Kitabı oku: «A Dreadful Temptation; or, A Young Wife's Ambition», sayfa 3

CHAPTER VII

"Mamma, how pale and troubled you look. What ails you?"

Mrs. St. John was crossing the threshold of the little cottage home that looked, oh, so poor and cheap after the stately brown-stone palace she had left that morning, and after one quick glance into her mother's careworn face she saw that new lines of grief and trouble had come upon it since last they had met.

"Come up into my room, Xenie. I have much to say to you," said her mother, leading the way up the narrow stairway into her bedroom, a neat and scrupulously clean little room, but plainly and almost poorly furnished.

Mrs. Carroll was a widow with only a few barren acres of land, which she hired a man to till. Her husband was long since dead, and the burden of rearing her two children had been a heavy one to the lonely widow, who came of a good family and naturally desired to do well by her two daughters, both of them being gifted with uncommon beauty.

But poverty had hampered and crushed her desires, and made her an old woman while yet she was in the prime of life.

Xenie removed her traveling wraps and sat down before the little toilet glass to arrange her disordered hair.

"My dear, how pale and sad you look in your widow's weeds," said Mrs. Carroll, regarding her attentively. "I was very sorry to hear of your husband's death. It is very sad to be left a widow so young—barely twenty."

"Yes," answered Xenie, abstractedly; then she turned around and said abruptly: "Mamma, where is my sister?"

Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment without replying.

"I have brought her some beautiful presents," continued Mrs. St. John, "and you, too, dear mamma—things that you will like—both beautiful and useful."

Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment in utter silence, and her lips quivered strangely.

Then she caught up a corner of her homely check apron, and hiding her convulsed face in its folds, she burst into bitter weeping.

Xenie sprang up and threw her arms around the neck of the agitated woman.

"Oh, mamma," she cried, anxiously, "speak to me. Tell me what ails you? Where is Lora?"

As if that name had power to open the flood gates of emotion wider, Mrs. Carroll wept more bitterly than ever.

"Mamma, you frighten me," cried Xenie, terrified. "Oh, tell me where is Lora? Is she dead?"

"No, no—oh, better that she were!" sobbed her mother, wildly.

Mrs. St. John grew as pale as death. She shook her mother almost rudely by the arm.

"What has Lora done?" she cried. "Where is she? I will go and seek her."

She was rushing wildly to the door, but Mrs. Carroll sprang forward, and catching the skirt of her dress, pulled her back.

"Not now!" she gasped; "wait a little. That wretched girl has ruined her good name and disgraced us all."

Mrs. St. John dropped into a chair like one bereft of life, and her great, black eyes, dilated with terror, stared up into her mother's face.

"Yes, it is too true," said her mother, sitting down and rocking herself back and forth, while low and heart-broken moans escaped her white lips.

"But, mamma, poor, good, little Lora! it cannot be! She was truth and innocence itself," panted the young widow, in a voice of anguish.

"She deceived us all—she was a sly little piece. You will see for yourself, Xenie. She lies ill in her chamber, and—and in a few months there will be a"—she lowered her voice and gave a fearful glance around her—"a child!"

"Oh! mamma, then she was married? Of course Lora was married! Doesn't she say so?" exclaimed Xenie, confidently.

"Oh, yes, she swears to a marriage—a secret one—but look you, Xenie—not a ring, not a witness, not a scrap of paper to prove it! And the man dead—lost at sea!" said Mrs. Carroll, despairingly.

"Oh! mamma, then it was–"

"Jack Mainwaring—yes. He was courting her this long time, you know. He asked for her, and I wouldn't give my consent. I thought he wasn't good enough for her—a sailor, and only second mate, you know. And Aunt Egerton had promised to give her a season in town this winter, and she might have made a better match than a sailor."

Mrs. Carroll broke down again and wept bitterly.

"Try to control yourself, mamma," said the young widow, stroking the bowed head tenderly. "And so Jack married her in spite of you?"

