Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

Ross Powell received the letters for Mrs. Gordon, and went away without giving much thought to the fact that he had not seen Miss Gordon. His mind was far more exercised over the fact that he had been utterly unable to find Laurel Vane.

CHAPTER XVI

Mrs. Gordon was not sorry that her daughter had preferred to stay at Eden in preference to accompanying her upon her Southern tour. It augured well for the success of the trembling hopes which she entertained in common with Mrs. Le Roy.

She sent down a letter full of affectionate regrets over their temporary separation, and followed it by a box full of new dresses and hats over which Clarice went into ecstasies of delight, and Laurel wept.

"I can never wear them—do not ask me, Clarice," she said. "They make me feel like a traitor. It is enough that I have borrowed Miss Gordon's name. I cannot take the nice things they sent her, too. I should feel like a thief."

"La me! my dear, I never saw anybody equal to you for calling a spade a spade," cried pretty Clarice. "Now, I think you are too hard upon yourself, really! You will have to wear some of these pretty things to keep up appearances as Miss Gordon. The things you brought with you, and the few dresses Miss Beatrix spared you from her wardrobe are getting shabby, and I'm afraid these proud rich people here think that your pa dresses you too poorly for your station. Besides, this is September, and you cannot go on wearing muslins and cambrics and nuns'-veiling all winter."

"I will wear them as long as I can, at least," sighed Laurel. "Besides, Clarice, who can tell how soon our little comedy may be played out—how soon Miss Wentworth may be ready to confess her clever conspiracy?"

The quick-witted maid wondered a little at the note of vague regret in Laurel's tone. The day came when she understood.

The time to which they looked forward came sooner than they thought. In a week after the Gordons went South, a letter arrived for Laurel under cover of an envelope addressed to Clarice Wells. It was from Cyril Wentworth's fair young bride, who had been hidden away securely in Brooklyn all this time, her husband pursuing his daily occupation in New York, and returning in the evening to his sweet stolen bride, no one ever suspecting that the handsome young bachelor, whom the Gordons dreaded so much, had become a Benedick.

"My sweet little Laurel," wrote grateful, happy Beatrix—"the time of your long probation is at last over. My husband has at last been offered that lucrative business tour abroad, for which my father has been plotting so cleverly ever since he started me to Eden to hide me from my darling Cyril. It's a splendid chance for a young man in Cyril's position. It will insure us a competence, if not a fortune. Oh, Laurel, my heart is singing pæans of gladness over our happy prospects! I cannot be grateful enough to you for playing your part so well, until this happy conclusion! Only think, dear—in three days we sail for Europe. I shall need Clarice to go with me, and I want you to come, too, Laurel. Cyril is not rich, but we will care for you, my darling, and you shall be like my own little sister, until some fortunate man claims you for his lovely bride. You and Clarice must come at once, dear, as we have no time to lose, and Cyril has already taken our passages on the steamer. I sold my diamonds to pay for them, so you may know by that, little Laurel, how anxious I am to have you come. Do not delay. Invent some clever excuse for leaving, and come at once to my address in Brooklyn. You need not own up to our little conspiracy, dear. I know you would be too frightened. Leave that to me. When we are on the eve of starting, I will write to the Le Roys, and to papa and mamma, confessing all and imploring their forgiveness."

Clarice went almost wild over that letter. She was full of joy that the clever little conspiracy had worked out so successfully, and the promised tour to Europe was the realization of the dream of her life.

"I do not believe that we can invent any good excuse for leaving Eden," she said, thoughtfully. "They would not allow us. Mrs. Gordon's orders have been too strict. We must steal away to-night, Miss Vane, and we can telegraph them to-morrow to send our luggage. Do you not think that will be the better plan to get away?"

She looked at Laurel, who had never spoken one word yet. The girl was crouching in a low seat, like one overwhelmed with sudden grief. She lifted a white face full of desperate trouble, and somber, heavy, dark eyes up to Clarice.

"Oh, Clarice, do not ask me," she wailed. "I do not want to go! I cannot, I will not leave Eden."

And with that passionate denial, Laurel Vane's little feet turned aside into that luring path of sin whose roses hide so many cruel thorns.

CHAPTER XVII

"I do not want to leave Eden," repeated the dead author's daughter, passionately. "Do not ask me, Clarice! I will not go!"

