Little Nobody

"Ah, Madame Van Zandt, what an aristocratic-looking young beauty is Mrs. Eliot Van Zandt! She is no doubt of one of the finest old families of Boston."

Sylvie's cruel voice answered maliciously:

"On the contrary, a little nobody that Eliot picked up somewhere on a Southern tour."

The eyes of the young husband and wife met, his indignant, hers wet with tears.

"After all, it is true, I am a little nobody," she said, faintly. "Oh, Eliot," with sudden animation, "what if we should force Madame Lorraine to tell us the truth to-night—to own frankly who and what I am?"

"You are Una Marie Van Zandt, and my wife. The past need not matter, my darling," he replied, tenderly.

But the idea had taken complete possession of Una.

"Eliot, it maddens me to hear your brother's wife always flinging that slur upon me—a little nobody! Let us force Madame Lorraine to tell the truth to-night. She is in your power, for although her conspiracy against your life failed, she is amenable to the law for the wicked attempt. Let us seek a private interview with her, Eliot. Let us threaten her, frighten her into the confession of my origin, however humble," pleaded Una, with impassioned fervor.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Mme. Lorraine wormed Una's story out of Mrs. Van Zandt with the greatest ease, Sylvie's spite making it an actual labor of love to place her sister-in-law in the worst possible light before the great actress who had deigned to express admiration for her beauty.

In a little while the wicked woman knew that which thrilled her with cruel joy—that beautiful Una, living in the same house with Eliot and bearing his name, had never been aught to him but his wife in name only.

"He never loved her, and would be glad if he had never seen her," Sylvie said, lying unblushingly in her hatred of Una.

Mme. Lorraine condoled with her in politest phrases, hiding her exultation under an appearance of calmness. She said to herself:

"His wife in name only! It is not so bad as I thought. It will be easy to part them now."

Her opportunity soon came without an effort of her own, through Una's eagerness to find out the secret of her origin.

Eliot had consented to Una's wish, and immediately after the elegant supper, which had been provided by the best caterer in Boston at Sylvie's expense, he sought an opportunity to speak to her alone.

"Will Madame Leonie permit me the pleasure of showing her through our little conservatory? We have a rare plant in bloom there—a night-blooming cereus," he said.

Madame protested she would be delighted; slipped her jeweled hand through his arm, and glided from the drawing-room by his side.

The night-blooming cereus was not a feint. It was really there, but so also was Una standing by its side, pale and agitated, yet withal so lovely, that madame said to herself, with something like contempt for her companion:

"He must be cold-hearted, indeed, to withhold love from one so beautiful."

Eliot began abruptly:

"Madame Lorraine, of course you know we recognized you immediately to-night?"

The beautiful actress bowed mockingly.

"Of course."

He continued gravely:

"Then, perhaps you can guess why I have brought you here?"

Glancing maliciously from the pale, grave face of Eliot to the agitated one of his wife, madame said, scoffingly:

"To congratulate you and your bride on your happiness, no doubt, monsieur!"

"No; nor to reproach you with your wickedness," Eliot answered, sternly, his handsome face pale and set, his splendid eyes full of scorn. "I brought you here, madame, to say that in return for my leniency in not denouncing you to the law for your attempt upon my life, I demand at your hands one simple act of justice."

"Justice!" she echoed, vaguely.

"Yes, to me," said Una, drawing nearer. "Oh, Madame Lorraine, the time is come at last when you must tell me who and what I am. You have denied to me even a name, but however poor and obscure my origin, I surely have a right to some name, and I can no longer bear Mrs. Van Zandt's sneers at the mystery that infolds me. Speak, madame, and dissipate the cloud that veils the past."

"Speak!" Eliot echoed, sternly.

Then there was a moment of terrible suspense and silence.

Madame had drawn back hurriedly from the two with an expression of alarm and trouble on her mobile white face. At last:

"Oh, you know not what you ask!" she faltered, with emotion.

Growing ashen pale, Una cried out hoarsely:

"I am ready to hear—even the worst."

Eliot came to her side and drew her cold hand gently through his arm.

"Do not look so frightened, Una, my love," he said, gently. "If madame speaks the truth, she will say you are well-born and of noble parentage."

