Lord Delaval winces a little at this. Curses are hard words to come near the soft little tender girl he is going to marry, and whose words to him are as shy as the light of a star.
But, just for once, he is taken rather aback. Shoals of women have loved him, and reproached him, but never like this. It is the first time he has evoked such a fierce tornado, and for a moment it staggers him. Then he becomes conscious of a feeling of thankfulness that this woman, beautiful and adoring, is not going to be his wife!
I can do nothing but regret! he says gently. My faith is pledged to your sister, and and forgive me if I say that I do not wish to recall it! It is kinder to you, and kinder to myself, to speak openly!
After this, nothing can be said, she feels.
She rises slowly from her knees, and stands a little apart. After all, she is not bad, she is not lost to shame; and it dyes her cheek crimson, while her lids droop over the fire in her eyes, and her mouth trembles as much perhaps with wrath as sorrow.
What man can look utterly unmoved on such a spectacle as this?
I feel so much for you, he says quite softly, but Fate has decreed our paths to divide, and who can act against Fate? My faith, as I said, is pledged to Zai; but there is no reason that you and I, Gabrielle, should be foes. I shall always care for you, always take an interest in you, always be glad to be a brother to you!
A brother! she mutters. I am no hypocrite! I could never feel like a sister towards you, and I will not pretend it! But well part in peace! Only only !
She flings her arms round him, and lifts up wild wet eyes, their fire and wrath all quenched in the passion that floods her whole being, Say that you have loved me, if you do not love me now!
It takes not only a perfect man, but a strong one, to reject a pleading woman, especially if her prayer is for Love, and the lips with which she utters it are fresh and tempting; and Lord Delaval is an imperfect man, assuredly.
So he stoops; and while her flushed stormy face lies against his breast, he kisses her, but only on the cheek, with the comfortable conviction that he has preserved his loyalty to Zai intact by avoiding Gabrielles lips. Most men now a-days are so addicted to splitting hairs!
Good-bye! she whispers, I cannot stay here and see you and her together!
She says it so tragically, that he half smiles. He has always thought her an excellent actress, but now she excels herself.
Nonsense, Gabrielle! he answers carelessly. For Gods sake dont make a scandal whatever you do! If we have made love how many men and women do the same without one or the other bringing the house down about their ears. You are not the only girl I have kissed and vowed all sorts of things to, but no one else has made me repent my folly as you have done. Come, kiss me a kiss of peace and forget that a kiss of love has ever been exchanged between us. We must all bow to the inevitable, and you cannot expect to be exempt.
But the inevitable in this case does not come from the hand of Providence, but from the hand of the man who ought to be the last to hurt me! she says, passionately. I will kiss you ay, kiss you a dozen times; but, Delaval, they will be the kisses that one gives to the man one loves best, and upon whom one will never look again!
She kisses him as she speaks kisses him on his brow, and eyes, and lips, wildly, fiercely; then she almost pushes him from her.
Good-bye!
Good-bye! he answers quietly, since you will have it so; and when we meet again
We shall never meet again! she says, abruptly.
What folly! he exclaims, impatiently. I hope we never shall, until you have regained your senses, and dont act like a mad woman.
If I am a mad woman, you are the man who has made me so! she retorts, impetuously.
God forgive you for it, for I cannot! and turning on her heel, she is soon out of view.
He shrugs his shoulders, and forgetting all about her, saunters back to the house whistling an opera bouffe air.
But though the opera bouffe air runs in his head, in his mind there is an unpleasant conviction that Gabrielle will make a scandal of some sort.
These hot-headed, hot-hearted women are the very devil, he mutters angrily to himself; and I should not be surprised if she goes and peaches to old Beranger and her Ladyship but no matter a coronet, and a good-looking fellow like myself, to say nothing of the tin my dear miserly old dad hoarded up, are proof against any back-biters, and Ill marry Zai yet, dear little thing. I do believe she is beginning to love me!
But even with this comforting reflection, he gives a little start at luncheon when he sees one chair empty, and hears Trixy whisper to her sister, Gabrielle is so queer to-day, queerer than usual. I really think shes going off her head.