Clarice Wells gazed at the pale face and somber dark eyes in alarm. Had this sudden good news turned the young lady's brain?

She went up to Laurel and shook her gently by the arm.

"Miss Vane, I do not think you understand," she said; "your probation here is over. We do not need to keep up this wretched farce any longer. Mr. Wentworth has secured his fine appointment abroad, and his wife wishes for us to go with her. Do you realize it, Miss Vane? To go abroad—to be like the sister of Mrs. Wentworth—is it not a glorious reward for the service you have done her?"

But Laurel, gazing drearily before her into vacancy, answered obstinately:

"I understand it all, Clarice, but I would rather stay at Eden."

"But why, miss?" asked the maid, astonished and half indignant.

Laurel, glancing up, saw the wonder in her eyes, and suddenly blushed a hot, burning crimson. The news had taken her by surprise, and she had spoken out unthinkingly. On being confronted with this very pertinent question from Clarice, she suddenly realized her error.

"But why, Miss Vane?" persisted Clarice. "Why should you wish to stay at Eden when you are in danger of detection every hour?"

"I love the place. I would rather risk detection than go away," faltered Laurel, miserably.

"Well, I am surprised," declared the maid, in genuine consternation. "I thought you were miserable here, and that you would rejoice to get away. I cannot see what has changed you so. It isn't possible, Miss Vane," a sudden suspicion darting into her mind, "that you have lost your heart to the master of Eden?"

Speechless and shame stricken, Laurel hid her hot face in her hands, and Clarice went on, admonishing:

"If you have, you had best come away with me and think no more of it, my dear young lady. Loving a man like Mr. Le Roy mostly means ruin and destruction to a poor girl like you. If you stay, they will be sure to find you out, and then what is to become of you? These proud Le Roys will be fit to kill you for deceiving them so. You had better go and fling yourself into the river yonder than waste your heart on Mr. St. Leon Le Roy."

Laurel sprung to her feet, her small hands clinched, her dark eyes suddenly blazing.

"Hush!" she cried. "How dare you accuse me of loving St. Leon Le Roy? It is false. I never dreamed of such a folly. I will not have you talk so to me, Clarice! Is there no reason I should want to stay but that I cared for him? Do I not love his grand, beautiful home? Do I not love the stately lady who has been so kind to me? I would rather be Mrs. Le Roy's servant than go away!" ended beautiful Laurel, wildly.

"She would not have you for her servant even, if once she found out the truth about you," argued sensible Clarice. "Miss Vane, I do not know what to think of this sudden fancy of yours. What would Miss Beatrix—I mean Mrs. Wentworth, say if she could hear you?"

"Clarice, I have served her ends and she can have no right to reproach me if I take my own way now," said the girl. "And indeed it is far better for me not to go. Mr. Wentworth is a poor man. Why should I burden him with my support? They will do better without me. Oh, Clarice, dear, kind Clarice," she flung herself suddenly on her knees before the perplexed maid and grasped her dress imploringly, "let me have my way in this! Go to Mrs. Wentworth and leave me here! Beg her not to betray the conspiracy yet. Tell her to be kind to me, to let me stay as long as I can before they find me out in my wickedness!"

"And then," said Clarice, gravely, "what will you do after that?"

"Then—the deluge," Laurel answered, recklessly.

They spent an hour in heated argument. Laurel was desperately resolved not to leave Eden, if possible. Her tears, her prayers, conquered Clarice's better judgment. The end of it all was, that Clarice gave in to her plans, and promised to influence Beatrix Wentworth to withhold her promised letters of confession to the Gordons and the Le Roys.

"But I must say one thing, Miss Vane, in spite of your anger," said the maid, sturdily. "If you have laid a plan to marry the master of Eden, I will betray you if it is at the front of the altar. You must not dare carry the farce that far! You are beautiful and young; but you are no mate for the proud, rich master of Eden. If you married him and he found out the cheat afterward, he would make you the most wretched woman under the sun!"

Afterward, Laurel recalled the maid's words as if they had been some fateful prophecy, instead of the wise utterance of a clear-headed woman.

"You need not threaten me, Clarice," she said, with girlish dignity. "I have laid no plans—not one. I have not thought about the future. I only could not bear to go away. I know Mr. Le Roy could never think of me—that way! I—have never even dreamed of it. Do not judge me so harshly, Clarice. Remember how young I am. Is it strange that I should love the only happy home I ever had?"

