Kitabı oku: «The Senator's Bride», sayfa 4

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lavinia"—the soft eyes looked gravely at her, the fair face keeping its chilling calm, the musical voice its polite indifference—"I did not know myself so honored by the good people of Norfolk, and really, I must say their commiseration is wasted in a bad cause, and I do not know what has given them occasion for its exercise. When I need sympathizers and 'Job's comforters,' I will seek them. At present I do not feel their need."

"Dear me! how high and mighty Mrs. Conway's companion has got to be," thought Miss Lavinia, spitefully, but she only said: "My dear, I am glad to see you bear up so well. Your strength of mind is quite remarkable. Now, had such a thing happened to me I feel sure I should have been extremely ill from shame and terror. But," with a simper, "I am such a timid, nervous girl. With your beauty and notoriety you have no doubt grown accustomed to this kind of thing, and do not mind it. But my sympathy is truly great for your little boy."

"Miss Story!"—her hostess whirled around on the music-stool, an ominous fire blazing under her long dark lashes—"I pass over your contemptible innuendoes to myself as unworthy my notice, but will you kindly inform me what you are talking about—that is if you know yourself, for I assuredly do not."

What superb anger there was in her look and tone. It was scarcely like her to be so irritable, but she was not herself this evening. The tamed leopard, when goaded too hard, sometimes turns on its keeper, and the gentlest heart has a spark of fire smoldering in its depths that may be rudely stirred into a destructive flame. Miss Lavinia recoiled timorously from the fire that blazed in those wondrous dark eyes.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Winans," she answered, smoothly. "I did not know you were so angry about it, though, of course, you feel irritated about it, as every right-minded person must feel. I think myself Mr. Conway has acted unbecomingly. You had a right to change your mind in his absence if you liked, and it was silly in him to make such ado about it all, when the best plan was to let it all blow over."

"Do you mean to insinuate that I was affianced to Mr. Conway during his absence, and threw him over for a wealthier rival, Miss Story?" demanded Grace, indignantly.

"That is what rumor assigns as the cause of the late 'unpleasantness,' to call it by a mild name," returned the persevering spinster, carefully taking down mental notes of the conversation to report to her gossips.

"Then rumor is, as usual, mistaken. Mr. Conway never has been, never can be, more than the merest acquaintance to me," answered Mrs. Winans, briefly and coldly.

"Indeed! Thank you, my dear friend, for reposing such implicit confidence in me. I am glad to know the truth of the matter, and to be able to tell people that you are not the heartless flirt they try to make you out. Mr. Conway's folly is indeed reprehensible, and he no doubt deserves all he suffers."

All he suffers! The pale listener wondered if he suffered half so much as she did. What was his selfish disappointment to the disgrace, the trouble, the sorrow he had brought on her and her innocent baby. Her heart hardened toward him as she listened.

"Let us drop the subject," she said, proudly. "Mr. Conway is hardly worth being the protracted subject of our conversation. It were better had he remained on the other side of the ocean."

"That's the truth," said Miss Lavinia, briskly. "The foolish fellow. To come all the way home to be shot down for a woman who never even cared for him, and a married woman at that."

"To be shot down did you say, Miss Story? I confess I do not understand you. Will you explain yourself? You have been talking in enigmas all this time."

Mrs. Winans rose from her seat, and taking a step forward, looked at the incorrigible old gossip, her red lips half apart, her dusk-blue orbs alight, her whole appearance indicative of eager, repressed excitement.

"Why, you seem surprised," said the spinster, maliciously. "Why Mrs. Winans, didn't you know of the almost fatal termination of the duel? Ah, that accounts for your calmness and composure. I thought you were not utterly heartless. I see it all. They have kept the papers from you."

"The duel! What duel?"

"Why, the duel between your husband and Bruce Conway, to be sure," answered Miss Lavinia, in surprise at Grace's apparent stupidity.

"Miss Story, do you mean to tell me that there has been a duel between these two—my husband and Mr. Conway?"

"Why, certainly there has. Haven't I been talking about it ever since I came in here? And is it possible that you knew nothing at all of the affair?"

"I did not." Very low and sad fell the words from her white lips, and she leaned one arm on the grand piano to steady her graceful figure. "Miss Story, my husband—he was unhurt, I trust?"

"He was not injured at all, and I hear has left the city, but that unfortunate Mr. Conway fell at the first fire, and is very seriously wounded, they say. Indeed, I believe the surgeon has small hopes of his recovery. It's very sad, very shocking. It ought to be a warning to all young men not to go falling in love with other men's wives."

