Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' Conspiracy

"You see, I have gathered almost more than I can carry," she goes on, looking lovingly at the great bunch in her hands. "I called my son Laurie to help me, but he is chasing a butterfly, I dare say, and out of sound of my voice."

"Permit me," he says, taking them courteously from her, and at the unavoidable touch of their hands a hot crimson flush mounts to his brow, his heart beats painfully.

"I must go away from here, presently," he says to himself, impatiently. "I have no self-possession at all. What a ninny Mrs. Lynn must believe me. And yet—and yet, she is so like a ghost from my dead past that I lose my senses looking on her perfect face!"

"We have some very rare flowers at Eden," he says, "I hope you will come and see them since you are so fond of them. You shall carry away all you like."

"Thank you. I shall be sure to come," she answers. "I know—I have heard, I mean—that the flowers at Eden are wonderful."

"I hope they will justify your expectations," he says. "Shall we sit down here and rest, Mrs. Lynn? You must be tired."

They sit down on a rustic bench side by side, and the elderly couple follow suit at some little distance. It is a lovely morning and a lovely scene.

The golden sunshine sifts down through leafy boughs all about them, the air is sweet with the song of birds and the breath of flowers, the blue waves of the Hudson are visible at some little distance, lending additional beauty to the charming scene. Mrs. Lynn looks away at the river and St. Leon looks at her, trying to convince himself that her likeness to the dead is not so great as he had fancied.

"Laurel was a girl—this is a woman," he tells himself.

He is right. Mrs. Lynn is very young, but the sweet gravity, the exquisite majesty of womanhood are stamped on her pure, white brow. Thought, intellect, experience, are blended with her still youthful beauty, in charming combination. Laurel had been a beautiful rosebud, Mrs. Lynn was a perfect rose. And yet—he said to himself—Laurel at twenty-five would have been Mrs. Lynn's counterpart.

While she looked dreamily off at the river with those dark, heavily fringed eyes and he looked at her, a silence fell between them. It was broken by the laughter of a child. A beautiful boy came running down the path toward them and stopped at his mother's knee.

"Oh, mamma, I am so tired," he panted, breathlessly, his rosy lips parted with happy laughter, "and I did not catch my beautiful butterfly after all!"

The lovely young mother turned toward her child. Her cheek was very pale, there was a strange light in her dark eyes.

"Laurie, do you not see the gentleman?" she said. "Go and speak to him. Mr. Le Roy, this is my son, Laurence."

He did not blame her for the sweet ring of triumph in her voice. The boy was as handsome and spirited as a little prince. He had great, flashing dark eyes and clustering dark hair combined with perfect features at once proud and gentle. His beautiful rosy lips seemed made for smiles and kisses. His dark blue velvet suit set off his fine spirited little figure to the greatest perfection.

Mr. Le Roy drew the manly little fellow to his side.

"I am very glad to make the acquaintance of so important a person as Mrs. Lynn's son," he said. "How old are you, Master Laurence?"

"Almost eight," said the little lad, and his mother amended in a low voice, that had somehow a strange quiver in its sweetness, "Seven and a half, Mr. Le Roy." Then in a sadder cadence, "The only son of his mother, and she is a widow."

"I have no papa, Mr. Le Roy," said the manly little fellow, in a tone of regret. "Other boys have fine times with their papas, they tell me, but I do not even remember mine. He died before I was born."

"Do not weary the gentleman with a recital of your family history, my dear," interposed his mother, gently. "Go now and speak to the lady who is sitting with Uncle Carlyle."

The child went away, followed by Mr. Le Roy's glance. He could not understand the strange yearning that drew him to the princely little lad.

"I have fancied you must be very proud of the books you have written, Mrs. Lynn," he said, impulsively. "I can fancy that you are prouder still of your son."

"I am," she answered, in a voice full of love and pride. "I cannot tell you how I love my boy, Mr. Le Roy. It seems to me that he is the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most loving lad in the world. Do you blame me?" suddenly lifting her dark, grave eyes to his face. "Should not you be proud of such a son, Mr. Le Roy?"

"No, I do not blame you," he answered. "I am quite sure I should be proud of such a fine little son," and a thrill of sorrow and self-reproach went through him as he recalled the words his mother had spoken to him eight long years ago. "In a little while there would have been an heir to Eden."

