Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

She came on the next day, punctual to the moment, very grave and quiet, and perfectly calm.

Lucian had been resting all the morning, and now lay on his couch under the verandah, while Mrs Leigh greeted Amethyst, and set a chair for her close by, within easy reach of his eyes and voice, then with hardly a word she left them.

“Amethyst,” said Lucian, “you know I’m going to die, and you, I suppose, will have a long life. I want to take the pain out of your thoughts of me, so that when you think of those days when we were engaged to each other, it may be pleasant to you, as if we’d had a good time when we were children.”

Amethyst looked at him, but she could not speak.

“I never ought to have lost patience with a girl like you, and I ought to have known you better. But I was too young and stupid, it was a dreadful thing to me when I knew I had wronged you – had been so wrong – and couldn’t make up for it. And when I saw you again, I knew I had never thought enough of you, though I loved you so much.”

“Oh, Lucian – no – ”

“If we’d married, I suppose I should have learned in time. But I should have made mistakes and vexed you, I wasn’t fit to guide you. I should always have thought I knew best Well, then, you see it has all been for the best, and I want to tell you, that if I hadn’t had the loving, and the getting to understand you, and the trying to get on without you, it would have been much worse for me now. And so, as that poor little old time has helped me to die better, it seemed to me that perhaps the thought of it might make your life better for you – at least to know what you have done for me.”

“Oh, Lucian, that’s not quite it. Why was I such a wicked girl as to forget you? It wasn’t because I was angry. If I had been faithful too – you might – we might – ”

“No, dear,” said Lucian. “That’s what I want to show you. You couldn’t – you wanted more than I had got to give you. That’s what I found out. You’ll have it some day, and then you won’t feel I did you nothing but harm.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, with streaming tears, “I shall always – I shall always feel —glorified by your having loved me —so.”

He got hold of her hand, and held it gently in both his own, and when she was a little calmer, he said —

“Tell me about your troubles.”

“They’re not worth it,” she said, “hard, sordid money troubles – things that are hateful. And the wrong things I do – and feel – and think.”

“I think there’ll be better times for you,” said Lucian; then he smiled, and said, “As there will be soon for me.”

“If – if you could but get better – ”

Lucian gave her the strangest look.

“Oh, no,” he said, quietly, and then, with a little more of his usual manner —

“I’m sorry to have made you cry. But I think you’ll like by and by to know I quite understood. Now there’s just one thing more.”

He took hold of a gold locket that hung from his watch chain, and opened it slowly, then took out of it the broad gipsy ring, set with a big amethyst and two diamonds – the very ring that his boyish taste had thought both handsome and symbolical enough to give his betrothed.

“Let me give it you back,” he said. “Perhaps you won’t like to wear it now; but, when you put another ring on your finger, let this be a guard to it. That’s my fancy.”

“Oh, Lucian! Put it on – I never – never shall – ”

“I think you will,” he said. “I hope you will.” He took her warm young hand, and, with his weak fingers, put on the ring, and back upon them both came the joyous moment when he had first put it on, and “all the world was young.”

“And then,” continued Lucian, “when Mr Riddell is here, and gives me my last Communion, will you come too? I remember the Sunday we were engaged – ”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, “all the love went away together. But now, I will – I will – ”

“There is Syl, across the garden,” said Lucian, after a moment – “He thinks – I shall be tired. He takes such care of me, he is so good to me – now he must come and take you home. Good-bye, my dear love. God bless you! I am quite happy now.”

He looked up at her, and with a sudden impulse she stooped down and kissed him, and then turning her head away, and waving Sylvester back, she fled across the garden and out of sight.

Lucian had covered his face with his hands, it was flushed and burning, as all that was left of life in him surged up and rebelled against the approaching hand of death.

“In much pain, dear boy?” said Sylvester anxiously, after a minute.

“More – more than I knew,” said Lucian, with panting breath, then, with a look which Sylvester never forgot, he whispered – “But it’s quite right, – Syl.”

