When Sara had prepared Lord Garrow's tea and cut the leaves of the Revue des Deux Mondes, which he invariably read until he dressed for dinner, she stole away to the further room, where she could play the piano, write letters, muse over novels, or indulge in reverie without fear of interruption. But as she entered it that afternoon its air of peace seemed the bleakness of desolation. A terrible and afflicting grief swept, like an icy breeze, through her heart, and, whether from actual physical pain or the excitement of the last few hours, tears started to her eyes, her cheeks flushed, and she fell to passionate weeping. The smiling Nymphs painted on the ceiling above her head and the rose leaves they were for ever scattering to the dancing Hours (a charming group, and considered very cheerful), could not relieve her woe. She cried long and bitterly, and was on the verge of hysterics when the door opened and her most intimate woman friend, the Viscountess Fitz Rewes, was announced. This bewitching creature--who was a widow, with two long flaxen curls, a sweet figure, and the smile of an angel--embraced her dear, dear Sara with genuine affection, and pretended not to see her swollen eyelids. Sara possessed for Pensee Fitz Rewes the fascination of a desperate nature for a meek one. The audacity, brilliancy, and recklessness of the younger woman at once stimulated and established the other's gentle piety.
They talked for fifteen minutes about the autumn visits they had paid, the visits they would have to pay, and the visits which nothing in the world would induce them to pay.
"I have been at home, at Catesby, most of the time," said Pensee; "a very quiet, happyish time, on the whole. I had a few people down, but I saw a great deal of a particularly nice person. She is a foreigner--an archduchess really. Her father made a morganatic marriage. I am so glad they don't have morganatic marriages in England. I don't like to be uncharitable, but they seem, in a way, so improper. Madame de Parflete is all one could wish. Her husband was a dreadful man."
"What did he do?" said Sara, who was a little absent.
"Oh, all kinds of things. He committed suicide in the end. And now--she is going to marry a friend of mine."
"Who is he?"
"I never told you about him before," said Pensee, "but I am so miserable to-day that you may as well know. He was a sort of brother, yet much more. One didn't meet him often in our set, because he didn't and doesn't care about it. Life, however, threw us together."
She covered her wan face with her hands.
"How am I to give him up?" she asked. "How shall I bear it? I get so unhappy. I asked my little boy the other day what he did when I went away from home. He said--'I gather chestnuts and feel lonely.' And I asked my little girl what she did, and she said--'I cry till you come back again.' There's the difference between men and women. I am like my poor Lilian. You, Sara, if you could be wretched, would be more like the boy."
"Do you think so?" said Sara.
"That wonderful passage in the New Testament--I often remember it! After all the agony and separation were over, Simon Peter said to the disciples, I go a fishing. He went back to the work he was doing when our Lord first called him. What courage!"
"Go on," said Sara, "go on!"
"Of course, my heart has been taking an undue complacency in the creature, and this seldom fails to injure. I have a wish to be free from distress, and enjoy life. As if we were born to be happy! No, this world is a school to discipline souls and fit them for the other. I must forget my friend."
"Nonsense!"
"It will be very hard. I took such an interest in his career. If I didn't mention him to you, or to other people, I mentioned him often to God. And now--it is somewhat awkward."
"You little goose," said Sara, "you have a heart of crystal. Nothing could be awkward for you."
"My heart," said Pensee, with a touch of resentment, "is just as dangerous and wicked as any other heart! You misunderstand me wilfully. I like prayer at all times, because it is a help and because it lifts one out of the world. Oh, when shall every thought be brought into captivity?"
"Listen!" said Sara, "listen! If there is an attractiveness in human beings so lovely that it could call your Almighty God Himself from heaven to dwell among them and to die most cruelly for their sakes, is it to be expected that they will not--and who will dare say that they should not?--as mortals themselves, discover qualities in each other which draw out the deepest affection? I have no patience with your religion--none."
"You are most unkind, and I won't tell you any more," replied Pensee, who looked, however, not ungrateful for Sara's view of the situation.
"Let me tell you something about me," said her friend fiercely. "I never say my prayers, because I cannot say them, but I love somebody, too. Whenever I hear his name I could faint. When I see him I could sink into the ground. At the sight of his handwriting I grow cold from head to foot, I tremble, my heart aches so that it seems breaking in two. I long to be with him, yet when I am with him I have nothing to say. I have to escape and be miserable all alone. He is my thought all day: the last before I sleep, the first when I awake. I could cry and cry and cry. I try to read, and I remember not a word. I like playing best, for then I can almost imagine that he is listening. But when I stop playing and look round, I find myself in an empty room. It is awful. I call his name; no one answers. I whisper it; still no answer. I throw myself on the ground, and I say, 'Think of me! think of me! you shall, you must, you do think of me!' It is great torture and a great despair. Perhaps it is a madness too. But it is my way of loving. I want to live while I live. If I knew for certain that he loved me--me only--the joy, I think, would kill me. Love! Do you know, poor little angel, what it means? Sometimes it is a curse."
Pensee, before this torrent, was shaking like some small flower in a violent gale.
"You say things, Sara, that no one says--things that one ought not to say. You must be quieter. You won't be happy when you are married if you begin with so much feeling!"
