Daisy Brooks; Or, A Perilous Love
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
While Rex was penning his all-important letter in his room, Pluma waswalking restlessly to and fro in her boudoir, conning over in her mindthe events of the evening.
Rex had asked her to be his wife, but she stood face to face with thetruth at last--he did not love her. It was not only a blow of thekeenest and cruelest kind to her affection, but it was the cruelestblow her vanity could possibly have received.
To think that she, the wealthy, petted heiress, who counted heradmirers by the score, should have tried so hard to win the love ofthis one man and have failed; that her beauty, her grace, her wit, andher talent had been lavished upon him, and lavished in vain. "Was thatsimple girl, with her shy, timid, shrinking manner, more lovable thanI?" she asked herself, incredulously.
She could not realize it--she, whose name was on the lips of men, whopraised her as the queen of beauty, and whom fair women envied as onewho had but to will to win.
It seemed to her a cruel mockery of fate that she, who had everythingthe world could give--beauty and fortune--should ask but this onegift, and that it should be refused her--the love of the man who hadasked her to be his wife.
Was it impossible that he should learn to love her?
She told herself that she should take courage, that she wouldpersevere, that her great love must in time prevail.
"I must never let him find me dull or unhappy," she thought. "I mustcarefully hide all traces of pique or annoyance."
She would do her best to entertain him, and make it the study of herlife to win his love.
She watched the stars until they faded from the skies, then buried herface in her pillow, falling into an uneasy slumber, through which abeautiful, flower-like, girlish face floated, and a slight, delicateform knelt at her feet holding her arms out imploringly, sobbing out:
"Do not take him from me--he is my world--I love him!"
And with a heart racked by terrible jealousy, Pluma turned uneasily onher pillow and opened her eyes. The stars were still glimmering in themoonlighted sky.
"Is the face of Daisy Brooks ever to haunt me thus?" she cried out,impatiently. "How was I to know she was to die?" she muttered,excitedly. "I simply meant to have Stanwick abduct her from theseminary that Rex might believe him her lover and turn to me forsympathy. I will not think of it," she cried; "I am not one to flinchfrom a course of action I have marked out for myself, no matter whatthe consequences may be, if I only gain Rex's love."
And Pluma, the bride soon to be, turned her flushed face again to thewall to dream again of Daisy Brooks.
She little dreamed Rex, too, was watching the stars, as wakeful asshe, thinking of the past.
Then he prayed Heaven to help him, so that no unworthy thought shouldenter his mind. After that he slept, and one of the most painful daysof his life was ended.
The days at Whitestone Hall flew by on rapid wings in a round ofgayety. The Hall was crowded with young folks, who were to remainuntil after the marriage. Dinner parties were followed by May-poledances out on the green lawns, and by charades and balls in theevening. The old Hall had never echoed with such frolicsome mirthbefore. Rex plunged into the excitement with strange zest. No oneguessed that beneath his winning, careless smile his heart was almostbreaking.
One morning Pluma was standing alone on the vine-covered terrace,waiting for Rex, who had gone out to try a beautiful spirited horsethat had just been added to the stables of Whitestone Hall. Shenoticed he had taken the unfrequented road the magnolia-trees shaded.That fact bore no significance, certainly; still there was a strongfeeling of jealousy in her heart as she remembered that little woodencross he would be obliged to pass. Would he stop there? She could nottell.
"How I love him--and how foolish I am!" she laughed, nervously. "Ihave no rival, yet I am jealous of his very thoughts, lest they dwellon any one else but myself. I do not see how it is," she said,thoughtfully, to herself, "why people laugh at love, and think itweakness or a girl's sentimental folly. Why, it is the strongest ofhuman passions!"
She heard people speak of her approaching marriage as "a grandmatch"--she heard him spoken of as a wealthy Southerner, and shelaughed a proud, happy, rippling laugh. She was marrying Rex for love;she had given him the deepest, truest love of her heart.
Around a bend in the terrace she heard approaching footsteps and therippling of girlish laughter.
"I can not have five minutes to myself to think," she said to herself,drawing hastily back behind the thick screen of leaves until theyshould pass. She did not feel in the humor just then to listen to MissRaynor's chatter or pretty Grace Alden's gossip.
"Of course every one has a right to their own opinion," Grace wassaying, with a toss of her pretty nut-brown curls, "and I, for one, donot believe he cares for her one whit."
"It is certainly very strange," responded Miss Raynor, thoughtfully."Every one can see she is certainly in love with Rex; but I am afraidit is quite a one-sided affair."
