Part 19 (1/2)

So saying, the Countess of Lanswell quitted the room, leaving her son overwhelmed with a sense of defeat.

CHAPTER XVI.

LEONE'S DETERMINATION.

Lucia, Countess of Lanswell, stood alone in the superb drawing-room at Cawdor. It was evening, one of the warmest and brightest in September.

Nearly three months had pa.s.sed since the fatal marriage which had grieved and distressed her, and now she fondly hoped all her distress was ended. The decree had gone forth that the marriage was null and void; was, in fact, no marriage, Lord Chandos being under age when it was contracted. She said to herself all was null now. True, her son was in a most furious rage, and he had gone to consult half the lawyers in London, but she did not care for that; he was sure to rage and rave; he was a spoiled child, who never in his life had been contradicted or thwarted. The more angry he was the better; she knew by experience the hotter the fire the more quickly it burns away. Had he been cool, calm, collected and silent she would have dreaded the after consequences.

”He will exhaust himself with furious words,” she said to herself with a slow smile. ”When he has done that, all danger will be over.”

She had smiled when she heard of his rapid journeys, his fierce denunciations, his violent invectives, his repeated oaths that no power on earth should take him from his young wife.

She had smiled when the earl, whose conscience was more tender than her own, had said over and over again that it was a terrible thing to set aside a marriage, to call a religious ceremony null and void. He would not have done it himself, but my lady had firm nerves, and a will of iron; nothing daunted her. She laughed at his persuasions and arguments.

She told him the day would come on which he would thank Heaven that the honor of his name and race had been saved from destruction. My lady was triumphant. Knowing her son was spending his whole time in these journeys, she had requested Mr. Sewell himself to go to the pretty little villa at Richmond, to see the young wife himself, and tell her the truth about the marriage; to speak what she was pleased to call plain English to her; to tell her that in the eyes of the law and of all honest, honorable men she was not his wife; that every hour she called herself by his name, or lived under his roof, added to her disgrace and increased her shame.

”You can tell her,” said my lady, with ill-concealed contempt, ”that next June he will be twenty-one, and then he can please himself; he can remarry her if he will; no one then will have the least control over him; he will be his own master and can do as he likes. In all probability,” she continued, ”the girl will please herself with fanciful ideas about his being true to her; do not contradict her if she believes it--she will part from him more easily; but, believe me, my son will never return to her--never!”

Mr. Sewell had tried in vain to escape the interview; he was neither particularly tender of heart nor given to sentiment, but he shrunk from seeing the young girl who called herself Lady Chandos; he shrunk from telling her the truth; but my lady was inexorable; he must do it, and no one else.

He did it, but until the day of his death he never forgot it; he could not bear to think of it, and he never mentioned it. Until the day of his death he was haunted by a beautiful, pa.s.sionate face, white with terrible despair.

He was compelled to speak in what my lady called plain English, or she would never have understood him. She could not understand in the least why the fact of Lord Chandos being under twenty-one should make her marriage null and void; illegal, because contracted without his parents'

consent. She had turned to him with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

”Are the laws of England all framed for the convenience of the rich?”

she asked.

And, proud as he was of his legal knowledge, the lawyer had hesitated before the fire of her question.

She understood at last--she saw what Mr. Sewell called the justice of the case--the reasons why such a law was needful, and she knew that she was not the lawful wife of Lancelot, Lord Chandos. She looked into the stern face of her companion with eyes filled with awful despair.

”He did not know it,” she said; ”only tell me that, and I shall be happier. He did not know it?”

”No,” said Mr. Sewell; ”I am quite sure that Lord Chandos was ignorant of the fact--it never occurred to him; if it had done so, he would have deferred his marriage until he came of age.”

”I shall take some comfort in that,” she said, slowly. ”If he has erred, it has been done in ignorance and innocence. You say that the wrong can be righted next June; that he can marry me then without the consent of either of his parents.”

”Certainly he can,” replied the lawyer.

Something of the shock of despair pa.s.sed from her face as he uttered these words. She folded her arms over her breast with the repressed pa.s.sion of a tragedy queen.

”Then I have no fear,” she said. ”Were the time twice as long, the cruelty twice as great, the law twice as strong, he would return to me true and faithful, as he loves me. You can tell his mother that.”

”I will,” said Mr. Sewell, relieved to see some of the horror fall from her face.

She would not discuss her future arrangements with him. Lady Lanswell was anxious that she should take a large sum of money and return home.