CHAPTER XXIV

"WHITE HYACINTHS"

I am driven to what is either the vehicle for the sentimental vaporings of a school girl, or the last resource of a desperate, friendless woman. I am going to set down on blank paper the record of events here just in the way they occur to me. I am going to enjoy the luxury of being honest to myself. I need not say in which of the above states I am. That is soon shown.

I would to God that I had died before I had come here; before I had sought out my uncle, Count Marioni, and listened to the pitiful story of his wrongs. I am pledged to a purpose so awful that I dare not think of it. Day by day I am expecting the time to arrive for the accomplishment of my hideous vow. God keep it back! Keep me innocent a little longer!

I write this in a weak moment. There are times when my uncle's wistful eyes seem turned upon me, full of mute pleading, and the old spirit of my race stirs up a great passion of hate in my heart. Then the thing seems easy; I long for a weapon that I may end the struggle, and avenge the man who looks to me to strike. Her gentle manners and kind words have no influence. I am adamant. I look across the sea, and I see the figure of a man, pale and lonely, languishing year by year in a Roman prison. Then, indeed, my heart is hard and my hand is ready!

But there are other times, such as these, when I loathe myself and the part I am playing; when an unutterable horror comes upon me, and I see myself and my purpose in hideous, ghastly colors. It is such a mood that has driven me to make use of this dumb confidant, that I may confess what this thing is which has dawned upon me. My cheeks are stained with shame as I write it. Never could it have passed my lips. Oh! my love, my love, cursed am I that I love you!

He shall never know it! He thinks me cold and capricious! Let him! It is my purpose to make him suffer, and he shall suffer! In that I will be true to my oath; I will make of this weakness a scourge! No one will know what it costs me! No one will know how sweet to me are the words which I train my lips to answer with scorn! Never a tender look or word shall he gain from me; yet this much can I promise myself. No one else shall ever be dear to me! No other lover will I have save his memory! He thinks that I dislike him! He shall think so to the end! He shall never know—never!

I took up a novel this morning, and tried to read, but could not. Ah! those fools who write about a woman's love—what do they know about it? Nothing! less than nothing! I, Margharita, am nineteen years old, and I love! I would die this moment cheerfully, sooner than he should know it! Yet, though I shall never hear one word of love from his lips, or rest for one moment in his arms; though I live to be an old woman, I would starve, beg, die, sooner than give myself to any other man. To have loved, even though the love be unknown, and to have been loved, even though it be silently, is sweet to a woman. She can crystallize the memory in her heart and pass through life sad, perhaps, yet content, cold and deaf to all other voices. They say that a man is not like this. Perhaps! A woman's nature is finer than a man's—less passionate, but more devoted.

To-night, as the dressing bell rang, and I was coming upstairs to change my gown for dinner, he met me in the hall and offered me—a spray of white hyacinths! How my fingers shook as I took them! White hyacinths! If he had only known what he had been doing. White hyacinths! What was that oath—"Vengeance upon traitors." Does she remember it, I wonder? I think that she does, for I wore them in the bosom of my dress, and she turned pale when she glanced at them. She looked at me as though she were afraid. Does my face remind her of the past, I wonder? She told me that my features are the features of the Marionis, and I know that I am like my mother! I am glad of it! I would have my face bring a pang to her heart every time she looks at it. That is justice!

She looked, as though fascinated, at the bunch of white flowers in my bosom. I took care to let her know that Lord Lumley had given them to me. I am never so gracious to him as in her presence.

"By the by, mother," he said, during a pause in the conversation, "I have noticed that, while you use every other color of hyacinths for table decorations, you never use any white ones. Why is it?"

She looked at her husband. I saw their eyes meet across the table, and that look told me how near the past was to their thoughts.

"It is a flower I do not care for, Lumley," she said quietly. "The perfume is too faint. Besides, they are so suggestive of funerals."

"Perhaps you would prefer my not wearing mine, then," I remarked carelessly. "I will throw them away."

I saw him bite his lip and frown, and I laughed to myself. Lady St. Maurice was hesitating.

"I should be sorry for you to do that," she said. "Groves can take them away until after dinner, if you would not mind."

"They are scarcely worth keeping," I went on, drawing them from my corsage. "I care nothing for them after all," and opening the window just behind my chair, I threw them into the darkness.

Lord Lumley came to me in the drawing room afterward.

"It was scarcely kind of you to throw my flowers away," he said, bending over my chair.

I turned back with my hands clasped behind my head and laughed up at him.

"Why not? They were nothing to me. It was kind to your mother at any rate."

Oh! hypocrite! hypocrite! If he could only have seen me a few minutes before, stealing along in the shadow of the shrubs outside looking about in the darkness till I had found them, and holding them passionately to my lips. They were in my pocket then, wrapped in a lace handkerchief. They are in a secret drawer of my desk now, and there will they remain forever. I do not mind confessing that they are very precious to me. But he does not know that.