By and by, when he was able to leave Lucian, Sylvester went out on to the hill-side under silvery olive woods, and over broken ground covered with rosemary and thyme. The sun was bright, and the sea pure, clear blue beneath it. He thought that he had come to seek solitude and silence; but, when he saw Amethyst coming towards him, he knew that he had been really in search of her.

She came up to him, and stood by his side, and they looked into each other’s faces.

“It did not hurt him?” she said presently in a trembling voice.

“Oh, no, he will be more at rest now.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst, with a fresh burst of tears, “oh – I am so sorry – so sorry for him! Oh – I think I’d die, if he could get well and be happy.”

They were passionate words; but her tone and look lifted the dread from Sylvester’s heart. It was for Lucian, not for herself, that she was weeping.

“One cannot dare to wish, for such as he,” he said.

“But I was so cruel to him, when he came back, in London. I hurt him more than I need. Oh, I have been a wicked girl, always trying to get something for myself, to make up for having been ill-treated! I despised every one. I despised him. Oh, I’ve had a lump of ice instead of a heart, I hate myself for it!”

“But now the ice has melted?”

“Yes,” said Amethyst, with childish directness, “I am sorry now.”

They walked on slowly, side by side. Words were difficult; but a great peace came over them both.

“Do you think,” said Amethyst, presently, “is he worse? It will not be very soon, will it?”

“I don’t know,” said Sylvester. “He is much weaker than he was. I am glad my father is coming next week. Poor Lucy was meant for living! But he does suffer frightfully, night and day. I shall not leave him – I have arranged for that – and I couldn’t possibly go away now.”

“He likes to have you.”

“Yes, the dear boy! He always has clung to me, though, heaven knows, I often manage badly enough for him. But whatever he likes – There’s one thing I must tell you. You know I tried to hold him up when he fell. My strength was going – in another minute he must have pulled me over. And he knew it – and let my hand go!”

Sylvester could hardly speak of that most awful moment, and Amethyst grew paler with sympathy. “Oh – that was splendid of him!” she said.

Then her heart gave a great throb and bound, and she knew which life was the dearest to her. The blood rushed back to her temples, she could see nothing, but she felt that Sylvester held her hand close in his own, and presently she heard his voice whispering —

“You know what makes my life worth living?” She turned, and at once giving him her hands, and putting him away from her, she said —

“Oh, we will do everything for him, we will not think of anything but him – while he wants us.”

She fled away as she spoke; but her words seemed to Sylvester the most beautiful answer that she could have given him, the perfect expression of their according hearts.

In his pocket-book was still preserved the young primrose springing from dead leaves, with which, long ago, Amethyst had illustrated her saying that “beginnings come out of endings.”

It was no inapt type of the sweet hopes springing up in these days of mourning – hopes all the sweeter for the generous reverence with which they waited for fulfilment.

Chapter Thirty Five

The Power of the Past

While all the bitterness of past wrongs was thus, for Amethyst, softening into a tender haze of memory, it became apparent to Una that a new future was offered to herself.

The pleasant, wholesome intercourse that had begun for her at Restharrow, had made the days cheerful at Bordighera, and, together with health much improved by the southern climate, had brought her for the first time something of the natural gaiety of her eighteen years. She very soon knew quite well, that her presence made the pleasure for Wilfred Jackson, that he sought her at every possible moment, and offered her the natural and innocent courtship of a warm-hearted youth, which ought to have been the opening of all the joys and rights of her young womanhood.

But behind her lay, not the “duties enough and little cares” of unawakened childhood, not the playful preferences of attractive girlhood, but the searing, burning memory of premature passion.

She let the pleasant thing go on, she hesitated and doubted, for she liked Wilfred Jackson very much, and she liked – she always would like – intercourse that was touched with possibilities of emotion. And she would have been so glad to forget all her miserable past, to go on into a happy future.

She knew that she was watched by Tory and Kattern, and she did not put them off the scent; she knew that Amethyst was only blind because her thoughts were absorbed by Lucian’s condition; she knew how welcome her engagement would be to every one belonging to her. But day by day her heart grew heavier within her, and she dreaded more and more the moment of decision.

