Kitabı oku: «Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XXXI
"Do you think so?" asked Mr. Stuart sadly. "Yes, she was very young, but that was a poor love that could thus lightly be turned away from its object."
And again he murmured hollowly from his favorite poet:
"Well—'tis well that I should bluster!
Hadst thou less unworthy proved:
Would to God—for I had loved thee
More than ever wife was loved.
"Am I mad that I should cherish
That which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my bosom
Though my heart be at the root."
"You have had a sad experience," the lady said, gently.
"Have I not?" he said bitterly. "Ah, Mrs. Leslie, I cannot tell you what I suffered in learning my wife had cast me off. It seemed to me that I had gone mad in my grief and despair. I had a relapse of my illness and for long weeks struggled between life and death. I would sooner have died, but it was fated not to be. Slowly, wearily, I came back to life, and when I asked my father for tidings of her he told me that her parents had taken her abroad. Do I weary you, my friend, with the long recital of my sorrows?" he asked, pausing abruptly and gazing into her face with his beautiful, sad, black eyes.
"No, I am deeply interested," she replied. "I wish to hear all that there is to tell."
"There is little more to tell," he answered, sadly. "I was very proud, I loved my wife still, but I had no mind to force her obedience. I did not follow her to beg for her favor. I lent myself to my father's efforts to amuse and interest me, and tried to drown my sorrow in the mad whirl of dissipation and excess. In a few, a very few months, a formal letter came to my father from the Brookes abroad. Elaine, my willful child-wife, had died in giving birth to a little daughter. They wrote my father later on that the babe was dead, too."
He stifled the hollow groan that rose to his lips, and bowed his face on his arm. Mrs. Leslie regarded him in silent pity, but she could offer no acceptable words of sympathy to the sharp pathos of a grief like this.
"It grows late, I must hasten with my story," he exclaimed, glancing up at the sky from which all the sunset brightness was fading into "sober-suited grey." "You understand, Mrs. Leslie, that life was over and done for me then. I cared little what became of me, and my father urged me so persistently that a year later I married Lilia Lessington, the heiress he had chosen for me. I did not pretend to love her. I think she suspected something of my story, for she has always been bitterly jealous of me, and we have never been happy together."
"You should have told her your story. She could not have been jealous of the dead," Mrs. Leslie said, gently.
"The dead," he repeated in a strange voice. "Ah, my friend, is she dead? For sixteen years I never doubted it, but since that morning months ago, when I saved Irene's life, I have been haunted by terrible doubts and tears. The girl is the living, breathing image of my lost child-wife. She looks at me with Elaine's eyes, she speaks to me with Elaine's voice, she smiles at me with Elaine's face. And the face she wears around her neck is Elaine's face, only older, graver, sadder, with the brightness and archness faded from it, and the look of a martyred angel in its place."
"What do you suspect?" she asked, in a low and startled tone.
"I suspect that Elaine lives—that your mysterious protege, is her child and mine—I suspect that I have been deeply, darkly, terribly wronged—but, oh, my God, by whom?" he added, fiercely, striking his clenched hand against his high brow all beaded with drops of dew.
Mrs. Leslie stared, aghast and speechless. Had Clarence Stuart, indeed, been thus foully wronged? If so, whose soul was black with the stain of this sin?
"I have told you my story," he said. "I know you will keep it inviolate, but, Mrs. Leslie, if there is aught in the boasted keenness and wit of woman, I pray you find out this girl's secret for me. Let me know if my heart has spoken truly, when day and night it claims her for its very own, its first-born child, dearer than aught on earth beside, because she bears her mother's face."
"If woman's wit can avail, I will find out the truth for you," Mrs. Leslie answered, from the depths of her warm, womanly heart.
Then they rose and walked back to the villa in the hush of the beautiful twilight, outwardly silent, but with full hearts.
CHAPTER XXXII
As the footsteps of Mr. Stuart and his companion died away, there was a sudden rustling in the thick shrubbery that shaded the garden-seat. The branches parted and the face of Mrs. Stuart appeared. It was white with commingled fear and anger, the eyes flashed luridly, her white, jeweled hands were tightly clenched, the breath came gaspingly between her parted lips.
