Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

In the middle of June there was to be a great ball at the Grattans’. Kattern and Tory had been by favour invited to it, and there were many who expected that the announcement of Sir Richard’s engagement would then be formally made. Although the need of fresh costumes was beginning to pinch the Miss Haredales, Amethyst prepared a new and becoming one for the occasion.

The day of the ball had been very hot. Una, as white as her gown, and very unfit for the exertion, was leaning back in a low chair in the open drawing-room window, resting till all the others were ready to go. Kattern, fresh and blooming, stood near her, buttoning the endless buttons of her long gloves. Tory was whisking about the room, and making remarks at intervals.

“I shall keep you in order, Kat,” she said, “you don’t flirt in good style. I shall tell mother to look after you.”

“You know nothing about it,” said Kattern, calmly.

“It’s quite a family affair,” pursued Tory, “even asking the children! Well, I wonder what the Leighs will think! Lucian treated Amethyst very ill. I wonder if Sylvester Riddell still thinks that Tony – ”

“Tory, hold your tongue,” interposed Una, with all her old sharpness, as the door opened, and in the stream of lamp-light stood Amethyst, all pink puffs and pink roses.

“Dear me, Amethyst,” said Tory, “that’s a new style. Looks like a new beginning.”

“I had nothing else fit,” said Amethyst; but the words brought back the “new beginning” made once before, and she shrank a little, at the thought of the last ball where she had given a promise to a lover.

Tory’s words echoed in Una’s brain. She could not dance, and she sat in a corner of the great ball-room, and watched Amethyst with anxious eyes, – her beautiful, brilliant sister, who was walking down the room with her host, and looking just a little excited and unlike herself. Spite of herself, Una’s eyes wandered round the room in search of the face that made interest and excitement for her, but instead, as if in answer to her previous thoughts, they encountered Sylvester Riddell’s. He gave a little start, and came eagerly up to her.

“I am beginning my vacation with a taste of London gaiety,” he said rather nervously, as he shook hands. “Can you give me this waltz?”

“Thanks, no, it is too hot for me to dance,” said Una. “But will you take me out on the balcony? It is cooler there.”

“It certainly is too hot for dancing,” said Sylvester, as he gave her his arm, and took her out on to the covered balcony. Una sat down where the awning was lifted, so that such coolness as the London night could furnish came in over the trees of the square. Sylvester stood near her, where he could look into the lighted ball-room, secretly impatient at being kept away from it.

“Mr Riddell,” said Una, in her slow, self-possessed tones, “I want to speak to you. I have something on my mind. I don’t wish any one to be under a mistake about my sister. Perhaps you’ll think it doesn’t matter now. But you did not see Amethyst in the conservatory at Loseby. You made a mistake, as I said then. You saw me. Of course there was a mystery. It doesn’t matter a bit now what it was. My mother gave her a message for Major Fowler; there was trouble about money. Amethyst knew nothing of such things, and it made her ashamed, and that made her odd. You were all mistaken.”

Surprise, and Una’s composure of manner, kept Sylvester silent till she paused, and he said, hurriedly —

“I have long thought – long known, that, whatever the facts were, Miss Haredale was – was above – that nothing could cast a shadow on her.”

“I suppose she was judged by the facts,” said Una, “or by the mistakes about them. It was just as I say.”

“Is – is she – is she going to marry Grattan?” cried Sylvester, hardly knowing what he said.

“I suppose every one will know soon,” said Una, diplomatically; but he went on, as if he had not heard her.

“That should be nothing to me; but, Miss Haredale – it is no amends for my blind and senseless folly, nothing to set against an hour of the pain I helped to cause her; – but it is impossible that, either then or now, she can be as much to any one as she is, and ever will be, to me. Take that for what it is worth. Tell her, if she cares to know. I suppose she detests me. Let her at least know that she is my queen.”

Carried away by the sudden rush of his own emotion, Sylvester had paid no heed to Una, nor noticed how her heart was throbbing beneath her little white bodice; but now, she made a little movement.

“Mr Riddell – I am faint – I want some water – my sister – ”

She looked deadly white in the half light of the balcony, as she lay back in her chair, and Sylvester rushed back into the ball-room, where, through the crowd of dancers, he made his way to Amethyst, who stood by Sir Richard’s side. He was speaking low and earnestly.

“Miss Haredale, excuse me, your sister is faint, she asked for you.”