It came one day, among the olive trees, over a bed of violets, with the blue sea behind them, and the white peaks before, a sweet sense of spring-time in the air, and everything befitting the spring of fresh young hope.

He was alone with her, and his tongue was loosed, and all his honest love and his eager longings were laid at her feet, and the prospect of a good and happy life was offered to her, all the blessings the value of which she had learned to know full well.

And her heart turned from it utterly, she shrank from his hand and his kiss. She had had her day – a day almost before the dawn – and she thought that she could never give herself to any man again.

She refused him, with a rain of tears and a passion of self-reproach, knowing that she had allowed him to expect another answer. Her words were so wild, and her manner so strange, that Wilfred, as he stood, pale and bitterly disappointed, felt as if he had wooed a mermaid, some incomprehensible, uncanny creature of a different race from his own. But he was stunned.

“Una,” he said, “I think you gave me a right to expect another answer. You have given me a bitter blow. I shall go away where I cannot see your face – your cruel face. But I don’t give you up. I shall try again!”

Una fled away from him, and rushed home, where she threw herself into Amethyst’s arms, and sobbed out all her self-reproach and her self-despair.

“Oh, my dear, I should have looked after you better!” said Amethyst regretfully. “But are you sure? Can’t you ask him to give you a little time?”

“Oh, Amethyst, I like him, I hoped it would come to me, till yesterday, when we were picking flowers, he kissed my hand, and then – then all last night I dreamt of other kisses, oh, I felt them – I can feel them now. I’ve none left!”

“Dear Una, the past is not meant to spoil our future – there is forgiveness and peace – ”

“For you – for you – You look back on a paradise, and I on – ”

“Oh, Una – but it’s all over, you have all your life left!”

“I have – I have!” cried Una, lifting her face from Amethyst’s shoulder, “I would not have that past again, not the maddest moment of it! I will live – I will be good for something in spite of it. Oh – I should like to give my life to telling girls that one can be different. I think I’d die to keep another child from my fate! But it has been – and alas and alas, it will be!”

This was the wrong that Tony had done her.

She had saved her soul alive, but the first spring of her heart was gone for ever, and if a second came, it might not be till the chances of life were over for her.

She threw herself on her knees when Amethyst left her.

“Oh, God!” she whispered, “let me not look back – let me look forward up, up to Thee!”

There was a great outcry, when Wilfred stirred up his sisters to go back with him on the next day to Nice. The girls were angry, and declared that Una was a heartless flirt and had led him on; but Wilfred would not hear a reproach cast at her, and went up to the Leighs’ villa to bid Lucian farewell, and to tell his story.

It was a bad day with Lucian, indeed each day began to show failing strength, and the shadow lay so heavily on all around him, that it was no wonder that Wilfred Jackson’s affairs had never been guessed at. Lucian could not talk to him, but lay and listened while Sylvester put in occasional questions, and shortened the interview as much as possible. Then it came over Wilfred, that he was bidding his friend farewell for the last time, and he felt how much he had let himself be diverted from his state by a new interest. He muttered something, he hardly knew what, as he squeezed Lucian’s hand, but it ended in “never forgetting the Rockies.”

“All right,” said Lucian, “and don’t forget either that – I said – that I hoped, when you’re dying, you may thank God for your love, as I do – though we’ve neither of us been lucky.”

Wilfred was utterly overcome, and could only hurry away with another hand-squeeze. Lucian felt that the first of the final partings had come for him, and his breath came a little quickly.

“You’ll stay with me, Syl, won’t you?” he whispered.

“Why yes, of course, dear boy, that’s all settled, long ago. Now let me read you to sleep. Then, if Amethyst comes by and by, you will be able to see her.”

Amethyst was the bright spot in the sorrowful household. She was loving to Mrs Leigh, listening to her sorrow, and trying to give her all the care which after so long a strain she was beginning to need, and cheering the poor young girls as they grew too sorrowful to care for their usual amusements, while in her ways with Lucian she showed the most absolutely simple and unaffected tenderness, thinking of nothing but how to give him pleasure. That the pleasure was sometimes not easily known from pain, Lucian hid from all eyes but Sylvester’s keen ones, and, as he grew weaker, the inevitable longings mercifully sank away, or were bravely offered up with all the other sufferings of his failing life, and he took the joy as simply as it was given.

