BONNIE, BEWITCHING CLAIRE.
Four months. We find Madeline standing in the late Autumn sunset,
"clothed and in her right mind," strong with the strength of youth,
and beautiful with even more than her olden beauty.
Fair is the prospect as seen from the grounds of Mrs. Girard's
suburban villa, and so, perhaps, Claire Keith is thinking.
She is looking down the level road, and at the trees on either hand,
decked in all their October magnificence of scarlet and brown and
gold, half concealing coquettish villas and more stately residences.
The eyes of Madeline were turned away from the vista of villas and
trees, and were gazing toward the business thoroughfare leading into
the bustle of the town; gazing after the receding figure of Doctor
Clarence Vaughan as he cantered away from the villa; gazing until a
turn of the road hid him from her view. Then--and what did she mean by
it?--she turned her face toward Claire with a questioning look in her
eyes--the question came almost to her lips. But the words were
repressed.
Bonnie Clair was thinking of anything but Clarence Vaughan just then.
Presently she turned a bright glance upon her companion, who was
gathering clusters of the fallen maple leaves, with face half averted.
"A kiss for your thoughts, beautiful blonde Madeline. I certainly
think it is ten minutes since Doctor Vaughan departed and silence fell
upon us."
She bent down, and taking her companion's head between two dimpled
hands, pulled it back, until she could look into the solemn brown
eyes.
"Come, now," coaxingly, "what were you thinking?"
Madeline extricated herself from Claire's playful grasp, and replied
with a half laugh: "It must be mutual confession then, you small
highwayman; how do you like my terms?"
"Only so so," flushing and laughing. "I was meditating the propriety
of telling you something some day, and was thinking of that something
just now, but--"
"But," mimicked Madeline, with half-hearted playfulness; "what will
you give me to relieve your embarrassment, and guess?"
"You can't," emphatically.
[Illustration: "When next we meet, I shall have other weapons!"--page
113.]
"Can't I? We will see. My dear, I fear you have left a little corner
of your heart behind you in far-away Baltimore. You didn't come to pay
your annual visit to your sister, quite heart free."
Anyone wishing to gain an insight into the character of Claire Keith
might have taken a long step in that direction could he have witnessed
her reception of this unexpected shot. She opened her dark eyes in
comic amazement, and dropping into a garden chair, exclaimed, with a
look of frank inquiry:
"Now, how ever could you guess that?"
"Because," said Madeline, in a constrained voice, and with all the
laughter fading from her eyes; "Because, I know the symptoms."
"I see," dropping her voice suddenly. "Oh, Madeline, how I wish you
could forget _that_."
"Why should I forget my love dream," scornfully, "any more than you
yours?"
"Oh, Madeline; but you said you had ceased to care for him; that you
should never mourn his loss."
"_Mourn his loss!_" turning upon Claire, fiercely. "Do you think it is
for him I mourn my _dead_; my lost happiness, my shattered dreams, my
life made a bitter, burdensome thing. Mourn him? I have for Lucian
Davlin but one feeling--hate!"
Madeline, as she uttered these last words, had turned upon Claire a
face whose fierce intensity of expression was startling. For a moment
the two gazed into each other's eyes--the one with curling lip and
somber, menacing glance, the other with a startled face as if she read
something new and to be feared, in the eye of her friend.
Claire had been an inmate of her sister's house for four weeks. When
first she arrived, she had heard Madeline's story, at Madeline's
request, from the lips of her sister Olive, and now the girls were
fast friends. Generous Claire had found much to wonder at, to pity and
to love, in the story and the character of the unfortunate girl.
Possessing a frank, sunshiny nature, and never having known an actual
grief, she could lavish sweet sympathy to one afflicted. But she could
not conceive what it would be like to live on when faith had perished
and hope was a mockery. She had never known, therefore never missed, a
father's love and care. Indeed, he who filled the place of father and
guardian, her mother's second husband, was all that a real parent
could be. Claire seldom remembered that Mr. James Keith was not her
father, and very few, except the family of Keith, knew that "Miss
Claire Keith, daughter of the rich James Keith, of Baltimore," was in
truth only a step-daughter.
Mrs. Keith, whose first husband was Richard Keith, cashier in his
wealthy cousin's banking house, had buried that husband when Olive was
five years old, and baby Claire scarce able to lisp his name. In a
little less than two years she had married James Keith, the
banker-cousin, and shortly after the marriage, James Keith had
transferred his business interests to Baltimore, and there remained.
So Claire's baby brothers had never been told that she was not their
"very own" sister, for of Olive they knew little, her marriage having
separated them at first, and subsequently her obdurate acceptance of
the consequences of that marriage.
When the law pronounced her husband a criminal, Mr. Keith had
commanded Olive to abandon both husband and home, and return to his
protection. This, true-hearted Olive refused to do. Her step-father,
enraged at her obstinacy in clinging to a man who had been forsaken by
all the world beside, bade her choose between them. Either she must
let the law finish its work of breaking Philip Girard's heart by
setting her free, or she must accept the consequences of remaining the
wife of a criminal.
