Several months after Laurie Meredith's return to Boston, the following
notice appeared in the society column of a daily paper:
"It is rumored that the handsome and fascinating Laurie Meredith will
soon lead to the altar the beautiful belle, Miss Jewel Fielding, and
society is on the _qui vive_ for the magnificent festivities that
will attend this brilliant social event."
Directly beneath this interesting announcement was this paragraph:
"Lord and Lady Ivon, of Cornwall, England, with great-granddaughter,
Miss Azalia Brooke, are the guests of our esteemed townsman, Raynold
Clinton. The latter was handsomely entertained at Lord Ivon's
London residence when he went abroad last year, and he now has the
opportunity of reciprocating the hospitalities thus received. The
venerable noble and his gracious lady are making the tour of the
United States for the first time, and will spend several weeks here,
during which they will have an opportunity of meeting some of the
cultured society of Boston. Of the marvelous blonde beauty of their
great-granddaughter, Miss Brooke, wonderful stories are told, and our
belles will have to look to their laurels."
In the elegant and luxurious library of the Clinton mansion the young
lady referred to as Lord Ivon's great-granddaughter was standing alone
at a window, looking out, with wistful, azure eyes, at the whirling
flakes of snow that filled the air, for it had been snowing since early
morn, and the earth was already covered in the short space of three
hours with a deep, glistening, white carpet.
None of the reports regarding Azalia Brooke's beauty were in the least
exaggerated, for she was, indeed,
"Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless."
A form of perfect mold and medium height, with a rarely lovely face,
lighted by large purple-blue eyes, and framed by burnished, golden
hair; hands and feet perfect enough for a sculptor's model, and a voice
that was sweet as the soul of music, no wonder people raved over Lord
Ivon's great-granddaughter; for as she stood there, with the rich,
plush folds of her pale-blue, ermine-trimmed tea-gown falling in long,
statuesque folds about her, she looked as if she had stepped down from
an artist's canvas, or from the pages of a poet's book.
But as the lovely girl gazed at the snowy scene without, an expression
of wistful sadness crept around the corners of her curved red lips and
into her tender blue eyes, and she repeated some pathetic lines that
have touched many a heart with their sweet, simple pathos:
"How strange it should be that the beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it should be if ere night comes again
The snow and the ice strike my desperate brain;
Fainting,
Freezing,
Dying alone,
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down,
I should be, and should lie in my terrible woe
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!"
Great pearly tears rose to the pansy-blue eyes, brimmed over, and
rolled down the fair cheeks of the girl. She clasped her little hands,
all glittering with diamonds, and murmured, mournfully:
"Ah, my mother, to think that you were a sinner like that!--'Too wicked
for prayer,' a willful sinner for love's sake, and I, your child, with
that dark brand upon my birth! Ah, what if he had lived to know? He was
proud and well-born. Would he have hated me for my mother's sin? Would
he have forsaken me, cast me off as one unworthy? Ah, my love, my love,
it was better that you died, for then you never knew the cruel truth!"
The door opened softly, and a servant entered, placing the evening
papers on the table. To divert her thoughts, which had grown dark and
gloomy, Lord Ivon's great-granddaughter threw herself into a luxurious
chair, and began to peruse the first paper that came to her hand.
Thus she came upon the paragraph regarding Laurie Meredith and Jewel
Fielding.
What ailed Azalia Brooke, the beautiful descendant of the proud house
of Ivon?
When her glance fell carelessly on those two names she started, and a
low cry of wonder came from her lips.
Twice over she read the paragraph, and her cheeks assumed the hue
of death, her eyes were dilated widely, her lips parted and gasped,
faintly:
"Jewel here--and to be married to Laurie Meredith! Laurie Meredith!
Great Heaven, could there be two of that name?"
She crushed the paper convulsively in her slender fingers, and
stared before her with wide, blue eyes that saw not the luxurious
appointments of the elegant room, but a picture evoked from the
recesses of her brain--a picture of the past.
A rocky, sea-beat shore, with the soft breeze of summer lifting the
golden curls from a girl's white brow as it rested against a manly
breast. Blue eyes were meeting brown ones, hand was clasped in hand,
and love was lord of that tender scene.
