Read Ebook: In Silk Attire: A Novel by Black William

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Ebook has 2379 lines and 124790 words, and 48 pages

"And I am sure she will be glad to leave the stage at once, if that is possible."

"What a pace you have! You're at the end of everything when other people are thinking of the beginning. But, in good faith, Harry, you are to be congratulated; and you may rely on my services and secrecy to the last."

And to Harry Ormond, when he went outside that night, it seemed as if all the air around him were full of music.

THE LOOK BACK.

How still the lake of Thun lay, under the fierce heat! The intense blue of it stretched out and over to the opposite shore, and there lost itself in the soft green reflection of the land; while the only interruption of the perfect surface was a great belt of ruffled light stirred by the wind underneath the promontory of Spiez. Then overhead the misty purple mass of the Niessen; and beyond that again the snowy peaks of the Schreckhorn, M?nch, and Jungfrau glimmering through the faint and luminous haze of the sunlight; and over these the serene blue of a Swiss sky. Down in front of the house the lake narrowed to the sharp point at which it breaks suddenly away into the rapid, surging green-white waters of the Aar; and at this moment, as seen from the open window, two men in a low flat boat were vainly endeavouring to make head against the powerful current.

At the window sate a little girl of about four years old, with large dark grey eyes, a bright, clear face, and magnificent jet-black curls; a doll-looking little thing, perhaps, but for the unusual depth and meaning of those soft, large eyes. All at once she put her elbows on a tiny card-table opposite her, clasped her hands, and said, with a piteous intonation:

"Nu, Nu; oh, I don't know what to do!"

Her father, who had been lying silent and listless on a couch in the shadow of the room, looked up and asked her what was the matter.

"My doll is lying out in the sun," she said, in accents of comic despair, "and the poor thing must be getting a headache, and I am not allowed, Nu says, to go out just now."

"What a little actress she is!" her father muttered, as he returned, with a slight laugh, to his day dreaming.

For Harry Ormond had been right in his surmise. The young actress begged him not to insist upon her meeting his friends and acquaintances; and he, to whom no sacrifice was then great enough to show his gratitude for her love, readily consented to go abroad after the quiet little ceremony which took place down in Berkshire. They went to Thun, and lived in this house which lay some short distance from the village, overlooking the beautiful lake; and here Lord Knottingley forgot his old world, as he was by it forgotten. His marriage was known only to a few, though it was suspected by many, and coupled with the unexpected withdrawal from the stage of Annie Napier. In the end, however, the matter dropped into oblivion, and Harry Ormond was no more thought of.

For several years they lived there a still and peaceful existence, varied only by an occasional excursion southward into Italy. The halo of his romantic passion still lingered around his young wife; and in the calm delight of her presence he forgot old associations, old friends, old habits.

"You cannot expatriate a married man," he used to say, "for he carries with him that which makes a home for him wherever he goes."

She, too, was very happy in those days. She could never be persuaded that her husband had not made a great sacrifice in coming abroad for her sake; and she strove to repay him with all the tenderness and gratitude and love of a noble nature. She simply worshipped this man; not even the great affection she bore her bright-eyed quaint little daughter interfered with the one supreme passion. To her he was a miracle of all honourable and lovable qualities; never had any man been so generous, heroic, self-denying.

And yet Harry Ormond was a weak man--weak by reason of that very impulsiveness which often drove him into pronounced and vigorous action. As he leant back on his couch, after hearing the pathetic complaint of his little daughter, there were some such thoughts as these vaguely flitting before him:

This was the first seed sown; and it grew rapidly and throve in such a mind as his. He became peevish at times; would occasionally grumble over the accidents of his present life, and then took to grumbling at that itself; sometimes held long conversations with the small Annie about England, and strove to impress her with the knowledge that everything fine and pleasant abode there; finally--and this process had been the work of only a week or two--he announced his intention of going to London on business.

His wife looked up from her work, with dismay on her face; he had never proposed such a thing before.

"Why cannot Mr. Chetwynd do that business for you also, Harry?" she asked.

"Because it is too important," he said, a little impatiently. "You need not fear so much my going to London for a fortnight."

He spoke in almost an irritated tone. Indeed, he did not himself know how impatient he was to get away from trammels which he had found irksome.

She went over to him, and placed her hand gently on his head.

So Lord Knottingley went forth from that house, which he never saw again. His wife and daughter were at the window; the former pale and calm, the latter vaguely unhappy over an excitement and disturbance which she could not understand. As the horses started he kissed his hands to them both, tenderly as he had kissed them three minutes before on the threshold; and as the carriage disappeared round the first turning of the road he waved his handkerchief. Annie Napier had seen the last of her husband she was to see in this world. She came away from the window, still quite calm, but with a strange look on her pale and beautiful face; and then she sate down, and took her little girl on her knee, and put her arms round her, and drew her closely to her.

"Mamma, why do you cry?" the little one said, looking up into the sad, silent face.