Lady Haredale, as usual, had adapted herself to circumstances. She took the greatest interest in “dear Lucian,” never grudged Amethyst’s intercourse with him, and, as she took occasion to tell Sylvester, “felt that the past was entirely blotted out.”

“She may,” Lucian had said bluntly, when this speech was reported to him, “but, as far as she is concerned, I don’t, and I never shall.”

Sylvester entirely concurred in this sentiment. If he detested any one on earth it was “my lady.” If she had ever found out that Una had refused Wilfred Jackson, she might have found it hard to forgive her, for money grew scarcer and scarcer, and while she smiled, and talked, and found little satisfactions in the amusements of hotel life, she did not know in the least what was to become of them all.

What Lord Haredale did, with their scanty means, it was easy to guess, and, though his wife could trust to some happy-go-lucky solution, his sister’s face grew more anxious every day.

Her greatest comfort was Carrie Carisbrooke, who transferred the incipient affection she had felt for Charles to all his family. She told Miss Haredale, that she hoped they would continue to live together either at Silverfold or at Cleverley, and she fully intended to put it in her chaperon’s power to give Tory the education she so much desired.

It was an undeserved return for the worldliness which had done her so great a disservice in trying to prop up a falling family with her fortune; but nevertheless, it made home and happiness for a very lonely girl, and so was its own reward.

Carrie’s twenty-first birthday was imminent, and on the day of the Jacksons’ departure, she received a letter from her uncle, saying that he meant to spend it with her, and to give up his stewardship of her fortune.

Una heard with a start of horror, “That Amethyst should meet that man again!”

“You need have no fear,” said Amethyst. “If he comes, and people guess he ever had anything to do with me, it is no more than I deserve. He nearly ruined my life for me, but it was my own fault Lucian will never know, and – ”

She did not finish her sentence, but she knew that, some day, she would tell Sylvester how his trust in her had helped to save her from a second shipwreck. She would tell him, and he would understand.

Chapter Thirty Six

Out of the Deep

“No, Annabel – no, Amethyst, I shall not go. I am quite sure Charles has not deserved any attention from me. Read the telegram – ‘Come at once, Charles dying; his own fault. Bring money.’ My lord is the most unpractical person I ever knew! He knows I have no money. What could I do for Charles over at Monte Carlo? Some horrid scandal, no doubt.”

“It would be a far greater scandal to neglect him when he is dying, Lady Haredale. At least, I will go and help my poor brother.”

“You, my dear Anna! Oh, that would be the very thing. You are always goodness itself, and full of kind thoughts. Do go; but as for the money – ”

“There needn’t be any trouble about that, Lady Haredale,” said Carrie, who was in the room, “for I have plenty of money – quite handy, and Miss Haredale can take it with her to Monte Carlo.”

“Why, my dear Carrie, you are quite a little guardian angel. Now it is all nicely settled, and I dare say you’ll find my lord has got nervous about some mere trifle.”

The Haredale party were all assembled in Lady Haredale’s bedroom, which formed a sort of family gathering-place. Tory had rushed in with a telegram in her hand, and this was the end of a hot discussion.

“Then – the train, oh, when is it?” said Miss Haredale, “and – oh yes, telegraph to my brother to meet me – for I should not know – ”

“I shall go with you,” said Amethyst, “there is nothing else to be thought of. There will be a great deal more than you could manage alone, Aunt Anna.”

“Oh, but, Amethyst, you are the last person to be seen in such a place – on such an occasion.”

“When my brother is dying,” said Amethyst, “I don’t think it can be wrong to go anywhere. If I don’t like it, I’ll come back again. There’s a train in an hour, we can catch that.”

Una ran after her as she went to get ready.

“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I am afraid it will be very dreadful.”

“So am I,” said Amethyst. “But what would become of Carrie’s money if auntie were there alone? And I have never been kind to poor Charles, nor had any mercy for him. I must go, Una. Only try to keep it all from Lucian; he will hurt himself with worrying about me.”