"Yes," sobbed her mother, "he married her secretly, she says. It was about the same time, or nearly, that you were married. He found out that Lora was going to town to be one of the bridesmaids, and was jealous, I suppose, thinking she might see someone she could like better. So he persuaded her into it, and they were to keep it secret until he came back from this voyage."

"And he is lost at sea, you say?" asked Xenie, thoughtfully.

"Yes; he went away in a few weeks after the marriage, to be gone six months; but the news came last week of the loss of his ship by fire, and his name was on the list of the dead. You see, Xenie, what a terrible position Lora was placed in. She fainted when she heard the news, and then I found out everything."

"Does anyone else know, mamma?" inquired Xenie, anxiously.

"Not yet. She has been ill, but I have cared for her myself, and did not call in the doctor. But we cannot keep it a secret always. Of course malicious people will not believe in the marriage, and Lora's fair fame will be ruined forever! Oh! if she had only never been born!" cried the proud and unhappy mother.

Mrs. St. John sat silent, her lily-white hands clasped in her lap, her dark eyes staring into vacancy with a strangely intent expression. She roused herself at last and looked at her mother.

"Mamma, we must devise ways and means of keeping this a secret! It would ruin the family to have it known," she said, decidedly.

"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Carroll, gloomily. "I would do anything in the world to save Lora's fair fame if I only knew what to do!"

"I have a plan," said Xenie, rising quietly. "I will tell it you by-and-by, mamma. Everything shall come right if you will be guided by me. Now take me to my sister, if you please."

Mrs. Carroll rose silently and opened the door. Xenie followed her down a narrow passage to a door at the further end, and they entered a pretty and neat little room.

A low wood fire burned on the cleanly swept hearth, and on the white bed, with her dark hair trailing loosely over the pillows, lay a beautiful, white-faced girl, enough like Xenie to be her twin.

She started up with a cry of mingled joy and pain as the new-comer came toward her.

"My poor darling!" Mrs. St. John murmured, in a tone of infinite love and compassion, as she twined her arms around the trembling form.

Lora clung to her sister, sobbing and weeping convulsively. At length she whispered against her shoulder:

"Mamma has told you all, Xenie?"

"Yes, dear," was the gentle answer.

"And you—you believe that I was married?" questioned the invalid.

"Yes, darling," whispered her sister, tenderly. "How could I believe evil of you, my innocent, little Lora?"

"Thank God!" cried the invalid, gratefully. "Oh! Xenie, mamma has been so angry it nearly broke my heart."

"She will forgive you, darling," murmured Mrs. St. John, fondly, as she stroked the dark head nestling on her breast.

"And, oh, Xenie, poor Jack—my Jack—he is dead!" sobbed Lora, bursting into a fit of wild, hysterical weeping.

"There, darling, hush—you must not excite yourself," said Mrs. St. John, laying her sister back upon the pillows, and trying to soothe her frenzied excitement.

"And no one will believe that I was Jack's wife—I am disgraced forever! Mamma says so. The finger of scorn will be pointed at me everywhere. But what do I care, since my heart is broken? I only want to die!" moaned the unhappy young creature, as she tossed to and fro upon the bed.

"Be quiet, Lora; listen to me," said Mrs. St. John, taking the restless, white hands in her own, and sitting down upon the bed. "I wish to talk to you as soon as you become reasonable."

Thus adjured, Lora hushed her sobs by a great effort, and lay perfectly still but for the uncontrollable heaving of her troubled breast, her large, hollow, dark eyes fixed earnestly on Xenie's pale and lovely face.

Mrs. Carroll crouched down in a chair by the side of the bed, the image of hopeless woe.

"Lora, dear," said her sister, in low, earnest tones, "of course you know that, if this dreadful thing becomes known, the disgrace will be reflected upon us all."

Mrs. Carroll groaned, and Lora murmured a pitiful yes.

"I have thought of a plan to save you," continued Mrs. St. John. "A clever plan that would shield your fair fame forever. But it will require some co-operation on your part, and it may be that you and mamma may refuse for you to undertake it."

