EXPIATION.
The scene shifts from the quiet country under the low-hung October
skies to New York, in the following March, when the crisp snow covered
the ground, sparkling like jewels under the pallid electric lights.
“WANTED--A refined, educated, companionable gentleman as a
companion for an invalid. Liberal salary to a suitable person.
Apply at No. -- Fifth Avenue.”
A gentleman who read that want in an evening paper became so excited
over it that he canceled an engagement for the opera to present himself
that same evening at the Fifth Avenue mansion of the invalid.
The sleek servant who opened the door to him looked supercilious when
he heard his errand.
“Really, you should ’ave waited till the mornin’,” he said, trying to
hide an Irish brogue under an English accent. “Mrs. Sherwood is going
hout to the opera, and me master does not see strangers.”
Mrs. Sherwood at that moment was in the library, bidding her husband
good evening before she went out.
What a contrast there was between them--the man crouching there in his
low-wheeled chair, wasted and worn with illness and a tortured mind, a
helpless paralytic, and the beautiful bride in the bloom of youth and
health, gowned in white silk and lace, her golden hair an aureole about
her graceful head, the fire of diamonds girding her round white throat,
pale roses breathing out perfume against her breast.
“Gods! How beautiful you are, my Daisie!” breathed the man, with a
gesture of despair. “How I envy the men who will dance with you at the
ball to-night!”
She fluttered into a chair beside him, putting her hand on his arm
caressingly, as she cried:
“Then I will not go to the ball to-night. I will come home from the
opera.”
“You forget your guest, who has set her heart on this grand function,”
he replied, half longing to take her at her word.
“Why, Lutie will be glad to chaperon Annette, and bring her home after
the ball,” cried Daisie.
“But I know what Lutie would say--that I am a selfish wretch, and don’t
want my wife to go out and enjoy herself. Others will say the same.
And it is true, I know. I am jealous, and selfish, and wretched, and
miserable--oh, more miserable than words can tell!” wildly.
“Let me stay with you to-night, Royall, and charm away this gray mood.
Indeed, I’m not anxious about the opera. And you used to be happier,
didn’t you, when I stayed by you more, and didn’t go into society so
much?”
“Yes, yes; but Lutie said it was a shame, that the confinement was
breaking you down, and you were as pale as a lily and as patient as an
angel. No, no--I must not be selfish. You must not neglect your social
duties, as Lutie says.”
“Ah, there is the bell! She has come!” exclaimed Daisie, starting up,
for she and her friend were to be Mrs. Fleming’s guests at an opera
party that night.
“Tell Lutie to come in and show me her new gown,” Royall said, dreading
to be left to his loneliness.
Daisie swept out into the hall, where her obsequious maid was waiting
to throw the white opera cloak over her shoulders, and thus she
interrupted the colloquy between Patrick and the caller, catching
enough of the conversation to understand its import.
“Show the gentleman in, Patrick. I have time to see him,” she
exclaimed, leading the way to a reception room.
She saw that the caller was a very fine-looking man--young, tall,
handsome, clean-shaven, and wearing protecting glasses over penetrating
dark eyes.
“I am Reed Raymond, madam, and I called in answer to your ad in the
evening paper,” he said, with a very courtly bow.
“It is fortunate you came at this time, for my husband feels very
dull this evening,” she answered, adding: “It is for him a companion
is desired. He is a helpless cripple, who chafes always against his
fate, and I must own that at times he is a most irritable person. But
who could blame him--condemned to so sad an existence in the bloom of
manhood! What he needs is a bright, cheerful young man, cultured,
acquainted with the world.”
“I can furnish unexceptionable references from Lord Werter, with whom I
have traveled the past five months,” the handsome applicant assured the
lady.
“I think I will introduce you to--my husband, as he, after all, will
be the one to decide on your availability,” said Daisie, rising and
motioning the young man to come.
He bowed, and followed her into the hall, thinking to himself that she
was certainly the rarest beauty that had ever dawned on his horizon.
“How cruel to lose such a woman! No wonder!” he was thinking, when
his eyes were arrested by another vision of beauty, trailing down the
grand staircase toward him--no less a person than Annette Janowitz,
sparkling, radiant, in rose-pink satin and pearls.
“I am all ready, Daisie, dear!” she cried, in her musical young voice,
and the listener reeled backward against the wall, with his hand upon
his heart.
“Ah, what is the matter?” cried Daisie, in alarm.
