CHAPTER XII. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
Mr. Caryll was almost happy.
He reclined on a long chair, supported by pillows cunningly set forhim by the deft hands of Leduc, and took his ease and indulged hisday-dreams in Lord Ostermore's garden. He sat within the cool, fragrantshade of a privet arbor, interlaced with flowering lilac and laburnum,and he looked out upon the long sweep of emerald lawn and the littlepatch of ornamental water where the water-lilies gaped their ivorychalices to the morning sun.
He looked thinner, paler and more frail than was his habit, which is notwonderful, considering that he had been four weeks abed while his woundwas mending. He was dressed, again by the hands of the incomparableLeduc, in a deshabille of some artistry. A dark-blue dressing-gown offlowered satin fell open at the waist; disclosing sky-blue breeches andpearl-colored stockings, elegant shoes of Spanish leather with red heelsand diamond buckles. His chestnut hair had been dressed with as greatcare as though he were attending a levee, and Leduc had insisted uponplacing a small round patch under his left eye, that it might--saidLeduc--impart vivacity to a countenance that looked over-wan from hislong confinement.
He reclined there, and, as I have said, was almost happy.
The creature of sunshine that was himself at heart, had broken throughthe heavy clouds that had been obscuring him. An oppressive burden waslifted from his mind and conscience. That sword-thrust through the backa month ago had been guided, he opined, by the hand of a befriendingProvidence; for although he had, as you see, survived it, it had nonethe less solved for him that hateful problem he could never have solvedfor himself, that problem whose solution,--no matter which alternativehe had adopted--must have brought him untold misery afterwards.
As it was, during the weeks that he had lain helpless, his life attachedto him by but the merest thread, the chance of betraying Lord Ostermorewas gone, nor--the circumstances being such as they were--could SirRichard Everard blame him that he had let it pass.
Thus he knew peace; knew it as only those know it who have sustainedunrest and can appreciate relief from it.
Nature had made him a voluptuary, and reclining there in an ease whichthe languor born of his long illness rendered the more delicious,inhaling the tepid summer air that came to him laden with a most sweetattar from the flowering rose-garden, he realized that with all itscares life may be sweet to live in youth and in the month of June.
He sighed, and smiled pensively at the water-lilies; nor was hishappiness entirely and solely the essence of his material ease. Thiswas his third morning out of doors, and on each of the two mornings thatwere gone Hortensia had borne him company, coming with the charitableintent of lightening his tedium by reading to him, but remaining to talkinstead.
The most perfect friendliness had prevailed between them; a camaraderiewhich Mr. Caryll had been careful not to dispel by any return to suchspeeches as those which had originally offended but which seemed nowmercifully forgotten.
He was awaiting her, and his expectancy heightened for him the glory ofthe morning, increased the meed of happiness that was his. But there wasmore besides. Leduc, who stood slightly behind him, fussily, busy abouta little table on which were books and cordials, flowers and comfits,a pipe and a tobacco-jar, had just informed him for the first time thatduring the more dangerous period of his illness Mistress Winthrop hadwatched by his bedside for many hours together upon many occasions, andonce--on the day after he had been wounded, and while his fever was atits height--Leduc, entering suddenly and quietly, had surprised her intears.
All this was most sweet news to Mr. Caryll. He found that betweenhimself and his half-brother there lay an even deeper debt than hehad at first supposed, and already acknowledged. In the deliciouscontemplation of Hortensia in tears beside him stricken all but to thepoint of death, he forgot entirely his erstwhile scruples that beingnameless he had no name to offer her. In imagination he conjured up thescene. It made, he found, a very pretty picture. He would smoke upon it.
"Leduc, if you were to fill me a pipe of Spanish--"
"Monsieur has smoked one pipe already," Leduc reminded him.
"You are inconsequent, Leduc. It is a sign of advancing age. Repress it.The pipe!" And he flicked impatient fingers.
"Monsieur is forgetting that the doctor--"
"The devil take the doctor," said Mr. Caryll with finality.
"Parfaitement!" answered the smooth Leduc. "Over the bridge we laughat the saint. Now that we are cured, the devil take the doctor by allmeans."
