Kitabı oku: «Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XXX

"I loved him, Mrs. Wentworth. That is all my defense. Call me weak, cowardly, wicked, if you will; but I could not put the temptation from me. Think what all my life had been—how dull, how sad, how lonely! Was it easy to put away happiness when it came to me in so fair a guise?"

The white hands were clasped imploringly, the dark eyes were lifted pleadingly as the sad words fell from Laurel's lips. Beatrix Wentworth and Clarice Wells, her judges and accusers, looked gravely upon the tortured face of the culprit—the fairest culprit that was ever arraigned for her sin.

"Do you call it happiness?" said Beatrix Wentworth. "I should not think you would know one happy hour, living on the verge of a volcano that may destroy you at any moment. I should think that your sorrow and repentance would almost kill you."

"But I do not repent!" cried Laurel desperately. "I shall never repent while I remain with St. Leon. I am too happy, in spite of my fears, for sorrow or repentance. When I am torn away from him, when I have lost his love, then I shall repent, then I shall understand the depths of my dreadful sin; but never before!"

They looked at her in wonder. They could not understand her. Surely she was mad—the glamour of passion had obscured her reason!

"And when the end comes—when he has put you from him—what will you do then, poor child!" asked Beatrix, slowly.

"Then I shall die," the beautiful girl answered, despairingly.

And again they did not know what to say to her. She had no thoughts outside of this love that she held by so slight a thread. She could see nothing beyond it but death. Beatrix could not help feeling vexed with her. She loved her own young husband with a fond, romantic love, but she could not comprehend the madness of Laurel's devotion.

"It is not so easy to die, Laurel," she said, impatiently. "You are a woman now, and you must not answer me like a child. Your sin will find you out some day, and you will perhaps be cast adrift on the world. You should have some plans formed for that time."

There was a moment's silence; then Laurel murmured, tremblingly:

"St. Leon loves me—perhaps he will forgive me."

Clarice Wells gave an audible sigh from her corner. Beatrix murmured, "Poor child!"

And the mistress and maid looked at each other in silence a moment. They did not know how to deal with this nature. Both wondered in themselves if St. Leon Le Roy would indeed forgive her falsehood. They did not think so.

Beatrix toyed nervously with the tassels of her pale-blue morning dress.

"Laurel," she said, after a moment. "Clarice and I have formed a plan for you. We do not want to betray you to your husband. We think it would be better it you confessed the truth to him yourself."

They never forgot how deathly white she grew, nor how wild and frightened the dark eyes looked. She threw out her hands as if to ward off a blow.

"Confess to St. Leon? Why, I would sooner die!" she gasped.

"But, my dear child," remonstrated Beatrix, "he would be far more likely to forgive you if you confessed to him yourself than if I betrayed you."

"You will not do that, oh, you will not do that! You could not be so cruel!" gasped Laurel, throwing herself impulsively at Beatrix's feet. "Oh, Mrs. Wentworth, I helped you to happiness! Do not rob me of mine!"

Clarice raised her gently and replaced her in her seat.

"You have not heard all my plan out, Laurel," said Beatrix. "I do not forget my debt to you. I would sooner help you than betray you. I was going on to say that if you would be brave enough to confess to St. Leon how you have wronged him, I too would confess to him. I would tell him how much I was to blame. I would beg him to forgive you because you were so innocent and ignorant, and because you loved him so. Then—if it came to the worst—if in his pride and his wrath he should put you away from him—you might come to us—to Cyril and me."

The hapless young creature did not answer a word. She stared at Beatrix mutely with wide, wild eyes like a hunted fawn's.

"Well, what do you say, Laurel?" inquired Beatrix. "Will you do as I wish you?"

"It is too terrible a risk. I do not dare," moaned Laurel, hiding her face in her hands.

Then for a time there was silence. Beatrix was hurt and chagrined that her plan had been discarded. She thought Laurel was a headstrong, willful child, rushing blindly upon her own destruction.

But she could not help pitying the girl, her fear and misery were so great. She desisted from advising her. It seemed too much like torturing some lovely, helpless creature. The hunted look in the dark eyes pained her.

"After all, is she any worse than I am?" said Beatrix to herself. "I deceived my parents. I risked everything for love's sake, and this poor child has done no more than that. I must not be angry with her. I must remember always that it was I who led her into temptation."

She went to her gently, she took the white hands from the pale, tear-stained face, and held them kindly in both of hers.

"Laurel, do not look so miserable and heart-broken," she said, gently. "You need not be afraid of me."

Laurel looked at her with a flash of hope in her humid eyes.

"Do you mean that you will not betray me?" she panted.

