Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

Beatrix had been clinging to her husband's arm, staring like one dazed at the strange scene. She knelt down and drew off Laurel's dark kid gloves and chafed the delicate, dimpled, white hands. She saw a broad gold wedding-ring on the slender finger of one small hand, guarded by a keeper of magnificent diamonds and rubies. All three looked significantly at one another, and Clarice said, woman-like, to her mistress:

"Mrs. Wentworth, I told you so."

Cyril could not repress a slight laugh as he stood gazing down upon them. His keen perception told him the truth.

"It is Laurel Vane," he said, and Beatrix answered, "Yes," in a dazed tone, while the maid supplemented quickly, "Or rather Laurel Le Roy."

At that moment Laurel shivered and opened her eyes. She saw herself supported in Clarice's arms, while Beatrix, kneeling by her, chafed her small hands. They saw her glance wander past them yearningly, and a moan of pitiful despair came from her white lips as she missed the face she sought.

"You fainted, and Mr. Le Roy has gone out for some eau de Cologne," said the maid.

A touch of color came into the blanched face. She turned her dark, frightened eyes up to their cold faces.

"You have betrayed me!" she said, in a faint, almost dying, tone.

Beatrix seemed incapable of speech.

Clarice answered, coldly:

"We have said nothing yet!" Then she continued, gravely: "Miss Vane, are you Mr. Le Roy's wife?"

"Yes, I am his wife," Laurel answered, faintly. And she tore her hands from Beatrix, and covered her face with them.

No one spoke for a moment, then Clarice asked, slowly:

"Did you deceive him to the end?"

"To the bitter end!" shuddered Laurel, in a hollow tone.

Then suddenly she let the shielding hands fall from her burning face, and looked at Beatrix.

"Do not look at me so sternly and coldly, Mrs. Wentworth," she cried. "You sent me there. Are you not to blame?"

No one could have believed that Mrs. Wentworth's gentle face could grow so hard and cold.

Laurel Vane had so bitterly betrayed the trust she reposed in her that she did not know how to forgive her.

"Do not charge me with your folly, your madness!" she cried, indignantly. "My sin was bad enough—but yours is beyond pardon. How dared you, Laurel Vane, marry the proud, rich St. Leon Le Roy?"

"I loved him—he loved me!" moaned the wretched young bride.

"And what will become of his love now when he learns the truth?" queried Beatrix, with stinging scorn.

Cyril hastily interposed.

"Do not be hard on her, Beatrix. She was kind to us. Be kind to her. See, she is almost heart-broken by your scorn!"

Laurel looked at the handsome, kindly face. It was full of sympathy and pity, not hard and angry like the women's faces. Her despairing heart filled with new hope. She clasped her hands, and looked at him with dark, appealing eyes.

"Yes, I pitied you, I helped you to your love," she said, pleadingly. "Will you let them rob me of mine? Will you let them betray me?"

All the pity in his heart, all his manly compassion was stirred into life by her words and looks.

"We love each other," she went on, pathetically. "We love each other even as you and your wife love. Do not come between us yet! Let us be happy a little longer!"

"Beatrix, you hear," said Cyril, bending down to take his wife's hand in his own. "They love even as we love, dear. Can you bear to part them—to betray her? She is little more than a child. You will break her heart. The beginning of it all lies with us. Do we not owe her our pity at least—our pity and our silence?"

"Your silence—that is all I ask," cried the culprit, eagerly. "The end will come soon enough. Let me have a little respite. Tell me where to find you to-morrow. Mr. Le Roy has an engagement out then, and I will come to you. I will tell you how it all happened! I will beg for your pity on my bended knees!"

She began to weep passionately. Beatrix could not bear those bitter tears. She drew out her card-case hastily.

"Here is my address," she said. "Come to me to-morrow, and tell me the whole story. I can judge better then what is best for me to do."

She did not pity Laurel much. She felt angry with her for her presumption in marrying one so far above her as Mr. Le Roy. And then the folly, the madness of it. She could not understand the mad love that had driven Laurel, step by step, into her terrible position.

"Mr. Le Roy is coming. Do not let him suspect anything wrong," said Cyril, hastily.

He turned with a smile to meet the handsome, stately gentleman.

