Wife in Name Only - Charlotte Mary Brame (digital e reader TXT) 📗

a thousand stars, the moon was shining behind some silvery clouds, the great masses of foliage in the park were just stirred with the whisper of the night, and sweetest odors came from heliotrope and mignonnette; the brooding silence of the summer night lay over the land.

Philippa sat down, and Lord Arleigh stood by her side.

The moonlight falling on her beautiful face softened it into wondrous loveliness--it was pale, refined, with depths of passion in the dark eyes, and tender, tremulous smiles on the scarlet lips. She wore some material of white and gold. A thin scarf was thrown carelessly over her white shoulders. When the wind stirred it blew the scarf against her face.

She might have been the very goddess of love, she looked so fair out in the starlight. If there had been one particle of love in Lord Arleigh's heart, that hour and scene must have called it into life. For a time they sat in perfect silence. Her head was thrown back against a pillar round which red roses clustered and clung, and the light of the stars fell full upon her face; the dark eyes were full of radiance.

"How beautiful it is, Norman," she said, suddenly. "What music has ever equaled the whispers of the night-wind? It seems a sad pity after all that we are obliged to lead such conventional lives, and spend the greater part of them in warm, close rooms."

"You have a great love for out-of-door freedom," he remarked, laughingly.

"Yes, I love the fresh air. I think if any one asked me what I loved best on earth, I should say wind. I love it in all its moods--rough, caressing, tender, impetuous, calm, stormy. It is always beautiful. Listen to it now, just sighing in the branches of those tall trees. Could any music be sweeter or softer?"

"No," he replied, and then added, "The time and the scene embolden me, Philippa; there is something that I wish to say to you--something that I long have wished to say. Will you hear it now?"

A tremor like that of the leaves in the wind seemed to pass over her. There was a startled expression in the dark eyes, a quiver of the crimson lips. Was it coming at last--this for which she had longed all her life? She controlled all outward signs of emotion and turned to him quite calmly.

"I am always ready to listen to you, Norman, and to hear what you have to say."

"You see, Philippa, the starlight makes me bold. If we were in that brilliantly-lighted drawing-room of yours, I should probably hesitate long before speaking plainly, as I am going to do now."

He saw her clasp her hands tightly, but he had no key to what was passing in her mind. He drew nearer to her.

"You know, Philippa," he began, "that I have always been fond of you. I have always taken the same interest in you that I should have taken in a dearly-beloved sister of my own, if Heaven had given me one."

She murmured some few words which he did not hear.

"I am going to speak to you now," he continued, "just as though you were my own sister, have I your permission to do so, Philippa?"

"Yes," she replied.

"And you promise not to be angry about any thing that I may say?"

"I could never be angry with you, Norman," she answered.

"Then I want you to tell me why you will not marry the Duke of Hazlewood. You have treated me as your brother and your friend. The question might seem impertinent from another; from me it will not appear impertinent, not curious--simply true and kindly interest. Why will you not marry him, Philippa?"

A quick sharp spasm of pain passed over her face. She was silent for a minute before she answered him, and then she said:

"The reason is very simple, Norman--because I do not love him."

"That is certainly a strong reason; but, Philippa, let me ask you now another question--why do you not love him?"

She could have retorted, "Why do you not love me?" but prudence forbade it.

"I cannot tell you. I have heard you say that love is fate. I should imagine it must be because the Duke of Hazlewood is not my fate."

He did not know what answer to make to that, it was so entirely his own way of thinking.

"But, Philippa," he resumed after a pause, "do you not think that you might love him if you tried?"

"I have never thought about it," was the quiet reply.

Lord Arleigh continued:

"In my idea he is one of the most charming men in England; I have never seen a more perfect type of what an English gentleman should be--he is noble, generous, brave, chivalrous. What fault do you find with him, Philippa?"

"I?" she asked, looking up at him in wonder. "My dear Norman, I have never found fault with the duke in my life."

"Then why can you not love him?"

"That is a very different thing. I find no fault with him; on the contrary, I agree with you that he is one of the noblest of men, yet I have never thought of marrying him."

"But, Philippa"--and with kindly impressiveness he laid one hand on her shoulder--"why do you not think of marrying him? Between you and myself there can be no compliments, no flattery. I tell you that of all the women in England you are the most fitted to be the Duchess of Hazlewood--and you would be a beautiful duchess, too. Think of the position you would occupy--second only to royalty. I should like to see you in such a position--you would fill it grandly. Think of the power, the influence, the enormous amount of good you could do; think of it all, Philippa?"

