A tragedy of love and hate

“I was sixteen and a half when my mother died. In England I should have been looked upon as a mere girl; in Spain I was a woman. Can you imagine my lot alone, poor, so young, so helpless? I thought my father must have relatives and friends in this far-off England; but I did not know how to reach them. At last the English consul at Madrid wrote for me; he said that the late Captain Payton belonged to the noble old English family of Pelhams, and that if my story were known I should be adopted by some of them. While waiting for the reply, I went to live with the only relative I had in the world—a cousin of my mother—a cross, proud, stiff, elderly lady, Donna Maria de Borga, who hated every one in the world younger than herself. I was so wretched, so unutterably wretched, that I wished myself dead over and over again. You can fancy a flower shut out from the sunshine and left to die in the cold. You can imagine a bird deprived of light and liberty. With my mother, life had been all poetry and happiness; now it was all gloom.

“An answer came from England, saying the only member of my father’s family living was Sir Alfred Pelham, and he was traveling on the Continent; that he would make a point of seeing me, and seeing what could be done for me, before he returned.

“One day the sun was shining down on Granada, and the myrtles were all in bloom; my aunt, as Donna Maria wished me to call her, had fallen fast asleep, and I went down to the fountain that stood under the shade of tall, spreading trees, the silvery spray reached the leaves and wetted them, then fell with what seemed a laugh at its own graceful waywardness. I liked to watch the spray, when the sun shone through it; it was like a diamond shower. The music of falling water always carries me back to that day. I was looking intently into the water, thinking the thousand thoughts that fill a young girl’s mind, when I was startled suddenly by seeing in the water the reflection of a face close to my own. Had the face been less handsome I might have sprung away in startled alarm; as it was, I looked, and looked again, so meeting my fate. It was an English face, laughing, careless, debonair, with a kind of frank beauty that seemed to me perfection. The eyes were laughing, large and blue, with a certain expression that said: ‘I defy you not to like me, try as you will.’ The hair was of a rich, golden brown; as he stood there in the sunshine there seemed to be threads of gold running through it. I could not see what the mouth was like, for the golden mustache drooped over and hid it. I was then only just seventeen, and I had seen no one in all my life to be compared to this handsome stranger.

“‘Am I mistaken,’ said a deep, rich voice, ‘or is this my young kinswoman, Miss Payton?’

“The English tongue was not new to me, for my mother had loved it well; but his words struck me; they moved the deep waters of my soul—they called into life a hundred thoughts that had lain dormant.

“‘I am Sir Alfred Pelham,’ he continued, ‘and a letter received some time since tells me I have a beautiful young kinswoman here in Granada. Is it true?’

“‘Yes,’ I stammered, ‘quite true. I am Captain Payton’s daughter. Will you come in and see my aunt, Donna Maria?’

“I was old enough to understand the deep admiration his eyes expressed for me.

“‘Yes, I will go in,’ he said, ‘but not just yet. Stay out in the sunshine a little longer.’

“I stayed; it would have been well for me if I had died there by the side of that rippling fountain before greater harm came to me. Sir Alfred Pelham was then what perhaps people think him now, one of the handsomest and most fascinating of men. I believe he could do anything that he made up his mind to do. I do not think any one could resist him. He had—perhaps has—a charm of manner, in which no one ever surpassed him. I stayed with him in the sunshine, and that one-half hour changed the whole current of my life. I learned during it a lesson that was very fatal to me. He talked to me about England, about my mother, of everything he thought would interest me, and my girlish heart went out to him, as it had never gone out before. He knew, he understood. Then, when he had heard my simple little story, and had drawn from me every little detail of my life, he went in to see Donna Maria.”

She stopped suddenly, and looked shyly at Kenelm.

“I wonder,” she said, “if you will think me very vain for telling you that in those days I was very beautiful; people said wondrously beautiful. I am obliged to tell you, so as to make my story clear, and to make you understand why a brilliant, polished, worldly man like Sir Alfred Pelham married me.”

“I have good sight of my own,” said Mr. Eyrle, gravely, while Miss Hanson nodded and said:

“I have never seen a face one-half so fair as yours, my love.”

Juliet Payton smiled faintly.

“Beauty has been of but little use to me,” she said. “I am not even proud that it once was mine.

“Sir Alfred went to see my aunt, and soon captivated her. She spoke of no one else—he was so handsome, so generous, so noble. If she praised him, hoping to make me like him, and so to get rid of me, it was very cruel, and I pray to God to forgive her.

“Perhaps I need not dwell longer on my story. In a short time Sir Alfred became my lover, and I should say no girl ever had such a lover before. He was so gallant, so attentive, so devoted—he was so polished, with his high-bred, graceful manner; he was so different from every one else I knew. At first he bade me keep this love a secret from my aunt. I was not to give her the least hint of it, but after a time he changed his intentions, and told her he wished to make me his wife.

“Do not be shocked if I tell you how dearly I loved him. A girl’s first love is, I think, the most beautiful thing in life; and, Heaven help me! I did love him, my whole heart clung to him. I had no other thought, sleeping or waking, night or day.

“I used to watch for his coming, and at the first sound of his footsteps ran away, unable to meet him, dreading to meet him, lest he should see how passionately I loved him. I was too young and inexperienced to even ever so faintly imagine that he wanted to marry me for anything but love. Yet one thing recurs to my mind. We were in the garden, and I wanted to press some very beautiful leaves that had fallen from a plant. He took a bundle of what looked like old letters from his pocket and, tearing one in half, gave it to me.

“‘Save the leaves in that,’ he said. ‘It is a letter I wrote, but never sent.’

“Days afterward, when I went to fetch the leaves and press them, I read in his own handwriting these words:

“‘In the present state of affairs, such a marriage would be an excellent speculation for me.’

“Yet it never occurred to me that he was writing of his own marriage—his marriage with me. I remember going to my mother’s grave and bending over the long flowers to tell her that I was so happy, so happy that earth seemed like heaven; that a noble, princely Englishman had come from over the seas and was going to make me his wife; that I loved him. Then I failed for want of words; even to my mother among the angels in heaven I could not say how much, how dearly, how well I loved him. I could only bury my head in the flowers, and tell her of my deep, unutterable joy.

“It seemed like a dream—a poet’s dream—all beautiful and all unreal. I remember the white gleams of moonlight, when my lover, with his handsome Saxon face, all in a glow, would tell me of Shakespeare’s Juliet, and how Romeo loved her, swearing that I was a thousand times more fair. Is it a wonder that I hate my own name when I remember all he said of it?”