“Una? Where is she?” said Amethyst, starting from her attentive attitude, and hurrying forward. Sir Richard followed her, and Sylvester, indicating the balcony where he had left Una, went in search of ice and wine for her.

Meanwhile, as Una, too faint to think of what had passed, was lying back, with closed eyes and panting breath, the two or three minutes during which she was left alone seemed to her endless. Would Amethyst never come?

Suddenly an arm was put round her, and a voice whispered tenderly.

“Una? What, taken bad, my poor little girl? Never mind, it’s only old Tony – you know I always take care of my little wifie.”

The words penetrated to Una’s swimming brain. To drop her head on his shoulder, and rest in his arms! How could she help it! But his last word, the pet name that had been the joy and the sting of her old relation to him, spoken in that half-caressing, half-jocose accent, roused in her the passion that was so much more than the equivalent of jesting sentiment.

“How dare you make jokes, now?” she said, panting, as she started to her feet.

“Don’t you know that I daren’t do anything else?” cried Major Fowler, suddenly and savagely, his eyes opening wide upon her with new force and fervour. “But this once more – Una – kiss me!”

“Oh – God help me!” gasped Una; and she tore herself out of his arms, and fell up against Amethyst, who came running out on to the balcony and caught her, guiding her as she sank to the ground.

There was instantly a bustle and confusion, and the balcony was full of figures, – Lady Haredale, Miss Grattan, and Sylvester, who came back with the remedies he had been to seek. He held the bowl of ice, while Amethyst dipped her handkerchief into it to bathe Una’s face, and then, as she revived, he helped Sir Richard to lift her on to a couch.

“She’s coming round,” said Major Fowler. “Poor child, the room was hot – ”

Amethyst turned and faced him, as it seemed to the newly enlightened Sylvester, like a flame.

“Please find the carriage,” she said. And then there was a murmur – Lady Haredale desiring Amethyst to stay, she would take Una home, Kattern should go and help her, – Amethyst must not lose her ball.

“No, mother – I shall go with Una,” said Amethyst, “I could not stay, when she is ill.”

Major Fowler reappeared, having caught an arriving carriage, and Sir Richard offered to carry Una; but she struggled to her feet, clinging to her sister, and said that she could walk now.

He walked by her side, helping her, and Sylvester found their cloaks, and, as he brought them to the foot of the stairs, caught a murmur of “sweetest sisterly affection,” and “But you have answered me!”

“No – Sir Richard, I have not,” said Amethyst, provoked at being urged at such a moment; and, while she spoke, her eyes looked out at the door, as Oliver Carisbrooke came in from the darkness without.

He went swiftly up to the group approaching him.

“I knew,” he said to Amethyst in a low voice, “I knew this night would bring you trouble.”

How it was, Sylvester never knew, but somehow it was the new-comer who took the first place, and helped them into the carriage, though Sir Richard, as in duty bound, sprang up on to the box – “to see them home.”

Sylvester walked slowly up-stairs, and back to the balcony. There, on the floor, lay Amethyst’s long pink glove, which she had pulled off while waiting on Una.

Sylvester picked it up, and held it reverently in his hand.

“No, Mr Riddell,” and he started violently as Tory stood looking at him with her wicked eyes. “No, please don’t, it’s very expensive, and it matches her gown exactly. Please get something else, and give that to me.”

Sylvester coloured, and laughed rather foolishly, restoring the glove to Tory with an elaborate bow. Then, – for what was there now to keep him at the ball? – he went away as soon as possible, back to the lodgings which he usually occupied when in town.

Amethyst meanwhile, disregarding Una’s entreaty that she would go back to the ball, hastily divested herself of her finery, and came back in her white dressing-gown to her sister’s side.

“Are you quite comfortable now, my darling? What was I thinking of to let you go?”

Una gave a faint little laugh.

“You had plenty to think of,” she said. “Amethyst, have you quite said yes?”

“No,” said Amethyst petulantly, “I haven’t.”

“Kiss me, hold me!” whispered Una, nestling up to her. “Then I can tell you. I told Sylvester Riddell about that day, I made him believe that he saw me. And there’s not one of them as much in love with you as he is. That’s the real thing. That’s how I fainted, it was so hard.”

“Oh, my dear child, let the past alone. What does it matter?” said Amethyst, though with a great throb at her heart. “That’s all too late, all done with, that old time.”