"Yes," said Grace, laughing shyly, "a _very_ one-sided affair. Why,have you ever noticed them together--how Pluma watches his face andseems to live on his smiles? And as for Rex, he always seems to belooking over her head into the distance, as though he saw somethingthere far more interesting than the face of his bride-to-be. Thatdoesn't look much like love or a contented lover."
"If you had seen him this morning you might well say he did not lookcontented," replied Miss Raynor, mysteriously. "I was out for amorning ramble, and, feeling a little tired, I sat down on amoss-covered stone to rest. Hearing the approaching clatter of ahorse's hoofs, I looked up and saw Rex Lyon coming leisurely down theroad. I could not tell you what prompted me to do it, but I drewquietly back behind the overhanging alder branches that skirted thebrook, admiring him all unseen."
"Oh, dear!" cried Grace, merrily, "this is almost too good to keep.Who would imagine dignified Miss Raynor peeping admiringly athandsome Rex, screened by the shadows of the alders!"
"Now don't be ridiculous, Grace, or I shall be tempted not to tell youthe most interesting part," returned Miss Raynor, flushing hotly.
"Oh, that would be too cruel," cried Grace, who delighted on anythingbordering on mystery. "Do tell it."
"Well," continued Miss Raynor, dropping her voice to a lower key,"when he was quite opposite me, he suddenly stopped short and quicklydismounted from his horse, and picked up from the roadside a handfulof wild flowers."
"What in the world could he want with them?" cried Grace, incredulously.
"Want with them!" echoed Miss Raynor. "Why, he pressed them to hislips, murmuring passionate, loving words over them. For one briefinstant his face was turned toward me, and I saw there were tearsstanding in his eyes, and there was a look on his face I shall neverforget to my dying day. There was such hopeless woe upon it--indeedone might have almost supposed, by the expression of his face, he waswaiting for his death-sentence to be pronounced instead of a marriageceremony, which was to give him the queenly heiress of Whitestone Hallfor a bride."
"Perhaps there is some hidden romance in the life of handsome Rex theworld does not know of," suggested Grace, sagely.
"I hope not," replied Miss Raynor. "I would hate to be a rival ofPluma Hurlhurst's. I have often thought, as I watched her with Rex, itmust be terrible to worship one person so madly. I have often thoughtPluma's a perilous love."
"Do not speak so," cried Grace. "You horrify me. Whenever I see herface I am afraid those words will be ringing in my ears--a perilouslove."
Miss Raynor made some laughing rejoinder which Pluma, white andtrembling behind the ivy vines, did not catch, and still discussingthe affair, they moved on, leaving Pluma Hurlhurst standing alone,face to face with the truth, which she had hoped against hope wasfalse. Rex, who was so soon to be her husband, was certainly not herlover.
Her keen judgment had told her long ago all this had come aboutthrough his mother's influence.
Every word those careless lips had uttered came back to her heart witha cruel stab.
When she remembered the words, "He pressed them to his lips, murmuringpassionate, loving words over them," she almost cried aloud in herfierce, angry passion. She knew, just as well as though she hadwitnessed him herself, that those wild flowers were daisies, and sheknew, too, why he had kissed them so passionately. She saw the sunshining on the trees, the flower-beds were great squares and circlesof color, the fountains sparkled in the sunlight, and restlessbutterflies flitted hither and thither.
For Pluma Hurlhurst, after that hour, the sunshine never had the samelight, the flowers the same color, her face the same smile, or herheart the same joyousness.
Never did "good and evil" fight for a human heart as they struggled inthat hour in the heart of the beautiful, willful heiress. All thefire, the passion, and recklessness of her nature were aroused.
"I will make him love me or I will die!" she cried, vehemently. "Thelove I long for shall be mine. I swear it, cost what it may!"
She was almost terribly beautiful to behold, as that war of passionraged within her.
She saw a cloud of dust arising in the distance. She knew it was Rexreturning, but no bright flush rose to her cheek as she rememberedwhat Miss Raynor had said of the wild flowers he had so rapturouslycaressed--he had given a few rank wild flowers the depths of apassionate love which he had never shown to her, whom he had asked tobe his wife.
She watched him as he approached nearer and nearer, so handsome, sograceful, so winning, one of his white hands carelessly resting on thespirited animal's proudly arched, glossy neck, and with the otherraising his hat from his brown curls in true courtly cavalier fashionto her, as he saw her standing there, apparently awaiting him on therose-covered terrace.
