The Golden Butterfly

Looking through the flowers and the leaves of the conservatory glared a face upon the pair strangely out of harmony with the peace which breathed in the atmosphere of the place – a face violently distorted by passion, a face in which every evil feeling was at work, a face dark with rage. Phillis might have seen the face had she looked in that direction, but she did not; she held Lawrence's hand, and she was shyly pressing it in gratitude.

"Phillis," said Lawrence hoarsely, "Jack Dunquerque is a lucky man. We all love you, my dear; and I almost as much as Jack. But I am too old for you; and besides, besides – " He cleared his throat, and spoke more distinctly. "I do love you, however, Phillis; a man could not be long beside you without loving you."

There was a movement and a rustle in the leaves.

The man at the door stood bewildered. What was it all about? Colquhoun and a woman – not his wife – talking of love. What love? what woman? And his wife in the conservatory, looking as he never saw her look before, and listening. What did it all mean? what thing was coming over him? He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to make out what it all meant, for he seemed to be in a dream; and, as before, while he tried to shape the words in his mind for some sort of an excuse, or a reassurance to himself, he found that no words came, or, if any, then the wrong words.

The house was very quiet; no sounds came from any part of it, – the servants were resting in the kitchen, the mistress of the house was resting in her room, after the party, – no voices but the gentle talk of the girl and her guardian.

"Kiss me, Phillis," said Lawrence. "Then let me hold you in my arms for once, because you are so sweet, and – and I am your guardian, you know, and we all love you."

He drew her gently by the hands. She made no resistance; it seemed to her right that her guardian should kiss her if he wished. She did not know how the touch of her hand, the light in her eyes, the sound of her voice, were stirring in the man before her depths that he thought long ago buried and put away, awakening once more the possibilities, at forty, of a youthful love.

His lips were touching her forehead, her face was close to his, he held her two hands tight, when the crash of a falling flower-pot startled him, and Victoria Cassilis stood before him.

Panting, gasping for breath, with hands clenched and eyes distended – a living statue of the femina demens. For a moment she paused to take breath, and then, with a wave of her hand which was grand because it was natural and worthy of Rachel – because you may see it any day among the untutored beauties of Whitechapel, among the gipsy camps, or in the villages where Hindoo women live and quarrel – Victoria Cassilis for once in her life was herself, and acted superbly, because she did not act at all.

"Victoria!" The word came from Lawrence.

Phillis, with a little cry of terror, clung tightly to her guardian's arm.

"Leave him!" cried the angry woman. "Do you hear? – leave him!"

"Better go, Phillis," said Lawrence.

At the prospect of battle the real nature of the man asserted itself. He drew himself erect, and met her wild eyes with a steady gaze, which had neither terror nor surprise in it – a gaze such as a mad doctor might practise upon his patients, a look which calms the wildest outbreaks, because it sees in them nothing but what it expected to find, and is only sorry.

"No! she shall not go," said Victoria, sweeping her skirts behind her with a splendid movement from her feet; "she shall not go until she has heard me first. You dare to make love to this girl, this schoolgirl, before my very eyes. She shall know, she shall know our secret!"

"Victoria," said Lawrence calmly, "you do not understand what you are saying. Our secret? Say your secret, and be careful."

The door moved an inch or two; the man standing behind it was shaking in every limb. "Their secret? her secret?" He was going to learn at last; he was going to find the truth; he was going – And here a sudden thought struck him that he had neglected his affairs of late, and that, this business once got through, he must look into things again; a thought without words, because, somehow, just then he had no words – he had forgotten them all.

The writer of the anonymous letters had done much mischief, as she hoped to do. People who write anonymous letters generally contrive so much. Unhappily, the beginning of mischief is like the boring of a hole in a dam or dyke, because very soon, instead of a trickling rivulet of water, you get a gigantic inundation. Nothing is easier than to have your revenge; only it is so very difficult to calculate the after consequences of revenge. If the writer of the letters had known what was going to happen in consequence, most likely they would never have been written.

"Their secret? her secret?" He listened with all his might. But Victoria, his wife Victoria, spoke out clearly; he could hear without straining his ears.

"Be careful," repeated Lawrence.

"I shall not be careful; the time is past for care. You have sneered and scoffed at me; you have insulted me; you have refused almost to know me, – all that I have borne, but this I will not bear."

