A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (mini ebook reader .TXT) 📕

eats. You cannot realize more fully than I do, how insane my love for

you is.”

“Have I said it was insane?”

“France!” he cried.

She did not speak.

“France,” he cried again, “can it be possible that you care for me!

Speak my fate in one word—shall it be go, or stay?”

She turned toward him, the dark eyes full of radiant light, and

answered:

“Stay!”

CHAPTER XVI.

“GORDON CARYLL.”

Ten minutes have passed. All that it is necessary to say has been said;

the first delirium is over, and reason has resumed her sway.

“But what will Lady Dynely say?” Locksley asks. “How am I to go and tell

her that the impecunious artist whom she brought down here, to paint her

ward’s picture, has had the presumption to fall in love with his sitter,

and declare that presumptuous passion? And what will your guardian in

Rome say—Mrs. Caryll?”

“I don’t know that it matters very greatly what they say,” France

laughs. “Mrs. Caryll I should like to please certainly, but since I am

not to marry Lord Dynely, I do not think her objections will be very

difficult to overcome. For Lady Dynely, I am under her care for the

present, but to control my actions in any way she has no right whatever.

I shall be of age in two years, and then”—she looks up into the eager

face above her, still laughing—“and then, so you are pleased, it won’t

matter very greatly what all the world together says.”

“That means you will be wife. France—am I to believe it—that one day I

may claim you as my own?”

“If you care to have me. And, meantime, I suppose you will give up your

idea of rushing out of the world, and remain here like a reasonable

mortal, and paint that duplicate picture for dear old grandmamma

Caryll.”

“I will do anything you say—I will paint a thousand duplicates—I will

stay here and face an army of guardians if necessary, and be branded as

a fortune-hunter, an adventurer. For a fortune-hunter they will call me,

and believe me to be.”

“Not in my presence, at least,” France answers; “no one, not those I

hold nearest and dearest, shall speak ill of you and remain my friend.

And speaking of fortune, I hope you have no objection to my restoring to

Gordon Caryll, should he at any time return, all the inheritance his

mother bequeathes me. I hold it in trust; and let him appear to-morrow,

or thirty years from now, I will still return it.”

Locksley laughed.

“I object! Not likely! Still—I hope he will not come!”

“Mr. Locksley!”

“I decline to answer to that name any longer to you. I have another,

though the idea does not seem to have occurred to you.”

“What is it? I have seen G. Locksley at the bottom of your pictures.

What is it? George? Godfrey? Geoffry? What?”

“None of these—my name is–-”

The dark, luminous eyes were lifted to his face.

“Is—well?”

“My name is Gordon.”

“Gordon!” a startled expression came over her face for a moment—her

eagerly wistful eyes looked at him. But he met her gaze with his

curiously imperturbable smile.

“It is a favorite cognomen of yours, I know. There are other Gordons in

the world beside Gordon Caryll, who as I said before, I hope will never

return.”

“And why?”

“Because I am mortally jealous of him. He has always been your hero, by

your own showing—is so still—and I feel in the depths of my prophetic

soul that he is destined to be my rival. If it were not for that, I

might be tempted to—” a smile and a provoking pause.

“Well, to what?” she cries with that pretty imperiousness of manner that

was one of her chief charms.

“To find him for you. It ought not to be an impossible task. I think I

could accomplish it, if I were quite sure your hero of the past would

not become your idol of the future. To bring him here with a halo of

romance enveloping him would be a dangerous experiment. I had made up

my mind to go and surrender you to Lord Dynely; to surrender you now to

Mr. Gordon Caryll—no, I am only human—I could not do that. Lord Dynely

would be a dangerous rival for any man living, with the youth and the

beauty of a Greek god; but Gordon Caryll must be old and as battered as

myself. To be ousted by him—”

He paused; she had clasped her hands, her lips were apart, her eyes were

dilated.

“Mr. Locksley—”

“Gordon—Gordon—I told you my name.”

“Gordon, then—do you think—do you think you can find him?”

“Caryll? Why, yes. I can try at least. I dare say he is as anxious to

return as you are to have him back. Only tell me, France, that when he

is found he will never come between you and me?”

She looks at him, an indignant flash in her eyes—an indignant flush on

her cheeks.

“Neither Gordon Caryll nor any man on earth can do that. I belong to

you. Only I want him back for his own sake, for his mother’s, for mine.

He has suffered enough, been in exile long enough, for what at no time

was his fault, but his misfortune. Fetch him back, if you can—it is all

that is needed to complete my perfect happiness now.”

The name of her lover does not come fluently from her lips yet.

