“To-morrow night!” The theatre was packed. It was a benefit--Clovis’
last performance. All N---- shone forth in its best array to bid
farewell, for at least a season, to a woman who had won from many much
applause----perhaps, from a few, some real love. The right proscenium
box was occupied by Mrs. Gwinn, her daughter, Mrs. Dale, Col. Coutell
and another gentleman. Gwendoline sat in the shadow of a curtain. She
wore a soft black lace, relieved by a bunch of crimson verbenas on the
low corsage, their sweet leaves touching her white neck.
Emory was met on the stairway by the usher.
“There’s not a seat to be had in the house,” he said; “but if the party
who engaged the left hand box don’t come by the second act, I’ll show
you in there, sir.”
He stood through the act, but, when the curtain went down, the usher
came to him, saying:
“We have just learned that the people who engaged the box are not
coming; so it’s yours, sir, for the night.”
When he had taken his seat, he raised his opera-glass and sought for
the woman he loved. At last, he found her! How beautiful she looked
that night! He had never seen her dressed in that way before. Her
lovely arms shone like alabaster on the velvet cushions near her. Again
and again he gazed.
“I must go to her,” he said to himself, “if but to touch her dress!”
and, when the curtain fell a second time, he knocked at the door of her
box. She started slightly as he came in and took a seat beside her.
“Did you enjoy your drive?”
“Oh! so much!”
“And the horses?” he asked; “how did they go?”
“As usual--oh!” and she caught her breath. “I never thought how they
went, I was enjoying it all so much!”
“As usual,” he said, smiling down upon her.
This restlessness of hers was something new to him. The play went on;
he neither saw nor heard--but one vision was before him--Gwendoline!
That beautiful head, those wondrous eyes, that white neck, those
shapely arms, that perfect form of which he had seen the outlines
beneath the flimsy covering of a boy’s suit--those charms would drive
him mad!
The raging fire of a long pent up passion was consuming him as he gazed
upon her. And, as one in a wild and vivid dream, he gazed; the yearning
to take her unto himself was overpowering--the desire to hold to his
heart that soft, white, heaving breast and feel the quivering of that
beautiful form which had bestrode Cliquot.
The air around became hushed and close, and a choking sensation filled
his throat. Her white, ungloved hands lay like snowflakes in her lap.
He touched them and whispered:
“Let me see them!”
She held them up a little.
“God bless those hands!” he said, hoarsely.
She drew back behind the curtains. The orchestra was playing--it was
between the acts.
“Gwendoline!” he said, “I thank you!”
“What do you mean?” and her frightened eyes met his.
“Draw your chair back.”
She did so.
“My darling! I thank you in----Cliquot’s name!”
What had he said that the verbenas on her neck looked so pale? At that
moment there was a slight noise from behind the stage, and in a little
while the manager stepped out in front of the curtain and addressed the
audience as follows:
“I crave your indulgence for a few moments, as one of the actresses has
met with a slight accident. It will delay matters but a short time.”
“Mamma,” said Gwendoline, “I should like to go home.”
“Are you not well?”
“Yes, yes!” hurriedly replied her daughter; “but I am tired.”
“I dislike to have you pass through the theatre before the play is
over--to-night especially when Clovis bids farewell.”
“Pray, Madam,” said Emory, “allow me to escort your daughter home.
Fortunately, this is the stage box and I can take her out that way,”
pointing to the stage door, “and easily obtain a hack. Indeed, if
agreeable, I will immediately order one to be at the stairs when we
come out.”
“What say you, Col. Coutell?” and Mrs. Gwinn turned to that gentleman,
who, being deeply interested in the play, gave his consent; and Emory
hastened away to have his orders executed. The curtain was still down,
when, with Gwendoline, trembling upon his arm, he closed the door of
communication behind them, and stepped into the space beyond the wings.
Only a few actors and supernumeraries were about, but, as they made
their way along some stage paraphernalia they came directly up to the
woman who was hurt. She was sitting upon a box with a silk handkerchief
over her head. She heard them, and, pushing the hair from her face,
looked up. The bright light from the wings shone full upon her, and
they saw on her white brow a gaping cut above the eyes.
“You!” cried Emory, catching wildly at his throat, “you!”
