The Shadow of a Sin
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The girl's face flushed crimson.
"For me!" she cried. "How kind of her! Oh, Pincott, how beautiful they are!"
The maid unfolded the glistening treasures of silk, lace, and velvet, displaying them to Hyacinth's enraptured eyes.
"My lady ordered me to attend to your toilet, this morning, Miss Vaughan," continued Pincott, who knew perfectly well why her mistress desired the young girl to look her best. "I have brought these blush roses; no ornaments look so well as natural flowers."
From the collection of dresses one of embroidered Indian muslin was selected. It was daintily trimmed with pale pink ribbon and white lace, and was exquisitely made. The girlish graceful figure, with its beautiful curves and symmetrical lines, was shown to perfection; the sleeves fell back, showing a fair, rounded arm. Pincott had great natural taste; she dressed the fair hair after some simple girlish fashion, and fastened a blush rose in it; she fastened another in the high bodice of the white dress.
"You look lovely, Miss Vaughan," she said; and Hyacinth, looking at her fair flower-like face, blushed for her own great beauty.
Then Pincott left her, and the way in which she amused herself was by sitting at the open window, dreaming of the face she had seen at the waterfall. She was roused by the maid's return. "Lady Vaughan will be glad to see you in her room, Miss Vaughan. Mr. Darcy is there."
Again the name fell like cold water over her, chilling her bright dreams, her growing content and happiness: and again she consoled herself by remembering that no one could force her to marry Mr. Darcy against her will. She heard the sound of voices as she drew near the room; she opened the door and entered, her beautiful face calm and serene, looking as fair a picture of youth and loveliness as ever greeted human eyes. "Hyacinth," said Lady Vaughan, "come here my dear. I want to introduce you to Mr. Darcy."
She went up to her. A tall figure stood near Lady Vaughan's chair. Lady Vaughan took her hand.
"This is my granddaughter. Hyacinth – Mr. Darcy."
Hyacinth raised her eyes. Was she blinded by a great golden sunbeam? Was she dreaming? Was she haunted or bewitched? Adrian Darcy, whom she had dreaded to see, whose name even she had detested, was the same gentleman that she had seen by the waterfall.
When she remembered all she had been thinking and dreaming, it was no wonder that the beautiful face grew crimson as a damask rose, and that the bright eyes fell until he could see nothing of them. She was spell-bound – this unknown hero of whom she had dreamed the whole summer morning was Adrian Darcy! He held out his hand to her.
"We are old friends," he said frankly. "I saw this young lady about to drink some clear, cold, sparkling poison this morning, and I interfered to prevent her doing so."
Then he was obliged to explain to Lady Vaughan who smiled most graciously; but Hyacinth said never a word. She could not realize the truth, yet she sat like one blinded by a great flood of sunlight. If she had known how this sweet shy confusion became her – how beautiful it was – how Adrian Darcy admired it! Nothing could have charmed him half so much.
"How beautiful she is!" he thought. "She is like a rosebud shrouded in green leaves."
Hyacinth was almost in despair.
"How stupid he will think me!" she reflected. "But I cannot help it – I cannot speak."
When she had collected her senses sufficiently to listen, Adrian was saying —
"Yes; we have very good music here, indeed. I think the hotel gardens on a bright summer day the most charming place I know. The fountains are very beautiful; and the band is one of the best I have heard. Lady Vaughan, I hear the music beginning now; will you allow me to escort you? There are very comfortable seats in the gardens!"
He saw the sudden, startled flush of joy in the young face. Hyacinth raised her head and looked eagerly at her grandmamma; but Lady Vaughan excused herself.
"The journey has been delightful," she said, "but fatiguing. To-morrow I will go out, but not to-day. Hyacinth will go, though, Adrian, if you will be so kind as to give the child the pleasure."
The "child" rose, her cheeks aflame, her heart beating as it had never beat before. To go out into those sunlit gardens and to listen to music with him – well, she had not even guessed before what a beautiful, happy world it was. She put on the prettiest of her hats – one with a white plume – and a lace mantilla, and then stood, half smiling, but wholly happy, waiting for him. He came up to her smiling.
"Hyacinth," he said, "we are – to use an old-fashioned term – of the same kin; so I am not going to call you Miss Vaughan. And I want you not to look so shy, but to feel quite at home with me."
