"O MY COUSIN SHALLOW-HEARTED!"
The middle of the day is past before one by one they straggle down.
Breakfast awaits each newcomer, hot and tempting. Trix eats hers with
a relish. Trix possesses one of the chief elements of perpetual human
happiness--an appetite that never fails, a digestion that, in her own
metaphorical American language, "never goes back on her." But Edith
looks fagged and spiritless. If people are to be supernaturally
brilliant and bright, dashing and fascinating all night long, people
must expect to pay the penalty next day, when lassitude and reaction
set in.
"My poor Edie!" Mr. Charles Stuart remarks, compassionately, glancing
at the wan cheeks and lustreless eyes, as he lights his after-breakfast
cigar, "you do look most awfully used up. What a pity for their peace
of mind, some of your frantic adorers of last night can't see you now.
Let me recommend you to go back to bed and try an S. and B."
"An 'S. and B.'?" Edith repeats vaguely.
"Soda and Brandy. It's the thing, depend upon it, for such a case as
yours. I've been seedy myself before now, and know what I'm talking
about. I'll mix it for you, if you like."
There is a copy of Tennyson, in blue and gold, beside Miss Darrell,
and Miss Darrell's reply is to fling it at Mr. Stuart's head. It is a
last effort of expiring nature; she sinks back exhausted among her
cushions. Charley departs to enjoy his Manila out under the waving
trees, and Sir Victor, looking fresh and recuperated, strolls in and
bends over her.
"My dear Edith," he says, "how pale you are this morning--how tired
you look. If one ball is going to exhaust you like this, how will you
stand the wear and tear of London seasons in the blissful time to
come?"
She does not blush--she turns a trifle impatiently away from him and
looks out. She can see Charley and Hammond smoking sociably together
in the sunny distance.
"I will grow used to it, I dare say. 'Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof.'"
"Have you had breakfast?"
"I made an effort and failed. I watched Trix eat hers, however, and
that refreshed me quite as well. It was invigorating only to look at
her."
He smiles and bends lower, drawing one long brown silken tress of hair
fondly through his fingers, feeling as though he would like to stoop
and kiss the pale, weary face. But Trix is over yonder, pretending to
read, and kissing is not to be thought of.
"I am going over to Catheron Royals," he whispered; "suppose you
come--the walk will do you good. I am giving orders about the fitting
up of the old place. Did I tell you the workmen came yesterday?"
"Yes; you told me."
"Shall I ring for your hat and parasol? Do come, Edith."
"Excuse me, Sir Victor," Edith answers, with an impatient motion, "I
feel too tired--too lazy, which ever you like--to stir. Some other day
I will go with pleasure--just now I feel like lying here and doing the
_dolce far niente_. Don't let me detain you, however."
He turns to leave her with a disappointed face. Edith closes her eyes
and takes an easier position among the pillows. The door closes behind
him; Trix flings down her book and bursts forth:
"Of all the heartless, cold-blooded animals it has ever been my good
fortune to meet, commend me to Edith Darrell!"
The dark eyes unclose and look up at her.
"My dear Trix! what's the matter with you now? What new enormity have
I committed?"
"Oh, nothing new--nothing new at all," is Trixy's scornful response;
"it is quite in keeping with the rest of your conduct. To be purely
and entirely selfish is the normal state of the future Lady Catheron!
Poor Sir Victor! who has won you. Poor Charley! who has lost you. I
hardly know which I pity most."
"I don't see that you need waste your precious pity on either,"
answered Edith, perfectly unmoved by Miss Stuart's vituperation; "keep
it for me. I shall make Sir Victor a very good wife as wives go, and
for Charley--well, Lady Gwendoline is left to console him."
"Yes, of course, there is Lady Gwendoline. O Edith! Edith! what are
you made of? Flesh and blood like other people, or waxwork, with a
stone for a heart? How can you sell yourself, as you are going to do?
Sir Victor Catheron is no more to you than his hall-porter, and yet
you persist in marrying him. You love my brother and yet you hand him
over to Lady Gwendoline. Come, Edith, be honest for once; you love
Charley, don't you?"
"It is rather late in the day for such tender confessions as that,"
Edith replies, with a reckless sort of laugh; "but yes--if the
declaration does you any good, Trix--I love Charley."