CHAPTER VI.
LULU

 
"There is many a maiden more lovely by far,
With the step of a fawn and the glance of a star;
But heart there was never more tender and true
Than beats in the bosom of darling Lulu."
 

—Osgood.

Go with me, my reader, not many squares distant from that stately Winans' mansion, to an humbler home—a small brick edifice standing near to the street, and bearing over a side-door a small sign, with the name of Willard Clendenon, Attorney-at-law, inscribed thereon in very handsome gilt letters. But we have no business to transact with the gallant captain, so we will not even look into his dusty office, but pass on up the stairs, and without even knocking, enter the guest-chamber of the house.

It is a large, airy, prettily appointed chamber, but the shutters are closely akimboed, the lace curtains are drooped over the windows, and the quiet air of a sick-room pervades the apartment. On the low, white bed that occupies the center of the apartment is the recumbent figure of a man, in whose handsome features, even though his eyes are closed in a death-like sleep, we recognize Bruce Conway. He looks like marble as he lies there, his black hair flowing back from his broad, white brow, his closed eyes encircled with purplish rings, the dark mustache slightly shading his mouth, only revealing more plainly the deathly pallor and suffering of the lips.

Standing by the side of the bed, Captain Clendenon looks down at him with infinite pity and tenderness in his dark-gray orbs.

And standing by the captain's side is a little figure that looks fairy-like by contrast with his manly proportions. She clings to his arm as he stands there, and her brown head leans lightly against him, her fair girlish face wearing a look of sadness and pain as she gazes at the sufferer's sleeping face.

"Oh, Brother Willie," she whispers, "I am so sorry for him! Oh, it is so dreadful!"

And then her red lips quiver like a grieved child's, and two pearly tears start on her cheeks, and, rolling down, are lost in the ruffles on the breast of her blue morning-dress.

Captain Clendenon did not answer. He looked down at the quiet, handsome face that the surgeon thought might never wake from that death-like sleep, or if it did, it might only be to take on the deeper sleep of eternity. He had lain like that all day—it was noon now.

The duel had taken place a few days before, at a little distance out of Norfolk. The captain had done everything in his power to prevent the terrible affair, but in vain; had refused the application of Bruce that he should become his second, in the hope that he might be enabled to compromise the affair by prevailing on Bruce to offer Winans an apology for his untimely serenade.

Bruce had changed his mind about going away, and chose to feel offended at the view taken by the captain of the whole affair; so he left him out of his councils, and the duel came off without the captain's knowledge or consent. A mere accident had brought the matter to his knowledge at almost the hour appointed for it, and hurrying off to the scene of action, he had arrived only in time to see him fall at the first fire.

The appointed place was seven miles from Mrs. Conway's residence, and after the surgeon had dressed the wound and declared its serious nature, the captain took the right of an old friend to convey him to his own home in Norfolk, which was nearer, more especially as the surgeon thought the last lingering hope of recovery would be destroyed by jolting him over seven miles to his home at Ocean View.

That was how he came to be lying there in that pleasant chamber, with Captain Clendenon's pretty sister crying her brown eyes out over him.

"Poor boy! poor Bruce!" he murmured. "How the bitter consequences of his wrong-doing has followed him! And now, in all probability, he must die; yet, after all," thought this loyal heart, "it cannot be so very hard to die for her."

The noiseless entrance of his pleasant-faced mother made him look up. Taking a seat by the bed, she quietly dismissed them from the room.

"I will watch by him myself," she said, kindly, "and the fewer in the room the better, you know. Both of you go and rest yourselves."

They both withdrew with lingering steps, and eyes that seemed loth to quit that pale sleeper, but quietly obedient to their mother's wishes, and content in knowing that she would do for him all that lay in human power.

But down in the quiet little parlor the brother and sister sat down to talk it all over.

"Oh, brother! what did Mrs. Conway say when you told her?"

"Went off into strong hysterics. The maid had to put her to bed. I sent the doctor out there as I rode in town."

"How dreadful! all she had to love, poor, proud old lady; how I pity her!" and the little maiden's tears flowed afresh from her sympathizing soul.

"She may thank herself for the most of it," he answered, half bitterly. "Why did she tempt his weak mind with her wealth and pride? She knew better than any one else how wavering a will was his. Why did she continually thwart all his best impulses?"

"But, brother, he ought to have had more manliness. But it is too late to blame him now. I wonder if Mrs. Winans knows—how she feels about it? Do you know, brother Willie, I would give much to see this wonderful woman whose beauty has only been for bane. You have seen her. Is she so very beautiful? What is she like?"

"Like nothing you ever saw, little Lulu—like some fair saint, or angel."

