Читать книгу: «Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily», страница 23

CHAPTER XXII

"Go and tell the stewardess to prepare a bed quickly for this young lady," said the captain, turning to the cabin-boy.

The boy disappeared in the lower regions of the vessel, returning presently with a plump, good-natured-looking woman, who had a "full blown comeliness, white and red."

"An' indade, Cap'en Dill, sorra a bit spare bed is there, saving the little cuddy-hole where Mrs. Odell's maid slept afore she died."

"Prepare that, then, Mrs. McQueen. Don't you see what a deuce of a hurry we are in?" returned Captain Dill.

"Faix, and it'll be by Mrs. Odell's leave, then," says Mrs. McQueen. "Shall I ask her? It's a bit cross and ailing she is the day."

"Ask her then, and be in a hurry," he answers. "If she refuses, the poor girl shall have my bed, and I'll bunk on deck with a blanket."

He is saved the necessity of the sacrifice, however, for Mrs. Odell, whoever she may be, yields an ungracious consent to the appropriation of the defunct maid's bed, and the still unconscious girl is removed thereto.

Long days afterward she opens her eyes consciously for the first time upon this world, after a long battle has been fought with fever, and delirium, and greedy death; opens her eyes with a passionate heart-cry on her poor, fever-parched lips:

"Vane, dear Vane!"

There is a soft swish of silk as of a lady rising from her chair, and Reine's large, hollow, dark eyes follow the sound.

She lies on a small, white bed in a "cuddy-hole" indeed, herself, but a small door is propped open, showing just beyond a very tiny, but elegant saloon, furnished royally enough for a princess, with hangings of purple velvet and gold, and softest couches and chairs, a carpet of velvet pile, picturesque rugs strewn about the floor, small paintings, each perfect gems of art, adorning the walls. Moving slowly through this luxurious saloon comes a lady, on whom Reine's feeble gaze is instantly riveted.

A form of medium hight, with narrow, stooping shoulders, and a middle-aged face with a strange beauty all its own—the beauty of brilliant eyes, waxen pallor, and hectic-flushed cheeks, that the deadly disease, consumption, bestows upon its victims. Clothed with almost barbaric splendor, with rustling silks and velvets, and sparkling jewels that seemed to flash fire in the dim saloon, she was yet one upon whom the heart ached to gaze, for by her terrible emaciation, and hollow, fever-flushed cheeks, and pain-drawn lips, she was one that cruel death had plainly marked for his own.

In wondering silence Reine's dark eyes lift to the strange woman's face as she comes to her side, diffusing a delicate odor of attar du rose as she moves. She speaks in a low, pleasantly-modulated voice, interrupted by a slight, hacking cough:

"You spoke, did you not? Is there anything you wish?"

"Yes, I want Vane," Reine answers, in a weak, childish voice, forgetful, or momentarily unconscious, of all that has passed since she was sundered from her husband's side.

An expression of pity comes into the emaciated face regarding her.

"I hope you will see Vane after a while," she replies, evasively. "Do you feel better, my dear?"

"Better?" the girl echoes, startled. "Have I been ill?"

"Yes, with fever. But you are convalescing now. Do you remember nothing of your illness?"

"Nothing," Reine answers, dreamily. "And—and your face is strange to me. Have I ever seen you before?"

"Not to your knowledge, I think," Mrs. Odell replies, with a slight smile.

A puzzled look comes into the pale, thin face lying on the pillow, with its great, hollow, black eyes. Reine is slowly gathering up the links of memory.

"Are—are we not on the Atlantic Ocean?" she inquires, after a dreamy pause.

Mrs. Odell, drawing her handkerchief across her lips after a slight spell of coughing, answers: "Yes."

Another dreamy pause. The dark eyes that have half-closed, open slowly again.

"Is this steamer the—the Hesperus?" she queries, half-doubtfully.

Mrs. Odell draws back with a slight expression of alarm on her face.

"I—I fear you are talking too much for an invalid," she says. "I will call the doctor."

Retiring into the saloon, and touching a silver call-bell, the fat stewardess appears.

