Chapter Twenty Five
Tempted of the Devil
Una lay awake through the early part of the hot summer night, with her mind full of the crisis in Amethyst’s fate.
She was sad and anxious; all the sweetness of her life was owing to Amethyst’s tenderness, and how long would the loving sister be left beside her?
She could not guess at all what choice Amethyst would be impelled to make, what effect the sight of Lucian would have upon her. She had hardly seemed to heed the discovery that Sylvester Riddell was her lover too. Had she made up her mind to marry Sir Richard Grattan at all costs? Was not Oliver Carisbrooke more to her than she knew? Una believed that her own life had been shipwrecked for ever. She longed with all her heart to see Amethyst steer clear of the treacherous rocks in her way.
She lay awake in the sultry air, listening till the sound of the expected step on the stairs made her heart throb till she was faint.
The step was slow and lingering – would it pass by? No, the door was softly opened, and Amethyst came in. She stood at the foot of the bed, in the flood of summer moonlight, so that her face looked as white as her gown, and her amethysts glittered with a colourless gleam. She looked at Una with cold heavy eyes, and her voice was dull and lifeless.
“Are you having a bad night, dear?” she said.
“Yes – never mind. What has happened to you?”
“Nothing,” said Amethyst.
“Didn’t he come after all?”
“Oh yes! But I can’t tell why I used to think him so interesting. He’s a very handsome boy, but I can’t fall in love now with a straight nose and good intentions. If I lived fifty years with him, he would never know what I was thinking of.”
She laughed as she spoke, a short bitter little laugh. “He has done his best – done his duty by me. But he can’t put the clock back.”
“I said that you were never really in love with him!” said Una, after a moment’s startled silence.
“I was, with every thought and feeling and part of me! But I’ve forgotten him. I’m not made of the stuff to be constant and faithful – as he has been. He was a fool not to know I was a good girl then! I believe I’m a very bad one now!”
“You looked so happy, when you thought he was coming.”
“Yes, I thought if the sight of him brought it all back, I could even forgive him – and his mother – and mine! I was as much a fool then as he was, not to force him to believe in me. But if I had, and had found out by this time that he was stupid?”
“He must have loved you very much.”
“He loved his duty or his honour, or whatever it was, better than he loved me,” said Amethyst. “He has done his duty by me now, and satisfied his sense of honour. But what am I talking about? What is the use of feelings? And what is the use of keeping you awake and making you ill? Lie down, my sweet, I shall be in my senses to-morrow, and then you shall hear some news.”
“Oh, Amethyst, don’t do it!” cried Una. “Whether you have forgotten Lucian or not, if you can’t care for any one again – ”
“Oh, but I guess I could,” said Amethyst, recklessly. “There’s the very thing – there’s the rub.”
“But not Sir Richard?”
“As to that,” said Amethyst, “in all honour I am bound to him. I have been meaning it. I can do it. And we are all bound to him. I should as good as jilt him if I threw him over now. But – if Lucian had brought my heart back to me – I would have broken through it all! Though I would have begged Sir Richard’s pardon on my knees. But there’s nothing strong enough in me to do it now.”
“Oh, my darling,” cried Una, starting up and clinging to her, “there can be! I told you how it was with me – me – that am so weak and so bad. It is quite true. I don’t understand it – at other times – I’m just my foolish self. But just now and then – as that poem you used to be fond of says – ‘My strength is as the strength of ten.’ But it’s not because my heart is pure – for it’s not, it’s not – but because He is stronger than I am! The ‘Spirit of the Lord came upon me.’ I know what that means, Amethyst, though He does go quite away, quite – quite!”
Amethyst was somewhat awe-struck.
“But He doesn’t come to me, Una,” she said in a subdued voice, “and I can’t even ask Him. Because whatever I do can’t be really right, I’ve tied the knots too tight.”
“But I suppose God thinks that one way would be more right than another,” said Una.
