Buch lesen: «The Shadow of a Sin»

CHAPTER I

 
"She is coming – my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat
Had it lain for a century dead."
 

A rich musical voice trolled out the words, not once, but many times over – carelessly at first, and then the full sense of them seemed to strike the singer.

"'Had it lain for a century dead,'" he repeated slowly. "Ah, me! the difference between poetry and fact – when I have lain for a century dead, the light footfalls of a fair woman will not awaken me. 'Beyond the sun, woman's beauty and woman's love are of small account;' yet here – ah, when will she come?"

The singer, who was growing impatient, was an exceedingly handsome young man – of not more than twenty – with a face that challenged all criticism – bright, careless, defiant, full of humor, yet with a gleam of poetry – a face that girls and women judge instantly, and always like. He did not look capable of wrong, this young lover, who sung his love-song so cheerily, neither did he look capable of wicked thoughts.

 
"'You really must come, for I said
I would show the bright flowers their queen.'
 

That is the way to talk to women," he soliloquized, as the words of the song dropped from his lips. "They can not resist a little flattery judiciously mixed with poetry. I hope I have made no mistake. Cynthy certainly said by the brook in the wood. Here is the brook – but where is my love?"

He grew tired of walking and singing – the evening was warm – and he sat down on the bank where the wild thyme and heather grew, to wait for the young girl who had promised to meet him when the heat of the day had passed.

He had been singing sweet love-songs; the richest poetry man's hand ever penned or heart imagined had been falling in wild snatches from his lips. Did this great poem of nature touch him – the grand song that echoes through all creation, which began in the faint, gray chaos, when the sea was bounded and the dry land made, and which will go on until it ends in the full harmony of heaven?

He looked very handsome and young and eager; his hair was tinged with gold, his mouth was frank and red; yet he was not quite trustworthy. There was no great depth in his heart or soul, no great chivalry, no grand treasure of manly truth, no touch of heroism.

He took his watch from his pocket and looked at it. "Ten minutes past seven – and she promised to be here at six. I shall not wait much longer."

He spoke the words aloud, and a breath of wind seemed to move the trees to respond; it was as though they said, "He is no true knight to say that."

A hush fell over them, the bees rested on the thyme, the butterflies nestled close to the blue-bells, the little brook ran on as though it were wild with joy. Presently a footstep was heard, and then the long expected one appeared. With something between a sigh and a smile she held out one little white hand to him. "I hardly thought you would wait for me, Claude. You are very patient."

"I would wait twice seven years for only one look at your face," he rejoined.

"Would you?" interrogated the girl wearily. "I would not wait so long even for a fairy prince."

She sat down on the heather-covered bank, and took off her hat. She fanned herself with it for a few minutes, and then flung it carelessly among the flowers.

"You do not seem very enraptured at seeing me, Hyacinth," said the young lover reproachfully. The girl sighed wearily.

"I do not believe I could go into a rapture over any thing in the world," she broke out. "I am so tired of my life – so tired of it, Claude, that I do not believe I could get up an interest in a single thing."

"I hope you feel some little interest in me," he said.

"I – I – I cannot tell. I think even bitterest pain would be better than the dead monotony that is killing me."

She remembered those words in after years, and repented of them when repentance was in vain.

"Surely you might smile now," said Claude. "I hope you do not find sitting by my side on this lovely evening monotonous."

She laughed, but the laugh had no music in it.

"No, I cannot say that I do; but you are going away soon, you tell me, and then the only gleam of sunshine in my life will fade, and all will be darkness again."

"What has depressed you so much?" he asked. "You are not yourself to-day."

"Shall I tell you what my day has been like?" she said. "Shall I describe it from the hour when the first sunbeams woke me this morning until now?" He took both the small white hands in his.

"Yes, tell me; but be merciful, and let me hear that the thought of meeting me has cheered you."

"It has been the only gleam of brightness," she said, so frankly that the very frankness of the words seemed not to displease him. "It was just six when I woke. I could hear the birds singing, and I knew how cool and fresh and dewy everything was. I dressed myself very quickly and went down-stairs. The great house was all darkness and silence. I had forgotten that Lady Vaughan does not allow the front or back doors to be opened until after breakfast. I thought the birds were calling me, and the branches of the trees seemed to beckon me; but I was obliged to go back to my own room, and sit there till the gong sounded for breakfast."

"Poor child!" he said caressingly.