"You may count on my consent beforehand!" groaned Mrs. Carroll, desperately.

"I will do whatever mamma says," murmured Lora, weakly.

Mrs. St. John looked away from them a moment in silent thought; then she said, slowly:

"Of course, you know, mamma, that my husband died without a will, and that Howard Templeton inherited the greater part of his wealth?"

"Yes; you wrote me. I was very sorry that you were disappointed, dear," said her mother, gently, yet wondering what this had to do with Lora's forlorn case.

"Mamma," said Xenie, slowly, "if my husband had left me as Lora's left her, I could have kept that fortune out of Howard Templeton's hands."

"My dear, I hardly understand you," said her mother, blankly.

"Mamma, I mean that if I could hope for an heir to my husband, the child would inherit all that wealth, and Howard Templeton be left penniless."

"Oh, yes, I understand you now," was the quick reply, "but you have no prospect, no hope of such a thing—have you, dear?"

There was a moment's silence, and Mrs. St. John's fair face grew scarlet, then deadly white again. She looked away from her mother, and said, slowly:

"Yes, mamma, I have such a hope. Listen to me, you and Lora, and I will help you in your trouble, and you shall help me to complete my revenge."

CHAPTER VIII

Some three or four weeks after Mrs. St. John's visit to the country, Howard Templeton was sitting in his club one day, smoking and reading, after a most luxurious lunch.

The young fellow looked very comfortable as he leaned back in his cushioned chair, the blue smoke curling in airy rings over his curly, blonde head, a look of lazy contentment in his handsome blue eyes.

He was somewhat of a Sybarite in his tastes, this handsome young fellow, over whose head twenty-five happy years had rolled serenely, without a shadow to mar their brightness save that unfortunate love affair two years before.

Howard was, emphatically, one of the "gilded youth" of his day. He "toiled not, neither did he spin." He had been cradled in luxury's silken lap all his life long.

Sorrow had passed him tenderly by as one exempt from the common ills of life.

He was so accustomed to his good luck that he seldom gave a thought to it. It simply seemed to him that he would go on that way forever.

Yet, to-day, for a wonder, he had been a little thoughtfully reviewing the events of the past six months.

"It was very kind in Uncle John to leave things so comfortable for me," he said to himself. "I thought his wife would influence him against me so much that he wouldn't have left me a penny. If he hadn't, what the deuce should I have done?"

He paused a moment, in comical amusement, to survey the situation; but the idea was too stupendous.

He could not even fancy himself the victim of adversity, much less tell what he would have done in that case. He laughed at it after a moment.

"I cannot even imagine it," he thought. "Poor little Xenie, how hard it went with her to be foiled in her revenge, as she called it. How she must have loved me to have turned against me so when I gave her up! Who would have believed that we two should ever hate each other with such a deadly hate?"

Something like a smothered sigh went upward with the blue cigar smoke, and just then a footstep crossed the threshold, and a man's voice said, lightly:

"Halloo, Doctor Templeton; enjoying yourself, as usual."

"Halloo, Doctor Shirley," returned Templeton, with a lazy nod at the new-comer. "Have a smoke?"

"I don't care if I do," said the doctor, throwing himself down in an easy-chair opposite the speaker, and lighting a weed. "How deuced comfortable you look, my boy!"

"Feel that way," lisped Templeton, in a lazy tone.

"Ah! I don't think you would feel so devil-may-care if you knew all that I know, old boy," laughed the doctor, significantly.

The old doctor was very well known at the club as a gossip, so Templeton only laughed carelessly as he said:

"What's the matter, doctor? Any of my sweethearts sick or dead?"

"Not that I know of," said Doctor Shirley. "However, Templeton, if any of your sweethearts has money, take my advice, young fellow, and make up to her without delay."

Howard Templeton laughed at the doctor's sage advice.

