THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.
“Laws, honey, look out o’ the winder! The folkses is all a-goin’
picknicking. ’Tis a pretty sight!”
So exclaimed Mrs. Goodwill, Gipsy’s nurse, to her patient, who was
sitting up for the first time in ten days, propped round with pillows
in an easy chair.
Very dearly had she paid in acute suffering for the saving of Laurie’s
and Lelia’s lives, and a pallid shadow of her former lovely self she
looked--poor Gipsy!--as she turned her large, wistful dark eyes toward
the sight indicated.
The guests were all going out for a day’s pleasure, and, as the nurse
said, the sight was a pretty one.
At the head rode the betrothed lovers, Laurie mounted on Satan, and
Lelia on Saint. Two more couples were on horseback, two more in
buggies, including the chaperon, Mrs. Thurston, with her husband, the
captain.
Miss Willoughby had remained at home, glad, like most people of her
quiet character, of a day’s rest from social duties.
Gipsy looked at the party with keen admiration. All the girls were
pretty, all the men were handsome, but her dark eyes lingered longest
on Laurie Willoughby, following him until they were out of sight down
the winding road.
“How princely!” she thought, with the secret romance of a girl’s heart.
She thought Lelia Ritchie the most fortunate of mortals to have
handsome Laurie for her lover.
From her childhood he had been almost unconsciously to herself the
ideal hero of all her dreams.
“All the hues of old romances
By his actual self grew dim.”
As Laurie had said lightly to Lelia, the waif had been in love with
them both all her life. The glamour of beauty and fortune and romantic
love had invested them in Gipsy’s eyes with a golden haze. It was
Lelia’s own fault that the shining veil was rent, and that Gipsy
learned to secretly dread and despise her, while her worship of Laurie
grew with her growth and strengthened with every sight of him in his
young, debonair beauty. His voice sounded like music in her ears, his
smile made her heart thrill with subtle happiness.
She thought that Lelia was the most fortunate and happy girl in the
world, to be the chosen of his heart, to have the high privilege of
being always near him, and gazing at will on his faultless face, with
its thoughtful, dark-brown eyes and grave, tender lips.
She did not realize that she was beginning to have him always in her
thoughts, to brood over the tones of his voice, the glances of his
eyes, to thrill with a subtle, dangerous tenderness at sound of his
name.
Yet she had not much to dwell upon, poor Gipsy, for Miss Willoughby,
dreading Lelia’s jealousy, had not even permitted her nephew any
manifestation of his gratitude for Gipsy’s nobility.
When he had consulted her as to what visible form this gratitude might
be permitted to take, she had bluntly replied:
“You cannot afford to make any sign of your gratitude, Laurie, for
Lelia, in her blind jealousy, would persist in misconstruing even a
kind word. Leave all to me. I will reward Gipsy.”
“Must I seem ungrateful?” he remonstrated.
“Better so,” she replied. So between his aunt’s prudence and his
betrothed’s jealousy he had to keep silence.
But somehow Gipsy knew from what had already passed all the gratitude
in his heart. She had always felt subtly that it was Lelia who
prevented him from having a frank friendship for her, and she bowed
in silent regret to the inevitable. He was Lelia’s, to do with as she
willed, and the imperious young beauty never allowed him to wander from
his allegiance.
Already there were rumors among the servants that Miss Ritchie held a
tight rein over her lover, and privately berated him for any suspected
flirtations with the other fair ones who composed the party.
Zaidee Preston was the most demure little flirt in existence, every one
conceded that, and although not dazzlingly beautiful, like Lelia, she
had a charm of her own petite plumpness, curly brown hair, and sweet
blue eyes that won her many admirers. Full of mischief and harmless
coquetry, she soon divined Lelia’s weakness, and played upon it just
for amusement, arousing the proud beauty’s secret bitter resentment.
Little Zaidee frankly preferred Roy Van Vleck to any of the other young
men, but she managed to inveigle Laurie into some very nice chats, and
got him for her cavalier on more than one occasion.
“You will never get invited to The Crags again,” the other girls said
to her warningly; but she laughed roguishly, replying:
“I suspected that, and so I am making the most of my chance now. I am
only just worrying her for fun, to teach her a lesson. Who wants her
stupid Laurie, with his big, grave eyes and quiet ways, as if, after
all, he wasn’t quite happy, even if he has won such a dashing beauty? I
like that jolly Roy Van Vleck a hundred times better!”
Even as Gipsy’s yearning eyes followed the party, the kind nurse
remarked:
“Lucinda says that Miss Ritchie is as jealous as a Turk over her
handsome lover, and won’t hardly let him speak to another girl. She
jest hates that little Zaidee because she tries to flirt with him.”
“You see, Miss Ritchie loves him very much. They have belonged to each
other all their lives, and it would break her heart to lose him,”
Gipsy answered gently, with a dull pain at her heart she could not
understand. She did not realize that she was putting herself in Lelia’s
place, and reading her heart by the light of her own.
She shut her heavy eyes and leaned her head back on the pillow wearily,
heavily, as in a half-dream, Mrs. Goodwill wandering on loquaciously:
“I hate these jealous natures myself; a body might jest as well marry
a firebrand. My sister-in-law, Della, was a jealous woman, though
John never give her no cause at all; he dreaded her temper so that he
daren’t even look at a woman, even if she was as old as the hills. But
she killed him at last--yes, shot him for a foolish fancy that hadn’t
no foundation. They sent her off to the loonytic ’sylum--said she was
crazy, but she warn’t no more crazy nor I was, and she ought to been
hung, the she-devil! If I was Mr. Willoughby, I’d look twice before
I would marry a jealous woman, if she was pretty as a pink and rich
as the queen of Sheba. As I said jest now, as well marry a firebrand
and done with it! I can’t never get over losing my poor brother so
dreadful. But, laws! how my long tongue do rattle on, and you with your
eyes shet, trying to sleep. But raise up now, here comes Lucinda with a
nice bowl of chicking broth!”