“Cecile! and do you know me?”
“Oh! yes; I know you, Gwendoline,--and how well you ride!”
A random shot, but it told, for her cousin shrank back with the same
low moan Emory had heard on the race-course. As it smote his ear, his
frozen blood leaped into life again.
“Hush, woman!” and, catching her arm, he crushed her to the floor. A
hollow, ugly laugh greeted him, as she twisted herself away, saying
between her teeth:
“Did you enjoy the telegram?”
“Your cue on!” cried the call-boy, running up behind. She rose to her
feet, quickly tossed her shaggy hair over her brow, and in a twinkling
had run upon the stage, while those two, staggering down the stairs,
heard a sound like silver bells and the applause that greeted “Kitty
who laughed.”
Gwendoline crouched like a frightened bird in the dark corner of the
hack, as it dashed along the streets; and her companion--he, too, was
as silent as the grave.
This then was the end! Worse for him than Gwendoline. He had believed
himself free; she had known him but in his slavery and worshiped him so.
Bewildered, and blinded by his passion for her, that night he had well
nigh betrayed himself--and now the end!
The carriage drew up at Mrs. Gwinn’s door, and, dismissing it, he
mounted the steps and silently pulled the bell. Before it was answered,
he took both her hands in his,--those dear hands, hanging so white and
bare beside her--took them in his own, and held them for a moment to
his bosom; then, turning up the palms, he kissed first one and then the
other passionately, saying:
“God bless them! those brave little hands--God bless them, forever!”
and he was gone.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Gwinn returned home from the theatre, she found her daughter
in tears and learned from her something of what had occurred behind the
scenes.
“How strange we never knew her, mamma, often as we have seen her act.”
“Not at all strange,” replied her mother, who was moving about the
room, arranging things for the night. “What with her short dress, paint
and powder, dyed hair and artificial laugh, one would hardly recognize
the quiet dark girl who spent only a few short months with us, then
married Mr. Emory. I really don’t think it necessary for you to worry
about her. She has passed completely out of our lives, and it makes
little or no difference what becomes of her.”
She did not wish to pursue the conversation further, as her mind and
inclinations were bent on the completion of the match between her
daughter and the wealthy Southerner, Col. Coutell.
But Gwendoline persisted in talking of her cousin, as her mother moved
restlessly about the room.
“You know they were not happy, mamma,” said the girl, in a low tone,
fraught with tears,--“and--and--I am sorry for him, the--the husband
she left.”
“Well!” said her mother, impatiently, “he might get a divorce.”
“Get--a--divorce!”--and the figure lying half-dressed before her
sat up, drying her eyes, and, looking in her face, with a startled
expression, exclaimed: “Am I dreaming? Did you say that?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Gwinn; “I said he might get a divorce; but on what
grounds I know not.”
She walked to the windows, shook out the curtains, straightened a chair
or two, in an aimless fashion, thinking, for the first time, that she
detected a chord in her daughter’s voice and a look of the love she had
once half-suspected that she entertained for the handsome blond who had
married her niece.
“Might get I said, Gwendoline,” she repeated, “but such things don’t
grow on trees, as forbidden fruit does. Ah! here is Alice to undress
you. Take off your clothes and go to bed; it is better to dream than
weep.”
Closing her door, the mother went to her couch to plan the campaign of
the morn. Weary was the woman of the struggle to keep up appearances.
Surrounded in her early youth by every luxury, she bore but
indifferently the adversities of poverty. Her daughter’s beauty had
won many admirers, but none so worthy as Col. Morris Coutell, a man
of ancient lineage, possessing large estates and living alone on his
inheritance, a home of vast proportions, where the mocking bird sang
amid the countless trees, and flowers waved their beauties in the ever
blowing breezes of the “Father of Waters.”
To dream like this sought she her pillow, picturing Gwendoline the
mistress of all, a fit queen to reign over field and home, over master
and slave. But to that daughter came visions less charming. Into her
fitful slumber crept unwelcome images; men and women in turmoil and the
dust and glare of crowded grounds seemed ever to make for themselves a
picture on her brain, and fill the night with horrors, till dawn came
and brought with its gray garments the coldness of despair.