"I will not betray you," Beatrix answered. "I pity you too much, my poor child, and I know that the end will come soon enough. Far be it from me to hasten the evil hour."

She was glad she had spoken so kindly when she saw the lovely flush of joy that came into the sensitive face. Laurel thanked and blessed her passionately, then the dark eyes turned to Clarice.

"And will you have mercy on me, too?" she said. "I have always been afraid of you, Clarice. I have always remembered what you said. The words have haunted me."

"I meant what I said," replied the maid. "If I had seen you going to the altar with him, I should have betrayed you, and saved him. It would have been my duty."

"And now?" Laurel questioned faintly.

"It has gone too far," answered Clarice. "You are Mr. Le Roy's wedded wife. What God hath joined together, no man must put asunder."

She thanked them with such trembling passion and joy that they could have wept.

"I do not know whether I am doing right," said Beatrix. "But I am very happy, and I remember always that you helped me to my happiness, and that I thoughtlessly led you into temptation. I will keep your secret, Laurel, and may God help you when your hour of reckoning comes, as it too surely will, my poor child, sooner or later."

CHAPTER XXXI

Laurel was fortunate enough to get back to her hotel before Mr. Le Roy returned from his engagement with the friend whom he had unexpectedly encountered in London. She removed her street dress immediately, and he never suspected the momentous visit she had made that morning to Cyril Wentworth's wife. She was gay and loving, as usual, and he dreamed not what bitter tears had dimmed her eyes that morning in her fear that he would find her out in her sin.

But that night she said to him, with pretty impatience:

"When are we going to leave London, St. Leon? I am very tired of the rain and the cold."

"I thought you had not done sight-seeing yet," he said, a little surprised at her capriciousness. "There are many places of interest which you have not visited yet."

"I am tired of it all," she declared. "One wearies of the rain and the smoke and the fog. I should like to go to Italy, where the sun shines all day, and the air is balmy and warm. Will you take me, St. Leon?"

"We will go to-morrow, if you wish," he replied. "There is nothing to detain us in London."

"To-morrow it shall be!" cried Laurel.

He humored her caprice and took her to Italy. She did not breathe freely until she was out of London. She was horribly afraid of meeting the Wentworths again.

They hired a charming little villa in Southern Italy, and lived there several months, leading a beautiful, idyllic life that charmed Laurel. She called the pretty place Eden, in loving memory of her home.

Letters came often from Mrs. Le Roy, occasionally from the Gordons. Mrs. Gordon was not fond of letter-writing, and though she loved her daughter dearly, she wrote to her but seldom. These letters Laurel always posted to Beatrix Wentworth in London with her own hands. She felt sure that Beatrix would understand and be glad to receive them.

By dint of earnest application she had acquired a very fair imitation of Mrs. Wentworth's writing. But her conscience always reproached her when she answered those fond, parental letters. She always felt the burden of her guilt most deeply then. So her letters were brief and infrequent. But the Gordons thought nothing of it. Beatrix had never been a diffuse writer, and they supposed she was all absorbed in her happiness now. Laurel never expressed the least desire to return to America. Mr. Le Roy was rather amused at her persistent preference for the Old World.

One thing pleased Mr. Le Roy very much while they remained in Italy.

His wife developed a sudden taste for music. She regretted that she had never learned the piano. Masters were procured for her at her own desire, and for one who had professed not to care for music, her progress was exceedingly rapid.

When summer came they wearied of Italy, and went to Switzerland.

Ah, those happy days abroad—that long, sweet honeymoon! It was so heavenly sweet, it was no wonder that Laurel could not repent of the fraud by which she had won her splendid husband. Life was a dream of Elysium.

 
"Love took up the glass of time, and turned it in his glowing hands,
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands."
 

She was beginning to feel almost secure in her happiness, when one evening the shadow fell, as it always falls, unexpectedly, on her life.

She had come down dressed for an opera to which her husband had promised to take her, and she was looking her loveliest. Her robe of white silk and pink brocade was exquisitely becoming, and she wore great flashing diamonds on her round white throat and arms. She had never looked lovelier, but St. Leon did not notice her radiant beauty. There was a shadow on his dark, handsome face. He came and put his arms around the beautiful figure, crushing it against his breast, reckless how he rumpled her dainty laces.

"Beatrix, my darling, I have bad news," he said, hoarsely.

She started, and uttered a cry. Her lips grew livid, she seemed to shrink in the fond arms that held her.

"Do not be frightened, my love," he said. "We will hope for the best."

"What is it?" she gasped through her dry, parched lips.

"I have received a cablegram from America. My mother is very ill. We must return home immediately," he said, in a voice shaken by anxiety and emotion.