A ripple of laughter came to applaud Leduc's excursion into irony.The arbor had another, narrower entrance, on the left. Hortensia hadapproached this, all unheard on the soft turf, and stood there now, aheavenly apparition in white flimsy garments, head slightly a-tilt,eyes mocking, lips laughing, a heavy curl of her dark hair fallingcaressingly into the hollow where white neck sprang from whitershoulder.
"You make too rapid a recovery, sir," said she.
"It comes of learning how well I have been nursed," he answered, makingshift to rise, and he laughed inwardly to see the red flush of confusionspread over the milk-white skin, the reproachful shaft her eyes letloose upon Leduc.
She came forward swiftly to check his rising; but he was already on hisfeet, proud of his return to strength, vain to display it. "Nay," shereproved him. "If you are so headstrong, I shall leave you."
"If you do, ma'am. I vow here, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, that Ishall go home to-day, and on foot."
"You would kill yourself," she told him.
"I might kill myself for less, and yet be justified."
She looked her despair of him. "What must I do to make you reasonable?"
"Set me the example by being reasonable yourself, and let there beno more of this wild talk of leaving me the very moment you are come.Leduc, a chair for Mistress Winthrop!" he commanded, as though chairsabounded in a garden nook. But Leduc, the diplomat, had effaced himself.
She laughed at his grand air, and, herself, drew forward the stool thathad been Leduc's, and sat down. Satisfied, Mr. Caryll made her a bow,and seated himself sideways on his long chair, so that he faced her. Shebegged that he would dispose himself more comfortably; but he scornedthe very notion.
"Unaided I walked here from the house," he informed her with a boastfulair. "I had need to begin to feel my feet again. You are pampering mehere, and to pamper an invalid is bad; it keeps him an invalid. Now I aman invalid no longer."
"But the doctor--" she began.
"The doctor, ma'am, is disposed of already," he assured her. "Verydefinitely disposed of. Ask Leduc. He will tell you."
"Not a doubt of that," she answered. "Leduc talks too much."
"You have a spite against him for the information he gave me on thescore of how and by whom I was nursed. So have I. Because he did nottell me before, and because when he told me he would not tell me enough.He has no eyes, this Leduc. He is a dolt, who only sees the half of whathappens, and only remembers the half of what he has seen."
"I am sure of it," said she.
He looked surprised an instant. Then he laughed. "I am glad that weagree."
"But you have yet to learn the cause. Had this Leduc used his eyes orhis ears to better purpose, he had been able to tell you something ofthe extent to which I am in your debt."
"Ah?" said he, mystified. Then: "The news will be none the less welcomefrom your lips, ma'am," said he. "Is it that you are interested in theravings of delirium, and welcomed the opportunity of observing them atfirst hand? I hope I raved engagingly, if so be that I did rave. Wouldit, perchance, be of a lady that I talked in my fevered wanderings?--ofa lady pale as a lenten rose, with soft brown eyes, and lips that--"
"Your guesses are all wild," she checked him. "My debt is of a more realkind. It concerns my--my reputation."
"Fan me, ye winds!" he ejaculated.
"Those fine ladies and gentlemen of the town had made my name aby-word," she explained in a low, tense voice, her eyelids lowered. "Myfoolishne
ss in running off with my Lord Rotherby--that I might at allcost escape the tyranny of my Lady Ostermore" (Mr. Caryll's eyelidsflickered suddenly at that explanation)--"had made me a butt and a jestand an object for slander. You remember, yourself, sir, the sneers andoglings, the starings and simperings in the park that day when you madeyour first attempt to champion my cause, inducing the Lady Mary Dellerto come and speak to me."
"Nay, nay--think of these things no more. Gnats will sting; 'tis intheir nature. I admit 'tis very vexing at the time; but it soon wearsoff if the flesh they have stung be healthy. So think no more on't."
