“IT IS ALL RIGHT.”
“Will he never come again?
Will the days all come and go,
And no more the sunset glow
Bring him strolling down the lane?
Is it past, all past for aye,
And its memory should not stay?”
“Vivian, is that you, dear?”
Madame Orne is amazed to open her eyes and find herself in bed, while
her pupil sits at the open window gazing with thoughtful dark eyes at
the twilight sky.
At her feeble question Vivian rises and comes over to her side with a
gentle smile.
“Have I been sick, my dear?”
“Very sick for a few days, madam. You are better now, but you must not
talk much. The doctor says you must not be excited.”
“The doctor has been to see me?”
“Twice a day, dear madam. You were taken sick all alone in the
school-room, you remember? Mr. Essex was going through the hall and
heard you gasp or cry out. He found you in something like a faint, and
called for assistance. Charlton carried you upstairs, and all our
efforts failed to rouse you, so we sent for Doctor Barksdale.”
The invalid’s slim white hand goes up to her brow, and her violet-hued
eyes have a look of perplexity.
“My head is so heavy I can remember nothing. I feel stupefied,” she
complains. “What medicines have I been taking?”
“Only sedatives, I think. You have been much excited, and almost wild
at times, screaming and talking to yourself. Your medicines were given
to compose you.”
Again that look of perplexity, and the brow is knit in troubled thought.
“But what made me sick? Do you know, Viva?”
She sees a look of hesitancy in the bright dark eyes.
“Viva, there’s a dear girl, tell me what the doctor said.”
“But indeed there is not much to tell. My brother says all the doctors
have different hobbies. This particular physician makes a hobby of
heart diseases, so he shook his head over the sad state you had been
found in, and declared you had spasms of the heart from some sudden
shock. But we told him that could not be, for you were quite alone when
the attack came on.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“I was right, was I not, madam? You were not frightened over anything
were you? Mr. Essex said you were quite alone.”
A gleam of remembrance flashes into the dark, blue eyes, and Madame
Orne exclaims irrelevantly, it seems:
“Viva, have you mailed Doctor Verne’s letter?”
“Oh, yes, the first day you were sick--that is three days ago.”
“Has he replied?”
“Not yet,” a plaintive sigh ends the words.
The sound of gay voices and laughter floats up to the window. Presently
a light step comes along the hall, and Eve Kingsley enters, her
riding-habit over her arm, in her hand a budget of letters and papers.
“I have been riding with Mr. Essex, and he stopped at the post-office
for the mail. There was nothing for you, Madame Orne, and only this for
you, Viva,” she tosses a masculine-looking envelope into the girl’s
lap, and Viva takes it with a quickened heart-throb. One glance at the
superscription, and she is out of the room like a flash.
“Love likes secrecy,” Eve laughs maliciously. “Well, she may worship
her ideal Max Verne if she likes, but for my part I prefer the handsome
Essex.”
“Will you be seated, Miss Kingsley?”
“Thanks, no; we are going to a grand ball to-night, and I have my
things to fix. Do you feel better, madam?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Something of patient gentleness in the tone moves Eve out of her
ordinary selfish indifference. Almost tenderly she bends and smooths
back a stray tendril of silky dark hair that has strayed over the
invalid’s brow, thinking to herself that the governess is lovely only
for the profound sadness that shadows all her features.
“I am glad you feel better, and sorry you did not have a letter,
too--or, did you expect one?” she says gently.
The question is so sudden that the swift blood dyes the face on the
pillow, and Madame Orne answers almost gaspingly:
“No--I--did--not. I seldom receive letters. I have no near relatives,
and none to whom I care to write.”
“Excuse me, I thought--or, at least Mr. Essex said----” she stops
suddenly, biting her lip.
“Mr. Essex said what?” demands Madame Orne with a startled look.
“Nothing--only--only--well, you see--a letter dropped from his pocket
yesterday when we were driving to the post-office, and I happened to
see the address. It was to a Monsieur Orne in Richmond, and he said you
had given it to him to mail several days ago, and he had forgotten it.”
