The Fate of Fenella. Various Authors Читать онлайн книгу.
eyes riding together in the Row."
Lord Francis started as if he had been stung. "Come here!" he said. There was a garden bench in a little recess, and he threw himself down upon it. Lucille de Vigny seated herself beside him, and a triumphant smile played over her dark and beautiful face as she marked with a sidelong glance the anger and chagrin which convulsed her companion's features.
"Is this true?" he cried.
"I tell you, Frank, that I saw them with my own eyes. It is not my custom to say what is not true."
"They were riding together?"
"Yes."
"And talking?"
"Talking and laughing."
"By heavens, I will see that fellow De Mürger. I will shoot him, Lucille. It is not our custom in England to duel. But he is a foreigner. He will meet me. I have wished to avoid a scandal, but if they court one why should I spare them? In the Row, you say?"
"Yes, and just when all the world was there."
"Heavens! it is maddening." He sank his face in his hands and groaned aloud.
"And what matter, after all?" said she, laying one delicately gloved hand upon his wrist. "Why should you trouble? What is she to you now? She is unworthy, and that is an end. Tout est fini. You are a free man, and may let her go her way while you go yours. Which way will be yours, Frank?"
The blood throbbed in his head. He felt her warm, magnetic hand tighten upon his wrist. Her soft, lisping voice, and the delicate perfume which came from her dress, seemed to lull the misery which had torn him. Already, in her presence, the fierce longing for his wife which had possessed him was growing more faint. Here was a woman, beautiful and tender, who did indeed love him. Why should his heart still dwell upon that other one who had brought unhappiness and disgrace to him?
"Which way will be yours, Frank?"
"The same as yours, Lucille."
"Ah, at last!" she cried, throwing her arms about him. "Did I not know that I should win you back?"
A sharp cry, a cry as from a stricken heart, and a dark shadow fell between the pair. Lord Francis started to his feet. Fenella was standing in front of them, her hands thrown out, her eyes blazing with anger.
"You villain!" she gasped. "You false villain!" She put her hands to her throat, and struggled with her words like a choking woman. Lord Francis Onslow looked down, while the blood flushed to his temple. Mme. de Vigny stood beside him, her hands folded across each other, and a look of defiance and anger upon her face.
"I came out here to tell you that I had forgiven you. Do you hear? That I had forgiven you. And this is how I find you. Oh, I shall never forgive you now—never, never, never! Why were you so nice to me this morning, if you meant to treat me so?"
"One word, Fenella," cried Onslow. "Answer me one question, and if I have wronged you I will go down on my bended knees to you. Tell me truthfully, and on your honor, were you in the company of De Mürger last week?"
"And if I were, sir?"
"Were you or were you not?"
"I was."
"You were with him in the Park?"
"I was."
"Then that is enough. I have no more to say. Madame, let me offer you my arm!" He walked past his wife with her rival, and the dresses of the two women would have touched had Fenella not sprung back with a cry of disgust, as one who shrinks from a poisonous thing. Mme. de Vigny laughed, and her proud sparkling eyes told of the triumph which filled her soul.
Fenella Onslow stood for an instant in the middle of the sunlit walk, her little right hand clenched with anger, her gaze turned toward the retreating figures. Then a sudden lurid thought flashed into her mind, and she started off as rapidly as she could in the direction of the railway station. Clitheroe Jacynth's train did not leave for ten minutes. Ronny had told her of the hour of his departure. The barrister was standing, moody and disconsolate, upon the platform, when he felt a light touch upon his shoulder, and looking round, saw a flushed little woman, with sparkling eyes, looking up at him.
"Fenella!" he cried.
"Yes, you must not go."
"Not go?"
"No, you must come back."
"You bid me?"
"Yes, I bid you. You must come back to the hotel."
"But it was you who this very morning drove me away from it."
"Forget it. Many things have happened since then. Will you not come?"
"Of course, I will come."
"Then give me your arm."
And so it happened that as Lord Francis Onslow and Mme. Lucille de Vigny stood at the door of the Prospect Hotel after their walk, they perceived Lady Francis and a gentleman whom neither of them had seen before coming toward them arm-in-arm, and engaged in the most intimate conversation.
CHAPTER V.
BY MAY CROMMELIN.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee.
When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept.
Mother cried, baby leapt.
More he crowed, more we cried.
Nature could not sorrow hide.
Greene (1560–92).
"I've wired for him!" Fenella imparted in a startling burst of confidence. "Ronny and I got up early and ran down to the telegraph office."
"My goodness!" Jacynth stared in resentful dismay at her sparkling eyes. "Well! you have made a nice complication, now."
The girl laid a beseeching hand on his arm.
"Don't look so furious; and do—do stand by me in everything as you promised. Remember, you are my only friend here—except Ronny."
"I have promised," he said solemnly. "But you might consult me as a friend. And why do anything so rash—mad?"
"Because all my life I have taken my own way. Because if he comes here to vex me, when we were all quite happy"—she set her small white teeth—"and flaunts that creature before my very face, I will show him the red rag he hates worst! Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
"Not always. Take care."
"Besides, I want to convince you—everyone—that on my side there is nothing to blame, nothing—while, Frank—oh, there"—with a pathetic little break in her voice that makes Clitheroe wretched—"after having forgotten this miserable business very nearly—I hardly slept last night—thinking."
"You are fond of him still, then?" said Jacynth, very low.
"No! no! I hate him now," she exclaimed passionately, apostrophizing the rocks and trees around. "I should like to divorce him, and—and—see that poisonous serpent crushed alive."
"Come, don't say such terrible things. And divorce is no such easy matter."
Jacynth's heart beat hard as he soothed the headstrong girl. If she were indeed free! Down, down, wild hope! Was he not her true friend and faithful counselor? "So this accounts for your silence as we drove