Later on, at dinner, come Miss Berangers excuses.
Gabrielle is not very well, and cannot come down, Lady Beranger remarks indifferently, going on with her potage à la Reine, and Lord Delaval makes a tolerable meal drinks a little more than usual, but not too much (wine bibbing is not one of his faults), laughs and talks a little nervously, and even is slightly distrait, while Zai sings in her fresh sweet soprano a bit of Swinburne, set to pathetic music
If I could but know after all,
I might cease to hunger and ache,
Though your heart were ever so small,
If it were not a stone or a snake.
He seems to look past her dainty chesnut-crowned head, as he listens to these words, at Gabrielle Gabrielle, with her wild wet eyes, her white passion-tossed features, her clinging arms and bitter reproach.
All night long, through his sleep, they come back to him, and will not be thrust away.
Once more, at breakfast, the empty chair faces him, and in spite of himself he says to his hostess, I hope Miss Beranger is better to-day?
Yes! I think so, Lady Beranger answers; at any rate, well enough to travel. Gabrielle went off by the early train to Southampton, I believe, didnt she, Trixy?
I think so, mamma; at least, Fanchette told me. She has gone, but she never said good-bye.
Ah! just like her, Lady Beranger observes, carelessly. Gabrielle is so queer, so bizarre, you know. And she takes another help of fillet de sole, and gives no further thought to her stepdaughter.
Will you come out on the lawn, the morning is perfect? Lord Delaval says to Zai, when they make a move from the table, and she, who has determined to love him and obey him, turns up a fair sweet face, and smiling, runs away for her hat.
He looks after her slender figure with visible admiration in his eyes. Zai is his beau ideal, pro tem. of womankind.
Dont be long away, he calls, softly; and he longs to have her with him, where, sending the convenances au diable, he can gaze his fill on her beauty, and kiss her to his hearts content.
A letter for you! my lord.
He starts and stammers as he asks:
For me?
And, as he takes the sealed missive in his hand, a sort of foreboding makes him pale and shrink from opening it.
He even forgets to wait for Zai, but walks out of the house, and down towards the far end of the grounds, before he breaks the seal.
A letter for you! my lord.
He starts and stammers as he asks:
For me?
And, as he takes the sealed missive in his hand, a sort of foreboding makes him pale and shrink from opening it.
He even forgets to wait for Zai, but walks out of the house, and down towards the far end of the grounds, before he breaks the seal.
When you read this, Delaval, I shall be dead. What folly! I hear you say. But folly or not, it is the truth. Oh, Delaval, I wonder I did not die yesterday! when you killed me with your hard words and looks. I cannot, I say, live and know that the love and caresses that are all the world to me are given to another woman. I have no home, no friends, no money. What then is left to me but death! Good-bye! my love! my love! My last prayer will be that some day you will say to yourself, She loved me best of all. Good-bye!
Gabrielle.When he has read it all, his first thought is, What a very unpleasant state of affairs.
He cannot show the letter to his future wife or her people. He cannot give a hint that Gabrielle may have committed the atrocious folly of putting an end to herself. True, the uncertainty of her fate does not conduce to his comfort or his equanimity of mind, but it is not to be thought of that he should cut his own throat by showing her letter.
Here goes! he says, at last, with a sigh of relief, as the torn fragments of Gabrielles last words scatter to the four winds, and he turns with a tender smile to meet his betrothed, who comes slowly and sadly, as it seems to him, up the garden walk.
I thought you were never coming, darling, he whispers in his softest voice, while his ultramarine eyes look into her own longingly, yearningly.
But Zais grey eyes do not respond, and her face is very grave as she falters:
Gabrielle! oh, how shall I tell you Gabrielle ?
Yes, he questions feverishly, staring at her in his bewilderment.
Poor Gabrielle is dead!
Dead?
Yes! We thought she had gone to Southampton, but she hasnt for oh! what could have made her do it? she cries, looking up with piteous eyes into his white face. She has drowned herself in the river! What could have made her do such a terrible thing?
God knows! he says.
It is quite true what Zai has told him.
Close to the brink of the Urling river that runs through the Sandilands estate they have found Gabrielles hat. How well they know it, the dainty hat with its pompon of vivid scarlet and black!
