Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 54

James Sefton realized that Lucia Catherwood was not merely a woman to be admired, but one to be loved and desired. She had appealed to him as one with whom to make a great career; now she appealed to him as a woman with whom to live. He remembered the story of her carrying the wounded Prescott off the battlefield in her arms and in the dark, alone and undaunted, amid all the dead of the Wilderness. She was tall and strong, but was it so much strength and endurance as love and sacrifice? He was filled with a sudden fierce and wild jealousy of Prescott, because, when wounded and stricken down, she had sheltered him within her arms.

His look again followed the curves of her noble face and figure, the full development of strong years, and a fire of which he had not deemed himself capable burned in the eyes of the Secretary. The pale shade of Helen Harley floated away in the mist, but Lucia met his silent gaze firmly, and again she asked in cold, level tones:

"Have you found such a woman?"

"Yes, I have found her," replied the Secretary. "Perhaps I did not know it until to-day; perhaps I was not sure, but I have found her. I am a cold and what one would call a selfish man, but ice breaks up under summer heat, and I have yielded to the spell of your presence, Lucia."

"Miss Catherwood!"

"Well, Miss Catherwood--no, Lucia it shall be! I swear it shall be Lucia! I do not care for courtesy now, and you are compelled to hear me say it. It is a noble name, a beautiful one, and it gives me pleasure to say it. Lucia! Lucia! Lucia!"

"Go on, then, since I cannot stop you."

"I said that I have found such a woman and I have. Lucia, I love you, because I cannot help myself, just as you cannot help my calling you Lucia. And, Lucia, it is a love that worships, too. There is nothing bad in it. I would put myself at your feet. You shall be a queen to me and to all the rest of the world, for I have much to offer you besides my poor self. However the war may end, I shall be rich, very rich, and we shall have a great career. Let it be here if you will, or in the North, or in Europe. You have only to say."

There was then a feeling for him not all hate in the soul of Lucia Catherwood. If he loved her, that was a cloak for many sins, and she could not doubt that he did, because the man hitherto so calm and the master of himself was transformed. His words were spoken with all the fire and heat of a lover, his eyes were alight, and his figure took on a certain dignity and nobility. Lucia Catherwood, looking at him, said to herself in unspoken words: "Here is a great man and he loves me." Her heart was cold, but a ray of tenderness came from it nevertheless.

The Secretary paused and in his agitation leaned his arm upon the mantel. Again his eyes dwelt upon her noble curves, her sumptuous figure, and the soul that shone from her eyes. Never before had he felt so utter a sense of powerlessness. Hitherto to desire a thing was with him merely the preliminary to getting it. Even when Helen Harley turned away from him, he believed that by incessant pursuit he could yet win her. There he took repulses lightly, but here it was the woman alone who decreed, and whatever she might say no act or power of his could change it. He stood before her a suppliant.

"You have honoured me, Mr. Sefton, with this declaration of your love," she said, and her tones sounded to him as cold and level as ever, "but I cannot--cannot return it."

"Neither now nor ever? You may change!"

"I cannot change, Mr. Sefton." She spoke a little sadly--out of pity for him--and shook her head.

"You think that my loyalty is due to Helen Harley, but I do not love her! I cannot!"

"No, it is not that," she said. "Helen Harley may not love you; I do not think she does. But I am quite sure of myself. I know that I can never love you."

"You may not now," he said hotly, "but you can be wooed and you can be won. I could not expect you to love me at once--I am not so foolish--but devotion, a long devotion, may change a woman's heart."

"No," she repeated, "I cannot change."

She seemed to be moving away from him. She was intangible and he could not grasp her. But he raised his head proudly.

"I do not come as a beggar," he said. "I offer something besides myself."

Her eyes flashed; she, too, showed her pride.

"I stand alone, I am nothing except myself, but my choice in the most important matter that comes into a woman's life shall be as free as the air."

She, too, raised her head and met him with an unflinching gaze.

"I also understand," he said moodily. "You love Prescott."

A flush swept over her face, and then retreating left it pale again, but she was too proud to deny the charge. She would not utter an untruth nor an evasion even on so delicate a subject. There was an armed truce of silence between them for a few minutes, till the evil genius of the Secretary rose and he felt again that desire to subject her will to his own.

"If you love this young man, are you quite sure that he loves you?" he asked in quiet tones.

"I will not discuss such a subject," she replied, flushing.