"Mr. Le Roy, I am Cyril Wentworth," he said, genially. "Permit me to assure you that your wife is quite recovered, and to present you to my wife—Mrs. Wentworth."

CHAPTER XXIX

"Married!" said St. Leon to himself, with a start, and a quick glance at Beatrix. He bowed to her gracefully, then hurried to his wife's side.

"You are better, Beatrix?" he said, anxiously, and they all saw his passionate heart looking out of the beautiful eyes he bent on her pale and tear-stained face.

She clung to him in a sort of nervous terror and fear.

"Yes, I am better, thanks to the goodness of Clarice and her mistress," she faltered. "You must thank them for their kindness to me, St. Leon, and take me away."

He obeyed her request in a few courteous words, bowed to the party, and led his wife away, outwardly cool and collected, but on fire with jealous pain.

"She loves him still! She fainted at the bare sight of him!" he muttered to himself.

"My God! why did she marry me, then? Was it for wealth and position?"

The bitter doubt tore his heart like a knife. An unconscious coldness grew up in his heart toward her.

He placed her silently in the carriage, and, springing in beside her, gave himself up to bitter reflections.

The carriage whirled them away to their hotel, and as it rattled over the streets Laurel watched her husband's cold, grave face with wonder.

"What is it, St. Leon?" she asked him, slipping her arm timidly in his. "Why do you look so grave?"

"I am puzzled," he answered.

"Over what, St. Leon?" asked the beautiful girl.

"Over your fainting spell," he answered, moodily. "You told me you had ceased to love Cyril Wentworth, but at the bare sight of him you fell like one dead. What am I to think, Beatrix?"

It came over her like a flash, that he was jealous of Cyril Wentworth—of Cyril Wentworth, whom she had never beheld until to-day.

How she longed for him to know the truth, to tell him that she had never loved mortal man save him whom she called her husband! But it was one of the pains and penalties of her position that she could not confess to St. Leon. He must go on believing that her first pure love had been lavished on another, must go on doubting her, for his looks and words assured her that the first seeds of jealousy had been sown in his heart.

Hot tears of pain and humiliation gathered in her eyes and splashed heavily down her pale cheeks.

"Oh, St. Leon, you do not, you cannot, believe that I love him still?" she sighed.

"Why, then, your agitation at that chance meeting?" he inquired.

"I was startled—only that," she answered. "It was like seeing a ghost. And you must remember there was Clarice, too. I assure you I was more startled at the sight of her than by Mr. Wentworth. It was a nervousness, agitation, fright, what you will, St. Leon, but not love. No, no, no, not love! I love you only, my husband. You are the life of my life!"

She clasped her hands around his arm, and looked up to him with dark, pathetic eyes.

"I am not perfect, St. Leon," she said, "and life is not all sunshine. Some day the heavy, lowering clouds of fate will pour out their blinding rain upon our heads. You may believe many hard things of me then, St. Leon, but you may be sure of one thing always, dear. I love you now and I shall love you forever, with the maddest, deepest passion a woman's heart can cherish!"

He had never heard her speak with such passion before. Her love had been like a timid bird brooding softly in her heart, too shy to soar into the sunlight, but the words burst from her now eloquent with her heart's emotion, and made sacred by the burning drops that fell from her eyes. He could not but believe her. The jealous misery fled from his heart as he clasped her in his arms and kissed the trembling rosebud mouth.

"Forgive me, darling, for doubting you," he said, repentantly. "It was because I love you so dearly, and I have always been so absurdly jealous of Cyril Wentworth. I would give anything upon earth to be able to say that you had never loved any one but me."

And she could not tell him that it was true. It was a part of her punishment that this dark shadow—the thought that her first love had been given another—should never be lifted from his life. She knew that it was a pain to his jealous nature, but her lips were sealed. Some day he would know the truth, she said to herself bitterly, but then it would come too late for his happiness.

CHAPTER XXX

"I loved him, Mrs. Wentworth. That is all my defense. Call me weak, cowardly, wicked, if you will; but I could not put the temptation from me. Think what all my life had been—how dull, how sad, how lonely! Was it easy to put away happiness when it came to me in so fair a guise?"

