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Kitabı oku: «The Senator's Bride», sayfa 10

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Bruce Conway would make Lulu, with her loving capacity of twisting love's garlands over wanting capabilities, a very happy wife—he never could have quite filled up the illimitable depths of Grace's heart, nor crowned her life with the fullness of content.

"Will you go to see our flowers?" he asks, bending to Lulu with one of his rarely sweet smiles. "You favor my aunt so seldom in this way that I must needs do the honors in as great perfection as is possible to me—one never expects any great quota of perfection from my indolence, you know."

She smiles as she dons again the broad straw hat that, by Mrs. Conway's request, she has laid aside, and rises to go.

He rises, too—oh, how peerless in her eyes, in his suit of cool white linen, and his graceful indolence.

"I am going to rifle your flower-garden of its sweets, Mrs. Conway," she says, lightly, as she follows him out on the broad piazza, down the steps, and into that exquisite garden that lay budding and glowing in the burning August sunshine.

"Ah, life is sweet when life is young,
And life and love are both so long!"

CHAPTER XVII.
"TO BE, OR NOT TO BE."

Ah, me! what matter? The world goes round.
And bliss and bale are but outside things;
I never can lose what in him I found,
Though love be sorrow with half-grown wings;
And if love flies when we are young,
Why life is still not long—not long.

—Miss Muloch.

"It has been almost a month since I saw you," Conway says, drawing the small hand of Lulu within his arm as they saunter down a shady path where the crape myrtle boughs meet over their heads, showering pink blossoms in prodigal sweetness beneath their feet.

No answer. She is looking ahead at a little bird hopping timidly about the path, and only turns to him when he goes on pathetically:

"I have missed you so much."

"You know where I lived," she answers, dryly.

An amused smile outlines itself around the corners of his handsome mouth.

"So you think it is solely my own fault that I have missed you—have not seen you. Well, perhaps it is—yet–"

"Yet what?"

"Oh, nothing—it does not matter."

"No, I suppose not," she responds, a little scornfully. "Nothing seems to matter much to you, Mr. Conway. I believe you have found the fabled Lotos. It would suit you, and such as you,

"In the hollow Lotos land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."

"Whew! since when has my little Brownie learned to be sarcastic?" he queries, in genuine astonishment, trying to look into her face, but it is turned away from him, and she is idly stripping the thorns from the stem of a rose she has just broken. Ah! if she could only as easily eradicate the thorns that rankle in her gentle heart!

"Why don't you talk to me?" he says, pettishly.

"And have I not been talking?" turning an innocent, unconscious face toward him, a piquant smile on her lips.

"I know, but without taking any interest," he says, in an injured tone. "Don't you care to talk? Are you weary of me?"

"Weary of you!" she laughs. "Ah! that gives me a pretext to quote poetry to you," and she repeats, with a very faint tremor in her voice, the delicious lines of Mrs. Osgood:

"Weary of you! I should weary as soon
Of a fountain playing its low lute tune,
With its mellow contralto lapsing in
Like a message of love through this worldly din."

He looks down into the faintly flushed face with a light, triumphant smile she does not see. He knows as well, and better than herself, how much she means the poetry that she has repeated in that light, jesting tone.

"Thank you," he answers only. "I wish I could think you meant it."

She stoops suddenly and breaks off a half-dozen great purplish velvet pansies from a bed on the side of the patch, and puts them into his hands.

"'There's pansies—that's for thoughts,'" she says, gayly. "Think what you will."

"May I think that you love me?" he queries, audaciously, as only Bruce Conway can do.

"I have said think what you will," she answers, growing suddenly crimson. "But why are you throwing my pansies away?"

A faint flush crimsons his fair forehead, too. Their eyes look at each other as he answers:

"I—I do not like pansies; they are too sad. Sometimes when I stroll down this path with my morning cigar, Lu, they look up at me bathed in glittering dew, and—I am not romantic, child, but they always remind me of blue eyes swimming in tears."

