Maryllia smiled coldly.
“That is a threat,” — she said— “But it does not affect me! Nothing that you can do or say will make me consent to marry you. You have slandered me already — you can slander me again for all I care. But I will never be your wife.”
“You have said so before,” — he observed, placidly— “And I have put the question many times — why?”
She looked at him steadily.
“Shall I tell you?”
“Do! I shall appreciate the favour!”
For a moment she hesitated. A great pain and sorrow clouded her eyes.
“No woman marries a leper by choice!” — she said at last, slowly.
He glanced at her, — then shrugged his shoulders.
“You talk in parables. Pardon me if I am too dull to understand you!”
“You understand me well enough,” — she answered— “But if you wish it, I will speak more plainly. I dream of love—”
“Most women do!” he interrupted her, smilingly— “And I am sure you dream charmingly. But is a middle-aged parson part of the romantic vision?”
She paid no heed to this sarcasm. She had moved a pace or two away from him, and now stood, her head slightly uplifted, her eyes turned wistfully towards the picturesque gables of the Manor outlined clearly in the moon against the dense night sky.
“I dream of love!” — she repeated softly, — while he, smoking tranquilly, and looking the very image of a tailor’s model in his faultlessly cut dress suit, spotless shirt front, and aggressively neat white tie, studied her face, her figure and her attitude with amused interest— “But my dream is not what the world offers me as the dream’s realisation! The love that I mean — the love that I seek- -the love that I want — the love that I will have,” — and she raised her hand involuntarily with a slight gesture which almost implied a command— “or else go loveless all my days — is an honest love, — loyal, true and pure! — and strong enough to last through this life and all the lives to come!”
“If there are any!” — interpolated Roxmouth, blandly.
She looked at him, — and a vague expression of something like physical repulsion flitted across her face.
“It is no use talking to you,” — she said— “For you believe in nothing — not even in God! You are a man of your own making — you are not a man in the true sense of manhood. How can you know anything of love? You will not find it in the low haunts of Paris where you are so well known, — where your name is a byword as that of an English ‘milord’ who degrades his Order!”
“What do YOU know of the low haunts of Paris?” he queried with a cold laugh— “Is Louis Gigue your informant?’
“I daresay Louis Gigue knows as much of you as most men do,” — she replied, quietly— “But I never speak of you to him. Indeed, I never speak of you at all unless you are spoken of, and not always then. You do not interest me sufficiently!”
She moved towards the house. He followed her.
“Your remarks have been somewhat rambling and disjointed,” — he said- -”But essentially feminine, after all. And they merely tend to one thing — that you are still an untamed shrew!”
She looked back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight, — a faint smile curved her pretty mouth.
“If I am, it will need someone braver than you are to tame me!” she said— “A trickster is always a coward!”
With an angry exclamation he flung away the end of his cigar, — it fell into a harmless bed of mignonette and seared the sweet blossom, burning redly in the green like a wicked eye. And then he caught her hand firmly and held it grasped as in a vice.
“You insult me!” he said, thickly— “And I shall not forget it! You talk as a child talks — though you are no child! You are a woman of the world — you have travelled — you have had experience — and you know men. You are perfectly aware that the sentimental ‘love’ you speak of exists nowhere except in poems and story-books — you know that no sane man alive would tie himself to one woman save for the law’s demand that his heirs shall be lawfully born. You are no shrinking maid in her teens, that you should start and recoil or blush, at the truth of the position, and it is the merest affectation on your part to talk about ‘love lasting forever,’ for you are perfectly aware that it cannot last very long over the honeymoon. The natural state of man is polygamous. Englishmen are the same as Turks or Hottentots in this respect, except for the saving grace of hypocrisy, which is the chief prop of European civilisation. If it were not for hypocrisy, we should all be savages as utterly and completely as in primaeval days! You know all this as well as I do — and yet you feign to desire the impossible, while all the time you play the fool with a country parson! But I’ll make you pay for it — by Heaven, I will! You scorn me and my name — you call me a social leper—”
“You are one!” she said, wrenching her hand from his clasp— “And what is more, you know it, and you glory in it! Who are your associates? Men who are physically or morally degenerate — women who, so long as their appetites are satisfied, seek nothing more! You play the patron to a certain literary ‘set’ who produce books unfit to be read by any decent human being, — you work your way, by means of your title and position, through society, contaminating everything you touch! You contaminate ME by associating my name with yours! — and my aunt helps you in the wicked scheme! I came here to my own home — to the house where my father died — thinking that perhaps here at least I should find peace,” — and her voice shook as with tears— “that here, at least, the old walls might give me shelter and protection! — but even here you followed me with your paid spy, Marius Longford — and I have found myself surrounded by your base tools almost despite myself! But even if you try to hound me into my grave, I will never marry you! I would rather die a hundred times over than be your wife!”