Childish as was the form of speech, it struck an answering chord in Amethyst’s soul; but Una’s tone was so faint with weariness that she refused to go on talking, made her lie back on the pillows, and left her as soon as possible, to think the problem out for herself.
”‘My dismal scene I needs must act alone,’” she thought, as she slowly undressed herself, and lay down in bed.
She lay on her back, with her hands clasped over the top of her head, and watched the moonlight on the opposite wall. She had her fate in life to decide. At twenty years old, “half-grown as yet, a child and vain,” she had so strong a principle of growth within her, that her true self had hardly yet begun to be. She had decided. She had made up her mind, long ago, that she would marry Sir Richard Grattan. As his wife she would belong to good and honourable people; all her tastes and faculties would have full scope; a great career would be before herself, and she could always be a stand-by to her sisters. She was desirous of doing right, though she could not realise Una’s experience otherwise than as an impression on the girl’s mind. But it had not ceased to be the best thing for herself to marry Sir Richard, because she had discovered that a great impulse – a great passion, would induce her to break free from him. For no great impulse was there.
She did pray for help, though with a cold and wavering spirit, and she made up her mind to her course of action. She went down-stairs in the morning, in the full conviction that she would accept Sir Richard before the day was out Breakfast was an irregular meal, and no one was there but Tory, who attended an early French class, and was sitting with her hat on.
“Amethyst,” she said, “I believe there’s something up. Father came in last night after you went up-stairs, and he and my lady talked for hours in the dressing-room. She actually cried.”
“Did she?” said Amethyst, startled.
“Yes. Whichever of them you mean to say ‘yes’ to, you had better get it done with a clear conscience before you know of anything to stop you.”
“But what do you think?”
“I think we’ve come to smash. But if it’s Sir Richard, he must have known we soon should.” Before Amethyst could reply, a message came to say that her ladyship wanted to speak to Miss Haredale. She went up-stairs with a beating heart, and found her mother, to her surprise, up and dressed, with the marks of tears on her face.
“Amethyst,” she said, “I believe the game is up. Your engagement must be announced to-day, and we must leave town at once. Is Sir Richard coming this morning? Don’t let there be another hour’s delay.”
“What has happened?” stammered Amethyst. “Now don’t be frightened,” said Lady Haredale, “and to be shocked is no use. You know that your father raised money on the Haredale farms, with Charles’s consent Sir Richard bought them. Some of it we were to spend in coming to London – on your account, Amethyst. With the rest he was to pay off a mortgage which, through various changes, had come into the hands of Blanche’s husband, Sir Edward Clyste. Well, he didn’t do it, but risked the money on a horse at Epsom, and lost it. Now that’s not all, it’s a very ugly story, and I’m sorry to have to tell you. It seems my lord’s affairs at Epsom were mixed up with the other man’s, – you know.”
“What other man, mother?”
“Why, Captain Vincent – the man Blanche was so imprudent about. He behaved scandalously, and of course we were supposed to cut him. But it’s always forgive and forget with my lord, and – if any one would give him any advantage in a racing matter, his character wouldn’t count for much. Well, the connection was kept a secret, but it’s come out apparently in that set, and Sir Edward – who is on the turf too – when he finds that the money, which really was pledged to him, has been lost in connection with Vincent, isn’t likely to have much mercy. Moreover, Vincent, it seems, has done something which steps over the line which racing men think fair and square. Myself, I don’t see much difference between what they will do and what they won’t, but men feel differently. So he’s to be sent to Coventry, and though my lord knew nothing about that, mixing up his money matters with Vincent’s, under the circumstances, isn’t thought the thing. And things will be made very uncomfortable for us. Now, we must get Sir Richard to advance the money to pay off the mortgage, and no doubt he will, it’s only 6,000 pounds, but even that won’t set everything straight again.”
Lady Haredale spoke with a certain hard, practical cynicism which was the skeleton on which her sweet, shallow gaiety was grown, and Amethyst answered in the same tone.
“No. Nothing can alter the fact that my father has done a dishonourable thing.”
