Bertha M. Clay

“ KENELM EYRLE’S LOVE.
Sir Ronald sang those words to himself as he rode back home, the face of Lady Hermione before him all the way, her voice in his ears, the glad sunshine, the whispering leaves, the fragrant flowers, all seemed part of her.
“The poet’s ideal woman, she is, indeed,” he said to himself; “she has brought every charming quality of her childhood into her beautiful womanhood. She is arch, dainty, piquant, tender, earnest; there are grand qualities in her. Sure as her eyes are stars and her lips roses, so sure has she a magnificent and noble nature but half developed yet.” ”

“ There was never a more brilliant spectacle at Leeholme than the ballroom that evening. There was queenly Cleopatra, with dusky brows; Antony, in mailed armor; Kenelm Eyrle, as Sir Launcelot; Sir Ronald, as King Harry; Clara Seville, as the Queen of Scots, and the magnificent blonde, Miss Monteith, as Queen Guinivere. The belles of the evening were Miss Severn, as Jane Seymour, and Lady Hermione, as Anne Boleyn.
“If I had been King Harry,” said Captain Gordon, “I should not have known which of those two beautiful women I loved best; but I should never have slain one to marry the other.” ”

“ But she is dead, Hermione, and love for the dead can never be a sin. She calls to me from her grave with a voice no one else can hear; she comes to me in the silent hours of the night when no one else on earth thinks of her, and she reproaches me that she is yet unavenged.”
“Dear Kenelm, it is but a morbid fancy. I do not believe the dead can wish for vengeance.”
“Justice is a mighty attribute,” he said, and there came to his face a light she had never seen there before. “Her fair, sweet life was cut short. She was slain even with a smile on her lips. She was young, fair, loving and happy. ”

“ Perhaps the most bitter hour of all was when I stood with Kenelm by the body of Clarice and heard the story of his love for her. How cruel Fate was! I loved you! Kenelm loved Clarice, and we were parted.
“Can you imagine what a long, dark, dull brooding dream is, Hermione? That was mine after she was buried. A man who commits a murder is hung for the crime; his lot is merciful compared to that of the man who repents and lives on. I have wept tears of blood for mine. I would have given my life over and over again ten thousand times never to have done the deed. ”

“ My days and nights have been one long dream of anguish, one long madness. I hate the sun that shines, the night that succeeds day, for no time will ever bring you back to me, and without you life is death.”
“You forget,” she interrupted, gently. “You have your wife, Clarice, who loves you.”
“I do not forget. Poor Clarice!—God pity her and pity me! I do not love her, Hermione. I have tried as hard to love her as I have to forget you, but cannot. I pray Heaven to pardon me the wrong I did in marrying her; I was blind enough to think it for the best. Oh, my lost love, I am going mad! ”

“ Oh, welcome death! Death that would place her at Ronald’s side again. Once more the pain passed, and she looked around her with frightened eyes.
“I wish I were not quite alone,” she said. “Oh Ronald, Ronald, how cruel has fate been to us! Oh! my own love! my dearest, only love! Are you where you can hear me? Ronald, when I call to you, do you hear me? My husband, I have kept my vow; I was willing to die for you; I would have gone to the scaffold and have smiled while I died for you. ”

“ But there is one thing more—you may speak freely to me, Hermione; it is but as though one or the other of us was dying—was there no truth in the rumor that you were engaged to Kenelm Eyrle?”
“No; none. Mr. Eyrle has never loved or cared for me in his life.”
“Clarice believed it,” he said, musingly, and the pale face before him grew whiter.
“She was deceived,” said Lady Hermione, briefly; “and now, Ronald, it seems to me that we must say farewell; it must be for the last time. We cannot meet as friends. Honor is dearer than life to both of us; therefore, we must not meet again.” ”

“ While waiting for the reply, I went to live with the only relative I had in the world—a cousin of my mother—a cross, proud, stiff, elderly lady, Donna Maria de Borga, who hated every one in the world younger than herself. I was so wretched, so unutterably wretched, that I wished myself dead over and over again. You can fancy a flower shut out from the sunshine and left to die in the cold. You can imagine a bird deprived of light and liberty. With my mother, life had been all poetry and happiness; now it was all gloom. ”

“ She was, I believed, the truest, the fairest, the purest of women; yet she has duped me! She who had, I believed, the white wings of an angel, let me kiss her lips, and yet never meant to marry me. Does the curse of coquetry and falseness lie upon all women, I wonder?”
Passionate anger flamed in his face; his eyes flashed, his lips quivered. The Alden rage was strong upon him. Hot words leaped to his lips, but he would not utter them.
“I shall not curse her,” he said; “the ruin of a man’s life shall be at her door, but I will say nothing harsh of her. She was my first, last, and only love.” ”