"Nay, do not pity me. Listen. The breakfast-room is dark and gloomy; Lady Vaughan always has the windows closed to keep out the air, and the blinds drawn to keep out the sun; flowers give her the headache, and the birds make too much noise. So, with every beautiful sound and sight most carefully excluded, we sit down to breakfast, when the conversation never varies."

"Of what does it consist?" asked the young lover, beginning to pity the young girl, though amused by her recital.

"Sir Arthur tells us first of what he dreamed and how he slept. Lady Vaughan follows suit. After that, for one hour by the clock, I must read aloud from Mrs. Hannah More, from a book of meditations for each day of the year, and from Blair's sermons – nothing more lively than that. Then the books are put away, with solemn reflections from Lady Vaughan, and for the next hour we are busy with needlework. We sit in that dull breakfast-room, Claude, without speaking, until I am ready to cry aloud – I grow so tired of the dull monotony. When we have worked for an hour, I write letters – Lady Vaughan dictates them. Then comes luncheon. We change from the dull breakfast-room to the still more dull dining-room, from which sunshine and fragrance are also carefully excluded. After that comes the greatest trial of all. A closed carriage comes to the door, and for two long, wearisome hours I drive with Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan. The blinds are drawn at the carriage windows, and the horses creep at a snail's pace. Then we return home. I go to the piano until dinner time. After dinner Lady Vaughan goes to sleep, and I play at chess or backgammon, or something equally stupid, until half-past nine; and then the bell rings for prayers, and the day is done."

"It is not a very exhilarating life, certainly," said Claude Lennox.

"Exhilarating! I tell you, Claude, that sometimes I am frightened at myself – frightened that I shall do something very desperate. I am only just eighteen, and my heart is craving for what every one else has; yet it is denied me. I am eighteen, and I love life – oh, so dearly! I should like to be in the very midst of gayety and pleasure. I should like to dance and sing – to laugh and talk. Yet no one seems to remember that I am young. I never see a young face – I never hear a pleasant voice. If I sing, Lady Vaughan raises her hands to her head, and implores me 'not to make a noise.' Yet I love singing just as the birds do."

"I see only one remedy for such a state of things, Hyacinth," said the young lover, and his eyes brightened as he looked on her beautiful face.

"I am just eighteen," continued the girl, "and I assure you that looking back on my life, I do not remember one happy day in it."

"Perhaps the happiness is all to come," said he quietly.

"I do not know. This is Tuesday; on Thursday we start for Bergheim – a quiet and sleepy little town in Germany – and there we are to meet my fate."

"What is your fate?" he asked.

"You remember the story I told you – Lady Vaughan says I am to marry Adrian Darcy. I suppose he is a model of perfection – as quiet and as stupid as perfection always is."

"Lady Vaughan cannot force you to marry any one," he cried eagerly.

"No, there will be no forcing in the strict sense of the word – they will only preach to me, and talk at me, until I shall be driven mad, and I shall marry him, or do anything else in sheer desperation."

"Who is he, Hyacinth?" asked her young lover.

"His mother was a cousin of Lady Vaughan's. He is rich, clever, and I should certainly say, as quiet and uninteresting as nearly all the rest of the world. If it were not so, he would not have been reserved for me."

"I do not quite understand," said Claude Lennox. "How it is? Was there a contract between your parents?"

"No," she replied, with a slight tone of scorn in her voice – "there is never anything of that kind except in novels. I am Lady Vaughan's granddaughter, and she has a large fortune to leave; this Adrian Darcy is also her relative, and she says the best thing to be done for us is to marry each other, and then her fortune can come to us."

"Is that all?" he inquired, with a look of great relief. "You need not marry him unless you choose. Have you seen him?"

"No; nor do I wish to see him. Any one whom Lady Vaughan likes cannot possibly suit me. Oh, Claude, how I dread it all! – even the journey to Germany."

"I should have fancied that, longing as you do for change and excitement, the journey would have pleased you," observed Claude.

She looked at him with a half-wistful expression on her beautiful face.

"I must be very wicked," she said; "indeed I know that I am. I should be looking forward to it with rapture, if any one young or amusing were going with me; but to sit in closed carriages with Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan – to travel, yet see nothing – is dreadful."

"But you are attached to them," he said – "you are fond of them, are you not, Hyacinth?"

"Yes," she replied, piteously; "I should love them very much if they did not make me so miserable. They are over sixty, and I am just eighteen – they have forgotten what it is to be young, and force me to live as they do. I am very unhappy."