"But I choose to speak of it. You saw him at the President's house two nights ago making obvious love to some one else--a married woman. Are you sure that he is worthy?"

She maintained an obstinate silence, but became paler than ever.

"If so, you have a mighty faith," he went on relentlessly. "His face was close to Mrs. Markham's. Her hair almost touched his cheek."

"I will not listen to you!" she cried.

"But you must. Richmond is ringing with talk about them. If I were a woman I should wish my lover to come to me with a clean reputation, at least."

He paused, but she would not speak. Her face was white and her teeth were set firmly together.

"I wish you would go!" she said at last, with sudden fierceness.

"But I will not. I do not like you the least when you rage like a lioness."

She sank back, coldness and quiet coming to her as suddenly as her anger had leaped up.

"You have told me that you cannot love me," he said, "and I have shown you that the man you love cannot love you. I refuse to go. Awhile since I felt that I was powerless before you, and that I must abide by your yea and nay; but I feel so no longer. Love, I take it, is a battle, and I use a military simile because there is war about us. If a good general wishes to take a position, and if he fails in the direct charge--if he is repelled with loss--he does not on that account retreat; but he resorts to artifice, to stratagem, to the mine, to the sly and adroit approach."

Her courage did not fail, but she felt a chill when he talked in this easy and sneering manner. She had liked him--a little--when he disclosed his love so openly and so boldly, but now no ray of tenderness came from her heart.

"I can give you more of the news of Richmond," said the Secretary, "and this concerns you as intimately as the other. Perhaps I should refrain from telling you, but I am jealous enough in my own cause to tell it nevertheless. Gossip in Richmond--well, I suppose I must say it--has touched your name, too. It links you with me."

"Mr. Sefton," she said in the old cold, level tones, "you spoke of my changing, but I see that you have changed. Five minutes ago I thought you a gentleman."

"If I am doing anything that seems mean to you I do it for love of you and the desire to possess you. That should be a sufficient excuse with any woman. Perhaps you do not realize that your position depends upon me. You came here because I wrote something on a piece of paper. There has been a whisper that you were once a spy in this city--think of it; the name of spy does not sound well. Rumour has touched you but lightly, yet if I say the word it can envelope and suffocate you."

"You have said that you love me; do men make threats to the women whom they love?"

"Ah, it is not that," he pleaded. "If a man have a power over a woman he loves, can you blame him if he use it to get that which he wishes?"

"Real love knows no such uses," she said, and then she rose from her chair, adding:

"I shall not listen any longer, Mr. Sefton. You remind me of my position, and it is well, perhaps, that I do not forget it. It may be, then, that I have not listened to you too long."

"And I," he replied, "if I have spoken roughly I beg your pardon. I could wish that my words were softer, but my meaning must remain the same."

He bowed courteously--it was the suave Secretary once more--and then he left her.

Lucia Catherwood sat, dry-eyed and motionless, for a long time, gazing at the opposite wall and seeing nothing there. She asked herself now why she had come back to Richmond. To be with Miss Grayson, her next of kin, and because she had no other place? That was the reason she had given to herself and others--but was it the whole reason?

Now she wished that she had never seen Richmond. The first visit had ended in disaster, and the second in worse. She hated the sight of Richmond. What right had she among these people who were not hers? She was a stranger, a foreigner, of another temperament, another cast of thought.

Her mind flitted over the threats, open and veiled, of the Secretary, but she had little fear for herself. There she had the power to fight, and her defiant spirit would rise to meet such a conflict. But this other! She must sit idle and let it go on. She was surprised at her sudden power of hatred, which was directed full against a woman in whose eyes--even in moments of peace--there were lurking green tints.

He had done much for her! Well, she had done as much for him and hence there was no balance between them. She resolved to cast him out wholly, to forget him, to make him part of a past that was not only dead but forgotten. But she knew even as she took this resolution that she feared the Secretary because she believed it lay within his power to ruin Prescott.

The door was opened and Miss Grayson came quietly into the room. She was a cool, soothing little person. Troubles, if they did not die, at least became more tolerable in her presence. She sat in silence sewing, but observed Lucia's face and knew that she was suffering much or it would not show in the countenance of one with so strong a will.

"Has Mr. Sefton been gone long?" she asked after awhile.

"Yes, but not long enough."

Miss Grayson said nothing and Miss Catherwood was the next to interrupt the silence.

"Charlotte," she said, "I intend to leave Richmond at once."