Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

But all doubt was over now. The gloomy shadow of the death-angel's wing no longer hung over Eden. The physicians declared that Mrs. Le Roy would live, and Mrs. Le Roy declared that her daughter-in-law had saved her life. No one gainsaid her, for they saw that the fancy made her happier, and St. Leon, if possible, loved his wife more passionately than before for her devotion to his mother.

When the long strain of fear and anxiety was over, they began to see that the faithful nurse had suffered somewhat in her tireless vigils by the couch of pain. She was thinner and paler, her eyes looked wide and dark and somber, just as they did when, almost a year ago, now, she had first come to Eden.

When St. Leon's terrible anxiety over his mother was dispelled, he began to be alarmed over his wife. It struck him that she was not looking well and scarcely happy.

"My darling, you have worn yourself out in tender cares for my mother," he said. "I have been selfish to allow it. But I did not think! You should have been more careful over yourself! But she is better now, and you must relegate the cares of the sick-room to others, while you go out with me and brighten your faded roses."

A strange mournful smile quivered over the beautiful face.

"I must not leave her yet," she said, "she would miss me so much. She loves me."

He could not understand the wistful pathos that trembled in the tone. He believed that her wearisome confinement to the sick-room had saddened her spirits.

"She loves you," he cried, catching her in his arms, and kissing the pale face until it glowed with tender blushes. "Who does not love you, my own, my peerless Beatrix? You are the queen of love and beauty! I worship you as the lovely incarnation of all that is best and purest in your sex! And, deeply as I loved you before, I shall always love you better for your devotion to my mother!"

"Always?" she murmured, and again it seemed to him there was a ring of pathos that was almost pleading in the low, sweet voice. It confirmed him in his belief that she was saddened and overwrought by her wearisome confinement in the sick-chamber.

"Always, my darling. Can you doubt it?" he said, looking fondly into the wistful dark eyes, as he held her in his arms.

"I will not doubt it. I will be happy as long as I can," she answered, with a sort of desperation.

That day when they sat by Mrs. Le Roy's couch together, she began herself to realize the change that had come over her son's wife. She missed the roses from the delicate cheeks, the brightness from the eyes, but most of all, the happy smile from the red lips. It even seemed to her that they had a wistful, pathetic droop.

"I have been selfish over my daughter," she said, repentantly. "She has broken herself down waiting on me. Beatrix, my darling, can you forgive me for being such a selfish, thoughtless old woman?"

"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I have not felt any weariness, and I have been only too happy to be with you and to care for you."

"You are a dear, unselfish child," cried Mrs. Le Roy, "but I don't intend to be so unreasonable again. You must leave me with the nurses now that I am better, and go out with your husband riding and driving again. I want to see the roses back in your face and the light in your eyes. And, St. Leon, you must write to the Gordons, and ask them to come and make us a visit."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, do not ask them," Laurel cried out with such sudden energy and passion that they were startled. Her face was deathly white with the shock she had received. They looked at her in surprise.

"My dear, I do not think you understood my mother," said her husband. "She wishes to invite your parents to visit you. Should you not be pleased to have them come?"

She saw that in her terror she had almost betrayed her horrible fear of the Gordons.

"I understood," she faltered. "I only meant—meant that it would be better not to ask them just yet, until your mother is better—until she is able to go out some. It would be pleasanter for all, would it not?"

They agreed with her that it would be pleasanter for all parties, but they did not want to tax her patience too much. It seemed only natural that she should be longing to see her mother.

"I might take you up to New York for a day or two," St. Leon suggested.

And again the beautiful face grew ghastly pale with fear and dread.

"No, I should not like that," she said, "I would prefer to have them come here. But let us wait a few days before we invite them."

She left them and went away to her own private room, locked the door, and threw herself down upon her couch in a perfect passion of dread and despair. The coils of fate were narrowing around her. She could not escape from the web her own hands had woven. A few hours or days at most, and then detection, shame, ignominy, perhaps banishment. The thought quivered like a sword-point in her heart.

"Will he forgive me, or will he send me away from him?" she asked herself, fearfully.

She sat up and looked with dazed, heavy eyes at the elegance and luxury with which his love had surrounded her—at the diamonds on her hands, at her rich and costly robes—all mute tokens of the adoration in which he held her.