Her mother did not speak. Was the coming shadow already hovering over her? She drew her daughter the more closely to her; and the little girl, thrown back on her usual resource for expressing her alarm, only murmured disconsolately, "Oh, Nu, Nu, I don't know what to do."

THE MARCHIONESS.

Of what befel Lord Knottingley in England--of the influences brought to bear on him, of the acquaintances and relatives who counselled him --his wife never knew anything. Week after week passed, and she heard nothing from England. Again and again she wrote: there was no answer. But at length there arrived at Thun his lordship's man of business, Mr. Chetwynd, who brought with him all the news for which she had sought.

She was seated at the window overlooking the lake, oppressed and almost terrified by the strange shadows which the sunset was weaving among the mountains opposite. The sun had so far sunk that only the peaks of the splendid hills burned like tongues of fire; and in the deep valleys on the eastern side the thick purple darkness was giving birth to a cold grey mist which crept along in nebulous masses like the progress of a great army. Down at the opposite shore the mist got bluer and denser; and over all the lake the faint haze dulled the sombre glow caught from the lurid red above. Up there, high over the mountains, there were other mountains and valleys; and, as she looked, she thought she saw an angel, with streaming violet hair which floated away eastward, and he held to his mouth a trumpet, white as silver, which almost touched the peak of the Wetterhorn; and then the long, flowing robes of scarlet and gold became an island, with a fringe of yellow light that dazzled her sad eyes. When she turned rapidly to see that a servant had brought her a letter, the same cloud-visions danced before her, pictured in flames upon the darkness of the room.

"Will it please your ladyship to see Mr. Chetwynd this evening or to-morrow morning?" the servant inquired.

"Did Mr. Chetwynd bring this letter?" she asked, hurriedly.

"Yes, your ladyship," said the man.

"Tell him I will see him this evening--by-and-by--in half an hour."

Standing there, with a faint pink light streaming in upon the paper, she read these words:

"Your loving husband, "HARRY ORMOND."

She read this letter to the very end, and seemed not to understand it; she was only conscious of a dull sense of pain. Then she turned away from it--from its callous phrases, its weak reasoning, its obvious lies, all of which seemed a message from a stranger, not from Harry Ormond--and accidentally she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. She saw there what recalled her to herself; for the ghastly face she beheld, tinged with the faint glow of the sunset, was terror-stricken and wild. In the next second she had banished that look; she rang the bell; and then stood erect and firm, with all the fire of her old profession tingling in her.

"Bid Mr. Chetwynd come here," she said to the servant.

In a minute or two the door was again opened, and there entered a tall, grey-haired man, with a grave and rather kindly expression of face.

She held out the letter, and said, in a cold, clear tone:

"Do you know the contents of this letter?"

"I do, your ladyship," said he.

"You need not speak," she said, with a dignity of gesture which abashed him--which made him regard her with the half-frightened, half-admiring look she had many a time seen on the faces of the scene-shifters after one of her passionate climaxes--"I presume I am still the Marchioness of Knottingley?"

"Certainly."

"And my husband has commissioned you to receive my instructions?"

"Mr. Chetwynd, you and I used to talk frankly with each other. I hope you will not embarrass yourself by making an apology for his lordship, when he himself has done that so admirably in this letter. Now, be good enough to attend to what I say. You will secure for me and my daughter a passage to America by the earliest vessel we can reach from here; and to-morrow morning you will accompany us on the first stage of the journey. I will take so much money from you as will land us in New York; whatever surplus there may be will be returned to Lord Knottingley."

"May I beg your ladyship to consider--to remain here until I communicate with his lordship?"

"I have considered," she said, calmly, in a tone which put an end to further remonstrance, "and I do not choose to remain in this house another day."

So Mr. Chetwynd withdrew. He saw nothing of this strangely self-possessed woman until the carriage was at the door next morning, ready to take her from the house which she had cast for ever behind her.

When he did see her he scarcely recognised her. She was haggard and white; her eyes were red and wild; she appeared to be utterly broken down. She was dressed in black, and so was the little girl she led by the hand. He did not know that she had spent the entire night in her daughter's room, and that it was not sleep which had occupied those long hours.

So it was that Annie Napier and her daughter arrived in America; and there she went again upon the stage, under the name of Annie Brunel, and earned a living for both of them. But the old fire had gone out; and there was not one who recognised in the actress her who had several years before been the idol of London. One message only she sent to her husband; and it was written, immediately on her reaching New York, in these words:

"HARRY ORMOND,--I married you for your love. When you take that from me, I do not care to have anything in its place. Nor need you try to buy my silence; I shall never trouble you.

"ANNIE NAPIER."

On the receipt of that brief note, Harry Ormond had a severe fit of compunction. The freedom of his new life was strong upon him, however; and in process of time he, like most men of his stamp, grew to have a conviction that he was not responsible for the wrong he had done. If she had wilfully relinquished the luxury he offered her, was he to blame?

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