She bent her beautiful face over the flowers, and he saw her eyes fill with tears.

"It is a hard lot," he said; "but there is one remedy, and only one. Do you love me, Hyacinth?"

She looked at him with something of childish perplexity in her face.

"I do not know," she replied.

"Yes, you do know, Hyacinth; you know if you love me well enough to marry me."

No blush rose to her face, her eyes did not droop as they met his, the look of perplexity deepened in them.

"I cannot tell," she returned. "In the first place, I am not sure that I know really what love means. Lady Vaughan will not allow such a word in her presence; I have no young girl friends to come to me with their secrets; I am not allowed to read stories or poetry – how can I tell you whether I love you or not?"

"Surely your own heart has a voice, and you know what it says."

"Has it?" she rejoined indifferently. "If it has a voice, that voice has not yet spoken."

"Do not say so, Hyacinth; you know how dearly I love you. I am lingering here when I ought to be far away, hoping almost against hope to win you. Do not tell me that all my love, my devotion, my pleading, my prayers have been in vain."

The look of childish perplexity did not leave her face; the gravity of her beautiful eyes deepened.

"I have no wish to be cruel," she said; "I only desire to say what is true."

"Then just listen to your own heart, and you will soon know whether you love me or not. Are you pleased to see me? Do you look forward to meeting me? Do you think of me when I am not with you?"

"Yes," she replied calmly; "I look with eagerness to the time when I know you are coming; I think of you very often all day, and I – I dream of you all night. In my mind every word that you have ever said to me remains."

"Then you love me," he cried, clasping her little white hands in his, his handsome face growing brighter and more eager – "you love me, my darling, and you must be my wife!"

She did not shrink from him; the words evidently had little meaning for her. He must have been blind indeed not to see the girl's heart was as void and innocent of all love as the heart of a dreaming child.

"You must be my wife," he repeated. "I love you better than anything else in the wide world."

She did not look particularly happy or delighted.

"You shall go away from this dull gloomy spot," he said; "I will take you to some sunny, far-off city, where the hours have golden wings and are like minutes – where every breath of wind is a fragrant sigh – where the air is filled with music, and the speech of the people is song. You will behold the grandest pictures, the finest statues, the noblest edifices in the world. You shall not know night from day, nor summer from winter, because everything shall be so happy for you."

The indifference and weariness fell from her face as a mask. She clasped her hands in triumph, her eyes brightened, her beautiful face beamed with joy.

"Oh, Claude, that will be delightful! When shall it be?"

"So soon as you are my wife, sweet. Do you not long to come with me and be dressed like a lovely young queen, in flowers, and go to balls that will make you think of fairyland? You shall go to the opera to hear the world's greatest singers; you shall never complain of dulness or weariness again."

The expression of happiness that came over her face was wonderful to see.

"I cannot realize it," she said, with a deep sigh of relief and content. "The sky looks fairer already. I can imagine how bright this world is to those who are happy. You do not know how I have longed for some share of its happiness, Claude. All my heart used to cry out for warmth and love, for youth and life. In that dull, gloomy house I have pined away. See, I am as thirsty to enjoy life as the deer on a hot day is to enjoy a running stream. It would be cruel to catch that little bird swinging on the boughs and singing so sweetly – it would be cruel to catch that bright bird, to put it in a narrow cage, and to place the cage in a dark, dull room, where never a gleam of sunshine could cheer it – but it is a thousand times more cruel to shut me up in that gloomy house like a prison, with people who are too old to understand what youth is like."

"It is cruel," he assented; and then a silence fell over them, broken only by the whispering of the wind.

"Do you know," she went on, after a time, "I have been so unhappy that I have wished I were like Undine and had no soul?"

Yet, even as she uttered the words, from the books she disliked and found so dreary there came to her floating memories of grand sentences telling of "hearts held in patience," "of endurance that maketh life divine," of aspirations that do not begin and end in earthly happiness. She drove such memories from her.

"Lady Vaughan says 'life is made for duty.' Is that all, Claude? One could do one's duty without the light of the sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. Why need the birds sing so sweetly and the blossoms wear a thousand different colors? If life is meant for nothing but plain, dull duty, we do not need starlit nights and dewy evenings, the calm of green woods and the music of the waves. It seems to me that life is meant as much for beauty as for duty."

Claude looked eagerly into the lovely face.

"You are right," he said, "and yet wrong. Cynthy, life was made for love – nothing else. You are young and beautiful; you ought to enjoy life – and you shall, if you will promise to be my wife."