"He loves me so dearly, perhaps he will forgive me," she whispered to her beating heart. "I know if he had wronged me ever so bitterly, I should forgive him and love him still if he prayed me on his bended knees, as I shall do."

She pinned all her faith to the strength of his love and the power of that beauty on which he never wearied of gazing. She grew suddenly alarmed at the pallor of her face and the heaviness of her eyes. She thought that her beauty was deserting her, that potent charm by which she hoped to hold his heart when he found her out in her sin.

"I must go out, indeed," she cried to herself, in sudden terror; "I must get back my brightness and my color. I cannot afford to lose one charm that may hold my husband's heart!"

She forgot that he valued truth and honor more than mere physical loveliness—she forgot that he had scorned all womanhood for long years because one beautiful woman had been false to him. She could think of nothing but her anguished yearning not to lose her husband.

CHAPTER XXXVII

That day on which Ross Powell saw Laurel with her husband was the last of a series of happy walks and rides she had taken with St. Leon.

On that day that closed in so softly with the goldenest sunshine and tenderest twilight, that day seemed too fair for a day of fate, the suspended sword fell.

Yet she had never felt its shadow less than she did that day. She gave herself up blindly to her happiness, prizing it all the more because she knew it could not last. When she went to dress for her drive that evening she was most particular about her toilet. She chose a Parisian robe of cream and ruby colors, that was particularly becoming. Her bonnet was of creamy duchess lace, and its coronet of pale-pink rosebuds rested daintily against her rich golden waves of hair. The delicate lace at her throat was held by a gold bar set with pink coral and diamonds. Her boots and gloves were Parisian; her rose satin parasol shed a lovely glow over her pearl-fair complexion.

She was lovely as a dream, and she looked the dainty aristocrat from head to foot. St. Leon Le Roy said to himself with pardonable pride that he had won the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife.

She had never enjoyed a ride more than she did that afternoon. St. Leon had never been more tender and devoted. It was like heaven to look up into those dark, speaking eyes and read the love and adoration in his face. It filled her with a great passionate rapture and delight. She worshiped her noble husband with the blindest, most unreasoning passion woman's heart ever knew. In him she "lived and moved and had her being."

She had forgotten for a little while the brooding shadow of the sword that hung ever over her head. The sunshine was reflected in her eyes, smiles were on her lips, when suddenly like a thunderbolt falling from a clear sky, the sight of Ross Powell's face came before her—that evil face which she both hated and dreaded, remembering how he had sworn to be revenged on her for her just womanly scorn.

In that moment the sun went out of her sky, the light went out of her life. She stifled the wail of dismay that rose to her lips, and sunk back among the satin cushions pale as death, her breath coming and going in great panting gasps, a mute terror in the depths of her wide, dark eyes.

He recognized her. She read that in the wonder and amaze that flashed over his face. What would he do? she asked herself. She almost expected to see him spring to her horses' heads, and, checking them with a grasp of his infuriated hands, charge her then and there with her sin.

He did nothing of the sort. He only stood and stared like a man turned to stone while they whirled past him. St. Leon touched his hat courteously, and in a moment it was all over. They had turned a bend in the road, and the man standing there, ignobly covered with the dust of their carriage-wheels, was out of sight.

St. Leon turned to his wife.

"It is your father's clerk—is it not?" he was saying; but he paused, stricken dumb by the sight of her face. He was startled and frightened. It was a moment before speech came to him. Then he cried out, in alarm: "Beatrix, my darling, what is it? You are as pale as a ghost. Are you ill?"

Her voice sounded faint and far-off, even to herself, as she answered him.

"I felt a sudden pain in my heart. Do not be alarmed, St. Leon. I shall recover in a moment."

He watched her anxiously, and he saw that she did not recover herself very fast. She tried hard to shake off the terrible weight that oppressed her heart, and to be her own natural self for the few last moments that were all that remained to her of the happiness that had been so perfect and so brief.

But she could not do it; she could not summon back the color to her face, the smiles to her lips, the brightness to her eyes. She could not still the wild, terrified beating of her heart. She felt a terrible choking sensation, like one dying. When she spoke, her voice had a strange sound even to herself.