A buried hope! Ah! if only he had been a little less hard and cold! If only Laurel had told him her precious secret! He must have forgiven her then. He could not have withheld his pardon.

There was something in Mrs. Lynn's tone he could not understand. Was it a taunt at his childlessness? Or was it only a mother's triumph in her treasure? He looked at the beautiful face. It was faintly flushed, the drooping lashes were dewy with unfallen tears. Some deep emotion stirred her heart and made roses on her breast rise and fall with its intensity. While he puzzled over it, there came a startled cry from Mr. Ford. Mrs. Le Roy had fallen from her seat in a dead faint.

St. Leon hastened to her. They raised her up, but it was some little time before she recovered. None could understand what had caused her swoon.

"She was sitting with Laurie on her knee talking very brightly and pleasantly, and quite suddenly—all at once, as it were—her arms dropped from around the child and she fell like one dead," said Mr. Ford. "I cannot understand it. Has your mother any heart disease, Mr. Le Roy?"

"None, but she is not very strong," St. Leon answered. "She very seldom goes out."

Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Take me home, St. Leon," she said, "I am very tired."

Mrs. Lynn pressed her cordially to remain at Belle Vue until she was better.

"No, I cannot stay now," Mrs. Le Roy answered gravely. "But you will pardon my display of weakness, Mrs. Lynn, and you will come to see me soon—will you not?"

Mrs. Lynn promised with a smile that she would certainly accept the invitation.

"And the child—you will be sure to bring him?" said Mrs. Le Roy, kissing the wondering little face.

"If you wish it," assented the beautiful young authoress, and her face grew paler still when Mrs. Le Roy impulsively kissed her cheek. St. Leon wondered why her small hand was so cold as he pressed it lightly at parting. He would have wondered yet more could he have seen the white, agonized face she turned upon Mr. Ford when they had gone away.

CHAPTER XLIX

Carlyle Ford went up to the beautiful woman and took her cold trembling hands gently in his. She was as pale as death, and she shivered as if an icy wave had broken over her.

"My dear, this has been too much for you," he said. "I see now that we should never have come here."

Mrs. Lynn did not answer. She only drew her white hands from his, and, sinking down, covered her face with them. She remained thus some minutes, and her uncle saw that the bright tears were raining through her fingers, and her graceful figure heaving with deep emotion.

The child had returned to his sport with the butterflies and flowers as soon as the visitors departed. They were alone, and in a little while Mrs. Lynn looked up and brushed the tears from her beautiful face.

"Perhaps you are right," she said. "It may be that I was wrong to meet him at all. But, I had the greatest longing to see him after all these years. And, after all, I was no coward, Uncle Carlyle. I did not break down before him. I was calm and proud. He did not dream that I was other than I seemed."

"No; you played your part well," he said. "I was delighted with your dignity and grace. Mr. Le Roy was the more agitated of the two. He was struck by the resemblance. He showed deep, though repressed emotion."

"I think you give him credit for too much feeling," cried Mrs. Lynn, with a scornful flash in her dark eyes. "He has forgotten long ago."

"Perhaps so," said Mr. Ford, "yet I am inclined to think otherwise. And the lady—she could not keep her eyes off you and the child. She could not help seeing the likeness between her son and your son, I am sure. It was startling. The boy is much more like Mr. Le Roy than he is like you. The same hair and eyes, the same proud features, only he has your beautiful, tender mouth. Why did the lady faint?"

"I cannot tell," Mrs. Lynn answered, drearily.

"I think she was unnerved by the resemblance. It brought back the past too vividly. My darling, they have not forgotten, as you think. I foresee a reconciliation," he said.

"Never!" cried Mrs. Lynn, with curling lips and flashing eyes. "I may be weak enough to care for him still, but I can never forget, and I will never return to him. I am a child no longer. I am a woman, and my pride is equal to his own!"

The handsome, kindly face of old Mr. Ford looked grave and puzzled.

"My dear, is it right to cherish such pride?" he asked, slowly. "Were it not better to condone the past—to forgive and forget? Are you right to keep the heir of Eden from his own?"

"Uncle Carlyle, are you anxious to get rid of me?" asked the lovely, gifted woman, wistfully.

