Innocent : her fancy and his fact

by Marie Corelli

  CHAPTER IV

  The first waltz over, Jocelyn led his partner out of the ball-room.

  "Come into the garden," he said. "It's quite a real garden forLondon--and I know every inch of it. We'll find a quiet corner and sitdown and rest."

  She answered nothing--she was flushed, and breathing quickly from theexcitement of the dance, and he paused on his way to pick up a lightwrap he found on one of the sofas, and put it round her shoulders.

  "You mustn't catch a chill," he went on. "But it's not a cold night--infact it's very close and sultry--almost like thunder. A little air willbe good for us."

  They went together, pacing along slowly--she meanwhile thinking of herprevious walk in that same garden!--what would he, Amadis de Jocelyn,say of it and of her "mother" if he knew! He looked at her sideways nowand then, curiously moved by mingled pity, admiration and desire,--thecruelty latent in every man made him long to awaken the first spark ofpassion in that maidenly soul,--and with the full consciousness of apowerful personality, he was perfectly aware that he could do so if hechose. But he waited, playing with the fire of his own inclinations,and talking lightly and charmingly of things which he knew wouldinterest her sufficiently to make her, in her turn, talk to himnaturally and candidly, thereby displaying more or less of herdisposition and temperament. With every word she spoke he found hermore and more fascinating--she had a quaint directness of speech whichwas extremely refreshing after the half-veiled subtleties conveyed inthe often dubious conversation of the women he was accustomed to meetin society--while there was no doubt she was endowed with extraordinaryintellectual grasp and capacity. Her knowledge of things artistic andliterary might, perhaps, have been termed archaic, but it was basedupon the principles which are good and true for all time--and as shetold him quite simply and unaffectedly of her studies by herself amongthe old books which had belonged to the "Sieur Amadis" of Briar Farm,he was both touched and interested.

  "So you made quite a friend of the Sieur Amadis!" he said. "He was yourteacher and guide! I'm jealous of him!"

  She laughed softly. "He was a spirit," she said--"You are a man."

  "Well, his spirit has had a good innings with you!" and, taking herhand, he drew it within his arm--"I bear his name, and it's time I camein somewhere!"

  She laughed again, a trifle nervously.

  "You think so? But you do come in! You are here with me now!"

  He bent his eyes upon her with an ardour he did not attempt to conceal,and her heart leaped within her--a warmth like fire ran swiftly throughher veins. He heard her sigh,--he saw her tremble beneath his gaze.There was an elf-like fascination about her child-like face and figureas she moved glidingly beside him--a "belle dame sans merci" charmwhich roused the strongly amorous side of his nature. He quickened hissteps a little as he led her down a sloping path, shut in on eitherside by tall trees, where there was a seat placed invitingly in thedeepest shadow and where the dim uplifted moon cast but the faintestglimmer, just sufficiently to make the darkness visible.

  "Shall we stay here a little while?" he said, in a low tone.

  She made no reply. Something vaguely sweet and irresistible overpoweredher,--she was barely conscious of herself, or of anything, save that"Amadis de Jocelyn" was beside her. She had lived so long in her dreamof the old French knight, whose written thoughts and confessions hadinfluenced her imagination and swayed her mind since childhood, thatshe could not detach herself from the idealistic conception she hadformed of his character,--and to her the sixteenth-century "Amadis" hadbecome embodied in this modern man of brilliant but erratic genius,who, if the truth were told, had nothing idealistic about him but hisart, which in itself was more the outcome of emotionalism thanconviction. He drew her gently down beside him, feeling her quiver likea leaf touched by the wind, and his own heart began to beat with apleasurable thrill. The silence around them seemed waiting for speech,but none came. It was one of those tense moments on which sometimeshangs the happiness or the misery of a lifetime--a stray thread fromthe web of Chance, which may be woven into a smooth pattern or knottedinto a cruel tangle,--a freakish circumstance in which the human beingsmost concerned are helplessly involved without any consciouspremonition of impending fate. Suddenly, yielding to a passionateimpulse, he caught her close in his arms and kissed her.

