That Mainwaring Affair Part 24

Several hours later Scott stood alone beside the casket of the murdered man. The head had been turned slightly to one side and a spray of white blossoms, dropped with seeming carelessness within the casket, concealed all traces of the ghastly wound, their snowy petals scarcely whiter than the marble features of the dead.

It lacked more than an hour of the time set for the funeral. None of the few invited friends would arrive for some time yet. The gentlemen of the house were still in the hands of their valets, and the ladies engrossed with the details of their elegant mourning costumes. Scott, knowing he would be secure from interruption, had chosen this opportunity to take his farewell look at the face of his employer, desiring to be alone with his own thoughts beside the dead.

With strangely commingled emotions he gazed upon the face, so familiar, and yet upon which the death angel had already traced many unfamiliar lines, and as he realized the utter loneliness of the rich man, both in life and in death, a wave of intense pity swept across heart and brain, well-nigh obliterating all sense of personal wrong and injury.

"Unhappy man!" he murmured. "Unloved in life, unmourned in death!

Not one of those whom you sought to enrich will look upon you to-day with one-half the sorrow or the pity with which I do, whom you have wronged and defrauded from the day of my birth! But I forgive you the wrong you have done me. It was slight compared with the far greater wrong you did another,--your brother--your only brother!

A wrong which no sums of money, however vast, could ever repair.

What would I not give if I could once have stood by his side, even as I stand by yours to-day, and looked once upon his face,--the face of your brother and of the father whom, because of your guilt, I have never seen or known, of whom I have not even a memory!

Living, I could never have forgiven you; but here, to-day, in pity for your loveless life and out of the great love I bear that father in his far-away ocean grave,--in his name and in my own,--I forgive you, his brother, even that wrong!"

As Scott left the room, he pa.s.sed Mr. Whitney in the hall, who, seeing in his face traces of recent emotion, looked after him with great surprise.

"That young man is a mystery!" he soliloquized. "A mystery! I confess I cannot understand him."

A little later the master of Fair Oaks pa.s.sed for the last time down the winding, oak-lined avenue, followed by the guests of the place and by a small concourse of friends, whose sorrow, though unexpressed by outward signs of mourning, was, in reality, the more sincere.

Mrs. LaGrange, who, as housekeeper, had remained at Fair Oaks, seemed, as the last carriage disappeared from view, to be on the verge of collapse from nervous prostration. No one knew the mental excitement or the terrible nervous strain which she had undergone during those last few days. Many at the funeral had noted her extreme pallor, but no one dreamed of the tremendous will power by which she had maintained her customary haughty bearing. When all had gone, she rose and attempted to go to her room, but in the hall she staggered helplessly and, with a low moan, sank unconscious to the floor. The screams of the chambermaid, who had seen her fall, summoned to her a.s.sistance the other servants, who carried her to her room, where she slowly regained consciousness, opening her eyes with an expression of terror, then closing them again with a shudder. Suddenly she seemed to recall her surroundings; with a great effort she rallied and dismissed the servants, with the exception of the chambermaid, saying, "It was nothing, only a little faintness caused by the heat. The room was insufferably close. Say nothing of this to the others when they return."

With Katie's a.s.sistance, she exchanged her heavy dress for a light wrapper of creamy silk, and soon seemed herself again except for her unusual pallor.

"That will do, Katie; I shall not need you further. By the way, did Walter go with the others, or did he remain at home?"

"Mr. Walter is in his room, ma'am; and I heard Hardy say that he was packing up his clothes and things."

Mrs. LaGrange betrayed no surprise, no emotion of any kind. "Say to him that I would like to see him in my room at once."

The girl disappeared, leaving Mrs. LaGrange to her own reflections, which seemed anything but pleasant. The look of terror returned to her face; she clinched her hands until the jewels cut deeply into the white fingers; then, springing to her feet, she paced the room wildly until she heard the footsteps of her son approaching, when she instantly a.s.sumed her usual composure.

Walter LaGrange had left Fair Oaks immediately at the close of the inquest, and had not returned except to be present at the funeral, and even there his sullen appearance had caused general remark.

Very little love had ever existed between mother and son, for neither had a nature capable of deep affection, but never until now had there been any open rupture between them. Though closely resembling each other, he lacked her ability to plan and execute, and had hitherto been content to follow her counsels. But, as he now entered his mother's room, a glance revealed to her that her authority and influence over him were past.

"You sent for me, I believe. What do you want?" he asked, as she looked at him without speaking.

"Do you consider your conduct becoming towards a mother who is risking everything for you and your interests?"

"Oh, my interests be hanged," he exclaimed, petulantly. "I don't see that you've accomplished much for my interests with all your scheming. A week ago I could hold up my head with any of the fellows. I was supposed to be a relative of Hugh Mainwaring's, with good prospects, and that I would come in for a good round sum whenever the old fellow made his will,--just as I did. Now that's gone, and everything's gone; I haven't even a name left!"

"Walter LaGrange, what do you mean? Do you dare insinuate to your own mother-"

"Why don't you call me Walter Mainwaring?" he sneered. "As to insinuations, I have to hear plenty of 'em. Last night I was black-balled at one of the clubs where my name had been presented for members.h.i.+p, and a lot of the fellows have cut me dead."

"Walter, listen to me. You are Hugh Mainwaring's son and I was his wife. I will yet compel people to recognize us as such; but you must--"

"Tell me one thing," he demanded, interrupting her. "If I was Hugh Mainwaring's son, why have I not borne his name? Why did he not recognize me as such? I'll claim no man for my father who would not acknowledge me as his son."

