CHAPTER XXV.
"THE WINDS OF FATE BLOW EVER."
"Of all that life can teach us,
There's naught so true as this:
The winds of Fate blow ever,
But ever blow amiss!"
The days fled fast, and brought the balm of hope to aching hearts.
Contrary to the surgeon's verdict, and in spite of a very dangerous wound, Earle Winans was on the road to recovery.
Youth, health, and a superb constitution had triumphed over the circumstances that threatened the close of his young, promising life.
But it was quite three weeks, and far into the middle of June, before he was able to be removed from the Conway cottage up to Rosemont.
In the meantime something had happened that caused Ladybird's exile from the scene of her mischievous triumphs and coquetries.
The story of her novel lottery the night after the picnic had become public property in the village and shared usual notoriety with the duel.
Nothing was talked of but the rivalry between Aura and Ladybird that had been the primary cause of the duel. It became the sensation of the hour. The gaping of the villagers when either of the rival beauties appeared on the streets was so unendurable that even the bold-eyed Aura shrank with dismay, and was fain to remain indoors, although the giving up of her designs on Earle Winans was succeeded by the vaulting ambition to become Lady Chester.
Arthur did indeed call once on the lawyer's daughter, but she made no impression on the heart that already held a fairer image. But he was curious to know the girl who had been the cause of the duel. When he had satisfied his curiosity and laughed in his sleeve over her wasted airs and graces, he retreated from the field, and none of her efforts could inveigle him inside her doors again.
The story of Ladybird's flirtations was well known to everybody else before it reached her father and the Winans family.
Bruce Conway was one of the proudest of men, and although he had been an accomplished flirt in his own day he could not tolerate it in his daughter. The truth horrified him.
If it had been any other girl than Ladybird, his own lovely daughter, he would have laughed in his idle, graceful way at her novel method of doing justice to her lovers, the "heroes," as she termed them—but this came home too nearly.
He recalled with a groan his pleasant hopes and fancies built on his daughter's preference for Earle Winans. Then he muttered:
"Engaged to a fellow I never saw! A village lawyer's clerk! That Jack Tennant! Won in a lottery—my daughter! Good heavens! how careless and thoughtless I have been, taking my own way and letting Ladybird take hers. Otherwise this never could have happened."
For the most of his life Bruce Conway had taken things easily, and life had gone easy with him, but here was something that shook him up, as it were.
He had a long talk with Miss Prudence Primrose, during which she said so often, "I told thee so, Bruce, I told thee so," that it almost drove him mad.
"But what can I do with her? How restrain her in the future, even if she ever lives down the notoriety of this ridiculous prank?" he groaned.
Miss Prue sighed helplessly, then a bright thought came to her, and she suggested:
"Why not consult my good friend, Mrs. Winans? She has raised up two gentle daughters very properly."
"No, Prue, I cannot consult Mrs. Winans. You forget how shamefully Ladybird has treated her son. If it comes to her ears, as it must, she will resent the indignity to her son, who inherits all his father's pride and nobility. The affection she cherishes for Ladybird now will perhaps change into disgust. I cannot tell what to do with the little madcap, but I can tell you, Aunt Prue, a widower with a coquettish daughter on his hands is an object to be pitied."
Miss Prue did not pity him much. She thought he had neglected his pretty, motherless child all along, and valued his own ease too highly. Now he was reaping the fit reward for his carelessness.
"I will send her to a convent school till she's twenty, that's what I'll do," he declared irritably.
But suddenly Ladybird took the matter into her own hands.
The little beauty had been secretly very unhappy ever since the night when her willful prank had so deeply offended Earle's proud heart and reared that wall of ice between them.
Up at Rosemont every one believed her perfectly happy, and none dreamed of her love and sorrow over Earle, who might die and never forgive her for the wrong she had done him.
Everyone loved and petted her, from the stately senator and his lovely daughters down to the lowest menial on the grand estate. As for gentle Mrs. Winans, she had a deep and silent love, maternal in its strength, for the winsome child of her dear dead friend, bonny Lulu.