CHAPTER XXXII

He had expected that Beatrix would be startled and distressed, but he was not prepared for the burst of emotion with which she received his news.

"Home! home!" she burst out, in a voice that was like a wail of despair, then suddenly flinging her arms about his neck, she broke into tempestuous sobbing as if the very depths of her heart were stirred by throes of keenest anguish.

He was touched and startled by this display of affectionate grief for his mother. Never had he clasped her so fondly, never kissed her so tenderly as now when he believed that her heart ached and her tears flowed for the sake of the mother whom he loved.

"Beatrix, my own sweet love, do not grieve so wildly," he said, caressingly. "She is ill, but it may not be fatal. I broke the news to you too suddenly. I did not realize until this moment what a tender loving heart you have. Cheer up, darling. It may not be as bad as we fear. We will pray for her recovery."

She threw back her head and looked in his face with wild dark eyes all swimming in tears.

"Oh, St. Leon, what did the cablegram say?" she aspirated, eagerly.

"That she is very ill, dear, but that did not necessarily imply a fatal sickness," he answered, soothingly.

She caught at the words with the eagerness of desperation.

"Oh, St. Leon, why need we go home at all then?"

"Beatrix!"

He did not know himself how coldly he put her from him, how sharp and rebuking his tone sounded. He was hurt and amazed. It seemed to him that he could not have understood her aright. He looked at the beautiful form drooping before him humbly, and he saw that he had frightened her by his sudden harshness. Her lips were trembling with fear.

"Beatrix," he said, "perhaps I have not understood you aright. Did you really express a desire not to go home?"

She looked at the dark, handsome face with the touch of sternness upon it and her heart sunk within her.

"I thought—I thought"—she faltered, "that—if Mrs. Le Roy were not so very ill, we need not—perhaps—go home just yet. Oh, forgive me, St. Leon. I did not mean to be selfish. I love the Old World so well I cannot bear the thought of going back to America!"

For the first time since their happy wedding-day he looked coldly and sternly at his fair young bride. She had almost forgotten how those proud lips could curl, how that mobile face could express the lightning passions of his soul. She saw now what a dreadful mistake she had made.

"Oh, Beatrix, how I have deceived myself!" he cried. "Do you know what I thought just now when you burst into tears? I believed that all your grief was for my mother, because you loved her and were sorry for her. I never loved you so well as when I thought that you shared so wholly in my affection for my parent. And yet in the next breath you show me my mistake. Your pleasure, your comfort, ranks higher in your thoughts than my mother's welfare! Oh! child! are you, indeed, so selfish?"

The sadness and reproach in his voice tore her guilty heart like a knife. She flew to his arms—she would not be held at a distance.

"I am a wretch!" she cried, remorsefully. "Forgive me, St. Leon. I do love Mrs. Le Roy. I do grieve over her illness! It was only my abominable selfishness and thoughtlessness that made me so heartless. I have grown selfish, forgetting every one else and finding all my happiness in you. Forget it, if you can—at least, forgive it. I am ready to go home with you immediately. Nay, I am most anxious to go."

But her voice faltered, and she shed such hot tears upon his breast that they seemed to blister her cheeks. It seemed to her that she was declaring her own death-warrant.

He could do no less than forgive her. Indeed, her sorrow and repentance were so great that he felt that he had been too harsh and stern with her. He remembered that she was only a child, and she had been so pleased with her travels, it was no wonder that she had been disappointed when the end came upon her so suddenly.

"Besides, I could not in reason expect her to be as fond of my mother as I am," he said to himself, apologetically, and to ease the smart of his disappointment.

He kissed the fair young face until her tears were dried, and told her that she was forgiven for her momentary selfishness, and that next year they would come abroad again.

"To-morrow we must be upon the sea. I am very anxious to reach home," he said, little guessing that his words pierced her heart like the point of a deadly poisoned dagger.

CHAPTER XXXIII

All of the young bride's happiness began to wane from that hour. The shadow of the nearing future began to fall upon her heart. The "coming events cast their shadows before."

A subtle change came over her. Her cheek was a shade less bright, her voice had an unconscious tone of pathos, the dark eyes drooped beneath their shady lashes. Sometimes she fell into deep reveries that lasted for hours. The return voyage was not so pleasant by any means as the other had been. Laurel was going away from her peril then, she was returning to it now.

St. Leon gave all his thoughts and all his love to his fair bride. Now he divided them with her and his mother. He was very fond of his handsome, stately lady mother, and deeply distressed over her illness. He longed to fly to her on the wings of love. He chafed over their slow progress, bitterly impatient of the adverse winds and waves that hindered the gallant ship from making progress. If he had known how his wife welcomed every storm he would have been horrified. If some hidden rock had sunk the steamer, and she and St. Leon had gone to the bottom clasped

 
"In one another's arms,
And silent in a last embrace,"
 

she would have been glad, she would have thought that that was happiness compared with what lay before her.

