Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

“ Gisburne?" he says, smiling.
"Oh, Eustace! am I indeed a burden to you, as your mother says?" she exclaims, evasively.
"No, no, my dear, but it seems hard for you here; a home of your own might be happier for you; and Gisburne is a good man."
"I don't like good men who are poor!" says Vera, with a little grimace.
Her brother-in-law looks shocked. "Why do you say such hard worldly things, Vera? You do not really mean them."
"Don't I? Eustace, look at me: do I look like a poor clergyman's wife? Do survey me dispassionately." ”

“ He had not the courage to say, "I do not love you—money or no money, I do not wish to marry you." How indeed is a man who is a gentleman to say such a discourteous thing to a lady for whom he has once professed affection? Maurice Kynaston, at all events, could not say so.
"It would not be fair to tie you; it would be better to let you be free:" that was all he could find to say. And then Helen burst forth impetuously,
"I wish to be tied—I do not want to be free—I will not marry any other man on earth but you. Oh! Maurice, my love, my darling!" ”

“ And meanwhile Denis Wilde was pouring out his whole soul to her.
"My darling, give me the right to defend you now and always," he pleaded; "do not refuse me the happiness of protecting your dear name from such women. I know you don't love me, dear, not as I love you, but I will not mind that; I will ask you for nothing that you will not give me freely; only try me—I think I could make you happy, love. At any rate, you shall have anything that tenderness and devotion can give you to bring peace into your life. Vera, darling, answer me." ”

“ I would do anything in the world to please John, but I cannot be present at your wedding."
There was a moment's silence; the fire flickered up merrily between them; a red-hot cinder fell out noisily from the grate; the clock ticked steadily on the chimney-piece; the little terrier sniffed at the edge of Vera's dress.
Suddenly there came into her heart a wild desire to know, to eat for once of that forbidden fruit of the tree of Eden, whence the flaming swords in vain beckoned her back; to eat, and afterwards, perchance, to perish of the poisonous food. ”

“ Oh, how stupid I am! Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned her, Lady Kynaston, for of course she did not behave very well to Sir John, as we all know; but now that is all over, isn't it? and everybody is wild about her beauty."
"I am glad to hear that Miss Nevill is prospering in any way," said her ladyship, stiffly. "I owe her no ill-will, poor girl."
Helen Romer is looking at Maurice Kynaston; he has not said one single word, nor has he raised his eyes once from his plate; but a deep flush has overspread his handsome face at the sound of Vera's name. ”

“ Eustace Daintree looks round at her sharply. He sees that she is very white, and that there are tears upon her cheeks.
"Why, Vera!" he cries, standing still, you have not listened to a word I have been saying. "What is the matter, child? Why are you crying?"
They are in the vicarage garden now; among the beds of scarlet geraniums, and the tall hollyhocks, and the glaring red gladioli; a whole bank of greenery, rhododendrons and lauristinas, conceals them from the windows of the house; a garden bench sheltered beneath a nook of the laurel bushes is close by. ”

“ And was it likely that Vera, with such a weapon in her hands, would spare her? What woman, with so signal a revenge in her power, would forego the delight of wreaking it upon the woman who had taken from her the man she loved? Helen knew that in Vera's place she would show no mercy to her rival.
It was all clear as daylight to her now; the appointment at the vicarage gate, the something which she had said in her note she had for him; the whole mystery of the secret meeting between them—it was Vera's revenge. Vera, whom Maurice loved, and whom she, Helen, hated with such a deadly hatred! ”

“ What woman would not do so in your place? and you know that they will ruin me with my husband."
"It is you yourself that tell me so!" cried Vera, impatiently, beginning to lose her temper. "I do not even know what you are talking about!"
"Miss Nevill!" cried Helen, suddenly changing her tone; "give that parcel to me, I entreat you."
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Kynaston; I cannot possibly do so."
"Oh yes, you can—you will," said Helen, imploringly. "What can it matter to you now? It is I who am his wife; you cannot get any good out of a mere empty revenge. ”

