“It must,” she replied, with a smile. “Mr. Eyrle, if you were a wise man, you would fly from me, a woman whose name has been so lightly on every foul lip in the land.”
“I believe in you,” he cried, passionately.
“I thank you,” she said, with dignity. “I thank God also that one loyal English gentleman has been found to stand by me in the hour of need,” and then she led the way to the balcony, Kenelm and Miss Hanson following her. She sat down on the pretty, quaint seat, Kenelm by her side. Miss Hanson stood leaning against the iron rail of the balcony. There was a faint sound as of summer leaves and summer music in the air, but when she, in her clear, sweet voice, with its soft, piquant accent, began her story, they heard nothing else. They saw nothing else but the beautiful Spanish face, the indignation that flashed from the dark eyes, the sorrow that quivered round the red lips. She turned her face to Kenelm; it was to him she spoke.
“I must tell you something of my early home,” she said, “of my beautiful Spain, where chivalry lives and where men have not forgotten how to love and reverence woman; Spain, where the light lies low on the hills; the home of romance, the very name of which stirs my heart, as the sound of the trumpet moves the warrior’s soul. I was born near Granada. As I say the word, there comes to me a vision of pomegranates and myrtle, of vine-crowned steeples, of splendor such as you cold Northerners never dreamed of—great flashes of color, royal sunsets, glorious music—all echoes of Spain the magnificent.
“My mother was a Spanish lady of high descent; her name, Inez de Borga, but while she was young her father, one of the proudest grandees in Spain, lost the whole of his fortune and died of despair. My mother was left alone in the world, and she married an Englishman, Captain Lancelot Payton, who held some English appointment in Granada. They were very happy; my mother was most lovely, most lovable, and my father the very soul of honor; but a cruel fever came and took him from us. I was very young, only a child, but I remember him well. He died and left my mother a small annuity, which was to cease with her life. So we lived alone in a pretty little Moorish villa, near Granada. Never were mother and daughter so happy—she was like my elder sister. She taught me our own grand, musical tongue; she taught me my father’s language, pure Saxon-English; she taught me French and Italian. She was never so happy as when sharing the stores of her rich fancy and genius with me. She made me an excellent musician and a good linguist; but that was not all. She taught me—now, mind, I swear to you, this is true—she taught me to fear God, to love Him, to value my own soul. She taught me that purity was the highest and noblest attribute of woman; that honor far outshone nobility; she taught me that I was only to live for heaven; that the things of this world faded so quickly away, but that those who lived for God lived for the highest end of all.”
Her face flushed, a beautiful, tender light came into her eyes.
“I swear she taught me this: that she used to hold me in her arms, and clasp my hands while she made me say my little prayer to ‘Jesus meek and mild,’ while she told me the grand old Bible stories, and stories that to me were even sweeter of the God who became a man. She taught me to begin and end each day with a prayer. She did her best in her sweet, wise, gentle way to make me good. Dare any one say that a child so trained was spoiled, as was said of me? Dare any one accuse my mother of corrupting me? my mother, who was an angel, and who smiles now among the angels of God? Then my enemies triumphed over me; they said Spain was the land of gallantry; they smiled false, devilish smiles and shrugged their shoulders as though they would say my mother was a Spaniard, therefore corrupt; that I was born of a Spanish mother, therefore I was corrupt, too. I dare say to you what it would be useless for me to say to others. I have never, in one single instance, gone against my mother’s teaching. See, I could fold my hands now and pray to ‘Jesus, meek and mild,’ as I did years ago at my mother’s knee. Could I do that if I were what they say? Would not God, for such hypocrisy, strike me dead? If my mother had lived, all would have been well with me; but she was never strong, and the wind that blows over Granada is not always healthy. I do not know why she died. I saw her fading day by day. She grew more beautiful, more lovable; it was the angel nature drawing nearer. People used to look at me and say: ‘Poor child, she is very young and very tender to have so great a trouble,’ and then I knew my mother was dying. Perhaps you never watched how gently those fair English daisies close their golden eyes, nor how softly a flower dies while the sun kisses it. Even so my mother died; no one knew when. She was looking at me with a strange, solemn brightness in her eyes, and she said: ‘You will come to me, Julietta, mia; you will come to heaven, to me?’”
“I cried out ‘Yes!’ and fell weeping on her neck; when I raised my eyes hers were closed, and her face was whiter than a lily leaf. Do you think if I were what they say, light of love, light of fame, that I dare remember and love, and long to meet again my dead, dear, young mother? Rather should I shrink from her and find heaven where she was not.”
CHAPTER XL.
LADY PELHAM’S STORY.
“I was sixteen and a half when my mother died. In England I should have been looked upon as a mere girl; in Spain I was a woman. Can you imagine my lot alone, poor, so young, so helpless? I thought my father must have relatives and friends in this far-off England; but I did not know how to reach them. At last the English consul at Madrid wrote for me; he said that the late Captain Payton belonged to the noble old English family of Pelhams, and that if my story were known I should be adopted by some of them. While waiting for the reply, I went to live with the only relative I had in the world—a cousin of my mother—a cross, proud, stiff, elderly lady, Donna Maria de Borga, who hated every one in the world younger than herself. I was so wretched, so unutterably wretched, that I wished myself dead over and over again. You can fancy a flower shut out from the sunshine and left to die in the cold. You can imagine a bird deprived of light and liberty. With my mother, life had been all poetry and happiness; now it was all gloom.