For five days they drag the river without success, but on the sixth day a human form is brought and laid on the silvery bed of sand.
A womans form, tall and slender like Gabrielles, yet so unlike, for it is terrible to look upon. The light summer dress she wore is tattered and draggled and discoloured beyond recognition, and the face, but none who have known her can look twice on the fearful lineaments that the water have so cruelly caressed and changed.
Not even her own father can believe that this awful thing lying at his feet can be all that is left of his beautiful daughter, Gabrielle Beranger.
* * * * *Again Lady Beranger has to mourn like her fellow quality in deep kilts procured on credit but this time she has a certain satisfaction in it, which she salves down her conscience with by saying:
Gabrielle was such a queer girl that she must have come to an out-of-the-way end. She was so fast, so bizarre, so dreadfully indifferent to the bienséances and the convenances, you know, and, dear Marchioness, is it not far better to have drowned herself than to have gone to the bad?
The Marchioness, who has had a jeunesse orageuse herself, shakes her dyed curls solemnly and virtuously.
Very true, dear Lady Beranger. Once a girl has got the bit between her teeth, she is sure to ride to the Devil, and poor dear Gabrielle always struck me as the sort that go the fastest. Well! well! we must console ourselves by the hope that the best thing possible has happened to her. And how long are the weddings put off for?
Till November. This is not the first time Gabrielle has inconvenienced me, but I suppose we must delay the marriages for two months, or people will talk. All these sort of things entail so much expense too; no sooner has one gone into half-mourning for my dear lost Baby, but theres the deep black for Gabrielle again. It really seems to me that she only thought of herself, and did not care a bit for the annoyance and inconvenience she caused to others!
CHAPTER II.
CARLTON CONWAY
But love so lightly plighted,
Our love with torch unlighted,
Paused near us unaffrighted,
Who found and left him free.
None seeing us cloven in sunder,
Will weep, or laugh, or wonder,
Light love stands clear of thunder,
And safe from winds at sea.
November has set in with its yellow fogs and gloom, and the Berangers are back in Belgrave Square, for the dual weddings come off in another ten days, and the trousseau requires her ladyships taste and personal supervision in the finishing touches.
Trixy, whose nature is made up of frivolity and bagatelles, and to whom the colour of a dress or the shape of a bonnet are solemn subjects for reflection and consideration, is an enthusiastic shopper, but not so Zai.
It is seldom that she can call up courage enough to wade through Elises and Worths establishments, to devote her whole and sole attention to the important point as to whether her chemisette shall be edged with Valenciennes or Honiton.
Zai is studiously learning to care for the man she is going to marry in a few days, and this subject engrosses her to the expulsion of all extraneous matter.
Down on her knees beside her little white curtained bed she prays that the gift of loving Lord Delaval may be given her. Downstairs, while he sits beside her, the same prayer goes on in her heart, for, born and bred in Belgravia, Zai is the best little thing that ever tried to do her duty towards God and man.
This much has been vouchsafed her, that Carlton Conway, who has been the stumbling block in her path to reaching the goal she desires, has never turned up on the scene to open by his presence the old wound, which Zai firmly believes now is closed for always.
Once she has heard him mentioned at an afternoon tea, but it was only to the effect that his marriage with Miss Meredyth was put off for a while.
Zai has never forgotten, never will forget perhaps, the days when Carl was all in all to her. She lived an enchanted life during the time, for all the love her girls heart knew swept into one great channel and poured itself out at his feet. Paradise had opened for her out of the dull monotony of Belgravian life and moments golden with the light of romance had shone on her with a radiance like unto no other radiance of time. And she certainly had not stayed then to count the cost of the bitter desolation that followed.
After all Eve herself would hardly have surrendered the memory of Eden for all the joys to be found on earth, and she must have dreamed of it full many a time and waked to weep such tears of unavailing regret as have watered this sad planet of ours most plenteously.
The London world outside is full of fog and gloom, with a few feeble gas lamps struggling through it, but inside the drawing-room in Belgrave Square with its firelight and luxury is conducive enough to dreaming.