She sat down on the garden-seat, and gazed gloomily before her into the deepening dusk.
"He suspects all," she uttered, huskily. "My God, what if he should learn the truth? That girl—I have always instinctively hated her. Can she be his child, indeed? If so, she must be removed as soon as possible. Does Julius Revington suspect whom she is, and is he laying a plan for my dethronement? I must see him privately and learn the truth. I cannot, I will not, be ousted from my place. I have dared and risked too much to lose all now!"
She made her way rapidly back to the house by a roundabout path, and going to her room, arranged her disordered hair and dress. Then she descended to the drawing-room in search of Mr. Revington.
The lamps were lighted and most of her guests were in the room amusing themselves in various fashions. She missed Mr. Revington, but the tinkle of his inevitable guitar came to her from the balcony. She went out and found him pouring out a plaintive love-song into the unappreciative ears of Irene. At the appearance of her hostess the girl effected a precipitate escape into the house, leaving her lover to finish his ditty to the desert air.
Mrs. Stuart went up to his side and laid her hand on his arm.
"Julius, I wish to speak to you," she said, in a low, strange voice.
The strings twanged discordantly under his hand. He looked up with something like a guilty start.
"Now?" he asked.
"Of course not," impatiently, "but as soon as possible. Can we manage a private meeting?"
"I can, of course," he answered, with an emphasis on the pronoun. "The risk is yours, not mine. What can you have to say to me?"
The impatient, almost insolent tone in which he addressed her, sent the hot blood to her face.
"You take a high tone," she breathed in suppressed anger.
"Pardon me," he replied, with a fine latent sarcasm in his tone that angered her yet more.
But she kept down her seething resentment with a powerful effort of will.
"Can you come out into the grounds to-night? I have something very important to speak about. I can slip out unnoticed about eleven o'clock," she whispered.
"I will come," he replied, laconically.
She named a place for meeting, then returned to her guests in the drawing-room. Her glance, full of envenomed hate and deadly malice, fell on Irene.
The girl was standing at an open window half-hidden by the falling drapery of the lace curtains, her beautiful, sad young face turned toward the sky. She was looking wondrously lovely in her simple, white mull dress with a great cluster of purple golden-hearted pansies nestled in the filmy lace at her throat, and the veil of her golden hair half hiding the slim, graceful form. Mrs. Stuart wondered at the air of deep sadness that marked the girlish face and caused that pathetic droop of the rosy lips.
How little she dreamed that the girl she hated so jealously was thinking of one dead in the cruel sea as she stood there watching the starry constellations of Heaven sparkling through the misty veil of night. She did not dream what mournful thoughts filled the young heart nor how sadly Irene murmured over to herself some plaintive words that seemed to fit her melancholy vein:
"Ships are tossing at sea,
And ships sail in to the windy cliffs of the shore;
But the ship that is dearest to me
Will never come in with the tide—
Will ripple the bay no more,
Riding in with the tide."
All unheeded and unnoted by its object, Mrs. Stuart's angry glance dwelt on Irene. The girl was so absorbed in her own sad thoughts that the ripple of talk and laughter in the room seemed to flow past her like a dream so faint and far-away it sounded. A feeling of utter loneliness and pain, of vague longing and sharp regret possessed her. Only half conscious of outward things she leaned against the window mournfully musing.
Suddenly to her dulled senses penetrated the noise of a somewhat unusual bustle in the room, the rustle of a silken robe as its wearer hastily rose, and a sharp cry of wonder and surprise in the voice of Mrs. Leslie:
"Mr. –!" Irene lost the name in her apathy. "Can this be you, or am I dreaming?"
"I heard at Florence that you were here, Mrs. Leslie, and I could not resist the temptation of calling," said a deep, sweet, musical voice.
That voice! Every drop of blood in Irene's heart seemed to answer it! It shocked her out of her apathetic sorrow. She would have cried out in the suddenness of her surprise, but her lips were parched and dry, her tongue failed her.
