This, the last dinner at Montfitchet, passed more quietly than the rest.
The company were perhaps subdued, from their revels of the night before;
and every one hates the thought of breaking up a delightful party and
separating on the morrow, even when it has only been a merry gathering
like this.
And two people were divinely happy, and two people supremely sad, and
one mean little heart was full of bitterness and malice unassuaged. So
after dinner was over, and they were all once more in the white
drawing-room, the different elements assorted themselves.
Lady Anningford took Tristram aside and began, with great tact and much
feeling, to see if he could be cajoled into a better mood; and finally
got severely snubbed for her trouble, which hurt her more because she
realized how deep must be his pain than from any offense to herself.
Then Laura caught him and implanted her last sting:
"You are going away to-morrow, Tristram,--into your new life--and when
you have found out all about your wife--and her handsome friend--you may
remember that there was one woman who loved you truly--" and then she
moved on and left him sitting there, too raging to move.
After this, his uncle had joined him, had talked politics, and just at
the end, for the hearty old gentleman could not believe a man could
really be cold or indifferent to as beautiful a piece of flesh and blood
as his new niece, he had said:
"Tristram, my dear boy,--I don't know whether it is the modern
spirit--or not--but, if I were you, I'd be hanged if I would let that
divine creature, your wife, out of my sight day or night!--When you get
her alone at Wrayth, just kiss her until she can't breathe--and you'll
find it is all right!"
With which absolutely sensible advice, he had slapped his nephew on the
back, fixed in his eyeglass, and walked off; and Tristram had stood
there, his blue eyes hollow with pain, and had laughed a bitter laugh,
and gone to play bridge, which he loathed, with the Meltons and Mrs.
Harcourt. So for him, the evening had passed.
And Francis Markrute had taken his niece aside to give her his bit of
salutary information. He wished to get it over as quickly as possible,
and had drawn her to a sofa rather behind a screen, where they were not
too much observed.
"We have all had a most delightful visit, I am sure, Zara," he had said,
"but you and Tristram seem not to be yet as good friends as I could
wish."
He paused a moment, but as usual she did not speak, so he went on:
"There is one thing you might as well know, I believe you have not
realized it yet, unless Tristram has told you of it himself."
She looked up now, startled--of what was she ignorant then?
"You may remember the afternoon I made the bargain with you about the
marriage," Francis Markrute went on. "Well, that afternoon Tristram,
your husband, had refused my offer of you and your fortune with scorn.
He would never wed a rich woman he said, or a woman he did not know or
love, for any material gain; but I knew he would think differently when
he had seen how beautiful and attractive you were, so I continued to
make my plans. You know my methods, my dear niece."
Zara's blazing and yet pitiful eyes were all his answer.
"Well, I calculated rightly. He came to dinner that night, and fell
madly in love with you, and at once asked to marry you himself, while he
insisted upon your fortune being tied up entirely upon you, and any
children that you might have, only allowing me to pay off the mortgages
on Wrayth for himself. It would be impossible for a man to have behaved
more like a gentleman. I thought now, in case you had not grasped all
this, you had better know." And then he said anxiously, "Zara--my dear
child--what is the matter?" for her proud head had fallen forward on her
breast, with a sudden deadly faintness. This, indeed, was the filling of
her cup.
His voice pulled her together, and she sat up; and to the end of his
life, Francis Markrute will never like to remember the look in her eyes.
"And you let me go on and marry him, playing this cheat? You let me go
on and spoil both our lives! What had I ever done to you, my uncle, that
you should be so cruel to me? Or is it to be revenged upon my mother for
the hurt she brought to your pride?"
If she had reproached him, stormed at him, anything, he could have borne
it better; but the utter lifeless calm of her voice, the hopeless look
in her beautiful white face, touched his heart--that heart but newly
unwrapped and humanized from its mummifying encasements by the
omnipotent God of Love. Had he, after all, been too coldly calculating
about this human creature of his own flesh and blood? Was there some
insurmountable barrier grown up from his action? For the first moment in
his life he was filled with doubt and fear.