Olive chose the latter, and thenceforth remained in her own lonely
home, never even once visiting the place of her childhood.
"He called my husband a criminal," she said, "and I will never cross
his threshold until he has had cause to withdraw those words."
Claire, however, announced her intention of visiting her sister
whenever she chose, and she succeeded, in part, in carrying out her
will, for every year she passed two months or more with Olive.
What a picture the two girls now made, standing face to face.
Madeline, with her lithe grace of form, her pure pale complexion lit
up by those fathomless brown eyes, and rendering more noticeable and
beautiful the tiny rosy mouth, with its satellite dimples; with such
wee white, blue-veined hands, and such a clear ringing, yet
marvelously sweet voice. Madeline was very beautiful, and Claire, as
she looked at her, wondered how any man could bear to lose such
loveliness, or have the heart to betray it; as if ever pure woman
could fathom the depth of a bad man's wickedness.
Bonnie, bewitching Claire! Never was contrast more perfect. A scarf,
like scarlet flame, flung about her shoulders, set off the richness of
her clear brunette skin, through which the crimson blood flamed in
cheek and lip. Eyes, now black, now gray, changing, flashing, witching
eyes: gray in quiet moments, darkening with mirth or sadness, anger or
pain; hair black and silky, rippling to the rounded, supple waist in
glossy waves. Not so tall as Madeline, and rounded and dimpled as a
Hebe.
Bringing her will into service, Madeline banished the gloom from her
face and said, with an attempt at gayety:
"I must be a terrible wet blanket when my ghost rises, Claire. But
come, you have excited my curiosity; let us sit down while you tell me
more of this mighty man who has pitched his tent in the wilderness of
your heart, to the exclusion of others who might aspire."
They seated themselves upon a rustic bench and Claire replied:
"Don't anticipate too much, inquisitor; I have no acknowledged lover,
but--" blushing charmingly, "I have every reason to think that I am
loved fondly and sincerely. He is very handsome, Madeline, and--but
wait, I will show you his picture."
Madeline nodded, and Claire bounded away, to return quickly bearing in
her hand a finely wrought cabinet photograph, encased in velvet and
gilt, _a la souvenaire_. Placing it in her companion's hand, she sat
down with a little triumphant sigh, and gazed over Madeline's shoulder
with a proud, glad look in her eyes.
"Blonde?" suggested Madeline.
"Yes," eagerly; "such lovely hair and whiskers,--perfect gold color;
and fair as a woman."
"So I should judge," and she continued to gaze.
Blonde he was, certainly; hair thrown carelessly back from a brow
broad and white; eyes, light, but with an expression that puzzled the
gazer.
"Eyes,--what color?" she said, without taking her own off the picture.
"Blue; pale blue, but capable of _such_ varying expression."
"Just so," dryly; "they look mild and saintly here, but I think those
eyes are capable of another expression. I could fancy the brain behind
such eyes to be--"
"What?" eagerly.
"Cruel, crafty, treacherous."
"Oh, Madeline!"
"There, there; I didn't say that he,"--tapping the picture--"possessed
these qualities. His eyes are unusual ones; did you ever see his
mouth?"
"What a question--through all those whiskers? no; but he has beautiful
teeth."
"So have tigers. There, dear, take the picture; I am no fit judge,
perhaps. Remember, I once knew a man with the face of an angel, and
the heart of a fiend. Your friend is certainly handsome; let us hope
he is equally good."
"He is; I know it," asserted Claire.
Then she told her companion how she had met him at the house of a
friend; how he was very learned and scientific; very grave and
dignified; and very devoted to herself. And how, beyond these few
facts, she knew little if anything of her blonde hero, Edward Percy.
Madeline received this information in a grave silence, whose chill
affected Claire as well, and after a few moments, as if by mutual
consent, they arose and entered the house.
Olive Girard had been absent a week; gone on a journey, sacred to her
as any Meccan pilgrimage, a visit to the place of her husband's
imprisonment. Every year she made this journey, returning home in some
measure comforted; for she had seen her beloved.
She came back on this evening, as the two girls were mingling their
voices in gay bravura duets--by mutual consent they avoided all songs
of a pathetic order, for reasons which neither would have cared to
acknowledge.
The evening having passed away, Claire found herself in her chamber
gazing at her lover's pictured face and thinking how good, how noble,
it was, and what a little goose she had been to allow anything
Madeline had said to apply to him. A sudden thought occurred to her,
and going to Madeline's door, she tapped gently. The door opened, and
Claire, raising a warning finger, said:
"Madeline, I forgot to tell you that Olive knows nothing of Edward
Percy, and--I don't want to tell her just yet. You will not mention
it?"
"No."
"Then good-night, and pleasant dreams."
"Thank you," in a grave voice; "good-night."
Claire returned to her room and penned a long letter to Edward Percy,
full of sweet confidence, gayety and trustfulness. She reperused his
last letter, said her prayers, or rather read them, for Claire was a
staunch little church-woman, and then slept and dreamed bright dreams.