Kitabı oku: «Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily», sayfa 19

CHAPTER X

"Now, Reine, I know the hotel where Vane stays when he comes to New York. If he received my telegram he will be waiting there for me. I will go and bring him to you."

They are in a small, private parlor of a hotel in New York. Reine, very dusty and anxious-looking, is walking up and down the floor, never having even removed her hat.

"I will bring him to you," Mr. Langton repeats. "Now, dear, go to your room and bathe your face and hands, and brush your hair. Do not let your husband find you so dusty and travel-stained."

"As if he cared," she says, with infinite mournfulness, yet obeying his hint all the same.

She looks with dim, pathetic eyes at the pale, grave face in the mirror.

"How these few days have changed me," she sighs. "No wonder! Yet I did not know it was in my nature to suffer such pain. If Vane cared for me he must be startled at the change. But he does not love me, and never will, alas!"

She waits, perhaps the longest half an hour she ever knew in her gay, careless life. Mr. Langton comes at last—alone!

"Whew! how confoundedly hot and dusty is New York at this season," he splutters, mopping his face with his handkerchief. "The thermometer up in the nineties, and the dust in clouds that choke and blind one. An hour of life at Langton Villa is worth a year in this noisy, abominable place. Reine, let us go home."

She stares at him with wide, dismayed dark eyes.

"Uncle, he—he is gone?" she falters.

"Gone, yes, the impertinent young puppy," he growls. "Gone without a word, utterly ignored me and my telegram. I wish to Heaven–" he pauses with a dark frown.

"What, Uncle Langton?" with pathetic wistfulness.

"That—that I'd never married you to him, the scamp!" he blurts out in a fury. "He has treated us both with the most distinct contempt. We will go home, dearie, and Vane Charteris may go to the devil!"

This from the irate old man, but Reine looks at him bravely.

"Uncle Langton, I object to your calling names," she says, distinctly. "Mr. Charteris is my husband. I insist that you shall respect that fact."

"A pretty husband," he mutters.

"No one shall blame him in my hearing," she goes on with shy, pretty dignity. "After all, it was unfair to hang an unloved wife like a millstone around his neck."

"You know all," Mr. Langton mutters, darkly, "but where the deuce you found out is beyond my ken. If I knew, I'd shoot the fellow that told you. Well, are you ready to go back to the mountains to-morrow?

"No, oh, no," she clasps her small hands in anguish. "Oh, uncle, you promised to leave me your fortune. Give me only just enough money to follow Vane across the ocean, and I'll resign all the rest!"

"What, you obstinate little vixen! You are quite determined to follow him?"

"I must, uncle. Oh, you do not know how much depends on my seeing him!"

"And you would cross the great 'herring-pond' alone? I should think you would be frightened at the thought, you, a green little country girl. Who knows where Vane may cast his lines? Perhaps among the frog-eating Frenchmen, or the garlicky Italians. Can you speak French?"

"Like a native," she responds, with an arch little moue.

"Italian?"

"Perfectly, and Spanish, too. You know I get my living by my learning," she laughs, trying hard to be her own bright, careless self.

He is plainly delighted.

"Very well, you shall go," he replies. "A steamer sails to-morrow. We will go in her."

"You," she cries, with incredulous joy. "It will be too wearisome for you. You are so old."

"Not a bit," contemptuously. "Do you think I will let you go alone?"

CHAPTER XI

The Sea Gull wings her flight blithely and rapidly across the "dark blue waves," as if she were not freighted with the heaviest heart that ever beat in breast of mortal man.

For Vane Charteris, although his passionately longed-for revenge has come to him in such strange and subtle fashion, is a most unhappy man.

Mingled with his almost fierce joy at the speedy retribution that has been dealt out to Maud, his false love, is a stinging, unconquerable remorse that pursues him like an evil spirit, although he cannot bring himself to repentance for what he has done. A shuddering horror takes possession of his soul when he thinks of the cloud of shame and disgrace, and impending peril lowering darkly over that golden head he has loved so dearly, but his passionate anger and resentment are stronger than the languid, admiring affection he had cherished for his fair, queenly-looking betrothed.