His face flushed a dark red, and he suddenly made an though he would seize her in his arms. She retreated swiftly.
“Do not touch me!” she said, in a low, strained voice— “It will be the worse for you if you do!”
“The worse for me — or for YOU?” he muttered fiercely, — then regaining his composure, he burst into an angry laugh. “Bah! You are nothing but a woman! You fling aside what you have, and pine for what you have not! The old, old story! The eternal feminine!”
She made no reply, but moved on towards the house. “Quel ravissement de la lune!” exclaimed a deep guttural voice at this juncture, and Louis Gigue came out from the dark embrasure of the Manor’s oaken portal into the full splendour of the moonlight— “Et la belle Mademoiselle Vancourt is ze adorable fantome of ze night! Et milord Roxmouth ze what-you-call? — ze gnome! — ze shadow of ze lumiere! Ha-ha! C’est joli, zat little chanson of ze little rose- tree! Ze music, c’est une inspiration de Cicely — and ze words are not so melancolique as ze love-songs made ordinairement en Angleterre! Oui — oui! — c’est joli!”
He turned his shrewd old face up to the sky, and blinked at the dim stars, — there was a smile under his grizzled moustache. He had interrupted the conversation between his hostess and her objectionable wooer precisely at the right moment, and he knew it. Roxmouth’s pale face grew a shade paler, but he made a very good assumption of perfect composure, and taking out his case of cigars offered one to Gigue, who cheerfully accepted it. Then he lit one for himself with a hand that trembled slightly. Maryllia, pausing on the step of the porch as she was about to enter, turned her head back towards him for a moment.
“Are you staying long at Badsworth Hall?” she asked.
“About a fortnight or three weeks,” — he answered carelessly, “Mr. Longford is doing some literary work and needs the quiet of the country — and Sir Morton Pippitt is good enough to wish us to extend our visit.”
He smiled as he spoke. She said nothing further, but slowly passed into the house. Gigue at once began to walk up and down the courtyard, smoking vigorously, and talking volubly concerning the future
of his pupil Cicely Bourne, and the triumph she would make some two years hence as a ‘prima donna assoluta,’ far greater than Patti ever was in her palmiest days, — and Roxmouth was perforce compelled, out of civility, as well as immediate diplomacy, to listen to him with some show of interest.
“Do you think an artistic career a good thing for a woman?” he asked, with a slight touch of satire in his voice as he put the question.
Gigue glanced up at him quickly and comprehendingly.
“Ah, bah! Pour une femme il n’y’a qu’une chose — l’Amour!” he replied— “Mais — au meme temps — l’Art c’est mieux qu’un mariage de convenance!”
Roxmouth shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly, smiled tolerantly, and changed the subject.
That same evening, when everyone had retired to bed, and when Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay was carefully taking off her artistically woven ‘real hair’ eyebrows and putting them by in a box for the night, Lady Beaulyon, arrayed in a marvellous ‘deshabille’ of lace and pale blue satin, which would have been called by the up-to-date modiste ‘a dream of cerulean sweetness,’ came into her room with dejection visibly written on her photographically valuable features.