"And you give him up! Miss Darrell, I give you up as a conundrum I
can't solve. Rank and title are all very well--nobody thinks more of
them than I do; but if _I_ loved a man," cried Trix, with kindling
eyes and glowing cheeks, "I'd marry him! Yes; I would, though he were
a beggar."
Edith looked up at her kindly, with a smothered sigh.
"I believe you, Trix; but then you are different from me." She
half-raised herself, looking dreamily out on the sunlit prospect of
lawn, and coppice, and woodland. "Here it is: I love Charley, but I
love myself better. O Trix, child, don't let us talk about it; I am
tired, and my head aches." She pushed back the heavy, dark hair
wearily off her temples with both hands. "I am what you call me, a
selfish wretch--a heartless little brute--and I am going to marry Sir
Victor Catheron. Pity him, if you like, poor fellow! for he loves me
with his whole heart, and he is a brave and loyal gentleman. But don't
pity your brother, my dear; believe me, he doesn't need it. He's a
good fellow, Charley, and he likes me, but he won't break his heart or
commit suicide while he has a cigar left."
"Here he comes!" exclaimed Trix, "and I believe he has heard us."
"Let him come," Edith returns, lying listlessly back among her
cushions once more. "It doesn't matter if he has. It will be no news
to _him_."
"It is a pity you should miss each other, though," Trix says
sarcastically, as she turns to go; "such thorough philosophers both;
I believe you were made for each other, and, as far as easy-going
selfishness is concerned, there is little to choose between you. It's
a thousand pities Sir Victor can't hear all this."
"He might if he liked," is Edith's answer. "I shouldn't care. Charley!"
as Charley comes in and Trix goes out, "have you been eavesdropping?
Don't deny it, sir, if you have!"
Charley takes a position in an easy-chair some yards distant, and
looks at her lying there, languid and lovely.
"I have been eavesdropping--I never deny my small vices. Hammond left
me to go to the stables, and, strolling under the window, I overheard
you and Trix. Open confession is beneficial, no doubt; but, my dear
cousin, you really shouldn't make it in so audible a tone. It might
have been Sir Victor instead of me."
She says nothing. The sombre look he has learned to know is in her
dusk eyes, on her dark, colorless face.
"Poor Sir Victor!" he goes on; "he loves you--not a doubt of that,
Dithy--to the depths of idiocy, where you know so well how to cast
your victims; but hard hit as he is, I wonder _what_ he would say
if he heard all this!"
"You might tell him, Charley," Edith says. "I shouldn't mind much, and
he _might_ jilt me--who can tell? I think it would do us both good.
You could say, 'Look here: don't marry Edith Darrell, Sir Victor; she
isn't worthy of you or any good man. She is full of pride, vanity,
ambition, selfishness, ill-temper, cynicism, and all uncharitableness.
She is _blase_ at nineteen--think what she will be at nine-and-twenty.
She doesn't love you--I know her well enough to be sure she never
will, partly because a heart was left out in her hard anatomy, partly
because--because all the liking she ever had to give, went long ago
to somebody else.' Charley, I think he would give me up, and I'd
respect him for it, if he knew that. Tell him, if you have the
courage, and when he casts me off, come to me and make me marry you.
You can do it, you know; and when the honeymoon is over--when poverty
stalks in at the door and love flies out of the window--when we hate
each other as only ill-assorted wives and husbands ever hate--let the
thought that we have done the 'All for love, and the world well lost'
business, to the bitter end, console us."
She laughs recklessly; she feels reckless enough to say anything, do
anything, this morning. Love, ambition, rank, wealth--what empty
baubles they all look, seen through tired eyes the day after a ball!
He sits silent, watching her thoughtfully.
"I don't understand you, Edith," he says. "I feel like asking you the
same question Trix did. _Why_ do you marry Sir Victor?"
"Why do I marry him?" she repeated. "Well--a little because of his
handsome face and stately bearing, and the triumph of carrying off a
prize, for which your Lady Gwendoline and half a score more have
battled. A little because he pleads so eloquently, and loves me as no
other mortal man did, or ever will; and oh! Charley, a great deal
because he is Sir Victor Catheron of Catheron Royals, with a
rent-roll of twenty thousand a year, and more, and a name that is
older than Magna Charta. If there be any virtue in truth, there--you
have it, plain, unvarnished. I like him--who could help it; but love
him--no!" She clasped her hands above her head, and gazed dreamily out
at the sparkling sunlit scene. "I shall be very fond of him, very
proud of him, when I am his wife--that I know. He will enter
Parliament, and make speeches, and write political pamphlets, and
redress the wrongs of the people. He's the sort of man politicians are
made of--the sort of man a wife can be proud of. And on my wedding day,
or perhaps a day or two before, you and I shall shake hands, sir, and
see each other no more."
