FONDLY!--HOW CAN I BEAR THIS PAIN AND LIVE?”
Mr. Beresford, when he saw himself discovered, advanced to the bedside.
He was a tall, portly gentleman, with kind brown eyes and a pleasant
face that beamed with joy as he said:
“A letter from Alva at last!”
His wife sunk back in her chair and eagerly perused it. Then she handed
it to her husband, and turned again to her son.
“I suppose Alva is at Newport?” he said, trying to bring his thoughts
back from the painful theme that held them--the loss of his darling.
But it was hard to remember anything else now, when sorrow was at its
flood-tide, sweeping like a torrent over his heart.
“No; Alva is at home. She will not leave New York till we return,” his
mother returned.
“But she will be very lonely, I fear.”
“No; she is very busy painting, and Alva loves art better than society,
you know. Besides, she has a companion--a lovely young girl whom she
has employed as a model.”
Alva’s letter had not been very long, and she had chronicled the
finding of Floy in one careless paragraph:
“Floyd Landon was so fortunate as to find Cupid the very day you left
the city, and brought her to me at once, so I hope to finish my picture
before your return.”
St. George, in his bitter despair over Floy’s supposed death, took no
interest in his sister’s pretty model, and Mrs. Beresford, of course,
had no idea that her son’s sweetheart was domiciled beneath her roof,
while her lover mourned her as dead.
The mere utterance of her name by St. George would have solved the
mystery, and saved him hours and days and weeks of pain, hastening his
recovery by the force of joy; for the influence of mental emotions on
the bodily health is too well known to be disputed, and the effects of
grief and sorrow in breaking down health and retarding recovery are
especially significant.
So the long summer days waxed and waned until it was well into July
before the invalid’s tedious convalescence became confirmed enough for
him to be removed from his room to a pleasant place by the sea. Here he
remained for a week, gaining strength more rapidly, and at last asking
to be taken home.
A fancy had seized him to revisit the scenes made sacred by their
connection with his lost love, and to find her lonely little grave,
unmarked perhaps by monument or flower, and to raise a costly stone
above the spot.
But he did not confide these thoughts to his parents.
The subject had never been revived between them again.
St. George had a bitter, secret consciousness that he did not have
their sympathy in his sorrow, and that at heart the death of his
betrothed was a relief to them.
Mrs. Beresford had indeed hinted to her son that a certain fair English
dame, a dainty Lady Maud whom he had met the previous year, was not
indifferent to him, and would be a very welcome daughter-in-law.
But her son had answered, with the indifference of ill-health and an
aching heart:
“I would not want her though she were ‘the daughter of a hundred
earls!’”
And his father had whispered to his wife:
“Leave the lad alone awhile. His grief is too fresh and new to bear
consolation yet. Time will bring the only balm--forgetfulness.”
So when St. George renewed the subject of going home, they did not say
him nay.
They, too, were anxious to return, and by the middle of July had
engaged their state-rooms on a steamer of the fastest line.
Bidding farewell to all their little coterie of English friends at
Brighton, they were soon _en route_ for home and Alva.
St. George was gaining strength but slowly, and his large, dark eyes
looked out of a wan, pale face, whose expression was too sad for tears.
This home-coming was inexpressibly bitter to his tortured heart, and
his pale, grave, handsome face made him an object of romantic interest
to all the lady passengers.
But he did not reciprocate their interest, he cared nothing for black
eyes or blue that looked at him with gay coquetry or tender sympathy.
He said to himself that since Floy was dead he could never love again.
He held himself moodily apart from every passenger but one.
This was a blonde nobleman of barely middle age, very handsome and
grave-looking--Lord Alexander Miller, who had recently inherited by his
father’s death a grand estate in Devonshire.
He was going over for a tour of the States, he told the Beresfords,
but his grave blue eyes had in them a look as if he should not enjoy
anything very much, the look of a man with some secret sorrow tugging
at his heart-strings.
Perhaps it was this secret kinship of sorrow that drew the two men
together on shipboard, for each recognized a subtile affinity in the
other, and so they became fast friends.
There was something, too, in the nobleman’s fair, frank face, so
debonair though so serious, that fascinated the younger man. Where had
he seen such blue eyes before in the dim past?
It came to him at last with a shock of mingled pain and pleasure.
His new friend bore a subtile, haunting, charming likeness to his dead
love Floy. And for this likeness St. George admired him all the more.
By the time they reached New York, St. George was loath to part with
his fascinating friend.
He pressed him to become his guest. The reply startled him.
“I shall be most happy to visit you later on, but for the present I am
going to Mount Vernon, New York, where I have--friends.”
It was a startling answer to St. George, who had also planned an early
trip to Mount Vernon.
Why he wished to go he hardly knew, except to revisit in silence and
sorrow the places sacred to his brief, ill-fated love-dream.
“As for the Maury’s, they need not know I am there. I shall not call,
for I despise that scheming Maybelle,” he decided, remembering how
falsely she had told Floy she was engaged to marry him.
But he did not tell the nobleman that he also was soon to visit Mount
Vernon. He parted from him with frank regret, expressing the hope that
they might soon meet again.
Then they went on shore, and there was Alva radiant with joy to meet
them.
She had come down in the carriage to meet them, and tears flashed
into her bright eyes as she looked at her darling brother so pale, so
changed, so sad.
Her mother had written to her simply that her son’s love affair was
ended forever, making no mention of the girl’s death, and Alva had been
very indignant, saying to Floy:
“Mamma has made him give up his love. I feared she would, but I hoped
St. George would hold out against her arguments. I see how it is. He
loves mamma so dearly--never son adored a mother so blindly--and she
has made him think that the girl is unworthy of him.”
Floy choked back a rising sob, and sat like a statue in her chair,
fearing to breathe lest she betray her cruel secret.
She was as proud as she was beautiful, this willful little Floy.
In the long happy weeks since she had been here with Alva she had
dreamed some happy dreams, but now they were all over.
At first she had been glad to be here with her lover’s sister, and she
had pictured to herself over and over his joy when he should come home
and find her here an inmate of his home, a pet with his loved ones.
Surely, then, it would be easy to win their liking for his chosen bride.
But when Alva’s confidences showed Floy the overweening pride of the
Beresfords, she began to be frightened even of charming Alva.
She said to herself in weary nightly vigils:
“She, too, is proud, although she pretends to take her brother’s part.
I can see that she has little sympathy with unequal marriages. If she
but guessed that I am the girl her brother loves, she would send me
away from the shelter of this roof.”
And in her terror of the cold world outside, her fear of her foes, and
her longing to stay here till her lover’s return, poor Floy held fast
her wretched little secret of love, scarcely daring to breathe when
Alva named her brother’s name in praise or blame.
But that last conjecture of Alva’s as to her brother’s resignation to
his mother’s will nearly broke the poor child’s heart.
She could not doubt Alva’s word. It must be true that among them all,
in their pride of name and place, they had turned his heart against
her, his absent little love.
“He is fickle and false, my lover whom I trusted in so fondly! How can
I bear this pain and live?” she moaned to her stricken heart, in the
silence of her terrible despair.