Clarice could not resist her beauty, her pleadings, her distress. She smoothed the golden hair tenderly, and kissed the white hands, and admitted that she was sorry for Laurel Vane. But she said to herself, all the same, that she was acting wrong in leaving the girl at Eden in her borrowed plumes. Harm would come of it—harm to the beautiful, willful creature who was so blindly rushing upon her fate.

That evening Laurel told Mrs. Le Roy that Clarice had received an offer to accompany a lady to Europe, and that the girl had determined to accept it, and would leave her on the next day to go to New York.

"You shall have my own maid to help you every day until you find a new one," said Mrs. Le Roy, cordially: and Laurel, thanking her, said that she did not require the services of a maid very much, and she would not engage another until she returned to New York.

Clarice Wells went away the next morning full of joy at the prospect before her, but regretful at leaving Laurel. She fancied that the girl would fare but ill at the hands of the Le Roys when they found her out.

Laurel sent the beautiful pearls, Mrs. Gordon's gift, to Beatrix Wentworth with her love and best wishes.

The maid declined to take the new hats and dresses to her mistress.

"You will need them if you are going to keep up this masquerade," she said. "And when they turn you adrift upon the world you can sell them for money to buy food and shelter."

She went away, and in the new loneliness that fell upon her, Laurel Vane began to realize dimly to what imminent perils she had willfully committed herself.

CHAPTER XVIII

Clarice had barely gone a week, when one evening Mrs. Le Roy came sailing into the dressing-room, whither Laurel had gone to dress for dinner, but was dreaming instead at the open window.

"My dear, we have company from New York," she said, rather abruptly.

Laurel started and turned a pale, frightened face toward the lady.

"New York," she faltered, tremblingly, with her heart on her lips.

A moment ago she had been careless, almost light hearted, as she leaned from the window and watched the shadows of twilight falling on the river and the beautiful grounds. She had inhaled the flower-scented air with something like delight. She had been murmuring to herself some pretty lines of Jean Ingelow's:

"I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover,Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover—Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, waitTill I listen and hearIf a step draweth near,For my love he is late."

The murmured words of the love-song had died on the sweet lips now. They were white with fear as she turned to Mrs. Le Roy.

"My child, you need not look so startled," she laughed. "My guests will not eat you."

Then Laurel knew that she had almost betrayed herself. She rallied her sinking spirits with a great effort of will.

"I was rather startled. When you said New York I thought of so many whom I knew," she said, apologetically. "Is it any one who—knows me, Mrs. Le Roy?" she asked, quivering with secret fear.

"No, my dear; but it is a lady who moves in the highest circles of fashionable society in New York—an old friend of mine and St. Leon's—a beautiful young widow she is now. She ran down quite informally upon us to bring a friend—a titled foreigner—to see our beautiful Eden." Laurel began to take heart again now. She listened with a smile, while the lady continued: "You will not take it amiss in your mother's old friend, Beatrix, if I suggest that you make your dinner toilet more elaborate than usual? You are always lovely, dear"—seeing the pale cheeks crimson suddenly—"in the simplest things you wear; but, to do honor to our guests and justice to your own rare beauty, I want you to look your loveliest to-night. I want to help you select a robe from among the new ones your mother sent—may I, dear?" with a coaxing smile.

"They do not fit—they are all too large, I think," faltered Laurel.

"I will send my maid. She can make the necessary alterations in a few minutes. I am waiting, dear, to help you select your robe, if you will allow me," said Mrs. Le Roy, with gentle persistence.

And Laurel had to yield.

They looked through the dresses and selected one of white nun's-veiling, satin and Spanish lace—simple enough for a young girl, yet exquisitely elaborate and becoming.

"If you will wear this with the beautiful pearls your mother sent, you will be simply peerless," said Mrs. Le Roy.

Laurel could not confess that she had sent the pearls away. When Mrs. Le Roy was gone, and the maid was altering the dinner-dress, she slipped out and gathered her hands full of deep scarlet jacqueminot roses.

"Will not these roses look well with the white dress?" she asked the stylish French maid, rather timidly.

"Superb!" pronounced mademoiselle, with enthusiasm.