He turned away offended and left me. But I went to the piano and sang a wild Neapolitan love song, and when I had finished he was leaning over me with a deep glow in his pale cheeks and his eyes fixed upon mine. Does he know how handsome he is, I wonder? Whence did I get the strength to look into those deep blue eyes, burning with passion, and mock at him?

"You sing divinely of what you know nothing!" he said.

"Isn't that rather a rash assumption?" I answered lightly. "You are paying me a poor compliment in taking it for granted that I never had a lover, Lord Lumley."

"Have you?"

"Oh, yes, heaps!"

"Are you engaged, then?" he asked fiercely.

"How like a man you jump at conclusions!"

"But, are you?"

"Is it your business, Lord Lumley?"

"Yes!"

"Then if you make everybody's love affairs your concern, you must find plenty to interest you."

"There is only one person in the world in whose love affairs I am interested."

"Naturally!" I answered. "Whose else should be so interesting as your own?"

"I did not mean that!" he exclaimed, almost angrily. "You are bandying words with me."

"On the contrary, it is you who seem bent on mystifying me," I answered, laughing.

"You shall hear me speak more plainly then."

"I would rather not. Enigmas are so much more interesting. Will you allow me to pass?"

"Why," he asked, without moving an inch.

"Because, as your mother does not seem to be coming in again, I should prefer going to my room."

"She is coming in again. I heard her order coffee here in ten minutes."

"I don't want any coffee, and I won't be kept here. Lord Lumley, be so good as to allow me to pass."

"In one minute, Margharita. I——"

"Lord Lumley, I allow no man to call me by my Christian name without permission."

"Then give me permission."

"Never!"

"You don't mean that?"

"I do! Lord Lumley, allow me to pass. I will not be kept here against my will!"

He caught hold of my wrist, but I snatched my hand away.

"Margharita, listen! I love you. Why should you be angry? I want you to be my wife."

I believe he thought that I was won. I had sunk down upon the music stool and covered my face with my hands. My bosom was heaving with sobs. With all my strength I was battling with a strange bewildering succession of feelings. In reality I was more exquisitely and perfectly happy than I had ever dreamed of.

I felt his strong hands close over my fingers and remove them one by one. His head was quite close to mine, and suddenly I felt his mustache brush my cheek.

I sprang to my feet, wildly, fiercely angry. My eyes were flashing, and I had drawn myself up until I seemed almost as tall as he was. If he had dared to kiss me. Oh! if he had dared!

"Let me pass!" I cried passionately. "Let me pass at once, I say."

He fell back immediately. He was half frightened, half puzzled.

"Lord Lumley, I never wish you to speak to me again," I cried, trembling all over with passionate indignation, and dashing the tears from my eyes. "I hate you. Do you hear! I hate you!"

He ought to have been abashed, but he was not.

"You have no cause to hate me!" he said proudly. "Surely a man does not insult a woman by offering her his love, as I have offered you mine. I scarcely see at least how I have deserved your anger."

Suddenly his voice broke down, and he went on in a very altered tone:

"Oh, Margharita, my love, my love! Give me one word of hope! Tell me at least that you are not really angry with me."

And then, without a moment's warning, the fire of indignation which had leaped up to help me suddenly died out. He was standing respectfully away from me, pale and dignified. His face was full of emotion, and his hands were trembling; but some instinct seemed to have told him how I hated his touch, and he did not attempt even to hold my hand. Oh! that moment, terrible as it was at the time, will be very sweet to think upon in after days.

My strength had come to an end. I knew that I was in terrible risk of undoing all that I had done, but I could not help it. That moment seemed somehow sacred. Although my whole life was itself a lie, I could not then have looked in his eyes and spoken falsely. If I had let him see my face, though only for an instant, he would have known my secret; so I buried it in my hands, and swept from the room before he could stop me.

Am I more happy or more miserable, I wonder, since he has spoken those words which seem to be ever ringing in my ears? Both, I think! Life is more intense; it has other depths now besides that well of hate and pity which has brought me into this household. At any rate, I have felt emotions to-night which I never dreamed of before.

If only he knew—knew all, how he would scorn, hate, despise me! How he would hasten to drive me out of his memory, to crush every tender thought of me, to purge his heart of love for me, to pluck it up by the roots and cast it away forever! Would he find it an easy task, I wonder? Perhaps. He loves his mother so much. Why should he not? So far as he is concerned, she deserves it. She is a good mother, and a good wife. If it were not for the past I would call her a good woman. Sometimes I wish that she were not so, that she was still vain and heartless, the same woman who, for the sake of an alien and a stranger, brought down a living death upon the man who had trusted her with his most sacred secrets; and that man the last of the Marionis, my uncle. I think of it, and coldness steals once more into my heart. What she is now is of no account. It is the past for which she must suffer.