Madame gave him a look of fierce wrath and scorn.

"Are you so sure?" she sneered. "Better let me go, then, with your fatal question unanswered, and hug that vain delusion to your breast."

Eliot answered dauntlessly:

"Most willingly, only for Una's sake. She has some natural curiosity on the subject, and I have promised her it shall be gratified."

The beautiful face of Mme. Lorraine grew positively fiendish with the evil smile that flashed across it.

"A true daughter of Eve," she said; "but your Una, as you call her, if she persists in her curiosity, may purchase her knowledge at as bitter cost as did the adventurous lady of Eden."

"I am not afraid of the truth, if you will only speak it and have done, madame," Una cried out, impatiently; and Eliot felt her tremble violently as she leaned against him.

Then both looked at the clever actress in surprise.

Her face had changed its expression, as if by magic, from hate and scorn to softness, gentleness, and poignant regret. Her splendid orbs were dim as with a mist of tears. Clasping her jeweled hands together in strong agitation, she faltered, pleadingly:

"Do not press me so hard, for—oh, how can I tell you what you ask?"

"Do you mean that there is shame, disgrace, linked with—my birth—my parentage?" Una demanded, almost wildly.

Mme. Lorraine gave her a cunning upward glance full of a sort of contemptuous pity.

"Listen to me, both of you," she said; "I have wronged you both, but Heaven knows how I repent of my evil deeds. I do not want to cause any more sorrow to either of you, as I must do if I tell Una what she asks. Therefore, let me go away, in silence, and be sure that in her case ignorance is bliss."

"I will not believe you, Madame Lorraine, if you assert that aught of shame belongs to the parentage of my wife," Eliot said, hotly, and she uttered a long, long sigh.

"Whatever it is, I have a right to some name, however humble," Una said; but Mme. Lorraine preserved a silence that was significant.

Eliot drew his arm tenderly about Una's waist, as he said:

"Dearest, you have a right to one of the proudest names in Boston. Why trouble your little head about the past?"

But Una was obstinate. Sylvie's sneers had made her bitter and determined.

She looked with dark, impatient eyes into the face of the woman who hated her with relentless hate.

"Speak, madame," she said, icily. "Do you not see that you must reveal the secret now, whatever it be, that has thrown its stigma over my life?"

"I am in your power, monsieur; you can denounce me for my attempted crime, if I refuse to answer you," madame said, looking at Eliot. "Do you still insist?"

He looked at Una; she murmured "Yes" through pale, determined lips, but she did not see the covert triumph in the eyes of her foe.

"Very well, then," said the actress, with a heavy sigh. She looked at Eliot with grave eyes. "Monsieur Van Zandt, I must make at least one condition," she exclaimed.

"Yes?" he said, inquiringly.

"It is this: you will leave me alone with your wife while I reveal to her her name and true identity. It will be best thus. The secret will then be her own, and it will be optional with her whether she should reveal it to you or not."

He bowed affirmatively.

"I have no objection to your plan, madame, and small curiosity over your secret. Whatever you may reveal to Una, it will in nowise lessen my regard for my wife."

He went out and left them together.

Mme. Lorraine turned her vindictive eyes upon Una hissing fiercely:

"Do you not know that you are very foolish in this matter? Would I have treated you as I did for fifteen years, if you had not been—"

"What?" asked Una, impatiently, as she paused significantly, and regarded her with angry, scornful eyes.

Bending forward until her writhing lips almost touched the small, pink ear of the girl, Mme. Lorraine finished her broken sentence in a hissing voice like that of a serpent.

It was as if Mme. Lorraine had struck the girl upon the face. She reeled backward with a low, gasping, terrified cry, and sunk to the floor.

Eliot waited almost an hour in the drawing-room for madame to return, and Mrs. Van Zandt grew angry and impatient at the detention of her guest by that Little Nobody. Eliot made all the excuses he could. They were talking about the flowers; Mme. Leonie loved them so dearly, etc. At last he went in search of the two.

Madame was just emerging from the conservatory with a smile of triumph on her handsome face.

As he would have passed her, she detained him with a hand laid heavily on his arm.