"But you do not know what follows. Her ladyship insisted that I shoulddrive with her a week after your hurt, when the doctor first proclaimedyou out of danger, and while the town was still all agog with theaffair. No doubt her ladyship thought to put a fresh and greaterhumiliation upon me; you would not be present to blunt the edge of theinsult of those creatures' glances. She carried me to Vauxhall, wherea fuller scope might be given to the pursuit of my shame andmortification. Instead, what think you happened?"
"Her ladyship, I trust, was disappointed."
"The word is too poor to describe her condition. She broke a fan, beather black boy and dismissed a footman, that she might vent some of thespleen it moved in her. Never was such respect, never such homage shownto any woman as was shown to me that evening. We were all but mobbed bythe very people who had earlier slighted me.
"'Twas all so mysterious that I must seek the explanation of it. AndI had it, at length, from his Grace of Wharton, who was at my side formost of the time we walked in the gardens. I asked him frankly to whatwas this change owing. And he told me, sir."
She looked at him as though no more need be said. But his brows wereknit. "He told you, ma'am?" he questioned. "He told you what?"
"What you had done at White's. How to all present and to my LordRotherby's own face you had related the true story of what befell atMaidstone--how I had gone thither, an innocent, foolish maid, to bemarried to a villain, whom, like the silly child I was, I thought Iloved; how that villain, taking advantage of my innocence and ignorance,intended to hoodwink me with a mock-marriage.
"That was the story that was on every lip; it had gone round the townlike fire; and it says much for the town that what between that and thefoul business of the duel, my Lord Rotherby was receiving on every handthe condemnation he deserves, while for me there was once more--and withheavy interest for the lapse from it--the respect which my indiscretionhad forfeited, and which would have continued to be denied me but foryour noble championing of my cause.
"That, sir, is the extent to which. I am in your debt. Do you thinkit small? It is so great that I have no words in which to attempt toexpress my thanks."
Mr. Caryll looked at her a moment with eyes that were very bright. Thenhe broke into a soft laugh that had a note of slyness.
"In my time," said he, "I have seen many attempts to change aninconvenient topic. Some have been artful; others artless; othersutterly clumsy. But this, I think, is the clumsiest of them all.Mistress Winthrop, 'tis not worthy in you."
She looked puzzled, intrigued by his mood.
"Mistress Winthrop," he resumed, with an entire change of voice. "Tospeak of this trifle is but a subterfuge of yours to prevent me fromexpressing my deep gratitude for your care of me."
"Indeed, no--" she began.
"Indeed, yes," said he. "How can this compare with what you have donefor me? For I have learnt how greatly it is to you, yourself, that I owemy recovery--the saving of my life."
"Ah, but that is not true. It--"
"Let me think so, whether it be true or not," he implored her, eyesbetween tenderness and whimsicality intent upon her face. "Let mebelieve it, for the belief has brought me happiness--the greatesthappiness, I think, that I have ever known. I can know but one greater,and that--"
He broke off suddenly, and she observed that the hand he had stretchedout trembled a moment ere it was abruptly lowered again. It was as a manwho had reached forth to grasp something that he craves, and checked hisdesire upon a sudden thought.
She felt oddly stirred, despite herself, and oddly constrained. It mayhave been to disguise this that she half turned to the table, saying:"You were about to smoke when I came." And she took up his pipe andtobacco--jar to offer them.
"Ah, but since you've come, I would not dream," he said.
She looked at him. The complete change of topic permitted it. "If Idesired you so to do?" she inquired, and added: "I love the fragrance ofit."
He raised his brows. "Fragrance?" quoth he. "My Lady Ostermore hasanother word for it." He took the pipe and jar from her. "'Tis nohumoring, this, of a man you imagine sick--no silly chivalry of yours?"he questioned doubtfully. "Did I think that, I'd never smoke anotherpipe again."
She shook her head, and laughed at his solemnity. "I love thefragrance," she repeated.
"Ah! Why, then, I'll pleasure you," said he, with the air of oneconferring favors, and filled his pipe. Presently he spoke again in amusing tone. "In a week or so, I shall be well enough to travel."
"'Tis your intent to travel?" she inquired.
He set down the jar, and reached for the tinderbox. "It is time I wasreturning home," he explained.
