"HIS NAME IS LAURENCE THORNDYKE."
A gray March afternoon is blustering itself out in the streets of New
York--a slate-colored sky, fast drifting with black, rainy clouds; the
wind sobs and shivers in great dusty soughs, and pedestrians bow
involuntarily before it, and speed along with winking and watery eyes.
In a quiet, old-fashioned street--for there are quiet, old-fashioned
streets even in New York--there stands a big, square, dingy, red brick
house, set in a square of grass-grown front garden, a square of brick
paving in the rear. Two slim poplars--"old maids of the forest," lift
their tall, prim green heads on either side of the heavy hall door. The
house looks comfortable, but gloomy, and that is precisely what it is,
this dun-colored spring day, comfortable, but gloomy. There are heavy
curtains of dark, rich damask draping the windows. Through the clear
panes of one of the upper windows you catch the flicker and fall of a
red coal fire, and the sombre beauty of a girl's face.
She stands in the large, handsome room, alone, a long, low room, with a
carpet of rich, dull crimson velvet, curtains of dull crimson satin
damask, papered walls, dull crimson, too. There are oil paintings in
gilded frames, ponderous mahogany chairs, tables and footstools; but
there is nothing bright in the apartment save the cheerful red fire. It
is all dark and oppressive--not even excepting the girl. The pale face
that looks gloomily out at the fast drifting sky, at the fast-fading
light, is smileless and sober as all the rest. And yet it is a youthful
face, a beautiful face, a face that six months ago bloomed with a
childish brightness and bloom, the face of Norine Bourdon.
It is close upon four months since she entered this house, as companion,
secretary, amanuensis, to Mr. Hugh Darcy. Now she stands here debating
within herself whether she shall go to him to-night and tell him she
must leave. She shrinks from the task. She has grown strangely old and
wise in these four months; she knows something of the world--something
of what it must be like to be adrift in New York, friendless and
penniless, with only eighteen years and a fair face for one's dangerous
dower. Friendless she will be; for in leaving she will deeply irritate
Mr. Darcy, deeply anger Mr. Liston, and in all the world, it seems to
Norine, there are only those two she can call friends.
And yet--friends! Can she call even them by that name? Mr. Liston is her
friend and protector so long as he thinks she will aid him in his
vengeance upon his enemy. Mr. Darcy--well, how long will Mr. Darcy be
her friend when he discovers how she has imposed upon him? That under a
false name and history she has sought the shelter of his roof--she, the
cast-off of his nephew? He likes her well--that she knows; he trusts
her, respects her--how much liking or respect will remain when he knows
her as she is?
"And know he shall," she says, inwardly, her lips compressed. "I cannot
carry on this deception longer. For the rest I would have to leave in
any case--_they_ return in May, and I cannot, I cannot meet them. Mr.
Liston may say what he pleases, it were easier to die than to stay on
and meet him again--like that."
She has not forgotten. Such first, passionate love as she gave Laurence
Thorndyke is not to be outlived and trampled out in four months; and yet
it is much more abhorrence than love that fills her heart with
bitterness now.
"The dastard!" she thinks, her black eyes gleaming dangerously; "the
coward! How dare he do it! One day or other he shall pay for it, that I
swear; but I cannot meet him now. There is nothing for it but to go and
tell Mr. Darcy I must leave, and take my chance in the world, quite
alone."
She leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass with a heavy
heart-sick sigh. The first keen poignancy of her pain was over, but the
dull, deadly sickening ache was there still, and would be for many a
day. Hate him she might, long for retaliation she did, but not once
could she think of him the happy husband of Helen Holmes without the
very heart within her growing faint with deadly jealousy. The sound of
his name, the sight of his letters, had power to move her to this day.
In the drawing-room below a carefully-painted portrait of the handsome
face, the bright blue eyes, the fair, waving hair, hung--a portrait so
true, that it was torture only to took at it, and yet how many hours had
she not stood before it, her heart full of bitterness--until burning
tears filled and blinded her dark impassioned eyes.
