Infelice Part 89

When Mrs. Laurance received the first intimation that Cuthbert had probably perished, with his wife and child, she vehemently and stubbornly refused her credence. It seemed impossible that envious death could have so utterly s.n.a.t.c.hed from her grasp the triumph upon which her eager fingers were already closing.

Causing advertis.e.m.e.nts to be inserted in various journals, and offering therein a reward for information of the missing pa.s.sengers, she forbade the topic broached in her presence, and quitting Paris retired for a season to Lake Como, vainly seeking that coveted tranquillity which everywhere her own harrowing thoughts and ceaseless forebodings effectually murdered.

As time wore on she grew gloomy, taciturn, almost morose, and a restlessness beyond the remedy of medicine robbed her of the power of sleep. To-day she clung convulsively to her daughter, unwilling that she should leave her even for an instant; to-morrow she would lock herself in, and for hours refuse admittance to any human being. The rich bloom forsook her cheek, deep shadows underlined her large melancholy eyes, and her dimpled hands became so diaphanous, so thin, that the black agate ring with difficulty held its place upon the wasted fingers.

With patient loving care, Regina antic.i.p.ated her wishes, indulged all her varying caprices, devoted herself a.s.siduously to the task of diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read, talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her mother refused the thorns of a sleepless pillow, the daughter drew her out upon the terrace against which the wavelets broke in a silvery monologue, and directed her thoughts to the glowing stars that cl.u.s.tered in the blue dome above, and s.h.i.+mmered in the azure beneath; or with an arm around the mother's waist, led her into the flowery garden, and up the winding walks that climbed the eminence behind the villa, where oleanders whitened the gloom, and pa.s.sionate jasmines broke their rich hearts upon the dewy air; so, pacing to and fro, until the moon went down behind myrtle groves, and the bald brow of distant Alps flushed under the first kiss of day.

For Mrs. Laurance, nepenthe was indeed a fable, and while she abstained from even an indirect allusion to the subject that absorbed her, the nameless anxiety that seemed consuming her, Regina and her uncle watched her with increasing apprehension.

This afternoon she had complained of headache, and, throwing herself on a couch in the recess of the window that overlooked the lake, desired to be left alone, in the hope of falling asleep.

Stooping to kiss her, Regina said:

"Mother, let me sit by you, and while I fan you gently read the 'Lotos Eaters.' The drowsy rhythm will lull you into that realm of rest,--

'In which it seemed always afternoon.'

May I?"

"No. To-day your blue eyes would stab my sleep. I will ring when I want you."

Dropping the filmy lace curtains, in order to lessen the reflection from the water, Regina softly stole away, and sat down at the window of the salon, where satin-leaved arums and dainty pearly orchids embellished the consoles, and fragrant heliotrope and geraniums were blooming in pots cl.u.s.tered upon the stone balcony outside.

Each day the favourite view of the lake and bending sh.o.r.e line, upon which she gazed from this spot, developed some new beauty, hidden hitherto under leafy laurel shadows, or behind the snowy soil of some fis.h.i.+ng-boat, rocking idly upon the azure waves.

Now the burden of her reflections was:

"If we could only spend our lives in this marble haven, away from the turmoil and feverish confusion of the outside world--forgetting the past, contented with the society of each other--and shut in with G.o.d and nature, how peaceful the future would be! nay, how happy all might yet become!"

Sympathy with her mother had forced her to put temporarily aside the contemplation of her own sorrow, but in secret it preyed upon her heart; and whenever a letter arrived, she dreaded the announcement of Mr. Palma's marriage.

His parting allusion to a brief European visit she had by the aid of her fears interpreted to mean a bridal tour, curtailed by his business engagements; and though she never mentioned his name when it could be avoided, she could not hear it casually p.r.o.nounced by her uncle or mother, without feeling her heart bound suddenly.

Once, soon after her arrival in Paris, her mother, in reading a letter from Mr. Palma, glanced at her, and said:

"Your guardian desires me to say, that in your undisguised devotion to Uncle Orme he presumes he is completely forgotten; but consoles himself with the reflection, that from time immemorial wards have been like the Carthaginians--proverbially ungrateful."