The white hands were clasped imploringly, the dark eyes were lifted pleadingly as the sad words fell from Laurel's lips. Beatrix Wentworth and Clarice Wells, her judges and accusers, looked gravely upon the tortured face of the culprit—the fairest culprit that was ever arraigned for her sin.

"Do you call it happiness?" said Beatrix Wentworth. "I should not think you would know one happy hour, living on the verge of a volcano that may destroy you at any moment. I should think that your sorrow and repentance would almost kill you."

"But I do not repent!" cried Laurel desperately. "I shall never repent while I remain with St. Leon. I am too happy, in spite of my fears, for sorrow or repentance. When I am torn away from him, when I have lost his love, then I shall repent, then I shall understand the depths of my dreadful sin; but never before!"

They looked at her in wonder. They could not understand her. Surely she was mad—the glamour of passion had obscured her reason!

"And when the end comes—when he has put you from him—what will you do then, poor child!" asked Beatrix, slowly.

"Then I shall die," the beautiful girl answered, despairingly.

And again they did not know what to say to her. She had no thoughts outside of this love that she held by so slight a thread. She could see nothing beyond it but death. Beatrix could not help feeling vexed with her. She loved her own young husband with a fond, romantic love, but she could not comprehend the madness of Laurel's devotion.

"It is not so easy to die, Laurel," she said, impatiently. "You are a woman now, and you must not answer me like a child. Your sin will find you out some day, and you will perhaps be cast adrift on the world. You should have some plans formed for that time."

There was a moment's silence; then Laurel murmured, tremblingly:

"St. Leon loves me—perhaps he will forgive me."

Clarice Wells gave an audible sigh from her corner. Beatrix murmured, "Poor child!"

And the mistress and maid looked at each other in silence a moment. They did not know how to deal with this nature. Both wondered in themselves if St. Leon Le Roy would indeed forgive her falsehood. They did not think so.

Beatrix toyed nervously with the tassels of her pale-blue morning dress.

"Laurel," she said, after a moment. "Clarice and I have formed a plan for you. We do not want to betray you to your husband. We think it would be better it you confessed the truth to him yourself."

They never forgot how deathly white she grew, nor how wild and frightened the dark eyes looked. She threw out her hands as if to ward off a blow.

"Confess to St. Leon? Why, I would sooner die!" she gasped.

"But, my dear child," remonstrated Beatrix, "he would be far more likely to forgive you if you confessed to him yourself than if I betrayed you."

"You will not do that, oh, you will not do that! You could not be so cruel!" gasped Laurel, throwing herself impulsively at Beatrix's feet. "Oh, Mrs. Wentworth, I helped you to happiness! Do not rob me of mine!"

Clarice raised her gently and replaced her in her seat.

"You have not heard all my plan out, Laurel," said Beatrix. "I do not forget my debt to you. I would sooner help you than betray you. I was going on to say that if you would be brave enough to confess to St. Leon how you have wronged him, I too would confess to him. I would tell him how much I was to blame. I would beg him to forgive you because you were so innocent and ignorant, and because you loved him so. Then—if it came to the worst—if in his pride and his wrath he should put you away from him—you might come to us—to Cyril and me."

The hapless young creature did not answer a word. She stared at Beatrix mutely with wide, wild eyes like a hunted fawn's.

"Well, what do you say, Laurel?" inquired Beatrix. "Will you do as I wish you?"

"It is too terrible a risk. I do not dare," moaned Laurel, hiding her face in her hands.

Then for a time there was silence. Beatrix was hurt and chagrined that her plan had been discarded. She thought Laurel was a headstrong, willful child, rushing blindly upon her own destruction.

But she could not help pitying the girl, her fear and misery were so great. She desisted from advising her. It seemed too much like torturing some lovely, helpless creature. The hunted look in the dark eyes pained her.

"After all, is she any worse than I am?" said Beatrix to herself. "I deceived my parents. I risked everything for love's sake, and this poor child has done no more than that. I must not be angry with her. I must remember always that it was I who led her into temptation."

She went to her gently, she took the white hands from the pale, tear-stained face, and held them kindly in both of hers.

"Laurel, do not look so miserable and heart-broken," she said, gently. "You need not be afraid of me."

Laurel looked at her with a flash of hope in her humid eyes.

"Do you mean that you will not betray me?" she panted.