Ladybird knew well how they loved her, and her heart thrilled with love for them, but always there was the haunting thought that when Earle should tell them of her coquettish wiles they would despise her ever after.
"And that would break my heart," she sighed tearfully.
So when Earle was declared out of danger she began to shrink at the very thought of meeting him again. The memory of his last proud look of resentful scorn remained always in her thoughts.
"I should like to run away. I can never meet him again, cold and altered, loving me no longer," she sobbed on her pillow that night.
And as if in answer to her longing wish a letter came next morning.
It was the next day after her father had declared to Miss Prue that he would place her in a convent school for three years.
She went to him with a smile, her heart beating with hope, and placed the letter in his hand.
"What is it, Ladybird?"
"A letter, papa, from my old schoolmistress, Madame Hartman. She and her husband are going abroad in a week for a summer tour, and they take with them our whole graduated class of last year—ten girls, you know, counting me. She has written to ask if you will permit me to join her party. Will you, papa, dearest?" clinging fondly round his neck. "She chaperoned ten girls abroad last year, and they had such a lovely time—lovely! And if I go I must join madame in Richmond this week."
"You take my breath away, Ladybird, this is so sudden."
"But you will let me go. My heart is quite set on it, papa."
"But, my dear, I had hoped to have you for my guest this summer," said Mrs. Winans, who happened to be present.
"I thank you, but—I would not like to disappoint Madame Hartman," Ladybird murmured, with a break in her voice.
"Then you must be my guest in Washington this winter. I should like to present you to Washington society at the time that Precious comes out. Will you consent, Mr. Conway?"
"Gladly," he answered, and Ladybird went over to kiss the lovely, gentle face, and left a tear on Mrs. Winans' cheek. She did not guess it was for her son's sake.
Bruce Conway was too much pleased with Madame Hartman's opportune offer to decline it, so it was accepted by telegraph, and her father took her to Richmond next day to join her kind teacher. The Winans family saw her go, with loving regrets and confident hopes of a meeting next fall, forgetting how adversely the winds of fate too often blow.
CHAPTER XXVI.
"IT IS LOVELY TO LOVE AND BE LOVED."
"Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin,
As sweet as clover honey in its cell;
Love is the password whereby souls get in
To heaven—the gate that leads sometimes to hell.
Dear God above
Pity the hearts that know—or know not—Love!"
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
In due time Ethel received a letter from Lord Chester, announcing his safe arrival in England.
But to her surprise and chagrin the young man made no mention of the mysterious matter that had called him away.
"Can it be that Arthur deceived me? That he invented an excuse to get away from me? What if he means to break his troth?" she thought, with instant, angry suspicion.
But when she noticed how pale her sister's young cheek had grown while she read her letter, she smoothed the frown from her brow and cried out gayly:
"Ah, Precious, I wish you had an adoring lover like mine! It would thrill your heart to read some of the tender passages in dear Arthur's letter."
She read aloud, blushingly, some tender words and phrases, but the blush was for her own falsehood, for Arthur's letter held nothing like what she read. It was brief and almost indifferent, and the poor fellow had tried to excuse its coldness by pleading haste.
If Precious was surprised at those ardent words of love to her sister, she was also glad in her tender, unselfish heart that Arthur had returned to his first love. She crushed down her own bitter pangs and answered sweetly:
"I am glad that he loves you so dearly, Ethel!"
In the quiet months at Rosemont, Precious had recovered from the nervous prostration that had followed upon the horror of her kidnaping by Lindsey Warwick, and the subsequent escape from the haunted house. The failure to apprehend the villain had made every one believe he was a fugitive far away. So the careful guard over the young girl had relaxed its vigilance, and she wandered at her own sweet will about the pretty ornamental grounds surrounding the house.
One evening she wandered at twilight down to the river bank toward the spot where she had parted with Lord Chester that fateful night. She stood beneath the wide-spreading oak with the first faint rays of the moon on her face, and the river murmuring at her feet.
The true and tender little heart was very heavy, despite all her efforts to be brave and strong; and although she had sent Arthur back to Ethel so nobly she could not banish him yet from her sorrowful thoughts.
