WHAT THE WINNER'S HAND THREW BY.
"Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper."--SHAKESPEARE.
"Farewell!--a word that hath been and must be,
A sound that makes us linger--yet, farewell!"
--BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD.
Grace Winans waked from her troubled sleep with a vague presentiment of
impending evil. She heard the small clock on the mantel chiming seven,
and looked about her half bewildered.
The shaded taper burned faintly in the room, and the gray morning light
stole dimly through the closed shutters and lace curtains. Her baby lay
on her arm, sleeping sweetly in his warm white nest. She raised her
head a little, only to sink back wearily with a dull, fevered throbbing
in her temples, and a sharp pang of remembrance that forced a low cry
from her lips:
"Oh, Paul!"
Where was he? She thought of the study, and with a pang at fancy of his
tiresome vigil, eased the baby lightly off her arm, and tucking him
softly round, donned dressing-gown and slippers, and stole gently down
stairs, rapped slightly at the door, then opened it and entered.
The light still burned in the room, looking garish and wan in the pale
beams of morning; the easy-chair was drawn near the writing-table, but
vacant. She glanced around her. He was not there, and no trace of him
remained.
The young wife slowly retraced her steps.
"He will come presently," she whispered to herself, "but I wonder where
he is;" and as she bent over little Paul, laying her round, white arm
on the pillow, the sharp edge of the note grazed her velvet-like skin.
She looked at it, shrinking, afraid, it seemed, to touch it for the
moment; then, with a terrible effort over herself, her trembling hand
took it up, her shady, violet eyes ran over the contents:
"Oh Grace!" it read, "you know that I adore you--too well, too well!
for I cannot bear to live with you and know that your heart--the
heart I thought so wholly and entirely mine--has ever held the image
of another! You should have told me of this before we married. You
wronged me bitterly, Gracie, but I will not upbraid you. Still,
until I can learn to curb this jealous passion of mine, I will not,
cannot remain where you are. I should only render you miserable. You
and my boy will remain in my home--remember, I command this--and
you will draw on my banker as usual for what sums you may need or
want. I do not limit you in anything, my wife, my own idolized
wife--please yourself in all things, do as you like, and try to be
content and happy. If I can ever overcome this jealous madness--can
ever reconcile myself to knowing that I was _second_ instead of first
in your pure heart, I will come to you, but not till then. Try to be
happy with our little boy, and forgive your own, erring, unhappy
"PAUL."
White and still as marble, the deserted wife sat holding that
mad note in her hand, looking before her into vacancy, moveless,
speechless--yes, and pallid as she would ever be in her coffin.
A terrible, overwhelming sense of her desolation rushed upon her;
but, strangely enough, her first thoughts were not of her husband in
his jealous grief, but of herself--of the scandal, the disgrace, the
nine-days' wonder that would follow all this. She knew her husband well
enough to know that once his mad resolve was taken it would be adhered
to.
He was no Bruce Conway, with wavering, doubting will, that could be
blown aside by a passing breeze. Firm, proud, sensitive, but unbending
as adamant, was Paul Winans when once his resolution was taken. No one
knew it better than his wife, though he had ever been kind and loving
to her.
A dumb horror settled on her soul as she realized the meaning of his
letter. He blamed her as having willfully deceived him. She had not
meant to do so; she had not thought it a matter of any moment to Paul
Winans whether or not she had loved before she met him. Other men would
not have cared--why should he? He had not questioned her, had taken
her past for granted. How could she tell him of that unsought, scorned,
neglected love that had darkly shadowed the joy of her young girlhood?
He was unjust to her. She felt it keenly in the midst of her sufferings.
Were all men like these two whom she had loved, she questioned herself,
mournfully. Not one of them was worthy of a true woman's love--no, not
one.
It had come to this--a deserted wife--through no fault of hers was this
tribulation brought on her. She felt that the world had used her hardly
and cruelly. The passion and pride that underlie firm yet sweet natures
like hers, surged up to the surface and buoyed her up above the raging
billows of grief and sorrow. She felt too indignant to weep. She had
almost wept her heart out long ago. She meant to sit still with folded
hands and tranquil heart, and let the cold, harsh world go by heedless
of its pangs, as it was of hers.
Her husband was using her cruelly in bringing this unmerited disgrace
upon her and her child. She half resolved to flee far away with her boy
where he could never find her in the hour when shame and repentance
should drive him back to her side. It was but for a moment. Then she
remembered the brief sentence in his note that commanded her to remain
in his home, and then her resolution wavered; for when Grace Grey had
taken that solemn oath before God to "love, honor, and _obey_," she had
meant to keep her word.
Poor child! for hers was a strangely complex nature--a blending of the
child and woman that we often meet in fine, proud feminine natures, and
never wholly understand.