"I will not betray you," Beatrix answered. "I pity you too much, my poor child, and I know that the end will come soon enough. Far be it from me to hasten the evil hour."

She was glad she had spoken so kindly when she saw the lovely flush of joy that came into the sensitive face. Laurel thanked and blessed her passionately, then the dark eyes turned to Clarice.

"And will you have mercy on me, too?" she said. "I have always been afraid of you, Clarice. I have always remembered what you said. The words have haunted me."

"I meant what I said," replied the maid. "If I had seen you going to the altar with him, I should have betrayed you, and saved him. It would have been my duty."

"And now?" Laurel questioned faintly.

"It has gone too far," answered Clarice. "You are Mr. Le Roy's wedded wife. What God hath joined together, no man must put asunder."

She thanked them with such trembling passion and joy that they could have wept.

"I do not know whether I am doing right," said Beatrix. "But I am very happy, and I remember always that you helped me to my happiness, and that I thoughtlessly led you into temptation. I will keep your secret, Laurel, and may God help you when your hour of reckoning comes, as it too surely will, my poor child, sooner or later."

CHAPTER XXXI

Laurel was fortunate enough to get back to her hotel before Mr. Le Roy returned from his engagement with the friend whom he had unexpectedly encountered in London. She removed her street dress immediately, and he never suspected the momentous visit she had made that morning to Cyril Wentworth's wife. She was gay and loving, as usual, and he dreamed not what bitter tears had dimmed her eyes that morning in her fear that he would find her out in her sin.

But that night she said to him, with pretty impatience:

"When are we going to leave London, St. Leon? I am very tired of the rain and the cold."

"I thought you had not done sight-seeing yet," he said, a little surprised at her capriciousness. "There are many places of interest which you have not visited yet."

"I am tired of it all," she declared. "One wearies of the rain and the smoke and the fog. I should like to go to Italy, where the sun shines all day, and the air is balmy and warm. Will you take me, St. Leon?"

"We will go to-morrow, if you wish," he replied. "There is nothing to detain us in London."

"To-morrow it shall be!" cried Laurel.

He humored her caprice and took her to Italy. She did not breathe freely until she was out of London. She was horribly afraid of meeting the Wentworths again.

They hired a charming little villa in Southern Italy, and lived there several months, leading a beautiful, idyllic life that charmed Laurel. She called the pretty place Eden, in loving memory of her home.

Letters came often from Mrs. Le Roy, occasionally from the Gordons. Mrs. Gordon was not fond of letter-writing, and though she loved her daughter dearly, she wrote to her but seldom. These letters Laurel always posted to Beatrix Wentworth in London with her own hands. She felt sure that Beatrix would understand and be glad to receive them.

By dint of earnest application she had acquired a very fair imitation of Mrs. Wentworth's writing. But her conscience always reproached her when she answered those fond, parental letters. She always felt the burden of her guilt most deeply then. So her letters were brief and infrequent. But the Gordons thought nothing of it. Beatrix had never been a diffuse writer, and they supposed she was all absorbed in her happiness now. Laurel never expressed the least desire to return to America. Mr. Le Roy was rather amused at her persistent preference for the Old World.

One thing pleased Mr. Le Roy very much while they remained in Italy.

His wife developed a sudden taste for music. She regretted that she had never learned the piano. Masters were procured for her at her own desire, and for one who had professed not to care for music, her progress was exceedingly rapid.

When summer came they wearied of Italy, and went to Switzerland.

Ah, those happy days abroad—that long, sweet honeymoon! It was so heavenly sweet, it was no wonder that Laurel could not repent of the fraud by which she had won her splendid husband. Life was a dream of Elysium.

"Love took up the glass of time, and turned it in his glowing hands,Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands."

She was beginning to feel almost secure in her happiness, when one evening the shadow fell, as it always falls, unexpectedly, on her life.

She had come down dressed for an opera to which her husband had promised to take her, and she was looking her loveliest. Her robe of white silk and pink brocade was exquisitely becoming, and she wore great flashing diamonds on her round white throat and arms. She had never looked lovelier, but St. Leon did not notice her radiant beauty. There was a shadow on his dark, handsome face. He came and put his arms around the beautiful figure, crushing it against his breast, reckless how he rumpled her dainty laces.

