Part 38 (2/2)
”I am in such trouble, Lily!” she cried. ”Think how great it is when I know not how to tell you.”
The sweet, gentle eyes looked wonderingly into her own. Beatrice clasped her sister's hands.
”You must not judge me harshly,” she said, ”I am not good like you, Lily; I never could be patient and gentle like you. Do you remember, long ago, at Knutsford, how I found you one morning upon the cliffs, and told you that I hated my life? I did hate it, Lillian,” she continued. ”You can never tell how much; its quiet monotony was killing me. I have done wrong; but surely they are to blame who made my life what it was then--who shut me out from the world, instead of giving me my rightful share of its pleasures. I can not tell you what I did, Lily.”
She laid her beautiful, sad face on her sister's hands. Lillian bent over her, and whispered how dearly she loved her, and how she would do anything to help her.
”That very morning,” she said, never raising her eyes to her sister's face--”that morning, Lily, I met a stranger--a gentleman he seemed to me--and he watched me with admiring eyes. I met him again, and he spoke to me. He walked by my side through the long meadows, and told me strange stories of foreign lands he had visited--such stories! I forgot that he was a stranger, and talked to him as I am talking to you now. I met him again and again. Nay, do not turn from me; I shall die if you shrink away.”
The gentle arms clasped her more closely.
”I am not turning from you,” replied Lillian. ”I can not love you more than I do now.”
”I met him” continued Beatrice, ”every day, unknown to every one about me. He praised my beauty, and I was filled with joy; then he talked to me of love, and I listened without anger. I swear to you,” she said, ”that I did it all without thought; it was the novelty, the flattery, the admiration that pleased me, not he himself, I believe Lily. I rarely thought of him. He interested me; he had eloquent words at his command, and seeing how I loved romance, he told me stories of adventure that held me enchanted and breathless. I lost sight of him in thinking of the wonders he related. They are to blame, Lily, who shut me out from the living world. Had I been in my proper place here at home, where I could have seen and judged people rightly, it would not have happened. At first it was but a pleasant break in a life dreary beyond words; then I looked for the daily meed of flattery and homage. I could not do without it. Lily, will you hold me to have been mad when I tell you the time came when I allowed that man to hold my hands as you are doing, to kiss my face, and win from me a promise that I would be his wife?”
Beatrice looked up then and saw the fair, pitying face almost as white as snow.
”Is it worse than you thought?” she asked.
”Oh, yes,” said Lillian; ”terrible, irretrievable, I fear!”
Chapter x.x.xV
There was unbroken silence for some minutes; then Lillian bent over her sister, and said:
”Tell me all, darling; perhaps I can help you.”
”I promised to be his wife, Lily,” continued Beatrice. ”I am sure I did not mean it. I was but a child. I did not realize all that the words meant. He kissed my face, and said he should come to claim me.
Believe me, Lily, I never thought of marriage. Brilliant pictures of foreign lands filled my mind; I looked upon Hugh Fernely only as a means of escape from a life I detested. He promised to take me to places the names of which filled me with wonder. I never thought of leaving you or mamma--I never thought of the man himself as of a lover.”
”You did not care for him, then, as you do for Lord Airlie?” interposed Lillian.
”Do not pain me!” begged Beatrice. ”I love Hubert with the love that comes but once in life; that man was nothing to me except that his flattery, and the excitement of contriving to meet him, made my life more endurable. He gave me a ring, and said in two years' time he should return to claim me. He was going on a long voyage. Lily, I felt relieved when he was gone--the novelty was over--I had grown tired. Besides, when the glamour fell from my eyes, I was ashamed of what I had done. I tried to forget all about him; every time the remembrance of him came to my mind I drove it from me. I did not think it possible he would ever return. It was but a summer's pastime. That summer has darkened my life. Looking back, I own I did very wrong.
There is great blame attaching to me, but surely they who shut me out from the living world were blameworthy also.
”Remember all through my story, darling, that I am not so good, not so patient and gentle as you. I was restless at the Elms, like a bird in a cage; you were content. I was vain, foolish, and willful; but, looking back at the impetuous, imperious child, full of romance, untrained, longing for the strife of life, longing for change, for excitement, for gayety, chafing under restraint, I think there was some little excuse for me. There was no excuse for what followed. When papa spoke to us--you remember it, Lily--and asked so gently if we had either of us a secret in our lives--when he promised to pardon anything, provided we kept nothing from him--I ought to have told him then. There is no excuse for that error. I was ashamed. Looking round upon the n.o.ble faces hanging on the wall, looking at him, so proud, so dignified, I could not tell him what his child had done. Oh, Lily, if I had told him, I should not be kneeling here at your feet now.”
Lillian made no reply, but pressed the proud, drooping figure more closely to her side.
”I can hardly tell the rest,” said Beatrice; ”the words frighten me as I utter them. This man, who has been the bane of my life, was going away for two years. He was to claim me when he returned. I never thought he would return; I was so happy, I could not believe it.” Here sobs choked her utterance.
Presently she continued: ”Lily, he is here; he claims me, and also the fulfillment of my promise to be his wife.”
A look of unutterable dread came over the listener's fair, pitying face.
”He wrote to me three weeks since; I tried to put him off. He wrote again this morning, and swears he will see me. He will be here tonight at nine o'clock. Oh, Lily, save me, save me, or I shall die!”
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