With half-shut eyes and two burning tears on her pale cheeks, Precious stood still, living over in fancy the thrilling moment when Arthur had clasped and kissed her, and claimed her for his own.
Precious loved the young hero who had saved her life with all the passion of her soul, and her fond heart was breaking for his loss.
"But he can never be mine—never!" she sobbed faintly, and the river's voice echoed the plaintive words:
"Never! Never!"
Absorbed in her own sad thoughts, Precious did not catch the faint sound of footsteps creeping nearer and nearer, did not dream that this was the opportunity long waited and desired by a sinister intruder. Her downcast gaze did not see the tall form gliding round the tree, nor the burning eyes whose gaze seemed to scorch her face!
But suddenly a shawl was thrown over her head, stifling her shriek of surprise and horror, two strong arms closed around her form, and in another moment Precious would have been borne away a helpless captive to a dreadful fate; but at that moment Earle Winans, who had followed Precious, came opportunely upon the scene.
He beheld with horror the attempted outrage, and lifting a cane he carried struck the wretch a blow that made him reel and drop the girl's inanimate form on the ground.
There was an oath from the foiled villain, but Earle's hands were about his throat, forcing him to his knees.
"You hound! How dare you touch my sister?" thundered Earle, and the wretch whined as well as he could for the clutch on his throat:
"Your sister, sir? Oh, a thousand pardons! I thought it was my sweetheart, Hetty Wilkins, the maid of Miss Winans. We were courting here under the tree, and she sent me up to the servants' entrance to bring her shawl. In play only I threw it over her head, to give her a fright! It was a mistake. I beg your and the lady's pardon, and if you will let me go I'll never intrude on the grounds again!"
The story was so plausible, the wretch's abject terror so pitiable, that Earle permitted him to sneak away, little dreaming that it was the veritable Lindsey Warwick he had held in his grasp—the detestable villain who, under the guise of Hetty's lover, was still pursuing the mad purpose of winning the senator's beautiful daughter, who was as far above him as the stars from the earth.
He slunk away, and Earle knelt down by Precious, drawing the shawl from her white, unconscious face.
"Darling, speak to me!" he cried anxiously.
She shuddered, and opened her eyes.
"Oh, brother, is it you?" clinging to him distractedly. One fearful glance around her, and she moaned:
"Where is Lindsey Warwick? He came upon me suddenly and as I shrieked and turned to fly he threw a shawl over my head and–"
"Lindsey Warwick! Is it possible? and I have let the wretch escape! Come, darling, to the house, that I may pursue the villain!" Earle cried in bitter anger and chagrin that he had been so easily duped.
But though Senator Winans, with his son and a dozen other men, followed the trail all night, the search was hopeless, for Lindsey Warwick cleverly eluded capture.
And through the long night hours the mother watched by the bedside of the nervous girl, who tossed restlessly upon her pillow, starting in alarm at every sound, and begging piteously to be taken away from Rosemont.
"We will go to-morrow, dear," Mrs. Winans promised tenderly.
Hetty Wilkins wept and protested when she was told the story of the man who claimed to be her lover.
"There is some mistake," she cried. "My young man's name is Watson Hunter. And he wasn't here to-night at all."
But Mrs. Winans insisted on dismissing Hetty next day, with a month's wages in lieu of a warning. This plan seemed best to them all.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A WAITING-MAID'S ROMANCE
"The music of thy voice I heard
Nor wish while it enslaved me;
I saw thine eyes, but nothing feared,
Till fears no more had saved me.
The unwary sailor thus aghast,
The wheeling torrent viewing,
'Mid circling horrors sinks at last,
In overwhelming ruin!"—Burns.
Hetty Wilkins was bitterly grieved at her dismissal from the service of Mrs. Winans, and her vanity was wounded by the suggestion that Lindsey Warwick had been courting her simply to keep up with the movements of the Winans family and further his own designs.
"Oh, no, madam, he cannot be the same man, I'm sure," she declared stubbornly.