"Send Doctor Franks in," Mrs. Odell commands. "His patient begins to recover consciousness."

Doctor Franks comes, eager, and on the alert, smiling a little as Reine's curious eyes seek his face.

"Another stranger," she complains, with almost childish petulance.

"Well, and what would you have?" he answers, cheerfully, as he touches her pulse. "Though strangers, we are all friends."

"I want Vane," the girl answers, with a hungry yearning in her weak voice.

"After awhile—after awhile," he answers, evasively, as the lady had done. "Are you feeling better to-day?"

"Yes, if I have been ill—have I?" Reine inquires, with some of her old sharpness of tone, for in her weak state she is easily irritated.

"Have you? Well, I should say so," he responds, smilingly. "At present you are nothing but a pair of big black eyes and a lot of hair that I should have cut off only that you were so pretty with it that I hadn't the heart."

"Do not believe him," Mrs. Odell puts in, good-naturedly. "If I had not scolded and begged, and almost gone down on my knees to him, he would have shaved your pretty head bare."

"I should not have liked that," Reine says, putting her small fingers to the thick, glossy plaits. "Vane liked my hair. He thought it pretty; he said so that very night when–" But, with the effort of recalling the long-past time, a great wave of memory suddenly breaks over Reine's heart. Her wan face grows paler, her eyes dilate wildly and fill with swift, passionate tears.

"I remember," she gasps, in a voice of pain, "oh, Heaven! I remember."

There is a moment of silence and they watch her closely. All along Dr. Franks had dreaded this moment of re-awakened memory in the girl's heart. But her agitation is not so great as he had anticipated, for though she is sobbing softly behind her hands, it is not with the bitterness of an utter despair.

"What is it you remember, Miss Langton?" he asks, touching her arm gently.

She starts and looks at him with her great, tear-filled eyes.

"Who told you my name?" she asks, curiously.

"It was marked upon your clothing," Mrs. Odell gently explains, and again Dr. Franks says, curiously:

"You were saying that you remembered–"

"The burning of the Hesperus and the loss of life, and our deadly peril, yes—yes," Reine answers, weakly. "But Vane was saved; oh, thank God for that. And now my life, too, is spared," she exclaims, with the glad tears of joy falling through her white fingers.

They regard her in sympathetic silence awhile, then Dr. Franks says, kindly:

"I am very glad your friend was saved, Miss Langton, and very happy to think that we had the pleasure of seeing you. Were you bound for America?"

"Yes—returning home from a trip to England," she answers.

"I knew you were American instantly," says Mrs. Odell. "We are also of that nationality."

"I am very glad," Reine answers, giving her a pensive smile. "Are you also bound for your native shore?"

"Not just now," the consumptive returns, with a smothered sigh. "I am in delicate health, and Doctor Franks here has recommended the climate of Italy for my health, with the additional advantage of a leisurely sea-trip in a sailing vessel. We are now making our way to Mentone, Italy."

CHAPTER XXIII

"You are bound for Mentone, Italy!" Reine repeats, with a quiver of disappointment in her low voice. "Then I am going farther away from home every hour!"

"Yes," replies Doctor Franks. "Lucky thing for you, too, in your weak and debilitated condition. Mentone is a charming climate for invalids. Will set you up in less than no time. Then, when your roses are blooming again, we'll send you home to America."

"How long since you picked me up out of the water?" she asks.

"Three weeks," he replies.

Three weeks!—she shuts her eyes ever so tightly, but the traitor tears creep through beneath the black fringe of her lashes.

Three weeks since she parted from Vane amid the horrors of that awful night. Three weeks he has believed her dead. Has he mourned her much? she wonders. Perhaps time has already dulled the sharp edge of grief.

Then graver thoughts chase these self-regrets from her mind.

A terrible doubt chills the life-blood around her heart.

After all, was Vane really saved?

She remembers that crowded little life-boat, already so full that it seemed rash and perilous to take in even one more passenger.

Has the little bark survived the dangers of the sea, or gone down with its precious freight of souls to swell the treasures of the "vasty deep?"

Truly has the poet written that: "Love is sorrow with half-grown wings."