"Beatrix, my darling, I have bad news," he said, hoarsely.

She started, and uttered a cry. Her lips grew livid, she seemed to shrink in the fond arms that held her.

"Do not be frightened, my love," he said. "We will hope for the best."

"What is it?" she gasped through her dry, parched lips.

"I have received a cablegram from America. My mother is very ill. We must return home immediately," he said, in a voice shaken by anxiety and emotion.

CHAPTER XXXII

He had expected that Beatrix would be startled and distressed, but he was not prepared for the burst of emotion with which she received his news.

"Home! home!" she burst out, in a voice that was like a wail of despair, then suddenly flinging her arms about his neck, she broke into tempestuous sobbing as if the very depths of her heart were stirred by throes of keenest anguish.

He was touched and startled by this display of affectionate grief for his mother. Never had he clasped her so fondly, never kissed her so tenderly as now when he believed that her heart ached and her tears flowed for the sake of the mother whom he loved.

"Beatrix, my own sweet love, do not grieve so wildly," he said, caressingly. "She is ill, but it may not be fatal. I broke the news to you too suddenly. I did not realize until this moment what a tender loving heart you have. Cheer up, darling. It may not be as bad as we fear. We will pray for her recovery."

She threw back her head and looked in his face with wild dark eyes all swimming in tears.

"Oh, St. Leon, what did the cablegram say?" she aspirated, eagerly.

"That she is very ill, dear, but that did not necessarily imply a fatal sickness," he answered, soothingly.

She caught at the words with the eagerness of desperation.

"Oh, St. Leon, why need we go home at all then?"

"Beatrix!"

He did not know himself how coldly he put her from him, how sharp and rebuking his tone sounded. He was hurt and amazed. It seemed to him that he could not have understood her aright. He looked at the beautiful form drooping before him humbly, and he saw that he had frightened her by his sudden harshness. Her lips were trembling with fear.

"Beatrix," he said, "perhaps I have not understood you aright. Did you really express a desire not to go home?"

She looked at the dark, handsome face with the touch of sternness upon it and her heart sunk within her.

"I thought—I thought"—she faltered, "that—if Mrs. Le Roy were not so very ill, we need not—perhaps—go home just yet. Oh, forgive me, St. Leon. I did not mean to be selfish. I love the Old World so well I cannot bear the thought of going back to America!"

For the first time since their happy wedding-day he looked coldly and sternly at his fair young bride. She had almost forgotten how those proud lips could curl, how that mobile face could express the lightning passions of his soul. She saw now what a dreadful mistake she had made.

"Oh, Beatrix, how I have deceived myself!" he cried. "Do you know what I thought just now when you burst into tears? I believed that all your grief was for my mother, because you loved her and were sorry for her. I never loved you so well as when I thought that you shared so wholly in my affection for my parent. And yet in the next breath you show me my mistake. Your pleasure, your comfort, ranks higher in your thoughts than my mother's welfare! Oh! child! are you, indeed, so selfish?"

The sadness and reproach in his voice tore her guilty heart like a knife. She flew to his arms—she would not be held at a distance.

"I am a wretch!" she cried, remorsefully. "Forgive me, St. Leon. I do love Mrs. Le Roy. I do grieve over her illness! It was only my abominable selfishness and thoughtlessness that made me so heartless. I have grown selfish, forgetting every one else and finding all my happiness in you. Forget it, if you can—at least, forgive it. I am ready to go home with you immediately. Nay, I am most anxious to go."

But her voice faltered, and she shed such hot tears upon his breast that they seemed to blister her cheeks. It seemed to her that she was declaring her own death-warrant.

He could do no less than forgive her. Indeed, her sorrow and repentance were so great that he felt that he had been too harsh and stern with her. He remembered that she was only a child, and she had been so pleased with her travels, it was no wonder that she had been disappointed when the end came upon her so suddenly.

"Besides, I could not in reason expect her to be as fond of my mother as I am," he said to himself, apologetically, and to ease the smart of his disappointment.

He kissed the fair young face until her tears were dried, and told her that she was forgiven for her momentary selfishness, and that next year they would come abroad again.

"To-morrow we must be upon the sea. I am very anxious to reach home," he said, little guessing that his words pierced her heart like the point of a deadly poisoned dagger.