Mr. Le Roy was frightened over his darling. He did not think of connecting her sudden seizure with the appearance of Ross Powell. He had forgotten the man's very existence in his anxiety.

When they reached home he almost carried her into the house in his arms. He brought wine to her with his own hands. It was only when he saw that it had revived her and made her better, that he left her to the care of the little be-ribboned French maid.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Mlle. Marie hovered around her mistress with many delicate attentions after her master had departed, but her ministrations were not crowned with much success. Laurel lay still and pale, but consumed by an agony of impatience, under the dabs of eau de Cologne that the maid bestowed on her cheeks and forehead. She longed to be alone to weep and wail aloud in her despair, but she could not send the maid away. She knew that she had to dress for dinner in a little while, and as Mrs. Le Roy would be down to dinner for the first time that day, her absence would be felt as a great disappointment. She would not give up. She would keep up the farce to the last moment.

She lay there, outwardly still and calm, but consumed by a burning suspense and unrest, her hearing strained to its utmost, as if waiting to hear her accuser's voice. She wondered if Ross Powell would follow her, and denounce her. Surely he knew her secret now. She could hide it from him no longer. In a little while he must know all.

Once, a wild impulse of flight came over her. How could she stay and meet her husband's scorn when he learned the truth? He worshiped her now as his ideal of womanhood. What would he say when he knew her as she was, weak and willful, a girl who had risked everything for the sake of love? Would he hate her for her sin? That would be more bitter than death. Perhaps it were better to go away now before he knew her at her worst, before he hated her for deceiving him.

If she had guessed what lay before her, she would have gone—she would have fled silently from Eden, bearing with her for the light of her darkened future the memory of his love alone—his smiles, his caresses, his tender words—but the madness of her love made her stay.

"I cannot go. All is not lost yet," she said, faintly, yet hopefully, to her foreboding heart. "He will forgive me, perhaps, for our love's sake."

She knew that there could be no limit to her love and forgiveness for her husband if he had wronged her. Was it strange that she should judge him by herself? She was very young and very ignorant. She did not know how truthfully the poet had written:

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,'Tis woman's whole existence."

When she was dressed for dinner, St. Leon came to take her down. There was a subdued happiness and excitement shining on his handsome face; she wondered at it, but she did not ask him why.

She was dressed much as she had been on the night when he first told her that he loved her. She wore white, with scarlet, jacqueminot roses. She had chosen the costume purposely, thinking he would be softened at the memories it recalled.

He took his fair young wife into his arms, and kissed her many times; he smoothed the waving, golden tresses with loving hands, telling her how dearly he loved her—how happy she made him. Then, even while she clung to him, he released her gently from his embrace, not knowing it was the last—not dreaming of the years to come, when his arms would ache in vain to clasp her.

"My mother is waiting for you in the drawing-room," he said. "There is some one with her—a visitor. Can you guess whom, darling?"

She gave a terrible start—a smothered cry—and clung to his arm with both small, white hands.

"My dear, how nervous you are!" he said. "One would think you were frightened. It is your old rival, Maud Merivale. Think of her insufferable impertinence in coming here after that night last summer! But courage, love, she will only be consumed with envy when she sees how much lovelier you have grown since you became my wife."

She tried to murmur some careless reply, but her heart leaped with fear. Another enemy! Too surely the coils of fate were closing round her!

They went down the broad staircase, along the lighted hall, and so into the brilliant drawing-room, the handsome man with the lovely girl borne proudly on his arm. She looked up and saw Mrs. Le Roy smiling at her, Mrs. Merivale rustling toward her in "gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls," and, beyond her, two others—a man and a woman—both strangers. They were rising eagerly, too, coming toward her with smiles and outstretched hands. A dim perception flashed over Laurel; her heart felt like a stone in her breast.

CHAPTER XXXIX

It was a supreme moment. Laurel felt it to be such. Her heart beat, her limbs trembled beneath her. But for the support of St. Leon's arm she must have fallen to the earth. She wondered that she did not faint—rather that she did not die—for an intuition, swift as the lightning's flash, told her that these two strangers were Mr. Gordon and his wife.

