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

breakfast.”

“Not down to breakfast?”

“He was absent rather late last night,” Miss Forrester said, speaking

lightly; “no doubt he has turned sluggard, and overslept himself.

Susan,” she said to Mrs. Caryll’s nurse and maid, who entered at that

moment, “do you know if Mr. Caryll is still in his room?”

“Mr. Caryll went out three hours ago, Miss France,” the Woman answered.

“So I heard his man Norton say.”

There was a pause.

“How very strange,” France was thinking, more and more uneasily; “how

very unlike Gordon. What can it mean?”

But there was no solution of the enigma. The morning wore on, bringing

Eric and Crystal—Eric handsome and debonnaire as ever, Crystal clinging

to his arm, silent, shadowy. And Lady Dynely alone was their companion

in the day’s pleasuring at Saint Cloud.

“I wish you were coming, France,” Crystal said, in a wistful whisper.

Somehow, in France’s strength and sunny brightness, even this little

wilted lily seemed to revive.

“Not to-day, darling,” France answered, kissing her. “It will not do to

leave grandmamma quite alone. Besides, Saint Cloud is an old story to me

and rather a tiresome one. We will all meet at dinner and go to the

Opera aux Italiens together.”

“Has Crystal’s eloquence prevailed, France?” Eric says in his languid

way, sauntering up. “No? Then,” with a slight, half-contemptuous laugh,

“the case is hopeless indeed. When a woman won’t, she won’t. I suppose

we must be resigned, although your absence spoils our excursion. Come,

madre, come, sposo mio. By-by, France—‘we meet again at Philippi.’”

And then they are gone, and France draws a long breath of relief. Gordon

will be here presently, and they will have a long, delicious day all to

themselves, and everything will be explained.

She goes up to Mrs. Caryll’s room, takes a favorite book, seats herself

by a window, whence no one can enter unperceived, and tries to read. But

so many people come in and go out, so many carriages and fiacres whirl

up and down, that her attention is perpetually distracted. How long the

hours are—how the morning drags—will he never come? Eleven, twelve,

one! Will he return to luncheon at two? He hardly ever eats luncheon,

but surely he will come. How dazzlingly bright the sunshine is—her eyes

ache. She rises with an impatient sigh and closes the curtains. A brass

band somewhere near is thundering forth its music. They are playing one

of Felicia’s popular airs. She wishes they would stop; the noise makes

her head ache. Mrs. Caryll is dozing in her chair. The brazen braying of

the band is beginning to make France sleepy too. Just as her tired eyes

close, and her head droops against the back of her chair, Susan taps

softly and enters the room.

“Miss France.” She has to repeat the name before the girl looks up.

“Miss France, there is a lady in the salon to see you.”

“A lady.” For a moment her heart had bounded. But, only a lady!

“Susan,” she impatiently exclaims, “hasn’t Mr. Gordon come yet? Surely

he must be in his room or—”

“No, Miss France, he hasn’t come yet. And the lady is waiting in the

salon—”

“Who is she? Where is her card? I am not dressed. I don’t wish to see

any one.”

“She would not give her name; she sent up no card. She said she wished

to see Miss Forrester at once on very important business.”

“Very important business!” Miss Forrester rises, opening her hazel eyes.

“Important business!” Again her heart leaps—is it anything about

Gordon? “In the salon, you say, Susan? I’ll go down at once.”

She goes. In the long, cool salon, the jalousies are half-closed, and in

the dim, greenish light a lady sits. A lady very elegantly

dressed—_over_-dressed, it seems to France, her face hidden by a close,

black lace veil.

“You wished to see me, madame?” Miss Forrester says gently, and

marvelling who her veiled visitor can be.

The lady turns, rises. “Miss Forrester?” she says, interrogatively, and

Miss Forrester, still standing, bows.

“You wished to see me on important business—”

France does not finish the sentence, for the lady quietly removes her

veil, and they stand face to face. A very beautiful and striking face

France sees, and oddly familiar, though for the moment she cannot place

it. Only for a moment, then she recoils a step.

“Madame Felicia!” she exclaims.

“Madame Felicia!” the actress repeats, with a graceful stage bow and a

coolly insolent smile. “Now you know why I did not send up my name. You

would not have seen me.”

Miss Forrester has recovered herself. Surprised excessively she is

still; intensely curious she is also, but outwardly she is only calmly,

quietly courteous.

“You mistake,” she says, in the same coldly gentle tone; “I would have

seen you. May I ask to what I owe this unexpected visit?”

She seats herself at a distance, near one of the windows, and glances at

her watch as a hint to be brief. Madame Felicia takes the hint. The

coolly insolent smile yet lingers round the full, red lips, the

yellowish black eyes (like a cat’s eyes, France thinks) have an

exultant, triumphant light.

“I will not detain you long,” she says; “and I think what I have to say

will not bore you. May I ask—although I know you have not—have you

seen Mr. Gordon Caryll this morning?”