"Ah, yes. Your home is in France."
"At Maligny; the sweetest nook in Normandy. 'Twas my mother'sbirthplace, and 'twas there she died."
"You have felt the loss of her, I make no doubt."
"That might have been the case if I had known her," answered he. "Butas it is, I never did. I was but two years old--she, herself, buttwenty--when she died."
He pulled at his pipe in silence a moment or two, his face overcast andthoughtful. A shallower woman would have broken in with expressions ofregret; Hortensia offered him the nobler sympathy of silence. Moreover,she had felt from his tone that there was more to come; that what hehad said was but the preface to some story that he desired her to beacquainted with. And presently, as she expected, he continued.
"She died, Mistress Winthrop, of a broken heart. My father had abandonedher two years and more before she died. In those years of repining--ay,and worse, of actual want--her health was broken so that, poor soul, shedied."
"O pitiful!" cried Hortensia, pain in her face.
"Pitiful, indeed--the more pitiful that her death was a source of someslight happiness to those who loved her; the only happiness they couldhave in her was to know that she was at rest."
"And--and your father?"
"I am coming to him. My mother had a friend--a very noble, lofty-mindedgentleman who had loved her with a great and honest love before theprofligate who was my father came forward as a suitor. Recognizing inthe latter--as he thought in his honest heart--a man in better case tomake her happy, this gentleman I speak of went his ways. He came uponher afterwards, broken and abandoned, and he gathered up the poor shardsof her shattered life, and sought with tender but unavailing hands topiece them together again. And when she died he vowed to stand my friendand to make up to me for the want I had of parents. 'Tis by his bountythat to-day I am lord of Maligny that was for generations the propertyof my mother's people. 'Tis by his bounty and loving care that I am whatI am, and not what so easily I might have become had the seed sown by myfather been allowed to put out shoots."
He paused, as if bethinking himself, and looked at her with a wistful,inquiring smile. "But why plague you," he cried, "with this poor tale ofyesterday that will be forgot to-morrow?"
"Nay--ah, nay," she begged, and put out a hand in impulsive sympathy totouch his own, so transparent now in its emaciation. "Tell me; tell me!"
His smile softened. He sighed gently and continued. "This gentleman whoadopted me lived for one single purpose, with one single aim in view--toavenge my mother, whom he had loved, upon the man whom she had lovedand who had so ill repaid her. He reared me for that purpose, as much,I think, as out of any other feeling. Thirty years have sped, and stillthe hand of the avenger has not fallen upon my fat
her. It shouldhave fallen a month ago; but I was weak; I hesitated; and then thissword-thrust put me out of all case of doing what I had crossed fromFrance to do."
She looked at him with something of horror in her face. "Were you--wereyou to have been the instrument?" she inquired. "Were you to haveavenged this thing upon your own father?"
He nodded slowly. "'Twas to that end that I was reared," he answered,and put aside his pipe, which had gone out. "The spirit of revengewas educated into me until I came to look upon revenge as the best andholiest of emotions; until I believed that if I failed to wreak it Imust be a craven and a dastard. All this seemed so until the moment cameto set my hand to the task. And then--" He shrugged.
"And then?" she questioned.
"I couldn't. The full horror of it burst upon me. I saw the thing in itstrue and hideous proportions, and it revolted me."
"It must have been so," she approved him.
"I told my foster-father; but I met with neither sympathy norunderstanding. He renewed his old-time arguments, and again he seemedto prove to me that did I fail I should be false to my duty and to mymother's memory--a weakling, a thing of shame."
"The monster! Oh, the monster! He is an evil man for all that you havesaid of him."
"Not so. There is no nobler gentleman in all the world. I who know him,know that. It is through the very nobility of it that this warp hascome into his nature. Sane in all things else, he is--I see it now, Iunderstand it at last--insane on this one subject. Much brooding hasmade him mad upon this matter--a fanatic whose gospel is Vengeance, and,like all fanatics, he is harsh and intolerant when resisted on the pointof his fanaticism. This is something I have come to realize in thesepast days, when I lay with naught else to do but ponder.