The passion in his heart broke through his words. A faint red flushed his brown cheek, and his eyes drooped as his sister looked up with soft, astonished gaze.

"Why, brother, did you love her, too?

"That is the first time you have accused me of loving any one but yourself, little sister," he answered, lightly, parrying the question.

"Well, tell me this, brother. Did you ever go to see her at all? Did you like her—did she like you?"

"I went there sometimes—not often," his glance falling with unconscious pathos on the empty sleeve that lay between him and any aspiration toward woman's love. "I liked her very much indeed. She was very sweet and attractive, very obliging always. She liked me a little; I suppose, as a mere friend. I never presumed to ask for a deeper regard. I knew she loved Bruce. I felt, Lulu, it seemed to me then, in her dark days, every pang that struck home to that trusting and deceived young heart. I felt sorry for her, and admired her for the brave yet womanly strength that carried her through that bitter ordeal. I rejoiced with her when she married a better man than Bruce and seemed to have forgotten the past."

The tender brown eyes looked gravely at him as he spoke, reading his heart with a woman's quick intuition. She put both arms about his neck and touched her lips to the noble brow over which the brown curls fell so carelessly. The mute caress told him that she understood and sympathized in his unspoken grief. The man's heart in him could not bear it. He rose, putting her kindly and gently aside.

"Lulu, she has a noble husband; a handsome, generous fellow, a 'man among men,' but he is marred almost as much by his unreasoning jealousy as is Bruce by his unstable character. I pity her. She is worthy of confidence and all respect. It is an honor to any man to have loved her even though hopelessly."

"And Senator Winans has left her, they say, Brother Willie?"

"So rumor says," he answered, meditatively.

"Why don't you see him, brother, and talk with him, and try to make him look at things fairly? It seems a pity she should suffer so, through no fault of hers, too. My heart aches for her in her loneliness."

He did not answer. He was walking slowly up and down the floor, pausing now and then to look out of the window which overlooked the Elizabeth River and the wharves crowded with the shipping of all nationalities. His sister rose and paced the floor, also, her young heart full of sympathy for the four people whose life-paths crossed each other so strangely and sadly. She shuddered and hoped she would never love. Of the three men who each loved Grace Winans in his own fashion, she wondered which was the most unhappy; the husband who had stained his hands in human blood for his selfish passion; Bruce Conway who was dying for her, or her brother whose heart was silently breaking for her. The little maiden who was all unversed in the lore of life found herself bewildered in the maze of metaphysics into which she was drifting. She sat herself down with a sigh, and thought of the handsome face lying so deathly white up stairs, and half wishing her mother had not banished her from the room.

"Lulu!"

"Yes, Brother Willie."

He was looking at her as she looked up at him with a flitting blush on her round, dimpled face. She was wonderfully pretty, this Lulu Clendenon, with her arch brown eyes, and pink and white skin, the wavy brown hair that was gathered in a soft, loosely braided coil at the back of her small head, and her blue lawn dress, with its frillings, and flutings, and puffings, was very becoming, setting off the whiteness of her throat and wrists as no other color ever does for a pretty woman.

"Well," she said, as he did not answer her first reply.

"My little sister, I won't have you tangling your brain up with useless speculations over things that must happen as long as the world stands and men and women live, and breathe, and have their being. Don't let me see that pretty brow all puckered up again. What would mother and I do if our household fairy became dull, and dreamy, and philosophical."

"Brother Willie, am I always to be a child?"

"Always, my sweet? Why how old are you—sixteen?"

"I am nineteen, brother, and this Mrs. Winans of whom all Norfolk is raving, who is a wife and mother—she, it is said, is barely more than twenty."

"Yes, love; but the loss of parents and friends forced Grace Grey into premature womanhood and premature responsibilities; she took up the cross early, but you, dear little one–"

A low tinkle of the door-bell cut short whatever else he meant to say, and he answered the summons himself. It was a messenger from Mrs. Conway to inquire concerning her nephew. He sent back a message that he still lay sleeping quietly. For the rest of the day the house was besieged with callers and inquirers from all parts of the city, and Captain Clendenon found himself kept busy in replying.

In the midst of it all, in his deep grief and anxiety for his friend's life, in his pity and sympathy for the exiled duelist, a fair face brooded over all his thoughts, a pang for a woman's suffering struck coldly to his heart. To know that she was mourning alone, bowed to earth in her unmerited sorrow and shame, was the height and depth of bitterness to the man who loved her tenderly and purely as he did his own little sister.

