Wife in Name Only Part 15

"Good-night, _Petruchio_," she said. "I am pleased at the name I have found for you."

"I am not so sure that it is appropriate," he rejoined. "I think on the whole I would rather love a _Juliet_ than tame a shrew."

"It may be in the book of fate that you will do both," she observed; and they parted, laughing at the idea.

To the last the light shone in her eyes, and the scarlet lips were wreathed in smiles; but, when the door had closed behind him and she was alone, the haggard, terrible change that fell over the young face was painful to see. The light, the youth, the beauty seemed all to fade from it; it grew white, stricken, as though the pain of death were upon her.

She clasped her hands as one who had lost all hope.

"How am I to bear it?" she cried. "What am I to do?" She looked round her with the bewildered air of one who had lost her way--with the dazed appearance of one from beneath whose feet the plank of safety had been withdrawn. It was all over--life was all over; the love that had been her life was suddenly taken from her. Hope was dead--the past in which she had lived was all a plank--he did not love her.

She said the words over and over again to herself. He did not love her, this man to whom she had given the pa.s.sionate love of her whole heart and soul--he did not love her, and never intended to ask her to be his wife.

Why, she had lived for this! This love, lying now in ruins around her, had been her existence. Standing there, in the first full pain of her despair, she realized what that love had been--her life, her hope, her world. She had lived in it; she had known no other wish, no other desire. It had been her all and now it was less than nothing.

"How am I to live and bear it?" she asked herself again; and the only answer that came to her was the dull echo of her own despair.

That night, while the sweet flowers slept under the light of the stars, and the little birds rested in the deep shade of the trees--while the night wind whispered low, and the moon sailed in the sky--Philippa L'Estrange, the belle of the season, one of the most beautiful women in London, one of the wealthiest heiresses in England, wept through the long hours--wept for the overthrow of her hope and her love, wept for the life that lay in ruins around her.

She was of dauntless courage--she knew no fear; but she did tremble and quail before the future stretching out before her--the future that was to have no love, and was to be spent without him.

How was she to bear it? She had known no other hope in life, no other dream. What had been childish nonsense to him had been to her a serious and exquisite reality. He had either forgotten it, or had thought of it only with annoyance; she had made it the very corner-stone of her life.

It was not only a blow of the keenest and cruelest kind to her affections, but it was the cruelest blow her vanity could have possibly received. To think that she, who had more admirers at her feet than any other woman in London, should have tried so hard to win this one, and have failed--that her beauty, her grace, her wit, her talent, should all have been lavished in vain.

Why did she fail so completely? Why had she not won his love? It was given to no other--at least she had the consolation of knowing that. He had talked about his ideal, but he had not found it; he had his own ideal of womanhood, but he had not met with it.

"Are other women fairer, more lovable than I am?" she asked herself.

"Why should another win where I have failed?"

So through the long hours of the starlit night she lamented the love and the wreck of her life, she mourned for the hope that could never live again, while her name was on the lips of men who praised her as the queen of beauty, and fair women envied her as one who had but to will and to win.

She would have given her whole fortune to win his love--not once, but a hundred times over.

It seemed to her a cruel mockery of fate that she who had everything the world could give--beauty, health, wealth, fortune--should ask but this one gift, and that it should be refused her.

She watched the stars until they faded from the skies and then she buried her face in the pillow and sobbed herself to sleep.

Chapter XII.

It was when the sun, s.h.i.+ning into her room, reached her that an idea occurred to Philippa which was like the up-springing of new life to her.

All was not yet lost. He did not love her--he had not thought of making her his wife; but it did not follow that he would never do so. What had not patience and perseverance accomplished before now? What had not love won?

He had acknowledged that she was beautiful; he had owned to her often how much he admired her. So much granted, was it impossible that he should learn to love her? She told herself that she would take courage--that she would persevere--that her great love must in time prevail, and that she would devote her life unweariedly to it.

She would carefully hide all traces of pique or annoyance. She would never let him find her dull or unhappy. Men liked to be amused. She would do her best to entertain him; he would never have a moment's vacancy in her society. She would find sparkling anecdotes, repartees, witty, humorous stories, to amuse him. He liked her singing; she would cultivate it more and more. She would study him, dress for him, live for him, and him alone; she would have no other end, aim, thought, or desire. She would herself be the source of all his amus.e.m.e.nt, so that he should look for the every-day pleasures of his life to her--and, such being the case, she would win him; she felt sure of it. Why had she been so hopeless, so despairing? There was no real cause for it. Perhaps, after all, he had looked upon the whole affair, not as a solemn engagement, but as a childish farce. Perhaps he had never really thought of her as his wife; but there would be an end to that thoughtlessness now. What had pa.s.sed on the previous day would arouse his attention, he could never know the same indifference again.

