The Shadow of a Sin. Charlotte M. Brame

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      "Yes, tell me; but be merciful, and let me hear that the thought of meeting me has cheered you."

      "It has been the only gleam of brightness," she said, so frankly that the very frankness of the words seemed not to displease him. "It was just six when I woke. I could hear the birds singing, and I knew how cool and fresh and dewy everything was. I dressed myself very quickly and went down-stairs. The great house was all darkness and silence. I had forgotten that Lady Vaughan does not allow the front or back doors to be opened until after breakfast. I thought the birds were calling me, and the branches of the trees seemed to beckon me; but I was obliged to go back to my own room, and sit there till the gong sounded for breakfast."

      "Poor child!" he said caressingly.

      "Nay, do not pity me. Listen. The breakfast-room is dark and gloomy; Lady Vaughan always has the windows closed to keep out the air, and the blinds drawn to keep out the sun; flowers give her the headache, and the birds make too much noise. So, with every beautiful sound and sight most carefully excluded, we sit down to breakfast, when the conversation never varies."

      "Of what does it consist?" asked the young lover, beginning to pity the young girl, though amused by her recital.

      "Sir Arthur tells us first of what he dreamed and how he slept. Lady Vaughan follows suit. After that, for one hour by the clock, I must read aloud from Mrs. Hannah More, from a book of meditations for each day of the year, and from Blair's sermons—nothing more lively than that. Then the books are put away, with solemn reflections from Lady Vaughan, and for the next hour we are busy with needlework. We sit in that dull breakfast-room, Claude, without speaking, until I am ready to cry aloud—I grow so tired of the dull monotony. When we have worked for an hour, I write letters—Lady Vaughan dictates them. Then comes luncheon. We change from the dull breakfast-room to the still more dull dining-room, from which sunshine and fragrance are also carefully excluded. After that comes the greatest trial of all. A closed carriage comes to the door, and for two long, wearisome hours I drive with Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan. The blinds are drawn at the carriage windows, and the horses creep at a snail's pace. Then we return home. I go to the piano until dinner time. After dinner Lady Vaughan goes to sleep, and I play at chess or backgammon, or something equally stupid, until half-past nine; and then the bell rings for prayers, and the day is done."

      "It is not a very exhilarating life, certainly," said Claude Lennox.

      "Exhilarating! I tell you, Claude, that sometimes I am frightened at myself—frightened that I shall do something very desperate. I am only just eighteen, and my heart is craving for what every one else has; yet it is denied me. I am eighteen, and I love life—oh, so dearly! I should like to be in the very midst of gayety and pleasure. I should like to dance and sing—to laugh and talk. Yet no one seems to remember that I am young. I never see a young face—I never hear a pleasant voice. If I sing, Lady Vaughan raises her hands to her head, and implores me 'not to make a noise.' Yet I love singing just as the birds do."

      "I see only one remedy for such a state of things, Hyacinth," said the young lover, and his eyes brightened as he looked on her beautiful face.

      "I am just eighteen," continued the girl, "and I assure you that looking back on my life, I do not remember one happy day in it."

      "Perhaps the happiness is all to come," said he quietly.

      "I do not know. This is Tuesday; on Thursday we start for Bergheim—a quiet and sleepy little town in Germany—and there we are to meet my fate."

      "What is your fate?" he asked.

      "You remember the story I told you—Lady Vaughan says I am to marry Adrian Darcy. I suppose he is a model of perfection—as quiet and as stupid as perfection always is."

      "Lady Vaughan cannot force you to marry any one," he cried eagerly.

      "No, there will be no forcing in the strict sense of the word—they will only preach to me, and talk at me, until I shall be driven mad, and I shall marry him, or do anything else in sheer desperation."

      "Who is he, Hyacinth?" asked her young lover.

      "His mother was a cousin of Lady Vaughan's. He is rich, clever, and I should certainly say, as quiet and uninteresting as nearly all the rest of the world. If it were not so, he would not have been reserved for me."

      "I do not quite understand," said Claude Lennox. "How it is? Was there a contract between your parents?"

      "No," she replied, with a slight tone of scorn in her voice—"there is never anything of that kind except in novels. I am Lady Vaughan's granddaughter, and she has a large fortune to leave; this Adrian Darcy is also her relative, and she says the best thing to be done for us is to marry each other, and then her fortune can come to us."

      "Is that all?" he inquired, with a look of great relief. "You need not marry him unless you choose. Have you seen him?"

      "No; nor do I wish to see him. Any one whom Lady Vaughan likes cannot possibly suit me. Oh, Claude, how I dread it all!—even the journey to Germany."

      "I should have fancied that, longing as you do for change and excitement, the journey would have pleased you," observed Claude.

      She looked at him with a half-wistful expression on her beautiful face.

      "I must be very wicked," she said; "indeed I know that I am. I should be looking forward to it with rapture, if any one young or amusing were going with me; but to sit in closed carriages with Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan—to travel, yet see nothing—is dreadful."

      "But you are attached to them," he said—"you are fond of them, are you not, Hyacinth?"

      "Yes," she replied, piteously; "I should love them very much if they did not make me so miserable. They are over sixty, and I am just eighteen—they have forgotten what it is to be young, and force me to live as they do. I am very unhappy."

      She bent her beautiful face over the flowers, and he saw her eyes fill with tears.

      "It is a hard lot," he said; "but there is one remedy, and only one. Do you love me, Hyacinth?"

      She looked at him with something of childish perplexity in her face.

      "I do not know," she replied.

      "Yes, you do know, Hyacinth; you know if you love me well enough to marry me."

      No blush rose to her face, her eyes did not droop as they met his, the look of perplexity deepened in them.

      "I cannot tell," she returned. "In the first place, I am not sure that I know really what love means. Lady Vaughan will not allow such a word in her presence; I have no young girl friends to come to me with their secrets; I am not allowed to read stories or poetry—how can I tell you whether I love you or not?"

      "Surely your own heart has a voice, and you know what it says."

      "Has it?" she rejoined indifferently. "If it has a voice, that voice has not yet spoken."

      "Do not say so, Hyacinth; you know how dearly I love you. I am lingering here when I ought to be far away, hoping almost against hope to win you. Do not tell me that all my love, my devotion, my pleading, my prayers have been in vain."

      The look of childish perplexity did not leave her face; СКАЧАТЬ