In the madness of his insulted pride it seems to Vane impossible that he should lift a finger to save the treacherous one from her terrible fate.

Arriving in the great, smoky city of London, that is hot and smoky and altogether unbearable, Vane throws himself into whatever excitement is going with an abandon and recklessness altogether unlike himself.

He is bent on losing himself and his tormenting thoughts in the deepest oblivion he can find, but in less than a week he succumbs to fatigue and mental agony, and decides that he is "fagged out." Either he must recuperate or he must die.

Life is sweet to us all; even to Vane, with his dearest hope gone from him.

He decides to run down to the sea-shore a little way, and brace his constitution with the life-giving sea-breezes.

He hears of a quiet place, frequented by invalids, authors, and poets, and such quiet people, "packs his traps" and goes down by the first train. Behold, it is a coast such as Tennyson portrays:

 
"All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave."
 

"I shall die of memory and stagnation here in less than a week," he tells himself grimly, as he paces along the yellow sands up to his balconied hotel, where a few dispirited invalids and long-haired poets eye the handsome young American with a dreamy, listless curiosity. "I shall find health and quiet here with a vengeance. I shall go mad with this eternal sea!"

And after one night with the long, low moan of the "sad sea waves" in his ears, and the ghosts of the past stalking drearily in the haunted darkness, he stoutly prepares to "fold up his tent like the Arabs, and silently steal away" to "fresh fields and pastures new." The spirit of unrest is upon him; strange mood for one who all his life-long had been indolent, languid, not to say, in Reine's plain English, lazy.

But while he chews the end of his morning segar, and restlessly meditates on the where to go next, a boy comes to him with a pretty little three-cornered note. In stupid astonishment he takes it and holds it unopened in his hand.

"I was to take back an answer, sir," the lad ventures, as a gentle reminder.

Then Vane turns it over and looks at the superscription. It is addressed to himself in a pretty, graceful hand, with a good deal of character in it.

Unfolding it, he reads, with staring eyes:

"Mr. Charteris:—Arriving at the hotel an hour ago, I learned, on inquiry, that you were at the 'Haven of Rest.' Will you come to me for ten minutes? Hastily,

"Reine Langton."

The earth seems to yawn beneath Mr. Charteris' feet. He mutters, on the uncontrollable spur of the moment, a profane expletive:

"The devil!"

"Eh, what, sir?" the lad mutters, uncomprehendingly.

The words recall Mr. Charteris to his senses, he having been momentarily shocked out of them.

"Who gave you this note, boy!" he demands, sternly.

Really, it seems to him there must be some mistake. Reine, his unloved wife, here on Albion's wave-washed shore—impossible.

But the lad replies, distinctly:

"A young lady at the Sea View Hotel, a very pretty lady, with big black eyes."

This description is too suggestive of Reine to admit of further doubt.

With a suppressed groan, Vane tears a leaf from his memorandum book, and scribbles, hastily:

"Reine:—I will be with you in fifteen minutes.

"Vane."

Totally forgetting, in his flurry, to put her name upon it, he doubles the sheet and puts it into the lad's hand with a generous silver piece.

"Now, fly back to the lady, you young scamp," he apostrophizes.

As if the reward had lent wings to his feet, the urchin runs lightly along the sandy shore, and disappears in the distance.

Vane takes a turn up and down the balcony to steady his nerves. He has had what some people are wont to call a "turn."

The authors and invalids eye him with blended curiosity and admiration. It is not often that a handsome, comely young fellow like this anchors his bark in this "Haven of Rest."

"She has followed me here," Vane is saying to himself, through his compressed lips. "Now, I call that downright bold and unwomanly. It proves to me more and more how unwise a choice was forced upon me by Mr. Langton's perverse will. Why did he let her come? And how the deuce am I to get rid of her? For I swear I won't live with her, at least not yet."