"I do promise," she returned. "I am tired to death of that gloomy house and those gloomy people. I am weary of quiet and dull monotony."

His face darkened.

"You must not marry me to escape these evils, Hyacinth, but because you love me."

"Of course. Well, I have told you all my perplexities, Claude, and you have decided that I love you."

He smiled at the childlike simplicity of the words.

"Now, Hyacinth, listen to me. You must be my wife, because I love you so dearly that I cannot live without you and because you have promised. Listen, and I will tell you how it must be."

Hyacinth Vaughan looked up in her lover's face; there was nothing but the simple wonder of a child in hers – nothing but awakened interest – there was not even the shadow of love.

"You say that Lady Vaughan intends starting for Bergheim on Thursday, and that Adrian Darcy is to meet you there; consequently, after Thursday, you have not the least chance of escape. I should imagine the future that lies before you to be more terrible even than the past. Rely upon it, Adrian Darcy will come to live at the Chase if he marries you; and then you will only sleep through life. You will never know its possibilities, its grand realities."

An expression of terror came over her face.

"Claude," she cried, "I would rather die than live as I have been living!"

"So would I, in your place. Cynthy, your life is in our own hands. If you choose to be foolish and frightened, you will say good-by to me, go to Bergheim, marry Darcy, and drag out the rest of a weary life at the Chase, seeing nothing of brightness, nothing of beauty, and growing in time as stiff and formal as Lady Vaughan is now."

The girl shuddered; the warm young life in her rebelled; the longing for love and pleasure, for life and brightness, was suddenly chilled.

"Now here is another picture for you," resumed Claude. "Do what I wish, and you shall never have another hour's dulness or weariness while you live. Your life shall be all love, warmth, fragrance and song."

"What do you wish?" she asked, her lovely young face growing brighter at each word.

"I want you to meet me to-morrow night at Oakton station; we will take the train for London, and on Thursday, instead of going to Bergheim, we will be married, and then you shall lead an enchanted life."

An expression of doubt appeared on her face; but she was very young and easy to persuade.

"It will be the grandest sensation in all the world," he said. "Imagine an elopement from the Chase – where the goddess of dulness has reigned for years – an elopement, Cynthy, followed by a marriage, a grand reconciliation tableau, and happiness that will last for life afterward."

She repeated the words half-doubtfully.

"An elopement, Claude – would not that be very wrong – wicked almost?"

"Not at all. Lady Helmsdale eloped with her husband, and they are the happiest people in the world; elopements are not so uncommon – they are full of romance, Cynthia."

"But are they right?" she asked, half timidly.

"Well in some cases an elopement is not right, perhaps; in ours it is. Do you think that, hoping as I do to make you my wife, I would ask you to do anything which would afterward be injurious to you? Though you are so young, Cynthia, you must know better than that. To elope is right enough in our case. You are like a captive princess; I am the knight come to deliver you from the dreariest of prisons – come to open for you the gates of an enchanted land. It will be just like a romance, Cynthy; only instead of reading, we shall act it." And then in his rich cheery-voice, he sung,

 
"'But neither bolts nor bars shall keep
My own true love from me.'"
 

"I do not see how I can manage it," said Hyacinth, as the notes of her lover's song died over the flowers. "Lady Vaughan always has the house locked and the keys taken to her at nine."

"It will be very easy," returned Claude. "I know the library at the Chase has long windows that open on to the ground. You can leave one of them unfastened, and close the shutters yourself."

"But I have never been out at night alone," she said, hesitatingly.

"You will not be alone long, if you will only have courage to leave the house. I will meet you at the end of the grounds, and we will walk to the station together. We shall catch a train leaving Oakton soon after midnight, and shall reach London about six in the morning. I have an old aunt living there who will do anything for us. We will drive at once to her house; and then I will get a special license, and we will be married before noon."

"How well you have arranged everything!" she said. "You must have been thinking of this for a long time past."

"I have thought of nothing else, Cynthy. Then, when we are married, we will write at once to Lady Vaughan, telling her of our union; and instead of starting for that dreary Bergheim, we will go at once to sunny France, or fair and fruitful Italy, where the world will be at our feet, my darling. You are so beautiful, you will win all hearts."

"Am I so beautiful?" she asked simply. "Lady Vaughan says good looks are sinful."

"Lady Vaughan is – " The young man paused in time, for those clear, innocent eyes seemed to be penetrating to the very depths of his heart. "Lady Vaughan has forgotten that she was ever young and pretty herself," he said. "Now, Cynthy, tell me – will you do what I wish?"