“Eve,” calls Diana’s sharp voice at the door, “if you’re going to help
me with the bows for my dress, come on, please.”
“Coming, coming!” answers Eve, and flits out without a backward glance
at the white face that buries itself in the pillow, sobbing:
“Betrayed! betrayed!”
The lingering sunset fades into dreamy twilight, the myriad lonely
sounds of country life in summer float in at the windows, a
whip-poor-will calls drearily in the distance. Presently a housemaid
brings lights and tea, and finds her pale as death, with wild, dilated
eyes and trembling lips.
“Put out the lights and go. I want to sleep,” she moans.
“I never seen such people,” the girl complains. “Nobody wants a light
to-night. There’s Miss Viva moping at her window in the dark, and the
other ladies getting ready for the ball. Isn’t she going, I wonder?”
“Is Miss Leigh in her room?”
“Yes, ma’am, at the window, without a light, and won’t have one.”
“Go and ask her, Jane, to come to me a moment if convenient.”
The answer comes presently:
“Miss Leigh will come as soon as she is ready for the ball. She is
dressing.”
“You may help me to dress, then, Jane. I will sit up a while.”
“You are not well enough to sit up, ma’am. I have my orders to nurse
you to-night,” cries the round-eyed country girl staring in surprise.
“I am better, Jane, and stronger. I wish to sit up. You will oblige me.”
It takes so long to dress for a ball that she sits there waiting in
the chair almost an hour before a slow step comes along the hall to
the door, then the swish of a costly silken robe, and--Viva enters,
wearing an exquisite robe of white silk and white crape, white roses on
her breast, and in her dark, curly hair. So she pauses beside madam’s
chair, and lifts her dark eyes to her face. Dull, heavy, tearless,
there is a dumb despair in their gaze that goes to madam’s heart.
“Are you ill, Viva?”
“Not at all, dear madam. Is my costume a success?”
“It is a miserable failure. There is no color in face or dress. With
your black hair and white roses and crape, you look as if you had gone
into mourning.”
She is mute, motionless. Some spell of silence seems to rest on those
pale lips, and Madame Orne steals a gentle arm about her waist and
whispers anxiously:
“Is it all right with Max, dear?”
“It is all right,” Vivian answers in a mechanical tone, as if through
stiff lips.
“Then something else is all wrong, child. I never, saw you quite so
deadly pale and strange. Where is all your lost brightness?”
“This is only your fancy, madam: perhaps the effect of the white roses.
They do look a little funereal. Shall I change them?”
“Do, please, and put rich red roses in their place. And your
pearls--you must wear them, too, to the grand ball.”
“Yes, I had forgotten. I will go and make the change. Take care of
yourself, madam. I will return early.”
She passively takes the lady’s kiss, and turns to go, impatient of the
gravely questioning eyes, impatient of the reiterated question:
“Viva, are you really and truly reconciled to Max?”
“It is all right,” she answers, again, and goes out with a weary step.
“Ah, nothing like the heavy step
Betrays the heavy heart.”
“Charlton,” she calls over the balustrade, as she hears his step in the
hall, “will you bring me some Jacqueminot roses?”
While he is cutting them out in the moonlight she is busy in her room.
She has taken a little ebony casket and put into it a single letter, a
little pearl ring that she recklessly tears from her finger, a small
photograph from an easel on the mantel. On the small heap she places
with a steady hand the white roses just taken from breast and hair.
“Madame Orne was right. They are funereal flowers,” she murmurs,
crushing the lid down and locking the casket.
She is standing at the window when Charlton comes with the roses. She
lifts her hand in the air, then it falls listless at her side. She will
never look upon her dead again.
She has thrown away the golden key.
“How pale you are,” he exclaims, as she fastens the flowers into place.
“You have worn yourself out in your devotion to Madame Orne. I shall
not allow you to play sick-nurse again.”
“There is no need, for she is better now,” she replies with forced
gayety, as she takes his arm and goes to join the revelers.