Reine lies silent, with quivering lips and closed eyelids, thinking with grief unutterable of the beloved one's unknown fate. From first to last this passionate love of hers has brought her nothing but bitter pain and sharp humiliation.

Doctor Frank's genial voice rouses her from her bitter absorption.

"Come, come, mademoiselle, this will never do. No fretting and grieving if you please. It will only retard your recovery and return to America. Hold up your head now, and swallow this bit of refreshment our good stewardess has brought you. Then you must go to sleep."

"Do, that's a dearie," admonishes Mrs. McQueen, rather vaguely, proceeding to feed the patient with a spoon from the bowl of gruel that she has brought in, but after a sip or two Reine declares that she cannot swallow, and begs to be let alone.

To this the physician blandly consents after administering an infinitesimal dose of a dark liquid. As a result Reine goes away on a journey to the land of Nod in precisely fifteen minutes. Talking and emotion have thoroughly wearied her exhausted frame.

She sleeps soundly and dreamlessly till the light of another day shines broadly over the world.

Waking silently, and in her senses this time, the girl lies still with wide dark eyes gazing around her. The door into the tiny saloon is open as before.

She sees Mrs. Odell lying on a satin couch, wrapped in a crimson dressing-gown, and covered with a costly India shawl. Her eyes are closed, her face is ghastly in its deep pallor and emaciation.

Suddenly she starts broad awake, seized by a terrible fit of coughing that convulses her slight frame. When she withdraws the snowy handkerchief she has been holding to her lips, Reine sees that it is streaked with blood.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaims, terrified, and Mrs. Odell looks around.

"So you are awake—what a sleep you have had. What made you cry out so?" she inquires in a weak, exhausted voice.

"It was the sight of the blood," Reine stammers. "I was frightened. You are very ill, are you not?"

Mrs. Odell, who has sunk wearily into a chair by her bedside, looks down at her with a ghastly smile on her blood-stained lips.

"Oh, no," she answers, with the hopeful confidence peculiar to that flattering disease, consumption, "my lungs are a little weak, that is all my trouble. The sea air and the Italian climate will quite restore my health, I think. The American climate is too harsh for me. I shall be better at Mentone."

"You will make your home there?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers readily:

"Yes, until my health is restored. Then I shall return to my native land. There is no place like America to me. Besides, all my property is there."

"Your friends and relatives, too?" Reine asks, and Mrs. Odell answers, sighing:

"Relatives I have none. My husband and children have all gone before to the better land. My friends are few. A woman as rich as I am does not know how to trust in friendship. Only think, child, my husband has left me two millions of dollars, and I have neither kith nor kin of my own to leave it to. I am utterly alone in the world."

"As I was until I met—Vane," Reine murmurs silently to herself, while a look of sympathy flashes from her beautiful eyes upon the lonely rich woman.

"The friend I cared most for on earth," Mrs. Odell continues, sadly, "was my maid, who died just a few days before you were rescued. She was a girl of culture and refinement, rather above her position, and a friend, rather than a servant. I have missed her sadly, as much for her company as her services."

"Did she die suddenly?" Reine asks, with a sigh for the poor girl who had found a watery grave far from her native land.

"Yes, very suddenly, from an unsuspected heart disease."

After a minute's silence Mrs. Odell resumes, pensively:

"Do you know what I have been wishing, Miss Langton?"

"I cannot even guess," Reine replies, wonderingly.

"I have been wishing that you could take that poor girl's place with me. Not as my maid, of course, but as my friend and companion. I have grown to like you so much since you have been lying here ill and suffering. I have taken care of you as far as my own feeble state would allow. Do you think you could be my friend, child?"

"I am sure I could; that is, if you would not suspect me of designs on your property. I am an heiress, myself," Reine returns, with such naive, innocent pride that Mrs. Odell's pain-drawn lips part in an amused smile:

"You simple child. No one could suspect you of anything. There is no guile in that charming face," she answers kindly.

"Thank you. I shall be very glad of your friendship, and hope I may be of some account to you," Reine murmurs.