She had never seen them in her life; but she did not for one moment doubt their identity. She saw Mrs. Merivale modestly giving place to them, allowing them to greet her first; she saw the smile of pleasure on St. Leon's lips—St. Leon, who thought she was having such a pleasant surprise. She could not move nor speak. She clung desperately to St. Leon's arm, and they came nearer and nearer, the tall, rather stern-looking man, and the pretty, faded blonde in her rich silks and laces. Laurel gazed at them with her great, dark, frightened eyes, much as the little princes in the Tower might have gazed upon their murderers.

A great horror grew upon her as if, indeed, they were about to strike her dead. She had been caught in a horrible trap—a pit of destruction yawned beneath her feet—in a moment she would be hurled down, down, down, into fathomless darkness and despair.

Mrs. Gordon drew nearer and nearer. There was a tender smile on the fair, delicate face, and the blue eyes looked straight into Laurel's own for an instant—only an instant, for then she started backward, and her cry of dismay and wonder pealed on the impostor's ears like the knell of doom.

"Beatrix! Oh, my God, it is not Beatrix! What does this mean?"

"It is not Beatrix!" Mr. Gordon echoed, blankly.

And for a moment there reigned a terrible silence in the room.

St. Leon Le Roy looked down at his wife. She was clinging to his arm with the desperation of despair. Her face was pale as death, and convulsed with fear. Her wide, frightened, dark eyes stared up straight into his, with a hunted look in their somber depth that pierced his heart.

"Beatrix, what do they mean?" he cried. "Have they all gone mad?"

Her white lips tried to syllable the word "mad," but it died upon them in a straining gasp.

Mr. Gordon came slowly forward, a dazed expression on his features.

"Mr. Le Roy, there must be some mistake," he said. "This lady is not your wife?"

St. Leon answered gravely:

"There is no mistake. This is my wife, Mr. Gordon."

Mrs. Gordon cried out, startlingly:

"Then where is our daughter?"

She looked ready to faint. Her limbs tottered beneath her. She clung to her husband with one hand pressed upon her throbbing heart, and stared at the lovely creature on St. Leon's arm as if she were a ghost. Mrs. Le Roy, still pale and wan from her recent illness, rose from the couch where she reclined and tottered to her side.

"My dear friends, have you all taken leave of your senses?" she cried. "Have you forgotten your own daughter's face? Beatrix, darling, why do you not come to your mother?"

Only a stifled moan came from Laurel's lips, but Mrs. Gordon answered, sternly:

"This is no daughter of ours. We have never seen her face before to-night!"

And Mrs. Merivale, in the background, gazed in gloating wonder and triumph at the pale, horrified face of St. Leon's wife. She was burning with anxiety to hear the dénouement of this strange and startling scene.

"This is no daughter of ours. We have never seen her face before to-night," repeated Mr. Gordon, and his wife feebly reiterated his words.

"You have gone mad—both of you," Mrs. Le Roy cried out, fretfully. "This is your daughter whom you sent to us, and whom my son married. How dare you deny it? Speak to them, St. Leon—speak to them, Beatrix. Do not let them deny you! It is monstrous, it is terrible!"

"She is no child of ours. She will not claim to be. She is a miserable impostor. Look at her guilty face," said Mr. Gordon, pointing a scornful finger at the white face that did indeed look shame-stricken and full of guilty woe.

St. Leon had never taken his eyes from that beautiful, terrified face. He spoke to her now, and his voice sounded hollow and stern.

"Beatrix, what do they mean? Is it true that you are not Mr. Gordon's daughter?"

The white hands slipped from his arm, and she fell on her knees before him, lifting up her woful white face pleadingly.

"Oh, St. Leon, pity and forgive me," she moaned, appealingly. "It is true, and I have bitterly deceived you. I am not Beatrix Gordon!"

CHAPTER XL

A silence like death fell for a moment on the group that closed around that pathetic kneeling figure with its white uplifted face and streaming golden hair. St. Leon's voice broke it first—hoarse and terribly stern:

"If you are not Beatrix Gordon, for God's sake tell us who you are?"

And she answered in a voice shaken by blended triumph and despair:

"I am your wife, St. Leon. Do not forget that."

Mrs. Gordon, springing forward, shook her wildly by the arm.

