CHAPTER XVI RICHMOND
A few minutes later she was sitting, wrapped in cozy furs,
near Sir Percy Blakeney on the box-seat of his magnificent coach, and
the four splendid bays had thundered down the quiet street.
The night was warm in spite of the gentle breeze which fanned
Marguerite's burning cheeks. Soon London houses were left behind, and
rattling over old Hammersmith Bridge, Sir Percy was driving his bays
rapidly towards Richmond.
The river wound in and out in its pretty delicate curves,
looking like a silver serpent beneath the glittering rays of the moon.
Long shadows from overhanging trees spread occasional deep palls right
across the road. The bays were rushing along at breakneck speed, held
but slightly back by Sir Percy's strong, unerring hands.
These nightly drives after balls and suppers in London were a
source of perpetual delight to Marguerite, and she appreciated her
husband's eccentricity keenly, which caused him to adopt this mode of
taking her home every night, to their beautiful home by the river,
instead of living in a stuffy London house. He loved driving his
spirited horses along the lonely, moonlit roads, and she loved to sit
on the box-seat, with the soft air of an English late summer's night
fanning her face after the hot atmosphere of a ball or supper-party.
The drive was not a long one--less than an hour, sometimes, when the
bays were very fresh, and Sir Percy gave them full rein.
To-night he seemed to have a very devil in his fingers, and
the coach seemed to fly along the road, beside the river. As usual,
he did not speak to her, but stared straight in front of him, the
ribbons seeming to lie quite loosely in his slender, white hands.
Marguerite looked at him tentatively once or twice; she could see his
handsome profile, and one lazy eye, with its straight fine brow and
drooping heavy lid.
The face in the moonlight looked singularly earnest, and
recalled to Marguerite's aching heart those happy days of courtship,
before he had become the lazy nincompoop, the effete fop, whose life
seemed spent in card and supper rooms.
But now, in the moonlight, she could not catch the expression
of the lazy blue eyes; she could only see the outline of the firm
chin, the corner of the strong mouth, the well-cut massive shape of
the forehead; truly, nature had meant well by Sir Percy; his faults
must all be laid at the door of that poor, half-crazy mother, and of
the distracted heart-broken father, neither of whom had cared for the
young life which was sprouting up between them, and which, perhaps,
their very carelessness was already beginning to wreck.
Marguerite suddenly felt intense sympathy for her husband.
The moral crisis she had just gone through made her feel indulgent
towards the faults, the delinquencies, of others.
How thoroughly a human being can be buffeted and overmastered
by Fate, had been borne in upon her with appalling force. Had anyone
told her a week ago that she would stoop to spy upon her friends, that
she would betray a brave and unsuspecting man into the hands of a
relentless enemy, she would have laughed the idea to scorn.
Yet she had done these things; anon, perhaps the death of that
brave man would be at her door, just as two years ago the Marquis de
St. Cyr had perished through a thoughtless words of hers; but in that
case she was morally innocent--she had meant no serious harm--fate
merely had stepped in. But this time she had done a thing that
obviously was base, had done it deliberately, for a motive which,
perhaps, high moralists would not even appreciate.
As she felt her husband's strong arm beside her, she also felt
how much more he would dislike and despise her, if he knew of this
night's work. Thus human beings judge of one another, with but little
reason, and no charity. She despised her husband for his inanities
and vulgar, unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would
despise her still worse, because she had not been strong enough to do
right for right's sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates
of her conscience.
Buried in her thoughts, Marguerite had found this hour in the
breezy summer night all too brief; and it was with a feeling of keen
disappointment, that she suddenly realised that the bays had turned
into the massive gates of her beautiful English home.
Sir Percy Blakeney's house on the river has become a historic
one: palatial in its dimensions, it stands in the midst of exquisitely
laid-out gardens, with a picturesque terrace and frontage to the
river. Built in Tudor days, the old red brick of the walls looks
eminently picturesque in the midst of a bower of green, the beautiful
lawn, with its old sun-dial, adding the true note of harmony to its
foregrounds, and now, on this warm early autumn night, the leaves
slightly turned to russets and gold, the old garden looked singularly
poetic and peaceful in the moonlight.
With unerring precision, Sir Percy had brought the four bays
to a standstill immediately in front of the fine Elizabethan entrance
hall; in spite of the late hour, an army of grooms seemed to have
emerged from the very ground, as the coach had thundered up, and were
standing respectfully round.
