"I SHALL NEVER BE A MODEL WOMAN."
Lord Charles Vivianne had been completely spoiled by good fortune. An
only son, he had succeeded quite early to a magnificent estate, a large
fortune, and an ancient title. As a handsome boy, he had been caressed,
indulged, and spoiled; his mother never allowed him to be thwarted in
any wish or desire; his father thought there was no one equal to him.
They both died while he was still in his early youth, and he was left to
the care of guardians who were just as indulgent.
Some young men would not have suffered so terribly from this as he did;
but he was not naturally good, and circumstances fostered all the evil
that was in him.
Fair women flattered him; he was a great prize in the matrimonial
market. He knew that some of the fairest and noblest women in England
would have been proud and pleased to have shared his lot; he knew that
he could choose where he would, but, although the chains of Hymen might
be made of the fairest roses, he would never wear them. He had resolved
to have as much enjoyment as possible out of his life, and, to secure
that, he decided upon roaming like a butterfly, and marrying when he
grew older.
He was wealthy, and the possessor of an ancient title and magnificent
estates; but the name of Lord Charles Vivianne was not held in highest
honor by the world--it was not one of purest renown.
Husbands with beautiful wives, fathers with fair young daughters, looked
reproachfully on him, for neither virtue, honor, friendship, principle,
nor pity, ever stood in his way when he had a caprice to gratify or a
whim to indulge. He laughed at the notion of a broken heart. In his
creed, women were quite an inferior order of creation--they might have
souls or they might not, that was a mere matter of belief--they were
created simply for the amusement of the passing hour, and to do the real
drudgery work of the world. How many women's hearts he broke, how many
fair young lives he blighted, will all be known on that terrible day
when sin is called by its right name, and there is no gloss thrown over
it.
He had had numerous flirtations, but love he had never known. If he saw
a face that pleased him, he pursued it until he won it, and then it
might perish like a faded rose-leaf--it was of no more interest to him.
Ah, it was an evil hour in which he saw the promised wife of Earle
Moray! He had never met any one so lovely; his heart was on fire as he
thought of the perfect beauty of her face and figure. There was not the
least pity in his heart as he said to himself he must win her, no matter
what it cost him; she was well worth some little trouble, and she was
willing to be won, if he could judge from her eyes.
The last thing Doris saw, as she drove away from the Castle gates, was
Lord Charles Vivianne watching her intently, with love and admiration in
his face. He was not so handsome as Earle; he lacked the fair, spiritual
beauty of the poet; but he was a lord, and, to some people, that one
fact makes the whole world of difference.
Doris went home with her thoughts in a maze, her head whirling with all
she had seen and heard; but the one dominant idea was that she had been
admired by a lord.
It had been a most unfortunate thing for her, the visit to Downsbury
Castle; but for it she might in time have grown reconciled to her lot;
she might have learned to love and appreciate Earle; she might have
lived and died happily; but for it this story had never been written: it
was the turning point in her life; it seemed to bring into sudden and
vivid life all the evil that had lain dormant; it roused the vanity, the
ambition, the love of luxury and pleasure, the love of conquest and
admiration, until they became a living flame nothing could extinguish.
How plain and homely the little farm seemed to her after the
magnificence of Downsbury Castle! How homely and uncouth Mattie and her
mother were after the languid, graceful Lady Estelle! Nothing pleased
her, nothing contented her.
"I have been foolish," she thought; "I wish I had not promised to marry
Earle. Who knows but there might have been a chance for me to win this
handsome lord. Lady Doris Vivianne!--I like the sound of that name; what
a difference between that and Mrs. Earle Moray. How foolish I was to be
in such a hurry."
So that evening, when poor Earle came, impatient to see her, longing for
one kind word, thirsting to talk to her, he was received with great
coldness by her. Ah, heaven! how pitiful it was to see the handsome face
droop and sadden, the lips tremble, the eyes grow dim with tears. He
might be master of the English language, that he certainly was; he might
be master of the heart of poesy, but he was a slave to her, to her
whims, her caprices, her humor. It was the first time she had been cold
to him, the first time her face had not brightened for him. She did not
even smile when he entered the room. He hastened up to her, and bending
down he kissed the beautiful face.
"My darling Doris," he said, "I thought the day would never come to an
end. I have been longing to see you."
Another time the sweet face would have been raised to his; she would
have given kiss for kiss; she would have welcomed him as he loved best
to be welcomed; but to-day she merely turned impatiently aside.
"I wish you would be more careful, Earle," she said. "You make my hair
so untidy."
"I am very sorry, dear," he said, gently. "It is such beautiful hair,
Doris, and I think it looks even more beautiful when it is what you call
untidy."
"There is no reason why you should make it so," she retorted.
Then he looked with wondering eyes into her face.
"You are not well, or are you tired; which is it?"
"I am tired," she replied; "tired to death, Earle. Do not tease me."
"I ought to have remembered your long journey--of course you are tired.
You ought to lie down, and I will read to you. That will rest you."
"Pray, do not be fussy, Earle. Other people get tired, but no one likes
a fuss made over them."