"Thanks," he said, "but I do very well as I am, doctor. I don't care to become a subject for petticoat government, yet."

"Yet things looked that way two years ago," said Doctor Shirley, maliciously, for Templeton's ardent devotion to Mrs. Egerton's lovely debutante at that time had been no secret in society.

Templeton's blonde face flushed a dark red all over, yet he laughed carelessly.

"Oh, yes, I had the fever," he said. "However, its severity then precludes the danger of ever having a second attack. How little I dreamed that she would be my aunt."

"Or your bete noire," said the doctor.

"Hardly that," said Templeton, composedly, as he knocked the ashes from the end of his cigar. "True, she has taken a slice of my fortune away, but then there's yet enough to butter my bread."

"There may not be much longer," said Doctor Shirley, meaningly.

"What do you mean?" asked Templeton, looking at him as if he had serious doubts of his sanity. "Who's going to take it away from me? Has Mrs. St. John found the will she talked of so much?"

"No," said Doctor Shirley, "but she has found something that will serve her as well."

"Confound it, doctor, I don't understand you at all," said the young fellow, a little testily. "What are you driving at, anyway?"

"Templeton, honestly, I hate to tell you," said the physician, sobering down, "but I've bad news for you. You know that Mrs. St. John has been ill lately, I suppose?"

"Yes, I heard it—thought, perhaps, she meant to shuffle off this mortal coil and leave me the balance of my uncle's property," said the young man, imperturbably.

"Nothing further from her thoughts, I assure you," was the laughing reply. "She has been quite ill, but she is well enough to come down into the drawing-room to-day. Come, now, Templeton, guess what I have to tell you?"

"'Pon honor, doctor, I haven't the faintest idea. Does it refer to my fair and respected aunt? Is it a new freak of hers?"

"Yes, decidedly a new freak," said the doctor, laughing heartily, and enjoying his joke very much.

"Well, then, out with it," said Howard, growing impatient. "Does she accuse me of stealing and secreting that fabulous missing will?"

"Not that I am aware of," and Doctor Shirley rose and threw away his half-smoked cigar, saying, carelessly: "I must be going. We poor devils of doctors never have time to smoke a whole cigar. Say, Templeton, Mrs. St. John has her mother and sister staying with her. Deuced handsome girl, that Lora Carroll! Very like her sister! And—don't go off in a fit, now, Templeton—in a very few months there will be a little heir to your deceased uncle's name and fortune!"

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Howard Templeton, springing to his feet, while his handsome face grew white and red by turns.

"You don't believe it? That's because you don't want to believe it. But I give you my word and honor as a professional man and her medical attendant, that it is a self-evident fact," and laughing at his, little joke, the gossiping old doctor hurried away from the club-room.

CHAPTER IX

"I don't believe it!" Howard Templeton repeated angrily, as he stood still where Doctor Shirley had left him, those unexpected words ringing through his brain.

"What is it you don't believe, Templeton?" inquired one of the "gilded youth," dawdling in and overhearing the remark.

"I don't believe anything—that's my creed," answered Templeton, snatching his hat, and hurrying out. He wanted to be out in the cold, fresh air. Somehow it seemed to him as if a hand grasped his throat, choking his life out.

He walked aimlessly up and down the crowded thoroughfare, seemingly blind and deaf to all that went on around him.

Men's eyes remarked the tall, well-proportioned form and handsome, blonde face with envy.

Women looked after him admiringly, thinking how splendid it would be to have such a man for a lover. Howard heeded nothing of it. He was accustomed to it. He simply took it for his due, and he had other things to engross his mind now.

"It can't be true, it can't be true," he said to himself, again and again in his restless walk. "It is the most undreamed of thing. Who could believe it?"

And yet it troubled him despite his incredulity. It troubled him so much that he went to see a lawyer about it.

He stated the case, and asked him frankly what were his chances if such a thing really should happen.

"No chance at all," was the grim reply. "If you did not resign your claim, Mrs. St. John would naturally sue you for the money on behalf of the legal heir."