"Zara," he said, anxiously, "tell me, dear child, what you mean? I let
you go on in the 'cheat,' as you call it, because I knew you never would
consent to the bargain, unless you thought it was equal on both sides. I
know your sense of honor, dear, but I calculated, and I thought rightly,
that, Tristram being so in love with you, he would soon undeceive you,
directly you were alone. I never believed a woman could be so cold as to
resist his wonderful charm--Zara--what has happened?--'Won't you tell
me, child?"
But she sat there turned to stone. She had no thought to reproach him.
Her heart and her spirit seemed broken, that was all.
"Zara--would you like me to do anything? Can I explain anything to him?
Can I help you to be happy? I assure you it hurts me awfully, if this
will not turn out all right--Zara," for she had risen a little
unsteadily from her seat beside him. "You cannot be indifferent to him
for ever--he is too splendid a man. Cannot I do anything for you, my
niece?"
Then she looked at him, and her eyes in their deep tragedy seemed to
burn out of her deadly white face.
"No, thank you, my uncle,--there is nothing to be done--everything is
now too late." Then she added in the same monotonous voice, "I am very
tired, I think I will wish you a good night." And with immense dignity,
she left him; and making her excuses with gentle grace to the Duke and
Lady Ethelrida, she glided from the room.
And Francis Markrute, as he watched her, felt his whole being wrung with
emotion and pain.
"My God!" he said to himself. "She is a glorious woman, and it will--it
must--come right--even yet."
And then he set his brain to calculate how he could assist them, and
finally his reasoning powers came back to him, and he comforted himself
with the deductions he made.
She was going away alone with this most desirable young man into the
romantic environment of Wrayth. Human physical passion, to say the least
of it, was too strong to keep them apart for ever, so he could safely
leave the adjusting of this puzzle to the discretion of fate.
And Zara, freed at last from eye of friend or maid, collapsed on to the
white bearskin in front of the fire again, and tried to think. So she
had been offered as a chattel and been refused! Here her spirit burnt
with humiliation. Her uncle, she knew, always had used her merely as a
pawn in some game--what game? He was not a snob; the position of uncle
to Tristram would not have tempted him alone; he never did anything
without a motive and a deep one. Could it be that he himself was in love
with Lady Ethelrida? She had been too preoccupied with her own affairs
to be struck with those of others, but now as she looked back, he had
shown an interest which was not in his general attitude towards women.
How her mother had loved him, this wonderful brother! It was her abiding
grief always, his unforgiveness,--and perhaps, although it seemed
impossible to her, Lady Ethelrida was attracted by him, too. Yes, that
must be it. It was to be connected with the family, to make his position
stronger in the Duke's eyes, that he had done this cruel thing. But,
would it have been cruel if she herself had been human and different? He
had called her from struggling and poverty, had given her this splendid
young husband, and riches and place,--no, there was nothing cruel in it,
as a calculated action. It should have given her her heart's desire. It
was she, herself, who had brought about things as they were, because of
her ignorance, that was the cruelty, to have let her go away with
Tristram, in ignorance.
Then the aspect of the case that she had been offered to him and
refused! scourged her again; then the remembrance that he had taken her,
for love. And what motive could he imagine she had had? This struck her
for the first time--how infinitely more generous he had been--for he had
not allowed, what he must have thought was pure mercenariness and desire
for position on her part to interfere with his desire for her
personally. He had never turned upon her, as she saw now he very well
could have done, and thrown this in her teeth. And then she fell to
bitter sobbing, and so at last to sleep.
And when the fire had died out, towards the gray dawn, she woke again
shivering and in mortal fright, for she had dreamed of Mirko, and that
he was being torn from her, while he played the _Chanson Triste_. Then
she grew fully awake and remembered that this was the beginning of the
new day--the day she should go to her husband's home; and she had
accused him of all the base things a man could do, and he had behaved
like a gentleman; and it was she who was base, and had sold herself for
her brother's life, sold what should never be bartered for any life,
but only for love.
Well, there was nothing to be done, only to "play the game"--the
hackneyed phrase came back to her; he had used it, so it was sacred.
Yes, all she could do for him now was, to "play the game"--everything
else was--too late.