"Look at me, girl," she cried. "What have you done with my daughter, my blue-eyed Beatrix? Why are you here in her place?"

The great dark eyes, heavy with despair, turned slowly on her face.

"You are her mother?" she said.

"Yes, I am her mother," Mrs. Gordon answered, impatiently. "Tell me, girl, what have you done with my darling?"

And Laurel answered in a tone of the most pathetic wonder and reproach:

"You are her mother, and yet you did not love her enough to make her happy. You forget that 'love is lord of all.' Oh, why did not you let her be happy in her own fashion? Then all this need not have happened!"

"You drive me mad with your strange answers," wailed Mrs. Gordon. "Will no one make her speak and tell me my child's fate?"

She looked around helplessly into their wondering faces. St. Leon stood white and moveless as a marble statue, his arms folded tightly over his broad breast, his pale brow beaded with chilly drops of sweat, his eyes never turning from that kneeling figure. Mrs. Le Roy, overcome with agitation, had sunk upon her sofa gasping for breath. Maud Merivale gazed on the scene with a face of evil joy, and Mr. Gordon looked dazed, like one staggering under a horrible burden, but at his wife's piteous appeal he went slowly forward, and touched the arm of the convicted impostor.

"You hear," he said, "you are driving us mad with your evasions! Where is my daughter? Is she dead?"

A shudder ran through them all at that ominous word, but Laurel sprung to her feet suddenly, and faced him with an almost defiant gleam in her eyes. A dull red glow flared into her cheeks, and she drew her graceful figure haughtily erect as she extended one slender hand at the agitated speaker.

"Do you think that I have murdered her that you look at me so fiercely?" she cried. "Do you think I would harm one hair of her lovely golden head—she who was so kind to me in my desolation and despair? No, no, she is not dead, your daughter whom you tried to separate from her own true lover. She is well and happy. She is married to Cyril Wentworth, and gone abroad with him!"

"Married!" almost shrieked Mrs. Gordon, and her husband echoed, blankly, "Married!"

"Yes, she is married," Laurel answered, almost triumphantly. "She took her fate into her own hands, and sought happiness with her lover."

"Married to Cyril Wentworth! How dared she? how dared she?" Mrs. Gordon wailed aloud, in frantic anger.

And Laurel looking at her gravely, answered with unconscious pathos:

"Women dare everything for love's sake, you know, Mrs. Gordon."

The chagrined, disappointed mother broke into low, hysterical sobs and tears. Mr. Gordon drew her gently to his side, and turned his cold, stern gaze upon Laurel.

"And you—how came you here in Beatrix's place?" he asked.

"She sent me here," Laurel answered. "She had been kind to me, and I paid my debt of gratitude by taking her place here while she went away and married Mr. Wentworth."

She felt their eyes burning upon her as she spoke. She knew that they hated her for what she had done. She felt a dim, passing wonder how she could stand there and bear it. She wondered that she did not scream out aloud or fall down dead at their feet. But a strange mechanical calmness upheld her through it all.

"This is the strangest story I ever heard," said Mr. Gordon. "Can it be that Beatrix lent herself to such a plot? Tell me all about it."

"There is almost nothing to tell beyond what I have told you," she said. "She despaired of ever winning your consent to her marriage, and she could not give up her lover. So she sent me here with Clarice to act a part, while she married her lover! Then they kept it secret while they waited for Mr. Wentworth's promised European appointment. When he received it, she went abroad with him. I saw her myself in London. She is perfectly happy, only for her longing to be forgiven by her parents."

"I will never forgive her—the false, deceitful jade!" he uttered, fiercely.

She turned to him pleadingly.

"Do not be hard upon your beautiful daughter," she prayed. "She loved him so dearly, she could not live without him. Oh, you must forgive her!"

"Never, never!" Mrs. Gordon sobbed, bitterly.

Vain, proud, ambitious woman as she was, her heart was almost broken by this terrible shock.

Mr. Gordon's voice broke scornfully upon Laurel's tumultuous thoughts.

"And this dutiful daughter of mine, did she add to her iniquities by arranging a marriage for you? Did she teach you to deceive this honorable gentleman and trap him into a marriage with a wretched impostor?"