"I am not going to marry that one," said Sara bitterly. "I am going to marry Marshire."
Lady Fitz Rewes had too delicate a face to contain any expression of the alarm and horror she felt at this statement. She frowned, bit her lips, and sank back in her chair. What stroke of fate, she wondered, had overtaken the poor girl? Was she sane? Was she herself? Pensee found some relief in the thought that Sara was not herself--a state into which most people are presumed to fall whenever, from stress or emotion, they become either strictly candid or perfectly natural.
"It is a fancy. Fancies are in my blood," said Sara; "you need not be anxious."
"But--but what feeling have you for Marshire?" murmured Pensee.
"I have a faint inclination not to dislike him utterly. And I will be a good wife to him. If I say so, I shall keep my word. You may be sure of that."
"I could never doubt your honour, Sara. Is the other man quite, quite out of the question?"
"Quite."
"But perhaps he does love you."
"Oh no, he doesn't. He may think me picturesque and rather entertaining. It never went deeper than that. I saw at once that his mind was fixed on some other woman."
"I suppose one can always tell when a man's affections are really engaged," said Pensee, with a sigh.
"Yes, beyond any doubt. You feel that they are comparing you at every point, in a silent, cold-blooded way, to the bright particular star. I envy you, Pensee; you, at least, were desperately loved by Lionel. But I--never, never was loved--except once."
"Who was he?"
"He was a Russian, very good-looking, and a genius. But oh, I wasn't old enough to understand him. When he died, I cried for half a day and seven nights. And after that, not a tear. You see, I didn't understand myself either."
"Do I know this other one ... the one, now?"
"I won't tell you his name. Perhaps, another time, when we are all very old ... and he is dead ... or I am dying...."
"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Pensee, "don't say that! You are making a lot of misery for yourself."
"Not at all. I am making the most of my one saving grace. There is nothing very nice about me--except that. And he is a man. The only real one among all our friends--the only one for whom I have the least respect. If any woman had his love--how sure, how happy she could be! I could work, and starve, and lay down my life for a man like that. If he had loved me, I think I could have been almost a good woman, a downright good one, a Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. But you see that wasn't to be. And so I am just this----" She looked in the glass and pointed a white finger, loaded with rings of black pearls, at her reflection. "I am just this--a vain, idle fool like all the rest--except you, poor darling."
"Why don't you keep up your music?--your wonderful playing? Every one says it is so wonderful. That's a great outlet for emotion. And your languages--why not work an hour a day each at Italian, Spanish, German, and French? That would kill four hours of the day straight off!"
"Bah!" said Sara, "I cannot play--unless there is some one to play for. As for languages--I cannot talk alone. And as for reading--I cannot find all my world between the covers of a book."
"But live for others, dear Sara."
"I want to live for myself. I have one inseparable companion--that is myself. I want to suffer my own sufferings, and enjoy my own enjoyments. This living for others is absurd. I hate second-hand emotions; they are stale and dull. But, Pensee, you haven't told me the name of your friend."
"I thought I had," said Pensee, simply; "you will see it in the marriage notice the day after to-morrow. It is Robert Orange."
Sara stared for a moment. Then the string of gold beads which she wore round her throat suddenly broke, and the shining ornaments fell all about her to the floor.
"Dear me!" said Sara, kneeling down with a ghastly laugh. Pensee knelt too, and they gathered the scattered necklace between them. "Dear me! I was never more surprised--never; and yet I cannot think why I am surprised. He is very handsome. Any woman would like him."
"I wonder," said Pensee, full of thoughts.
Sara proceeded to count her beads, lest one should be missing. But they were all there, and she tied them up in her handkerchief.
"Pensee," she said, presently. "I will tell his name after all, because you have been so frank with me. The one I ... love is Beauclerk Reckage." As she uttered this lie, she cast down her eyes and blushed to the very heart.
"Beauclerk!" exclaimed Pensee, in amazement. "Then there is some hope after all! There is, there must be! Beauclerk! He is engaged to Agnes Carillon, of course. But all the same...."
The conversation flagged. Lord Garrow, who had heard a distant murmuring but not their words, now, as their animation failed, came in.
"My little girl," said he, "has been moping. I am very glad that you called ... very glad indeed. And Sara, my darling...."
"Yes, papa."
"Have you asked Pensee the name of that extremely pretty song she sang for us when we all dined together at Lord Wight's? You remember the evening?"
But Sara, with a wail, fled away. Pensee caught a glimpse of her white, agonised countenance as she rushed past them, moaning, to her own room.
"This is dreadful," said Lord Garrow, horribly annoyed--"dreadful!"
"It is indeed," replied Lady Fitz Rewes gravely. "I suppose...."
She wanted to say that she hoped the Marshire-de Treverell alliance was still undecided. But something in his lordship's air--a hardness she had never thought to see in his regard--forbade any reference to the subject. He conducted her to her carriage, wished her "Goodbye" in his Court manner, and led her to understand, by an unmistakable glance, that a certain marriage which had been arranged would, inasmuch as it was entirely agreeable to the will of Providence, take place.