“ In the vicarage drawing-room the afternoon tea-table has just been set out, and the fire just lit, for it is chilly; but one of the long French windows leading into the garden is still open, and through it Vera steps into the room.
There is a background of brown and yellow foliage behind her, across the garden, all aglow with the crimson light of the western sky, against which the outlines of her figure, in its close-fitting dark dress, stand out clearly and distinctly. Vera has the figure, not of a sylph, but of a goddess; it is the absolute perfection of the female form. ”

“ To the world she was a pretty, lively little widow, with a good house to live in, and sufficient money of her own to spend to very good effect upon her back, with not a single duty or responsibility in her existence, and with no other occupation in life than to amuse herself. At her heart Helen knew herself to be a soured and disappointed woman, who had desired one thing all her life, and who, having attained with great pains and toil that forbidden fruit which she had coveted, had found it turn, as such fruits too often do, to dust and ashes between her teeth. ”

“ In all that Maurice Kynaston is in no way different from scores of other good-looking young men whom we may have met. But there is just something that makes his face a remarkable one: it is a strong-looking face—a face that looks as if he had a will of his own and knew how to stick to it; a face that looks, too, as if he could do and dare much for truth and honour's sake. It is almost stern when he is silent; it can soften into the tenderness of a woman when he speaks. ”

“ Where in that moment was the duty and the honour that was a part of the man's very self? What to Vera was the rich marriage and the life of affluence, and all the glitter and tinsel which it had been her soul's desire to attain? She remembered it not; like a house of cards, it had fallen shattered to the ground.
They loved, and they were together. There was neither duty, nor faith, nor this world's wisdom between them; nothing but that great joy which on earth has no equal, and which Heaven itself cannot exceed. ”

“ Pryme commence a letter to you in the warm terms of affection which I have had the pleasure of reading?"
"By the right which I myself have given him," she answered, boldly.
Regardless of her cold, she sat upright in her bed; a flush of defiance in her face, her short dark hair flung back from her brow in wild confusion. She understood at once that all had been discovered, and she was going to do battle for her lover.
"Do you mean to tell me, Beatrice, that you have engaged yourself to this Mr. Pryme?" ”

“ I do not think, however, that it can be what I feel."
"My child, no union can be hallowed without love. Vera, you will not run into so great a danger?" he said anxiously.
She looked up at him smiling.
"I like him better than any one else, at all events. Better than Mr. Gisburne, for instance. And I think, I do really think, Eustace, it will be for my happiness."
The vicar looked grave. "If Sir John Kynaston were a poor man, would you marry him?"
And Vera answered bravely, though with a heightened colour—
"No; but it is not only for the money, Eustace; indeed it is not. ”

“ What the print of a hob-nailed boot must be to the lonely traveller across the desert, what the sight of a man from one's own club going down Pall Mall is in mid-September, or as a draught of Giesler's '68 to an epicure who has been about to perish on ginger-beer—so did Herbert Pryme's face shine upon Maurice Kynaston out of the arid waste of that Vevay salle-à-manger.
In England he had been only an acquaintance—at Vevay he became his most intimate friend. The delight of having a man to speak to, and a man who knew others of his friends, was almost intoxicating. ”

“ What Vera had looked like at her first ball, how Prince this and Marquis so-and-so had admired her; how she had been smothered with bouquets and bonbons at Carnival time; how she had sat to some world-famed artist, who had entreated to be allowed to put her face into his great picture, and how the house was literally besieged with her lovers. By all this, and much more in the same strain, Marion perceived that her young sister, whom she had last seen in all the raw unformed awkwardness of early girlhood, had developed somehow into a beautiful woman. ”

“ No one in all the gay crowd was more admired or more noticed than "the bride," as she was still called, young Mrs. Kynaston. Helen had surpassed herself in the elaboration of her toilette. The country dames and damsels, in their somewhat dowdy home-made gowns, could scarcely remember their manners, so eager were they to stare at the marvels of that wondrous garment of sheeny satin, and soft, creamy gauze, sprinkled over with absolute works of art in the shape of wreaths of many-hued embroidered birds and flowers, with which the whole dress was cunningly and dexterously adorned. ”