Now he and his bride were coming home to this house, and she was
expected to stay here and meet them. Expected by Mr. Darcy, who had
learned to love her almost as a daughter; expected by Mr. Liston, who
had told her she must confront Laurence Thorndyke in this very house,
and show him to uncle and wife as he really was--a coward, a liar, a
seducer.
"I cannot do it!" she said, her hands clenching together. "I cannot meet
him. _Mon Dieu_, no! not yet--not yet."
She had been introduced into the house just two weeks after the marriage
as "my niece from the country--Jane Liston." As Jane Liston she had
remained here ever since, winning "golden opinions" from all the
household. She had found Mr. Darcy a decrepit, irritable old invalid,
bored nearly to death since his ward's wedding--lonely, peevish, sick.
He had looked once into the pale, lovely face, and never needed to look
again to like her. Trouble and tears had not marred her beauty. A little
of the bloom--there never had been much--all of the sparkle, the gay
brilliance that had charmed Richard Gilbert were gone; but the
eighteen-year-old face was very sweet, very lovely, the dark Canadian
eyes, with their unutterable sadness and pathos, wonderfully
captivating; and old Hugh Darcy, with a passion for all things fair and
young, had become her captive at once.
"You suit me fifty times better than Helen," he said often, drawing the
dark loops of shining hair fondly through his old fingers. "Helen was a
rattle pate. Never mind--matrimony will tame her down, though the lad's
fond of her enough, and will make her a very good sort of husband, I
dare say, as husbands go. But you, little woman, with your soft
voice--you have a voice like an Aeolian harp Jennie, your deft fingers,
your apt ways--you are a treasure to a cross old bachelor. You are a
nurse born, Jennie, child; how did I ever get along all these years
without you?"
He meant it, every word, and a moonlight sort of smile, sweet and
grateful, if very sad, thanked him. Once she had lifted his hand to her
lips and kissed it, passionate tears filling her eyes.
"I a treasure! Oh, Mr. Darcy! You do not know what you say. I am a
wretch--a wretch unworthy of your kindness and trust. But one day I
shall tell you all."
He had wondered a little what she meant. "Tell him all!" What could the
child have to tell? She was so young--so pathetically young to be
widowed--what story lay in her life? The very oldest of all old stories,
no doubt--a beloved one lost. He sighed as he thought it, bald-headed,
hoary patriarch that he was. _He_ had had his story and his day. The day
had ended, the story was read, the book closed and put away, years and
years and years ago. In the gallant and golden days of his youth he had
met and loved a girl, and been (as he believed, as she told him,) loved
in return. He left her to make a home and a competence--he was no
millionaire in those far-off days, save in happiness--to return in a
year and marry her. Eight months after there came to him his letters,
his picture, his ring. A richer knight had entered the lists, and the
lady was borne off no unwilling captive. A commonplace, every-day
story--nothing new at all.
He took his punishment like a man, in brave silence, and the world went
on, and years and riches and honors came, and a man's life was spoiled
forever, that was all. As he recalls it, old, white haired, half
paralyzed, now in the twilight of seventy odd years, he can remember
with curious vividness how brightly the July sun shone down on the hot
white pavement of the streets below, the cries of the children at play,
the quivering glare of the blazing noontide, as he sat in his office and
read the words that renounced him. Twenty-seven years ago, but the
picture was engraven on Hugh Darcy's brain, never to be blotted out.
Twenty-seven years ago, and when the fortunate rival had fallen in the
battle of life, ten years later; when his feeble-souled wife had
followed him to the grave, Hugh Darcy's revenge upon her had been to
step forward and take the child of that marriage to his heart and home
to rear him as his own son, to make his will in his favor, leaving him
sole heir to a noble inheritance.
Laurence Thorndyke had sown his wild oats. Well, most young men go in
for that kind of agriculture, and the seed sown had not yet begun to
crop up. He was happily married, and done for, and for himself Mr. Darcy
meant to keep his little "Jennie" with him always, to travel about with
her this coming summer, and leave her a handsome portion at his death.