A moan of pain came from the lips of beautiful Azalia, and she sighed:
"Ah, love, why did you leave me, without a word, to my cruel fate? Were
you false in heart? Were you only amusing yourself with the simple
child who loved you so well? Was that marriage true, or only a sham, or
was there treachery somewhere? Treachery! It looked at me from Jewel's
eyes--treachery and murderous hate! Ah, love, you died so soon after
you went away that I can not hate you in your grave, even though you
doomed me to a wretched life, cursed with memories that will not die!
And I--I--would give the world to know the truth--to solve the mystery
of your going that night!"
The low voice broke again, and she leaned back pale and silent, and a
sadder picture rose in fancy before the fixed blue eyes.
This time it was of a golden-haired, blue-eyed girl, with a wailing
infant on her breast--a girl who had sought refuge from danger in an
humble negro cabin. Over her was bending a plump, good-looking mulatto
woman, and the girl was praying, feebly:
"Take me away from here! Hide me and my baby from our enemy!"
The mulatto woman had acted the part of the good Samaritan to the
helpless, suffering girl. All night she had worked hard preparing a
place in an old, unused barn, where she could hide the sick mother
and the tiny babe, and care for them in secret. So it happened that,
through her care and prudence, the mother and child fared well, and
remained undiscovered in their miserable retreat, while weeks sped away
and the world accepted Jewel Fielding's assertion that her sister was
dead--drowned in the deep sea.
At last four weary, interminable weeks passed away, and the beautiful
young mother was growing strong and well again. On the morrow she
had planned to take her baby in her arms and fly from the place so
fraught with perils. She said to the good friend who had cared for her
so nobly, that she must go into the world and work for a living for
herself and the child.
But when that morrow dawned--and at the picture that rose in her mind
Azalia sobbed aloud--the girl awoke from slumber and found beneath her
breast a little, pulseless form, from which breath had so lately fled
that the body was still limp and warm. Poor, puny babe! its feeble
little life was ended, she thought, as she clasped and kissed it with
raining tears and breaking heart.
A few minutes later her good friend came in and found what had
happened. She mingled her tears with those of the bereaved mother.
But they had little time to weep together, for presently Poky said,
anxiously:
"Oh, dear, this is dreadful! I don't know what to do! Sam and me had a
dreadful fuss this morning, and he said I gadded about too much, and
he's gwine ter watch and see whar I goes ter. He's been a-drinkin'
agin, the most owdacious raskil he is in his drams that I ever see in
all my born days! Cross as a boar with a sore head, dat he is!"
The moaning girl, who was rocking the dead baby on breast, uttered a
cry of fear, and Poky continued:
"De reason why he's got ter drinkin' and cuttin' up ag'in is case why
somebuddy has up an' robbed him whilst he war away courtin' me. You
don't happen ter know nothin' 'bout some papers dat was hid under de
flatstone ob de h'arth, does you, Miss Flower, honey?" Poky whispered,
anxiously.
In her great grief over her dead child, Flower could not remember for a
moment, and she was about to reply in the negative, when suddenly there
flashed over her a memory of the night when Mrs. Fielding had gone mad
and attempted her life.
She remembered what Jewel had uttered so triumphantly that night,
declaring that she had found the papers that her mother had sought in
vain in the cabin--the fatal diary of Charley Fielding.
Flower hesitated a moment lest she should do wrong in betraying her
half-sister; then her gratitude to this good woman overpowered all
other considerations, and she told her briefly that Jewel had taken the
papers, but that they related to important family matters alone, and
could have been of no use to Sam.
Poky was glad to find out so much, and then she took the little child
gently from the weeping mother, and, folding it reverently in her
shawl, said, gently, though anxiously:
"Honey, I don't want ter skeer yer, but dis death will happen ter make
trouble lessen I could bury de baby private like without anybuddy
knowing. Is you willin' to trust me?"
Flower only repeated, anxiously:
"Trouble?"
Then Poky went on to explain that if the secret they had been keeping
became known it might be suspected that they had murdered the baby to
get rid of it.
"I--murder my little, brown-eyed boy--my precious Douglas!" the young
mother cried, indignantly; but Poky persisted, adding, gravely:
"Miss Jewel Fielding would egg them on, you know, chile, and so I
think you'd better run away now and leabe me to bury de poor baby."