"Do not go to her yet. She desired me to keep you away from her a little while until she can collect her thoughts and decide whether it is best to share her terrible secret with you or not."

"But surely she needs me now," he said, quailing at the words. "Her terrible secret!"

"She prefers to be alone, she said," madame returned, so positively that he decided, against his sense of duty, to humor Una's whim. He guessed it was not a pleasant revelation madame had made among the warm, sweet odors of the dim conservatory.

The actress returned to the drawing-room, made her adieus, and departed. Then the rest of the party broke up, and the family retired to their several apartments. Eliot went to the conservatory for Una.

"I can not leave her alone any longer in her trouble, poor child!" he thought, with a heart full of tenderness.

To his surprise, the flowery retreat was quite deserted.

"She has stepped out unperceived in the confusion of the leave-takings, and gone to her room," he decided, and a yearning impulse led him to seek her there.

He knocked at first softly on the door, and receiving no reply, entered quietly, feeling that she needed him in the distress she was enduring over madame's revelation.

But the room, like the conservatory, was deserted.

Over the dressing-table the gas was burning brightly. Eliot's eyes quickly detected an envelope lying just beneath the light that bore in large characters his own name.

CHAPTER XXXIX

He stood staring with frightened eyes at the white envelope, with its large black letters formed in Una's crude handwriting, dreading to touch it, for a swift instinct told him the truth.

She had left him, he felt quite sure—left him almost in the very hour when the discovery of their mutual love for each other had paved the way to their wedded happiness. Mme. Lorraine, like the serpent crawling into Eden, had brought woe and pain where love and joy had reigned.

All this flashed over him instinctively as he took the letter in his hand and tore it open, devouring in fierce haste the brief, sad note Una had written such a little while ago that the ink was scarcely dry upon the page.

"This is my farewell to you, Eliot," it said. "I have learned the secret of my identity. Forgive me that I shrink from revealing it to you. I can only say that it comes between us, and divides us as effectually as the grave itself. I have left you forever. Do not seek to trace me, for nothing can ever induce me to live with you again. Give up the thought of me and obtain a divorce (it will be easy, for, thank Heaven, I have never been your wife, save in name only), then you can marry Ida Hayes, whom you loved before you ever saw me. God bless you for all your goodness to me. If you had known who I was that time in New Orleans, you need not have sacrificed yourself for my sake. God bless my—yes, I will presume to call them sisters this once—Maud and Edith! I have left them the jewels they wore to-night in memory of Una, to whom they were so kind. Forget me, Eliot, as soon as you can, for I am all unworthy of your name and your love.

"Little Nobody."

She had deliberately signed the name she hated so much, and he knew that her humility must have been great to drive her to such an act. With a groan he sunk into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

"How could she, with her beauty and innocence, her high-bred air and noble soul, be lowly, even shamefully born, as this letter would have me believe?" he exclaimed. "No, no; it is only another of that wicked woman's falsehoods. She has taken Una with her, out of hatred for my darling and envy of our happiness. There can be nothing strong enough to come between us, my little love and I. Oh, why did I leave them alone together? I might have known that serpent's wiles. But I will follow and bring them back! Fortunately it is not too late."

But he was mistaken, for when he reached madame's hotel, half an hour later, he was told that she had left Boston by the 1:30 train.

"Just thirty minutes too late!" he muttered, wildly, and the sleepy night-clerk of the hotel looked at him in contemptuous amazement. He thought he must be some demented admirer of Mme. Leonie.

Eliot knew that madame's next engagement was in Philadelphia, and he determined that he would follow by the next train.

"Will she have the temerity to take Una with her, or will she try to hide her from me? The latter, most likely," he thought, sadly, and a presentiment grew upon him that his lovely girl-wife was lost to him forever.

But he followed the actress by the next train to Philadelphia, only to learn that she had never arrived there. At a heavy cost, she had made her manager cancel her engagement, and neither herself nor the manager could be found there, nor a clew obtained to their whereabouts.

Just as suddenly as she had returned to the stage, she disappeared from it, and the mystery of her disappearance was the topic of newspaper paragraphs for some days.