"For of course," said Mr. Darcy, "she will forget the husband she has
lost, and make some good man happy after I am gone."
He had settled her little romance quite to suit himself. She had crept
with her quiet, gentle, womanly ways into his inmost heart--a very
kindly heart in spite of life's wear and tear; very kindly, yet with a
stubborn sense of justice, and of right and wrong underlying all.
Kindly, yet terribly, obstinately, unforgiving to anything like
immorality, deception or dishonor.
"I love the child almost better than Helen," he thought sometimes. "I
don't want to lose her, and yet I should like to see her safely
sheltered under a husband's wing before I go. There's Richard Gilbert
now. I've often meant to introduce him to her, but somehow she always
slips out of the room and the house when he sends up his card. I wonder
if he's got over the loss of that girl last fall. Some men do get over
that sort of thing they say. I hope Laurence had nothing to do with it.
Gilbert suspected him, I know, but then--'give a dog a bad name and hang
him.' Yes, my little Jennie wouldn't make half a bad wife for Dick
Gilbert. I'll introduce him the very next time he comes."
Mr. Darcy sits before his study fire this chill afternoon alone. Liston
left some hours ago. It is not yet dinner time, and his companion--where
is she? He looks impatiently around--while he took his afternoon nap she
has left him. He listens a moment to the wailing voice of the wind,
sobbing in a melancholy way about the house, then reaches forth
nervously, and rings the bell.
"Send Mrs. Liston here," he says to the servant who answers.
This gray twilight hour is haunted for him, with melancholy flitting
faces, dead and gone. He will have Mrs. Liston in to sing and play and
exorcise the ghosts. Nobody ever sang Scotch songs or played Scotch
melodies half so sweetly, thinks the worn old man, as his little
companion.
The door opens and she enters. Her tread, her touch, her garments, are
always soft and noiseless. She comes gliding forward in the gloaming,
not unlike a ghost herself. Her pale face seems almost startlingly pale
in contrast with the black dress she wears. In its whiteness her great
dusk eyes look bigger and blacker than ever. It strikes Mr. Darcy.
"Child," he says, "how pale you are. Come over here and let me look at
you. You are more like a spirit of the twilight than a young lady of the
period."
He draws her affectionately to him, and she sinks on her knees by his
chair. There is no light but the dull glow of the fire; he tilts up her
chin, and gazes smilingly down into the lovely sombre eyes.
"'Oh, fair, pale Margaret,'" he quotes. "Little one, what is it? You
promised to tell me sometime. Why not to-night?"
"Why not to-night?" she repeats. "To-night be it, then. But first, is
that a letter on the table?"
"Oh, by-the-by, yes--I nearly forgot all about it. Another letter from
our mated turtle doves in Florida. I see by the postmark they are in
Florida now. I have kept it for you to read, as usual."
She takes it quite calmly; she knows that big, bold chirography well,
and the day comes back to her when Mr. Liston brought to the Chelsea
cottage the brief, pitiless note in the same hand--her death warrant.
She seats herself on a hassock near the big invalid chair, and by the
light of the fire reads Laurence Thorndyke's letter.
It is the gay letter of a happy bridegroom whose bride bends over his
shoulder smiling while he writes. He tells of their travels, of how well
and handsome Helen is looking; that in another month for certain they
will be at home. And with best love and all the kisses he can spare from
Nella, he is, as ever, his affectionate nephew, Laurence Thorndyke.
She finished the letter and laid it down.
"Coming home," Mr. Darcy repeats. "Well, I am always glad to see the
boy, always fond of Nella. And we will all go to Europe together in
May--you to take care of the old man, my dear, and help him laugh at the
turtle doves billing and cooing. And in sunny France, in fair Italy, we
will see if we cannot bring back roses to these white cheeks."
The dark eyes lift, the grave young voice speaks.
"Thank you," she says. "You are always kind, Mr. Darcy, but I cannot
go."
"Jennie! Cannot go?"
"I cannot go Mr. Darcy. I am sorry to leave you, more sorry than I can
say, but you must get another attendant and companion. I am going away."