A hundred conflicting emotions surged madly through her as she sat
there, motionless and pale, until moment after moment went by, and
the overtaxed brain, the overwrought heart gave way, and blessed
unconsciousness stole upon her. With her hands folded loosely in her
lap over that cruel note, a sharp despair shadowed forth in that lovely
face, the stately head fell forward and rested heavily on the pillow
beside the child, whose rosy, unconscious slumber was unbroken, as
though the hovering wings of angels brooded above him and his forsaken
mother.
Norah found her thus when the cooing voice of the awakened babe
reached her ears in the nursery. His pretty black eyes were sparkling
with glee, his rosy lips prattled baby nothings, his dimpled, white
fingers were twisted in the bright curls of his mother's hair as they
swept luxuriantly over the pillow.
With all the art of his babyhood he was trying to win a response from
his strangely silent mother.
She came back to life with a gasping sigh, as Norah dashed a shower of
ice-water into her face, opened her eyes, said, "Don't, Norah, don't!"
and drifted back to the realms of unconsciousness; and so deep was
the swoon that this time all the restoratives of the frightened Norah
failed for a long time of any effect.
"Looks like she's dead!" muttered the Irishwoman, divided between her
care for the child's mother and the child itself, who began to grow
fretful from inattention and hunger.
Better for her if she had been, perhaps. There are but few women who
find the world so fair that the grave is not held as a refuge for their
tired souls and bodies. But Grace came back, with a little gasping
sigh, to the life that had never held much attraction for her, and with
a trembling arm drew her baby to her breast.
"Poor little Paul!" she quavered, "he is hungry and fretful. Go and
get his bath ready, Norah. I can't think how I came to faint. I feel
well enough now, and it is quite unusual to me to lose consciousness so
easily."
She was herself again. Pride sat regnant on her brow, on her curling
lip, in her quiet eyes. It held her up when the poor heart felt
like breaking. She had learned the lesson long ago--learned it too
thoroughly to forget.
So the day passed quietly away. She had briefly explained to the
curious servants that their master had been called off by an emergency
that required his absence from home. She did not know at what time he
would return--he did not know himself yet. In the meantime all would go
on in the house as usual. And with this miserable subterfuge, for which
she despised herself, the young wife tried to shield her husband's name
from the sharp arrows of censure.
Two or three visitors were announced that evening, but she quietly
declined seeing company; and so one of the longest days of her life
wore to its close, as even the longest, dreariest days will, if we only
have patience to wait.
She was not patient, nor yet impatient. A dull, reckless endurance
upheld her in that and succeeding days of waiting that passed the same.
She heard nothing from her husband. In the excited, unnatural state of
her mind, smarting under the sense of injustice and wrong, it seemed to
her that she did not care to hear.
She spent her time altogether with her little son, never seeing company
nor going out. When Norah took the child out for his daily airing
and ride through the fresh air, she whiled away the time till his
return by reckless playing on the grand piano or organ, in the elegant
drawing-room. She could not settle herself to reading, sewing, or any
other feminine employment. She filled up the great blank that had come
into her life as best she might with the sublime creations of the old
masters.
Sometimes the very spirit of mirth and gayety soared in music's melting
strains from the grand piano; sometimes the soul of sadness and despair
wailed along the organ chords, but the fair face kept its changeless,
impassive calm through all, while the white fingers flew obedient to
her will. Sometimes she tried to sing, but the spirit of song was
wanting. She could not even sing to her child, could scarcely speak,
and started sometimes at the hollow echo of her own sweet voice.
And thus a dreary week passed away. But even this semblance of calm and
repose was destined to be rudely broken. Miss Lavinia Story effected an
entrance one day, being determined not to be kept out any longer by the
stereotyped "not at home;" and with her tenderest smile she took both
hands of Mrs. Winans in hers, and looked with deep solicitude into her
calmly beautiful face.
"Dear friend, you must forgive me for this intrusion, but I felt that I
must see you, must condole with you in your trying situation. You are
very pale, my dear, looking wretched I may say, but you bear up well,
remarkably well, I think, considering everything."
Mrs. Winans invited her visitor to a seat with freezing politeness and
hauteur. Then she went back to her place on the music-stool.
"I was playing when you came in," she remarked, coolly. "If you will
tell me what music you like, Miss Lavinia, I will play for you."
"Not for the world would I lacerate your feelings so much," sighed the
old maid, putting her lace handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away a tear
that was not there. "What, when all Norfolk is sympathizing with you
in your distress and mortification, and commiserating you, shall I be
heartless enough to beg you to play for me, even though you are bearing
up so sweetly and wonderfully. No, my love, don't exert yourself for
me. I understand your feelings, and only wish to sympathize with
you--not to be a source of annoyance."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Lavinia"--the soft eyes looked gravely at her,
the fair face keeping its chilling calm, the musical voice its polite
indifference--"I did not know myself so honored by the good people of
Norfolk, and really, I must say their commiseration is wasted in a bad
cause, and I do not know what has given them occasion for its exercise.