"It is settled then," Mrs. Odell says, with evident satisfaction. "You are to be my friend and my guest, the same as a daughter to me, until you leave me to return to America, which time, I hope, may be far off yet, for I shall not like to lose my little friend."

"Do not say that," Reine cries out quickly. "I should hate to grieve you, but I have two dear ones who would grieve to think that I was dead. I must let them know the truth as soon as I can."

CHAPTER XXIV

Poverty is a great persuader. Numberless times it has forced people to put their pride in their pocket.

Vane Charteris, moping along in his law-office, finds such a dearth of clients that it would seem the world is for once at peace.

Nothing happens to break up the dull monotony of his life, or put a fee into his lank pockets. True, invitations pour in upon the "handsome rising young lawyer," but these he declines on the score of his mourning.

The city wakes up to the gayety of its winter season, but the ripple of joyous life flows past him unheeded. The lethargy of a hopeless grief is upon him. At last, with something of a shock, the vulgar and prosaic question of: "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" forces itself upon his consideration.

For Vane, handsome, careless, ease-loving Vane, has suddenly and thoughtlessly come to the end of his resources.

Bills, formidable, some of them, begin to pour in. Our hero, anxiously debating the question of "ways and means of raising the wind," begins to realize that business is strangely dull, and himself placed in a dilemma.

You understand that Vane Charteris is no perfect hero, my friends, you have seen that from the first. Self has in almost every instance ruled his thoughts; he has yielded to temptation, he has shown himself daily one of those petulant, faulty, yet daring types of men whom, after all, women cannot help loving.

So in this instance, instead of loftily adhering to his stubborn rejection of Maud Langton's offer, Vane Charteris suddenly remembers, with a sensation of relief, that all this while, a long month, indeed, the offer has lain in abeyance, waiting on his pleasure. Maud, like a skillful general, having made one artful move, is now waiting to see what the enemy will do.

Vane, like the thoughtless and innocent fly that he is, walks straight into the trap she has set. He decides to call. After all he may be forced to accept the management of her property. At this critical period of his fate, he cannot afford to be proud.

Yet it is with strange reluctance he climbs the marble steps and rings the bell. A memory of the dead seems to hold him back. The perfume of a white rose he has purchased and placed in his coat in passing a little flower shop, rises strong and sweet, thrilling him with the thought of her who has been like a rose herself.

"A rosebud set with little, willful thorns."

"I am foolish," he says to himself, disobeying the impulse to turn and descend the steps. "I must go through with it, I have to live."

He rings the bell again, and when the door is opened, sends in cards for Miss Langton, and Mrs. and Miss Baird, with whom he has some slight acquaintance.

The two latter are out. Miss Langton receives him in the elegant library where she is alone among the books, basking in the ruddy glow of firelight and gaslight. As his eyes light upon her, he recalls the English laureate's Maud:

 
"Maud with her exquisite face,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace."
 

She is like a rare picture in her black velvet dress, with its picturesque trimmings of cream-white lace, and the pearls that clasp her throat and wrists. She rises with that slow and languid grace that Vane was wont to admire so much.

"At last," she says, in her well-trained, softly-toned voice. "Welcome, Vane!"

He touches the white, extended hand very lightly, and takes the chair she places.

"I was passing, and I thought I would look in upon you a few moments," he observes, with unblushing nonchalance.

"I am thankful for even that small grace," Maud answers, with her most winning smile. "I know I have been a very bad girl to you, Vane, but I think if you knew how sincere my repentance is you would not mind coming now and then to cheer my lonely hours."

Then she drops her eyes and sighs. Vane looks at the fair, calm, languid beauty in wondering silence. A little while ago this had been his idea of perfect beauty. Since then he has learned to love the slumberous fire that glows in dark eyes and the soul that dwells on scarlet lips and dusky, brunette complexions. The sweetness of the rose has won his heart, but the beauty of the lily unconsciously charms his eyes even now when he knows how false she is at heart, and only fair in outward seeming.

"I—I have no time for calling," he responds, with cool politeness. "I am always busy."

"Always?" she arches her golden brows slightly. "That is unfortunate. I suppose, then, that I may abandon the hope that I have been secretly cherishing, that you would relent and take the management of my property."

