“But I shall,” — he said gently— “Nobody can prevent it. I shall always love you.”
She sat very still a moment, — the brooding shadow heavy on her face.
“You think so now,” — she murmured more to herself than to him,— “Poor boy — you think so now — but when you know—”
Then she caught him close to her breast, and kissed him.
“Now for the downy nest!” she said, lifting him up, and laying him tenderly back into bed again, her eyes resting upon him with a miserable yearning, though she forced a strange distraught smile— “All the moonlight shines on your pale face, Lylie, and you look — oh, you look like a little dead child, my darling! — like a little dead child!”
And suddenly falling on her knees, she threw her arms across the bed and dropping her head upon them, sobbed as though her heart were breaking.
Poor Lionel shivered in every limb with alarm and distress, — his sensitive soul was racked by his mother’s anguish, though it was incomprehensible to him, — and he felt as if indeed it would be better to die than to see her thus.
“Don’t cry, mother!” he faltered at last faintly; “Oh don’t cry!”
She raised herself, and dried her eyes with a handkerchief from which the delicate odour of violets came floating, sweet as the breath of the living flowers.
“No, — I won’t cry, darling!” she answered, beginning to laugh hysterically, “I don’t know really why I should, because I am quite happy — quite!” And rising to her feet, she fastened her cloak about her with hands that trembled greatly — Lionel saw the diamonds on her white fingers shake like drops of dew about to fall,— “I’m going to have a splendid time and enjoy myself, thoroughly!” — this she said with a curiously defiant air— “and whatever happens afterwards may happen as it likes, — I don’t care!” She repeated the words with hard emphasis. “I don’t care! Years ago I should have cared — dreadfully, — but I’ve been taught not to care, and now I don’t. ‘Don’t Care’ was hung they say, — but as far as I’m concerned, it really doesn’t matter whether one’s hung, or drowned, or dies of a fever or a surfeit, — it’s all the same a hundred years hence!” She lifted her hands to her head, and with a coquettish touch settled the small velvet hat she wore, more becomingly on her clustering hair, — while Lionel looking up at her from his pillow, saw all her wonderful beauty transfigured, as it were, in the ethereal radiance of the moon, and as he looked he felt, by some strange instinct, that he must try to hold her back from some unknown yet menacing peril.
“Mother, don’t go!” he pleaded— “Stay to-night, at any rate! Wait till to-morrow, — oh, do, mother! Don’t leave me!”
He stretched out his emaciated little arms, — and his eyes, full of child-yearning and student thought commingled, appealed to her with a speechless eloquence. She bent over him again, and taking his hands, pressed them close to her bosom.
“Dear, if I had any heart I shouldn’t leave you;” — she said— “I know that. But I have none, — not a scrap. I want you to remember this, and then you will not feel at all sad about me. People without hearts always get on best in this world. Your mother used to have a heart, — full of romance, and nonsense, and sentiment, and faith, Lylie! — yes, dear, even faith. Your mother was a very ignorant woman once, so ignorant as to actually believe in a God! You know how angry your father is with silly folks who believe in a God? Well, he soon got me out of all those foolish ways, and taught me that the only necessary rule of life was Respectability. Oh, you don’t know how dull Respectability can be! — how insufferably hopelessly dull! You don’t know, — you can’t understand, that when the only object in life is to be respectable and nothing more, — no other ambition, no other future, no other end, — it becomes deadly! — even desperate! You can’t understand — you are too young, — poor Lylie! — you are only a child, — and I’m talking to you as if you were a man. Good-bye, dear! Love me for to-night — you may love me a little, just till morning comes, — I like to think you are loving me; — Good-bye!”
He clung round her neck.
“Don’t go, mother!” he whispered.
She kissed him passionately.
“I must, Lylie! I should die or go mad if I didn’t. I am tired to death, — I want a change!”
“But you won’t be long away?” he murmured, still holding her fast.