Sir Percy jumped down quickly, then helped Marguerite to
alight. She lingered outside a moment, whilst he gave a few orders to
one of his men. She skirted the house, and stepped on to the lawn,
looking out dreamily into the silvery landscape. Nature seemed
exquisitely at peace, in comparison with the tumultuous emotions she
had gone through: she could faintly hear the ripple of the river and
the occasional soft and ghostlike fall of a dead leaf from a tree.
All else was quiet round her. She had heard the horses
prancing as they were being led away to their distant stables, the
hurrying of servant's feet as they had all gone within to rest: the
house also was quite still. In two separate suites of apartments,
just above the magnificent reception-rooms, lights were still burning,
they were her rooms, and his, well divided from each other by the
whole width of the house, as far apart as their own lives had become.
Involuntarily she sighed--at that moment she could really not have
told why.
She was suffering from unconquerable heartache. Deeply and
achingly she was sorry for herself. Never had she felt so pitiably
lonely, so bitterly in want of comfort and of sympathy. With another
sigh she turned away from the river towards the house, vaguely
wondering if, after such a night, she could ever find rest and sleep.
Suddenly, before she reached the terrace, she heard a firm
step upon the crisp gravel, and the next moment her husband's figure
emerged out of the shadow. He too, had skirted the house, and was
wandering along the lawn, towards the river. He still wore his heavy
driving coat with the numerous lapels and collars he himself had set
in fashion, but he had thrown it well back, burying his hands as was
his wont, in the deep pockets of his satin breeches: the gorgeous
white costume he had worn at Lord Grenville's ball, with its jabot of
priceless lace, looked strangely ghostly against the dark background
of the house.
He apparently did not notice her, for, after a few moments
pause, he presently turned back towards the house, and walked straight
up to the terrace.
"Sir Percy!"
He already had one foot on the lowest of the terrace steps,
but at her voice he started, and paused, then looked searchingly into
the shadows whence she had called to him.
She came forward quickly into the moonlight, and, as soon as
he saw her, he said, with that air of consummate gallantry he always
wore when speaking to her,--
"At your service, Madame!"
But his foot was still on the step, and in his whole attitude
there was a remote suggestion, distinctly visible to her, that he
wished to go, and had no desire for a midnight interview.
"The air is deliciously cool," she said, "the moonlight
peaceful and poetic, and the garden inviting. Will you not stay in it
awhile; the hour is not yet late, or is my company so distasteful to
you, that you are in a hurry to rid yourself of it?"
"Nay, Madame," he rejoined placidly, "but ‘tis on the other
foot the shoe happens to be, and I'll warrant you'll find the midnight
air more poetic without my company: no doubt the sooner I remove the
obstruction the better your ladyship will like it."
He turned once more to go.
"I protest you mistake me, Sir Percy," she said hurriedly, and
drawing a little closer to him; "the estrangement, which alas! has
arisen between us, was none of my making, remember."
"Begad! you must pardon me there, Madame!" he protested
coldly, "my memory was always of the shortest."
He looked her straight in the eyes, with that lazy
non-chalance which had become second nature to him. She returned his
gaze for a moment, then her eyes softened, as she came up quite close
to him, to the foot of the terrace steps.
"Of the shortest, Sir Percy! Faith! how it must have
altered! Was it three years ago or four that you saw me for one hour
in Paris, on your way to the East? When you came back two years later
you had not forgotten me."
She looked divinely pretty as she stood there in the
moonlight, with the fur-cloak sliding off her beautiful shoulders, the
gold embroidery on her dress shimmering around her, her childlike blue
eyes turned up fully at him.
He stood for a moment, rigid and still, but for the clenching
of his hand against the stone balustrade of the terrace.
"You desired my presence, Madame," he said frigidly. "I take
it that it was not with the view to indulging in tender
reminiscences."
His voice certainly was cold and uncompromising: his attitude
before her, stiff and unbending. Womanly decorum would have suggested
Marguerite should return coldness for coldness, and should sweep past
him without another word, only with a curt nod of her head: but
womanly instinct suggested that she should remain--that keen instinct,
which makes a beautiful woman conscious of her powers long to bring to
her knees the one man who pays her no homage. She stretched out her
hand to him.
"Nay, Sir Percy, why not? the present is not so glorious but
that I should not wish to dwell a little in the past."
He bent his tall figure, and taking hold of the extreme tip of
the fingers which she still held out to him, he kissed them
ceremoniously.
"I' faith, Madame," he said, "then you will pardon me, if my
dull wits cannot accompany you there."
Once again he attempted to go, once more her voice, sweet,
childlike, almost tender, called him back.
"Sir Percy."
"Your servant, Madame."