"In all things else he sees as deep and clear as any man; in this hisvision is distorted. He has looked at nothing else for thirty years; canyou wonder that his sight is blurred?"
"He is to be pitied then," she said, "deeply to be pitied."
"True. And because I pitied him, because I valued his regard-howevermistaken he might be--above all else, I was hesitating again--thistime between my duty to myself and my duty to him. I was sohesitating--though I scarce can doubt which had prevailed in theend--when came this sword-thrust so very opportunely to put me out ofcase of doing one thing or the other."
"But now that you are well again?" she asked.
"Now that I am well again--I thank Heaven that it will be too late. Theopportunity that was ours is lost. His--my father should now be beyondour power."
There ensued a spell of silence. He sat with eyes averted from herface--those eyes which she had never known other than whimsical andmocking, now full of gloom and pain--riveted upon the glare of sunshineon the pond out yonder. A great sympathy welled up from her heartfor this man whom she was still far from understanding, and who,nevertheless--because of it, perhaps, for there is much fascination inthat which puzzles--was already growing very dear to her. The story hehad told her drew her infinitely closer to him, softening her heart forhim even more perhaps than it had already been softened when she hadseen him--as she had thought--upon the point of dying. A wonder flittedthrough her mind as to why he had told her; then another questionsurged. She gave it tongue.
"You have told me so much, Mr. Caryll," she said, "that I am emboldenedto ask something more." His eyes invited her to put her question."Your--your father? Was he related to Lord Ostermore?"
Not a muscle of his face moved. "Why that?" he asked.
"Because your name is Caryll," said she.
"My name?" he laughed softly and bitterly. "My name?" He reached for anebony cane that stood beside his chair. "I had thought you understood."He heaved himself to his feet, and she forgot to caution him againstexertion. "I have no right to any name," he told her. "My father was aman too full of worldly affairs to think of trifles. And so it befellthat before he went his ways he forgot to marry the poor lady who wasmy mother. I might take what name I chose. I chose Caryll. But you willunderstand, Mistress Winthrop," and he looked her fully in the face,attempting in vain to dissemble the agony in his eyes--he who a littlewhile ago had been almost happy--"that if ever it should happen thatI should come to love a woman who is worthy of being loved, I who amnameless have no name to offer her."
Revelation illumined her mind as in a flash. She looked at him.
"Was--was that what you meant, that day we thought you dying, when yousaid to me--for it was to me you spoke, to me alone--that it was betterso?"
He inclined his head. "That is what I meant," he answered.
Her lids drooped; her cheeks were very white, and he remarked the swift,agitated surge of her bosom, the fingers that were plucking at oneanother in her lap. Without looking up, she spoke again. "If you had thelove to offer, what would the rest matter? What is a name that it shouldweigh so much?"
"Heyday!" He sighed, and smiled very wistfully. "You are young, child.In time you will understand what place the world assigns to such men asI. It is a place I could ask no woman to share. Such as I am, could Ispeak of love to any woman?"
"Yet you spoke of love once to me," she reminded him, scarcely above herbreath, and stabbed him with the recollection.
"In an hour of moonshine, an hour of madness, when I was a reckless foolthat must give tongue to every impulse. You reproved me then in just theterms my case deserved. Hortensia," he bent towards her, leaning onhis cane, "'tis very sweet and merciful in you to recall it withoutreproach. Recall it no more, save to think with scorn of the fleeringcoxcomb who was so lost to the respect that is due to so sweet a lady. Ihave told you so much of myself to-day that you may."
"Decidedly," came a shrill, ironical voice from the arbor's entrance,"I may congratulate you, sir, upon the prodigious strides of yourrecovery."
Mr. Caryll straightened himself from his stooping posture, turned andmade Lady Ostermore a bow, his whole manner changed again to that whichwas habitual to him. "And no less decidedly, my lady," said he with atight-lipped smile, "may I congratulate your ladyship's son upon thathappy circumstance, which is--as I have learned--so greatly due to thesteps your ladyship took--for which I shall be ever grateful--to ensurethat I should be made whole again."
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