"Phillis Fleming." She turned to the girl. Phillis did not shrink or cower before her; on the contrary, she stood like Lawrence, calm and quiet, to face the storm, whatever storm might be brewing. "This man takes you in his arms and kisses you. He says he loves you; he dares to tell you he loves you. No doubt you are flattered. You have had the men round you all day long, and now you have the best of them at your feet, alone, when they are gone. Well, the man you want to catch, the excellent parti you and Agatha would like to trap, the man who stands there – "

"Victoria, there is still time to stop," said Lawrence calmly.

"That man is my husband!"

Phillis looked from one to the other, understanding nothing. The man stood quietly stroking his great beard with his fingers, and looking straight at Mrs. Cassilis.

"My husband. We were married six years ago and more. We were married in Scotland, privately; but he is my husband, and five days after our wedding he left me. Is that true?"

"Perfectly. You have forgotten nothing, except the reason of my departure. If you think it worth while troubling Phillis with that, why – "

"We quarrelled; that was the reason. He used cruel and bitter language. He gave me back my liberty."

"We separated, Phillis, after a row, the like of which you may conceive by remembering that Mrs. Cassilis was then six years younger, and even more ready for such encounters than at present. We separated; we agreed that things should go on as if the marriage, which was no marriage, had never taken place. Janet, the maid, was to be trusted. She stayed with her mistress; I went abroad. And then I heard by accident that my wife had taken the liberty I gave her, in its fullest sense, by marrying again. Then I came home, because I thought that chapter was closed; but it was not, you see; and for her sake I wish I had stayed in America."

Mrs. Cassilis listened as if she did not hear a word; then she went on —

"He is my husband still. I can claim him when I want him; and I claim him now. I say, Lawrence, so long as I live you shall marry no other woman. You are mine; whatever happens, you are mine."

The sight of the man, callous, immovable, suddenly seemed to terrify her. She sank weeping at his knees.

"Lawrence, forgive me, forgive me! Take me away. I never loved any one but you. Forgive me!"

He made no answer or any sign.

"Let me go with you, somewhere, out of this place; let us go away together, we two. I have never loved any one but you – never any one but you, but you!"

She broke into a passion of sobs. When she looked up, it was to meet the white face of Gabriel Cassilis. He was stooping over her, his hands spread out helplessly, his form quivering, his lips trying to utter something; but no sound came through them. Beyond stood Lawrence, still with the look of watchful determination which had broken down her rage. Then she sprang to her feet.

"You here? Then you know all. It is true; that is my legal husband. For two years and more my life has been a lie. Stand back, and let me go to my husband!"

But he stood between Colquhoun and herself. Lawrence saw with a sudden terror that something had happened to the man. He expected an outburst of wrath, but no wrath came. Gabriel Cassilis turned his head from one to the other, and presently said, in a trembling voice —

"A fine day, and seasonable weather for the time of year."

"Good God!" cried Lawrence, "you have destroyed his reason!"

Gabriel Cassilis shook his head, and began again —

"A fine day, and seasonable – "

Here he threw himself upon the nearest chair, and buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER XLII

"Then a babbled of green fields."

And then there was silence. Which of them was to speak! Not the woman who had wrought this mischief; not the man who knew of the wickedness but had not spoken; not the innocent girl who only perceived that something dreadful – something beyond the ordinary run of dreadful events – had happened, and that Victoria Cassilis looked out of her senses. Lawrence Colquhoun stood unmoved by her tears; his face was hardened; it bore a look beneath which the guilty woman cowered. Yet she looked at him and not at her husband.

Presently Colquhoun spoke. His voice was harsh, and his words were a command.

"Go home!" he said to Victoria. "There is no more mischief for you to do – go!"

She obeyed without a word. She threw the light wrapper which she carried on her arm round her slender neck, and walked away, restored, to outward seeming, to all her calm and stately coldness. The coachman and the footman noticed nothing. If any of her acquaintances passed her on the road, they saw no change in her. The woman was impassive and impenetrable.

Did she love Colquhoun? No one knows. She loved to feel that she had him in her power; she was driven to a mad jealousy when that power slipped quite away; and although she had broken the vows which both once swore to keep, she could not bear even to think that he should do the same. And she did despise her husband, the man of shares, companies, and stocks. But could she love Colquhoun? Such a woman may feel the passion of jealousy; she may rejoice in the admiration which gratifies her vanity; but she is far too cold and selfish for love. It is an artful fable of the ancients which makes Narcissus pine away and die for the loss of his own image, for thereby they teach the great lesson that he who loves himself destroys himself.