"They always remind me of the velvet darkness of Grace Winans' eyes," she says, meditatively.

"'There's rue!'" he says, and is suddenly silent. The little, irresistible feminine shaft has struck home.

He looks down at the flickering sunshine lying in spots on the graveled path, and reflects on the acute perceptions of woman—this little woman—in particular. She sees his pain, and is sorry.

"I wonder"—stirring up a little drift of pink blossoms on the path with the tip of her small slippered foot—"I wonder if all our life-path is to be flower-strewn!"

A light flashes into his handsome dark eyes as he clasps in his the small hand lying within his arm.

"Lulu dearest," he murmurs, "if you will promise to walk hand in hand with me through life, your path shall be strewn with all the flowers love's sunshine can warm into life."

A shiver thrills her from head to foot; the blue heavens darken above her head; the warm and fragrant air that rushes down the myrtle avenue sickens her almost to fainting. Passionate bliss is always closely allied to passionate pain.

"'To be, or not to be!'" he questions softly, bending over the drooping form, though he feels very sure in his heart what the answer will be.

She is silent, leaning more heavily on his arm, her face growing white and mournful.

"Dear, am I to take silence for consent?" he persists, as though talking to a petulant child who is going to yield, he knows. "I asked you is it to be or not to be?"

"Not."

She outdoes his usual laconics in this specimen of brevity. It is fully a minute before he recovers from his astonishment enough to laugh:

"Don't jest with me, Lulu, I am in earnest."

"So am I."

For answer he lifts her face and scrutinizes it closely. The soft gaze meets his—half-happy, half-grieved—like a doubtful child's.

"You are not in earnest, Lulu. You do love me—you will be my wife?"

"I cannot."

He stops still under a tall myrtle and puts his arm around her slim, girlish waist.

"Brownie, willful, teasing little fairy that you are—you cannot, you will not deny that you love me—can you, honestly, now?"

"I have not denied it—have I?" her gaze falling before his.

"Not in so many words, perhaps; but you refuse to be my wife—if you loved me, how could you?"

"If I loved you I would still refuse."

"Brownie, why?"

"Because–"

"That is a woman's reason. Give me a better one."

"How can I, a woman, give you a better one?" she answers, evasively, tilting the brim of her hat a little further over her face. She does not want him to see the white and red flushes hotly coming and going.

"Because a better one is due me," he persists, his earnestness strengthened by her refusal. "Surely, a man, when he lays his heart, and hand, and fortune at a lady's feet, deserves a better reason for his refusal than 'because.'"

Her cheek dimples archly a moment, but she brightens as she says, almost inaudibly:

"Well, then, it is because you do not love me."

"Lulu, silly child, why should I ask you to be my wife then? I do love you—as love goes nowadays—fondly and truly."

"Ah! that is it," she cries, bitterly, "as love goes nowadays—and I do not want such love—my heart, where it loves, resigns its whole ardent being, and it will not take less in return."

"And have I offered you less?"—reproachfully this.

She nods in silence.

"Lulu, dear, unreasonable child that you are—why do you think that I do not love you? Be candid with me and let us understand one another. I will not be offended at anything you say to me."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing! If you can show just cause why and wherefore such a thing as my not loving you can be, I surely cannot be offended."

"I know you love me a little," she returns, trying hard to speak lightly and calmly, "but I also know, dear Bruce, that your heart, it may be unconsciously to yourself, still retains too much of its old feeling for one I need not name, for you to love me as I should like to be loved. Understand that I am not blaming you for this, but you know in your heart, Bruce, that were she free, and would she listen to your suit, you would not look twice at poor me."

Another home-thrust! He stands fire like a soldier, rallies, and meets her with another shot.

"This from you, Lulu! I did not think it in you to twit me with loving another man's wife!"