“Not long,” — she replied mechanically; “Not long! See, I’ll make you a promise, Lylie! — I’ll come back directly your father sends for me!” — and she laughed, — a little cold, mirthless laugh which somehow chilled Lionel’s blood,— “My little boy, — my pet, — you must not cling to me so! — you hurt me! — I cannot bear it — oh, I cannot bear it!”
A faint cry that was half a sob, escaped her, and she almost roughly unloosened his arms from about her neck, and put him back on his pillow. He was pained and bewildered.
“Did I really hurt you, mother? he asked wistfully.
“Yes, — you really hurt me. You — you pulled my hair;” — and she smiled, her beautiful eyes shining down upon him like stars in the semi- dark- darkness ness— “And I felt as though your little fingers were pulling at my heart too! Only I have no heart! — I forgot that, — but you mustn’t forget it.” She paused, — for at that moment the crunching noise of wheels was heard outside on the gravel of the carriage-drive, — and she listened, with a strange wild look of expectation on her face.
“You’ve read all about the French Revolution, Lylie, haven’t you? Oh yes, poor little mannikin, I know you have! — I daresay you’ve got all the troubles of Louis Seize by heart. You remember when the tumbrils or death-carts used to come rattling along the streets, to fetch the people for execution? Well, I heard the wheels of my death-cart just now, — it has come for me, — and I’m going to execution, by choice, not by compulsion!”
Roused to sudden energy, Lionel sprang up in his bed.
“Mother, mother, you sha’n’t go!” he exclaimed, quite desperately— “I’ll come with you if you do! — you mustn’t leave me behind!”
Her fair features hardened, as with a determined grasp she caught hold of him and laid him down again.
“Naughty boy!” she said sharply— “You’ll make me very angry and I shall be sorry I came to see you and say good-night. Lie still, and go to sleep. If you love me, you must obey me!”
Shivering a little, he turned from her, and hid his face in the pillow, shrinking from the imperious regard of those wonderful eyes of hers, which could flash with wrath as well as deepen with tenderness, — and the old dull sense that he was nothing to her, and less than nothing, stole upon him almost unawares. Presently, moved by quick penitence, she stooped towards him, and ran her fingers caressingly through his curls.
“There! I did not mean to be cross, Lylie! Forgive me! And kiss me good-bye, darling!”
Silently he put his arms round her, — the moonlight fell pallidly across the bed, spectrally illumining the faces of both child and mother, — on the one was written with touching pathos, the last hopeless, helpless appeal of innocence and grief, — on the other a reckless resolve, and a callous, despairing self-contempt. Life gone to waste and ruin through lovelessness and neglect; — such was the history declared in every line of Helen Valliscourt’s countenance, as she clasped her boy once more to her breast, kissing him on lips, cheeks and brow, and ruffling the thick soft clusters of his hair with loving lingering fingers.
“Good-bye! — good-bye!” she whispered— “I have no heart — or it would break, Lylie! Good-bye, my pet, — my baby! Love me till to-morrow — good-bye!”
With this last ‘good-bye’ — she tore herself resolutely away from him, — and before he could quite realise it, she had gone. He lay still for a moment trembling, — then on a sudden impulse left his bed, and ran bare-footed out on the landing, where he paused at the top of the stairs, frightened and irresolute. All was dark and silent.
“Mother!” he called faintly. A
door swung to with a creaking groan and rattle, — a rising wind sighed through the crevices.
“Mother!”
The plaintive cry was swallowed up and lost in the darkness, — but as he listened, with every nerve strained and every sense on the alert, he heard the noise of trotting horses’ hoofs and carriage-wheels, apparently retreating at a rapid rate up the Combmartin road. He rushed back to his room, and hastily opening the window, looked out. It was full moonlight, — every object in the landscape was as clearly defined as in broad day, — but not a trace of any human creature was visible. The night air was chilly, and his teeth chattered with cold, — but he was hardly aware of this, so great was the burden of sorrow and desolation that had fallen on his heart. He raised his eyes to the clear sky, — one splendid star, whose glowing lustre was scarcely lessened by the rays of the moon, shone immediately opposite to him like a silver sanctuary-lamp in heaven. Owls hooted, answering each other with dismal persistence, and scared bats fluttered in and out among the trees, which were now beginning to sway languidly to and fro in a light breeze coming up from the sea. And the impression of disaster and gloom deepened in the boy’s soul, — and once again from his trembling lips came the piteous wailing cry,
“Mother! Oh, mother!”