“If Sylvester Riddell could go with you!”

“Oh no. Then Lucian would hear about it. Besides – oh no, Una, no one ought to come.”

“Give my love to Charles,” said Una, kissing her. “Oh dear, what is to become of us all?”

“I don’t know,” said Amethyst; “I’ve got to catch the train first.”

The train was caught, and off they set, with poor Carrie’s little roll of gold pieces carefully secreted in Amethyst’s dress. She was sick with fear of what she might find. To see evil which has been only heard of is a frightful thing, and she squeezed Lucian’s ring through her glove, as if it gave her a sense of guardianship.

No Lord Haredale appeared at the station, which seemed ominous and depressing. They took a carriage, and with some difficulty found the Bella Italia, the hotel from which his telegram had been dated, the driver declining to believe that the ladies could want to go there.

It was a second-rate little place, with noisy voices coming from the open windows of the coffee-room, and from the restaurant in the garden outside.

The two ladies got out of their carriage and walked in, and Amethyst in careful broken Italian asked for Lord Haredale, and for the English gentleman who was there very ill.

The host came forward, and answered her with smiles, shrugs and gestures, and a flood of incomprehensible words.

Amethyst stood perplexed. Some men started up from the tables and began to explain, evidently with the best intentions, but with such vehemence of tone and gesture that Miss Haredale clutched her niece’s arm, with a terrified conviction that they were all making excuses to stare at Amethyst, who began to make her inquiries in French – when, behind her, a voice that might have been the echo of her own said “Aunt Annabel!”

She turned, and by one of the little tables stood a tall woman, with a slight swaying figure like Una’s, a dress incongruously splendid in that squalid place, and a face – the face of one of themselves – not so much older as to have lost all its kindred beauty, but with pale cheeks and painted eyes, and a look at once familiar, as only the nearest of kin can be, and strange, as of one belonging to another kind of world.

“Blanche!” exclaimed Miss Haredale, “Blanche! can it be you?”

“Oh yes, Aunt Annabel. It is. I am staying here for a little variety, and I saw papa, and Charles – both of them – in the rooms. And I thought I’d better come and look after my brother, when I heard he was ill.”

She laughed a little, as she uttered these words in something of Tory’s tone when she did the good little girl, an effect heightened by the use of the old-fashioned appellation by which, long, long ago, Lord Haredale’s elder children had been wont to call him; but her eyes were on her sister. “Is that Amethyst?” she said. “Ah, you don’t remember me.”

“Yes, Blanche, I do,” said Amethyst; but she had turned deadly pale, for Blanche had been little more than an abstraction to her mind.

“But where is your father?” said Miss Haredale. “And Charles, is he any better?”

“Oh no – nor can be. He’s got D.T. and all sorts of other horrors. Just drank himself to death, poor fellow. I can pay the nurse and the doctor: but I can’t bear the sight of him. What was the good of your coming?”

“Is the nurse trained, my dear? Indeed, I ought to go up,” said Miss Haredale.

“Well, I can show you. Perhaps he is asleep. Trained – oh dear no; she’s a horrid old woman.”

Lady Clyste led the way up-stairs, and, as they followed her, outcries, sounds that made Amethyst’s heart die within her, led them on their way.

“Oh, he’s quite off his head,” said Blanche, as she opened the bedroom door.

There, on the narrow bed, lay Charles; and Amethyst saw what months of neglect and evil living, and frightful ills and sufferings, had made of a man already marred and ruined beyond repair.

Miss Haredale recoiled with a sob, and Amethyst gathered up her courage and came forward.

“Charles,” she said.

The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he stuttered out —

“Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn’t stop here, here with me. And there’s Blanche; you mustn’t stay with Blanche. Take her away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment.”

Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.

“Hush, Charles,” said Amethyst, “I came to see you. You won’t hurt me, – and Blanche – is very kind. Lie still. – Una sent you her love.”

Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.

She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.

She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from the dullness of the world’s prosperity, and she thought of herself, and of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.