So saying, he flings on his hat and starts off at a swinging pace along the sands toward the hotel.

"I must see what she wants," he says, under his breath, and gnawing the ends of his golden-brown mustache savagely, while the habitues of the place watch him carelessly, little thinking that the handsome American is going unwillingly to the bonniest bride all England holds.

He had called her "bold and unwomanly," yet in his heart he is forced to retract the words when he finds himself in her presence, and the spell of her dark, bright beauty throws its glamor over him, against his will.

For Reine, with the pardonable vanity of "lovely woman," has hastened to make herself fair for her husband's coming.

In London, while they rested and searched for Vane, Mr. Langton has bought her a box of what he calls "fine things." Among them is a sheer, white India muslin morning robe, trimmed with a profusion of fine, rich lace. Nothing could be lovelier than Reine in this dainty robe, with deep-hearted crimson roses in her hair and at her belt.

The slight, graceful figure advances to the center of the pretty morning parlor, then pauses suddenly, while the curling, black lashes flutter and fall till they waver against the burning crimson cheeks.

"You sent for me?" he says, abruptly, noting her sudden shame and confusion with ungenerous malice.

"Yes, I—I–" she pauses, and throws up her girlish white hands as if to ward off a blow. "Oh, do not look at me so," she says, imploringly. "I know what you are thinking and saying to yourself. It is that—that I am bold, forward, unlady-like, to have followed you here, when you," a choking sob, quickly suppressed, "when you despise me so!"

It is his turn to blush now under the dazzling light of the "dark, dark eyes" she opens wide upon his face, while she makes her frantic plaint.

"It is no such thing, pray do not say so," he retorts, fibbing unblushingly, in that he feels himself, to use his own graphic inward phrase, "cornered." "Of course you had a perfect right," dejectedly, "to come after me."

"Not at all," she says, decidedly. "No right that I would presume upon thus far. Oh, Mr. Charteris," with a sudden transition from shame and self-pity to irrepressible mirth, "pray, pray, do not look so dejected and forlorn. I have not come after you, indeed; that is, not as you think. I hope to leave here for America to-morrow."

"Leading me as a captive in your train?" he inquires, not feeling half so bad at the prospect as he could have imagined ten minutes ago.

"Certainly not," she replies, in her frank, decisive way; then, a little frigidly, "pray be seated, sir, and I will unfold to you the business upon which I have followed you to England."

He bows silently, turning a little pale beneath his healthy, florid tinge.

What an ominous sound that dull, prosaic word, "business," has from her lovely, heart-shaped, crimson lips. Besides, he feels, to use his own inward thought again, "wilted." She does not want him, as he has vainly imagined, and ridiculously resented in secret. She is come on a mere matter of business. She makes him understand that thoroughly by her pretty, dignified manner that has stiffened into ice.

"I should not have come—nothing could have induced me to," she goes on, with sensitive deprecation and lowered eyelids, "only for the sake of Maud."

"Of Maud!" he starts, and his pallor grows death-like. "What has she to do with you and me, Reine?"

She looks up silently, and their glances meet and hold each other a moment; the velvety black orbs, swimming in golden light, hold a mute and stern reproach before which the proud, defiant blue ones waver and shrink, pained and ashamed.

"I do not understand," he says, sullenly, answering her look against his will.

"Oh, yes, you do, you know," she returns with airy frankness. "You remember poor Mr. Clyde wrote Maud a note, swearing he would kill himself if she didn't marry him. And Maud lost the note that day she was in the hammock-chair under the tree. You, Mr. Charteris, found it, and tucked it into your vest pocket, thinking it of no consequence. But in that you were mistaken, as you learned the day of the inquest. Oh, Mr. Charteris, will you give up that note, and pray God to pardon your wicked revenge?"

CHAPTER XII

There is a moment's perfect silence. From deathly white Vane Charteris has turned to a burning crimson, then marble-pale again. No sound is heard save the low, hoarse swell of the waves as they break on the rocky shore.