“ I received a letter, written apparently by you, refusing me with few words. Hermione, I went mad; my love had been so mighty, so powerful, so strong, I could not bear the shock of seeing it all scattered to the winds. I could not bear the refusal. God keep any other man from suffering what I did then! I could not tell you, darling, even if I tried. I do not believe any man suffered so much and lived. A thousand times each day I was tempted to end my own life, but the Alden pride, so strong in the men of my race, forbade me to die because a woman was fair and false. ”

“ I can remember listening to the sweet song of a little bird, while mad anger and fierce, wild passion ran riot in my veins. Ah, my darling! a man commits a great crime, and his excuse is, ‘I was mad!’ People cry him down. They say, ‘This is but an excuse; he was sane enough!’ Ah! my wife, I know that madness comes in swift, keen darts of flame, in a fiery surging of hot blood through heart and brain, in a sudden impulse that calls in a mighty voice for the deed to be done—and it is done. As I stood under the trees, Hermione, the sunlight grew blood-red. ”

“ The spirit of unrest did not leave Kenelm Eyrle. When he met Sir Ronald and Lady Hermione at lunch he looked very pale, ill, and determined. He held Lady Hermione’s soft, white hand in his. “I must ask you to pardon me,” he said. “I have no right to let my troubles cloud your happy home.”
“I have nothing to pardon, but, oh! Kenelm!” she said, “you have been true to your love for her, true to her memory for so long, could you not take a new interest in life? Even she, herself, could ask no greater sacrifice than you have already made.” ”

“ How many loves have the children of this generation in a lifetime? A man suffers pain nowadays when he loses a limb or loses his fortune—not when he is unhappy in his love.”
She looked at him and something like a sob rose to her lips; his voice was so full of anguish, there was such unutterable woe in his dark eyes.
“You must forgive me,” she said, still more gently. “I knew you were unhappy about Lady Hermione in the time past, and I would rather suffer all the pain there is in the world than that you should have the least to bear.”
“Would you?” he asked. “Why are you so kind to me, Clarice?” ”

“ Many pictures lived in Kenelm Eyrle’s mind, one of the fairest was that of the balcony, with its twisted pillars and odorous flowers, where he sat that morning to hear Lady Pelham’s story.
A large laburnum, with drooping, golden tresses, was near them, in full flower; a lilac, with full, tufted plumes, filled the air with fragrance; the white acacias were all in bloom; the mavis sang in the trees; there was a vision of drooping limes and spreading oaks, a balcony that might have served the “Queen of the Fairies” as a drawing-room. ”

“ Hermione, what has been the life of my life, the soul of my actions? What has been the source of all my virtues, all my few good deeds, all that is noblest and best in me?—my love for you. What drove me mad?—my love for you. Men have loved before, and men will love again, but I do not believe that ever one loved a woman so entirely, so devotedly, so wholly as I loved you.
[Pg 237]
“My darling, my wife, that love was no ordinary passion, common words will not tell it. Do you know what dew is to thirsty flowers, sunshine to birds, light and warmth to fair spring blossoms? ”

“ I do not know who could properly describe Lady Hermione Lorriston, the real heroine of our story. It seems to me easier to paint the golden dawn of a summer morning, the transparent beauty of a dewdrop, to put to music the song of the wind or the carol of a bird, or the deep, solemn anthem of the waves, as to describe a character that was full of light and shade, tender as a loving woman, playful as a child, spiritual, poetical, romantic, a perfect queen of the fairies, whose soul was steeped in poetry as flowers are in dew. ”

“ It is not pleasant to have to write of the treachery of those we have trusted. Clarice trusted this girl implicitly, and she, in return, betrayed her, read her letters, watched all she did, and made herself mistress even of the poor lady’s hidden faults. Clarice stole my letter—the one I had written to you—stole it, read it, and destroyed it by tearing it into minute pieces. These pieces, Mary Thorne, with infinite patience and perseverance worthy of a better cause, put together, and managed to read sufficient of it to know that it was an offer of marriage from me to my dearest Hermione. ”