"But, Hetty, there can be no mistake. My daughter recognized him, and he declared to my son that he was your lover. Now, my good girl, there is a reward of ten thousand dollars offered by Senator Winans for Lindsey Warwick's apprehension. Suppose you earn it by delivering this wretch up to justice," suggested Mrs. Winans, very much in earnest over the matter.
So Hetty departed, angry at her dismissal, and firm in the belief that her lover was innocent of the charges brought against him.
But when Watson Hunter came no more, and her letters to him elicited no reply, her loving confidence grew faint, and suspicion awakened in her mind.
"I will find him if I have to employ a detective," she vowed spitefully.
But for Hetty's strong faith in fortune-tellers, it is likely that her absconding lover might have eluded her forever, but when a month had passed in futile efforts she suddenly bethought herself of invoking the aid of a clairvoyant in her search for the truant.
She had returned to Washington several weeks before, and it was now the middle of August. On consulting the papers she selected from the advertisements one in a very obscure locality, and made her way thither without delay. The mind-reader and clairvoyant, as she called herself, was located on a dirty little street in a villainous-looking tobacco shop. When Hetty entered, the slovenly-looking old woman was serving a customer with cigars, and the maid was startled to find in her the same woman to whom she had once advised Ethel to apply.
"I want my fortune told," she said in an undertone to the woman.
"Come into the back room, then, and I'll send my son to wait on the shop."
With her pretty nose in the air, at the vile odors of the place, the smart maid followed into the back room, where a slovenly man with long hair and full whiskers was making some drawings at a little table.
"You must wait on the shop while I tell the young lady's fortune," the woman said to him, and he rose with a muttered word of impatience.
Hetty was not the least interested in the gruff man, and she scarcely knew why she cast a searching glance upon him.
But when she looked at him she met a glance of startled recognition that made her foolish heart leap with wild excitement. The next moment she clutched his arm, crying sobbingly:
"Oh, Watson, Watson, so I've found you at last!"
"The devil!" cried Lindsey Warwick, trying to shake her off, for his first impulse was to snatch his hat and run.
But Hetty clasped his neck with both arms, and clung to him like a wild-cat, despite his struggles.
"Let me go! let me go! I don't know you! I'm a stranger to you—that isn't my name!" he vociferated wildly. "Mother, take her off and hold her, won't you?"
Thus adjured, the old woman come to his relief, and soon had the pretty maid a prisoner in her own strong arms.
"What's the matter with you, you little crazy wild-cat?" she demanded roughly, but Hetty was gazing malignantly at Warwick, who regarded her with an injured air.
"Young woman, you've made a mistake. I don't know you!" he was saying.
"Oh, don't I, Mr. Lindsey Warwick?" cried Hetty, taking revenge for her slighted love. "Maybe that ain't your name, neither! Maybe I don't intend to scream for the police, and give you up to them, and claim the reward, you villain!"
She was opening her mouth for a prolonged shriek, when a hand was clapped over it, and Lindsey Warwick cried out laughingly:
"You silly darling, can't you take a joke? Of course my name isn't Warwick, but Watson Hunter, and I was only teasing you a little to pay you back for running off from Rosemont and leaving me in the lurch."
Hetty gasped in his clutch and he loosened it gently, seeing that his falsehoods had begun to bewilder and soften her angry mood.
"Why didn't you write to me when you left Rosemont?" continued the arch deceiver. "I was down there a day or two after the family packed up to leave, and I thought you had gone away with them and given me the jilt. But you won't get away from me again, for we'll go to the preacher this very day, won't we, dearie?"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SHADOW OF ORPHANAGE AND SORROW
"Thou didst set thy foot on the ship, and sail
To the ice-fields and the snow;
Thou wert sad, for thy love did naught avail,
And the end we could not know....
Oh, I spoke once and I grieved thee sore;
I remember all that I said—
And now thou wilt hear me no more, no more
Till the sea gives up its dead."—Jean Ingelow.
The golden summer days fled fast, and the Winans family remained at Rosemont until they were to go to their Washington home to make ready for Ethel's marriage early in December.
