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 t.i.tle 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, pa.s.sionate love; pa.s.sionate 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.
CHAPTER XVII.
"FOREVER AND EVER."
Two weeks later, as June"s golden days were drawing to a close, five of Lady Helena"s guests departed from Powyss Place. One remained behind. The Stuart family, with the devoted Captain Hammond in Trixy"s train, went up to London; Miss Edith Darrell stayed behind.
Since the memorable day following the ball, the bride-elect of Sir Victor Catheron had dwelt in a sort of earthly purgatory, had lived stretched on a sort of daily rack. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight." She had given up Charley--had cast him off, had bartered herself in cold blood--for a t.i.tle and an income. And now that he held her at her true value, that his love had died a natural death in contempt and scorn, her whole heart, her whole soul craved him with a sick longing that was like death. It was her daily torture and penance to see him, to speak to him, and note the cold scorn of his gray, tranquil eyes. Jealousy had been added to her other torments; he was ever by Lady Gwendoline"s side of late--ever at Drexel Court.
His father had set his heart upon the match; she was graceful and high-bred; it would end in a marriage, no doubt. There were times when she woke from her jealous anger to rage at herself.
"What a dog in the manger I grow," she said, with a bitter laugh. "I won"t have him myself, and I cannot bear that any one else should have him. If he would only go away--if he only would--I cannot endure this much longer."
Truly she could not. She was losing flesh and color, waxing wan as a shadow. Sir Victor was full of concern, full of wonder and alarm. Lady Helena said little, but (being a woman) her sharp old eyes saw all.
"The sooner my guests go, the better," she thought; "the sooner she sees the last of this young man, the sooner health and strength will return."
Perhaps Charley saw too--the gray, tranquil eyes were very penetrating.
It was he, at all events, who urged the exodus to London.
"Let us see a little London life in the season, governor," he said.
"Lady Portia Hampton, and _that_ lot, are going. They"ll introduce us to some nice people--so will Hammond. Rustic lanes and hawthorn ledges are all very pretty, but there"s a possibility of their palling on depraved New York minds. I pine for stone and mortar, and the fog and smoke of London."
Whatever he may have felt, he bore it easily to all outward seeming, as the men who feel deepest mostly do. He could not be said to actually avoid her, but certainly since that afternoon in the drawing-room, they had never been for five seconds alone.
Mr. Stuart, senior, had agreed, with almost feverish eagerness, to the proposed change. Life had been very pleasant in Cheshire, with picnics, water-parties down the Dee, drives to show-places, lawn billiards, and croquet, but a month of it was enough. Sir Victor was immersed in his building projects and his lady-love; Lady Helena, ever since the coming and going of the lady in black, had not been the same. Powyss place was a pleasant house, but enough was enough. They were ready to say good-by and be off to "fresh fields and pastures new."
"And, my dear child," said Lady Helena to Edith, when the departure was fixed, "I think you had much better remain behind."
There was an emphasis in her tone, a meaning glance in her eye, that brought the conscious blood to the girl"s cheek. Her eyes fell--her lips quivered for an instant--she made no reply.
"Certainly Edith will remain," Sir Victor interposed impetuously. "As if we could survive down here without her! And, of course, just at present it is impossible for me to leave. They don"t need her half as much as we do--Miss Stuart has Hammond, Prince Charley has Gwendoline Drexel; Edith would only be in the way!"
"It is settled, then?" said Lady Helena again, watching Edith with a curiously intent look. "You remain?"
"I will remain," Edith answered, very lowly and without lifting her eyes.
"My own idea is," went on the young baronet confidentially, to his lady love, "that they are glad to be gone. Something seems to be the matter with Stuart _pere_--under a cloud, rather, just at present.
Has it struck you, Dithy?"
He had caught the way of calling her by the pet name Trix and Charley used. She lifted her eyes abstractedly now, as he asked the question.
"Mr. Stuart? What did you say, Sir Victor? Oh--under a cloud. Well, yes, I have noticed it. I think it is something connected with his business in New York. In papa"s last letter he alluded to it."
"In papa"s last letter," Mr. Frederick Darrell had said this:
"One of their great financial crises, they tell me, is approaching in New York, involving many failures and immense loss. One of the most deeply involved, it is whispered, will be James Stuart. I _have_ heard he is threatened with ruin. Let us hope, however, this may be exaggerated. Once I fancied it would be a fine thing, a brilliant match, if my Edith married James Stuart"s son. How much better Providence has arranged it! Once more, my dearest daughter, I congratulate you on the brilliant vista opening before you. Your step-mother, who desires her best love, never wearies of spreading the wonderful news that our little Edie is so soon to be the bride of a great English baronet."
Miss Darrell"s straight black brows met in one frowning line as she perused this parental and pious epistle. The next instant it was torn into minute atoms, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.
There seemed to be some foundation for the news. Letters without end kept coming for Mr. Stuart; little boys bearing the ominous orange envelopes of the telegraph company, came almost daily to Powyss Place. After these letters and cable messages the gloom on Mr. Stuart"s face deepened and darkened. He lost sleep, he lost appet.i.te; some great and secret fear seemed preying upon him. What was it? His family noticed it, and inquired about his health. He rebuffed them impatiently; he was quite well--he wanted to be let alone--why the unmentionable-to-ears-polite need they badger him with questions? They held their peace and let him alone. That it in any way concerned commercial failure they never dreamed; to them the wealth of the husband and father was something illimitable--a golden river flowing from a golden ocean. That ruin could approach them never entered their wildest dreams.
He had gone to Edith one day and offered her a thousand-dollar check.
"For your trousseau, my dear," he had said. "It isn"t what I expected to give you--what I would give you, if--" He gulped and paused.
"Things have changed with me lately. You will accept this, Edie--it will at least buy your wedding-dress."
She had shrunk back, and refused--not proudly, or angrily--very humbly, but very firmly. From Charley"s father she could never take a farthing now.
"No" she said, "I can"t take it. Dear Mr. Stuart, I thank you all the same; you have given me more already than I deserve or can ever repay.
I cannot take this. Sir Victor Catheron takes me as I am--poor, penniless. Lady Helena will give me a white silk dress and veil to be married in. For the rest, after my wedding-day, whatever my life may lack, it will not lack dresses."
He had replaced the check in his pocket-book, inwardly thankful, perhaps, that it had not been accepted. The day was past when a thousand dollars would have been but as a drop in the ocean to him.
The time of departure was fixed at length; and the moment it _was_ fixed, Trix flew upstairs, and into Edith"s room, with the news.
"Oh, let us be joyful," sang Miss Stuart, waltzing in psalm time up and down the room; "we"re off at last, the day after to-morrow, Dithy; so go pack up at once. It"s been very jolly, and all that, down here, for the past four weeks, and _you"ve_ had a good time, I know; but I, for one, will be glad to hear the bustle and din of city life once more. One grows tired doing the pastoral and tooral-ooral--I mean truly rural--and craves for shops, and gaslight, and glitter, and crowds of human beings once more. Our rooms are taken at Langham"s, Edie, and that blessed darling, Captain Hammond, goes with us. Lady Portia, Lady Gwendoline, and Lady Laura are coming also, and I mean to plunge headlong into the giddy whirl of dissipation, and mingle with the bloated aristocracy. Why don"t you laugh? What are you looking so sulky about?"
"Am I looking sulky?" Edith said, with a faint smile. "I don"t feel sulky. I sincerely hope you may enjoy yourself even more than you antic.i.p.ate."
"Oh--you do!" said Trix, opening her eyes; "and how about yourself--don"t you expect to enjoy yourself at all?"