"Mrs. Liston?"
"I am not Mrs. Liston--my name is not Jennie--I am not Mr. Liston's
niece. From first to last I have deceived you. I have come to tell you
the truth to-night, although it breaks my heart to see you angry. I will
tell you the truth, and then you will see that I must go. My name is not
Jane Liston. It is Norine Bourdon."
There is a pause. He sits looking at her, astonishment, anger,
perplexity, doubt all in his face, and yet he sees that she is telling
the truth. And Norine Bourdon--where has he heard that name before?
Norine Bourdon! A foreign-sounding and uncommon name, too. Where has he
heard it?
"I do not wish you to blame Mr. Liston too much," the quiet voice goes
on. "He is to blame, for he suggested the fraud, but I was ready enough
to close with it. I had not a friend nor a home in the world that I
dared turn to, and I could not face life alone. So I came here under a
false name, false in everything, and broke your bread, and took your
money, and deceived you. I am not what you think me; I am a girl who
has been lured from her home, deceived and cast off. A wicked wretch who
fled from her friends, who betrayed a good man's trust, who promised to
marry him, and who ran away from him with one who betrayed her in turn.
You have heard of me before--heard from Richard Gilbert of Norine
Bourdon."
A faint exclamation comes from his lips.
Yes, yes, yes, he sees it all. This is _that_ girl--"Norine Bourdon!" He
remembers the odd French name well now.
"I will tell you my story, Mr. Darcy--my wicked and shameful story, and
you shall turn me out this very night if you choose. I am the girl your
friend, Richard Gilbert, honored with his respect and love; whom he
asked in marriage. I loved another man, a younger, handsomer man, but he
had left me, forever, I thought, and wearied of my dull country life,
sad and disappointed, I accepted him. The man I loved hated Mr. Gilbert.
Liston will tell you why, if you ask him. In that hatred he laid a plan
of revenge. He cared nothing for me; he was betrothed to a beautiful and
wealthy lady; I was but the poor little fool to whom a wise man had
given his heart--what became of me did not matter. Three days before my
wedding-day he came to me and urged me to fly with him. He loved me, he
said; he would make me his wife; he would come for my answer the next
night. I must meet him; I must go with him. At night, when they all
slept, I stole from the house to meet him; not to fly with him, the good
God knows--to refuse him, to forget him, to keep to my duty if my heart
broke in the keeping. He had a horse and carriage waiting, and--to this
day I hardly know how--he made me enter it, and drove me off. I cried
out for help; it was too late; no one heard me. He soothed me with his
specious promises, and perhaps I was not difficult to soothe. It was too
late to go back; I thought he loved me and went on. He took me to
Boston. There, next morning in the hotel, without witnesses, we were
married. A man, a clergyman, he told me, came, a ceremony of some sort
was gone through, we were pronounced man and wife.
"He took me with him to a cottage he had engaged by the sea shore. For
three weeks he remained with me there, tired to death of me, I know now.
Then he was summoned to New York to his home, and I was left. Mr. Darcy,
he never came back.
"I waited for him weeks and weeks--ah, dear Heaven! what weeks those
were. Then the truth was told me. His uncle's servant was in his
confidence. I was deserted. I had never been his wife, not for one hour.
The man who had come to the hotel was no clergyman; he was going to be
married in December; I was to go back to my friends and trouble him no
more. That was my fate. I had been betrayed from first to last, and he
had done with me forever.
"Well, that is more than six months ago. I don't know whether hearts
ever break except in books. I know I am living still, and likely to
live. But not here. I have deceived you, Mr. Darcy; but I tell you the
truth to-night. And to-night, if you like, I will go."
He rose slowly to his feet; swift, dark passion in his eyes--swift,
heavy anger knitting his shaggy brows. He held to the arms of his chair
and looked down upon her, his face set hard as iron.
"Sit there!" he ordered. "Tell me the scoundrel's name."
The dark eyes looked up at him; the gravely quiet voice spoke.
"His name is Laurence Thorndyke."