Lord Chester had not yet returned to America, as the lawsuit was not decided yet, but the date of the marriage remained unaltered, for Ethel had indignantly disclaimed any desire to break her engagement because of the altered prospects of her betrothed.
So while they rested at Rosemont they had much to look forward to in the near future, only they talked of it but little, for each had secret sorrows that weighed heavily on their hearts. Precious had one in the inability to tear from her mind the thought of the man so soon to become her sister's husband, and Earle had one of the same character in his stifled love for willful Ladybird, who had used him so cruelly. Senator Winans was pained because he was so soon to lose his elder daughter, and his wife, while she shared this sorrow, had another grief very near her gentle heart.
In the forty years of life that had passed over her golden head in mingled sunshine and shadow the senator's lovely, graceful wife had never been known to turn traitor to a friendship, or to shirk a duty, however hard. In her noble nature all the elements of constancy and self-sacrifice were exquisitely blended to form a model woman, whether in prosperity or adversity.
So it was not strange that her peculiar interest in Ladybird Conway had drawn her maternal instincts strongly toward the capricious but adorable little beauty.
Her interest in the young girl dated back to her parents.
Bruce Conway had been Grace's first lover, and it is said that a woman's heart always retains a slight tenderness for the lover who was first to worship at her shrine.
On the other hand the girl Bruce Conway had married claimed Mrs. Winans as her dearest friend, and it was through her that little Earle, when kidnaped by a poor mother crazed by the loss of her own child, had been restored to his parents. Now, when gentle, brown-eyed Lulu had been dead for years, her memory was still green in the heart of this true friend, and for her beloved sake Mrs. Winans yearned over Ladybird with inexpressible tenderness.
With her husband's full concurrence in her plans she had come to Rosemont hoping to find pretty Ladybird and adopt her as her own.
For the shadow of orphanage and sorrow had fallen darkly over the little curly, brown head with its will-o'-the-wisp fancies.
In June Bruce Conway had sailed from New York on the Mamaroneck, and all the world knew now that some awful mysterious fate had overtaken the steamer, for she had never reached port nor been sighted during the voyage; and after she had been fully a month overdue her lifeboats had been seen drifting empty on the ocean. It was certain then that the Mamaroneck had been wrecked, but at first it was hoped that the passengers had been rescued from the lifeboats by some other steamer. Alas! weary months had come and gone, and still no tidings of the fifty souls, passengers and crew, of the Mamaroneck. Hope died out in every heart. They were given up for lost. The sea had claimed them for her victims.
To the Winans family the news of the probable death of Bruce Conway came with a shock of pain, and their sympathies turned to the orphaned girl left lonely in the wide world.
Ladybird had kept up at first an occasional correspondence with Precious, but at last it had closed abruptly, and, as the traveling party were always on the wing, her whereabouts were quite unknown to them. But they hoped to find her with her aunt at the pretty cottage home at Rosemont.
But cruel disappointment awaited their inquiries.
Ladybird had indeed returned home in September, but, crushed by the news of her father's death, had drooped and paled like a broken flower.
Meanwhile Lawyer Stanley, who had been Mr. Conway's legal adviser, had declared his belief in his client's death, and produced papers by which he was chosen Ladybird's guardian. He asserted that Mr. Conway had died bankrupt through unfortunate speculations, and that his daughter was penniless. But professing sincere friendship for the dead, he accepted the charge of Ladybird as a sacred trust. Miss Prudence Primrose had been sent to California, to a half-brother there, and then Mr. Stanley had moved away to New York with his family, consisting of an invalid wife and Aura, to which was now added the charge of a helpless orphan girl whom Aura hated so bitterly that it seemed strange to think that the father could feel so deep an interest in her welfare.
"We must find the little girl, and take her home with us. She will be a pleasant companion for Precious when our dear Ethel is married and gone," said the senator kindly, and his wife added:
"Yes, we must find her, for I know she is not happy with that coarse-grained Aura Stanley. She must come to us and be our daughter, for she has more claim on us than on her father's lawyer."