He did not see the sudden, sharp quiver of pain that passed over the beautiful face, nor how pale it grew in the starlight.

"I am thinking," she answered, quietly--"I am listening attentively to all that you say."

She drew the light scarf more closely around her shoulders and shuddered as though a chill breeze had passed over her.

"Are you cold, dear?" he asked kindly.

"Cold! How could I be on this warm starlit night? Go on, Norman; let me hear all that you have to say."

"I am trying to persuade you to accept what seems to me one of the happiest lots ever offered to woman. I want to see you the Duke of Hazlewood's wife. I cannot imagine any man more calculated to win a woman's love, or to please her fancy, than he is. He is young, handsome, noble in face and figure as he is in heart and soul; and he is clever and gifted."

"Yes," she allowed, slowly, "he is all that, Norman."

"Some day or other he will be the leading spirit in the land; he will be the head of a great party."

"That I believe," she agreed.

"And he loves you so well, Philippa; I have never seen a man more devoted. How many years has he loved you now--two or three? And he tells me that he shall go unmarried to the grave unless you consent to be his wife."

"Did he tell you that? He must indeed be attached to me," she observed. "Norman, did he ask you to say all this to me?"

"He asked me to plead his cause," replied Lord Arleigh.

"Why did he ask you to do so?"

"Because--believing us to be what we really are, Philippa, tried and true friends--he thought I should have some influence over you."

"Clever duke!" she said. "Norman, are you well versed in modern poetry?"

He looked up in blank surprise at the question--it was so totally unexpected.

"In modern poetry?" he repeated. "Yes, I think I am. Why, Philippa?"

"I will tell you why," she said, turning her beautiful face to him. "If you will be patient, I will tell you why."

She was silent for a few minutes, and then Lord Arleigh said:

"I am patient enough, Philippa; will you tell me why?"

The dark eyes raised to his had in them a strange light--a strange depth of passion.

"I want to know if you remember the beautiful story of Priscilla, the Puritan maiden," she said, in a tremulous voice--the loveliest maiden of Plymouth?"

"You mean the story of Miles Standish," he corrected. "Yes, I remember it, Philippa."

"That which a Puritan maiden could do, and all posterity sing her praises for, surely I--a woman of the world--may do without blame. Do you remember, Norman, when John Alden goes to her to do the wooing which the stanch soldier does not do for himself--do you remember her answer? Let me give you the verse--

"'But, as he warmed and glowed in his simple and eloquent language, Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival, Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter, Said in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"'"

The sweet musical voice died away in the starlight, the wind stirred the crimson roses--silence, solemn and deep, fell over Lord Arleigh and his companion. Philippa broke it.

"Surely you, in common with all of us, admire the Puritan maiden, Norman?"

"Yes, I do admire her," he answered; "she is one of my favorite heroines."

"So she is of mine; and I love her the more for the womanly outburst of honest truth that triumphed over all conventionality. Norman, what she, the 'loveliest maiden in Plymouth,' the beloved of Miles Standish, said to John Alden, I say to you--'Why don't you speak for yourself?'"

There was infinite tenderness in his face as he bent over her--infinite pain in his voice as he spoke to her.

"John Alden loved Priscilla," he said, slowly--"she was the one woman in all the world for him--his ideal--his fate, but I--oh Philippa, how I hate myself because I cannot answer you differently! You are my friend, my sister, but not the woman I must love as my wife."

"When you urged me a few minutes since to marry your friend, you asked me why I could not love him, seeing that he had all lovable qualities. Norman, why can you not love me?"

"I can answer you only in the same words--I do not know. I love you with as true an affection as ever man gave to woman; but I have not for you a lover's love. I cannot tell why, for you are one of the fairest of fair women."

"Fair, but not your 'ideal woman,'" she said, gently.

"No, not my 'ideal woman,'" he returned; "my sister, my friend--not my love."

"I am to blame," she said, proudly; "but again I must plead that I am like Priscilla. While you are pleading the cause of another, the truth came uppermost; you must forgive me for speaking so forcibly. As the poem says:

"'There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotions
That if, by chance, it be shaken, or into its depths, like a pebble,
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.'"

"My dearest Philippa,