  "Forgive me!" he whispered--"I could not help it!"

  She put him gently back from her with two little hands that caressedrather than repulsed him, and gazed at him with startled, tender eyesin which a new and wonderful radiance shone,--while he inself-confident audacity still held her in his embrace.

  "You are not angry?" he went on, in quick, soft accents. "No! Whyshould you be? Why should not love come to you as to other women! Don'tanalyse!--don't speak! There is nothing to be said--we know all!"

  Silently she clung to him, yielding more and more to the sensation ofexquisite joy that poured through her whole being like sunlight--herheart beat with new and keener life,--the warm kindling blood burnedher cheeks like the breath of a hot wind--and her whole soul rose tomeet and greet what she in her poor credulousness welcomed as the crownand glory of existence--love! Love was hers, she thought--at last!--sheknew the great secret,--the long delight that death itself could notdestroy,--her ideal of romance was realised, and Amadis de Jocelyn, thebrave, the true, the chivalrous, the strong, was her very own!Enchanted with the ease of his conquest, he played with her pretty hairas with a bird's wing, and held her against his heart, sensuouslygratified to feel her soft breast heaving with its pent-up emotion, andto hear her murmured words of love confessed.

  "How I have wished and prayed that you might love me!" she said,raising her dewy eyes to his in the darkness. "Is it good when Godgrants one's prayers? I am almost afraid! My Amadis! It is a dream cometrue!"

  He was amused at her fidelity to the romance which surrounded his name.

  "Dear child, I am not a 'knight of old'--don't think it!" he said. "Youmustn't run away with that idea and make me a kind of sixteenth-centurysentimentalist. I couldn't live up to it!"

  "You are more than a knight of old," she answered, proudly--"You are agreat genius!"

  He was embarrassed by her simple praise.

  "No," he answered--"Not even that--sweet soul as you are!--not eventhat! You think I am--but you do not know. You are a clever,imaginative little girl--and I love to hear you praise me--but--"

  Her lips touched his shyly and sweetly.

  "No 'buts!'" she said,--"I shall always stop your mouth if you put a'but' against any work you do!"

  "In that way?" he asked, smiling.

  "Yes! In that way."

  "Then I shall put a 'but' to everything!" he declared.

  They laughed together like children.

  "Where is Miss Leigh all this while?" he queried.

  She started, awaking suddenly to conventions and commonplaces.

  "Poor little godmother! She must be wondering where I am! But I did notleave her,--she left me when the Duke took charge of me--I lost sightof her then."

  "Well, we must go and find her now"--and Jocelyn again folded his armsclosely round the dainty, elf-like figure in its moonlight-bluedraperies. "Innocent, look at me!"

  She lifted her eyes, and as she met his, glowing with the fervent fireof a new passion, her cheeks grew hot and she was thankful for thedarkness. His lips closed on hers in a long kiss.

  "This is our secret!" he said--"You must not speak of it to anyone."

  "How could I speak of it?" she asked, wonderingly.

  He let her go from his embrace, and taking her hand began to walkslowly with her towards the house.

  "You might do so," he continued--"And it would not be wise!--neitherfor you in your career, nor for me in mine. You are famous,--your nameis being talked of everywhere--you must be very careful. No one mustknow we are lovers."

  She thrilled at the word "lovers," and her hand trembled in his.

  "No one shall know," she said.

  "Not even Miss Leigh," h
e insisted.

  "If I say 'no one' of course I mean 'no one,'" she answered,gently--"not even Miss Leigh."

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, relieved by thisassurance. He wanted his little "amour" to go on without suspicion orinterference, and he felt instinctively that if this girl made any sortof a promise she would fulfil it.

  "You can keep a secret then?" he said, playfully--"Unlike most women!"

  She looked up at him, smiling.