So she rose with renewed hope. She shrank from the look of her face in the gla.s.s. "Cold water and fresh air," she said to herself, with a smile, "will soon remedy such paleness." And thus on that very day began for her the new life--the life in which, no longer sure of her love, she was to try to win it.

He would have loved her had he been able; but his own words were true--"Love is fate."

There was nothing in common between them--no sympathy--none of those mystical cords that, once touched, set two human hearts throbbing, and never rest until they are one. He could not have been fonder of her than he was, in a brotherly sense; but as for lover's love, from the first day he had seen her, a beautiful, dark-eyed child, until the last he had never felt the least semblance of it.

It was a story of failure. She strove as perhaps woman never before had striven, and she succeeded in winning his truest admiration, his warmest friends.h.i.+p; he felt more at home with her than any one else in the wide world. But there it ended--she won no more.

It was not his fault; it was simply because the electric spark called love had never been and never could be elicited between his soul and hers. He would have done anything for her--he was her truest, best friend; but he was not her lover.

She hoped against hope. Each day she counted the kind words he had said to her; she noted every glance, every look, every expression. But she could not find that she made any progress--nothing that indicated any change from brotherly friends.h.i.+p to love. Still she hoped against hope, the chances are that she would have died of a broken heart.

Then the season ended. She went back to Verdun Royal with Lady Peters, and Lord Arleigh to Beechgrove. They wrote to each other at Christmas, and met at Calverley, the seat of Lord Rineham. She contrived, even when away from him, to fill his life. She was always consulting him on matters of interest to her; she sought his advice continually, and about everything, from the renewal of a lease to the making of a new acquaintance. "I cannot do wrong," she would say to him, "if I follow your advice." He was pleased and happy to be able to help the daughter of his mother's dearest friend.

Her manner completely deceived him. If she had evinced the least pique or discontent--if she had by word or look shown the least resentment--he would have suspected that she cared for him, and would have been on his guard. As it was, he would not have believed any one who had told him she loved him.

The explanation had been made; there was no longer even a shadow between them; they both understood that the weak, nonsensical tie was broken.

That they were the dearest of friends, and quite happy, would have been Lord Arleigh's notion of matters. Philippa L'Estrange might have told a different story.

The proposed party at Beechgrove did not come off. There were some repairs needed in the eastern wing, and Lord Arleigh himself had so many engagements, that no time could be found for it; but when the season came round Philippa and he met again.

By this time some of Miss L'Estrange's admirers had come to the conclusion that there was no truth in the report of the engagement between herself and Lord Arleigh. Among these was his grace the Duke of Hazlewood. He loved the beautiful, queenly girl who had so disdainfully refused his coronet--the very refusal had made him care more than ever for her. He was worldly-wise enough to know that there were few women in London who would have refused him; and he said to himself that, if she would not marry him, he would go unmarried to the grave. He was one of the first to feel sure that there was no truth in the rumors that had grieved him so the previous year. Miss L'Estrange and Lord Arleigh were by force of circ.u.mstances great friends--nothing more, and this season he determined to make a friend of the man he had detested as a rival.

When the Duke of Hazlewood made up his mind, he generally accomplished his desire; he sought Lord Arleigh with such a.s.siduity, he made himself so pleasant and agreeable to him, that the master of Beechgrove soon showed him his most cordial and sincere liking. Then they became warm friends. The duke confided in Lord Arleigh--he told him the whole story of his love for Miss L'Estrange.

"I know," he said, "that no one has so much influence over her as you. I do not believe in the absurd stores told about an engagement between you, but I see plainly that she is your friend, and that you are hers; and I want you to use your influence with her in my favor."

Lord Arleigh promised to do so--and he intended to keep his promise; they were on such intimate and friendly terms that he could venture upon saying anything of that kind to her. She would not be displeased--on the contrary, she would like his advice; it might even be that before now she had wished to ask for it, but had not liked to do so--so completely did these two play at cross-purposes and misunderstand each other.

It was easier to say to himself that he would speak to her as the duke wished than to do it. He saw that any allusion to her lovers or admirers made her ill at ease--she did not like it; even his laughing comments on the homage paid to her did not please her.

"I do not like lovers," she said to him one day, "and I am tired of admirers--I prefer friends."

"But," he opposed, laughingly, "if all that wise men and philosophers[2]

tell us is correct, there are no true friends."

He never forgot the light that shone in her face as she raised it to his.

"I do not believe that," she returned; "there are true friends--you are one to me."

The tenderness of her manner struck him forcibly. Something kinder and softer stirred in his heart than had ever stirred before for her; he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"You are right, Philippa" he said. "If ever a woman had a true, stanch friend, I am and will be one to you."

From her heart to her lips rose the words: "Shall you never be more?"

Perhaps even her eyes asked the question more eloquently than her lips could have done, for his face flushed, and she turned away with some slight embarra.s.sment.