He looked so handsome and lovable Pluma might have forgotten hergrievance had she not at that moment espied, fastened to the lapel ofhis coat, a cluster of golden-hearted daisies.
That sight froze the light in her dark, passionate eyes and thewelcome that trembled on her scarlet lips.
He leaped lightly from the saddle, and came quickly forward to meether, and then drew back with a start.
"What is the matter, Pluma?" he asked, in wonder.
"Nothing," she replied, keeping her eyes fastened as if fascinated onthe offending daisies he wore on his breast.
"I left you an hour ago smiling and happy. I find you white and worn.There are strange lights in your eyes like the slumbrous fire of avolcano; even your voice seems to have lost its tenderness. What isit, Pluma?"
She raised her dark, proud face to his. There was a strange storywritten on it, but he could not tell what it was.
"It--it is nothing. The day is warm, and I am tired, that is all."
"You are not like the same Pluma who kissed me when I was going away,"he persisted. "Since I left this house something has come between youand me. What is it, Pluma?"
She looked up to him with a proud gesture that was infinitelycharming.
"Is anything likely to come between us?" she asked.
"No; not that I know of," he answered, growing more and more puzzled.
"Then why imagine it?" she asked.
"Because you are so changed, Pluma," he said. "I shall never perhapsknow the cause of your strange manner toward me, but I shall alwaysfeel sure it is something which concerns myself. You look at me asthough you were questioning me," he said. "I wish you would tell mewhat is on your mind?"
"I do not suppose it could make the least difference," she answered,passionately. "Yes, I will tell you, what you must have been blind notto notice long ago. Have you not noticed how every one watches us witha peculiar smile on their lips as we come among them; and how theirvoices sink to a whisper lest we should overhear what they say? Whatis commented upon by my very guests, and the people all about us?Listen, then, it is this: Rex Lyon does not love the woman he hasasked to be his wife. The frosts of Iceland could not be colder thanhis manner toward her. They say, too, that I have given you the truestand deepest love of my heart, and have received nothing in return.Tell me that it is all false, my darling. You do care for me, do younot, Rex? Tell me," she implored.
"Good heavens!" cried Rex, almost speechless in consternation; "dothey dare say such things? I never thought my conduct could give riseto one reproach, one unkind thought."
"Tell me you do care for me, Rex," she cried. "I have been almost madwith doubt."
There was something in the lovely face, in the tender, pleading eyes,and quivering, scarlet mouth, that looked as if it were made forkisses--that Rex would have had to have been something more thanmortal man to have resisted her pleading with sighs and tears for hislove, and refuse it, especially as she had every reason to expect it,as he had asked her to be his wife. There was such a look ofunutterable love on her face it fairly bewildered him. The passion inher voice startled him. What was he to do with this impetuous girl?Rex looked as if he felt exceedingly uncomfortable.
He took her in his arms and kissed her mechanically; he knew that waswhat she wanted and what she expected him to do.
"This must be my answer, dear," he said, holding her in a closeembrace.
In that brief instant she had torn the daisies from the lapel of hiscoat with her white, jeweled fingers, tossed them to the earth, andstamped her dainty feet upon them, wishing in the depths of her soulshe could crush out all remembrance from his heart of the young girlfor whose memory this handsome lover of hers wore these wild blossomson his breast.
As Rex looked down into her face he missed them, and quickly unclaspedhis arms from around her with a little cry.
Stooping down he instantly recovered his crushed treasures and liftedthem reverently in his hand with a sigh.
"I can not say that I admire your taste, Rex," she said, with a short,hard laugh, that somehow grated harshly on her lover's ears. "Theconservatories are blooming with rare and odorous flowers, yet youchoose these obnoxious plants; they are no more or less than a speciesof weeds. Never wear them again, Rex--I despise them--throw them away,and I will gather you a rare bouquet of white hyacinths and starryjasmine and golden-rod bells."
The intense quiver in her voice pained him, and he saw her face worethe pallor of death, and her eyes were gleaming like restless fire.
"I will not wear them certainly if you dislike them, Pluma," he said,gravely, "but I do not care to replace them by any other; daisies arethe sweetest flowers on earth for me."
He did not fasten them on his coat again, but transferred them to hisbreast-pocket. She bit her scarlet lips in impotent rage.
In the very moment of her supreme triumph and happiness he hadunclasped his arms from about her to pick up the daisies she hadcrushed with her tiny heel--those daisies which reminded him of thatother love that still reigned in his heart a barrier between them.