CHAPTER XII
A WOMAN'S HEART
It is difficult, perhaps, to analyze rightly the feelings and sensationsof a young girl, when she is literally being swept off her feet in awhirlpool of passion and romance.
Some few years later when Lady Sue wrote those charming memoirs whichare such an interesting record of her early life, she tried to note withfaithful accuracy what was the exact state of her mind when three monthsafter her first meeting with Prince Amede d'Orleans, she plighted hertroth to him and promised to marry him in secret and in defiance of herguardian's more than probable opposition.
Her sentiments with regard to her mysterious lover were somewhatcomplex, and undoubtedly she was too young, too inexperienced then todifferentiate between enthusiastic interest in a romantic personality,and real, lasting, passionate love for a man, as apart from any halo ofromance which might be attached to him.
When she was a few years older she averred that she could never havereally loved her prince, because she always feared him. Hers, therefore,was not the perfect love that casteth out fear. She was afraid of him inhis ardent moods, almost as much as when he allowed his unbridled temperfree rein. Whenever she walked through the dark bosquets of the park,on her way to a meeting with her lover, she was invariably conscious ofa certain trepidation of all her nerves, a wonderment as to what hewould say when she saw him, how he would act; whether chide, or rave, ormerely reproach.
It was the gentle and pathetic terror of a child before a stern yetmuch-loved parent. Yet she never mistrusted him ... perhaps because shehad never really seen him--only in outline, half wrapped in shadows, ormerely silhouetted against a weirdly lighted background. His appearancehad no tangible reality for her. She was in love with an ideal, not witha man ... he was merely the mouthpiece of an individuality which was ofher own creation.
Added to all this there was the sense of isolation. She had lost hermother when she was a baby; her father fell at Naseby. She herself hadbeen an only child, left helplessly stranded when the civil wardispersed her relations and friends, some into exile, others in splendidrevolt within the fastnesses of their own homes, impoverished by pillageand sequestration, rebellious, surrounded by spies, watching thatopportunity for retaliation which was so slow in coming.
Tossed hither and thither by Fate in spite of--or perhaps becauseof--her great wealth, she had found a refuge, though not a home, at AcolCourt; she had been of course too young at the time to understandrightly the great conflict between the King's party and the Puritans,but had naturally embraced the cause--for which her father's life hadbeen sacrificed--blindly, like a child of instinct, not like a woman ofthought.
Her guardian and Mistress de Chavasse stood for that faction ofRoundheads at which her father and all her relatives had sneered evenwhile they were being conquered and oppressed by them. She disliked themboth from the first; and chafed at the parsimonious habits of the house,which stood in such glaring contrast to the easy lavishness of her ownluxurious home.
Fortunately for her, her guardian avoided rather than sought hercompany. She met him at meals and scarcely more often than that, andthough she often heard his voice about the house, usually raised inanger or impatience, he was invariably silent and taciturn when she waspresent.
The presence of Richard Lambert, his humble devotion, his whole-heartedsympathy and the occasional moments of conversation which she had withhim were the only bright moments in her dull life at the Court: andthere is small doubt but that the friendship and trust whichcharacterized her feelings towards him would soon have ripened into morepassionate love, but for the advent into her life of the mysterioushero, who by his personality, his strange, secretive ways, his talk ofpatriotism and liberty, at once took complete possession of her girlishimagination.
She was perhaps just too young when she met Lambert; she had not yetreached that dangerous threshold when girlhood looks from out obscureignorance into the glaring knowledge of womanhood. She was a child whenLambert showed his love for her by a thousand little simple acts ofdevotion and by the mute adoration expressed in his eyes. Lambert drewher towards the threshold by his passionate love, and held her backwithin the refuge of innocent girlhood by the sincerity and exaltationof his worship.
With the first word of vehement, unreasoning passion, the mysteriousprince dragged the girl over that threshold into womanhood. He gave herno time to think, no time to analyze her feelings; he rushed her into atorrent of ardor and of excitement in which she never could pause inorder to draw breath.
To-night she had promised to marry him secretly--to surrender herselfbody and soul to this man whom she hardly knew, whom she had neverreally seen; she felt neither joy nor remorse, only a strange sense ofagitation, an unnatural and morbid impatience to see the end of the nextfew days of suspense.
For the first time since she had come to Acol, and encountered thekindly sympathy of Richard Lambert, she felt bitterly angered againsthim when, having parted from the prince at the door of the pavilion, sheturned, to walk back towards the house and came face to face with theyoung man.
A narrow path led through the trees, from the ha-ha to the gate, andRichard Lambert was apparently walking along aimlessly, in the directionof the pavilion.
"I came hoping to meet your ladyship and to escort you home. The nightseems very dark," he explained simply in answer to a sudden, haughtystiffening of her young figure, which he could not help but notice.
"I was taking a stroll in the park," she rejoined coldly, "the eveningis sweet and balmy but ... I have no need of escort, Master Lambert ...I thank you.... It is late and I would wish to go indoors alone."
"It is indeed late, gracious lady," he said gently, "and the park islonely at night ... will you not allow me to walk beside you as far asthe house?"
But somehow his insistence, his very gentleness struck a jarring note,for which she herself could not have accounted. Was it the contrastbetween two men, which unaccountably sent a thrill of disappointment,almost of apprehension, through her heart?
She was angry with Lambert, bitterly angry because he was kind andgentle and long-suffering, whilst the other was violent, even brutal attimes.
"I must repeat, master, that I have no need of your escort," she saidhaughtily, "I have no fear of marauders, nor yet of prowling beasts. Andfor the future I should be grateful to you," she added, conscious of herown cruelty, determined nevertheless to be remorselessly cruel, "if youwere to cease that system which you have adopted of late--that ofspying on my movements."
"Spying?"
The word had struck him in the face like a blow. And she, womanlike,with that strange, impulsive temperament of hers, was not at all sorrythat she had hurt him. Yet surely he had done her no wrong, save bybeing so different from the other man, and by seeming to belittle thatother in her sight, against her will and his own.
"I am grieved, believe me," she said coldly, "if I seem unkind ... butyou must see for yourself, good master, that we cannot go on as we aredoing now.... Whenever I go out, you follow me ... when I return I findyou waiting for me.... I have endeavored to think kindly of youractions, but if you value my friendship, as you say you do, you will letme go my way in peace."
"Nay! I humbly beg your ladyship's gracious forgiveness," he said; "if Ihave transgressed, it is because I am blind to all save your ladyship'sfuture happiness, and at times the thought of that adventurer is morethan I can bear."
"You do yourself no good, Master Lambert, by talking thus to me of theman I love and honor beyond all things in this world. You are blind andsee not things as they are: blind to the merits of one who is asinfinitely above you as the stars. But nathless I waste my breathagain.... I have no power to convince you of the grievous error whichyou commit. But if you cared for me, as you say you do ..."
"If I cared!" he murmured, with a pathetic emphasis on that little word"if."
"As a friend I mean," she rejoined still cold, still cruel, stillwomanlike in that strange, inexplicable desire to wound the
man wholoved her. "If you care for me as a friend, you will not throw yourselfany more in the way of my happiness. Now you may escort me home, an youwish. This is the last time that I shall speak to you as a friend, inresponse to your petty attacks on the man whom I love. Henceforth youmust chose 'twixt his friendship and my enmity!"
And without vouchsafing him another word or look, she gathered her cloakmore closely about her, and walked rapidly away along the narrow path.
He followed with head bent, meditating, wondering! Wondering!