Part 15 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIX.
”Tu mihi, tu certe (memini), Graecine, negabas, Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas.”
When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys thought of it.
Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, ”Well, there _was_ a scene--rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but as for serious measures--” He shrugged his shoulders expressively.
”Perhaps she _has_ something to complain of; but if she has any conscience at all, she ought to recognize the _lex talionis_.”
I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the subject then.
”Will you ride to-day?” Guy asked. ”There are always horses for you here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the Park about five.”
I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward.
A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort.
She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and s.h.i.+ning tresses of that color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they call--_blond cendre_. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often.
There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy form--the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria.
I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute conspirator--unbridled in sensuality--remorseless in statecraft--who counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn limb from limb on the rack?
But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone.
Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of philtres and poisons--we only think that never a duke of all his royal race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara.
Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable than the painter or the sculptor, but pa.s.s on without pausing to reflect--_Desinit in piscem_.
If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different--as different as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to the stride of the horse--perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and graceful.
Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school--”Watch your enemy's eyes, not his blade;” and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on her rival. I saw them melt with pa.s.sionate eagerness as for one brief moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of being deceived by ”Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly.”
Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were _not_ suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without attending sufficiently to the ”_suaviter in modo_”; for, when it was a question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, and made her manner seem constrained and cold.
I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint.
I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge in the _amantium irae_; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his mighty limbs--as the Danite t.i.tan might have done before his locks were shorn--and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized the _griffe_ of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora Bellasys--triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had been--and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness she was plotting to overthrow.
She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often accompanied by his _fiancee_. They seemed to be on the most ordinary footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since--between the knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which I have never tried to penetrate.
I can only tell the end, which came very speedily.
CHAPTER XX.
”'Tis good to be merry and wise; 'Tis good to be honest and true; 'Tis good to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new.”
There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in after years, when, like Curran, ”confined to the Port” of a remote country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the landlord for the good of the house.
The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the _Piombi_, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition and a question of pa.s.sports to get down there, but the drive home through the cool dewy morning made you amends.