“ Kynaston can never do: to read of some dreadful murder such as occasionally fills all the papers for days with its sickening details makes her shut herself in her own room till the horrible tragedy is over and forgotten; to hear of such things spoken of in society causes her to faint away with terror. To walk by a pond, or even to speak of being rowed upon a lake or river, fills her with such horror of soul that none of her friends ever care to suggest a water-party of any kind to her.
"She saw that poor Miss Nevill drowned," say her compassionate acquaintances ”

“ For that is the way with love: if it may not flourish and thrive openly and bravely before the eyes of the world, it will eat into the very heart and life, till all that is fair and sweet in the garden of the soul is choked and blighted and overgrown, till the main-spring of life becomes poisoned, and all things that are happy, withered and dried up.
In Vera's love for Maurice there had been nothing of joy, and all of pain. ”

“ Oh, swift and divine moment of joy, that comes but once in a man's life, when he holds the woman he loves for the first time to his heart! Once, and once only, he tastes of heaven and forgets life itself in the short and delirious draught. What envious deity shall grudge him those moments of rapture, all too sweet, and, alas! all too short!
To Vera and Maurice, locked in each other's arms, time had no shore, and life was not. ”

“ Wilde!" cried Helen. "Have you fallen a victim to the beauty? We heard enough of her in town; she turned all the men's heads; even married men are not safe from her snares, and yet it is singular that none of her admirers care to marry her; there are some women whom all men make love to, but whom none care to make wives of!"
And Maurice was a coward, and spoke no word in her defence; he did not dare; but young Denis Wilde drew himself up proudly.
"Mrs. Kynaston," he said, sternly, "I must ask you not to speak slightingly of Miss Nevill." ”

“ What is it about some people that, in spite of ourselves, they thus force out of us the best part of our nature; that base and unworthy thoughts cannot live in us before them,—that they melt out of our hearts as the snow before the rays of the sun? Even though the effect may be transient, such is the power of their faith, and their truth, and their goodness, that it must needs call forth in us something of the same spirit as their own.
Such was Eustace Daintree's influence over Vera. ”

“ Daintree, I am sure Vera never meant——" cried Marion, trembling for fear of a fresh battle.
"Don't interrupt me, Marion; you ought to have more proper pride than to stand by and hear the Church reviled."
"Vera only said she did not like them."
"No more I do, Marion," said Vera, stifling a yawn—"not when they are young; when they are old, like Eustace, they are far better; but when they are young they are all exactly alike—equally harmless when out of the pulpit, and equally wearisome when in it!" ”

“ Sir John Kynaston fell back a step or two and turned very white.
"How do you do?" said Vera, quietly, and put out her hand.
They stood in the open air. There was a carriage passing, some idle cabmen on the stand with nothing to do but to stare at them, a gaping nursery-maid and her charges at the gate. Whatever people may feel on suddenly running against each other after a deadly quarrel, or a heart-rending separation, or after a long interval of heart-burnings and misunderstandings, there are always the externals of life to be observed. ”

“ Where so lately the gay throng of well-dressed men and women had passed in and out, chattering, smiling, nodding—displaying their radiant toilettes one against the other, there were only now the dark, empty rows of pews, and the bent figure of one shabbily-dressed old woman gathering together the prayer-books and hymn-books that had been tumbled out of their places in the scuffle, and picking up morsels of torn finery that had dropped about along the nave.
Vera passed by her and went up into the chancel. She stood where Maurice had stood by the altar rails. ”

“ There are savants and diplomatists, poets and painters, foreign ambassadors, and men of science. The fashionable beauty is sure to be met there side by side with the latest type of strong-minded woman; the German composer, with the wild hair, whose music is to regenerate the future, may be seen chatting to a cabinet minister; the most rising barrister of the day is lingering by the side of a prima-donna, or discoursing to an Eastern traveller. Old Lady Kynaston herself has charming manners, and possesses the rare tact of making every one feel at home and happy in her house. ”

“ Forgive me, John," turning to him with a sudden penitence, "I should not have pained you by saying these things; you who have been so infinitely good to me. Go your way across the world, and forget me. Ah! have I not been a curse to every one who bears the name of Kynaston?"
He was silent from very pity. Vera was no longer to him the goddess of his imagination; the one pure and peerless woman, above all other women, such as he had once fancied her to be. ”

