A Lady of Quality Part 18

When she had gone forth it had been with no hope in her breast that her wit might devise a way to free herself from the thing which so beset her, for she had no weak fancies that there dwelt in this base soul any germ of honour which might lead it to relenting. As she had sat in her dark room at night, crouched upon the floor, and clenching her hands, as the mad thoughts went whirling through her brain, she had stared her Fate in the face and known all its awfulness. Before her lay the rapture of a great, sweet, honourable pa.s.sion, a high and n.o.ble life lived in such bliss as rarely fell to lot of woman-on this one man she knew that she could lavish all the splendour of her nature, and make his life a heaven, as hers would be. Behind her lay the mad, uncared-for years, and one black memory blighting all to come, though 'twould have been but a black memory with no power to blight if the heaven of love had not so opened to her and with its light cast all else into shadow.

"If 'twere not love," she cried-"if 'twere but ambition, I could defy it to the last; but 'tis love-love-love, and it will kill me to forego it."

Even as she moaned the words she heard hoof beats near her, and a horseman leaped the hedge and was at her side. She set her teeth, and turning, stared into John Oxon's face.

"Did you think I would not follow you?" he asked.

"No," she answered.

"I have followed you at a distance hitherto," he said; "now I shall follow close."

She did not speak, but galloped on.

"Think you you can outride me?" he said grimly, quickening his steed's pace. "I go with your ladys.h.i.+p to your own house. For fear of scandal you have not openly rebuffed me previous to this time; for a like reason you will not order your lacqueys to shut your door when I enter it with you."

My Lady Dunstanwolde turned to gaze at him again. The sun shone on his bright falling locks and his blue eyes as she had seen it s.h.i.+ne in days which seemed so strangely long pa.s.sed by, though they were not five years agone.

"'Tis strange," she said, with a measure of wonder, "to live and be so black a devil."

"Bah! my lady," he said, "these are fine words-and fine words do not hold between us. Let us leave them. I would escort you home, and speak to you in private." There was that in his mocking that was madness to her, and made her sick and dizzy with the boiling of the blood which surged to her brain. The fury of pa.s.sion which had been a terror to all about her when she had been a child was upon her once more, and though she had thought herself freed from its dominion, she knew it again and all it meant. She felt the thundering beat in her side, the hot flood leaping to her cheek, the flame burning her eyes themselves as if fire was within them. Had he been other than he was, her face itself would have been a warning. But he pressed her hard. As he would have slunk away a beaten cur if she had held the victory in her hands, so feeling that the power was his, he exulted over the despairing frenzy which was in her look.

"I pay back old scores," he said. "There are many to pay. When you crowned yourself with roses and set your foot upon my face, your ladys.h.i.+p thought not of this! When you gave yourself to Dunstanwolde and spat at me, you did not dream that there could come a time when I might goad as you did."

She struck Devil with her whip, who leaped forward; but Sir John followed hard behind her. He had a swift horse too, and urged him fiercely, so that between these two there was a race as if for life or death. The beasts bounded forward, spurning the earth beneath their feet. My lady's face was set, her eyes were burning flame, her breath came short and pantingly between her teeth. Oxon's fair face was white with pa.s.sion; he panted also, but strained every nerve to keep at her side, and kept there.

"Keep back! I warn thee!" she cried once, almost gasping.

"Keep back!" he answered, blind with rage. "I will follow thee to h.e.l.l!"

And in this wise they galloped over the white road until the hedges disappeared and they were in the streets, and people turned to look at them, and even stood and stared. Then she drew rein a little and went slower, knowing with shuddering agony that the trap was closing about her.

"What is it that you would say to me?" she asked him breathlessly.

"That which I would say within four walls that you may hear it all," he answered. "This time 'tis not idle threatening. I have a thing to show you."

Through the streets they went, and as her horse's hoofs beat the pavement, and the pa.s.sers-by, looking towards her, gazed curiously at so fine a lady on so splendid a brute, she lifted her eyes to the houses, the booths, the faces, and the sky, with a strange fancy that she looked about her as a man looks who, doomed to death, is being drawn in his cart to Tyburn tree. For 'twas to death she went, nor to naught else could she compare it, and she was so young and strong, and full of love and life, and there should have been such bliss and peace before her but for one madness of her all-unknowing days. And this beside her-this man with the fair face and looks and beauteous devil's eyes, was her hangman, and carried his rope with him, and soon would fit it close about her neck.