"No, no, dear! What should I do without you and the boy?" he cried. "But I do not want to be selfish; I do not want to keep St. Leon Le Roy's happiness from him."

The warm color flashed into her cheeks; she laughed bitterly.

"His happiness!" she cried. "His happiness! In his pride and cruelty he threw it away. He is as proud and cold now as he was then. He would take me back no sooner now than he would then. But why do we talk of these things? He will never have the chance. He will never know the truth. They have raised a costly monument to St. Leon Le Roy's beloved wife—for them that is the end."

"Eight years," he said, musingly. "At least he has been faithful to her memory. It is strange that he has not married again—if not for love, at least for the sake of an heir."

She caught her breath sharply; her lovely face grew deathly white.

"Married! married!" she cried, sharply. "Why do you talk of such things, Uncle Carlyle?"

"I did not mean to pain you, Laurel," he answered. "But, my dear, it seems so strange. Le Roy has a princely estate and fine old name. It would be only natural if he should wish to leave it to his own descendants."

"So he shall," she said. "When I am dead, he shall have Laurie. I have everything arranged in the clearest fashion. There will be no difficulty in proving his identity. But, Uncle Carlyle, do not let us talk of these things. They hurt me."

"You want to be alone," he said. "Very well, dear; I will go and play with my boy. Forgive me for saying those things that hurt you; I did not mean to do so."

He went away, and Laurel sunk down wearily, her hands clinched tightly together, a look of woe and dread on her lovely face.

"Married again!" she uttered, hoarsely. "Well, and if he should, what is there to prevent him? Could I speak? would I speak? No! And yet—ah, Heaven! the fatal glamour is on me still. It is a mad love—nothing less!"

The wind sighed in the trees, the murmur of the river came to her softly, the sweet, calm day seemed to woo her to forgetfulness, but the beautiful woman who had won fame and wealth and honor in those long years since she had been put away from her husband's heart, sat silent, with a look of mute despair on her fair young face. That mad love, that terrible temptation of her girlhood, had spoiled her life.

"It is a mad love," she repeated to herself. "How my face burned, and my heart beat, when I met him. All the old madness surged up within me, the love, the sorrow, the shame at my deceit. It is a wonder I did not fall down dead at his feet! No one ever loved more deeply than I loved St. Leon Le Roy," she went on, after a pause. "If he had forgiven me my fault that night when he had found me out, I should have been the happiest woman in the world, instead of being the most wretched, as I am! Ah! why did I ever come back here? It was a blind mistake. It has reopened the old wound, and it is bleeding, bleeding. Ah, Heaven, shall I never learn indifference? Shall I never sear my cureless wound? I must go away soon. I was weak and wild ever to have come here with Uncle Carlyle."

CHAPTER L

St. Leon Le Roy and his mother had a very quiet drive homeward. Both were busy with their own thoughts. The lady leaned back against the cushions of the phaeton with closed eyes, and a look of grave thought on her pale, wan features. St. Leon, with his calm, dark eyes, and sternly set lips, was as much absorbed as she was in grave and earnest thought. He sat very quietly holding the reins, and neither spoke until they had reached home. Then, when they were sitting together, St. Leon, with an open book before him, her keen eyes noted that he had not turned a page for half an hour, and she spoke abruptly:

"St. Leon, what do you think of the famous authoress?"

His head drooped still lower over his book, as he answered, quietly:

"She is very beautiful and brilliant. I had not expected to find her so young and fair."

"She is the loveliest woman I ever saw," said Mrs. Le Roy.

"Yes," he answered, simply, in his gravely quiet tone.

He did not care to talk. He was like one in a strange, trance-like dream. His soul had been shaken and stirred to its depths by the beautiful woman who had flashed before him with his dead wife's face and voice and the crimson roses in her hands, such as Laurel had loved to gather. The tide of time rolled backward, and in place of the proud, calm woman, the gifted genius before whom he had bowed to-day, came a vision of a simple, dark-eyed girl, wandering through the grounds at Eden, flitting among the fragrant flowers, herself the fairest rose of all. Did she love him, that beautiful impostor, St. Leon Le Roy asked himself, as he had done many times before in the eight years, while that marble cross had towered above the dead heart, whose secret now would never be told? Did she love him, indeed? Had she sinned through her love, not for wealth and position as he had believed that terrible night? And there came back to him through the mist of years the memory of that beautiful, tearful face, and the pleading voice.