“It’s all over, Pipkin!” she said, with a sigh, — Pipkin was the poetic pet-name by which the ‘beauty’ of the press-paragraphist addressed her Ever-Youthful friend,— “We shall never get a penny out of Mrs. Fred Vancourt. Maryllia is a mule! She has told me as plainly as politeness will allow her to do that she does not intend to know either you or me any more after we have left here — and you know we’re off to-morrow. So to-morrow ends the acquaintance. That girl’s ‘cheek’ is beyond words! One would think she was an empress, instead of being a little bounder with only an old Manor-house and certainly not more than two thousand a year in her own right!”
‘Pipkin’ stared. That she was destitute of eyebrows, save for a few iron-grey bristles where eyebrows should have been, and that her beautiful Titian hair was lying dishevelled on her dressing table, were facts entirely lost sight of in the stupefaction of the moment.
“Maryllia Vancourt does not intend to know US!” she ejaculated,— “Nonsense, Eva! The girl must be mad!”
“Mad or sane, that’s what she says,” — and Eva Beaulyon turned away from the spectacle of her semi-bald and eyebrow-less confidante with a species of sudden irritation and repulsion— “She declares we are in the pay of her aunt and Lord Roxmouth. So we are, more or less! And what does it matter! Money must be had — and whatever way there is of getting it should be taken. I laughed at her, and told her quite frankly that I would do anything for money, — flatter a millionaire one day and cut him the next, if I could get cheques for doing both. How in the world should I get on without money? — or you either! But she is an incorrigible little idiot — talks about honour and principle exactly like some mediaeval story-book. She declares she will never speak to either of us again after we’ve gone away to- morrow. Of course we can easily reverse the position and turn the tables upon her by saying we will not speak to her again. That will be easy enough — for I believe she’s after the parson.”
Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay’s eyes lightened with malignity.
“What, that man who objected to our smoke?”
Lady Beaulyon nodded.
“And I think Roxmouth sees it!” — she added.
‘Pipkin’ looked weirdly meditative and curiously wizened for a moment. Then she suddenly laughed and clapped her hands.
“That will do!” she exclaimed— “That’s quite good enough for US! Mrs. Fred will pay for THAT information! Don’t you see?”
Lady Beaulyon shook her head.
“Don’t you? Well, wait till we get back to town!” — and ‘Pipkin’ took up her false hair and shook it gently, as she spoke— “We can do wonders — wonders, I tell you, Eva! And till we go, we’ll be as nice to the girl as we can, — go off good friends and all that sort of thing — tell her how much we’ve enjoyed ourselves — thank her profusely, — and then once away we’ll tell Mrs. Fred all about John Walden, and leave her to do as she likes with the story. That will be quite enough! If Maryllia has any sneaking liking for the man, she’ll do anything to save HIS name if she doesn’t care about saving her own!”
“Oh, I see now!” and Lady Beaulyon’s eyes sparkled up with a gleam of malice— “Yes — I quite understand!”
‘Pipkin’ danced about the room in ecstasy, — she was half undressed for the night, and showed a pair of exceedingly thin old legs under an exceedingly short young petticoat.
“Maryllia Vancourt and a country parson!” she exclaimed, “The whole thing is TOO delicious! Go to bed, Eva! Get your beauty sleep or you’ll have ever so many more wrinkles than you need! Good-night, dearest! If Maryllia declines to know US, we shall soon find excellent reasons for not knowing HER! Good-night!”
With a shrill little laugh, the lady kissed her dear friend affectionately — and if the caress was not returned with very great fervour, it may be presumed that this coldness was due more to the unlovely impression created by the night ‘toilette’ of the Ever- Youthful one, than anything else. Anyway the two social schemers parted on the most cordial terms, and retired to their several couches with an edifying sense of virtue pervading them both morally and physically.
And while they and others in the Manor were sleeping, Maryllia lay broad awake, watching the moonbeams creeping about her room like thin silver threads, interlacing every object in a network of pale luminance, — and listening to the slow tick-tock of the rusty timepiece in the courtyard which said, ‘Give all — take nothing — give — all — take — no — thing!’ — with such steady and monotonous persistence. She was sad yet happy, — perplexed, yet peaceful; — she had decided on her own course of action, and though that course involved some immediate vexation and inconvenience to herself, she was satisfied that it was the only one possible to adopt under the irritating circumstances by which she was hemmed in and surrounded.