  "Do men keep secrets better?" she asked. "I think not! Will you, forinstance, keep mine?"

  "Yours?" And for a moment he was puzzled, being a man who thoughtchiefly of himself and his own pleasure for the moment. "What is yoursecret?"

  She laughed. "Oh, 'Sieur Amadis'! You pretend not to know! Is it notthe same as yours? You must not tell anybody that I--I--"

  He understood-and pressed hard the little hand he held.

  "That you--well? Go on! I must not tell anybody--what?"

  "That I love you!" she said, in a tone so grave and sweet andangelically tender, that for a second he was smitten with a suddensense of shame.

  Was it right to steal all this unspoilt treasure of love from a heartso warm and susceptible? Was it fair to enter such an ivory castle ofdreams and break open all the "magic casements opening on the foam, Ofperilous seas in fairy lands forlorn"? He was silent, having noresponse to give to the simple ardour of her utterance. What he feltfor her was what all men feel for each woman who in turn attracts theirwandering fancies--the desire of conquest and possession. He was movedto this desire by the irritating fact that this girl had startled anapathetic public on both sides of the Atlantic by the display of hergenius in the short space of two years--whereas he had been more thanfifteen years intermittently at work without securing any such fame. Tothrow the lasso of Love round the flying Pegasus on which she rode solightly and securely, would be an excitement and amusement which he wasnot inclined to forgo--a triumph worth attaining. But love such as sheimagined love to be, was not in his nature--he conceived of it merelyas a powerful physical attraction which exerted its influence betweentwo persons of opposite sexes and lasted for a certain time--then wanedand wore off--and he recognised marriage as a legal device to safeguarda woman when the inevitable indifference and coldness of her mate setin, making him no longer a lover, but a household companion of habitand circumstance, lawfully bound to pay for the education of childrenand the necessary expenses of living. In his inmost consciousness heknew very well that Innocent was not of the ordinary femininemould--she had visions of the high and unattainable, and her ideals oflife were of that pure and transcendental quality which belongs tofiner elements unseen. The carnal mind can never comprehendspirituality,--nevertheless, Jocelyn was a man cultured and cleverenough to feel that though he himself could not enter, and did not evencare to enter the uplifted spheres of thought, this strange child witha gift of the gods in her brain, already dwelt in them, serenelyunconscious of any lower plane. And she loved him!--and he would, onthat ground of love, teach her many things she had never known--hewould widen her outlook,--warm her senses--increase herperceptions--train her like a wild rose on the iron trellis of hisexperience--while thus to instruct an unworldly soul in worldlinesswould be for him an interesting and pleasurable pastime.

  "And I can make her happy"--was his additional thought--"in the onlyway a woman is ever happy--for a little while!"

  All this ran through his mind as he held her hand a moment longer, tillthe convincing music of the band and the brilliant lights of the housewarned them to break away from each other.

  "We had better go straight to the ball-room and dance in," he said. "Noone will have missed us long. We've only been absent about a quarter ofan hour."

  "So much in such a little time!" she said, softly.

  He smiled, answering the adoring look of her eyes with his own amorousglance, and in another few seconds they were part of the brilliantwhirl of dancers now crowding the ball-room and swinging round in ablaze of colour and beauty to the somewhat hackneyed strains of the"Fruhlings Reigen." And as they floated and flew, the delight of theirattractiveness to each other drew them closer together till the senseof separateness seemed lost and whelmed in a magnetic force of mutualcomprehension.

  When this waltz was finished she was claimed by many more partners, anddanced till she was weary,--then, between two "extras," she went insearch of Miss Leigh, whom she found sitting patiently in one of thegreat drawing-rooms, looking somewhat pale and tired.

  "Oh, my godmother!" she exclaimed, running up to her. "I had forgottenhow late it is getting!"

  Miss Lavinia smiled cheerfully.