When they rode through the part of the town where abode the World of Fas.h.i.+on, those who saw them knew them, and marvelled that the two should be together.

"But perhaps his love has made him sue for pardon that he has so borne himself," some said, "and she has chosen to be gracious to him, since she is gracious in these days to all."

When they reached her house he dismounted with her, wearing an outward air of courtesy; but his eye mocked her, as she knew. His horse was in a lather of sweat, and he spoke to a servant.

"Take my beast home," he said. "He is too hot to stand, and I shall not soon be ready."

CHAPTER XVI-Dealing with that which was done in the Panelled Parlour

He followed her to the Panelled Parlour, the one to which she had taken Osmonde on the day of their bliss, the one in which in the afternoon she received those who came to pay court to her over a dish of tea. In the mornings none entered it but herself or some invited guest. 'Twas not the room she would have chosen for him; but when he said to her, "'Twere best your ladys.h.i.+p took me to some private place," she had known there was no other so safe.

When the door was closed behind them, and they stood face to face, they were a strange pair to behold-she with mad defiance battling with mad despair in her face; he with the mocking which every woman who had ever trusted him or loved him had lived to see in his face when all was lost. Few men there lived who were as vile as he, his power of villainy lying in that he knew not the meaning of man's shame or honour.

"Now," she said, "tell me the worst."

"'Tis not so bad," he answered, "that a man should claim his own, and swear that no other man shall take it from him. That I have sworn, and that I will hold to."

"Your own!" she said-"your own you call it-villain!"

"My own, since I can keep it," quoth he. "Before you were my Lord of Dunstanwolde's you were mine-of your own free will."

"Nay, nay," she cried. "G.o.d! through some madness I knew not the awfulness of-because I was so young and had known naught but evil-and you were so base and wise."

"Was your ladys.h.i.+p an innocent?" he answered. "It seemed not so to me."

"An innocent of all good," she cried-"of all things good on earth-of all that I know now, having seen manhood and honour."

"His Grace of Osmonde has not been told this," he said; "and I should make it all plain to him."

"What do you ask, devil?" she broke forth. "What is't you ask?"

"That you shall not be the d.u.c.h.ess of Osmonde," he said, drawing near to her; "that you shall be the wife of Sir John Oxon, as you once called yourself for a brief s.p.a.ce, though no priest had mumbled over us-"

"Who was't divorced us?" she said, gasping; "for I was an honest thing, though I knew no other virtue. Who was't divorced us?"

"I confess," he answered, bowing, "that 'twas I-for the time being. I was young, and perhaps fickle-"

"And you left me," she cried, "and I found that you had come but for a bet-and since I so bore myself that you could not boast, and since I was not a rich woman whose fortune would be of use to you, you followed another and left me-me!"

"As his Grace of Osmonde will when I tell him my story," he answered. "He is not one to brook that such things can be told of the mother of his heirs."

She would have shrieked aloud but that she clutched her throat in time.

"Tell him!" she cried, "tell him, and see if he will hear you. Your word against mine!"

"Think you I do not know that full well," he answered, and he brought forth a little package folded in silk. "Why have I done naught but threaten till this time? If I went to him without proof, he would run me through with his sword as I were a mad dog. But is there another woman in England from whose head her lover could ravish a lock as long and black as this?"

He unfolded the silk, and let other silk unfold itself, a great and thick ring of raven hair which uncoiled its serpent length, and though he held it high, was long enough after surging from his hand to lie upon the floor.

"Merciful G.o.d!" she cried, and shuddering, hid her face.

"'Twas a bet, I own," he said; "I heard too much of the mad beauty and her disdain of men not to be fired by a desire to prove to her and others, that she was but a woman after all, and so was to be won. I took an oath that I would come back some day with a trophy-and this I cut when you knew not that I did it."

She clutched her throat again to keep from shrieking in her-impotent horror.

"Devil, craven, and loathsome-and he knows not what he is!" she gasped. "He is a mad thing who knows not that all his thoughts are of h.e.l.l."