Regina made no response, and since then she had received no message.

While she sat gazing over Como, a mirage rose glistening between her eyes, and the emerald sh.o.r.e beyond: the dear familiar outlines of that Fifth Avenue library, the frescoed walls, polished floor, mellow gas lamps; and above all, the stately form, ma.s.sive head, high brow, so like a slab of marble, and blight black eyes of the dear master.

She was glad when Mr. Chesley came in, with an open book in his hand, and stood near her.

"Is your mother asleep?"

"I hope so. She sent me away that she might get a nap."

"Just now I stumbled upon a pa.s.sage which reminded me so vividly of the imaginary home you last week painted for us, somewhere along the Pacific sh.o.r.e, that I thought I would show it to you. That home, where you hope to indulge your bucolic tastes, your childish fondness for pets--doves, rabbits, pheasants--and similar rustic appendages to our cottage--in--the--air. Here, read it, aloud if you will."

She glanced over the lines, smiled, and read:

"'Mong the green lanes of Kent stood an antique home Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits; For the full year was laughing in his prime.

Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green, And the old porch with its great oaken door Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls The honeysuckle clung deliciously.

Before the door there lay a plot of gra.s.s Snowed o'er with daisies,--flower by all beloved, And famousest in song,--and in the midst A carved fountain stood,...

On which a peac.o.c.k perched and sunned itself; Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white, Squatted upon the sward.

A row of poplars darkly rose behind, Around whose tops, and the old-fas.h.i.+oned vanes, White pigeons fluttered; and over all was bent The mighty sky, with sailing, sunny clouds."

"Thank you, Uncle Orme. The picture is as sweet as its honeysuckle blooms, and some day we will frame it with California mountains, and call it Home. I shall only want to add a gently sloping field, wherein pearly short-horns stand ankle deep in clover, while my dear old dog Hero basks upon the doorstep; and upon the lawn,--

'An almond tree Pink with her blossom and alive with bees, Standing against the azure.'"

"Yonder come the letters."

As he spoke, Mr. Chesley left the room, and soon after a servant entered with a letter addressed to Regina.

It was from Olga, dated Baden-baden; and the vein of subdued yet hopeless melancholy that wandered through its contents, now and then intertwined strangely with a thread of her old grim humour.

"Do you ever hear from that legal sphinx--Erle Palma? Mamma only now and then receives epistles fas.h.i.+oned after those once in vogue in Laconia. (I wonder if even the old toothless gossips in Sparta were ever laconic?) I am truly sorry for Erle Palma. That beautifully crystallized quartz heart of his is no doubt being ground between the upper and nether millstones of his love and his pride; and Hymen ought to charge him heavy mill-toll. My dear, _have_ you seen Elliott Roscoe's little tinted-paper poem? Of course his apostrophe to 'violet eyes, overlaced with jet!' will sound quite Tennysonian to a certain little shy girl, now hiding at Como, and who 'inspired the strain.' But aside from the pleasant a.s.sociation that links you with the verses, they are--pardon me, dear--as thin and flavourless as--well, as the soup dished out at pauper restaurants. You are at liberty to consider me consumed by envy, green with jealousy, when I here spitefully record that Elliott's ambitious poem reminds me of M.

de Bonald's biting criticism on Madame de Krudener: 'I make bold to declare, with the Bible in my hand, that the poor we shall always have with us, were it only the poor in intellect.' c.o.ke and Story will befriend poor Elliott much more effectually than the Muses, who have most ingloriously snubbed him. Are you really happy, little s...o...b..rd, nestling in the down of mother-love, which--like the veritable baby you are--you so pined for?

"Regina, I am going to tell you something. Bar the windows, lock the doors, shut it up for ever, close in your own heart. A few nights ago, I went with an English friend to the _Conversationshaus_. When we had leaned awhile against one of the columns, and watched the dancers in the magnificent saloon, he proposed to show me the grand gambling-room.