Then a great rush of tears blinded his sight, — and feeling his way back to bed through the salt haze of that bitter falling rain, he shiveringly huddled himself into a forlorn little heap of misery, and sobbed himself to sleep.
CHAPTER X.
NEXT morning he showed few signs of the grief he had suffered during the night. True, he was much paler than usual, and very silent, — but being well accustomed to hide his emotions and keep his troubles to himself, he complained of nothing, not even to Lucy when, as she brought him his breakfast she said, in rather a flurried manner,
“Your ma came home last night, Master Lionel, and went away again, — what do you think of that?”
“I don’t think anything” — he replied wearily; “Why should I? It’s not my business.”
Lucy hesitated. Should she tell him what all the servants in the house too truly suspected? — what the very villagers in Combmartin were already gossiping about at their cottage doors and in the common room of the inn?
“No, I can’t do it!” she mentally decided— “He looks as white as a little ghost, he do, and I won’t bother him. He wouldn’t understand maybe, and he’s got all his lessons to learn, poor little chap, and it’ll only unsettle him. Anyhow he’ll hear it fast enough!” Aloud she said, “I suppose your pa and the Professor will be home by the first coach from Lynton this morning?”
“I suppose so,” assented Lionel indifferently.
“I don’t like Lynton myself,” went on Lucy— “People talk about it a lot, but it’s just a nasty, damp, up-and-down place without any real comfort in it. They’ve got a queer tram-car now that slides up the hill from Lynmouth to Lynton, and that doesn’t make it any prettier I can tell you!” She paused; then added by way of a totally irrelevant after-thought, “There’s a letter addressed to your pa in your ma’s writing, waiting for him on his study-table.”
Lionel remained silent, pretending to be entirely absorbed in the enjoyment of his breakfast. Lucy, finding he was not inclined to talk, soon left him to himself, much to his relief, for when quite alone he was free to push away the food that nauseated him to even look at, and to think his own thoughts without interruption. His mother’s strange visit to his bedside during the night, — her stranger words, her tears, her kisses, seemed this morning more like the vague impressions of a dream than a reality, — and unless he had found the sash, — his own baby-sash, — she had left with him, under his pillow, he would have been inclined to doubt the whole incident. As it was, he was afraid to dwell too much upon it, for he had a horrible presentiment that it meant something more than he dared formulate, — something dreadful, — something hopeless, — something that for him, would bring great misery. He had carefully hidden away the “baby-sash,” — a four-yards’ length of broad soft ribbon, with the delicate design of a daisy-chain straying over its pale blue silken ground, — he had looked at it first with critical interest, wondering what he had been like when as an infant he had worn such a pretty thing, and noting that it was scented with the same delicious odour of violets that had been wafted from his mother’s handkerchief, when she had dried her eyes after her sudden fit of weeping. Having put it by in a safe place he knew of, he went to his books and set himself desperately to work, in order to try and forget his own disquietude. Beginning by translating a passage of Virgil into English blank verse, he went on to ‘Cæsar’s Com- Commentaries mentaries,’ — then he did several difficult and puzzling sums, and was stretching every small fibre of his young brain well on the rack of learning, when a coach-horn sounded, and he saw the Lynton coach itself come rattling down-hill into Combmartin. His father and Professor Cadman-Gore were on top, — that he saw at a glance, — and in another few minutes he, taking cautious peeps from the school-room window, perceived their two familiar figures walking up the drive and entering the house. And now — something seemed to stop the boy from the resumption of his tasks, — a curious sensation came over him as though he were imperiously bidden to wait and hear the worst. What worst? He could not analyse any ‘worst’ satisfactorily to himself — yet....