“Well – it’s come to be dishonourable – doubtful, certainly; but I don’t suppose it looked so, step by step. He is very miserable, my poor old lord, I assure you. You know he has hardly ever come near us, or gone about with us. But what with this, and what with the drawback of Charles, and that odious Mrs Saint George, who hates me, and contrives to make every one think there was something queer about the debts which were paid when I took your amethysts, poor child! (not that there was anything but a few harmless fibs) – what with all this, though I’ve as much pluck as most women, and though people will swallow a great deal to have you at their parties, I really don’t think I can fight it out any longer.”
“But when Sir Richard Grattan knows all this, will he still choose to connect himself with my father – and Charles – and – the rest of us?”
“Why, Amethyst,” said Lady Haredale, “that’s what you have got to secure. You know we can’t tell him any lies, because other men will tell him the truth. But he’s very much infatuated with you, stiff as you have always been. Encourage him, be kind and loving to him, and he won’t break your heart or give you up.”
Amethyst leant back in her chair with her hands lying on her lap. She was pale and very still, and when she spoke, her voice had a clear, satirical ring, as if she had been saying something clever in society. But, in truth, she was at the white heat of passion, so that she defied every instinct of natural reverence and shame. There is a sort of truth-speaking, of calling things by their right names, that means the entire rebellion of the soul.
“I don’t see much difference between any of us,” she said. “My father condones his daughter’s disgrace for the sake of a money advantage, and continues under an obligation to his son-in-law who has been wronged; you tell harmless fibs, and, among other things, you think it a trifle that a man like Major Fowler should have destroyed all Una’s peace and freshness; Charles does things which I am never supposed to hear of, and besides, gets drunk in society. My half-sister married one man when she loved another, and I suppose never troubled to avoid him afterwards. I am going to marry a man for whom I don’t care a straw, because he has money and can help my family, and I am to take advantage of having the sort of beauty which makes fools of men, to get him to take a burden on his shoulders of which he’s sure to repent in future. Which is the worst of us? Even Aunt Anna will let that poor girl marry Charles ‘for the honour of the family.’”
“Amethyst,” exclaimed Lady Haredale, really shocked, “you never heard me say anything of that sort.”
“No – you do it.”
“That is quite a different thing. Pray never let your sisters hear you talk in such a manner. And as for Blanche, she never saw Captain Vincent before she was married. I don’t know who her old love was, she would never tell us. But she was a girl who couldn’t do without something of the kind going on. If you knew how hard it has been to get on at all, you would not make matters worse by speaking to me in that way.”
Amethyst was silent. She had burnt her ships, and outraged all her natural instincts, and she felt impenitent and strong.
“A gentleman, asking for Miss Haredale,” said a servant at the door.
“Sir Richard, I suppose,” said Amethyst, standing up. “Well, mother, I’m going down-stairs to accept him – if he asks me. But I’ll take care he knows the worst of my family, and I shall tell him that I don’t yet know the worst of myself.”
She went down-stairs, with the evil power still in her heart. The inward force had come to her, not in love, but in hate. There are inspirations from the land of darkness, and these too can make strong. They find their opportunity in self-despair.
“Nothing and no one will interfere to save me,” she thought.
She opened the drawing-room door, and found herself face to face, not with Sir Richard Grattan, but with Sylvester Riddell.
Chapter Twenty Six
According to his Light
Amethyst’s two lovers went out from her presence into the gaslight and the moonlight, and walked through the still busy streets of the West End, hardly exchanging a word with each other.
Neither of them had eaten much that day, and Sylvester took Lucian to his club and ordered supper, but he looked white and wretched, and shook his head when his friend pressed him to eat and drink. He hated the public place, the sense of homelessness, he wanted to hide himself like an unhappy dog. At last he said, —
“I can do nothing to make up for the past.”
“Well, two years is a long time,” said Sylvester, whose own feelings were too exacting just then to leave space for much sympathy with Lucian.