Again he looked at her. Could this girl, who received him so coldly, so
indifferently, be his own beautiful, bright Doris? It seemed incredible.
Perhaps he had been so unfortunate as to offend her. He bent over her
again.
"Doris," he said, gently, "have I been so unfortunate as to displease
you?"
"No," she replied. "I do not remember that you have."
"You're so changed, I can hardly imagine that this is you."
The pain in his voice touched her. She looked at him; his face had grown
very pale, and there was a cloud in his clear, loving eyes. She laughed
a low, impatient laugh.
"Pray do not be so unhappy because I am cross," she said. "I never
pretended to have a good temper. I am always impatient over something or
other."
"But why with me? You know that your smile makes heaven to me: your
frown, despair. Why be cross with me, darling? I would give all I have
on earth to save you from one unhappy moment."
"I am tired," she said, "and I cannot forget the Castle, Earle. I wish
so much that I had been born to live in such a place; I should have been
quite at home and happy there."
"Are you not at home and happy here?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "Happy in a lonely, dreary farm-house!"
"With the kindest of parents, the sweetest of sisters, the most devoted
of lovers, it seems to me, Doris, that you have all the elements of
happiness."
She did not even hear him; she was thinking of the grandeur she had
seen.
"I call that something like life," she continued--"luxury and gayety. I
would sooner never have been born at all than be condemned to spend all
my life here."
"But it will not be spent here, my darling; it will be spent with me."
His face glowed; the rapture of content came over it. There was no
response in hers.
"I shall change Brackenside for Lindenholm," she said. "I cannot see
that it will make much difference. It is only exchanging one farm-house
for another."
"But I who love you am in the other," he said, gently. "Oh, Doris, you
pain me so greatly! I know that you do not mean what you say, but you
wound me to death."
Again she hardly heard him.
"I should very much like to know," Doris continued, "if it is fair to
place me, with a keen, passionate longing for life, gayety, and
pleasure, here, where I have none of the three."
"None of the three!" he repeated, sadly, "and I find heaven with you."
He knelt down in front of her, where he could see her face, and he drew
it gently down to his own. "I will not believe you mean this, my
darling; if I did believe it I should go mad. Your beauty-loving,
artistic nature has been aroused by what you have seen, and it makes you
slightly discontented with us all. You ought to reign in a palace, my
darling, because you are so beautiful and brilliant; but the palace
shall be of my winning. You shall have every luxury that you have seen
and envied."
"When?" she asked, briefly, bringing his castle in the air suddenly to
the ground.
"Soon, my darling--you do not know how hard I am working--soon as I can
possibly accomplish it."
"Work!" she replied. "A man may work for a lifetime and yet never earn
sufficient to build a house, much less a castle. Look at my father, how
hard he works, yet he is not rich, and never will be."
"But my work is different from his, Doris. There have been poets who
have made large fortunes."
"And there have been poets who starved in a garret," she replied.
"But I have not that intention," cried Earle, with a look of power. "I
will win wealth for you--the thought of you gives me skill, nerve, and
courage for anything. Have patience, my darling!"
"Oh, Earle, it was so beautiful!" she cried, pitilessly interrupting
him; "and that Lady Estelle wore such a beautiful dress! She has a
strange way of moving--it produces a strange effect--so slowly and so
gracefully, as though she were moving to the rhythm of some hidden
music. And those rooms--I can never forget them! To think that people
should live and move in the midst of such luxury!"
He raised the white hand to his lip.
"They are not all happy, Doris. Oh, believe me, darling! money, luxury,
magnificence cannot bring happiness. Sooner or later one wearies of
them."
"I never should," she answered, gently. "If I could live twenty lives,
instead of one, I should never weary. I should like every hour of each
of them to be filled with pleasure."
"That is because you have had so little," he said, wistfully. "You shall
have a bright future."
Just at that moment Mattie Brace entered the room, and Doris looked at
her with a smile.
"A little brown mouse, like Mattie," she said, "can easily be content.
You are happy as the day is long, are you not, Mattie?"
The quiet brown eyes, with their look of wistful pain, rested for one
moment upon Earle, then the young girl said, calmly:
"Certainly I am happy and content. Why should I not be? I always think
that the same good God who made me knew how and where to place me, and
knew best what I was fitted for."
"There," said Doris, "that is the kind of material your model women are
made of. I shall never be a model woman--Mattie will never be anything
else."
"Mattie is quite right," said Earle. "There is nothing so vain and so
useless as longing for that which we can never attain. Come, Doris, you
look better and brighter than you did when I first came in. Tell me all
about your day at the Castle."
She told him of the duke's kind reception, of Lady Estelle's
condescension, of all the beautiful things she had seen, and how the
duke's daughter had given her some flowers, and talked to her. But not
one word did she say of Lord Charles Vivianne. It was better, she
thought, not even to mention that.
"I am sorry you ever went near the Castle," said Mattie, gravely. "I do
not think you will ever be quite the same girl again, and I have a
presentiment that in some shape or other evil will come of it."
And Earle, as he heard these words, turned away with a heavy sigh.