Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

“Amethyst!”

The door was pushed open, and Una came quickly into the room. She went right up to her sister, and stood by her side.

“I had lost you,” she said anxiously.

Amethyst caught hold of her hand, while Mr Carisbrooke turned upon her with a sort of fury.

“Your sister is with me,” he said.

“Mr Carisbrooke,” said Amethyst, “I cannot say a word now. You cannot take me prisoner all in a minute;” and, still holding Una’s hand, she darted back to the protection of the rest of the company.

“He is a bad man, Amethyst,” said Una passionately, when they were up-stairs alone. “He led Blanche, heaven knows where; and he sacrificed Carrie to Charles to get near to you. And you know the tales we heard of him were true.”

“Yes, he says so,” said Amethyst.

“You don’t love him? You don’t want to marry him? You have never thought of him all this time?”

But Amethyst tossed about all night in restless excitement. Love, in a complex nature, is a complex thing, and though she was not quite in love with Oliver Carisbrooke, he had truly said that he could teach her to be so. She was fascinated by him, and, when she remembered how nearly she had sacrificed her life to worldly ambition, it is impossible to exaggerate the attraction which this heat of daring passion, this indifference to consequences, had for her.

Once again a strong appeal had been made to her to change her course of life. Sylvester had appealed to her sense of right, in utter self-forgetfulness, and had won the day. He had given her conscience strength. She heard his voice now – “I would rather see you die than do it.”

This man appealed to sensation, emotion, passion, to every force within her that makes life or mars it, to that intensifying of the feelings which she had hoped Lucian might bring back to her, and which the sight of him had left cold and dead. But did she respond to the appeal? What was the feeling that drew her to him, that made her long to grant at least “the friendship” he asked for?

Suddenly back into her mind there came a day at Cleverley, and a speech of her mother’s, the full meaning of which she did not then understand. Lady Haredale was reading a letter from Tony.

“You know, darling,” she had said in her sweet voice, “he is devoted to me, poor fellow; and it does give an interest in life to feel one’s self so necessary. It’s quite a woman’s vocation.”

“It’s the same thing,” cried Amethyst to herself, starting up in bed. “I want an interest in life! I am like her!” and she shuddered from head to foot. Poor child, who feared to be like her mother!

Her clear brain came to her aid once more. It was no true love with which Oliver Carisbrooke inspired her. She wanted an interest in life, and it was in her nature to find it as her mother – and her sister – had done before her. She was clever enough to know it, noble enough to despise herself for it; but she was Lady Haredale’s daughter, and she felt it. Would she have strength to resist it?

“Well,” she thought, “I had better die than do it.”

When Una came in the next morning, full of misgivings, Amethyst was up and dressed, and held a note in her hand. The window was flung open, and the fresh cold air was blowing in. She was pale, as if she had cried all night. She showed Una the note.

“No —never.

“Amethyst Haredale.”

“Now, give that to the servant for him,” she said, “and never, never speak to me about it again. I fight awfully hard. Some day I shall be beaten.”

Amethyst had no rejoicing sense of freedom in escaping from this second snare. The straight path was cold and dull, and there were pitfalls on either side. To avoid being like Lady Haredale was not quite what Mr Riddell had meant by a “great inspiration.” She did not feel in the least the better for the victory she had won.

She sat down and put up her hands over her tired eyes, on which Oliver Carisbrooke’s passionate face had seemed to print itself. She was too tired to think; but his words echoed in her ears —

“The young poet’s was only a dream-love, not substantial enough for you.”

Amethyst dropped her hands and started up.

“Oh, I am sick of lovers,” she said angrily. “None of them are any good.”

The sun broke out through the mist of the autumn morning, the bells from the church in the village rang a merry chime through the open window. Amethyst turned her back on the smiling prospect. The morning bells had no message of hope for her.

Chapter Thirty Three

Twisting the Threads of Fate

The weeks that followed Lucian’s accident had been a time of severe trial to Sylvester Riddell. All the responsibility rested on his shoulders of deciding whether they should go ashore at Kirkwall, or get on to Edinburgh in the yacht, on which latter course Sylvester, finding that the Kirkwall doctor authorised it, and could accompany them, had finally fixed. He had to telegraph to Mrs Leigh, who was still in Switzerland, to come to Edinburgh, and when he did so he had scarcely any hope that she would find her son alive. He knew nothing of illness, was not a person of ready practical resource, and was far too sensitive not to feel the sight of such suffering to be a terrible strain upon him. Imaginative and sympathetic, he felt all the horror of the sudden striking down of the strong young life, and to be calm and cheerful was almost beyond his power. Lucian was far too ill to fret about himself or his future; when he was conscious, relief from pain was all he could desire, and the first time he showed much sense of the situation was when he knew Mrs Leigh was coming.

“Oh, Syl! – the mother!” he said, looking up with wistful eyes, “try to help her.”