Only one of the journalistic fraternity had any idea of the cause of her flight, and he was too proud and bitter to give it to the world.

To his own family, under strict bonds of secrecy, he confided the truth, and Maud and Edith were indignant at the thought that wicked Mme. Lorraine had dared come beneath their roof, and loud in their protestations of disbelief in the story that there was a stain on Una's birth.

But Bryant, Sylvie, and Ida preserved a significant silence that told more plainly than words their belief that all had happened for the best. They hoped secretly that Eliot would get a divorce, as Una had told him to do.

CHAPTER XL

After the space of five years, let us look in again upon the Van Zandts.

Eliot Van Zandt has a guest.

Pierre Carmontelle!

For five years the noble Louisianian has been a wanderer in foreign lands. He has returned at last cured of his passion for the girl he had loved, strong enough now to witness her happiness with another.

Not since the day when he bid farewell to Eliot and his bride has he heard aught of their fate until now, when, strong in the consciousness of his conquered love, he goes to Boston, determined to visit the happy pair before his return South.

"I shall see Van Zandt grown portly and important, the Little Nobody of old matronly and magnificent," he said to himself, with a smile.

Fancy the shock of the reality when he found Eliot a grave, sad man, old beyond his years through the influence of sorrow for the young wife lost so strangely out of his life.

It was several minutes after Eliot had told him his story before he could utter a word, so greatly was he affected by what had been told him. Then he called down the vengeance of Heaven on the head of the wicked woman.

Eliot's grave, sad face, with its lines of suffering, told plainer than words all that he had endured.

"Surely you pursued them?" cried Carmontelle.

"As long as my means lasted—yes," said Van Zandt. "But that was such a little while. You know I had so little beyond my salary, and—there were my two sisters."

"You should have written to me."

"I did—your letter was returned to me—you had sailed for Europe."

"And not a clew in all these years?"

"None."

"I need not ask if you have taken Una's advice and procured a divorce?" Carmontelle said, with quiet comprehension of the other's pale, grave face that flushed slightly, as he answered:

"I am bound to Una while I live, although I have given up all hope of ever seeing her again."

Carmontelle's steady eyes went over the worn sheet of paper on which Una had traced her pathetic farewell to her husband.

"And Miss Hayes, whom she says here you loved before your marriage?" he said, abruptly.

"I can not tell how she fell into such an error. Miss Hayes is my brother's sister-in-law. She visited here often, but we were never more than friends," Eliot answered, quietly, all unsuspicious of Sylvie's treachery.

Then the ladies of the house came in, and the conversation drifted to other subjects.

Sylvie was the same exquisitely dressed doll; but five years had changed Maud and Edith from pretty, vivacious girls to quiet, dignified young ladies. In Maud there was a greater change than in Edith, and the secret lay in the failure of her beloved novel.

Three years ago the cherished book had been given to the world, and the cruel critics had ridiculed the immature work of the girl, saying that the wild flights of fancy, so fresh, so buoyant, could have emanated from none but a young, inexperienced brain knowing nothing of the hard, cruel world.

Pretty, tender Maud did not have the spirit of a Byron to retort on her critics and write, despite their sneers, so she laid down her pen, as she said, forever, and nearly broke her heart in bitter humiliation over her cruel failure. So there lay the secret of the beauty so ethereally frail that one fancied, in looking at her, that the spirit would soon plume its wings for another world.

Edith was made of different metal. When the picture on which she had spent so much time was voted as great a failure as Maud's book, she shed a few bitter tears, brushed them away, and began again.

On her easel had stood, for some time, an unfinished portrait of Una. Turning to this now, she made a fancy picture of it, and boldly called it Una.

Upon this portrait rested Edith's fame. When exhibited, it created a great sensation. She had many offers for it, but she rejected all to present the portrait to her brother. He was deeply moved, and declared that the gift of a fortune would not have pleased him so much.

So Edith's fame was established. A few copies of the beautiful "Una" found ready sale. Then there came in orders for portraits. She had her own beautiful studio now, and made money enough to buy her own dresses, and Maud's, too; so Eliot was free now, but he had never begrudged the manly aid he lent to his sisters. Even now he spent very little for himself, but went on laying up his small savings carefully for Una, if she should ever come back.