"Ah, if only I had forgiven her!" he said to himself, in an agony of remorse and regret. "She loved me. I was mad to doubt it. Save for her one fault, her one deception, Laurel Vane was pure and true and innocent. I was hard and cold. Few men but would have forgiven her such a transgression for love's sake."

His face fell forward on the open pages of the book where he had been reading drearily enough some mournful lines that seemed to fit his mood:

"Glitters the dew and shines the river,Up comes the lily and dries her bell,But two are walking apart forever,And wave their hands for a mute farewell."

A light touch fell on the bowed head whose raven locks were threaded with silver that grief, not time, had blanched. He glanced up, startled, into his mother's wistful face.

"Well?" he said, with a slight contraction of his straight, dark brows.

There was a strange, repressed emotion in her face as she answered:

"It is not well, St. Leon. You are unnerved, troubled, thoughtful even beyond your wont. Will you forgive me for asking why?"

The dark, inscrutable eyes looked at her gravely.

"I might turn your deeds upon yourself," he said. "Why did you faint in the garden at Belle Vue to-day?"

She flushed, and then grew very pale again.

"I will tell you the truth," she said, "or a part of it at least. I was unnerved and startled by the terrible resemblance of the beautiful Mrs. Lynn to—"

"My lost wife," he said, slowly, filling up her painful pause.

"So you noticed it?" she said.

"Could one help it?" he asked in his slow, repressed voice. "Why do you call it a terrible resemblance, mother?"

"She is so like, so like—she is the living image of what Laurel must have been now if she lived! And the child, St. Leon, the child—" she broke down suddenly, and burst into wild, hysterical sobbing.

Shocked by the passionate grief so unusual in his stately lady-mother, he drew his arm tenderly around her and led her to a seat, kneeling down humbly before her.

"Mother, does the old wound still ache so bitterly?" he said, in blended pity and remorse. "I had thought the pain of it was past. Ah, I can never forgive myself for the madness, the cruelty, that robbed you of the daughter you loved!"

"And the grandchild I expected," she sobbed bitterly. "Ah, St. Leon, I can never forget how my hopes were blasted! Forgive me for those weak tears, my son. All the old regret and sorrow were stirred anew in my heart to-day by the sight of Mrs. Lynn and her beautiful child."

He had no answer for her. He was too proud and reserved to tell his mother the truth—that he, too, had been shaken by a ghost from the past that day. He knelt by her silently, letting her sob out all her grief and sorrow against his shoulder, and when she had grown calmer he said, gently:

"Mother, dear, you must not see this Mrs. Lynn again. It agitates you too much. After all, it is only a resemblance. She might not feel flattered if she knew that we compared her with my simple, little girl-wife, dead so long ago. Let me take you away to the seashore or the mountains while Mrs. Lynn remains at Belle Vue."

But she negatived the proposition in extreme alarm.

"It could only afford me pleasure to see Mrs. Lynn again," she declared. "I love her for her likeness to the dead. I am unwilling to lose a single chance of seeing her. And I promise you, St. Leon, that I will not lose my self-control again as I did to-day in the first shock of meeting her. I will be as calm and cold as she is."

CHAPTER LI

A few days later Mr. Ford brought his niece and her son to call at Eden.

The brilliant writer looked very elegant and distinguished in her dress of soft, rich black silk and lace. A dainty bonnet of black lace and gleaming jet rested on the dark golden waves of her hair, and set off to the greatest advantage her blonde loveliness, lighted by such dark and star-like eyes. A soft color glowed on her rounded cheeks, and her eyes were bright with repressed excitement, but no trace of her heart's emotion showed in her calm, gracious manner as she bowed to her handsome host and greeted his stately mother. She had schooled herself to calmness, and no heartless queen of society ever bore herself with more nonchalant ease and outward coldness than did Laurel in the hour when she re-entered the home she had left long years before, a wretched, despairing child, for whom life seemed over and done. Now, as she stepped across the threshold, a beautiful, proud, successful woman, whom the world delighted to honor, she remembered that broken-hearted child with a pang of bitterness that steeled her heart to the softness that had melted it for a moment. She would be cold and calm for the sake of the girl so cruelly put away from her husband's heart, so cruelly misjudged and scorned. Yet, as it all rushed over her again, she wondered, as she had wondered over and over in the past, how she had lived through her sorrow—that sorrow which she had said so many times would kill her when it came.