"I did not mean it that way," she answers, flushed and imploringly. "I meant—only meant to show you, Bruce, that I could not—oh! that I cared too much for you to be happy with you unless your love was strong and deep as mine."

"I did not think you could be so jealous and exacting, child."

"I am not jealous nor exacting. I am only true to my woman's nature," she answers, sweetly and firmly.

"Nonsense!" he answers, brusquely, "let all that pass—I do love you, Brownie, not as I loved her, I own it. But you are so sweet and lovable that it will be easy for you to fill up my heart, to the exclusion of all other past love. Try it and see, dear. Promise me that you will give yourself to me."

"I cannot."

"Is that final?"

"Final!" she gasped, as white as her dress, and leaning unwillingly against his shoulder.

"Why, Brownie, child, dearest, look up—heavens! she is fainting," cried Bruce, and taking her in his arms, he ran into a little pavilion near by, and laying her down on the low, rustic bench within, opened the gold-stoppered bottle of salts that swung by a golden chain to her belt, and applied it to her nostrils.

She struggled up to a sitting posture and drew a long breath, while tears rolled over her cheeks. Both lily white hands were uplifted to prevent another application of the pungent salts.

"Don't please," she said, "you are taking away all the breath I have left."

"You deserve some such punishment for your cruelty to me," he retorts, in a very good humor with himself and her, for he feels he has done his duty in his second love affair, and if she will not marry him, why that is her own affair, and he cheerfully swallows his chagrin, and also a spice of genuine regret as he smiles down at her.

"I am going back, if you please." She steps out of the pavilion while speaking, and he attends her. As they walk silently on he gathers a flower here and there, the rarest that blow in the garden, and putting them together they grow into a graceful bouquet before they reach the house. Then he presents it with the kindest of smiles and quite ignoring the unkind cut she has given his vanity.

She takes it, thanks him, and notes with quick eyes that no roses, no white ones at least, nor pansies are there—those flowers are sacred to memory, or, perchance, remorse.

"We may be friends at least?" he queries, trying to look into the eyes that meet his unwillingly. And "always, I hope," she answers, as they reach the piazza steps.

Mrs. Winans is at the piano singing for her hostess. A dumb agony settles down on Lulu's racked heart as the rich, sweetly trained voice floats out to them as they ascend the steps, blending its music with the deep melancholy notes of old ocean in the plaintive words of an old song that is a favorite of Mrs. Conway's:

"Oh! never name departed days,
Nor vows you whispered then,
O'er which too sad a feeling plays
To trust their tones again.
Regard their shadows round you cast
As if we ne'er had met—
And thus, unmindful of the past,
We may be happy yet."

"Let us take that for an augury, little one," he says, cheerfully; "'we may be happy yet.'"

CHAPTER XVIII.
"OTHER REFUGE HAVE I NONE."

"There's a stone—the Asbestos—that flung in the flame,
Unsullied comes forth with a color more sure—
Thus shall virtue, the victim of sorrow and shame,
Refined by the trial, forever endure."

—Osgood.

Mrs. Winans sat in her dressing-room before the mirror in the softest of easy-chairs, the daintiest of dressing-gowns, under the skillful hands of Norah, whom she had retained as her personal attendant.

It was a chilly night in November, but a soft warmth pervaded the rooms, which were heated by Latrobe stoves in the basement of the house, and the light, and fragrance, and beauty within seemed even more delightful by contrast with the cold winds that whistled sharply and sullenly without. A look of sadness was noticeable on Norah's rosy face as with gentle touches she brushed out the long curls of Grace's hair that crinkled and waved in spite of all effort to straighten it.

"Norah," Mrs. Winans had said, a moment before, "it is the fifteenth day of November—do you recollect? Little Paul—dear little baby—is two years old to-night."

"And sure did I not recollect?" answered Norah, brushing away a quick-starting tear; "but did not speak of it to you hoping it had escaped your own memory."

