouth, he returns her look--almost
shuddering as his eyes meet hers, and he reads in them a glance such as
might have been given by Messalina, or the murderess of Duncan. Hardened
as his conscience has become through a long career of sin, it is yet
tender in comparison with hers. And he knows it, knowing her history, or
enough of it--her nature as well--to make him think her capable of
anything, even the crime her speech seems to point to--neither more nor
less than--
He dares not think, let alone pronounce, the word. He is not yet up to
that; though day by day, as his desperate fortunes press upon him, his
thoughts are being familiarised with something akin to it--a dread, dark
design, still vague, but needing not much to assume shape, and tempt to
execution. And that the tempter is by his side he is more than half
conscious. It is not the first time for him to listen to fell speech
from those fair lips.
To-day he would rather shun allusion to a subject so grave, yet so
delicate. He has spent part of the preceding night at the Welsh
Harp--the tavern spoken of by Wingate--and his nerves are unstrung, yet
not recovered from the revelry. Instead of asking her what she means by
"some other mischance," he but remarks, with an air of careless
indifference,--
"True, Olympe; unless something of that sort were to happen, there seems
no help for us but to resign ourselves to patience, and live on
expectations."
"Starve on them, you mean."
This in a tone, and with a shrug, which seem to convey reproach for its
weakness.
"Well, _cherie_," he rejoins, "we can at least feast our eyes on the
source whence our fine fortunes are to come. And a pretty sight it is,
isn't it? _Un coup d'oeil charmant!_"
He again turns his eyes upon Llangorren, as also she, and for some time
both are silent.
Attractive at any time, the Court is unusually so on this same summer's
day. For the sun, lighting up the verdant lawn, also shines upon a large
white tent there erected--a marquee--from whose ribbed roof projects a
signal staff, with flag floating at its peak. They have had no direct
information of what all this is for--since to Lewin Murdock and his wife
the society of Herefordshire is tabooed. But they can guess from the
symbols that it is to be a garden party, or something of the sort, there
often given. While they are still gazing its special kind is declared,
by figures appearing upon the lawn and taking stand in groups before the
tent. There are ladies gaily attired--in the distance looking like
bright butterflies--some dressed _a la Diane_, with bows in hand, and
quivers slung by their sides, the feathered shafts showing over their
shoulders; a proportionate number of gentlemen attendant; while liveried
servants stride to and fro erecting the ringed targets.
Murdock himself cares little for such things. He has had his surfeit of
fashionable life; not only sipped its sweets, but drank its dregs of
bitterness. He regards Llangorren with something in his mind more
substantial than its sports and pastimes.
With different thoughts looks the Parisian upon them--in her heart a
chagrin only known to those whose zest for the world's pleasure is of
keenest edge, yet checked and baffled from indulgence--ambitions
uncontrollable, but never to be attained. As Satan gazed back when
hurled out of the Garden of Eden, so she at that scene upon the lawn of
Llangorren. No _jardin_ of Paris--not the Bois itself--ever seemed to
her so attractive as those grounds, with that aristocratic gathering--a
heaven none of her kind can enter, and but few of her country.
After long regarding it with envy in her eyes, and spleen in her
soul--tantalized, almost to torture--she faces towards her husband,
saying--
"And you've told me, between all that and us, there's but one life----"
"Two!" interrupts a voice--not his.
Both turning, startled, behold--_Father Rogier_!