"And then?" asked Howard.

"The case would certainly go against you."

Howard went out again and took another walk. He tried to fancy himself—Howard Templeton, the golden youth—face to face with the grim fiend, poverty.

He wondered how it would feel to earn his dinner before he ate it, to wear out his old coats, and have to count the cost of new ones, as he had vaguely heard that poor men had to do.

"I can't imagine it," he said to himself. "Time enough to bother my brain with such conundrums if the thing really comes to pass. And if it does, what a glorious triumph it will be for 'mine enemy!' I'd like to see her—by Jove, I believe I'll go there."

He stopped short, filled with the new idea, then hurried on, recalled to himself by a stare of surprise from a casual passer-by.

"Yes; why shouldn't I go there, by George?" he went on. "It was my home before she came there. The world doesn't know that we are 'at outs,' although we are sworn foes privately. I'll pretend to call on Lora Carroll. Lora was a pretty girl enough when I was down there that summer, young and unformed, though time has remedied that defect, doubtless. Doctor Shirley thought her handsome. Yes, I will call on little Lora. A daring thing to do, perhaps, but then I'm in the mood for daring a great deal."

The lamps were lighted and the glare of the gas flared down upon him as he thus made up his mind.

He went to his hotel, made an elaborate and elegant toilet, as if anxious to please, then sallied forth toward the brown-stone palace where his enemy reigned in triumph.

A soft and subdued light shone through the curtains of rose-colored silk and creamy lace that shaded the windows of the drawing-room. A fancy seized upon Howard to peep through them before he went up the marble steps and sent in his card.

"For who knows that they may decline to see me," he thought, "and I am determined to get one look at Xenie. I want to see if she looks very happy over her triumph."

He glanced around, saw that no one was passing, and cautiously went up to the window.

It was as much as he could do, tall as he was, to peer into the room by standing on tiptoe.

He looked into the beautiful and spacious room where he had spent many happy hours with his deceased uncle in years gone by, and a sigh to the memory of those old days breathed softly over his lips, and a dimness came into his bright blue eyes.

He brushed it away, and looked around for the beautiful woman who had come between him and the poor old man who had brought him up as his heir.

He saw two ladies in the room.

One of them was quite elderly, and had gray hair crimped beneath a pretty cap.

She wore black silk, and sat on a sofa trifling over a bit of fancy knitting.

"That is Mrs. Carroll," he said to himself. "She is a pretty old lady, though she looks so old and careworn. But she is poor, and that explains it. I dare say I shall grow gray and careworn too when Mrs. St. John takes my uncle's money from me, and I have to earn my bread before I eat it."

He saw another lady standing with her back to him by the piano.

She was petite and slender, with a crown of braided black hair, and her robe of rich, wine-colored silk and velvet trailed far behind her on the costly carpet.

She stood perfectly still for a few moments, then turned slowly around, and he saw her face.

"Why, it is Xenie herself!" he exclaimed. "Doctor Shirley lied to me, and I was fool enough to believe his silly joke. Heaven! what I have suffered through my foolish credulity! I've a mind to call Shirley out and shoot him for his atrocity!"

He remained silent a little while studying the lady's dark, beautiful, smiling face, when suddenly he saw the door unclose, and a lady, dressed in the deepest sables of mourning, entered and walked across the floor and sat down by Mrs. Carroll's side upon the sofa.

Howard Templeton started, and a hollow groan broke from his lips.

"My God!" he breathed to himself, "I was mistaken. It is Lora, of course, in that bright-hued dress. How like she is to Xenie! I ought to have remembered that my uncle's wife would be in mourning. Yes, that is Xenie by her mother's side, and Doctor Shirley told me the fatal truth!"

He walked away from the window, and made several hurried turns up and down before the house.

"Shall I go in?" he asked himself. "I know all I came for, now. Yes, I will be fool enough to go in anyhow."

He went up the steps and rang the bell, waiting nervously for the great, carved door to open.