Bending toward Leicester, until from the low seat she sank unintentionally upon her knees, she prayed with pa.s.sionate fervour:

"But shall not your wife, my love, one day soon be surrounded with the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic who decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the matronage, as the avowed wife of England's n.o.blest earl? _'Tis not the dazzling splendour of your t.i.tle that I covet, but the richer, n.o.bler, dearer coronet of your beloved name, the precious privilege of fronting the world as your acknowledged wife_."

Again, in answer to his flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling seemed to penetrate every nook of that vast building:

"But why can it not be? Why can it not immediately take place, this more perfect uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and which the laws of G.o.d and man alike command? _Think you my unshod feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found the sacred shelter of my husband's name? Ah, husband! dost blanch before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife's brave heart? It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy wedded wife!_"

The earl had led her behind the scenes, and the minister had twice addressed him ere Mr. Laurance recovered himself sufficiently to perceive that his companions were smiling at his complete absorption.

"Why--Cuthbert--wake up. You look like some one walking open-eyed in sleep. Has Madame's beauty dazed you as utterly as poor Count T----?"

His wife pinched his arm, but without heeding her he looked quite past her into the laughing eyes of the minister, and asked:

"Do you know her? Is her husband living?"

"I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I have seen her. Of her history I know nothing, but rumour p.r.o.nounces her a widow."

"Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken, worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and keep out of the way," added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of her opera gla.s.s, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of jewels attracted her attention.

How the words grated on her husband's ear, grown strangely sensitive within an hour?

Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the minister continued:

"English critics contend that Madame Orme's 'Amy Robsart' is so far from being Scott's ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened. She appears to have concentrated all her talent upon the pa.s.sionate impersonation of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance--that of the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite _roles_ are 'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as 'Medea' p.r.o.nounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few thin hairs that still faithfully cling to the top of his head.

Ah--the parting with Leicester--how marvellously beautiful is she!"

Leaning against a dressing-table loaded with toilet trifles and _bijouterie_, Amy stood, arrayed in the costume which displayed to greatest advantage the perfect symmetry of form and the dazzling purity of her complexion.

The cymar of white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to bid her adieu, and the final pet.i.tion for public acknowledgment was once more sternly denied, the long-pent agony in the woman's heart burst all barriers, overflowed every dictate of wounded pride, and with an utter _abandon_ of genuine poignant grief, she gave way to a storm that shook her frame with convulsive sobs, and deluged her cheeks with tears. Despite her desperate efforts to maintain her self-control, the sight of her husband's magnetic handsome face, after thirteen weary years of waiting, unnerved, overwhelmed her.

There in the temple of Art, where critical eyes were bent searchingly upon her, Nature triumphantly a.s.serted itself, and she who wept pa.s.sionately from the bitter realisation of her own acc.u.mulated wrongs, was wildly applauded as the queen of actresses, who so successfully simulated imaginary woes.

By what infallible criterion shall criticdom decide the boundaries of the Actual and the Ideal? Who shall compute the expenditure of literal heartache that builds up the popularly successful Desdemonas, Camilles, and Marie Stuarts; the scalding tears that gradually crystallize into the cla.s.sic repose essential to the severe simplicity of the old Greek tragedies?

The curtain fell upon a bowed and sobbing woman, and the tempest of applause that shook the building was prolonged until after a time Amy Robsart, with tears still glistening on her cheeks, came forward to acknowledge the tribute, and her silken garments were pelted with bouquets. Among the number that embroidered the stage lay a pyramid of violets edged with rose geranium leaves, and raising it she bent her lovely head to the audience and kissed the violets, in memory (?) of her far-off child--whose withered floral tribute was more precious to the woman's heart than all the laudatry chaplets of the great city, which did homage to her genuine tears.

Some time elapsed while the play shifted to the court, recounting the feuds of Leicester and Suss.e.x, and when Amy Robsart appeared again it was in the stormy interview where Varney endeavours to enforce the earl's command that she shall journey to Kenilworth as Varney's wife.

The trembling submissiveness of earlier scenes was thrown away for ever, and, as if metamorphosed into a Fury, she rose, towered above him, every feature quivering with hatred, scorn, and defiance.

"Look at him, Janet! that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and before the Queen and n.o.bles, and in presence of my own wedded lord, that I should acknowledge him,--him there, that very cloak-brushing, shoe-cleaning fellow,--him there, my lord's lackey, for my liege lord and husband! I would I were a man but for five minutes!--but go!

begone!"

She paused panting, then threw back her haughty head, rose on tiptoe, and, shaking her hand in prophetic wrath and deathless defiance, almost hissed into the box beneath which Varney stood:

"Go, tell thy master that when I, like him, can forget my plighted troth, _turn craven, bury honour, and forswear my marriage vows, then, oh then! I promise him, I will give him a rival, something worthy of the name!_"

Was the avenging lash of conscience uncoiled at last in Cuthbert Laurance's hardened soul that the blood so suddenly ebbed from his lips, and he drew his breath like one overshadowed by a vampire?

Only once had he caught the full gleam of her indignant eyes, but that long look had awakened torture's that would never entirely slumber again, until the solemn hush of the shroud and the cemetery was his portion. No suspicion of the truth crossed his mind, even for an instant,--for what resemblance could be traced between that regal woman, and the shy, awkward, dark-haired little rustic, who thirteen years before had frolicked like a spaniel about him,--loving but lowly?