"No more?" he repeats.
"Well, for a year or two at least, until all the folly of the past can
be remembered only as a thing to be laughed at. Or until there is a
tall, handsome Mrs. Stuart, or, more likely, a Lady Gwendoline Stuart.
And Charley," speaking hurriedly now, and not meeting the deep gray
eyes she knows are fixed upon her, "the locket with my picture and the
letters--you won't want them _then_--suppose you let me have them
back."
"I won't want them then, certainly," Charley responds, "if by 'then'
you mean when I am the husband of the tall, fascinating Mrs. Stuart or
Lady Gwendoline. But as I have not that happiness yet, suppose you
allow me to retain them until I have. Sir Victor will never know, and
he would not mind much if he did. We are cousins, are we not? and what
more natural than that cousins once removed should keep each other's
pictures? By the bye, I see you still wear that little trumpery pearl
and turquoise brooch I gave you, with my photo at the back. Give it to
me, Edie; turquoise does not become your brown skin, my dear, and I'll
give you a ruby pin with Sir Victor's instead. Perhaps, as turquoise
does become her, Lady Gwendoline will accept this as love's first
timid offering. The rubies will do twice as well for you."
He stretched out his hand to unfasten it. She sprang back, her cheeks
flushing at his touch.
"You shall not have it! Neither Lady Gwendoline nor any one else shall
wear it, and, married or single, _I_ shall keep it to my dying day
if I choose. Charley--what do you mean, sir! How dare you? Let me
go!"
For he had risen suddenly and caught her in his arms, looking steadily
down into her dark eyes, with a gaze she would not meet. Whilst he
held her, whilst he looked at her, he was her master, and he knew it.
"Charley, let me go!" she pleaded. "If any one came in; the servants,
or--or--Sir Victor."
He laughed contemptuously, and held her still.
"Yes, Edith; suppose Sir Victor came in and saw his bride-elect with a
sacrilegious arm about her waist? Suppose I told him the truth--that
you are mine, not his: mine by the love that alone makes marriage holy;
his for his title and his rent-roll--bought and sold. By Heaven! I
half wish he would!"
Was this Charley--Charley Stuart?
She caught her breath--her pride and her insolence dropping from
her--only a girl in the grasp of the man she loves. In that moment, if
he had willed it, he could have made her forego her plight, and pledge
herself to be his wholly, and he knew it.
"Edith," he said, "as I stand and look at you, in your beauty and your
selfishness, I hardly know whether I love or despise you most. I could
make you marry me--_make_ you, mind--but you are not worth it. Go!"
He opened his arms contemptuously and released her. "You'll not be
a bad wife for Sir Victor, I dare say, as fashionable wives go. You'll
be that ornament of society, a married flirt, but you'll never run
away with his dearest friend, and make a case for the D. C. 'All for
love and the world well lost,' is no motto of yours, my handsome
cousin. A week ago I envied Sir Victor with all my heart--to-day I
pity him with all my soul!"
He turned to go, for once in his life, thoroughly aroused, passionate
love; passionate rage at war within him. She had sunk back upon the
sofa, her face hidden in her hands, humbled, as in all her proud life
she had never been humbled before. Her silence, her humility touched
him. He heard a stifled sob, and all his hot anger died out in pained
remorse.
"Oh, forgive me, Edith!" he said, "forgive me. It may be cruel, but I
had to speak. It is the first, it will be the last time. I am selfish,
too, or I would never have pained you--better never hear the truth
than that the hearing should make you miserable. Don't cry, Edith; I
can't bear it. Forgive me, my cousin--they are the last tears I will
ever make you shed."
The words he meant to soothe her, hurt more deeply than the words he
meant to wound. "They are the last tears I will ever make you shed!"
An eternal farewell was in the words. She heard the door open, heard
it close, and knew that her love and her life had parted in that
instant forever.