Instinctively she shrank further into the shadow and turned her head toward the sound.
Her heart had not deceived her. The world had never held but one voice that could stir the secret depths of her heart.
And this was he! She had thought him dead—
"Down by the reefs and the shells
Far down by the channels that furrow the dolorous deep,
Where the torn sails rise with the swells,
And swing in the pulse of the sea.
Silently sleeping his sleep
Down in the sorrowful sea."
But there he stood—tall, large, handsome, with that easy, gracious, indolent air she recalled so well—a smile on his lips as he replied to Mrs. Leslie's eager questions and exclamations.
Then Irene, watching with startled eyes, saw and heard the hum of greetings and introductions. Even Mrs. Stuart unbent from her supercilious hauteur to do honor to the stranger. She had heard of him, and knew that he was well-born and wealthy.
"What shall I do? Will he know me?" Irene asked herself, with a great suffocating heart-beat.
She saw Mrs. Leslie coming to the window with her friend, and nerved herself for the ordeal. Her thoughts flew confusedly back over the past. How strangely they had parted, how strangely they were meeting.
Mrs. Leslie pushed back the rich lace curtain with her white, ringed hand, and showed the beautiful, silent, statue-like girl.
"Miss Berlin, allow me to present my friend, Mr. Kenmore, the dead-alive," she said, smilingly.
CHAPTER XXXIII
There was one instant of breathless silence as Mrs. Leslie's kind introductory words thus fell on the ears of the husband and wife, who until that moment had believed the other dead. Then, with a great effort of will Irene raised her pale face and dark blue eyes to meet Guy Kenmore's gaze.
He was staring at her with parted lips, with dilated eyes, and a death-white face as if he had seen a ghost, and suddenly, without words or bow, or slightest greeting, he turned away and walked to another window, leaning from it as if stifled for want of air.
Mrs. Leslie gazed after him, stupefied. She had never beheld such unparalleled rudeness.
"Irene might have been a ghost," she said to herself. "What does it mean?"
In the next instant Mr. Kenmore walked quickly back to them. He bowed his head humbly before Irene.
"Miss Berlin, I crave your pardon," he said. "Pray do not think me rude. Your face startled me as if I had seen a ghost. You are the image of one—who is dead."
He looked at her strangely as if expecting her to refute his words, but she only bowed her graceful head and drooped her deep blue eyes before his earnest gaze. Her heart was throbbing wildly with the wonder if he would claim her before all these curious, gazing eyes. It would not have surprised her if he had said:
"You are Irene Brooke, whom I married and whom I thought dead. I know not how you came back from your watery grave, but I cannot be deceived in your identity."
She stood speechless before him, expecting every moment to hear him utter those words. She wondered what she would say to him in reply. Should she own the truth—she, who had promised to give herself to Julius Revington to purchase honor and happiness for her wronged mother?
She could not answer her own question; a mist swam before her eyes, her heart beat in her ears, it seemed to her that her strength failed her, and in another moment she must fall upon the floor at his feet.
Through it all she heard his voice breaking clearly, musically upon her tumultuous thoughts.
"I am most happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Berlin," he said, in the courteous, kindly voice of a stranger, and extended his hand to her.
He had been startled out of himself, but only for a moment. Now he was the cool, polished man of the world again. He spoke to her and looked at her as a stranger.
Her heart gave a sudden throb of relief, then sank like ice in her breast. She gave him her hand, her small head crested with sudden pride, though a subtle thrill ran through her veins as his warm fingers clasped hers in a momentary pressure.
There is a subtle language in a hand-clasp. Guy Kenmore's pressure of Irene's hand said, as plain as words:
"I love you!"
Every drop of blood in Irene's heart acknowledged the confession, but her colder reason disdainfully rejected it.
"He will not acknowledge me. He is sorry to find that I am living," she said to herself, with a sudden, hot thrill of shame and anger. "Well, I shall not force myself upon him. I can be as cold and indifferent as he is."
Her strong will and her latent pride came to her aid. She knew that he regarded her as a spoiled child. A longing came over her to show him that she was a woman—a fascinating woman, too.
