Miles Tremenhere: A Novel. Vol. 2 of 2

by Annette Marie Maillard

And during these heavy hours poor Minnie sat at home in her sorrow. She had refused to leave the house since the day she met Lady Dora and Tremenhere; nothing could persuade her but that he loved her cousin: he might regret her sad fate, but he loved Dora. She urged Skaife to give him the proof of his mother's fame—of his own legitimacy; but Skaife had resolved that she alone should lay this treasure, in reconciliation, at her husband's feet. Moreover, Skaife was a man of the world, and though he knew Tremenhere now loved only Minnie, he had justly read her cousin and Lady Ripley; and he knew man as he too generally is, easily led by his vanity and a woman's love, even against his better reason and judgment. He saw Lady Dora loved Tremenhere, and felt assured only the "poor artist" stood between her love and pride. Once master of the manor-house he would answer for nothing, and like a wise man, resolved to spare him the temptation, and Minnie the pain, of seeing a fruitless effort to forget her, in an impossible marriage.

We left Lady Dora dancing with Marmaduke Burton; she did so, but it was spiritless. She had played a game unpleasing to herself, and the success had not been all she hoped for. Tremenhere seemed perfectly indifferent; and when she rejoined Lady Lysson, a freezing manner towards herself, and complete ignorance of Marmaduke Burton's existence, were the things which they met, as she approached, leaning on his arm. To make her still more uncomfortable, she saw Tremenhere and Lord Randolph, as she passed through an inner saloon, laughing and talking with several ladies in the most unconcerned manner possible. At last the dance was proclaimed for which she was engaged to the former. Had she been behind him and his friend, as they stood unobserved by her in a doorway, watching her, she would not have felt perfectly comfortable. Lord Randolph's face was severe, but in nowise sad, as he said to the other—

"Tremenhere, that woman does not love me—better said, she rather dislikes me. Look at her now. What she has done this night, has opened my eyes to a fact some time suspected, that another motive than even indifferent liking has induced her to accept me. She has some hidden thought, or hidden affection in her heart, and she is struggling with it, for whom I know not; but to me she is indifferent."

"Perhaps you judge hastily," answered Tremenhere. "She has her oddity of temper, doubtless, like all women. Let time, he is my greatest ally, decide every thing; he has means of bringing hidden thought to light, of which our puny imaginings can form no idea. I must leave you; I am engaged this Schottische to her ladyship," and, loosening his arm, he crossed over to where she stood with Burton. "May I claim my promised Schottische?" he asked, offering an arm.

It was an immense relief for her to leave Burton. She felt many had looked coldly upon her that night. A man is not publicly branded slanderer and coward without the titles clinging to him, more especially among an English set, acquainted with most of the persons implicated in the affair. She expected, made up her mind to a few bitter words, or implied doubts of her motives in having chosen Burton for her cavalier; but though Tremenhere read her perfectly, he was a sealed book to her, without an effort, or any thing to make her say, "He is playing a part." He was perfectly unembarrassed in his manner—attentive, without being gallant—gentle, without any thing overstrained—full of that quiet, unostentatious wit which charms so much. She had never seen him to more advantage; and every moment she felt his superiority over her own narrow thoughts and mind; and she felt disgusted with the part she had been playing. A word would have made her express all her overtaxed feelings to him, but he gave her no opportunity; she was as an agreeable partner and stranger to him—nothing more. The dance was over; he evinced no desire to leave her, no particular wish to retain her near him; he was the impersonation of a thoroughly idle, indifferent man. As they passed near Lady Lysson, a fan gently touched his arm.

"Amidst more youthful engagements, don't forget you are engaged to me for a contredanse," she said. "When a man solicits a thing, I hold it as a point of conscience to make him accomplish it; you have urged me to this folly—I wish to fulfil my kismet."

"I have not forgotten it, Lady Lysson; I am counting the moments by my stop-watch."

Lady Dora would have given worlds to hear him speak to her in such a tone. There was a total change in the intonation when he addressed Lady Lysson. From one to the other it seemed to say, "I know you, and you know me; there exists a freemasonry between us."

And when she stood in the same quadrille with Lord Randolph as partner, she felt it still more keenly. There was a freedom between Tremenhere and Lady Lysson to which she never had attained, though related to him—it was the familiarity of kindred spirits.

She and her mother quitted early. There was a reception at the embassy this same evening, to which they were going. Before doing so, however, they returned home, as it was close at hand, and Lady Dora entered her room to re-arrange her dress, nominally; but, in fact, to collect her shattered nerves by a few moments quiet. Accordingly, dismissing her maid, she sat alone. There was a large mirror opposite the chair where she sat. After surveying herself some time in the distance, she rose, and pacing the room with her proud, queenly air, stood before it, glowing in beauty. Never mirror gave back any thing more richly beautiful than her face; her eyes of dazzling fire—eyes to make a man bow down in wonder before their power—and then the long heavy ringlet of dark chestnut falling across the heaving bosom, to the waist. She surveyed her beauty, not in petty vanity, but in wonder herself, that so perfect a work of nature had not awed that man to love her, and confess his love—how could he resist her? and loving her, as assuredly he did. With this thought a grim doubt arose, like a breath passing over that mirror, to shade her beauty—almost unconsciously she dropped on a seat opposite the glass, which her eyes never quitted; and, as if involuntarily, her hands unclasped the massive bracelets one by one, and laid them on a table beside her. Her maid had placed a bouquet of rich damask roses, looped round the stem with a string of gems, on the side of her beautiful head; for she was not simple in her dress, as Minnie—a more gorgeous style suited her best. Her fingers, though unused to tasks like these, unfastened them, and they dropped from her hand on the floor—all, save the rich dress of antique moire, lay around her; and then the girl, unladen by gems, unadorned but by nature, dispirited, broken-hearted, at that nature's bidding covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly; she felt he could not love her,—to have been so calm beneath her bitter insult in choosing his cousin's society, she felt how much, how madly she loved him; and the proud Lady Dora sobbed in her bitterness. "An artist's wife! the wife of a nameless, illegitimate man! I would be any thing he might become, if he but loved me! But he does!" she cried with sudden energy; "he must! His every word betokened it at once; this one fatal night cannot have made him hate me! He does, and I will prove him! Less would be madness, a longer suspense, the working of that hollow pride which has made me what I am!" When her maid tapped to say, "Lady Ripley was waiting!" she found Lady Dora pale, and with the tears still on her cheek, incapable of aught but an essay at rest on her feverish couch. Her mother was not unused of late to her whims, though she never had carried them to so much excess. It was her own fault. Had she trained this fair plant otherwise, it would have reared itself in cultured beauty towards heaven; as it was rotten at the root, it would either decay from its own want of power, or trail worthless on the ground, only fit to be torn from its parent earth as a weed—nothing more.