Reed Raymond soon recovered himself, and answered, with a pallid smile:
“I beg pardon--it is nothing. I am--subject--to slight spasms of the
heart.”
And he staggered on with her into the library, not daring to glance
back at the radiant vision on the stairway, while he groaned to himself:
“Who would have thought of meeting her here? Yet now I remember that
Dallas Bain once told me she was Daisie Bell’s dearest friend.”
At that moment Mrs. Fleming entered, exclaiming:
“Well, girls, are you all ready?”
“’Sh-h, Mrs. Fleming! Daisie is taking a stranger into the library.”
“Who is he, Patrick?”
“He came to answer the ad for master’s companion, madam.”
“Come, Annette, let us follow, and see if he will suit Royall,” cried
the volatile little widow, snatching Annette’s hand and dragging her
along.
“Mrs. Fleming, Miss Janowitz, Mr. Raymond,” said Daisie, and they all
bowed formally, the gentleman standing at the back of Royall’s chair,
superb in manly dignity.
“Stunning!” whispered the widow to Annette. But the young girl had
grown suddenly very pale and still. She waited silently, her bosom
heaving under its pearls, her eyes downcast beneath their jetty
fringes, until Mrs. Fleming tittered:
“Well, we must be going, girls. Ta, ta, Royall; so glad you like my new
Paris gown. You must try to exist without Daisie a few hours, will you?”
He threw her a bitter smile, and Daisie waited to clasp his cold
hand and kiss his brow, heedless of the stranger’s presence, ere she
followed the others from the room.
Royall looked up at him, saying wildly:
“Is it not enough to make a man curse God to be the husband of so rare
a creature, yet a helpless cripple from his bridal hour?”
He saw the pale face of the stranger working with sympathy as he said
hoarsely:
“Do not curse God, but rather the dastard whose hand sent the blow.”
“Ah, you have heard?”
“Yes, it was in all the papers last year, you know. I have always felt
the strangest sympathy for you, and if I can brighten one lonely hour,
God knows I shall be glad.”
“I thank you. But do not think I am neglected. My wife has been all
devotion, only her health could not bear the strain. She had to have
some recreation, hence my wish for a companion. In fact, all three who
have just left me have been angelic in their ministrations. My cousin,
Mrs. Fleming, is untiring in her kindness. As for little Annette
Janowitz, my wife’s dear friend, she is the kindest-hearted girl in
the world. On the night I was shot she came to help Daisie and Lutie
nurse me. She was as kind as a sister. When the doctor said I would
live, she wept for joy. A week later, when the first hope of recovery
was wrecked by my sudden shock of paralysis, she was inconsolable. She
cried out that it must not be so, God would not be so cruel; and in her
excitability she almost went into hysterics. She remained for weeks,
and when her mother insisted on her coming home, we all missed her like
a dear little sister. But since then we have her often with us, and her
sympathy is very sweet and dear. She has been with us now a month, and
Daisie says she has become a great belle and has many lovers.”
“Does--she show--any preference for any?” Reed Raymond asked, in a
voice that was husky in spite of his efforts to make it careless.
“I do not know about that. But why are you standing all this while, my
dear fellow? Sit down, and let us be sociable. Will you smoke?” ringing
the bell. “Wine and cigars, Pierre,” to the attendant. “And now, do you
really think you want to be my companion?”
“I wish it, above all things, Mr. Sherwood. Stern necessity forces me
to apply for this place, and if you accept my services I shall do my
best to deserve your patronage, believe me.”
The strong, eager voice impressed Royall very favorably, as Raymond
hurried on:
“I have been a companion for Lord Werter several months, in fact,
traveled with him all over the world, arriving in New York only a few
days ago, and he permits me to refer you to him as to my reliability.”
“I should fancy that your position with him is more tempting than this
with me?” Royall asked tentatively.
“It was very pleasant. I am very fond of his lordship. But--I am weary
of travel, and he is a nomad. I am an American, too, and prefer to
settle down for a while in my native country,” Reed Raymond rejoined
eagerly, in his anxiety for favorable consideration.
In his keen remorse for the evil he had wrought in madness, in his
longing to expiate it, in so far as he could, by devotion to his
victim, Ray Dering had decided on this step, and nothing could turn him
aside from what he believed his duty.
By such disguise as the change of his name by a slight transposition,
the shaving off of his luxuriant dark hair, and the adoption of
eyeglasses, he felt himself safe from recognition by former friends,
and his winning manners at once secured him the boon he craved.