And the spring day wore to its close, and the silence of the balmy spring night, with its wandering breeze of violets, its mysterious stare, fell over all things. The string of inquirers from among the friends of the wounded man thinned out, the surgeon came and went, and still Bruce Conway lay locked in that strange pallid sleep on whose waking so many hearts hung with anxiety and dread.

At ten o'clock the captain admitted John, who had come to seek fresh tidings for his mistress. His honest black face looked up in vague, awe-struck grief at the captain's mournful features.

"Oh, marse cap'en!" he pleaded, "lemme see him, if you please, sir, once more before he dies!"

"Be very quiet, then," said the captain, "and it will do no harm for you to go in."

The black boy went in with footfalls noiseless as the captain's own. Lulu and her mother were there, one on each side of the bed, watching the sleeper with anxious eyes. They looked up at the strange face of the boy as he paused and gazed at the still, white face on the pillow. His dark skin seemed to grow ashen white as he looked, his thick, ugly lip quivered convulsively, and two tears darted from his black eyes and rolled down upon his breast. He gazed long and mournfully, seeming to take in every lineament of that beloved face; then, as he turned reluctantly away, stooped carefully down, and touched his rough lips tenderly and lightly on the cold, white hand that lay outside of the coverlid.

"Twas a hand that never struck me, and was always kind to me," he murmured, mournfully, as he went out, followed by the injunction from Mrs. Clendenon to report that Mr. Conway was still in the same condition—sleeping quietly.

Lulu looked down at the hand lying so still and lifeless on the counterpane. A tear-drop that had fallen from the eyes of the poor black boy lay on it, shining purely as a pearl in the subdued light. Lulu would not wipe it away. It was a precious drop distilled from the fountain of unselfish love and sorrow; it seemed to plead mutely to the girl for the man who lay there so still and pale, unable to speak for himself.

"There must have been much good in the poor young man," she thought, impulsively, "or his servants would not have loved him like that."

By and by she stole down to her brother, who was still pacing, with muffled footfalls, the parlor floor. He turned to her, inquiringly.

"Well?" he queried.

"No change yet—not the slightest."

"Probably there will not be until midnight. I trust it will be favorable, though we have no grounds to expect it. The surgeon fears internal hemorrhage from that great bullet-wound in the side—it narrowly escaped the heart. He will be here again to-night before the crisis comes."

Once more comes a low, muffled door-bell. Lulu drops into an arm-chair, shivering, though the night is warm. Willard goes to the door.

Presently he comes back, ushering in a stranger. She rises up, thinking as a matter of course that this is the surgeon.

"My sister, Lulu, Senator Winans," said her brother's quiet tones.

Lulu nearly dropped to the floor in astonishment and terror. She was very nervous to-night—so nervous that she actually trembled when he lightly touched her hand, and she almost pushed his away, thinking, angrily, that that firm white hand had done Bruce Conway to death.

He was not so terrible to look at, though, she thought, as with woman's proverbial curiosity she furtively scanned the tall, fine figure.

He was very young to fill such a post of honor in his country—he certainly did not look thirty—and the fine white brow, crowned by curling, jet-black hair, might have worn a princely crown and honored it in the wearing. Beautiful, dusk-black eyes, gloomy now as a starless midnight, looked at her from under slender, arched, black brows. The nose was perfectly chiseled, of Grecian shape and profile; the mouth was flexible and expressive—one that might be sweet or stern at will; the slight, curling mustache did not hide it, though his firm chin was concealed by the dark beard that rippled luxuriantly over his breast.

It was a face that breathed power; whose beauty was thoroughly masculine; that was mobile always; that might be proud, or passionate, or jealous—never ignoble. Altogether he was a splendidly handsome man. Lulu could not help acknowledging this to herself—the very handsomest man she had ever seen in her life. But for all that, after she had politely offered him a chair, she retreated as far as possible from his vicinity. Why had he come there in his proud, strong manhood and beauty, and Bruce Conway lying up stairs like that? He did not take the offered seat, but merely placing one hand on the back of it, looked from her to her brother.

"I feel that this is an unwelcome intrusion, Captain Clendenon," he said, slowly, and in soft, sad tones, that thrilled the girl's heart, in spite of the anger she felt for him, "but I cannot help it, though you may not believe me when I tell you that it was so impossible for me endure the suspense and horror of to-night that I have come here to beg you for news of the man whom I have almost murdered."

Black eyes and gray ones met each other without wavering. Soul met soul, and read each other by the fine touchstone of a fellow-feeling. Even in his anger for his friend, Willard Clendenon could not withhold a merited kindly answer.

"I do believe you," he answered, quietly, "and am glad you came, though I can tell you nothing satisfactory. The patient has slept all day—still sleeps– he will awaken to life or death. We are only waiting."

