A Double Knot
Prologue – The Germ.
A Daughter of Eve
“Mother!”
There was no reply, and once again rose from the bed in the prettily-furnished room the same word – “Mother!” The wild, appealing, anguished cry of offspring to parent, seeming to ask for help – protection – forgiveness – the tenderness of the mother-heart to its young, and still there was no answer.
The speaker struggled up so that she rested on her elbow, the heavy dark nut-brown hair fell in long clusters on her soft white neck and bosom; her large hazel eyes looked wild and dilated; and her fair young face deathly pale, as, with quivering white lips, she cried once more:
“Mother! Speak to me or I shall die.”
“It would be better so,” was the cold hard reply, and a lady who had been gazing from the window turned slowly round to gaze full at the first speaker, her handsome Spanish type of countenance looking malignant as her dark eyes flashed, where she stood biting her full sensuous nether lip, and glaring at the occupant of the bed.
“Mother!” was the anguished cry once more, as the girl sank back upon her pillow.
“Yes,” was the bitter reply. “You are a mother. God be thanked that your father, who idolised his child, was not spared to see this day.”
“Oh, mother, mother, have some pity – have some mercy upon me. Where am I to seek it, if not from you?”
“From Heaven: for the world will show you none. Why should I? Shame upon you that you should bring this curse upon my widowed life. The coward! – the villain! Was not our simple quiet home, far away from the busy world, to be held sacred, that he must seek us out and cast such a blight upon it!”
“Oh, hush, mother!” wailed the girl. “I love him – I love him.”
“Love him! Idiot! Baby! To be led away by the smooth words of the first soft-spoken villain you meet.”
“You shall not call him villain, mamma,” cried the girl passionately. “He loves me, and I am to be his wife.”
The girl flashed up for a moment with anger, but only to lie back the next instant faint and with half-closed eyes.
“His wife! Are you such a fool that you believe this?” cried the elder woman bitterly. “His wife! There, cast aside that shadow at once, for it is a delusion.”
“No, no, mother, dear mother, he has promised me that I shall be his wife, and I believe him.”
“Yes,” said the mother, “as thousands of daughters of Eve have believed before. There, cast away that thought, poor fool, and think now of hiding your sin from the world which will shun you as if you had the plague.”
“Mother!” cried the girl piteously.
“Don’t talk to me!” cried the woman fiercely, and she began to pace the room; tall, swarthy, and handsome for her years, her mobile countenance betraying the workings of the passionate spirit within her.
“Mother! Would I had never been one! My life has been a curse to me.”
“No, no; don’t say that, dear.”
“It has, I tell you. There’s something wrong in our blood, I suppose. Look at your brother.”
“Poor Julian!” sighed the girl.
“Poor Julian!” cried the woman scornfully. “Of course he is poor, and he deserves it. He must have been mad.”
“But he loved her, mamma, so dearly.”
“Loved!” cried the woman with a wild intensity of rage in her deep rich voice and gesture, as she spat on the floor. “Curse love! Curse it! What has it done for me? A few sickly embraces – a few years of what the world calls happiness – and then a widowhood of poverty and misery.”
“Mamma, you will kill me if you talk like that.”
“Then I will talk like that, and save myself from temptation more than I can bear,” cried the woman fiercely. “What has love done for the son of whom I was so proud – my gallant-looking, handsome boy? Why, with his bold, noble, Spanish face and dark eyes, he might have wed some heiress, married whom he liked – and what does he do? turns himself into a galley slave.”
“Mamma, what are you saying?” cried the girl faintly.
“The truth. What has he done? Married a woman without a sou, and had to accept that post at the mines. Isn’t that being a galley slave?”
“But he loved Delia, mamma.”
“Loved her! Curse love! I tell you. The ass! The idiot, to be led away by that sickly, washed-out creature – the Honourable Delia Dymcox,” she continued, with an intensity of scorn in her tones.
“But she is a lady, mamma.”
“Lady? The family are paupers, and, forsooth, they must look down on him – on us because we have no blood. Well, she is justly punished, and he too. I hope they like Auvergne.”
“Oh, mother,” sighed the girl weakly, “you are very cruel.”
“Cruel? I wish I had been cruel enough to have strangled you both at birth. I wish our family were at an end – that it would die out as Julian’s brats waste away there in that hot, dry, sun-cursed region.”
“You do not mean it, dear?”
“I do, Mary; I swear I do. Oh that I could have been so weak as to marry as I did – to be cursed with two such children!”
“You talk so, dear, because you are angry with me,” sighed the girl. “I know you loved poor papa dearly.”
“Pish! You are like him.”
“Yes, mamma, and poor Julian has always been so like you.”
There was silence then in the half-shadowed room, while the mother sat sternly gazing out at the stream that rippled by the cottage, dancing in the sunlight and bathing the roots of the willows that kissed its dimpling, silvery surface. The verdant meadows stretched far away rich in the lush grass and many flowers that dotted them with touches of light. All without looked bright and joyous, as a lark high poised poured forth his lay, which seemed to vibrate in the blue arch of heaven, and then fall in silvery fragments slowly down to earth.
The girl lay crying silently, the tears moistening her soft white pillow, as she gazed piteously from time to time at her mother’s averted face, half hidden from her by the white curtain she held aside to gaze from the window.
“Can you – can you see him coming, mamma?” faltered the girl at last.
“Whom? The doctor?” was the cold response, as the curtain was allowed to fall back in its place. “No, I have not sent for one. Why should we publish our shame?”
“Our shame, mamma?”
“Yes, our shame. Is it not as bitter for me? Live or die, I shall send for no doctor here.” Again there was silence, and the elder woman slowly paced the room, till, passing near the bed, a soft white arm stole forth, and caught her hand.
“You are very cruel to me, mother. Oh, do look; look again. See if he is coming.”
“If he is coming!” cried the elder. “Are you mad as well as weak? You will never see him more. Poor fool! I believe even his name is only assumed.”
“I shall,” cried the girl with energy, “and he will come. He loves me too dearly to forsake me now. He is a gentleman and the soul of honour.”
Her face lit up, and the joyous look of love shone in her eyes as she gazed defiantly at her mother, who looked back at her, half pitying, half mocking her faith. Then, in spite of herself, she started, for steps were heard on the path beneath, and as the girl struggled up once more to her elbow, and craned her neck towards the window, voices were heard speaking at a little distance.
“There, there,” cried the girl, with a sob of joy, as she sank back laughing hysterically. “What did I say? He loves me – he loves me, and he has come.”
Mrs Riversley ran to the window, and drew aside the curtain furtively as a couple of