"Oh, you did not realize, surely," the girl goes on, with pained eyes, and clasped hands, "what a terrible thing you were doing when you went away silently with that note in your possession, that is worth the wealth of the world to poor Maud Langton. You were blinded by your wounded pride and insulted love, or you could not have stooped to take such an ignoble revenge for your wrongs."

He stares at her still, like one dreaming. Is the girl a witch? How does she know?

"Oh, speak!" she breaks out, impatiently. "Have you nothing to say?"

"You have taken my breath away," he answers. "Why do you bring this absurd charge against me? Who says," with a sneer, "I have that wonderful note?"

"I am your accuser," she answers, fixing upon him the full fire of her magnetic dark eyes. "I saw you, I was not very far away when Maud left you that day, I saw you pick up a note from the ground and read it, then you slipped it into your vest pocket. I am quite sure it was Maud's note. I do not believe you will deny it."

"Since you know so much, I will not," he answers, with blended amaze and defiance. "What then?"

The beautiful dusky face lights up with the lovely earnestness of hope.

"You will give it to me," she says. "I have followed you across the wide ocean to ask you for it."

"Why should I give it to you?" he asks, with distinct coldness.

She gives him a glance of blended pride and patience.

"Not for any grace you owe me, certainly," she says, with gentle calmness, "but for Maud's sake."

"Do I owe her any kindness?" he asks, sardonically.

"You owe her forgiveness, which is divine," she answers, anxiously.

"I prefer revenge. Do you remember these lines?

 
"'The sweetest thing upon this earth is love,
And next to love the sweetest thing is hate.'"
 

She rises and faces him, something of proud scorn in her free and girlish bearing.

"Yes, I remember them, but such sentiments are unworthy of you, Mr. Charteris. What! are you not the brave, noble gentleman I deemed you? Am I to blush for my—husband?"

A subtle thrill, he cannot tell whether it be of pain or pleasure, it is so intense, shoots through him as the low word falls from her lips. A passionate shame, evoked by her proud scorn, tingles through all his frame, yet he says, mockingly:

"So you own the tie that binds us? I thought not, as when I came just now and inquired for Mrs. Charteris I was told there was no such person staying in the hotel. I had to ask for Miss Langton."

"I am traveling as Miss Langton," she explains, simply, yet coloring crimson under his keen, cool gaze.

"May I ask why?" with an unconscious touch of pique in his tone.

"No, you may not ask," with a great deal of dignity in her tone; then, suddenly: "Yet I think you should know I am too sensitive to claim the name you will not accord me of your own free will."

She opens the scrawl he has sent her awhile ago, holding it open before his eyes. There is neither name nor address upon it.

"I, upon my word, I beg your pardon. It was entirely—I give you my word of honor—unintentional; a mere omission. I was so flurried, you see, and somehow I forgot. Can you forgive me?" he stammers.

"With pleasure," she returns, coolly, looking away from his shamed countenance. "But we have digressed from our subject. We were talking of Maud and the note you hold. How can you withhold it from her when you know that her very life hangs upon it?"

"Reine, do you know that I hate that woman?" he cries, with subdued fierceness.

"Then you never loved her," she replied, decisively.

"I did; but her falsity turned my love to hate," he answers, moodily.

"No," she answers.

 
"'That is not love
That alters where it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.'"
 

An utter silence which she breaks again, anxiously: "You will not refuse my prayer? Give me the note and let me go to Maud."

He turns from her sullenly and looks out of the window at the blue, sun-gilded waves breaking in snowy foam against the shell-strewn shore.

"You could not let her suffer for a crime of which she is innocent," the pleading voice goes on.

"I suffered innocently," he says, shortly enough, without turning around. "Why did she make me a mark for the finger of scorn?"

"You can live that down," she answers. "But she, her very life is at stake. Do not forget that if she suffers the full penalty of the law, for this crime of which she is not guilty, her blood will be on your hands. You will, in the sight of God, and to my knowledge, be Maud's Langton's murderer."