At home with him, this hero, this king amongst men, whose presence filled her whole soul with light! It could never be.
"I had no idea," he continued, "that I had such a fair young kinswoman. Lady Vaughan had always written as though you were a child."
Her heart sank. Was this how he thought of her – was this what made him so kind and gracious to her?
"I am not a child," she said, with some little attempt at dignity, "I am more than eighteen."
"Quite a philosophic age," was the smiling reply. "Now, Hyacinth, tell me, what do you like to look at best – flowers, trees, or water?"
"I like all three," she said truthfully.
"Do you? Then I will find you a seat where you can see all. Here is one not too near the music."
He had found a quaint, pretty garden seat, under the shade of a tall spreading tree. In front of them were beds of lilies and roses, and the blue waters of the lake. The band began to play the sad, passionate music of Verdi's "Miserere;" and to Hyacinth Vaughan it seemed as though the earth had changed into heaven.
"Do you like music?" he said watching the changes on the beautiful young face.
"Yes," she replied, "but I have heard so little."
"You have had a very quiet life at Queen's Chase, I should imagine," he said.
"Yes, as quiet as life could well be."
"You should not regret it. I am quite of the old régime. I think young girls should be so reared."
"For what reason?" she asked.
"For a hundred reasons. If there is one character I detest more than another, it is that of a worldly woman. Delicacy, purity, refinement, are all so essential – and no girl can possess them brought up under the glare and glitter of the world. You have been singularly fortunate in living at Queen's Chase."
"Thank Heaven," she thought to herself, "that he does not know the shameful escape I tried to make – that he does not know how I loathed and hated the place."
"But," she said aloud, "it is not pleasant to be always dull."
"Dull! No. Youth is the very time for enjoyment; every thing rejoices in youth. You, for instance, have been happy with your books and flowers at Queen's Chase: the world now is all new to you. You are not what fashionable jargon calls 'used up.' You have not been playing at being a woman while you were yet a child; your heart has not been hardened by flirtations; your soul has not been soiled by contact with worldlings; you are fresh, and pure, and beautiful as the flowers themselves. If you had been living all these years in the hot-bed of society, this would not have been the case. There is nothing so detestable, so unnatural, as a worldly young girl."
He liked her as she was! For the first time in her life Hyacinth blessed Lady Vaughan and Queen's Chase.
"I do not want to tire you with argument," he continued, "but tell me Hyacinth, what becomes of a flower, the growth of which has been forced?"
"It soon dies," she replied.
"Yes; and girls brought up in the artificial atmosphere of modern society, and its worship of Mammon, its false estimates, its love of sensation and excitement, soon die to all that is fairest and best in life. You," he continued, "enjoy – see, your face tells tales, Hyacinth – you enjoy the sunshine, the flowers, the music, the lake."
"Yes, indeed I do," she confessed.
"If you had danced and flirted through one or two London seasons, you would not enjoy nature as you do; it would pall upon you – you would be apt to look at it through an eye-glass, and criticise the color of the water and the tints of the flowers – you would detect motes in the sunbeam and false notes in music."
She laughed. "I should not be so keen a critic, Mr. Darcy."
"One who can criticise is not always one who enjoys most," he said. "I like to see people honestly enjoying themselves, and leaving criticism alone."
The gardens were not crowded; there were seldom visitors enough at the hotel to form a crowd; but Hyacinth was struck by the pleasant, high-bred faces and elegant dresses.
"Do you see that lady there in the gray dress," said Mr. Darcy – "the one with two children by her side?" Hyacinth looked in the direction indicated.
"That is the Princess Von Arten, the daughter of a queen. How simple and unassuming she is! She is staying here with her children. The gentleman now saluting her is the eminent Weilmath."
Her face lighted up.
"I am glad to have seen him," she said; "I have read of him so often. Do you admire him?"
"I admire bravery," he replied, "but not unscrupulous daring. Do you see that lady sitting under the ilex tree?"
"The one with the sad, thoughtful face?" asked Hyacinth.
"Yes. Twelve months ago she was the leading star of the most brilliant court in Europe; now she has no home that she can call her own."
Hyacinth turned her face to his.
"Mr. Darcy," she said, "is the world then so full of reverses? I thought that, when one was happy and prosperous, sorrow and trouble did not approach. What is stable if money, and friendship, and happiness fail?"