A violent ringing of bells in the outside corridor startled him and set his heart beating rapidly, — he got up from his chair and stood, anxiously listening and wondering what was the matter. All at once his father’s voice pitched in a high hoarse key of utmost wrath, called loudly,
“Lionel! Lionel! Where is the boy? Has he turned tramp, as his mother has turned—”
The sentence was left unfinished, for at that moment Lionel ran down the stairs quickly and faced him.
“I am here, father!”
He trembled as he spoke, for he thought his father had suddenly gone mad. Crimson with fury, his eyes rolling wildly in his head, his wolfish teeth clenched on his under-lip, he was a terrible sight to see, — and his fiendish aspect overwhelmed poor Lionel with such alarm that he scarcely perceived the Professor, who stood in the background, cracking his great knuckles together and widening his mouth into a strangely sardonic grin. Directly his little son appeared, Mr. Valliscourt pulled himself up as it were by a violent effort, and bringing his eyebrows together so that they met in a hard black line on the bridge of his nose, he said in choked fierce accents —
“Oh, you are here! Did you— “he paused, took breath, and resumed— “Did you see your mother yesterday?”
“Yes” — answered the boy faintly— “I saw her last night. I was in bed, and she came and woke me up, and said good-bye to me.”
Mr. Valliscourt glared at the fragile trembling little figure in frowning scorn.
“Said good-bye to you? Was that all? — or was there anything else? Speak out!”
Lionel’s teeth began to chatter with fear.
“She said, — she said she was going on a visit with — with a friend who would make her happy,” — here a deep and awful oath sprang from Mr. Valliscourt’s lips, causing the Professor to cough loudly by way of remonstrance,— “and — and — she said she was not very happy just now, and that she wanted a change. She said she would not be gone long, and she cried very much, and kissed me. And she promised she would come back as soon as you sent for her. Oh dear! — whatever is the matter? Oh father, do tell me, please!”
He staggered a little, — his head swam, — and he lost breath.
“Yes, I will tell you!” cried his father furiously— “I will tell you truths, as she has told you lies! Your mother is a vile woman! — a wretch, — a drab! — a disgrace to me and to you! Do you know what it is when a wife leaves her husband, and runs away like a thief in the night with another man? If you do not know, you must learn, — for this is what your mother has done! The ‘friend’ who is to ‘make her happy,’” — and Mr. Valliscourt’s angry visage
darkened with a hideous sneer— “is Sir Charles Lascelles, the fashionable pet blackguard of society, — she has gone with him, — she will never come back! She has dishonoured my name, and glories in her dishonour! Never think of her again, — never speak of her! From this day, remember you have no mother!”
Lionel put up his trembling little hands to his head as though he sought to shield himself from a storm of blows. His heart beat wildly, — he tried to speak but could not. He stared helplessly at Professor Cadman-Gore, and half fancied he saw a gleam of something like pity flicker across the wrinkled and sour physiognomy of that learned man, — but all was blurred and dim before his sight, — and the only distinct things he realised were the horror of his father’s face and the still greater horror of his father’s words.
“You know the meaning of a shamed life;” — went on Mr. Valliscourt ruthlessly— “Young as you are, you have read in history how there have been men, — and women too, — who have chosen to die, rather than live disgraced. Not so your mother! She delights in her wickedness, — she elects to live in open immorality rather than in honour. In her wanton selfishness she has thought nothing either of me or of you. She is thoroughly bad, — in olden times she would have been set in the pillory, or whipped at the cart’s tail! And richly would she have deserved such punishment!” and as he spoke his right hand clenched suddenly, as though in imagination he held the scourge he would fain have used to bruise and scarify the flesh of his erring wife— “When you are a man, you will blush to think she ever was your mother. She has made herself a scandal to society, — she is a debased and degraded example of impudence, dishonesty and infamy! — she—”
But here Lionel stumbled forward giddily, and laid his weak little hand appealingly on his father’s arm.
“Oh no, father, no! I can’t bear it, — I can’t bear it!” he cried— “I love her! — I love her! — I do indeed! — I can’t help it. She kissed me — only last night, father! — yes, and she took me in her arms, — oh, I can’t forget it, — I can’t really! I love her — I do! — Oh mother — mother!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 386