There was a minute’s silence, then Una whispered —

“Amethyst, love me – I must tell – he came – Tony. Done with? Oh no, no, – it has been burning me up. But I cried out, and there came like a great light in my heart of a sudden, and for a moment I hated him like a fiend; and I escaped, and got to you. But oh – my life to come – my life to come! I can’t be glad that He saved me! But He did!”

She pressed her face into Amethyst’s neck, kissing her with burning lips.

“Christ came between,” she said. “He took me from him.”

The tone of intense conviction awed Amethyst all the more, that it was so quiet and sad. She was greatly shocked at the revelation of Una’s trial, and reproached herself for her failure as guard or guide. Nothing however but tender soothing was possible now, and Una lay quite passive, till her throbbing pulses grew quieter, and at last she seemed to fall asleep.

Then Amethyst stole over to the open window, and looked across the square. The midsummer dawn was stealing over the sky, the sound of the dance music at the ball mingled with the twitter of the London sparrows. She could see the blaze of light in the houses opposite.

Her own fate pressed so upon her that she could scarcely think of Una’s, save with a sort of half-incredulous surprise. If she herself was tempted – if this that she purposed was a sin against herself, no angel with a flaming sword would stop her way.

Was it indeed so? She had been stopped, with the words of self-committal upon her lips, and, in the moment’s pause, had come upon her a revulsion of feeling almost as complete as that which Una had described. Sir Richard’s momentary want of tact in pressing her, the sudden recall of the past by Una’s reference to it – Suddenly all her philosophy, her good sense, and her surface contentment fell away, and over her there came with a rush the thought, the feeling rather, of that other night, – of Lucian’s boyish wooing, of his first kiss, of her own rapturous joy. Her strong nerves gave way, and sinking into a chair she wept silently, but with a passion of anguish, for the days that were gone for ever.

A tap at the door roused her. She hurried to open it, and there stood Tory, who, at her sign of silence, caught her hand and pulled her across the passage into her own room.

“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I’ve got something dreadful to tell you. Charles came late to the ball – I saw Carrie looking out for him ever so often – and he talked and laughed loud as he came up-stairs, and I saw Tony and Sir Richard look at each other. But he went up to Carrie and asked her to dance, and they spun about oddly, and knocked up against the wall, and he would have thrown her down, if Tony, who was dancing with Kat, hadn’t somehow caught her; and then Sir Richard took hold of him, and pulled him into the hall, and there was a sort of row and a noise. And oh, Amethyst, he was as tipsy as ever he could be, horrid brute! He might be a bad lot, without disgracing us in that way!”

And Tory stamped her foot, and for once cried hot tears of shame and anger.

“What happened then?” said Amethyst, pale and horror-struck.

“Sir Richard took him down-stairs, and he called out that he wouldn’t be insulted, even if Grattan had lent him money.”

“What?” interrupted Amethyst.

“Why, didn’t you guess? I did. Indeed I heard my lady say so. How could Charles have shown up, else? It will be all right, I suppose, when he marries you.”

“I never thought of such a thing,” said Amethyst, utterly thrown off her balance.

“You’re very innocent still, Amethyst,” said Tory, recovering her usual manner, “you’ll never be the same as if my lady had brought you up. Why, if Charles is the only person Sir Richard gave money to, to get us all up here – which I doubt – you may be quite sure he won’t be the last.”

Tory was not an impressionable person, but she never forgot Amethyst’s face, as she turned and fled back into Una’s room.

Chapter Twenty Three

Reparation

When Sylvester got back to his rooms and sat down to smoke, and to reflect in solitude, his feelings were in utter confusion.

He accepted Una’s statement without a doubt, and, as was inevitable, it filled him with self-reproach, and the confession of his devotion had seemed but the poorest amends. But what good could devotion or reparation do her now? Then it struck him that this imaginary fact had been of infinitely more importance to Lucian than to himself, and that the first duty was to undeceive him. – To undeceive him when it was too late, for he had no idea where Lucian was; he could not telegraph vaguely to the Rocky Mountains, it was impossible to say when a letter would reach him, a letter that would tell him that he had been under a delusion when he flung Amethyst aside, and that would bring him back, to find her Lady Grattan. But she had not given Sir Richard her promise yet. If words had any meaning, Sylvester was sure that he had learned thus much. She was shrinking from the inevitable, her heart was not in the brilliant prospect before her. What then – what then? He could not save her from it, she was caught in the toils. Perhaps she did not wish to be rescued? Sylvester was not incapable of comprehending the complexities of another nature, and, curiously enough, now that he had heard what might restore Amethyst to the ideal heights of her girlhood, he realised more clearly that she was no ideal, but a struggling human creature, that his Iris needed help as well as worship.