When Julius Revington came to her side again he was astonished at the bright, charming wiles she put forth for his benefit.
He knew that her moods were changeful as an April day. He had found a certain charm in the fact, although more clouds than sunshine had been meted out to him. But suddenly he found everything inexplicably changed.
From a lovely, willful, capricious child, Irene was transformed into a beautiful, dignified, brilliant woman. She talked with charming ease and grace. Her laugh rang out like a chime of silver bells. No one had ever seen her so gay and sparkling before, nor one-half so beautiful.
Her eyes sparkled beneath their drooping lashes with interest and animation. Her cheeks were flushed like the heart of a rose, the delicious dimples played hide and seek around her lovely lips. Her words, her looks, her gestures, were all full of grace and beauty.
Julius Revington was enthralled by the newly developed charms of his betrothed. He believed that she had softened to him at last, and that her graciousness indicated a dawning love for himself.
He was thrilled with joy at the thought, and gave free rein to the emotions of his heart. His eager adoration showed in his every glance.
Meanwhile Guy Kenmore, seated across the room by the side of Mrs. Leslie, could not keep his eyes and his thoughts from the lovely girl who had so startled him out of his self-possession. Not a movement or word escaped his notice, although he was outwardly courteous and attentive to the lady he had called to see.
But the pretty, graceful widow was gifted with keen perceptions. She did not fail to note her caller's wandering glance. She was not envious of her beautiful protege, but she could not repress a slight feeling of pique as she saw with what an effort he maintained his apparent interest in herself.
At length she tapped him lightly on his shoulder and brought his wandering glances back to meet her own.
"Forewarned is forearmed," she whispered, gaily. "Do not lose your heart to my beautiful protege, Mr. Kenmore. She is already betrothed."
He started, and a dark-red flush mounted to his temples.
"Your protege!" he exclaimed, catching eagerly at the word.
"Yes," she replied. "She belongs to me, and her story is a most romantic one. Some time I will tell it you, and you shall tell me about that dead friend of yours whom Irene resembles."
"Is her name Irene?" he inquired, and she did not fail to notice the uncontrollable start he gave.
"Yes, it is Irene—Irene Berlin. Do you not think it a pretty name?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, "I like it very much, and it gives me a new interest in the owner. The name of my lost friend was Irene."
"And if I am not mistaken my protege is the friend whom you believed lost. I have stumbled on a romance and a mystery," thought the lady, shrewdly, to herself; but aloud she only said, with apparent unsuspiciousness: "That is quite a coincidence."
Then she said no more, for to her utter surprise she saw Julius Revington leading Irene to the piano.
Irene had always declined to play and sing before to-night, so her friend was quite excusable for the almost open-mouthed surprise with which she regarded her movements.
The white figure settled itself on the piano stool, the white hands fluttered over the keys, a melancholy chord was softly struck, then–
Mrs. Leslie held her breath.
Irene was singing in a voice no one had suspected her of possessing—pure, clear, rarely tender and sweet—those sad, pathetic verses, "Remember and Forget."
A sudden silence fell on every one in the room. No one was less surprised than Mrs. Leslie. No one had dreamed how obstinately Irene had concealed her gift of a sweet, bird-like voice until now. As the clear, well-trained tones rose and fell, every one was dumb with astonishment and delight.
"When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree.
Be the green grass above me
With flowers and dewdrops wet:
And, if thou wilt, remember,
And, if thou wilt, forget.
"I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain,
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain.
And, dreaming through the twilight,
That doth not rise and set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget."
Mrs. Leslie felt a light touch on her shoulder. She looked up into the pale, agitated face of Mr. Stuart. He bent down and whispered:
"I can doubt no longer. She is too fatally like Elaine. She is, she must be, my own child. She has my lost wife's face and voice, and it is the same song she sang the night when her fatal beauty and sweetness wiled my heart from me. What must I do?"
She saw that he was deeply agitated, and fearing some impulsive action, whispered back, warningly:
"Do nothing—yet. Stranger coincidences have happened. Wait until you learn more."