And when the dress was on, and the great clusters of scarlet roses gleamed against the white breast, and in the rippling curls of burnished gold, the maid could not repress an exclamation of delight. Nothing could have been lovelier than the dark-eyed, golden-haired girl in the white dress with the fragrant scarlet roses. Mademoiselle did not know that the girl hated herself with a passionate contempt as she looked down at her beautiful, borrowed plumage.

"'Fine feathers make fine birds,'" she said to herself, bitterly, as she went down the stairs to the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, holding her small head high to hide the tremor at her heart.

She opened the door and entered. Mrs. Le Roy was there talking to a handsome young man. Beyond them she saw St. Leon with his dark head bent over a beautiful woman at the piano. Her white, jeweled hands flew swiftly over the pearl keys, and she was singing to him in a high, clear soprano voice:

"Oh, my lost love, and my own, own love,And my love who loved me so!"

CHAPTER XIX

Laurel drew back on the threshold, fearful of interrupting the singer, but Mrs. Le Roy had already perceived her, and came forward with considerable empressement to draw her into the room and introduce her.

"Miss Gordon, Count Fitz John," she said, and with a gasp as if some one had thrown cold water over her, the false Beatrix Gordon found herself bowing to a real, live French count.

Her trepidation passed away in a moment. The count was not at all imposing—a good-looking young fellow enough, but St. Leon Le Roy overtopped him by head and shoulders in size and manly beauty. Laurel sat down, shyly conscious of his palpable admiration, and when the song had come to an end she was presented to the singer.

A shimmer of azure silk, a gleam of jewels, a waft of overpowering perfume, and Laurel dared raise her eyes to the beautiful blonde face with its turquois blue eyes, its pink cheeks, and smiling lips, a halo of pale golden hair framing it all and lending an air of infantile innocence to its beauty. She looked very young, and she was smaller than Laurel—a wax doll, dainty and diminutive, and with a smile as sweet and inane. She did not look like a widow. It seemed strange to call her Mrs. Merivale.

The blue eyes, for all their infantile softness, gave Laurel a piercing take-you-in-at-a-glance look, as they touched each other's hands.

"A dark-eyed blonde—labeled dangerous!" said Mrs. Merivale to herself enviously, and feeling for a moment doubtful over the effect of her own elaborate costume as compared with this pure white robe with its vivid garniture of roses.

But, in a moment, her natural vanity reasserted itself. She concluded to be gracious.

"I am so glad to know you, Miss Gordon. I have heard of you in New York, although rumor did not credit you with half the charms I find you in actual possession of," she twittered, sweetly. "Will you come to the piano and play for us? I am so fond of music?"

"I do not play," Laurel answered, feeling the warm color flood her cheeks under the lady's astonished gaze.

"Not play! Why, surely—" began Mrs. Merivale, but to Laurel's intense relief dinner was announced, and she was spared the expression of the lady's surprise at her ignorance.

Yet she looked at the pearl keys longingly as she swept past the grand piano on the count's arm. She had a great passionate love for the divine art of music, and a great grief filled her soul at the thought that her hands had no power to wake the soul of harmony slumbering in those silent keys.

"Poor papa! I wish that he had taught me more of music and less of languages," she thought, regretfully.

Yet, when at dinner they talked in the French language out of compliment to the polite count, she was glad that she could hold her own among them. She felt rather than saw, St. Leon's surprise, and Mrs. Merivale's dismay.

"So she can speak French like a native, although she cannot play—curious!" said the latter to herself, with a feeling of vexation, for she had started the ball of French conversation with a distinct view to Miss Gordon's discomfiture.

Laurel had never seen Mr. Le Roy so brilliant as he was this evening. It seemed that he had never exerted himself for her. He was affable, courteous, fascinating to his visitors, especially so to the lady. He had softly spoken words for her winning smiles that Laurel had never dreamed could curve those sternly set lips. A pang of bitterness pierced the sensitive heart of the lovely young impostor.

"He has never thought Beatrix Gordon worthy of his kind words and smiles," she thought.

He did not think so now it seemed. He did not speak to her, seldom looked at her. His words and looks were lavished on the fair, smiling widow who gave herself up to the flirtation with eager, absorbing interest. The count paid great attention to Laurel, and she tried to look interested in his conversation, but she was glad when the dinner was ended and the ladies passed from the room, leaving the gentlemen to finish their wine.

Mrs. Merivale went to the low window and looked out upon the moonlit balcony.