"Is it possible that love can die?" she said with sudden,
unreasoning vehemence. "Methought that the passion which you once
felt for me would outlast the span of human life. Is there nothing
left of that love, Percy...which might help you...to bridge over
that sad estrangement?"
His massive figure seemed, while she spoke thus to him, to
stiffen still more, the strong mouth hardened, a look of relentless
obstinacy crept into the habitually lazy blue eyes.
"With what object, I pray you, Madame?" he asked coldly.
"I do not understand you."
"Yet ‘tis simple enough," he said with sudden bitterness,
which seemed literally to surge through his words, though he was
making visible efforts to suppress it, "I humbly put the question to
you, for my slow wits are unable to grasp the cause of this, your
ladyship's sudden new mood. Is it that you have the taste to renew
the devilish sport which you played so successfully last year? Do you
wish to see me once more a love-sick suppliant at your feet, so that
you might again have the pleasure of kicking me aside, like a
troublesome lap-dog?"
She had succeeded in rousing him for the moment: and again she
looked straight at him, for it was thus she remembered him a year ago.
"Percy! I entreat you!" she whispered, "can we not bury the past?"
"Pardon me, Madame, but I understood you to say that your
desire was to dwell in it."
"Nay! I spoke not of THAT past, Percy!" she said, while a tone
of tenderness crept into her voice. "Rather did I speak of a
time when you loved me still! and I...oh! I was vain and frivolous;
your wealth and position allured me: I married you, hoping in my heart that
your great love for me would beget in me a love for you...but, alas!..."
The moon had sunk low down behind a bank of clouds. In the
east a soft grey light was beginning to chase away the heavy mantle of
the night. He could only see her graceful outline now, the small
queenly head, with its wealth of reddish golden curls, and the
glittering gems forming the small, star-shaped, red flower which she
wore as a diadem in her hair.
"Twenty-four hours after our marriage, Madame, the Marquis de
St. Cyr and all his family perished on the guillotine, and the popular
rumour reached me that it was the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney who
helped to send them there."
"Nay! I myself told you the truth of that odious tale."
"Not till after it had been recounted to me by strangers, with
all its horrible details."
"And you believed them then and there," she said with great
vehemence, "without a proof or question--you believed that I, whom you
vowed you loved more than life, whom you professed you worshipped,
that _I_ could do a thing so base as these STRANGERS chose to
recount. You thought I meant to deceive you about it all--that I
ought to have spoken before I married you: yet, had you listened, I
would have told you that up to the very morning on which St. Cyr went
to the guillotine, I was straining every nerve, using every influence
I possessed, to save him and his family. But my pride sealed my lips,
when your love seemed to perish, as if under the knife of that same
guillotine. Yet I would have told you how I was duped! Aye! I, whom
that same popular rumour had endowed with the sharpest wits in France!
I was tricked into doing this thing, by men who knew how to play upon
my love for an only brother, and my desire for revenge. Was it
unnatural?"
Her voice became choked with tears. She paused for a moment
or two, trying to regain some sort of composure. She looked
appealingly at him, almost as if he were her judge. He had allowed
her to speak on in her own vehement, impassioned way, offering no
comment, no word of sympathy: and now, while she paused, trying to
swallow down the hot tears that gushed to her eyes, he waited,
impassive and still. The dim, grey light of early dawn seemed to make
his tall form look taller and more rigid. The lazy, good-natured face
looked strangely altered. Marguerite, excited, as she was, could see
that the eyes were no longer languid, the mouth no longer
good-humoured and inane. A curious look of intense passion seemed to
glow from beneath his drooping lids, the mouth was tightly closed, the
lips compressed, as if the will alone held that surging passion in
check.
Marguerite Blakeney was, above all, a woman, with all a
woman's fascinating foibles, all a woman's most lovable sins. She
knew in a moment that for the past few months she had been mistaken:
that this man who stood here before her, cold as a statue, when her
musical voice struck upon his ear, loved her, as he had loved her a
year ago: that his passion might have been dormant, but that it was
there, as strong, as intense, as overwhelming, as when first her lips
met his in one long, maddening kiss.
Pride had kept him from her, and, woman-like, she meant to win
back that conquest which had been hers before. Suddenly it seemed to
her that the only happiness life could every hold for her again would
be in feeling that man's kiss once more upon her lips.