When I need sympathizers and 'Job's comforters,' I will seek them. At
present I do not feel their need."
"Dear me! how high and mighty Mrs. Conway's companion has got to
be," thought Miss Lavinia, spitefully, but she only said: "My dear,
I am glad to see you bear up so well. Your strength of mind is quite
remarkable. Now, had such a thing happened to me I feel sure I should
have been extremely ill from shame and terror. But," with a simper, "I
am such a timid, nervous girl. With your beauty and notoriety you have
no doubt grown accustomed to this kind of thing, and do not mind it.
But my sympathy is truly great for your little boy."
"Miss Story!"--her hostess whirled around on the music-stool, an
ominous fire blazing under her long dark lashes--"I pass over your
contemptible innuendoes to myself as unworthy my notice, but will
you kindly inform me what you are talking about--that is if you know
yourself, for I assuredly do not."
What superb anger there was in her look and tone. It was scarcely like
her to be so irritable, but she was not herself this evening. The tamed
leopard, when goaded too hard, sometimes turns on its keeper, and the
gentlest heart has a spark of fire smoldering in its depths that may
be rudely stirred into a destructive flame. Miss Lavinia recoiled
timorously from the fire that blazed in those wondrous dark eyes.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Winans," she answered, smoothly. "I did not
know you were so angry about it, though, of course, you feel irritated
about it, as every right-minded person must feel. I think myself Mr.
Conway has acted unbecomingly. You had a right to change your mind in
his absence if you liked, and it _was_ silly in him to make such ado
about it all, when the best plan was to let it all blow over."
"Do you mean to insinuate that I was affianced to Mr. Conway during
his absence, and threw him over for a wealthier rival, Miss Story?"
demanded Grace, indignantly.
"That is what rumor assigns as the cause of the late 'unpleasantness,'
to call it by a mild name," returned the persevering spinster,
carefully taking down mental notes of the conversation to report to her
gossips.
"Then rumor is, as usual, mistaken. Mr. Conway never has been, never
can be, more than the merest acquaintance to me," answered Mrs. Winans,
briefly and coldly.
"Indeed! Thank you, my dear friend, for reposing such implicit
confidence in me. I am glad to know the truth of the matter, and to be
able to tell people that you are not the heartless flirt they try to
make you out. Mr. Conway's folly is indeed reprehensible, and he no
doubt deserves all he suffers."
All he suffers! The pale listener wondered if he suffered half so much
as she did. What was his selfish disappointment to the disgrace, the
trouble, the sorrow he had brought on her and her innocent baby. Her
heart hardened toward him as she listened.
"Let us drop the subject," she said, proudly. "Mr. Conway is hardly
worth being the protracted subject of our conversation. It were better
had he remained on the other side of the ocean."
"That's the truth," said Miss Lavinia, briskly. "The foolish fellow. To
come all the way home to be shot down for a woman who never even cared
for him, and a married woman at that."
"To be shot down did you say, Miss Story? I confess I do not understand
you. Will you explain yourself? You have been talking in enigmas all
this time."
Mrs. Winans rose from her seat, and taking a step forward, looked at
the incorrigible old gossip, her red lips half apart, her dusk-blue
orbs alight, her whole appearance indicative of eager, repressed
excitement.
"Why, you seem surprised," said the spinster, maliciously. "Why Mrs.
Winans, didn't you know of the almost fatal termination of the duel?
Ah, that accounts for your calmness and composure. I thought you were
not utterly heartless. I see it all. They have kept the papers from
you."
"The duel! What duel?"
"Why, the duel between your husband and Bruce Conway, to be sure,"
answered Miss Lavinia, in surprise at Grace's apparent stupidity.
"Miss Story, do you mean to tell me that there has been a duel between
these two--my husband and Mr. Conway?"
"Why, certainly there has. Haven't I been talking about it ever since
I came in here? And is it possible that you knew nothing at all of the
affair?"
"I did not." Very low and sad fell the words from her white lips, and
she leaned one arm on the grand piano to steady her graceful figure.
"Miss Story, my husband--he was unhurt, I trust?"
"He was not injured at all, and I hear has left the city, but that
unfortunate Mr. Conway fell at the first fire, and is very seriously
wounded, they say. Indeed, I believe the surgeon has small hopes of his
recovery. It's very sad, very shocking. It ought to be a warning to all
young men not to go falling in love with other men's wives."