He did not spend much of the short summer night in sleep, and when he came down the next morning he found on his table a letter, in Lucian’s writing, and with an English stamp, sent on from Oxbridge. He tore it open and read —

“Royal Hotel, Liverpool. June 19th.

“Dear Syl, —

“This letter will surprise you. We never got to the Rockies, nor saw a bear. Just as we were well out of reach of the post and every other comfort, Jackson had a nasty fall and hurt his back. There was an end of everything for him. Rochdale joined another party, and went on, but I thought I might have another chance, so I stayed to look after him, and it was soon plain that he must come home. So here we are, and his brother came to meet us, and will see to him. It was a great sell for him. Now I’m looking at a yacht here, and think of going round the north of Scotland and perhaps on to Norway. Will you come? I suppose you are free now. My mothers abroad with the girls. How is the book?

“Yours ever, —

“Lucian Leigh.”

Sylvester put down the letter, and felt that the hand of Fate was upon him. He despatched a telegram in haste —

“Coming. Don’t settle about the yacht till you have seen me.”

Then he got himself ready, and took the first train to Liverpool.

He arrived there in the afternoon, and found Lucian just come back from seeing off his sick friend. He looked for once a little worn and tired, and owned to having had much fatigue and anxiety.

“And now,” he said, “will you have something to eat, and then come and see the Albatross? She’s a nice little cutter, and you look as if you’d written too much poetry, and wanted sea air.”

“Not at all,” said Sylvester, with a nervous laugh. “But I’ve something to tell you. Where can we find a quiet place?”

“Up-stairs, come along. We had to have a place where poor Jackson could lie down. What’s the matter? All right at home? – What’s up, then?”

Sylvester followed him up-stairs into the hotel sitting-room, and stood in the window, looking vaguely out at the street.

“Lucy,” he said, getting quite cold with the effort, “I don’t know if you care to hear, but last night I met the Miss Haredales at a ball. Una spoke to me, and, from what she said, I now feel absolutely certain that your mother and I made a mistake. We saw Una Haredale with Major Fowler, and, for the rest, there was some trumpery mystery as to borrowing money for Lady Haredale. Amethyst was bound to secrecy, hence all that seemed suspicious.”

“Say that again,” said Lucian, hoarsely. “It was really the other girl you saw in the conservatory with Fowler?”

“Yes, no question of it.”

“Then, what a thundering fool you were to mistake them!” cried Lucian violently.

“I was,” said Sylvester, with dejection. “But I was not the only person, as you know. And I told you to trust her through thick and thin. I told you she was an angel of purity and innocence, no matter what I was fool enough to think I saw.”

“It was so, or it wasn’t,” said Lucian.

“You saw her, you questioned her,” said Sylvester. “She denied it. Una told the truth, then, and you did not believe either of them! I don’t excuse myself. I’d give my right hand not to have done her – and you – such a wrong.”

Lucian went over to the table and sat down. He trembled, and for some moments did not speak. At last he said —

“There’s no one to blame but me. If I did not know her, who should? I thought I was right, and all the time I was wrong. There’s only one thing to be done now, to go back and renew my offer at once and unconditionally, and to let every one know that I have done so.”

“If your feelings remain the same – ”

“My feelings? It’s my duty.”

“But,” said Sylvester, breathlessly, “if – if you no longer loved her. – I don’t think – ”

“Love her? Why, you know I do. I always did,” said Lucian.

“Then, Lucy,” said Sylvester, “I’m afraid that there’s a good deal of disappointment in store for you. If she is not engaged to Grattan, she is on the point of it, and there are scores of other men after her. She has had a great success, and all London raves about her. I doubt her father’s consent, and her pretensions are so great – ”

“I can’t help that,” said Lucian. “It is my place to let every one about her know that I wish to marry her, and that, if she refuses me, it is her own doing. I’ll go up through the night, and see her to-morrow.”