In vain he sought to arrest her attention; the actress had only once looked at the group, and it was not until the close that he succeeded in catching her glance.

After her escape from Varney, Amy Robsart reached in disguise the confines of Kenilworth, and standing there, travel-worn, weary, dejected, in sight of the princely castle, with its stately towers and battlements, she first saw the home whose shelter was denied her, the palatial home where Leicester bowed in homage before Elizabeth.

As a neglected, repudiated wife, creeping stealthily to the hearth where it was her right to reign, Amy turned her wan, woeful face to the audience, and, fixing her gaze with strange mournful intentness upon the eyes that watched her from the box, she seemed to throw her whole soul into the finest pa.s.sage of the play.

"I have given him all that woman has to give. Name and fame, heart and hand, have I given the lord of all this magnificence--at the altar, and England's Queen could give him no more. He is my husband; I am his wife. I will be bold in claiming my right; even the bolder, that I come thus unexpected and forlorn. Whom G.o.d hath joined, man cannot sunder."

The irresistible pathos of look and tone electrified that wide a.s.semblage, and in the midst of such plaudits as only Paris bestows she allowed her eyes to wander almost dreamily over the surging sea of human heads, and as if she were in truth some hunted, hopeless, homeless waif appealing for sympathy, she shrouded her pallid face in the blue folds of her travelling cloak, and disappeared.

"She must certainly recognize her countrymen, for that splendid pa.s.sage seemed almost thrown to us, as a tribute to our nationality.

What a wonderful voice! And yet--she is so tender, so fragile," said the minister.

"Did you observe how pale she grew toward the last, and so hollow-eyed, as if utterly worn out in the pa.s.sionate struggle?"

asked Mrs. Laurance.

"The pa.s.sion of the remaining parts belongs rather to Leicester and the Queen. By the way, this is quite a handsome earl, and the whole cast is decidedly strong and successful. Look, Laurance! were you an artist, would you desire a finer model for an Egeria? If Madame had been reared in Canova's studio she could not possibly have accomplished a more elegant felicitous pose. I should like her photograph at this moment."

In the grotto scene, Amy was attired in pale sea-green silk, and her streaming hair braided it with yellow light, as she shrank back from the haughty visage of the Queen.

Rapidly the end approached, courtiers and maids of honour crowded upon the stage, and thither Elizabeth dragged the unhappy wife, into the presence of the earl, crying in thunder tones: "My Lord of Leicester! knowest thou this woman?"

The craven silence of the husband, the desperate rally of the suffering wife to shield him from the impending wrath, until at last she was borne away insensible in Hunsdon's strong arms, all followed in quick succession, and Amy's ill-starred career approached its close, in the last interview with her husband.

When Cuthbert Laurance was a grey-haired man, trembling upon the brink of eternity, there came a vision in the solemn hours of night, and the form of Amy, wan as some marble statue, breathed again in his ear the last words she uttered that night.

"Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of Elizabeth's throne; say that 'in a moment of infatuation moved by supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the remains, I gave my hand to this poor Amy Robsart.' You will then have done justice to me, and to your own honour; and should law or power require you to part from me, I will offer no opposition, since I may then with honour hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades, from which your love withdrew me. Then--have but a little patience--and Amy's life will not long darken your brighter prospects."

The fatal hour arrived; the gorgeous pomp and ceremonial of the court-pageant had pa.s.sed away, and in a dim light the treacherous balcony at c.u.mnor Place was visible. In the hush that pervaded the theatre, the minister heard the ticking of his watch, and Mrs.

Laurance the laboured breathing of her husband.

Upon the profound silence broke the tramp of a horse's hoofs in the neighbouring courtyard, then Varney's whistle in imitation of the earl's signal when visiting the countess.

Instantly the door of her chamber swung open, and, standing a moment upon the threshold, Amy in her fleecy-white drapery wavered like a drifting cloud, then moved forward upon the balcony; the trapdoor fell, and the lovely marble face with its l.u.s.trous brown eyes sank into the darkness of death.

CHAPTER VII.

To men and women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon, awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled across it, and bluish shadows beneath the large eyes that had not closed for twenty-four hours lent them a deeper and more fateful glow.

The soft creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured cl.u.s.ters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with elaborate monograms. These notes contained tributes of praise from strangers who had been fascinated by her "Amy Robsart," and begged the honour of an interview, or the favour of a "photograph taken in the silken cymar which so advantageously displayed the symmetry of her figure."

Among the latter she had recognized the handwriting of Mr. Laurance, though the signature was "Jules Duval," and her fingers had shrunk from the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying there on the top of the _billets-doux_, the elegant, graceful chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others--in the same peculiar beautiful characters--"Minnie Merle." She put away the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.

"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. Doubtless his courage wilts before his swarthy, bold-eyed Xantippe, who allows him scant lat.i.tude for flirtations with pretty actresses. To be thrown aside--trampled down--for such a creature as Abbie Ames! his coa.r.s.e-featured, diamond-dowered bride! Ah! my veins run lava; when I think of her thick heavy lips, pressing that haughty perfect mouth, where mine once clung so fondly! Last night the two countenances seemed like 'as Hyperion to a Satyr!' How completely he sold his treacherous beauty to the banker's daughter, whom to-day he would willingly betray for a fairer, fresher face. Craven traitor!"

She pa.s.sed her handkerchief across her lips, as if to efface some imaginary stain, and they slowly settled back into their customary stern curves.

Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who held a card in her hand.