“ You will die if you keep back your tears. I know how you loved poor Ronald.”
She looked at him again with the same strange, sad smile.
“I shall not weep,” she said. “It is through the mercy of God that my husband is dead.”
Lord Lorriston looked at her in amaze; he thought the shock of the sad intelligence he had brought must have crazed her. He went to her, and Kenelm looked on with an aching heart. The time had come when the earl must know, and he knew what the knowledge would cost him.
“Hermione,” said Lord Lorriston, quietly, “you are ill; you are bewildered; try to collect yourself. ”

“ A WIFE’S LOVE.
“Kenelm,” said Lady Alden, raising her earnest eyes and clasping her hands, “you cannot be cruel; you cannot forget every tie that binds you to Ronald. Oh, why, my God! why did I bring that fatal box here? You cannot forget all that Ronald was to you. He left his wife and children in your charge, and you would rob them of all their natural protectors—of husband and father! Oh, Kenelm! you must not do it. No man could live and be so cruel.” ”

“ Loved I not honor more. I shall have blessed your lips, Ronald, if I have helped to crown it with a noble purpose.”
“As you have done, I can fancy other women, with a weaker love than yours, clinging to a husband, praying him not to go—not to leave them. So few would say as you do, my darling, ‘God speed you,’ with a smile. Hermione, I have something to ask of you.” They were standing then under the shade of a large oak tree, the smiling landscape around them, the smiling skies above. ”

“ She looked at the little parcel still clinched in her hand.
“I must destroy it,” she said. “Ronald is dead. He is safe when this is destroyed; it matters but little what becomes of me. Oh! my love! my love! You repented before you died. I pray that I may stand at your side again.”
She tried to rise to destroy that packet, but fell back with a long, shuddering moan; the cold hand had touched her heart again, the sharp, intolerable anguish thrilled every nerve.
“It is death,” she whispered, faintly; “death, and I am all alone—death, and I have no strength to destroy this!” ”

“ Surely the sweet songbirds knew it, for the music that rose through the clear, sweet summer air was never so jubilant and clear.
The sunshine and the song of the birds awoke her, and her maid was already standing there, her arms filled with fragrant bouquets, roses with dewdrops gleaming on them, rich crimson leaves, lilies, whose white cups were moist and fair; but the loveliest bouquet there had been sent by Sir Ronald.
Talk of a floral love letter; every flower had its story. ”

“ London has no charm for you. Oh, Ronald, what can I do for you to make your life brighter?”
He looked at her beautiful face, and hated himself with fierce loathing for the word that rose to his lips. It was “Die!” She could do nothing for him but that—die, and leave him free to marry his only love. Then quick, keen remorse seized him, and he kissed her white brow.
“You are very patient with me, Clarice,” he said humbly, “and I do not deserve your love.”
He wondered to himself at times if the old stories he had read of men being given over to the power of a demon were true. ”

“ I do not know what madmen suffer, but it seems to me, on looking back, that for many long months afterward I was mad. There was nothing that I left undone to drive even the memory of her fair face from me; I could not do it. Clarice, a drowning man clings to a straw—I cling to you. Will you save me from the total wreck of life, reason and happiness? Can you be more generous than woman ever was before? Can you marry me, knowing that another woman has had the best of my life? Can you marry me, to save me and restore me to the world of men? ”

“ Men know a crime has been committed; they do not know what has led up to it; the hidden motives, the great provocations, who knows anything of those save God himself?”
“But, Ronald,” she said, “surely you are defending [Pg 130] crime! Darling, you are speaking without weighing your words. You do not believe that any amount of provocation can excuse murder?”
As she asked the question a dead silence fell on them. The whisper of the winds, the music of the birds, the ripple of the fountains, seemed to grow strangely hushed, as though every sweet impulse of nature waited to hear what he would say. ”

“ I had been a young girl wrapped in the ecstasy of my first love. Suddenly I became a woman, whose soul was filled with passionate anguish; suddenly, too, I became the public scandal of the whole nation. Think what you should feel if a similar fate had overtaken your mother or sister, Mr. Eyrle.”
“I would have slain the villain who wronged you!” he said.
“There was no knightly hand raised in my defense; no man stood forward to defend me; few believed even in my innocence, many in my guilt. The Pelham divorce case was ended, but the consequences still remained for me. ”

“ They knew no limit, no bound, no measure to their loves or hates. With many men love is a pastime, a pleasing, light occupation, a relief from the severity of daily toil. With others it is deeper and more serious—yet one life holds many; but with men of Sir Ronald’s stamp it is life or death, rapture or despair, highest happiness or deepest woe.
For one whole week his suspense lasted. He rode over every day to Leeholme, and every evening returned with the one question still unasked, for the park was full of visitors and Lady Hermione always engaged. ”