"As if I could forget," murmured Grace, looking down, and beginning to slip the diamond ring that blazed on her taper finger nervously off and on; "as if I could forget."

"'Tis so strange he can't be found," mused Norah, keeping time to her words with the brush that she was plying on that lovely hair, "and such a great reward offered by his father for his restoration—forty thousand dollars—why that's a fortune itself. Mrs. Winans, have you heard nothing of the matter lately?"

"Miss Clendenon received a letter from her brother yesterday—she came around to tell me this morning—in which he stated there was positively not the slightest cue yet. The supposition is that—oh, Norah, think of it!—is that my little boy is dead. Captain Clendenon is coming home by Christmas—he has been in Europe ever since February, now, and even he, hopeful as he was, has given up the search in vain!"

"And your husband, ma'am? Has he also given up the search? Is he, too, coming home?" asked Norah, cautiously.

"He has put the whole affair in the hands of skillful detectives to be kept up six months longer; then if unsuccessful to be abandoned as hopeless. Captain Clendenon has the management of his business affairs, and will take charge of this as of the others. Senator Winans himself, Norah, has gone over to Paris—to France."

"To France?" Norah echoes in surprise, "why there is a war there—the French are fighting the Dutch."

"Yes, there is a war there," comes the low reply, "my husband is by birth a Louisianian, Norah, and partly, I believe, of French extraction—his whole sympathies are with that nation. He has joined the French army and is gone to fight the Germans—ah! there goes my ring—pick it up, Norah. It has rolled away under the sofa."

Norah obeys and in silence replaces the ring on the little hand that in spite of the warmth pervading the room is cold and icy as she takes it in hers.

"You are nervous," she ventures to say, watching the still, impassive face, "will you take some valerian, wine, or something?"

"Nothing, Norah," but, all the same, Norah goes out and comes back with a silver salver holding a small Venetian goblet of ruby wine.

"Just a few drops," she urges with loving voice, and touching the glass to the pale lips.

"I think you always take your own way, Norah," her mistress answers, as she takes the goblet and drains it obediently. "Now, finish my hair, please, and you can go. It is almost eleven o'clock."

Silently Norah obeys, gathering up the shining mass in her hands, and twisting it into a burnished coil at the back of the small head where she confines it with a diminutive silver comb. Then with a wistful sigh, and pitying backward glance, she says good-night and Grace is left alone.

Alone! how cruelly alone! All her life-time now it seems to her she will be thus solitary. She leans her small head back, and stares vacantly at the face whose wondrous beauty is reflected there in the mirror, and a light scornful smile curves her lips as she thinks:

"Is this the form—
That won his praise night and morn?
She thought: my spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."

Rising suddenly she threw up the window and looked out into the night. A gust of cold wind and rain blew into her face. She faced it a moment, then, shutting down the window and dropping the crimson curtains together, passed into her sleeping apartment. But she could not rest. Her downy pillows might have been a bed of thorns. She rose, and gliding across the floor and, pausing one moment in grave irresolution, put her hand on the sliding door of the adjoining nursery, pushed it open and entered by the light that streamed from her own apartment.

All was still and silent here. Shadows lay on everything as heavy as those that clouded her life. She stood gazing mutely around her for an instant; then, with a low, smothered sob of agony, rushed forward, and pushing up the sweeping Valenciennes canopy of the rosewood crib that stood in the center of the room, buried her face in the small pillow that still held the impress of a baby's head.

Then silence fell. Some women carry beneath a calm, perhaps smiling, face, a deeper pain than was ever clothed in words or tears. The acme of human suffering crushes, paralyzes some hearts into terrible silence. It was thus with Grace. Her sorrow had sunk to the bottom of the sea of anguish, so deep that not a ripple on the surface, not a sparkling drop, leaped up to show where it fell.

Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes went by. She lifted her face at last—as white and chill as that of the dead, but lighted by

"Melancholy eyes divine,
The home of woe without a tear."