"Waiting!" That word chilled the fiery, impulsive soul of Paul Winans into a dumb horror. Waiting!—for what! To see his work completed. What had he done? Taken in cold blood a human life that at this moment, in his swift remorse and self-accusation, he would have freely given his own to save; in the height of his jealous madness committed a deed from which his calmer retrospection revolted in horror. He looked from one to the other in pale, impotent despair. He had gone his length—the length of human power and passion—now God's hand held the balance.

"Then, at least, you will let me wait," he said. "If he dies, I shall surrender myself up to justice. If he lives, I shall all the sooner know that I am not a murderer."

"You shall stay, certainly, and welcome," Willard said, cordially, touched by the evident suffering of the other.

"Very well; I will sit here and wait, with thanks. I do not deserve this kindness."

Lulu stole from the room, leaving them alone together, and resumed her place up stairs. The patient slept calmly on, her mother placidly watching him. Once or twice her brother looked quietly in, and as quietly withdrew. There was something on his mind that must be spoken. He turned once and looked at his companion as he sat upright in his chair, still and pale almost as his victim lay up stairs.

"Winans," he said, slowly, "we have known each other for a long time, and I knew your wife long before you ever met her, and knew her but to reverence her as a pearl among women. Will you pardon me if I confess to an interest in her that lends me to inquire frankly if you think you are doing her justice?"

"Clendenon, I know that I am not. I know that I am unworthy of her—pure, injured angel that she is—but what can I do? I dare not remain near her. I should but make her miserable. It maddens me, in my jealous bitterness, when I remember that young, fair, and sweet as she was when I first met her, the pure page of her heart had already been inscribed with the burning legend of a first love. Her first love lost to me, her second only given to me, I cannot bear! When I can overcome this fiery passion, and if Bruce Conway lives, I will return to her—not till then."

"You are wrong, my friend—bitterly wrong. Think of what she suffers, of the scandal, the conjecture that your course will create. You should be her defender, not leave her defenseless to meet the barbed arrows of caviling society. Return to your injured wife, Winans. Take the candid advice of one who esteems you both. It is so hard on her. She suffers deeply, I feel."

"Clendenon, hush! You madden me, and cannot shake my firm resolve—would that I had never met her."

"Possibly she might have been happier," Clendenon says, with sudden scathing sarcasm, "but I will say no more. It is not my province to come between man and wife. May God have more mercy on her than you have!"

The words pierced that proud heart deeply. The erring, passionate man arose and looked at the other in his calm, truthful scorn, and burning words leaped to his lips.

"Clendenon, you don't know what you are talking of. You blame me for what I cannot overcome. Do you know where I was born? Under the burning skies of Louisiana. The hot blood of the fiery South leaps through my veins, the burning love of the Southern clime pours its flood-tide through my heart, the passionate jealousy of the far South fires my soul. I cannot help my nature. I cannot entirely control nor transform it into a colder, calmer one. Blame me if you will, think me unmanly if you will, but I have told you the truth. It shall be the study of my life to bring this madness into subjection. Till then I will not hold my wife in my arms, will not kiss her dear lips. It is for the best. I will not frighten her from me forever by showing her how like a madman I can be under the influence of my master-passion."

Slowly, slowly the hours wore on until midnight. Mrs. Clendenon fell into a light doze in the sick-room, but Lulu was still watching that still form. The shaded lamps burned dimly, the room was full of shadows, the strange silence and awe that fill a room at an hour like this brooded solemnly over all things.

Poor Lulu looked at her mother. The sweet old face, framed in its soft lace cap, was locked in such gentle repose the girl had not the heart to awaken her. It grew so lonely she wished her brother would return to the room.

Presently she bent forward and looked into Conway's face, and laid her hand tenderly on his brow; it felt warmer and more natural; he stirred slightly. Before she could move her hand his white lids unclosed, the dark eyes looked at her with the calm light of reason in their depths.

"Gracie, is it you?" he whispered, faintly.

"Not Gracie—Lulu," she answered.

"Not Gracie—Lulu?" he slowly murmured after her, and wearily closed his eyes.

"I think he will live," said a voice above her.

She looked up. Her brother and the surgeon had come in so quietly she had not heard them. She rose from her wearisome vigil and glided softly down stairs, moved by a divine impulse of pity for the pale watcher below.

"I think it is life," she said, simply.

He sprang up and looked at her, two stars dawning in the dusk eyes, a glory shining on his darkly handsome face.

"Thank God!" he cried, "I am not a murderer!"

And strangely as he had come he was gone.