Then, before she could reply, he added, "If you were the wife of Hugh Mainwaring, what was the meaning of your proposal of marriage to him less than three months ago?"

She grew deathly pale; but he, seeming to enjoy the situation, repeated, sneeringly, "Less than three months ago, the night on which he gave you the necklace which you commissioned me to sell the other day! You urged your suit with a vengeance, too, I remember, for you threatened to ruin him if he did not come to your terms.

"I only laughed then, for I thought 'twas another scheme of yours to get a tighter hold on the old man's purse-strings. It's nothing to me what your object was, but in view of the fact that I happened to overhear that little episode, it might be just as well not to try to tell me that I am Hugh Mainwaring's son. You will naturally see that I am not likely to be interested in helping carry out that little farce!"

Still controlling herself by a tremendous will power, the wretched woman made one more desperate effort. In low tones she replied,--

"You show your base ingrat.i.tude by thus insulting your mother and running the risk of betraying her to listening servants by your talk. Of course, this is all a farce, as you say, but it must be carried through. You and I were distantly related to Hugh Mainwaring, but what chance would we have against these people with no more of a claim than ours? I am compelled to a.s.sert that I was his wife and that you are his son in order to win any recognition in the eyes of the law."

For an instant her son regarded her with an expression of mingled surprise and incredulity, then the sneer returned, and, turning to leave the room, he answered, carelessly,--

"You can tell your little story to other people, and when you have won a fortune on it, why, I'll be around for my share, as, whatever my doubts in other directions, I have not the slightest doubt that you are my mother, and therefore bound to support me. But, for the present, if you please, I'll go by the old name of LaGrange. It's a name that suits me very well yet, even though," and a strange look flashed at her from his dark eyes, "even though it may be only a borrowed one," and the door closed, for the last time, between mother and son.

A low moan escaped from the lips of the unhappy woman. "My son--the only living being of my flesh and blood--even he has turned against me!" Too proud to recall him, however, she sank exhausted upon a couch, and, burying her face in her hands, wept bitterly for the first and only time in her remembrance.

Meanwhile, the guests of Fair Oaks, having returned from the funeral, had a.s.sembled in the large library below, and were engaged in animated discussion regarding the disposition to be made of the property. Ralph Mainwaring and Mr. Thornton, with pencils and paper, were computing stocks and bonds, and estimating how much of a margin would be left after the purchase of the old Mainwaring estate, which they had heard could be bought at a comparatively low figure, the present owner being somewhat embarra.s.sed financially; while Mrs.

Mainwaring was making a careful inventory of the furniture, paintings, and bric-a-brac at Fair Oaks, with a view of ascertaining whether there were any articles which she would care to retain for their future home.

Mr. Whitney, who, as a bachelor and an intimate friend of Hugh Mainwaring's, as well as his legal adviser, had perhaps more than any one else enjoyed the hospitality of his beautiful suburban home, found the conversation extremely distasteful, and, having furnished whatever information was desired, excused himself and left the room.

As he sauntered out upon the broad veranda, he was surprised to see Miss Carleton, who had made her escape through one of the long windows, and who looked decidedly bored.

"It's perfectly beastly! Don't you think so?" she exclaimed, looking frankly into his face, as if sure of sympathy.

She had so nearly expressed his own feelings that he flushed slightly, as he replied, with a smile, "It looks rather peculiar to an outsider, but I suppose it is only natural."

"It is natural for them," she replied, with emphasis.

"I did not intend to be personal; I meant human nature generally."

"I have too much respect for human nature generally to believe it as selfish and as mercenary as that. I have learned one lesson, however. I will never leave my property to my friends, hoping by so doing to be held in loving remembrance. It would be the surest way to make them forget me."

"Has your experience of the last few days made you so cynical as that?" the attorney inquired, again smiling into the bright, fair face beside him.

"It is not cynicism, Mr. Whitney; it is the plain truth. I have always known that the Mainwarings as a family were mercenary; but I confess I had no idea, until within the last few days, that they were capable of such beastly ingrat.i.tude."

"Do you mean to say that it is a trait of the entire Mainwaring family, or only of this branch in particular?" he inquired, somewhat amused.

"All the Mainwarings are noted for their wors.h.i.+p of the golden G.o.d,"

she replied, with a low musical laugh; "but Ralph Mainwaring's love of money is almost a monomania. He has planned and schemed to get that old piece of English property into his hands for years and years, in fact, ever since it was willed to Hugh Mainwaring at the time his brother was disinherited, and the name he gave to his son was the first stone laid to pave the way to this coveted fortune."

"I see. Pardon me, Miss Carleton; but you just now alluded to Hugh Mainwaring's brother. I remember some mention was made at the inquest of a brother, but I supposed it must be an error. Had he really a brother?"

"Ah, yes, an elder brother; and he must have been less avaricious than the rest of them, as he sacrificed a fortune for love. It was quite a little romance, you know. He and his brother Hugh were both in love with the same lady. The father did not approve, and gave his sons their choice between love without a fortune or a fortune without love. Hugh Mainwaring chose the latter, but Harold, the elder, was true to his lady, and was consequently disinherited."

"Poor Hugh Mainwaring!" commented the attorney; "he made his choice for life of a fortune without love, and a sad life it was, too!"

Miss Carleton glanced up with quick sympathy. "Yes, it seemed to me his life must have been rather lonely and sad."

There was a pause, and she added, "And did he never speak to you, his intimate friend, of his brother?"

"Never."