"Is it not a very serious thing to do?" she asked. "Would not people think ill of me?"

His conscience reproached him a little when he answered "No" – the lovely, trusting face was so like the face of a child.

"I do not expect you to say 'Yes' at once, Hyacinth – think it over. There lies before you happiness with me, or misery without me."

"But, Claude," she inquired eagerly, "why need we elope? Why not ask Lady Vaughan if we can be married? She might say 'Yes.'"

"She would not; I know better than you. She would refuse, and you would be carried off on Thursday, whether you liked it or not. If we are to be married at all we must elope – there is no help for it."

The young girl did not at once consent, although the novelty, the romance, the promised happiness, tempted her as a promised journey pleases a child.

"Think it over to-night," he said, "and let me know to-morrow."

"How can I let you know?" she asked. "I shall be in prison all day; it is not often that I have an hour like this. I shall not be able to see you."

"Perhaps not, but you can give me some signal. You have charge of the flowers in the great western window?"

"Yes, I change them at my pleasure every day."

"Then, if after thinking the matter over, you decide in my favor, and choose a lifetime of happiness, put white roses – nothing but white roses – there; if, on the contrary, you are inclined to follow up a life of unendurable ennui, put crimson flowers there. I shall understand – the white roses will mean 'Yes; I will go;' the crimson flowers will mean 'No; good-by, Claude.' You will not forget, Cynthy."

"It is not likely that I shall forget," she replied.

"You need not have one fear for the future; you will be happy as a queen. I shall love you so dearly; we will enjoy life as it is meant to be enjoyed. It was never intended for you to dream away your existence in one long sleep. Your beautiful face was meant to brighten and gladden men's hearts; your sweet voice to rule them. You are buried alive here."

Then the great selfish love that had conquered him rose in passionate words. How he caressed her! What tender, earnest words he whispered to her! What unalterable devotion he swore – what affection, what love! The girl grew grave and silent as she listened. She wondered why she felt so quiet – why none of the rapture that lighted up his face and shone in his eyes came to her. She loved him – he said so; and surely he who had had so much experience ought to know. Yet she had imagined love to be something very different from this. She wondered that it gave her so little pleasure.

"How the poets exaggerate it!" she said to herself, while he was pouring out love, passion, and tenderness in burning words. "How great they make it, and how little it is in reality."

She sighed deeply as she said these words to herself, and Claude mistook the sigh.

"You must not be anxious, Hyacinth. You need not be so. You are leaving a life of dull, gloomy monotony for one of happiness, such as you can hardly imagine. You will never repent it, I am sure. Now give me one smile; you look as distant and sad as Lady Vaughan herself. Smile, Cynthy!"

She raised her eyes to his face, and for long years afterward that look remained with him. She tried to smile, but the beautiful lips quivered and the clear eyes fell.

"I must go," she said, rising hurriedly, "Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan are to be home by eight o'clock."

"You will say 'Yes,' Cynthy?" he said, clasping her hands in his own. "You will say 'Yes,' will you not?"

"I must think first," she replied; and as she turned away the rush of wind through the tall green trees sounded like a long, deep-drawn sigh.

Slowly she retraced her steps through the woods, now dim and shadowy in the sunset light, toward the home that seemed so like a prison to her. And yet the prospect of an immediate escape from that prison did not make her happy. The half-given promise rested upon her heart like a leaden weight, although she was scarce conscious in her innocence why it should thus oppress her. At the entrance to the Hall grounds she paused, and with a gesture of impatience turned her back upon the lofty sombre-looking walls, and stood gazing through an opening in the groves at the gorgeous masses of purple and crimson sky, that marked the path of the now vanished sun.

A very pretty picture she made as the soft light fell upon her fair face and golden hair, but no thought of her young, fresh beauty was in the girl's mind then. The question, "Dare I say – 'Yes'?" was ever before her, with Claude's fair face and pleading, loving tones.

"O, I cannot decide now," she thought wearily, "I must think longer about it," and with a sigh she turned from the sunset-light, and walked up the long avenue that led to her stately home.

How her decision – though speedily repented of and corrected – yet cast the shadow of a sin over her fair young life; how her sublimely heroic devotion to the right saved the life of an innocent man, yet drove her into exile from home and friends, and how at last the bright sunshine drove away the shadows and restored her to home and friends, all she had lost and more, remains for our story to tell.