With a sigh he acquiesced in her advice, and returned to his seat. But his agitation had not been unobserved by Mrs. Stuart. Her soul was on fire with anger and hatred toward the beautiful singer. She would have given anything she possessed to have heard what her husband had confided to Mrs. Leslie.
Guy Kenmore sat silent, lost in a maze of troubled thought. He had not meant to listen to Mr. Stuart's words, but in his proximity to Mrs. Leslie, the sharp, agonized whisper had penetrated to his hearing. An uncontrollable eagerness came over him to hear Mrs. Leslie's promised story of her beautiful protege.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Irene was playing a waltz now—something as gay and joyous as her song had been sweet and pensive. Guy Kenmore touched Mrs. Leslie's arm.
"Let us go on the balcony. The moonlight is so beautiful," he said.
They went, and though Irene did not turn her head she knew that they had left the room, and her heart sank unaccountably. But she went on playing with tireless fingers, and the gay, sweet music floated deliciously out on the balcony where the young man was saying in a low voice to his companion:
"I must confess to an almost feminine curiosity regarding your promised story of your beautiful protege."
"You wish to hear it now?" said the lady, smilingly.
"Yes," he admitted, frankly.
"After all there is little to tell," she replied. "I know actually nothing of her except that she is a beautiful, fascinating mystery."
"A mystery—how?" he asked.
"I will tell you," she said, "for I do not suppose it is any betrayal of confidence. If I do not tell it you will hear it from others who love her less than I do."
"No one could appreciate your confidence more than I will do," he said, eagerly.
Mrs. Leslie's heart beat quickly. She believed that Mr. Kenmore held the key to the mystery she had promised to unravel for Clarence Stuart. She determined to tell him Irene's story, in the hope of eliciting a like confidence.
"It is nearly four months now since we left Richmond for Italy," she began. "We sailed in Mr. Stuart's own yacht."
"Yes. I saw that fact duly announced in the Richmond papers," he observed.
"But, pardon me for having interrupted your story. Please go on."
"It was the tenth of June when we left Richmond—I like to be particular as to dates," said Mrs. Leslie. "Well, it was lovely weather, and we all planned to get up early the next morning and see the sun rise over the sea. We did so, and as you may be aware, it was a glorious sight; but we only got one glimpse of it, for its first beams showed us a more tragic and interesting sight."
Mr. Kenmore caught his breath, and gazed eagerly at the speaker.
"It was a loud scream for help that first attracted our attention," said Mrs. Leslie. "The sound was not very far away, and we all turned instinctively toward it. To our horror we saw on the level, sun-lighted waves a floating plank, with a human figure clinging to its frail support. Literally, there remained but one plank between her and eternity."
"Ah!" exclaimed Guy Kenmore, with a shudder.
"Mr. Stuart is one of the bravest men in the world, I think. He immediately sprang over the side of the yacht into the sea, and swam toward the floating figure. Before he reached her she lost her hold of the plank, and sank under the water. Mr. Stuart instantly dived, and brought her up in his arms."
"He saved her life. How strange," exclaimed Mr. Kenmore, as if speaking to himself.
"Do you think so?" she asked, looking at him keenly. "Why strange, Mr. Kenmore?"
"I beg your pardon. I did not express myself properly," he said, biting his lips nervously. "Well, Mrs. Leslie, do you mean to tell me that the heroine of that romantic episode was the beautiful Miss Berlin?"
"Yes, it was she," replied Mrs. Leslie.
There was a minute's dead pause. Irene was singing again. In the stillness her full, sweet voice floated out to them softly:
"Go! be sure of my love—by that treason forgiven,
Of my prayers, by the blessings they win thee from Heaven;
Of my griefs (guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)
By the silence of life more pathetic than death's!
Go, be clear of that day!"
Mrs. Leslie looked at the man's handsome face. It was grave and troubled in the moonlight.
"Is it not strange?" she said. "She would never sing for us until to-night. We did not suspect that she had such a soulful voice. But she was betrothed to Mr. Revington to-day. Perhaps the happiness of her soul finds natural vent in song."