“Gordon.” It is an odd coincidence, she thinks, that he should resemble

the exiled heir of Caryllynne, and bear the same name. Some dim, vague

suspicion is beginning to creep over her, some shadow of suspicion

rather; for, as yet, the truth is too wildly unreal and improbable to be

thought of. He knows more of Gordon Caryll, she thinks, than he will

tell, and the dark eyes look up at him wistfully, searchingly. Something

in Locksley’s face makes her think the subject distasteful to him. He

stands there understanding her thoroughly, and with a half-repressed

smile on his lips. They have changed places it would seem; she is no

longer the haughty, high-born heiress—he no longer the obscure,

penniless artist, and soldier of fortune. It is his to rule, hers to

obey.

“What a wretched expression of countenance, Miss Forrester,” he said

laughing. “Are you regretting your hasty admission of five minutes ago?

Are you sorry already you bade me stay? If so—”

Her clasped hands tighten on his arm. Sorry she bade him stay! Her

radiant eyes answer that.

“Then it is solely on Gordon Caryll’s account. Be at peace, my France,

ask no questions; we will talk of ourselves, not of him. Only be sure of

this—he shall return to his home, to his mother, and to you.”

She lays her happy face against his shoulder in eloquent silence. So

they stand—looking out at the leaden summer afternoon, listening to the

soft, dark rush of the summer rain.

“How will we get back to Dynely Abbey if this lasts?” France says at

last.

“It is not going to last,” Mr. Locksley answers; “it is lighting already

in the west yonder. In two hours from now, ma belle, you will drive me

back to the village through a perfect blaze of sunset glory. Meantime we

have the house to see, luncheon to eat, and, by the same token, I wish

your old lady would hurry. It may seem unromantic, Miss Forrester,

but–-”

“You have had no dinner and are famished,” laughs France. “Here comes

Mrs. Mathews now, to announce that our banquet is ready.”

Mrs. Mathews enters, unutterably respectable to look at, in her stiff,

black silk, and widow’s cap. Yes, luncheon is ready, and as Mrs. Mathews

makes the announcement, she gazes with strange intensity into the face

of the tall, bearded stranger. She remembers her young master as though

she had seen him but yesterday, and how like this gentleman is to him

none but Mrs. Mathews can realize. His eyes, his expression, the very

trick of manner with which he shakes back his thick brown hair. Her

master returned! It cannot be, else surely Miss France must know it; and

yet—and yet—the housekeeper’s eyes followed him as one fascinated.

She waits upon them. It is a very merry little repast. In spite of

love’s delirium they both enjoy the creature comforts provided. Mr.

Locksley is really hungry—does the grande passion ever impair a

healthy man’s appetite? It does France good to see him eat. And then,

luncheon over, they saunter away to look at the rooms.

Locksley’s prediction concerning the weather is already beginning to be

fulfilled. The afternoon has lighted up once more—the sun, behind its

veil of clouds still, will be out in full splendor presently; the rain

falls, but gently. The swift August storm is spent.

“We shall have a delicious drive home,” France says, as they wander

through long suites of rooms, drawing-rooms, library, and

picture-gallery. “What an eventful day this has been. How little I

thought, when I started forth ‘fetterless and free’ this morning, that I

should wear captive chains before night; I am glad Lady Dynely is

away—she would be certain to read all my wrongdoing in my guilty face

upon my return, and to sit down and tell her in cold blood so soon, I

could not. It would seem a sort of desecration.”

“You are sure you will never repent?” Locksley asks, uneasily. “You have

made but a miserable bargain, France. With your youth and beauty, your

birth and fortune, the offers you refused in the season, to end at last

with a free lance, an obscure artist, whose youth is passed, who can

give you nothing but an unknown name, and a heart that you took captive

at sight, in return. My darling, the world will tell you, and tell you

truly, you have made but a sorry bargain.”

“The world will never tell it to me twice. Why do we talk of it? I love

you; with you I am happy—without you I am miserable—all is said in

that.”

There is silence for a time. They look at the pictured faces of

dead-and-gone Carylls, and do not see them. At last—

“And so you take me blindfolded?” Locksley says. “You ask nothing of the

forty years that lie behind me? You give me yourself, without one

question of what my life has been? How are you to tell I am worthy of

the gift?”

She looks at him and her happy face pales suddenly. All at once there

returns to her the memory of Eric’s words, the memory of that hinted at,

hidden away, “obnoxious wife.”

“I have a story to tell you,” he says in answer to that startled look;

“you shall hear it before we quit this house—you shall know all my life

as I know it myself. How many more rooms have we to see? Whose is this?”

“It is—it was—Gordon Caryll’s.”

They pause on the threshold. The sun has come from behind the clouds and

fills the room with its slanting, amber glory. The rain has entirely

ceased—a rainbow spans the arch of blue sky they can see from the tall

window.

“Nothing has been altered,” France says softly; “everything is as he

left it. Books, pictures, pipes, whips, guns,—all!”

They enter. What a strange expression Locksley’s face wears, the girl

thinks, as he looks around. She does not understand, and yet those

vague, shapeless suspicions are floating in her mind. They