“ The train steams up, and Maurice hurries forward followed by the porter bearing his rugs and sticks; he does not even see her, standing a little back, as she does, so as not to attract more attention than need be. But when all his things are put into the carriage, and the porter has been duly tipped and has departed, Captain Kynaston hears a soft voice behind him.
"I have come to wish you good-bye again." He turns, flushing at the sound of the sweet familiar voice, and sees Vera in her long ulster, and her face hidden behind her veil, by his side. ”

“ To keep a girl who goes out a great deal in the whirl of London society out of the way of a man who goes out very little, who is not in the inner circle of town life, and is not in the same set as herself, is the easiest thing in the world.
So Mrs. Miller found it. She kept Beatrice hard at work at the routine of dissipation. Not an hour of her time was unoccupied, not a minute of her day unaccounted for; and, of course, she was never alone—it is not yet the fashion for young girls to dance about London by themselves—her mother, as a matter of course, was always with her. ”

“ Pryme looks up quickly.
Beatrice Miller, looking about her a little guiltily, comes swiftly towards him along the passage.
"Mamma kept me such ages!" she says, breathlessly; "I thought I should never get away."
"Never mind, so long as you are here," he answers, holding her by both hands. "My darling, I must have a kiss; I hungered for one all yesterday."
He looks into her face eagerly and lovingly. To most people Beatrice is a plain girl, but to this man she is beautiful; his own love for her has invested her with a charm and a fascination that no one else has seen in her. ”

“ Her smiles are equally dispensed, no one is passed over, and she has the rare talent of making every single individual in the crowded room feel himself to be the one particular person whom Lady Kynaston is especially rejoiced to see. She has tact, and she has sympathy—two invaluable gifts in a woman.
Conspicuous among the crowd of well-dressed and handsome women is Helen Romer. She sits on an ottoman at the further end of the room, where she holds a little court of her own, dispensing her smiles and pleasant words among the little knot of men who linger admiringly by her side. ”

“ Eustace Daintree would say heartily, as his wife, with a little natural flush of pride, handed some picture of her young sister across the breakfast-table to him. "How I wish we could see her, she must be worth looking at, indeed. Mother, have you seen this last one of Vera?"
"Beauty is a snare," the old lady would answer viciously, hardly deigning to glance at the lovely face; "and your sister seems to me, Marion, to be dressed up like an actress, most unlike my idea of a modest English girl." ”

“ He knew so well her weakness—how that she had loved him at the expense of the other son, who was not so dear to her; he loved her for it, and yet he did not at his heart think it right.
Lady Kynaston wiped a few tears away. "You are always right, my boy, always, and I am a foolish old woman. But oh, Maurice, that is only half the trouble! Who is this woman whom he has chosen? Some country girl, ignorant of the ways of the world, unformed and awkward—not fitted to be his wife!" ”

“ Maurice was standing by one of the dining-room windows, Mrs. Romer, as usual, by his side. He alone, perhaps, of all the men who saw her vault lightly into her saddle, made no audible remark, but perhaps his admiration was all too plainly written in his eyes, for it called forth a contemptuous remark from his companion—
"She is a great deal too tall to look well on a horse; those big women should never ride."
"What! not with a figure so perfect as hers?"
"Yes, that is the third time you have spoken about her figure to-day," said Helen, irritably. ”

“ But in the winter the wall is flowerless and the branches of the lime-trees are bare, and within, in the garden, there are only the holly-trees and the yew-hedge of the shrubbery walks, and the empty brown flower-beds set in the faded grass. But winter and summer alike, old Lady Kynaston holds her weekly receptions, and thither flock all the wit, and the talent, and the fashion of London. In the summer they are garden parties, in the winter they become evening receptions. How she manages it no one can quite tell ”

“ Her past life came back to her, her old life in the whirl and turmoil of pleasure which had suited her so well. She compared it, a little drearily, with the present; with the humdrum routine of the vicarage; with the parish talk about the old women and the schools; and the small tittle-tattle about the schoolmaster and the choir, going on around her all day; with old Mrs. Daintree's sharp tongue and her sister's meek rejoinders. She was very tired of it. It did not amuse her. She was not exactly discontented with her lot. Eustace and her sister were very kind to her, and she loved them dearly ”