Vane regards her in apparent surprise.

"Is it possible you have found no one else?" he inquires, carelessly.

"I told you I should not try until I heard from you," she answers.

"True, I had forgotten that," he answers. "And so you have been waiting all this time. I wish you would tell me why you wish me to do this for you when there are others equally capable, and far more willing."

Of this pointed reminder Maud wisely takes no heed save a gentle, quickly suppressed sigh.

"Perhaps you would be angry if I told you my reason," she says, gently, removing her eyes a moment from the contemplation of her folded, milk-white hands to glance into his fair, grave, handsome face.

"Oh, no, I am quite curious to hear," he replies.

"I think you know that Mr. Langton allowed his lawyer a very liberal salary," she begins. "You know there is a great deal of work, really, a number of tenements here, several farms in the country–"

"I know all that," he interrupts, with a slight air of brusqueness.

"I should like," she answers, with a very becoming blush, "that you should have that salary, Vane. It would only be fair, seeing that the whole property would have been yours but for my foolish, deeply repented error.

"Thank you, you are very kind," Vane replies, with grim brevity.

"Do you think so?" she asks, simply, then with an anxious look into his unmoved face, she continues: "Will you be kinder still, Vane, and permit me to offer this salve to my accusing conscience?"

"If only I were not so busy," Vane says, with artful reluctance.

"Cannot you make the time? I should feel so much better over this unfortunate thing," she says, lifting her blue, pleading eyes to his face.

Vane pretends to meditate within himself.

"Well, yes, since you make a point of it, I will try to take the trouble off your hands," he says, after that pause. "But as for losing Mr. Langton's money, pray don't think that I consider it hard lines, your inheriting it. I think you know that it wasn't for the sake of that I was—" he cuts his speech off short there, finding himself getting unwittingly on sentimental ground.

"I know," she says, quickly; "you mean you were going to marry me because you loved me. How foolish I was to doubt it then! Oh, Vane, if only we had it all to go over again, how different all would be!"

Vane turns on the beautiful, sighing coquette a look of steady contempt.

"If you had it all to do over again you would do precisely as you did then," he replies, with quiet scorn. "Don't play the coquette with me, Maud. I am in no mood for trifling."

"Nor I," she answers. "I am in earnest, Vane. It would be different; but I will not dwell on it since it annoys you. I fully understand that I am at liberty only to regard you as my man of business, not my friend."

There is just the right touch of sad and patient humility in the musical voice, and a dewy moisture gathers on the golden lashes. Vane is inwardly mollified by her repentance, but is careful not to show it.

"My friendship can be of no value to you," he says, coldly. "You are rich, and can number your friends by the score. I will serve you faithfully in my legal capacity. That is all I can promise."

"That is all I can ask, then," she answers, resignedly, and with such sweet patience that Vane takes his leave with a vague feeling that he has been unnecessarily cruel to the fair woman who had jilted him.

"Has she really repented? Does she indeed care for me now, as her words would imply, or is she the most consummate actress upon earth?" he asks himself.

And this is the beginning of the end.

Maud, left alone in the silent, stately library, throws off the mask of meekness and patience that had set so becomingly on her beautiful face.

She walks up and down the floor impatiently, with blended triumph and vexation in her soft, blue eyes.

"I have gained one point at least," she murmured to herself. "And I will gain the rest, I swear it," clenching her jeweled hands tightly. "I love him. How strange that I should grow to care for him when once I fled from him in the hour that would have made me his own. I was mad and blind. I was deluded by my romantic fancy for Clyde. Ugh! how the remembrance of that man's face troubles and haunts me. I see it always as I did that night, upturned in the moonbeams, dead and white. If I had loved him really, the shock must have killed me. But I did not love him—at least not half so well as I love Vane Charteris now. How proud and independent he is. But I love him all the better for that. If he had not come back and brought me that paper I might have been hung, or at least imprisoned for life. I hate to think that I owe it to Reine Langton, whom I never liked. How fortunate for me that she and Uncle Langton died. I have the fortune now, and I am determined that I will yet be the adored wife of Vane Charteris."