St. Leon did not notice the slight yet subtle change in his darling, so absorbed was he in anxiety over his mother. Perhaps he thought she shared in his trouble. He knew that her devotion to him was more manifest than ever before, and he repaid it with the love of his inmost heart, but he was very grave and thoughtful. The dread that he might find his mother dead weighed heavily on his spirits.

Poor Laurel in her terror for herself did not give many thoughts to Mrs. Le Roy. The lesser evil was swallowed up in the greater. The Gordons had returned to New York in the spring. Once she returned home, a meeting with them was inevitable. And then—what! Detection, exposure, banishment, despair!

Through all her dread and terror one spark of hope burned feebly in her heart. She knew that her husband loved her with a deep, and mighty love. Perhaps through that love he would forgive her.

"I could forgive him anything," she said to herself with the divine love of woman. "Surely, surely he will forgive me!"

It was May when they reached New York. Laurel had had eight months of happiness now—almost perfect happiness. She was little more than a child still. She was only seventeen. But she had gained great benefit from her happy bridal trip. Her beauty was deepened and intensified, she had acquired polish and dignity, and there was a sweet and gracious womanliness about her that was exquisitely charming. St. Leon said to himself exultantly that he should be very proud to introduce his bonny bride to New York society next winter. She would be without a peer for loveliness.

"I am so impatient to go home to my sick mother at Eden, that I am almost selfish enough to ask you to pass through New York without stopping to see your parents," he said, when they landed.

She hastily assured him that she had no intention of stopping. Her anxiety to reach Eden was as great as his own. There would be time enough to see her parents when they were assured of Mrs. Le Roy's well being.

He did not notice how deathly pale she was, but thanking her gratefully for what appeared to him a sweet self-sacrifice, accepted it, and she said to herself with a beating heart:

"I have still a little respite. I shall see Eden once more before I am banished forever."

The home on the Hudson looked Eden-like indeed that bright, warm day when they walked, arm in arm, up to the house. The trees and shrubberies were tinted with the tender green of spring, a soft, warm air, redolent with flowers, fanned their faces. St. Leon looked pleased at being home again, but it struck him all at once that his wife looked pale and wan and miserable.

"It is plain to be seen, Beatrix, that you have no joy in your home-coming," he said, unable to conceal his disappointment. "And yet I thought—indeed you used to say—that you adored Eden."

"Indeed I do! I love every tree and flower, every tiniest blade of grass on the place. I am very happy in my home-coming," she cried, eagerly, but she had a guilty, miserable inward consciousness that he did not believe her. Her changeful tell tale face had betrayed her all too plainly.

They went into the house, and then she forgot for awhile all her own selfish terrors as St. Leon forgot his disappointment over his wife's reluctance to come home.

For the shadow of the death-angel's wing hung darkly over Eden!

Mrs. Le Roy was yet very ill with a low typhoid fever and pneumonia. Surrounded by skillful nurses and the ablest physicians, there were yet grave doubts whether she would ever recover. The disease was deeply seated, and the physicians could not conceal from the invalid's stricken son their fears of a fatal result. She had been dangerously ill three weeks now—wavering, as it were, between life and death. They would do all they could, the physicians said, but the issue lay with God.

In that dark hour Laurel was her husband's comforter. She put self aside. She forgot that a shadow deeper than death brooded darkly over her own young life. She whispered peace and hope to the troubled heart.

"I will pray for her," she said, "and I will nurse her. Perhaps love can save her even where paid attention fails. Then, too, she will be so glad to have her children home again. Happiness may have a good effect upon her. Do not despair, St. Leon, I have the greatest faith that she will be spared to us."

His heavy heart unconsciously grew lighter at the sweet, hopeful words. And one thing she said came true at least. Though they were almost afraid to break the news to Mrs. Le Roy of her son's arrival, and set about it in the most cautious manner, it undoubtedly produced a beneficial effect on her. She seemed to grow better from that hour, and her joy at seeing Laurel was as great as that she evinced in the return of St. Leon.

Laurel, as she had declared she would, became the most devoted and patient nurse at Mrs. Le Roy's bedside. Her love and her eagerness to be of use served her instead of experience. There was no step so light, no touch so cool and soft as hers, no face so eagerly welcomed by the bedside of the sufferer.

"Beatrix is my ministering angel," she confided to her son, and Laurel, hearing it, was thrilled with inward joy.

"I have won a place in her heart. When my dark hour comes, she will take my part, she will plead for me," the poor child said to herself.