He got up, and opening a travelling writing-case, took from it a little parcel, containing a photograph in a leather frame. He looked at it for a minute, then laid it before his friend.

It was the girl Amethyst, in a little country-made dress, with her hat in her hand, and her eyes looking happily out, in pleased expectation of the next thing that was coming, whatever it might be.

A deep blush coloured Sylvester’s face. He felt for his own pocket-book, and, taking from it a photograph wrapped in silver paper, he opened it, and laid it beside Lucian’s.

It was a half-length of the beautiful Miss Haredale in evening dress, the amethysts round her slender throat, her white neck and her long round arms uncovered, her face smiling and a little self-conscious; Amethyst in society. Lucian gave a slight start.

“Is she as handsome as that?” he said slowly. “It’s not like her.”

“She does not always look like it; but never like the other, now,” said Sylvester with a sigh.

“How did you get it?”

“I bought it at a bazaar where she was selling. The Princesses sold theirs there – and actresses and other celebrities – I thought you might like to see it. That is why I have it here.”

Lucian made no comment. He looked hard at the picture. It evidently made more impression on him than anything that Sylvester could say. At last he took up the two photographs together.

“Thank you for bringing it to me,” he said, and put it in his breast-pocket. Sylvester barely checked himself in his impulse to seize it, and his annoyance at Lucian’s calm conviction that it must be meant for him, gave some sharpness to his tone, as he said —

“How do you propose to act, and to get to see her?”

Lucian did not answer for some minutes, then he said slowly —

“I did not consider. There are difficulties. Perhaps she would not receive me, and through her mother I will not act. Besides, if I was asked why I had come forward, it would not be easy to explain, as it would hardly do to mention Una. And I haven’t got any clothes, so I can’t go anywhere to meet her.”

Lucian stated these various difficulties, with exactly the same tone of voice for all.

“Will you write?” said Sylvester.

“I don’t think that that’s quite the right thing. If I – insulted her, face to face – face to face I must ask her pardon. No, you know them. I suppose you can go and call, and ask her when I may come.”

“I suppose I could,” said poor Sylvester, with a pang. “Yes – I will.”

“Thank you. But understand that it is my object to make known that I put myself at her disposal. It is not a case for concealing a refusal. Every one must know that I make the offer.”

Sylvester gave a nervous laugh. Lucian’s sense of his own importance to Amethyst seemed ludicrously out of proportion to the reality. He thought of Sir Richard Grattan, and Prince Pontresina, and Lord Broadstairs, and of the various other men, who would have felt flattered by having it supposed that they had approached near enough to the beauty to propose to her.

“She has many offers,” he said, rather dryly; “I think you must be prepared for such a possibility.”

“Yes,” said Lucian. “But it won’t be worse than it has been. And if – ”

He did not finish the sentence, but over the beautiful face which some people called statuesque, and others wooden, came, for once, a flush and a change, and Sylvester thought that Sir Richard might suffer in comparison.

“What’s this Grattan like?” said Lucian, presently turning away.

“Oh – he’s a commonplace beast,” said the finespun Sylvester, “an ‘oiled and curled Assyrian bull’ sort of fellow. Sir Gorgius Midas – No, that’s a libel. I don’t know that he’s a bad sort. He’s all straight, and not bad-looking, and I shouldn’t call him a cad exactly. He has as many millions as a man can want and two big estates, and a good moral character, and goes to church; and he’s safe to be made a peer some day, and – it’s blasphemy to couple him with —her!”

Lucian was not an observant person, and, while he was sadly considering, that though he was himself a moral character and a church-goer, and not bad-looking, he would never be made a peer, and had hardly as many thousands as Amethyst might want, he did not notice that Sylvester stopped short, then hurried on.

“That old scoundrel Broadstairs being out of the question, the Roman prince would be more in keeping. He is a gentleman.”

“But I suppose he’s a foreigner, and a Roman Catholic. And a foreign prince doesn’t go for much,” said Lucian anxiously.

“Depends on the breed,” said Sylvester. “But Grattan is the man.”

“I would rather not talk about her any more,” said Lucian, and, strange to say, he did not talk about her, but went with Sylvester to make a provisional arrangement with the owner of the Albatross, and then talked about his travels, and his sick friend, to whom he seemed to have become much attached. Then they went back to the hotel and had dinner, and came up to London by the night train, as Lucian had proposed.