"Just one thing," he replied, with the beautiful luminous smile she had never seen on any other face – "Heaven!"
CHAPTER XI
Hyacinth Vaughan repeated one sentence over and over again to herself – they were always the same words – "Thank Heaven, Adrian does not know what I have done."
For, as the days passed on, she learned to care for him with a love that was wonderful in its intensity. It was not his personal beauty that impressed her. By many people Claude Lennox would have been considered the handsomer man of the two. It was the grandeur of Adrian Darcy's character, the loyalty and nobility of his most loyal soul; the beauty of his mind, the stretch and clearness of his intellect, that charmed her.
She had never met any one like him – never met so perfect a mixture of chivalry and strength. She learned to have the utmost reliance upon him. His most lightly spoken word was to her as the oath of another. She saw that every thought, every word, every action of his was so perfectly correct that his least judgment was invaluable. If he said a thing was right, the whole world could not have made her think it wrong; if he disapproved of anything, so entire was her reliance upon him, that she could not be brought to consider it right.
It seemed so strange that she should have been so ready to run away, so as to escape this Adrian Darcy; and now the brightest heaven of which she could dream was his friendship – for his love, after she understood him, she could hardly hope.
"How can he care for a child like me," she was accustomed to ask herself, "uninformed, inexperienced, ignorant? He is so great and so noble, how can he care for me?"
She did not know that her sweet humility, her graceful shyness, her naïveté, her entire freedom from all taint of worldliness, was more precious to him, more charming, than all the accomplishments she could have displayed.
"How can I ever have thought that I loved Claude?" she said to herself. "How can I have been so blind? My heart never used to beat more quickly for his coming. If I had had the same liberty, the same amusements and pleasures which other girls have, I should never have cared for him. It was only because he broke the monotony of my life, and gave me something to think of."
Then in her own mind she contrasted the two men – Adrian, so calm, so dignified, so noble in thought, word, and deed, and so loyal, so upright; Claude, all impetuosity, fire, recklessness and passion – not to be trusted, not to be relied upon. There was never a greater difference of character surely than between these two men.
She learned to look with Adrian's eyes, to think with his mind; and she became a noble woman.
Life at Bergheim was very pleasant; there was no monotony, no dreariness now. Her first thought when she woke in the morning, was that she should see Adrian, hear him speak, perhaps go out with him. Quite unconsciously to herself, he became the centre of her thoughts and ideas – the soul of her soul, the life of her life. She did not know that she loved him; what she called her "love" for Claude had been something so different – all made up of gratified vanity and love of change. The beautiful affection rapidly mastering her was so great and reverent, it filled her soul with light, her heart with music, her mind with beauty. She did not know that it was love that kept her awake throughout the night thinking of him, bringing back to her mind every word he had spoken – that made her always anxious to look well.
"I always thought," she said to him one day, "that grave and thoughtful people always despised romance."
"They despise all affectation and caricature of it," he replied.
"Since I have been out in the world and have listened to people talking, I have heard them say, 'Oh, she is romantic!' as though romance were wrong or foolish."
"There is romance and romance," he said; "romance that is noble, beautiful and exalting; and romance that is the overheated sentiment of foolish girls. What so romantic as Shakespeare? What love he paints for us – what passion, what sadness! Who more romantic than Fouque? What wild stories, what graceful, improbable legends he gives us! Yet, who sneers at Shakespeare and Fouque?"
"Then why do people apply the word 'romantic' almost as a term of reproach to others?"
"Because they misapply the word, and do not understand it. I plead guilty myself to a most passionate love of romance – that is, romance which teaches, elevates, and ennobles – the soul of poetry, the high and noble faculty that teaches one to appreciate the beautiful and true. You know, Hyacinth, there are true romance and false romance, just as there are true poetry and false poetry."
"I can understand what you call true romance, but not what you mean by false," she said.
"No; you are too much like the flower you are named after to know much of false romance," he rejoined. "Everything that lowers one's standard, that tends to lower one's thoughts, that puts mere sentiment in the place of duty, that makes wrong seem right, that leads to underhand actions, to deceit, to folly – all that is false romance. Pardon my alluding to such things. The lover who would persuade a girl to deceive her friends for his sake, who would persuade her to give him private meetings, to receive secret letters – such a lover starts from a base of the very falsest romance; yet many people think it true."