"How lovely it is!" she cried. "Will you come out, Mrs. Le Roy?—you and Miss Gordon?"

"Beatrix may go—I am afraid of the night air," Mrs. Le Roy responded, settling herself in an easy-chair.

"Will you come, Miss Gordon?" asked the fair widow. "It is too lovely a night to remain indoors," she added, sentimentally.

Laurel went out to her, and Mrs. Merivale drew her ringed hand lovingly through the girl's arm.

"Let us go out and gather some roses with the moonlight and dew upon them. They will be so sweet," she said, winningly. "And, please, will you call me Maud, and let me call you Beatrix? We are both too young to be ceremonious with each other."

They went down into the graveled paths where the September moonlight shone clear and white, and then Maud Merivale seemed to forget all about the roses.

"Ma chère, I am dying to know how you like the count!" she cried.

"He is very nice, I suppose," said Laurel, vaguely, her thoughts elsewhere.

"'Very nice'—oh, dear, what faint praise for my gallant adorer!" laughed the lady. "Why, my dear Beatrix, all the girls in New York vote him a love, a darling, an Adonis, and above all, a splendid catch! They are all jealous of me! Any one of them could willingly cut my ears off for having taken him captive!"

"Then you are to marry him?" said innocent Laurel, taking a vague pleasure in the thought as suggested by the lady's words.

"Cela depend. I can marry him if I choose," laughed the lady. "You must have observed how devoted he is."

Laurel had not observed it; but she wisely said nothing.

Maud Merivale shook her golden frizzes in the moonlight.

"I shall not marry him. It is useless his breaking his heart over me," she said. "I am too true to my old love."

"Your dead husband," Laurel said, gently.

"Pshaw, Beatrix"—impatiently—"what are you talking of? Do you not know that Mr. Merivale was an old man? It was not at all a love match: it was because he was rich."

"Pardon," Laurel murmured, faintly, and she recalled to herself, as she often did, Clarice's favorite song of "Dollars and Dimes."

"It is all right. The old man died soon, and left me a fortune," said the young widow, heartlessly. "But as for loving him, or having any sentimental tendresse over his memory—pshaw, I am not such a little simpleton as that, my dear! no one could expect it," plaintively. "Beatrix," this with startling suddenness—"tell me what do you think of your host—of St. Leon Le Roy?"

CHAPTER XX

The change of conversation was so sudden that Laurel started and shivered uncomfortably.

"Are you cold, my dear?" asked Maud Merivale.

"I felt chilly for a moment," Laurel answered. "It does not matter. You were saying—"

"I asked you what you thought of St. Leon Le Roy, Beatrix. Is he not"—enthusiastically—"grand, handsome, noble—a very king among men?"

Little thrills of icy coldness shot along Laurel's tingling nerves. She remembered his cold, proud bearing to her, as contrasted with his winning and tender demeanor to Maud Merivale that evening. She answered with impulsive bitterness:

"He may be all that to you, Mrs. Merivale, but to me he has always seemed cold, hard, stern!"

"Poor St. Leon!—ah! I know who warped his generous nature so," sighed the lady. "Beatrix, I am so fond of you I have a mind to tell you my story—mine and St. Leon's."

They paced back and forth in the fine, clear moonlight, their rich robes shining in the night: the fragrance of flowers all about them; the sound of the river in their ears. A hand of ice seemed to clutch Laurel's heart in its fierce grasp. She could find no words in which to answer.

"You have heard that we were old friends, St. Leon and I—they have surely told you that, dear," went on Maud Merivale's sweet, insidious voice. "Beatrix, in the olden times, we were more than that—we were lovers."

"Lovers!" echoed Laurel's low, sad voice.

"We were lovers," repeated Mrs. Merivale, in a tone of triumph. "But we were both very young, and—well, old Midas Merivale was even richer than St. Leon. My parents were poor, and so they parted me from my young lover and sold me to that old man for his sordid gold."

There was a plaintive quiver in the cooing voice, and Laurel's heart suddenly went out to the lovely victim in tender sympathy.

"After my marriage I did not see St. Leon for years," continued the sweet tones. "But they told me he had changed—that he had grown hard, cynical, cold—that he cared nothing for women save to rail at them. But I am free at last—and you see for yourself that he unbends to me as to none other. The old love still burns in his heart. I shall win him back, Beatrix, and this time no one shall come between us!"