  "Never mind, child!" she said. "You are young and ought to enjoyyourself. I am old, and hardly fit for these late assemblies--and howvery late they are too! When I was a girl we never stayed beyondmidnight--"

  "And is it midnight now?" asked Innocent, amazed, turning to herpartner, a young scion of the aristocracy, who looked as if he had notbeen to bed for a week.

  He smiled simperingly, and glanced at his watch.

  "It's nearly two o'clock," he said. "In fact it's tomorrow morning!"

  Just then Jocelyn came up.

  "Are you going?" he inquired. "Well, perhaps it's time! May I see youto your carriage?"

  Miss Leigh gratefully accepted this suggestion--and Innocent, smilingher "good-night" to partners whom she had disappointed, walked with herthrough the long vista of rooms, Jocelyn leading the way. They soon ranthe gauntlet of the ladies' cloak-room and the waiting mob of footmenand chauffeurs that lined the long passage leading to theentrance-hall, and Jocelyn, going out into the street succeeded infinding their modest little hired motor-brougham and assisting theminto it.

  "Good-night, Miss Leigh!" he said, leaning on the door of the vehicleand smiling at them through the open window--"Good-night, MissArmitage! I hope you are not very tired?"

  "I am not tired at all!" she answered, with a thrill of joy in hervoice like the note of a sweet bird. "I have been so very happy!"

  He smiled. His face was pale and looked unusually handsome,--shestretched one little hand out to him.

  "Good-night, 'Sieur Amadis!'"

  He bent down and kissed it.

  "Good-night!"

  The motor began to move--another moment, and they were off. Innocentsank back in the brougham with a sigh.

  "You are tired, child!--you must be!" said Miss Leigh.

  "No, godmother mine! That sigh was one of pleasure. It has been a mostwonderful evening!--wonderful!"

  "It was certainly very brilliant," agreed Miss Leigh. "And I'm glad youwere made so much of, my dear! That was as it ought to be. Lord Blythetold me he had seldom met so charming a girl!"

  Innocent sat up suddenly. "Lord Blythe? Do you know him?"

  "No, I cannot say I really know him," replied Miss Leigh. "I've met himseveral times--and his wife too--there was some scandal about her yearsand years ago before she was married--nobody ever knew exactly what itwas, and her people hushed it up. I daresay it wasn't very much. AnyhowLord Blythe married her--and he's a very fine man with a greatposition. I thought I saw you talking to Lady Blythe?"

  "Yes"--Innocent spoke almost mechanically--"I had a few minutes'conversation with her."

  "She's very handsome," went on Miss Leigh. "She used to be quitebeautiful. A pity she has no children."

  Innocent was silent. The motor-brougham glided along.

  "You and Mr. Jocelyn seem to get on very well together," observed theold lady, presently. "He is a very 'taking' man--but I wonder if he isquite sincere?"

  Innocent's colour rose,--fortunately the interior of the brougham wastoo dark for her face to be seen.

  "Why should he not be?" she asked--"Surely with his great art, he wouldbe more sincere than most men?"

  "Well, I hope so!" and Miss Leigh's voice was a little tremulous; "Butartists are very impressionable, and live so much in a world of theirown that I sometimes doubt whether they have much understanding ors
ympathy with the world of other people! Even Pierce Armitage--who wasvery dear to me--ran away with impressions like a child with toys. Hewould adore a person one day--and hate him, or her, the next!"--and shelaughed softly and compassionately--"He would indeed, poor fellow! Hewas rather like Shelley in his likes and dislikes--you've read allabout your Shelley of course?"

  "Indeed I have!" the girl answered,--"A glorious poet!--but he musthave been difficult to live with!"

  "Difficult, if not impossible!"--and the gentle old lady took her handand held it in a kind, motherly clasp--"You are a genius yourself--butyou are a human little creature, not above the sweet and simple ways oflife,--some of the poets and artists were and are in-human! Now Mr.Jocelyn--"

  "HE is human!" said Innocent, quickly--"I'm sure of that!"