He did not notice that her beautiful face had suddenly grown pale, and that an expression of fear had crept into her blue eyes.
"You are always luring me into argument, Hyacinth," he said, with a smile.
"Because I like to hear you talk," she explained. She did not see how full of love was the look he bent on her as he plucked a spray of azalea flowers and passed it to her. Through the tears that filled her downcast eyes she saw the flower, and almost mechanically took it from his hand, not daring to look up. But in the silence of her own room she pressed the flowers passionately to her lips and rained tears upon them, as she moaned, "Oh, if he knew, what would he think of me? what would he think?"
CHAPTER XII
Hyacinth Vaughan was soon to learn more of Mr. Darcy's sentiments. He was dining with them one day, when the conversation turned upon some English guests who had arrived at the hotel the evening before – Lord and Lady Wallace.
"She looks quite young," said Lady Vaughan. "She would be a nice companion for Hyacinth."
Mr. Darcy, to whom she was speaking, made no reply. Lady Vaughan noticed how grave his face had grown.
"Do you not think so, Adrian?" she asked.
"Since you wish me to speak, my answer is, no; I do not think so."
"Do you mind telling me why?" pursued Lady Vaughan "I have been so long out of the world I am ignorant of its proceedings."
"I would rather you would not ask me, Lady Vaughan," he said.
"And I would rather hear what you have to tell," she persisted, with a smiling air of command that he was too courteous not to obey.
"I do not think Lady Wallace would be a good companion for Hyacinth, because she is what people of the period call 'fast.' She created a great sensation three years ago by eloping with Lord Wallace. She was only seventeen at the time."
Lady Vaughan looked slightly disgusted; but Hyacinth, who perhaps felt in some measure that she was on her trial, said: "Perhaps she loved him."
Adrian turned to her eagerly. "That is what I was trying to explain to you the other day – false romance – how the truest, the purest, the brightest romance would have been, not eloping – which is the commonplace instinct of commonplace minds – but waiting in patience. Think of the untruths, the deceit, the false words, the underhand dealings that are necessary for an elopement!"
"But surely," said Lady Vaughan, "there are exceptions?"
"There may be. I do not know. I am only saying what I think. A girl who deceives all her friends, who leaves home in such a fashion, must be devoid of refinement and delicacy – not to mention truth and honesty."
"You are very hard," murmured Hyacinth.
"Nay," he rejoined, turning to her with infinite tenderness of manner; "there are some things in which one cannot be too hard. Anything that touches the fair and pure name of a woman should be held sacred."
"You think highly of women," she said.
"I do – so highly that I cannot bear even a cloud to shadow the fairness and brightness that belong to them. A woman's fair name is her inheritance – her dower. I could not bear, had I a sister, to hear her name lightly spoken by light lips. What the moss is to the rose, what green leaves are to the lily, spotless repute is to a woman."
As he spoke the grave words, Hyacinth looked at him. How pure, how noble the woman must be who could win his love!
"Ah me, ah me!" thought the girl, with a bitter sigh, "what would he say to me if he knew all? Who was ever so near the scandal he hated as I was? Oh, thank Heaven, that I drew back in time, and that mine was but the shadow of a sin!"
There were times when she thought, with a beating heart, of what Lady Vaughan had said to her – that it was her wish Adrian Darcy should marry her. The lot that had once seemed so hard to her was now so bright, so dazzling, that she dared not think of it – when she remembered it, her face flushed crimson.
"I am not worthy," she said over and over again to herself – "I am not worthy."
She thought of Adrian's love as she thought of the distant stars in heaven – bright, beautiful, but far away. In her sweet humility, she did not think there was anything in herself which could attract him. She little dreamed, how much he admired the loveliness of her face, the grace of her girlish figure, the purity, the innocence, the simplicity that, despite the shadow of a sin, still lingered with her.
"She is innately noble," he said one day to Lady Vaughan. "She is sure always to choose the nobler and better part; her ideas are naturally noble, pure, and correct. She is the most beautiful combination of child and woman that I have ever met. Imagination and common sense, poetry, idealisms and reason, all seem to meet in her."