"Listen to the tale, Sir Percy," she said, and her voice was
low, sweet, infinitely tender. "Armand was all in all to me! We had
no parents, and brought one another up. He was my little father, and
I, his tiny mother; we loved one another so. Then one day--do you
mind me, Sir Percy? the Marquis de St. Cyr had my brother Armand
thrashed--thrashed by his lacqueys--that brother whom I loved better
than all the world! And his offence? That he, a plebeian, had dared
to love the daughter of the aristocrat; for that he was waylaid and
thrashed...thrashed like a dog within an inch of his life! Oh, how
I suffered! his humiliation had eaten into my very soul! When the
opportunity occurred, and I was able to take my revenge, I took it.
But I only thought to bring that proud marquis to trouble and
humiliation. He plotted with Austria against his own country. Chance
gave me knowledge of this; I spoke of it, but I did not know--how
could I guess?--they trapped and duped me. When I realised what I had
done, it was too late."
"It is perhaps a little difficult, Madame," said Sir Percy,
after a moment of silence between them, "to go back over the past. I
have confessed to you that my memory is short, but the thought
certainly lingered in my mind that, at the time of the Marquis' death,
I entreated you for an explanation of those same noisome popular
rumours. If that same memory does not, even now, play me a trick, I
fancy that you refused me ALL explanation then, and demanded of my
love a humiliating allegiance it was not prepared to give."
"I wished to test your love for me, and it did not bear the
test. You used to tell me that you drew the very breath of life but
for me, and for love of me."
"And to probe that love, you demanded that I should forfeit
mine honour," he said, whilst gradually his impassiveness seemed to
leave him, his rigidity to relax; "that I should accept without murmur
or question, as a dumb and submissive slave, every action of my
mistress. My heart overflowing with love and passion, I ASKED for
no explanation--I WAITED for one, not doubting--only hoping. Had
you spoken but one word, from you I would have accepted any
explanation and believed it. But you left me without a word, beyond a
bald confession of the actual horrible facts; proudly you returned to
your brother's house, and left me alone...for weeks...not knowing,
now, in whom to believe, since the shrine, which contained my one
illusion, lay shattered to earth at my feet."
She need not complain now that he was cold and impassive; his
very voice shook with an intensity of passion, which he was making
superhuman efforts to keep in check.
"Aye! the madness of my pride!" she said sadly. "Hardly had
I gone, already I had repented. But when I returned, I found you, oh,
so altered! wearing already that mask of somnolent indifference which
you have never laid aside until...until now."
She was so close to him that her soft, loose hair was wafted
against his cheek; her eyes, glowing with tears, maddened him, the
music in her voice sent fire through his veins. But he would not
yield to the magic charm of this woman whom he had so deeply loved,
and at whose hands his pride had suffered so bitterly. He closed his
eyes to shut out the dainty vision of that sweet face, of that
snow-white neck and graceful figure, round which the faint rosy light
of dawn was just beginning to hover playfully.
"Nay, Madame, it is no mask," he said icily; "I swore to
you...once, that my life was yours. For months now it has been your
plaything...it has served its purpose."
But now she knew that the very coldness was a mask. The
trouble, the sorrow she had gone through last night, suddenly came
back into her mind, but no longer with bitterness, rather with a
feeling that this man who loved her, would help her bear the burden.
"Sir Percy," she said impulsively, "Heaven knows you have been
at pains to make the task, which I had set to myself, difficult to
accomplish. You spoke of my mood just now; well! we will call it
that, if you will. I wished to speak to you...because...because I
was in trouble...and had need...of your sympathy."
"It is yours to command, Madame."
"How cold you are!" she sighed. "Faith! I can scarce believe
that but a few months ago one tear in my eye had set you well-nigh
crazy. Now I come to you...with a half-broken heart...and...
and..."
"I pray you, Madame," he said, whilst his voice shook almost
as much as hers, "in what way can I serve you?"
"Percy!--Armand is in deadly danger. A letter of his...
rash, impetuous, as were all his actions, and written to Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, has fallen into the hands of a fanatic. Armand is
hopelessly compromised...to-morrow, perhaps he will be arrested...
after that the guillotine...unless...oh! it is horrible!"...
she said, with a sudden wail of anguish, as all the events of the past
night came rushing back to her mind, "horrible!...and you do not
understand...you cannot...and I have no one to whom I can
turn...for help...or even for sympathy..."
Tears now refused to be held back. All her trouble, her
struggles, the awful uncertainty of Armand's fate overwhelmed her.
She tottered, ready to fall, and leaning against the tone balustrade,
she buried her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly.
At first mention of Armand St. Just's name and of the peril in
which he stood, Sir Percy's face had become a shade more pale; and the
look of determination and obstinacy appeared more marked than ever
between his eyes. However, he said nothing for the moment, but
watched her, as her delicate frame was shaken with sobs, watched her
until unconsciously his face softened, and what looked almost like
tears seemed to glisten in his eyes.
