"Valeria!" said my mother-in-law. "Our modest host is waiting to see what you think of him."While my attention was fixed on his cousin he had wheeled his chair around so as to face me. with the light of the lamp falling full on him. In mentioning his appearance as a witness at the Trial, I find I have borrowed (without meaning to do so) from my experience of him at this later time. I saw plainly now the bright intelligent face and the large clear blue eyes, the lustrous waving hair of a light chestnut color, the long delicate white hands, and the magnificent throat and chest which I have elsewhere described. The deformity which degraded and destroyed the manly beauty of his head and breast was hidden from view by an Oriental robe of many colors, thrown over the chair like a coverlet. He was clothed in a jacket of black velvet, fastened loosely across his chest with large malachite buttons; and he wore lace ruffles at the ends of his sleeves, in the fashion of the last century. It may well have been due to want of perception on my part--but I could see nothing mad in him, nothing in any way repelling, as he now looked at me. The one defect that Icould discover in his face was at the outer corners of his eyes, just under the temple. Here when he laughed, and in a lesser degree when he smiled, the skin contracted into quaint little wrinkles and folds, which looked strangely out of harmony with the almost youthful appearance of the rest of his face. As to his other features, the mouth, so far as his beard and mustache permitted me to see it, was small and delicately formed; the nose--perfectly shaped on the straight Grecian model--was perhaps a little too thin, judged by comparison with the full cheeks and the high massive forehead. Looking at him as a whole (and speaking of him, of course, from a woman's, not a physiognomist's point of view), I can only describe him as being an unusually handsome man. A painter would have reveled in him as a model for St. John. And a young girl, ignorant of what the Oriental robe hid from view, would have said to herself, the instant she looked at him, "Here is the hero of my dreams!"His blue eyes--large as the eyes of a woman, clear as the eyes of a child--rested on me the moment I turned toward him, with a strangely varying play of expression, which at once interested and perplexed me.
Now there was doubt--uneasy, painful doubt--in the look; and now again it changed brightly to approval, so open and unrestrained that a vain woman might have fancied she had made a conquest of him at first sight. Suddenly a new emotion seemed to take possession of him. His eyes sank, his head drooped; he lifted his hands with a gesture of regret. He muttered and murmured to himself; pursuing some secret and melancholy train of thought, which seemed to lead him further and further away from present objects of interest, and to plunge him deeper and deeper in troubled recollections of the past. Here and there I caught some of the words. Little by little I found myself trying to fathom what was darkly passing in this strange man's mind.
"A far more charming face," I heard him say. "But no--not a more beautiful figure. What figure was ever more beautiful than hers?
Something--but not all--of her enchanting grace. Where is the resemblance which has brought her back to me? In the pose of the figure, perhaps. In the movement of the figure, perhaps. Poor martyred angel! What a life! And what a death! what a death!"Was he comparing me with the victim of the poison--with my husband's first wife? His words seemed to justify the conclusion.
If I were right, the dead woman had evidently been a favorite with him. There was no misinterpreting the broken tones of his voice when he spoke of her: he had admired her, living; he mourned her, dead. Supposing that I could prevail upon myself to admit this extraordinary person into my confidence, what would be the result? Should I be the gainer or the loser by the resemblance which he fancied he had discovered? Would the sight of me console him or pain him? I waited eagerly to hear more on the subject of the first wife. Not a word more escaped his lips.
A new change came over him. He lifted his head with a start, and looked about him as a weary man might look if he was suddenly disturbed in a deep sleep.
"What have I done?" he said. "Have I been letting my mind drift again?" He shuddered and sighed. "Oh, that house of Gleninch!" he murmured, sadly, to himself. "Shall I never get away from it in my thoughts? Oh, that house of Gleninch!"To my infinite disappointment, Mrs. Macallan checked the further revelation of what was passing in his mind.
Something in the tone and manner of his allusion to her son's country-house seemed to have offended her. She interposed sharply and decisively.
"Gently, my friend, gently!" she said. "I don't think you quite know what you are talking about."His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn of his hand he brought his chair close at her side. The next instant he caught her by the arm, and forced her to bend to him, until he could whisper in her ear. He was violently agitated. His whisper was loud enough to make itself heard where I was sitting at the time.
"I don't know what I am talking about?" he repeated, with his eyes fixed attentively, not on my mother-in-law, but on me. "You shortsighted old woman! where are your spectacles? Look at her!
Do you see no resemblance--the figure, not the face!--do you see no resemblance there to Eustace's first wife?""Pure fancy!" rejoined Mrs. Macallan. "I see nothing of the sort."He shook her impatiently.