"The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun,And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on."

She said the pathetic lines over to herself, wearily, even as she touched St. Leon's hand with her own and looked at him with a smile—a smile bright but cold like moonlight on snow. He had no answering smile in return. His face was almost stern in its marble pallor and intensity of repressed emotion. His firm white hand was cold as ice as it touched the rosy palm so graciously extended; his voice had a strange tone, even to himself, as he welcomed her to his home.

"You have the most beautiful home on the Hudson. Eden is far more beautiful than Belle Vue," she said to him, with her bright, cold smile.

"I am glad you like my home. It will always have an added charm in my eyes since Mrs. Lynn has deigned to praise it," St. Leon answered, gallantly.

She thanked him almost mockingly, and then their conversation turned upon the safe ground of generalities—upon art, and books, and foreign travel, where both were at home. He found Mrs. Lynn his equal in every sense. Her mind was rarely cultured and stored with knowledge, her thoughts were beautiful and crystal clear. She held her own with the ease and grace of one who knew the world, yet retained the native innocence and frankness of a child. St. Leon's hauteur and reserve melted before the charm of her manner, and he became his natural self again, meeting her on her own ground with polished words and brilliant thoughts. Their glances met each other's calmly, telling no tales of that "auld lang syne" when "eyes looked love to eyes that spake again."

"Two maskers! what had they to doWith vows forsworn and loves untrue?"

Mrs. Le Roy gave her attention to Mr. Ford and the child. She had drawn little Laurence to a seat by her side, and was showing him some fine engravings. She could not keep her fascinated eyes from the beautiful, spirited, boyish face that bore such a startling resemblance to that of her own son. Mr. Ford watched her closely, and he saw that her heart had gone out to the child, and that she was trying to win his love in return. He looked on approvingly, longing, in the depths of his unselfish heart, for a reconciliation between the long-parted husband and wife.

"Neither one is happy," he said to himself, looking at them as they sat talking calmly like strangers—the proud husband and the proud wife. "That man has a story written on his face; he has suffered intensely; is it possible he does not suspect the truth? Can he look at her—speak to her—and not recognize her? It almost seems impossible. There was never beauty before like hers—never such winsomeness and artless grace. Before I came here I despised St. Leon Le Roy. Why is it that I pity him now? Is it because I can read his sorrow and repentance in the sadness of his face?"

Mr. Le Roy, rising at that moment, said, quietly, looking at his mother:

"I am taking Mrs. Lynn to the library, mother, to show her a book we have been discussing, if you and Mr. Ford will excuse us."

"Certainly," both answered in a breath; and they went away, followed by Mrs. Le Roy's startled glance.

"Your niece is very beautiful," she said, turning back, after a moment, to Mr. Ford. "Has she been long a widow?"

"Seven years," he answered.

"Then the child has never known his father?" she said, with a light, pitying touch of her ringed white hand on the boy's dark, clustering curls.

"No—much to the lad's regret," said Mr. Ford.

"I dare say you have acted a father's part by the fatherless one," she remarked, turning her grave, questioning eyes on his face. It seemed as if she was fascinated to speak of little Laurence. She could not keep her eyes nor her thoughts from him.

"Since I have known him—yes," Mr. Ford answered. "But though his mother is my own sister's child, Mrs. Le Roy, I never met her, never knew of her existence, until she was a widow, with a son three years old."

She looked the curiosity she was too well bred to express in words.

"Do you care to know the reason why?" asked Mr. Ford.

"I confess you have aroused my curiosity," she replied, with a smile.

"Then I will tell you," he said. "When I was quite a lad I ran away to Australia, seized with a gold-fever, then very prevalent in New York. After years of ill luck, sickness, and misfortune, I struck a bonanza. I was an old man then, and my heart yearned for the home and the friends of my youth. I came home, determined to share my wealth and prosperity with them, but all were dead, mother, father, and even the toddling little sister I had loved so dearly. She had married, and died in a short time after, leaving one daughter, whom I found it impossible to trace. Several years later, I discovered my missing niece, by a fortunate accident, in the brilliant novelist, Mrs. Lynn."