  "You are sure? Well, dear, you like him very much and you have made afriend of him,--which is quite natural considering the long associationyou have had with his name--such a curious and romanticcoincidence!--but I hope he won't disappoint you."

  Innocent laughed, happily.

  "Don't be afraid, you dear little godmother!" she said--"I don't expectanything of him, so no disappointment is possible! Here we are!"

  The brougham stopped and they alighted. Opening the house-door with alatch-key they entered, and pausing one moment in the drawing-room,where the lights had been left burning for their return, Miss Leightook Innocent tenderly by the arm and pointed to the portrait on theharpsichord.

  "There was a true genius!" she said--"He might have been the greatestartist in England to-day if he had not let his impressions andprejudices overmaster his judgment. You know--for I have told you mystory--that he loved me, or thought he did--and I loved him and knew Idid! There was the difference between us! He tired of me--all artiststire of the one face--they want dozens!--and he lost his head over somewoman whose name I never knew. The result must have been fatal to hiscareer, for it stopped short just when he was succeeding;--for me, itonly left me resolved to be true to his memory till the end. But, mychild, it's a hard lot to be alone all one's days, with only theremembrance of a past love to keep one's heart from growing cold!"

  There was a little sob in her voice,--Innocent, touched to the quick,kissed her tenderly.

  "Why do you talk like this so sadly to-night?" she asked--"Hassomething reminded you of--of HIM?" And she glanced half nervouslytowards the portrait.

  "Yes," answered the old lady, simply--"Something has reminded me--verymuch--of him! Good-night, dear little child! Keep your beautiful dreamsand ideals as long as you can! Sleep well!"

  She turned off the lights, and they went upstairs together to theirseveral rooms.

  Once alone, Innocent flung off her dainty ball attire,--released herbright hair from the pins that held it bound in rippling waves abouther shapely head, and slipping on a loose white wrapper sat down tothink. She had to realise the unpleasing fact that against her own wishand will she had become involved in mysteries,--secrets which she darednot, for the sake of others, betray. Her parentage could not bedivulged, because her father was Pierce Armitage, the worshipped memoryof Miss Leigh's heart,--while her mother, Lady Blythe, occupied a highsocial position which must not be assailed. And now--now, Amadis deJocelyn was her lover!--yet no one must know, because he did not wishit. For some cause or other which she could not determine, he insistedon secrecy. So she was meshed in nets of others' weaving, and could nottake a step to disentangle herself and stand clear. Of her own accordshe would have been frank and open as the daylight,--but from thefirst, a forward fate appeared to have taken delight in surrounding herwith deceptions enforced by the sins of others. Her face burned as shethought of Jocelyn's passionate kisses--she must hide all that joy!--ithad already become almost a guilty secret. He was the first man thathad ever kissed her since her "Dad" died,--the first that had everkissed her as a lover. Her mind flew suddenly and capriciously back toBriar Farm--to Robin Clifford who had longed to kiss her, and yet hadrefused to do so unless she could have loved him. She had never lovedhim--no!--and yet the thought of him just now gave her a thrill ofremorseful tenderness. She knew in herself at last what love couldmean,--and with that knowledge she realised what Robin must havesuffered.

  "To love without return--without hope!" she mused--"Oh, it would betorture!--to me, death! Poor Robin!"

  Poor Robin, indeed! He would not have dared to caress her with the wildand tender audacity of Amadis de Jocelyn!

  "My love!" she whispered to the silence.--"My love!" she repeated, asshe knelt down to say her prayers, sending the adored and idealisedname up on vibrations of light to the throne of the Most High,--and "Mylove!" were the last words she murmured as she nestled into her littlebed, her fair head on its white pillow looking like the head of one ofBotticelli's angels. Her own success,--her celebrity as a genius inliterature,--her dreams of fame--these now were all as naught!--lessthan the clouds of a night or the mists of a morning--there was nothingfor her in earth or heaven save "My love!"