France’s heart gives one leap. It is something about Gordon after all.

Her dark face pales slightly; and she has to pause a second before she

can quite steady her voice.

“And may I ask,” she says, haughtily, “in what way that concerns you?”

“It concerns me much more nearly than you think,” the actress answers.

“You shall hear presently. I know you have not seen him this morning,

else you would not be sitting here with me now. I thought I would be

beforehand with him, and I am. I thought he would hardly have the

courage to come straight from me to you.”

The blood rushes in a torrent to France’s face, to her temples.

“From me to you!” There is a great green tub of jessamines in full bloom

standing behind her. Is it the sweet, sickly odor of the flowers that

turns her so deathly faint now? “From you to me,” she repeats; “I don’t

know what you mean.”

“I am quite sure you don’t. Mr. Caryll has not been visible here this

morning because he has been with me. He left me just one hour and a half

ago, and I dressed at once and came to see you. You should hear the

story from me as well as from him. I was resolved I should have no more

of your blame than was my due. I saw you in the box last night at the

Varieties. I saw you often last spring in London. You looked good, and

brave, and noble, and although I care little for the opinion of the

world, of its women particularly,” with a reckless laugh, “it is my

whim to stand as well as possible with you. I felt sure I would be

before him. Men do not hasten to tell such a story as he has to tell

you.”

Oh, the deathly faintness of these jessamine flowers. Oh, the horrible

clashing, crashing of the band, whose braying seems to pierce her head.

For a moment France turns so giddy and sick that she cannot speak. The

actress half rises in alarm.

“Miss Forrester! you are going to faint—”

But France lifts her hand and motions her to be still.

“Wait,” she says, almost in a whisper. “You have frightened me. I am all

right again. Now go on.”

She sits upright with an effort, clenches her hands together in her lap,

and sets her teeth.

“Go on!” she says almost fiercely, and looks Madame Felicia full in the

face.

The insolent smile, the exultant light, have died out of the dark face

of the dancer. In its stead a touch of pity has come. After all, this

girl is to suffer as she suffered once—and she remembers well what

that means.

“Miss Forrester,” she says, gravely, “did you notice nothing unusual in

Mr. Caryll’s looks or manner last night at the Varieties—last night,

when he saw me?”

Did she? Did she not? The ashen pallor of his face, the husky tone of

his voice, and his abrupt departure!

“Go on,” she says, under her breath again.

“Let me ask you one other question,” says Madame Felicia. “You are to

marry Gordon Caryll?”

“I am.”

She seems to answer by no volition of her own. Even at this moment it

strikes her—what an odd thing that she, France Forrester, should be

sitting here answering whatever questions this dancing-woman chooses to

ask.

“You know his story, of course—that he had a wife, that he was

divorced. You think, you all think, he is a widower.”

“Yes,” France says in the same mechanical way—slowly and dully, “he is

a widower.”

“He is not a widower,” Madame Felicia cries, with one flash of her

black eyes—“no more than I am a widow. He thought me dead, thought me

killed in a railway accident. I was not. For seventeen years we have not

met. Last night we did. Miss Forrester, I am Gordon Caryll’s wife!”

“His wife!” France has known it before it is said. “His wife! his wife!”

How oddly it sounds. She is conscious of no acute pain—her principal

wish, as she listens almost dreamily, is that that horrible band would

cease and that she could get away from the smell of these jessamines.

“You do not seem to understand, Miss Forrester,” Felicia cries sharply.

“I repeat, I am Gordon Caryll’s divorced wife.”

“I understand,” France says, dreamily. “Go on.”

“Does it not matter to you, then?” madame cries still more sharply.

“Would you marry a divorced man?”

“No. Go on.”

There is a moment’s silence. It is evident her quietude puzzles madame.

It cannot puzzle her any more than it does France herself. By and by,

she feels dimly, she will suffer horribly. Just at present she feels in

the hazy trance of the lotus eater, listening to the music of the band,

looking at the sunshine lying in broad, golden bands on the carpet,

inhaling the scent of the jessamine. To the day of her death those will

turn her sick and faint.

“Go on,” she says quite gently, unable to get beyond these two words,

and madame incisively goes on.

“He recognized me last night,” she says, her voice hardening as she sees

how quietly the other takes it. “I had recognized him long before, since

I saw his picture at the Academy, ‘How the Night Fell.’ Well—last night

he saw me, and, naturally, knew me at once. I have not changed much—so

they tell me.”

There is a pause—madame watching her, half irritated by her profound

calm. Miss Forrester watching the flickering bars of light on the

carpet.

“Is it her training, or is it want of feeling?” the actress wonders.

“No, I think not that. They are all alike—these aristocrats—ready to

stand like a red Indian and die game.” “I fancy his slumbers were

rather disturbed last night,” she goes on, with a hard laugh; “he looked

like it this morning when he came to me.”

Miss Forrester lifts her eyes from the carpet, and looks at Felicia.

“Why did he