"And so," he said with bitter sarcasm, "the murderous dog of
the revolution is turning upon the very hands that fed it?...Begad,
Madame," he added very gently, as Marguerite continued to sob
hysterically, "will you dry your tears?...I never could bear to see
a pretty woman cry, and I..."
Instinctively, with sudden overmastering passion at the sight
of her helplessness and of her grief, he stretched out his arms, and
the next, would have seized her and held her to him, protected from
every evil with his very life, his very heart's blood.... But
pride had the better of it in this struggle once again; he restrained
himself with a tremendous effort of will, and said coldly, though
still very gently,--
"Will you not turn to me, Madame, and tell me in what way I
may have the honour to serve you?"
She made a violent effort to control herself, and turning her
tear-stained face to him, she once more held out her hand, which he
kissed with the same punctilious gallantry; but Marguerite's fingers,
this time, lingered in his hand for a second or two longer than was
absolutely necessary, and this was because she had felt that his hand
trembled perceptibly and was burning hot, whilst his lips felt as cold
as marble.
"Can you do aught for Armand?" she said sweetly and simply.
"You have so much influence at court...so many friends..."
"Nay, Madame, should you not seek the influence of your French
friend, M. Chauvelin? His extends, if I mistake not, even as far as
the Republican Government of France."
"I cannot ask him, Percy.... Oh! I wish I dared to tell
you...but...but...he has put a price on my brother's head,
which..."
She would have given worlds if she had felt the courage then
to tell him everything...all she had done that night--how she had
suffered and how her hand had been forced. But she dared not give way
to that impulse...not now, when she was just beginning to feel that
he still loved her, when she hoped that she could win him back. She
dared not make another confession to him. After all, he might not
understand; he might not sympathise with her struggles and temptation.
His love still dormant might sleep the sleep of death.
Perhaps he divined what was passing in her mind. His whole
attitude was one of intense longing--a veritable prayer for that
confidence, which her foolish pride withheld from him. When she
remained silent he sighed, and said with marked coldness--
"Faith, Madame, since it distresses you, we will not speak of
it.... As for Armand, I pray you have no fear. I pledge you
my word that he shall be safe. Now, have I your permission to go?
The hour is getting late, and..."
"You will at least accept my gratitude?" she said, as she drew
quite close to him, and speaking with real tenderness.
With a quick, almost involuntary effort he would have taken
her then in his arms, for her eyes were swimming in tears, which he
longed to kiss away; but she had lured him once, just like this, then
cast him aside like an ill-fitting glove. He thought this was but a
mood, a caprice, and he was too proud to lend himself to it once
again.
"It is too soon, Madame!" he said quietly; "I have done
nothing as yet. The hour is late, and you must be fatigued. Your
women will be waiting for you upstairs."
He stood aside to allow her to pass. She sighed, a quick sigh
of disappointment. His pride and her beauty had been in direct
conflict, and his pride had remained the conqueror. Perhaps, after
all, she had been deceived just now; what she took to be the light of
love in his eyes might only have been the passion of pride or, who
knows, of hatred instead of love. She stood looking at him for a
moment or two longer. He was again as rigid, as impassive, as before.
Pride had conquered, and he cared naught for her. The grey light of
dawn was gradually yielding to the rosy light of the rising sun.
Birds began to twitter; Nature awakened, smiling in happy response to
the warmth of this glorious October morning. Only between these two
hearts there lay a strong, impassable barrier, built up of pride on
both sides, which neither of them cared to be the first to demolish.
He had bent his tall figure in a low ceremonious bow, as she
finally, with another bitter little sigh, began to mount the terrace
steps.
The long train of her gold-embroidered gown swept the dead
leaves off the steps, making a faint harmonious sh--sh--sh as she
glided up, with one hand resting on the balustrade, the rosy light of
dawn making an aureole of gold round her hair, and causing the rubies
on her head and arms to sparkle. She reached the tall glass doors
which led into the house. Before entering, she paused once again to
look at him, hoping against hope to see his arms stretched out to her,
and to hear his voice calling her back. But he had not moved; his
massive figure looked the very personification of unbending pride, of
fierce obstinacy.
Hot tears again surged to her eyes, as she would not let him
see them, she turned quickly within, and ran as fast as she could up
to her own rooms.
Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to
the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made
her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear--a strong man,
overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given
way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a
man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light
footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the
terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by
one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone
balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.