“Is it? I’ve done a great many things since we parted; but I’ve never felt anything but – wanting her. She seems a thousand times more glorious than ever to me, and I am nothing to her – now.”
“But you didn’t think, before you saw her again, that, after all that passed, she had continued to care for you?” said Syl, curiously.
“I did not know then, if she ever had truly cared for me,” said Lucian. “I supposed that she had not, that it had all been a delusion. What else could I think? Even then, I did not forget her. But when I found, when she herself says now, that in that old time, she was real and true – I don’t see how any one can change a true love once given. It’s a thing I can’t conceive possible. It would have seemed a fresh wrong to her to fear it.”
“Did it never occur to you,” said Sylvester impatiently, “that she was not half-grown-up, two years ago, and that now she may see that you are not the kind of person to suit her?”
“I never could have outgrown her,” said Lucian. “And did you never think that she has never forgiven us – you – for misjudging her?”
“That is a different thing. That is not how it is,” said Lucian, positively; then, standing up, “I want to get back to your rooms, Syl. I can’t stand anything more. I’ll go to bed, I feel done for.” There was something pathetic in the faithfulness that could not imagine the possibility of change in the love that had once been proved worthy; but naturally Lucian’s self-confidence struck Sylvester forcibly, and as they walked away together once more, he suddenly lost the remains of his patience, and broke out —
“Can’t you see that a creature like that has a thousand needs and possibilities that have developed in her since she belonged to you? It may be for good, or it may be for evil, but she cannot go back. Did it never strike you then that you had got hold of a being all force and fire, a splendid goddess, altogether out of your ken?”
“No,” said Lucian, “I meant to take care of her, and I hoped we should go on, and lead the right sort of lives together.”
“Well, we are each shut up in the bounds of our own nature,” said Sylvester, shortly.
“I think,” said Lucian, after a pause, “that you are trying to make me see that I never was good enough for her.”
“Who could be?”
“If it has been all my fault,” said Lucian, in a shaken voice, “it is a hard thing to know. For – it is not all right with her now. Good-night, Syl,” – for by this time they had reached the lodgings – “I’m going to bed. You think I’m not enough of a fellow for her, but she has all there is of me, and it’s no good to her.”
He hurried away, and shut himself into his room. His words hardly did him justice; for his thoughts were crude and one-sided; but the entire trust in the word once given, the love that had survived even the loss of faith, were feelings of heroic size.
Lucian really had few faults, and such as he had, he guarded against with dutiful, if somewhat formal, technical conscientiousness. Defects of nature, as distinct from acts of sin, he did not recognise.
When he found that he had been led to misjudge Amethyst, his conscience, as well as his heart, was shocked, he felt that he ought not to have been deceived, and, whether he could understand it or no, he knew that she was lost to him for ever. She was not for him. He saw too that she was changed. She was not what he had expected to find her. He was bewildered by her, and he had to live without her.
Lucian’s religion, was as simple as his view of life. Under its dictates, he had abstained from the ordinary sins of school and college life, and had framed his view of what was becoming to a young man of property. Like the young ruler, he kept the Commandments. He distinctly believed that his life was ordered for him, and, in this fresh agony, which had brought a certainty, which, while the separation from Amethyst had been his own doing, he had never really felt, he recognised that he must not throw it away.
The right thing to do, soon, was to go and live at Toppings by himself, or with his mother and sisters. There would never be any one else now. He would go for his three months’ cruise in the Albatross, and get over the worst of his trouble. He thought that he would rather be alone, at first, than with Sylvester. Somehow, his old companion jarred upon him. Perhaps friend, as well as love, had outgrown him.
Meanwhile, Sylvester had been haunted by the echo of one of Lucian’s sentences, “All is not right with her now.” No, indeed, and the lover of her girlhood was powerless to help. Could his own love, so much more full, as it seemed to him, of comprehending in sight, do nothing? He would have been wretched if she had turned back to Lucian’s love. That could not have sufficed her; but it was far worse that she should choose the lower part, defy and ignore all the imperious demands of her fine spirit. And he must stand by and see it – He who had watched her course, and read her needs and her dangers, from the very first day that, behind the beauty that had captivated his senses, he had seen the aspiring soul look out from her eyes.