“It will be best for everyone concerned,” — she said, with a sigh— “Of course it upsets all my plans and spoils my whole summer, — but it is the only thing to do — the wisest and safest, both for — for Mr. Walden — and for me. I should be a very poor friend if I could not sacrifice myself and my own pleasure to save him from possible annoyance, — and though it is a little hard — yes! — it IS hard! — it can’t be helped, and I must go through with it. ‘Home, Home, sweet Home!’ Yes — dear old Home! — you shall not be darkened by a shadow of deceit or treachery if I can prevent it! — and for the present, my way is the only way!”
One or two tears glittered on her long lashes when she at last fell into a light slumber, and the old pendulum’s rusty voice croaking out: ‘Give all — take no — thing’ echoed hoarsely through her dreams like a harsh command which it was more or less difficult to obey. But life, as we all know, is not made up of great events so much as of irritating trifles, — poor, wretched, apparently insignificant trifles, which, nevertheless do so act upon our destinies sometimes as to put everything out of gear, and make havoc and confusion where there should be nothing but peace. It was the merest trifle that Sir Morton Pippitt should have brought his ‘distinguished guests,’ including Marius Longford, to see John Walden’s church — and also have taken him to visit Maryllia in her own home; — it was equally trifling that Longford, improving on the knightly Bone-Melter’s acquaintance, should have chosen to import Lord Roxmouth into the neighbourhood through the convenient precincts of Badsworth Hall; — it was a trifle that Maryllia should have actually believed in the good faith of two women who had formerly entertained her at their own houses and whose hospitality she was anxious to return; — and it was a trifle that John Walden should, so to speak, have made a conventionally social ‘slip’ in his protest against smoking women; — but there the trifles stopped. Maryllia knew well enough that only the very strongest feeling, the very deepest and most intense emotion could have made the quiet, self-contained ‘man o’ G
od’ as Mrs. Spruce called him, speak to her as he had done, — and she also knew that only the most bitter malice and cruel under-intent to do mischief could have roused Roxmouth, usually so coldly self-centred, to the white heat of wrath which had blazed out of him that evening. Between these two men she stood — a quite worthless object of regard, so she assured herself, — through her, one of them was like to have his name torn to shreds in the foul mouths of up-to-date salacious slanderers, — and likewise through her, the other was prepared and ready to commit himself to any kind of lie, any sort of treachery, in order to gain his own interested ends. Small wonder that tears rose to her eyes even in sleep — and that in an uneasy and confused dream she saw John Walden standing in his garden near the lilac-tree from which he had once given her a spray, — and that he turned upon her a sad white face, furrowed with pain and grief, while he said in weary accents— “Why have you troubled my peace? I was so happy till you came!” And she cried out— “Oh, let me go away! No one wants me! I have never been loved much in all my life — but I am loving enough not to wish to give pain to my friends — let me go away from my dear old home and never come back again, rather than make you wretched!”
And then with a cry she awoke, shivering and half-sobbing, to feel herself the loneliest of little mortals — to long impotently for her father’s touch, her father’s kiss, — to pray to that dimly-radiant phantom of her mother’s loveliness which was pictured on her brain, and anon to stretch out her pretty rounded arms with a soft cry of mingled tenderness and pain— “Oh, I am so sorry! — so sorry for HIM! I know he is unhappy! — and it’s all my fault! I wish — I wish—”
But what she wished she could not express, even to herself. Her sensitive nature was keenly alive to every slight impression of kindness or of coldness; — and the intense longing for love, which had been the pulse of her inmost being since her earliest infancy, and which had filled her with such passionate devotion to her father that her grief at his loss had been almost abnormally profound and despairing, made her feel poignantly every little incident which emphasised, or seemed to emphasise, her own utter loneliness in the world; and she was just now strung up to such a nervous tension, that she would almost have consented to wed Lord Roxmouth if by so doing she could have saved any possible mischief occurring to John Walden through Roxmouth’s malignancy. But the shuddering physical repulsion she felt at the bare contemplation of such a marriage was too strong for her.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 632