She saw him wince as if she had touched a secret wound. He looked away from her at the lovely Italian landscape bathed in the pearly radiance of the moonlight. When he spoke again he did not look at her.
"Mrs. Leslie. I am curious to hear how your protege came to be in the water?"
"She threw herself in, Mr. Kenmore."
"No," he cried, with a shudder.
"It is true," she replied. "She says she had lost her only friend and did not wish to live."
"Who was that friend?" he asked.
"She declined to say. She declined to speak of her past. She had broken loose from all its ties, and never wished to unite them again. She shrouded herself in mystery, claiming nothing from the life she had left except the sweet, simple name of Irene."
"Yet you called her Berlin," he said.
"Yes, but it was my own maiden name which I gave her because she declared herself nameless," said Mrs. Leslie.
"You were very kind."
"Do you think so? I fell in love with the child, and adopted her as my protege. I am sure she has had a great sorrow in her life, but I am equally sure that she is pure and innocent as a little child."
He looked at her, gratefully.
"And the Stuarts?" he inquired, in a tone of veiled significance.
"Mr. Stuart was as much fascinated by Irene as I was. He wished to adopt her as Lilia's sister, but his jealous wife would not permit him to do so."
"And Revington is her lover?"
"Yes, she accepted him to-day."
"Is it a good match for her?" inquired Mr. Kenmore, dropping into a light, conventional, society tone.
"Not in a worldly way," she replied. "Mr. Revington's fortune is very small, barely sufficient for his own luxurious needs. He is of good family, however, being cousin to Clarence Stuart. I cannot say I have any admiration for the man, and I am disappointed at Irene's choice."
He made no comment on her words, but remained gazing thoughtfully at the beautiful starry arch of night. Mrs. Leslie thought that it was now her turn to receive confidence.
"Now, I have told you all I know of my interesting protege, you must tell me about your friend whom she resembled so much that she frightened you to-night," she said, blandly.
He started and looked at her, but before he could speak they were interrupted.
Mr. Revington and Irene came out upon the balcony and took seats near them. The girl looked at Mr. Kenmore with a bright, careless smile.
"We have been talking about you, Mr. Kenmore," she said. "We are exceedingly anxious to know how you escaped from the wreck in which you were reported as lost."
She spoke and looked as if he were an utter stranger. He answered with indifference equal to her own:
"I am gratified by your solicitude, Miss Berlin. I can very easily gratify your curiosity. I was rescued by one of the small boats that was lowered from the steamer that sunk us."
"Thank you for your concise explanation," she replied, gaily. "I see you are not disposed to weave any romance around it."
"It was too terribly real to be associated with the thought of romance," he replied, repressing a slight shudder.
"And yet our daily life is often more romantic than fiction," observed Mr. Revington, sentimentally.
No one dissented from the proposition. Mr. Kenmore rose and prepared to take leave.
But when he had bowed formally to Irene and her lover, and returned to the drawing-room, the hospitable host and hostess quite took him by storm.
"Return to Florence that night? They would not hear of such a thing! They could not think of losing such a pleasant addition to their party. Mr. Kenmore must promise to be their guest a week at least." The end of it all was that Mr. Kenmore gracefully accepted their cordial invitation, and promised to send to Florence for his luggage on the morrow.
Very soon afterwards the party separated for the night. Mr. Kenmore went to his room, but he was in no mood for retiring. He threw himself down into a chair at the window and lighted a cigar.
"Decidedly I have made a fine beginning," he said to himself. "I have found out more than I expected to do when I came to Mr. Stuart's villa. Perhaps I had been wise to have remained in America. I am come too late."
He was restless and ill at ease. The four walls of his room, spacious and elegant as it was, seemed to confine and stifle him. A fancy seized him to go out into the night air. It would cool his throbbing brow perhaps and he could think more clearly.
A narrow balcony ran across the front of his window, and a flight of steps led from it to the garden below. He stepped safely through his open window and went down the stairs just as all the clocks in the house simultaneously chimed eleven.