Through the short hours of darkness Sylvester lay in helpless rage and despair; but suddenly, when the light of the summer dawn came through his open window, and the London sparrows began to twitter, and the life of London to wake up with the roll of the market waggons and the tread of the earliest passing feet, he started up, inspired with a sudden purpose.
“I will not stand by, and see it. What matter what she may think of me or of my doings? I have no hope of her. She is not for me. But my soul shall tell her soul the truth. She, her true self, shall not fight the battle alone, with every one around her on the side of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
Sylvester Riddell was not a person who led an ardent or strenuous life. His professional duties at the University were not very arduous, his literary work was of a somewhat dilettante nature, his mind was full of conflicting theories.
But though he wrote verse that was not quite poetry, though he was inconsistent, and harmlessly self-indulgent, he had moments of inspiration, when the “demon” that speaks to prophet and poet would speak to him. Such a moment came now. A purpose, impossible conventionally, but which, nevertheless, he would carry out, had come to him, and he called down all power in earth and heaven, every force which he believed to make for righteousness, to fight on his side and to help him. Never had such real prayer gone forth from his soul, as now when he determined to reinforce with every particle of spiritual strength within him, the wavering spirit of the woman he loved. He felt ashamed of his irritation against Lucian, who, after all, had served Amethyst as well as he knew how, though he did not wish him to guess either his feelings or his purpose, thinking, rather unjustly, that Lucian would not be able to understand him, and would suppose that he meant to make Amethyst an offer.
Lucian was very quiet, and seemed to find breakfast a difficulty. After a silence he said —
“There’s one thing, Syl, I think should be done, and it would be best for you to do it. Will you write to my mother, and undeceive her? She will believe you. It is all gone by, but I cannot have one shadow left upon her which can be removed.”
“Yes, I will,” said Sylvester. “What shall you do now yourself?”
“I think I shall close with the man who owns the Albatross– for three months only. Will you come?”
“I hardly know. I ought to go to Cleverley first. Perhaps I might join you later.”
“I’ve got a note from Jackson,” said Lucian; “he wants me to run down and see him first. He misses me – I got to know his ways.”
He did not get very steadily to the end of the sentence, he was touched at finding himself satisfactory to some one.
“Could he go with you?” said Sylvester. “Oh no. He ought to be perfectly quiet. But I shall ask him to come to Toppings in the autumn. I must make a beginning there some time. I’ll do it then.”
“Well, Lucy, I dare say that’s quite right.”
“I shall go off this morning,” said Lucian. “Jackson’s father lives near Chester. Then on to Liverpool. I’ll leave word there about letters. Tell me if – when – when anything happens. I’m very much obliged to you for having given me the chance of contradicting my former conduct. I think, perhaps, in time to come, she may like to remember that I did it. And tell your father, please, that I renewed my offer, and that she refused me. I can’t think of anything else that I can do or say.”
“It has been hard lines on you, my dear old boy.”
“Yes. But that’s no matter, if I have in any way repaired the injustice. I’ve seen her; I suppose I never shall again. She did say a hard thing. But – well, Syl, good-bye, I’ll go and look after a train to suit me. Thank you. I’m glad it’s all happened. Good-bye. When your time comes, I hope you’ll have better luck.”
He smiled ruefully enough, and held out his hand. Sylvester took it.
“Say one thing more, Lucy,” he said; “wish me as single a purpose as your own.”
Lucian looked puzzled. Sylvester’s lips were set and pale, and his eyes very bright.
“I’ll wish you anything I can,” he said, and went off to collect his belongings.
He was longer about it than Sylvester had expected; the hansom he had ordered waited, before he came in again ready to start.
He put something down on the table.
“I don’t think you brought that photograph to Liverpool for me, Syl,” he said, and was gone before a word could be spoken.