She comes to this room as to a grave. Over the grave of the child of her heart she may never kneel. She fancies it in her mind sometimes away off under foreign skies, lying in the shadow of some frowning English church, with not a flower on its low mound, unless Nature, more loving than cold humanity, has dropped it there like a jewel in the grass. She sees the sunshine lying on it in the quiet days, hears the birds—the only thing that ever sings in a graveyard—warbling matin songs and vesper hymns in the ivy that clings to the imaginary old church. There she may never kneel—here are gathered all her simple mementoes of him—

"Playthings upon the carpet,
And dainty little shoes—
With snow-white caps and dresses
That seem too fair to use."

There is the crib where she has watched his rosy slumbers; there in the corner is the little bathing-tub where she has seen the dimpled struggling limbs flashing through the diamond spray of cold water, like polished marbles; there upon the wall, smiling down at her in its infantile beauty and joy, hangs the pictured semblance of the face that her foreboding heart whispers to her is moldering into kindred dust beneath the coffin-lid. This room is to her alike a shrine and a grave.

How it rains!

In the dead, unhappy night, when the rain is on the roof, with what vivid distinctness does memory recall scenes and hopes that are past. Poor Grace hears the winds and the rain as they hold their midnight revels outside, and shudders as the thronging ghosts of memory flit by. Her brief and exquisite wedded happiness, her love for the dark-eyed husband who has wronged her so cruelly—she shudders and tries to put these thoughts away.

But she cannot. She has tried before. So long as her child was left, with "baby fingers" to "press him from the mother's breast," she had tried to put her husband away from her heart; tried to be content with his darling little prototype; tried with all the strength of her resolute young soul to crush her love for him. But there are some things that the strongest and bravest of us cannot do. Love is "beyond us all;" the battle is not always to the strong; success does not always crown the bravest efforts. It is something to know that they who fail are sometimes braver than they who succeed.

Now, when the little child that was such a darling comfort to her sad, lonely life is so rudely wrested from that yearning heart, her thoughts irresistibly center about the father of her child. She had loved her baby best—the maternal love was more deeply developed in her than the conjugal—but even then her husband had been blessed with a fervent, tender worship that is the overflow of only such deep, strong natures as hers—natures prodigal of sweetness. Latterly, when the terrible news that he had six months before joined the army of France had come to her with all its terrible possibilities, she had only begun to fathom the depths of her unsounded love for him. It amazed herself—she put it from her with angry pain, and rushed into the whirl of social life to keep herself from thinking; wore the mask of smiles above her pain, and sunned herself in the light of admiring eyes, but though fashion and pride and station bowed low to the Senator's deserted wife, acknowledging her calm supremacy still, though sympathy and curiosity—(softly be it spoken) met her with open arms, though the wine-cup circled in the gay and brilliant coterie, it held no Lethean draught for her, and weary and heart-sick she turned from it all, and sought oblivion in the seclusion of home, and the ever welcome company of cheerful Lulu Clendenon. But her heart would not be satisfied thus. Failing in its earthly love and hope, true to itself through all her mistakes and follies, the heaven-born soul yearned for more than all this to fill up its aching vacancy, for more than all this to bind round the tortured heart and keep it from breaking.

"Where shall I turn?" she asked herself, as with folded arms she paced the floor with rapid steps, keeping time to the falling rain outside that poured in swift torrents as "though the heart of heaven were breaking in tears o'er the fallen earth." Human love, human ties seemed lost to her, earth offered no refuge from her suffering. Poor, wronged, and tortured young spirit, "breathing in bondage but to bear the ills she never wrought"—where could she turn but to Him who pours the oil of comfort on wounds that in His strange providence may grow to be "blessings in disguise?"

She paused in the middle of the floor, lifting her eyes mournfully upward, half-clasping her hands, wavered an instant, then falling on her knees, lifted reverent hands and eyes, while from her lips broke the humble rhymic prayer: