MRS. VALE SHOCKS HER DAUGHTER.
December snows lay deep and white all over Boston, but the sky was
deeply blue, the sun was shining bright, and the merry jingle of the
Christmas sleigh-bells filled the air with music.
In the small but dainty drawing-room of a pretty house on one
of Boston’s principal avenues, a mother and daughter sat at the
lace-draped window watching the gay vehicles flashing past.
Mrs. Vale had coldly declined Mrs. Murray’s invitation to Winthrop, and
had made a home for herself and Italy in an aristocratic neighborhood
in Boston. Here they had become the recipients of social attentions
from the élite of the city. Friends of old flocked around the returned
exile, trying to atone for the cruelty of the past. And on this
beautiful Christmas morn the drawing-room was littered with elegant
gifts and fragrant flowers, kindly tokens from loving hearts of friends.
Mrs. Vale was not yet forty, and looked much younger in spite of
the trials she had borne. Her rich, golden hair showed no trace of
silver, and there were few lines of age on her delicate face, only an
expression that somehow showed that, for her, the fulness of life was
over.
The settled sadness of her pale, clear face was in deep contrast to the
subtile unrest of her daughter’s, with its deep, passionate eyes and
proud, red lips.
Between the mother and daughter there was one tabooed subject. It was
Francis Murray.
Italy firmly believed in his innocence, and her mother just as firmly
believed in his guilt. Who could blame her? for had not Francis Murray
and his mother turned the cold shoulder to her with the rest of the
world?
“And all the while he was guilty, the dastard!” she cried loathingly,
and shrank with abhorrence from meeting his mother.
It was cruelly hard for Italy. She loved them both, these two saddened
women, and she would fain have brought them together. But Mrs. Murray,
as well as Mrs. Vale, realized the impossibility of this union.
“No, she believes my son guilty, I should suffocate in her presence,”
cried Mrs. Murray.
“Her son killed my husband. I could not breathe the same air with that
woman!” cried Mrs. Vale.
So they had never met, and it was but rarely Italy could gain her
mother’s consent to go to Winthrop.
Mrs. Murray’s life at The Lodge was now inexpressibly lonely, and worn
with keen suspense, for the clever detectives had failed entirely to
trace the mysterious sailor. It was believed that he must have shipped
the same night upon another vessel, for he had never been seen again
after he staggered out of the low saloon where, in a half-maudlin
condition, he had related to a reporter and a score of other
listeners, the thrilling story of Francis Murray’s confession of Ronald
Vale’s murder.
In addition to the search that was going on privately, there were
advertisements inserted in all the leading newspapers offering
inducements to the sailor to return.
Mr. Gardner was secretly much discouraged at all these failures. He
began to dread that there was nothing more to discover.
“And yet poor Francis Murray was my true friend. How can I believe him
guilty?” he would ask himself reproachfully.
As Mrs. Vale and Italy sat together at the window this Christmas
morning, an obsequious servant entered and presented a card to the
former.
Mrs. Vale’s pale, beautiful face became, if possible, paler, and her
voice was imperious, as she said:
“Tell the gentleman we are not at home.”
The trim, becapped maid glided out, and Italy somewhat curiously took
up the card that her mother had thrown carelessly down upon the floor.
She read on the bit of cardboard the name:
“Percy Seabright.”
Italy had not seen Mr. Seabright since that day in October at Ralph
Allen’s studio, but knowing his wandering, Bohemian habits, she had
felt no surprise.
Alexie Audenreid had told her only a week previous that he was in
New York, and that Aunt Ione was furious because one of her friends
there had written her he was dancing attendance on an actress there, a
married woman at that, and that a divorce would very likely come of the
flirtation.
“Aunt Ione will make him walk straight once they are married,” added
Alexie, “but he is a sad flirt, and she is jealous of everybody he
looks at now--married women and widows especially. She says they are
all designing creatures, and just as anxious for beaus as the single
girls. She says I am a fool to let Ralph get so interested in his
landlady’s daughter, the pretty Widow Severn, and that she will rival
me if I don’t look out. But I pity that sweet sad young thing just as
much as dear Ralph does, and I know he will never love any one but me.”
All this rushed over Italy’s mind now, and she exclaimed:
“Why, mama, how strange that you refused to see Percy Seabright--dear
papa’s dearest friend!”
She saw a quiver pass over the pale, beautiful face.
“Do you know him, Italy?”
“Why, of course, mama. We met often before you came. I must have
written you about it.”
“Not one word, my child!”
“How very strange that I forgot to mention him, my dear mama. And I
like him so very much, too, mama!”
“You like him--why?”
“Oh, mama, what a question! He is very kind and pleasant--and if he
were not I should still have to like him for papa’s sake! They loved
each other, you know, and were very intimate friends.”
“That is no reason you should love him, Italy, for--I--I--hate Percy
Seabright!” cried Mrs. Vale, in a voice of loathing.
As Mrs. Vale uttered those strange words she started up from her seat,
her eyes flashing with a steely glitter, her cheeks flushing warmly.
“I--hate--Percy--Seabright!” she repeated chokingly.
“Mama!”
Italy’s eyes were wide with wonder, but Mrs. Vale began to pace
restlessly up and down the room, her long black velvet dress with its
rich fur trimming trailing far behind her on the thick carpet. She was
excited to the verge of hysteria, and seemed to almost forget Italy’s
presence.
“Oh, how that man’s name brings back the past!” she cried, wringing her
slender white hands in anguish. “Oh, Ronald, Ronald, it was of him we
spoke that last, last night when I came to you in the library, and you
promised, promised----” her voice broke in a long, wailing sob.
Italy was shocked. It was but seldom that her sad, quiet mother ever
gave way like this. She hurried to her side, and slipped her arm about
the slight waist.
“Oh, my dearest one, what is it? Were you not willing for papa to be
his friend?” she cried.
“Ah, my child, I have betrayed myself! I did not care that you should
ever know this! But come, sit beside me on the sofa and I will tell you
all.”
Italy sat beside her, looking in wonder into the agitated face, and
waiting curiously for the explanation. It seemed strange to her that
any one should dislike bright, debonair Percy Seabright, who was always
so kind.
Then she suddenly remembered that Emmett Harlow had frankly avowed an
aversion to him, and she herself had seen faults in him, although he
had laughed them off with his winning air, and she had generously tried
to excuse them.
“It is something like this that has vexed mama, no doubt,” she thought,
and her mother’s first words confirmed her belief.
“After all,” she said, “perhaps I feel too strongly on the subject;
perhaps I ought to forgive him, but do not think, my darling, that I
was jealous of your father’s love for his friend. No, no; it was Percy
Seabright that hated me!”
Then Italy remembered suddenly that she had never heard Percy Seabright
express one kindly feeling toward her mother.
“Oh, mama!” she cried, aghast.
“Percy Seabright disliked me before I was married, he hated me
afterward,” went on Mrs. Vale, with that crimson spot still burning on
her pale cheek, and her eyes agleam with blue fire.
“But, mama, _why_?”
“I was poor then, you know, Italy, and no one knew that my uncle, who
so kindly cared for me, intended to make me his heiress. He was a
bachelor, but still quite young enough to marry. But when you were only
two years old Uncle Leonard died and his fortune came to me. But Percy
Seabright, before I was married, tried to persuade your father that I
did not love him, that I was marrying him for his money.”
“Shameful!” cried Italy, with flashing eyes.
“Was it not?” cried Mrs. Vale warmly. “But Ronald would not believe
him. We were married, and he continued to hate me. I believe he was
foolishly jealous of my husband’s love for me. Anyhow, we never became
friends, and I found out at last that he was always plotting to turn my
Ronald’s heart against me. The knowledge made me very bitter against
him, and that night when I went to Ronald in the library my heart was
very sore with something I had heard at the reception, some slighting
words Percy Seabright had said about me. I told everything to my dear
husband, and begged him to break off with Percy because he was mean and
deceitful, and not worthy to be my darling’s friend.”
“Oh,” breathed Italy, intensely interested, and Mrs. Vale continued:
“Ronald was very angry, and threatened to call Percy out the next day,
but I told him no, I did not wish it. I only wished he should withdraw
his friendship from the traitor. He promised, with a caress, that he
would do so, and added that he had long been losing faith in his once
friend, and would not be sorry to give him up!”
“Oh, mama, what if, what if----” Italy cried wildly.
“My dear?”
“What if--it has been--this man who followed you with his hatred all
these years? It must be, because it is so plain!” the girl panted.
“No, dear.”
“But, mama, it must be. He might even have----Oh, could he have
caused--could he have killed papa?”
“Dearest, you talk wildly. Percy Seabright loved your father too well
to harm him! Yet, I confess these suspicions came to me. But they were
baseless. He was in New York that night, and--he reached home--only
in time for the funeral. He fainted over the coffin, and was ill
afterward for days. But he behaved generously after that. He combatted
the world’s verdict that I was guilty. He advanced and clung to the
theory that Ronald committed suicide. He rejoiced when I was cleared,
and offered me his friendship in that winning way so few can resist.
I think he was sorry for me, sympathized with me in our common sorrow
over a loved one’s death. But--my nature is not a forgiving one--I
could not forget nor forgive his former enmity. I turned my back on
him, coldly declined his friendship, and--have never seen him since.”
“And you do not believe that he is your enemy still?”
“No, dear, not in the face of his proffered friendship and his
seemingly sincere repentance. Doubtless he believed all that he charged
against me, but why should he war with me further--a woman whose heart
was broken!”
“And you cannot learn to tolerate him, mama?”
“No, Italy, every instinct of my nature is in revolt against this man
despite his repentance. I hope never to gaze on his false, smiling face
again.”
Italy kissed her tenderly, without replying. She was thinking of that
Mephistophelian smile she had sometimes caught on Percy Seabright’s
lips. It had always revolted her, and suddenly it came to her that a
man with so evil a smile might be capable of any wickedness. She went
to the window again and looked out at the snowy street and the passing
sleighs with her head in a whirl.
“I wish I had known all this before,” she thought. “It puts a new
face on everything. What if--what if this man is a fiend in disguise!
Oh, how my head whirls! Francis Murray, I remember he tried to lay
the crime on you! Let me think, let me think! Oh, what a flood of
suspicions crowd upon me! Is this man, this Percy Seabright, who loved
my father so dearly, a saint or a fiend? I _must_ know; I will watch
him, I will try to trap him. Dear Heaven, help me, I implore!”
She heard her mother’s passionate sobs from the sofa, where she
crouched in an agony of reawakened recollection, and her heart grew
hard as stone toward Percy Seabright.
“Liar!” she breathed hoarsely. “Perhaps it was from you that
Francis Murray heard that dark and blighting story of my mother’s
dishonor--that falsehood that should have seared the lips that breathed
it. Ah, at last I have a clue! I must follow it warily, and perhaps
it may lead to the awful truth! If only Francis Murray were here, I
believe he would help me now! Shall I tell Mr. Gardner what is in my
mind? No, not yet, for he is as blind as my mother, who believes in
Percy Seabright’s honesty of purpose in spite of her dislike of him.
The path is dark, dark, but I must venture on it a little way alone.
Oh, for a guiding hand in this black darkness!”
The burning tears rolled down her cheeks and blinded her to everything.
On that fair Christmas morn, Italy Vale felt herself the most desolate
girl beneath the heavens.