Years ago, Adrian Darcy had heard something of Lady Vaughan's half-expressed wish that he should marry her granddaughter. He laughed at it at the time; but he remembered it with a sense of acute pleasure. His had been a busy life; he had studied hard – had carried off some of the brightest honors of his college – and, after leaving Oxford, had devoted himself to literary pursuits. He had written books which had caused him to be pronounced one of the most learned scholars in England. He cared little for the frivolities of fashion – they had not interested him in the least – yet his name was a tower of strength in the great world.
Between Adrian Darcy and the ancient Barony of Chandon there was but the present Lord Chandon, an old infirm man, and his son, a sickly boy. People all agreed that sooner or later Adrian must succeed to the estate; great, therefore, was the welcome he received in Vanity Fair. Mothers presented their fairest daughters to him; fair-faced girls smiled their sweetest smiles when he was present; but all was in vain – the world and the worldly did not please Adrian Darcy. He cared more for his books than woman's looks; he had never felt the least inclination to fall in love until he met Hyacinth Vaughan.
It was not her beauty that charmed him, although he admitted that it was greater than he had ever seen. It was her youth, her simplicity, her freedom from all affectation, the entire absence of all worldliness, the charm of her fresh, sweet romance, that delighted him. She said what she thought, and she expressed her thoughts in such beautiful, eloquent words that he delighted to listen to them. He was quite unused to such frank, sweet, candid simplicity – it had all the charms of novelty for him. He had owned to himself, at last, that he loved her – that life without her would be a dreary blank.
"If I had never met her," he said to himself, "I should never have loved anyone. In all the wide world she is the only one for me." He wondered whether he could speak to her yet of his love. "She is like some shy, bright bird," he said to himself, "and I am afraid of startling her. She is so simple, so child-like, in spite of her romance and poetry, that I am half afraid."
His manner to her was so chivalrous that it was like the wooing of some gracious king. She contrasted him over and over again with Claude – Claude, who had respected her girlish ignorance and inexperience so little. So the sunny days glided by in a dream of delight. Adrian spent all his time with them; and one day Lady Vaughan asked him what he thought of his chance of succeeding to the Barony of Chandon.
"I think," he replied slowly, "that sooner or later it must be mine."
"Do you care much for it?" she asked. "Old people are always inquisitive, Adrian – you must forgive me."
"I care for it in one sense," he replied; "but I cannot say honestly that title or rank give me any great pleasure. I would rather be Adrian Darcy, than Baron Chandon of Chandon. But, Lady Vaughan, I will tell you something that I long for, that I covet and desire."
"What is it?" she asked, looking at the handsome face, flushed, eager, and excited.
"It is the love of Hyacinth Vaughan," he answered. "I love her – I have never seen anyone so simple, so frank, so spirituelle. I love her as I never thought to love any woman. If I do not marry her, I will never marry anyone. I have your permission, I know; but she is so shy, so coy, I am afraid to speak to her. Do you think I have any chance, Lady Vaughan?"
She raised her fair old face to his.
"I do," she replied. "Thanks to our care, the girl's heart is like the white leaf of a lily. No shadow has ever rested on her. She has not been flirted with and talked about. I tell you honestly, Adrian, that the lilies in the garden are not more pure, more fair, or fresh than she."
"I know it," he agreed; "and, heaven helping me, I will so guard and shield her that no shadow shall ever fall over her."
"She has never had a lover," continued Lady Vaughan. "Her life has been a most secluded one."
"Then I shall try to win her," he said; and when he had gone away Lady Vaughan acknowledged to herself that the very desire of her heart was near being gratified.
CHAPTER XIII
It may be that Hyacinth Vaughan read Adrian Darcy's determination in his face, for she grew so coy and frightened that had he not been brave he would have despaired. If by accident she raised her eyes and met his glance her face burned and her heart beat; when he spoke to her it was with difficulty she answered him. She had once innocently and eagerly sought his society – she had loved to listen to him while he was talking to Lady Vaughan – she had enjoyed being with him as the flowers enjoy the sunlight. But something was awake in her heart and soul which had been sleeping until now. When she saw Adrian, her first impulse was to turn aside and fly, no matter whither, because of the sweet pain his presence caused her. He met her one morning in the broad corridor of the hotel; she looked fresh and bright, fair and sweet as the morning itself. Her face flushed at his coming, she stopped half undecided whether to go on or turn and fly.