CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE TENANT OF THE DOWER HOUSE.
Never since Clarice, Lady Alden, died had Kenelm Eyrle given so much thought to another woman. The beautiful, sorrowful Spanish face did not haunt him as does the face of one most dearly loved; but he thought of, wondered at it, and would have given much to understand the sorrow that had made her a prisoner in her own house.
His time was fully occupied. Lady Hermione proved herself to be an excellent woman of business; the poor on the Alden estate had never been so well looked after, the tenants had never been more prosperous, there had never been greater satisfaction than under her gentle rule. Yet there was much in which she required Kenelm’s aid; there were some matters of business that only a gentleman could arrange. During that time they became more intimate than they had been even as children or as playfellows, and then Lady Hermione saw, with astonishment, how firmly rooted was that one idea in Kenelm’s mind—the idea of bringing the murderer of the woman he loved to justice. She was astonished at its tenacity; he seemed to live, to exist for no other aim than that. Not that it was often discussed between them, but from little things he said, from remarks he made on various matters not even connected with it, she saw it was the Alpha and Omega of his thoughts, desires and actions.
He told Lady Hermione all about the tenant of the Dower House, and she was much interested in the story.
“I should like to call upon her,” said Lady Hermione, “for I agree with you, it is no common sorrow that tires one of life at her age. Ask her if she would like to see me.”
He hardly knew why in his heart he felt so grateful to Lady Alden for her kindness.
It was not long before he found there was need for a second visit to Mrs. Payton; there was to be a contract drawn up respecting the window, which they both had to sign. Then he mentioned Lady Alden’s desire to know and be of service to her, but, to his surprise, the beautiful Spanish face flushed deeply, the proud, sweet lips quivered, and Mrs. Payton turned quickly away from him.
“No,” she replied, abruptly, at last, “it cannot be, Mr. Eyrle. I am deeply, truly grateful to Lady Alden for her kindness; tell her so. But ask her to pardon me; that I can receive no visitors; that, being innocent, I must yet live as though I were guilty; that, being free from guilt, I must pay the price of sin. I cannot see her.”
He wondered at her agitation, at the emotion that softened her face and made it so wondrously fair.
“What has this woman done?” he wondered to himself. “What is her story?”
She seemed annoyed at having been betrayed into showing such agitation. She took up the agreement he had brought and read it through, but he saw that her hands trembled so violently she could with difficulty hold the paper.
“What quaint names we both have, Mr. Eyrle,” she said, as she took up the pen to sign the paper; “mine is Juliet.”
“A beautiful name,” he replied; “one of Shakespeare’s sweetest and most gentle heroines. The very sound of it is to me like a strain of music.”
“It has been so travestied,” she interrupted, “it seems to me that the name Juliet instantly brings to mind a love-sick girl.”
He laughed.
“At least,” he said, “that could never apply to you.”
There was the faintest ripple of a smile on her face.
“No! a cold, hard name would have suited me best,” she said. “Yet I have had a cruel love and a cruel awakening.”
He saw that she was speaking to herself, rather than to him.
“You have a strange, old-world name,” she said. “I see it here—Kenelm. It is one that has been in use in your family for generations back, I suppose?”
He was struck by the musical way in which she pronounced it. There was a pretty, piquant, foreign accent about her English that was very charming.
“Pardon me,” he said, abruptly, “are you an English lady?”
Again the hot flush rippled over her face, disturbing its pale quiet, as a warm sunbeam disturbs a deep-sleeping lake, flushing it into greater beauty and warmer life.
“I am not English,” she replied. “I wish I were; I should not then be so quick to feel, so sensitive, so keen of anguish. My mother was a Spanish lady; my first few happiest years were spent in Spain.”
“I thought so,” said Mr. Eyrle, and then she looked frankly at him.
“I wonder how it is,” she said, “that I seem too ready to place such confidence in you; there must be a mystery about it. I say so little to others.”
“You see no one else,” he replied, touched and flattered by the trust she had in him.
“Even when I did, I had not that instinctive faith in them that seems to spring naturally to you. One of my old theories used to be that soul recognized soul, even as body recognizes body.”
“Why do you call it an old theory?” he asked. “To me, it seems a very feasible one.”
“Because I trusted to it once too often—once the eyes of soul saw falsely.”
“That happens to most of us,” he said, for she had paused abruptly.
“To none, to none so cruelly as to me. You talked to me the other day about a passion flower. Do you know, I might take the passion flower as an emblem of my life? No other expresses it half so well.”
Her dark eyes were filled with indignant tears. She looked a very Niobe as she stood before him with clasped hands and quivering lips.
“I have read all the cant of the day,” she continued, passionately, “about woman’s rights, and my soul has risen in hot rebellion against it. I want no voice in Parliament. I never care to see women aping the dress, the manners, the habits of men. But, oh! for the time when women shall meet with justice, with fair play, with protection, instead of tyranny. I should like to ask the wise and honored of the land when that time is coming?”
Her sudden, passionate vehemence carried him away. Fire from a rock or stone could not have astounded him more than this vehemence from a woman whom he had always looked upon as colder than frost or snow.
“The mission of women should be to protect women,” he said.
She laughed scornfully.
“It should be, but what is the reality? Oppression where it is possible, tyranny where it is feasible, ill-treatment, unkindness everywhere.”
“No, not everywhere,” he interrupted. “Now you are unjust, Mrs. Payton; there are men in whom the true spirit of chivalry yet lives. There are men who would die for a woman’s smile—I would have done it myself. There are men who ask from God no higher, nobler mission than to make the woman they love happy. Do you not believe this?”
The fire in her dark eyes was dimmed by a rain of tears.
“I can believe it of you,” she said, “but not of many. I have been the victim of the oppression and injustice of men; you know nothing of it. Some time, later on, when you know my story, you will not wonder that I am so sadly in earnest. The cruelty of one man has overshadowed my life; there are many who have been wronged as much as I have been.”
Then she became her own cold self again, half seeming to repent of the confidence she had placed in him. He understood, when those moods came over her, that it was useless to remain or try to win her further confidence.
The day came when, walking by her side through the large gardens of the Dower House, he told her the story of his murdered love. She was strangely interested.
“And you live but to avenge her?” she said.
“That is my one object in life,” he replied.
“And when you have done that?” she continued.
“I care not,” he interrupted. “Perhaps you can understand the love that fills a man’s whole heart, that burns his whole soul, that destroys all else in him! Such a love as that was mine for the beautiful girl a murderer’s hand laid in an early grave.”
“You are a hero,” she said, “one of the heroes of old come back again. How I shall admire you now, how I shall reverence you! A man in the prime of life, with health, strength, wealth and everything that can make life bright, content to care only for the memory of a dead love! I thought such men lived only in books. I am better for having met one.”