Ethel and Precious both agreed that Ladybird was a darling, and that it would make them very happy to have her for a sister; but Earle Winans never bore any part in these discussions, although he listened to them in silent eagerness, wondering if it would ever happen, as they were planning, that Ladybird should come to them as a sister. He knew by the feverish throb of his passionate heart that he loved her still, despite the pride and anger that strove for mastery in his haughty breast.
"I deemed that time, I deemed that pride
Had quenched at last my boyish flame,
Nor knew till seated by thy side
My heart in all save hope the same."
One day when he was seated at a desk in the library, with his dark, curly head bent dejectedly on his hand, a light footstep crossed the floor, and a tender arm stole around his neck. He looked up into his mother's tender face, that was quite young and lovely still, in spite of her forty years.
"My dear, you are sad. Why is it?" she asked lovingly.
"It is only your fancy, dearest," he replied, summoning a smile.
"Earle, I have something to ask you. Will you go to New York on a little mission for me?" she asked softly, threading his dark curls with her slender, jeweled fingers.
"You can command me, dearest mother, to go to the ends of the earth for you," he replied smilingly, but with real affection.
"Good boy! But I will not impose on you like that. It is only to take a little run up to New York, find these Stanleys and persuade Ladybird to come here to us with you."
He made a vehement ejaculation, and she saw the crimson mount to his temples.
"You will do this for me, my son?" she cooed, in that soft, caressing voice he had loved ever since it had soothed him to his infant slumbers.
But he rose to his feet impatiently.
"You do not know what you ask—you do not understand—" he began hotly.
The sweetest, most knowing little smile dawned on Mrs. Winans' exquisitely curved red lips.
"Ah, my boy, I know more than you suspect," she smiled. "Do you think I did not know, last summer, that you and Ladybird had been lovers? It was a silly madcap prank, that little affair of hers, but she was so young, so thoughtless, it can easily be forgiven. And she loved you through it all, I am sure."
"She promised to marry another man," he said stiffly.
"Only fun. She did not mean it, poor little madcap," smiled his mother; then more seriously she added: "I am sure the little girl loves you, Earle, and I want you to forgive her and bring her back to us. Promise me."
"I cannot forgive," he murmured unsteadily, and she looked at him in gentle wonder, and answered:
"Then, my son, your love was not worth much if it lacks the quality of forgiveness that is inherent in all true affection. And Ladybird, poor child, has been punished enough for her willful prank. Remember she went away without seeing you when you were wounded, although I have seen her wistful eyes turned often toward your door with a silent yearning that almost melted my heart. But we let her go without a sign that we understood her proud and silent grief. It was her punishment, and she bore it without murmuring. But now the heavy hand of orphanage and sorrow is upon her, and it is cruel to harbor resentment."
"Ah, mother, I wish I could be good, like you," he breathed huskily.
With a gentle sigh she answered:
"The good that is in us, Earle, has to be perfected by years of experience. As the ardor of our youthful passions fades we become more reasonable and more ready to condone the faults of others. I can see in your proud, impulsive nature the traits of your parents reflected, so I cannot blame you too severely for your unrelenting disposition toward your willful sweetheart; but, dear Earle, I can also assure you, out of the wisdom of suffering and experience, that forgiveness is one of the noblest attributes of human nature, and brings with it an exquisite peace and happiness that is its own best reward."
The violet eyes were soft with unshed tears, and the low voice was as sweet as music. Earle Winans' moody anger dissolved like mists of dawn before her sweet influence.
He put his arms lovingly about her, and as he kissed the calm, white brow he whispered:
"Angel-mother, you make me ashamed of my harshness. I will not cherish my resentment any longer. It shall be as you say. I will seek Ladybird and bring her home to you."
"Heaven speed your mission," she cried between tears and smiles, and before many hours he was on his way to New York, with a lighter heart than he had borne for months.
But four days later a brief note came to his mother:
"I have found the Stanleys, but Miss Conway is not with them. She married Jack Tennant two weeks ago, and went to California on her wedding tour.
Earle."