Though he will not turn around, she sees the strong shudder that shakes his frame.

"You will be a haunted man," she goes on, relentlessly. "By day and by night you will dream of the girl you have slain. You will remember always that the golden head you hoped to pillow on your breast is laid low in a dishonored grave."

"For God's sake, Reine, why do you torment me so?" he cries, turning fiercely round upon her.

"For Maud's sake, and your own sake, and for humanity's sake, and my own sake," she retorts, bravely. "That Maud's innocence may be vindicated, that you may be saved from the evil consequences of your wicked revenge, that the world may see how divine a thing is repentance and forgiveness, and that I," her brave voice falls to a low, pathetic cadence, "that I may not have to die of shame because I have given my heart to one so lost to honor, truth and mercy."

Vane Charteris stands like one stunned a moment.

"What a little vixen it is," he says to himself, darkly. "There is no end to her tongue."

"I know what you are saying to yourself," the girl breaks in, vivaciously; "you are wishing I would go away and leave you alone–"

"You are mistaken," he replies, thinking of a way to put her to confusion, and silence her tongue that is but a little louder than his own accusing conscience. "I was thinking of what you said just now. Is it really true that you have given me your heart?"

The warm, red color creeps up to her temples under the blue fire of his steady, curious eyes. She rallies herself with a brave little effort of will.

"Yes," she answers, with a little touch of pathos in her low voice. "It is quite true. Does it amuse you? It is only a girl's heart. You will break it and throw it from you of course. I have often heard that women's hearts were men's playthings."

He regards her in curious silence. Few women would be brave enough to make that frank admission to a cold, careless, unloving husband. Yet Reine is as proud as the most, she lacks none of the modesty of her sex.

There is a curious, restrained pride in her every look and movement now. And, strange to say, he does not feel disgusted at her pathetic admission of her love for him.

"She loves me," he repeats over and over to his heart, looking at the lissome, daintily rounded figure, and the brilliant face, bright and rich like a tropical flower, with the softness of emotion lying on it like dew. "She loves me," and there is a certain masculine vanity in the thought that he, Vane Charteris, is the lode-star of her girlish dreams.

But before he can think of anything to say, she goes back, pertinacious, to the old theme:

"But we have digressed from the original subject. Once more, Mr. Charteris, will you give me the note?"

And he answers, bluntly, almost angrily:

"No, I will not."

And for the first time since their interview, Reine shows a sign of weakness. She reels unsteadily, and throws up her white hands in the air.

"I have failed, I have failed," she cries, despairingly. "Oh, you are merciless; you are a veritable Shylock. Nothing will sate your thirst for vengeance but a pound of flesh!"

He catches the falling figure in his arms. For one moment the white, anguished face rests against his breast, then she opens her eyes and struggles from his clasp.

"Do not touch me," she says, with indignant scorn. "You are a monster!"

And his own conscience, knocking loudly at the door of his heart, echoes the words.

"Reine, Reine," he falters, hurriedly, "do not be hasty. Give me a little time. I will answer you to-morrow."

"You take back your refusal?" brightening so swiftly that you think of the sun coming out from under a cloud.

"Until to-morrow—yes," he says, feeling a sort of relief at his own words. "You can wait until then?"

"Yes, for I cannot go until to-morrow. Did I forget to tell you that Uncle Langton is with me?"

"Is he, really?"

"Yes, and I fear the trip has been too much for him, poor old dear," with loving compassion. "He feels worn and tired. He is lying down this morning. Will you go to him?"

"I shall be very glad. Does he—does he know why you came?"

"No," quietly; then, flushing: "You will not mind if he is a little cross, and—and fault finding? He is so old, you know, and then he is tired and half sick."

"I shall not mind," he answers, a little grimly, as he follows her through a small suite of rooms to Mr. Langton's own especial one.

"Mr. Charteris is here, uncle," she says, quietly ushering the visitor in, and sensitively withdrawing.