Pierre Carmontelle, who had traveled five years to get cured of an attack of the grande passion, fell straight into Cupid's net again when he encountered Maud's pensive beauty. She, on her part, was attracted to this noble man of forty-odd years as she had never been to younger ones who had bowed at her shrine.

Never did anything come about more suddenly; for the Southerner, who had expected to remain in Boston only a day, stayed a month, and at the expiration of that time Maud was his promised wife.

Of course they had talked to each other about Una, and when Maud wanted to defer the bridal-day six months, Carmontelle said, artfully:

"Do not make it so long as that, my darling, because you and I want to go in search of Una just as soon as we are married, do we not?"

"Yes," she answered eagerly; and thereupon agreed to get ready to be married in two months.

Sylvie said that it was all hurried up in the worst of taste. She had not believed Maud would be so ready to snap up a rich man; but—ah! well, your romantic, novel-writing folks had an eye to the main chance, like everybody else.

Edith answered daringly:

"Why not say at once, Sylvie, that you're envious because Maud is going to be as rich as you are? Goodness knows, I'm glad one of the Van Zandts will be rich at last, so that you will not be able always to fling our poverty in our faces!"

CHAPTER XLI

Maud declared that the trousseau must be a very simple and quiet one, since almost everything must come from the pockets of Eliot and Edith.

But the brother and sister overruled her objections.

"As if we had any other use for our savings!" cried Edith. "We are going to spend every penny. Do you think we are going to let our sister go to her rich husband plain and shabby?"

So the order was given for several very handsome dresses, among them an ivory white satin, veiled in lace, for the bridal-dress.

But before the bills came in from milliners and modistes the young authoress was able to pay them out of her own purse.

And it came about in this wise.

About four weeks after her engagement to the rich Southerner she received a visit from her Boston publisher.

He put into her hand a check for several hundred dollars, the receipts from her novel which until now had not paid for the first costs of its publication.

"I congratulate you, Miss Van Zandt," he said. "Your novel is suddenly becoming popular. The book-sellers report numerous calls for it, and in consequence I have large orders."

Maud's lip quivered, and her blue-gray eyes, so like Eliot's, dimmed with happy tears.

"At last!" she exclaimed, joyously. "Oh, I had ceased to hope or expect anything!"

"I have taken pains to inquire into the cause of your success after the unfriendliness of the critics had so long injured its sale," he said; "and I have found out that the real merits of your novel have at last been discovered and revealed by a friendly critic."

"I thought they were all my mortal foes!" she exclaimed.

He smiled, and answered:

"Not this one, at least, for he or she has been very frank, as well as very just. While the defects of your book are plainly acknowledged, its many beauties and merits are enthusiastically dwelt upon, and the fact of the author's tender youth is eloquently dilated on in excusing its faults."

The girl's sweet eyes dilated wildly.

"Who could have known that?" she asked him.

"I can not tell. I understood that the writer is a reviewer of books for a noted New York magazine. I have not learned the name, but I will find it out for you, Miss Van Zandt," promised the genial publisher.

"Pray, do so, if possible; and also please get the magazine containing the friendly review of my poor book. It will make me so happy to read it, and to write a letter of thanks to my good angel!" she exclaimed, fervently.

Smiling at her enthusiasm, and promising to gratify her desire, the publisher took leave, and the very next day sent her the magazine.

How gladly, how happily the young heart beat as her eager eyes devoured the column of reviews, and at last fell on "The Fatal Roses," her own romantic and high-flown novel, over whose non-success she had shed such bitter, burning tears.

But they were tears of joy that glittered on her lashes now, as she went eagerly over the two full columns that had been given to "The Fatal Roses" by one who signed the, to Maud, startling name of "Una."

"Una!" she cried out, wildly, and ran to seek Eliot, who was in the library with her intended husband.

"Eliot! oh, Eliot, look! Our own darling Una!" she exclaimed, wildly, pointing with her taper finger at the startling name.

Scarcely less agitated than herself, he took the review and read it hurriedly, then passed it to Carmontelle.

"Can it be my Una?" he exclaimed, pale and agitated, his heart beating wildly.