Karel Čapek - Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 7

“Child, it is a cause I would gladly lay down my life for, but how can I bring myself to wish you to sacrifice yourself?”

“What is sacrifice in a great cause, mother? I fear no sacrifice, no pain, no consequence, so long as victory crowns me in the end.”

The mother’s arms are round her child’s neck now, her head is bending down and the bright gold of Speranza’s lovely hair is close beside the glossy, wandering dark gold curls of Gloria. In the heart of the former a new-born hope is rising, vague, undefinable, yet still there, and which fills it with a happiness she has not known for many and many a day.

“My child,” she exclaims softly, “can it be, that after all these years of weary, lonely suffering, I am awaking to find in you, you, the offspring of a forbidden love, the messenger that shall awake the world to woman’s wrongs, and make suffering such as I have endured no longer possible?”

“Yes, mother, I feel it,” answers Gloria earnestly; “and that is why I have made my plans today. Everything must have a beginning you know, mother, and therefore I must begin, and begin at once. You must help me, mother darling. I can do nothing without your cooperation.”

“Tell me your plans, Gloria, and mother will help you if she can.”

“My plans are many, but the first must have a premier consideration. Mother, I must go to school.”

“To school, child! I thought you always have begged me not to send you to school.”

“It must.be to a boy’s school, mother. You must send me to Eton.”

“To Eton?”

“Yes, mother; don’t you understand?”

Here a retrospect is necessary to enable the reader to comprehend the above conversation.

Thirty-five years previously there had been born to a young widow in the Midland Counties of England a posthumous child and daughter, to whom the name of Speranza had been given. The widow, Mrs. de Lara by name, was left badly off. Her husband, who had been an officer in the British service, had sold out, and accepted an estate agency from a rich relative, upon whose property he lived in a tiny but snug cottage, which nestled amidst some pine and oak woods on the shores of as beautiful a lake as was to be seen all the country round. Captain and Mrs. de Lara were a very happy pair. Theirs had been a love match; and she never regretted the rich offers of marriage which she had rejected for the sake of the handsome, dashing but well-nigh penniless young officer. Her father, furious at what he considered a mesalliance, had cut her off with a shilling; and thus it was that the two had had a hard struggle to make ends meet on the little possessed by the captain. What mattered it? They were happy.

Grief, however, soon came to cloud that home of peace and contentment. An accidental discharge of his gun inflicted on Captain de Lara a mortal wound. He died in the arms of his heart-broken wife, who lived just long enough to give birth to the little Speranza, dying a fortnight later, and leaving, penniless and friendless, two little boys and the baby girl referred to. the captain’s rich relative adopted them. He was a kind-hearted man, and felt that he could not turn them adrift on the world, but his wife, a hard-hearted and scheming woman, resented the adoption bitterly, and led the children a sad and unhappy life. She had a sou and daughter of her own, aged respectively five and six years, and upon these she lavished a false and mistaken affection, spoiling them in every possible way, and bringing them up to be anything but pleasant to those around them.

When old enough Speranza’s brothers were sent to school, and given to understand by their adopted father that they might choose their own professions. The eldest selected the army, the youngest the navy, and each made a start in his respective line of life. But Speranza, being a girl, had no chances thrown out to her. She was a very beautiful girl, strong, healthy, and clever; but of what use were any of these attributes to her?

“If I were only a boy,” she would bitterly moan to herself, “I could make my way in the world. I could work for my living, and be free instead of being what I am, the butt of my adopted mother.”

It is necessary to explain that Speranza’s adopted parents were the Earl and Countess of Westray, and that their two children were Bertrand Viscount Altai and Lady Lucy Maree. Dordington Court was the family seat, and it was here that Speranza spent the first sixteen years of her life.

There were great doings at Dordington Court when Lord Altai came of age. A large party was invited to take part in the week’s festivities, and duly assembled for the occasion. Many beautiful women were there, but none could compare in beauty with Speranza de Lara. She was only seventeen years of age at the time, but already the promise of exquisite loveliness could not but be apparent to every one. It captivated many, but none more so than young Altai himself.

He was not a good man was the young viscount. Injudicious indulgence as a child had laid the seeds of selfishness and indifference to the feelings of others. He had been so accustomed to have all he wanted, that such a word as “refusal” was hardly known to him. He had grown up in the belief that what Altai asked for must be granted as a matter of course. And now, in pursuit of his passions, he chose to think himself, or imagined himself, in love with Speranza, and had determined to make her his wife.

He chose his opportunity for asking her. It was the night of a great ball given at Dordington Court during the week’s festivities. Speranza had been dancing with him, and when the dance was over he led her away into one of the beautiful conservatories that opened from one of the reception-rooms, and was lighted up with softly subdued pink fairy lamps. He thought he had never seen her look more beautiful, and his passion hungered to make her his own more than ever.

He put the usual question, a question which—no reason has yet been given why—a man arrogates to himself alone to put. He never dreamed that she, the penniless Speranza de Lara, the adopted orphan of his father and mother, would refuse him. He took it as of course for granted that she would jump at his offer. Were there not girls—and plenty too—in the house who would have given their eyes for such a proposal? He put the question therefore confidently, nay, even negligently, and awaited the answer without a doubt in his mind as to what it would be.

He started. She was speaking in reply. Could he believe his ears, and was that answer No? And yet there was no mistaking it, for the voice, though low, was clear and very distinct. It decidedly said him Nay. Yes, Speranza had refused him. It was the first rebuff he had ever received in his life, the first denial that had ever been made to request of his. It staggered him, filled him with blind, almost ungovernable, fury. More than ever he coveted the girl who had rejected him, more than ever he determined to make her, what the law told him she should be if he married her, his own.

He left her suddenly, anger and rage at heart, and she, with a sad and weary restlessness upon her, wandered out into the clear moonlit night, and stood gazing over the beautiful lake at her feet, and at the tiny cottage at the far end where her father and mother had died, and where she had been born.

What was it that stood in Speranza’s eyes? Tears, large and clear as crystals, were falling from them, and sobs shook her graceful upright frame, as she stood with her hands clasped to her forehead in an agony of grief. Only seventeen, poor child, and yet so miserable! It was a cruel sight for any one to see. But no one saw it save the pale moon and twinkling stars that looked down calmly and sweetly on the sobbing girl.

A harsh voice sounded suddenly at her elbow, a rough grasp was laid upon her arm. With a cry in which loathing and horror were mixed Speranza turned round, only to confront the contemptuous, haughty woman, who had never said a kind or nice word to her in all her life.