There was very little help or comfort to be given. Sylvester knew that the worth of life would be as much crushed out for Mrs Leigh by Lucian’s death, or hopeless illness, as for the poor young fellow himself. She was a good woman, and a brave one, but heavy trial was new to her, and her misery took the line of trying every expedient, getting every opinion, wondering constantly whether anything else could have been done at first, and perhaps, spite of herself, her state of mind became apparent to Lucian, for he tried to say something of “Syl being so clever, and always knowing what to do,” – an opinion perhaps hardly shared by the trained nurses, but which went to Syl’s heart. Mrs Leigh, however, to say nothing of Lucian, would have been so much more forlorn without him, that he could not possibly leave them alone; he remained with them in Edinburgh, and, when his old playfellow’s vigorous youth enabled him to rally up to a certain point, he arranged for the difficult journey south, and escorted them back to London. Here he was obliged to leave them, to return to his duties at Oxford, taking a few days’ much-needed rest at home by the way.

He had had no time to think of himself, though there was much in his life which required consideration; he felt how severe the strain upon him had been, when he found himself once more in the dear old home, with his father’s loving eyes scanning his face, and noting the traces on it of anxiety and fatigue.

There was Amethyst and his chance of winning her. She had never been out of his thoughts, but it went against every generous instinct to seek her the moment that he left her old lover’s side, when poor Lucian’s long heart-ache had been betrayed in every unconscious murmur of the beloved name. The unselfish good wishes which had been meant to set him free from all such scruples only intensified them. And yet he had said too much to say no more, and, without his father’s concurrence, he was hardly in a position to say anything.

He murmured an inquiry as to where she was, and if his aunt ever heard from her, and soon had told his father all there was to tell.

Mr Riddell sighed, and shook his head. He had guessed it all before, and he did not quite see his way through it.

“My dear boy,” he said, “whatever I can do to forward your happiness you may regard as done. What else can I wish for? But, if you’ll take advice, give her a little time. She isn’t thinking of you just now, Syl. She needs to be left a little to herself, to find herself out. She knows how you have been occupied, and I am sure she is ready for no sudden definite appeal from you, which is all that is at present in your power. We will not lose sight of her for you.”

Sylvester acquiesced, yet utter silence was impossible to him. He could ask nothing from her just then, but he must let her know that he continued to give her all himself. He wrote some verses, veiled under the familiar disguise of Amelot to Iris, and sent them, unsigned and undated, to the address which he soon caused his aunt to give him. But it was a little like posting them to the rainbow’s end.

If he could not woo her, he might make himself worthy of her. When he went back to Oxford, he took up his work there with the determination to make it more real. He would in no way stand aside from the struggle of life to which he had urged her. The outward changes in his life were slight, but, nevertheless, it was pervaded by a new and more earnest spirit. The lads who had come to his help in his extremity were no longer strangers to him, and men began to say that Riddell would gain influence in the place.

Mrs Leigh had written encouraging accounts of Lucian. The London doctors had recommended the winter abroad as the best cure for the injured lungs, and had not forbidden a hope that the serious internal injuries resulting from the strain might be surmounted by Lucian’s hitherto unbroken health and strength. At least, so the mother interpreted their verdict, and it was decided that they were to go by sea to the Mediterranean, and finally to settle at Bordighera, a place Mrs Leigh knew and liked, and where she hoped Sylvester would join them at Christmas, and find his friend much nearer recovery than when they parted.

Sylvester hoped that so it might be, and made all necessary arrangements for spending part of his winter vacation abroad, all the more willingly, because he knew that the Haredales were somewhere among the towns of the Riviera. So it came to pass that one day, just after Christmas, Lucian lay on a couch under the verandah of one of the prettiest villas of Bordighera, wrapped up and propped with pillows, and listened, with a half-smile, to his mother’s assurances to the newly-arrived Sylvester, of how much good the climate was doing him, and how much better he was than he had been in London.

“Let Syl stay and talk to me, mother,” he said, “and you go and get your drive; he’ll take care of me. Perhaps we’ll go by and by for a drive in the pony carriage. Then I can show him the place.”

“Very well,” said Mrs Leigh, “that will be very nice for you. But it is good for him to walk a little too, Sylvester. He has been longing for you to come, to show you how much better he can do so.”

There were anxious lines on her smooth handsome face, which contradicted her cheerful words, as she went away after a little bustle of arrangements, and left the two young men alone together.

“Well, dear boy,” said Sylvester, turning to his friend, “and how is it? Do you like this lovely place?”

“Yes,” said Lucian, “the soft air is comfortable, and I can talk better than in the autumn, I have more breath.”

Sylvester felt as if he had never realised before what the change had been, as he listened to the gentle languid voice, and noticed how the handsome face had lost all its sturdy impassiveness, and had fined away into a sort of ethereal beauty, while nobody could accuse the clear grey eyes now of want of expression. Sylvester hardly knew how to meet their gaze, but it prepared him for the next words.

“You won’t mind my talking to you, Syl. You know I’m not really any better.”

“No?” said Sylvester, with difficulty.

“No. You see I was so strong and healthy, I took a great deal of killing. But I dare say the doctors always told you that there was fatal mischief done by the strain, and there’s not a bit inside me but what’s all wrong. I had to know the probabilities before I left England, you see, to get my affairs settled.”