"As we walked slowly along, listening to the click of the gold that pattered down from trembling hands, I saw, sitting at a _Roulette_ table, deeply immersed in the game (never tell it!) Belmont Eggleston. Not the same cla.s.sic, G.o.d-like face that I would once have followed straight to Hades--not the man upon whom I wasted all the love that G.o.d gives a woman to glorify her life and home; but a flushed, bloated creature, as unlike the Belmont of my hopes and dreams as 'Hyperion to a Satyr!' I watched him till my very soul turned sick, and all Pandemonium seemed to have joined in a jeer at my former infatuation. Next day, I saw him reel from a saloon to the steps of his wife's carriage. Years ago, when Erle Palma told me that my darling drank and gambled, I denied it; and in return for the warning, emptied more wrath upon my informer than all the Apocalyptic vials held. Ah! for poor Belmont, I fought as fiercely as a tawny tigress, when her youngest cub is captured by the hunters. Ashes!

Bitter ashes of love and trust! Truly 'there is no pardon for desecrated ideals.' I have lived to learn that--

'Man trusts in G.o.d; He is eternal. Woman trusts in man, And he is s.h.i.+fting sand.'"

"Regina!"

The girl looked up, and saw her uncle with an open letter in his hand.

"What is it? Some bad news!"

"Dear little girl, you are indeed fatherless now."

She bent her head upon the ledge of the window, and after a moment Mr. Chesley sighed, and smoothed her hair.

"With all his faults, he was still your father; and having had several interviews with him in Paris, I was convinced he was more 'sinned against than sinning,' though of course he knew that he could never have legally married again while Minnie lived. G.o.d help us to forgive, even as we need and hope to be forgiven."

"He knows I forgave him. I told him so the night he held me to his heart and kissed me; and you never can know how that thought comforts me now. But mother! Uncle----"

She sprang up pale and tearful, but he detained her.

"Mr. Palma writes me that there remains no longer a doubt that Laurance perished in the wreck. He encloses a detailed account of the disaster, from an American naval surgeon, who was returning home on furlough, when the storm overtook them, and who was one of the few picked up by the West Indian vessel. Mr. Palma wrote to him, relative to your father, and it appears from his reply--in my hand--that he knew the Laurances quite well. He says that during the gale, he was called to prescribe for Maud, who was really ill, and rendered worse by terror. When it was evident the steamer could not outlive the storm, he saw Cuthbert Laurance place his wife in one of the boats, and return to the cabin for his sick child. Hastening back with the little cripple in his arms, he found the boats were beyond reach, and too crowded to admit another pa.s.senger. He shouted the nearest to take his child, only his child; but the violence of the gale rendered it impossible to do more than keep the boat from swamping, and with many others, he was left upon the doomed vessel. There was no remaining boat; night came swiftly on, the storm increased, and next day there was no vestige of boat or s.h.i.+p visible. Mrs. Laurance was in the second boat, the largest and strongest, but it was overladen, and about twilight it capsized in the fury of the gale, and _all went down_. The surgeon who heard the wild screams of the women knows that the wife perished, and says he cannot indulge the faintest hope that the father and child escaped. Cuthbert was a remarkably skilful swimmer; he had once contended for a wager off Brighton, with a party of naval officers, and Laurance won it; but none could live in the sea that boiled and bellowed around that sinking s.h.i.+p, and enc.u.mbered as he was with the helpless child, it was impossible that he would have survived. I would rather not tell Minnie now, but Mr. Palma writes that the sister and nephew of General Laurance will force a suit to secure the remnants of the property, and he wishes to antic.i.p.ate their action. Come with me, dear. Minnie is not asleep. As I pa.s.sed her door, I heard her walk across the floor."

"Uncle Orme, can't you wait till to-morrow? I do not know how this news will affect her, and I dread it."

"My dear child, her suspense is destroying her. After all, delay will do no good. Poor Minnie! There is her bell. She knows the hour our mail is due, and she will ask for letters."