Colonel Falconer had written, quite six months before, to his relatives, apprising them of his marriage to a beautiful young girl in California, but apparently they did not have any congratulations to offer him, or they were deeply offended, for no reply came to his letter.
“I am glad that they can afford to be so independent,” he thought, with pique and contempt commingled.
He felt quite sure that they were indignant at the marriage that deprived his niece of her anticipations of being his heiress, and he resented the way in which they had treated him.
“Not even to wish me joy, after all the kindness they have received from me,” he said bitterly; and, dismissing them from his thoughts, he gave all his attention to his lovely young bride, who was so grateful for his love, and who seemed to return it in a shy, gentle fashion that was very pleasing.
They had not given a thought to returning home yet, when one morning he found in his morning’s mail an American letter, broadly edged with black. He turned pale as he caught it up, exclaiming:
“Juliette’s handwriting! My sister must be dead!”
And, tearing it open, he ran his eyes hastily over the black-edged sheet.
Pansy watched him with startled eyes. That name Juliette had touched an unpleasant chord in her memory.
Colonel Falconer heaved a long sigh, and placed the letter in her hands.
Pansy, womanlike, read the name at the end first. It was traced in ornate characters, but it stung her like a serpent’s fang:
Your unhappy niece,
JULIETTE IVES.
She glanced at the top of the sheet, and read:
RICHMOND, Virginia.
Colonel Falconer had walked to the window of their pretty breakfast room, and was looking out—perhaps to hide a moisture in his eyes.
He did not see how pale grew the beautiful face of his young wife, nor how her jeweled hands trembled as they held the letter before her eyes. She read on, with a sinking heart:
DEAR UNCLE: This is to tell you that mamma died yesterday, although I do not suppose you will care much, as you are so happy with the wife who crowded poor mamma and me out of your heart. She died suddenly, of heart disease, from which she suffered so long, and I am left penniless and friendless, for she spent everything she had before she died. We would have been more saving, but you always let us think I would have your money, and I think the news of your marriage hastened her death, she was so disappointed.
Now what am I to do? I have no money, as you know, and I am not fitted to work for my living. Has your wife turned your heart against me, or are you willing to take mamma’s place and support me in the style I’ve been used to? I suppose I’ll be married, some time, although poor girls don’t stand much chance. I don’t think Norman would care for poverty, though, if only he would come to his senses in other things. I am here in your house still. We were glad you left us that when you married so suddenly and strangely. I’ve promised the servants you will pay their wages. I hope you will come home and settle with the people mamma owed. I charged the funeral expenses to you. I knew you wouldn’t mind. Please answer at once, and let me know what to expect from you.
Your unhappy niece,
JULIETTE IVES.
“So she is my husband’s niece? What a fatality!” Pansy murmured to herself, fighting hard against the weakness and faintness stealing over her. “And Norman Wylde has not married her yet,” her thoughts ran on, with a sort of bitter triumph.
She sat silent, crushing the black-bordered sheet in her hands, her heart beating slowly and heavily in her breast, a chill presentiment of evil stealing over her mind.
“Is it possible that I shall have to come in contact again with that proud, cruel girl? Oh, if I had only known this I should never have married Colonel Falconer,” she thought bitterly.
Colonel Falconer turned around suddenly from the window.
“Well, my dear, what do you think of my niece’s letter?” he asked.
Pansy’s face flamed and her eyes flashed.
“I think it is impertinent, selfish, and heartless,” she answered spiritedly.
He sighed, for that was his own impression of the letter, although he hated to acknowledge it, even to himself. What hurt him most was her half-contemptuous allusions to his wife, and the fact that she had disdained to send a single kindly message to the woman who was, by marriage, at least, her near relative.
“Juliette is a spoiled child. She has been pampered and indulged until she considers no one but herself,” he said uneasily.
“That is easy to be seen,” she answered, with a touch of scorn.
“But there is some excuse for her just now,” continued the colonel, who could not overcome at once the habit of long years of affection. “We must consider the petulance of affliction, so natural in one reared selfishly and luxuriously, as Juliette has been. Then, too, the poor girl has had a love trouble that has helped to sour her temper.”
“A love trouble?” Pansy questioned, in a thick voice, without looking up.
“Yes; she was engaged several years ago to a Mr. Wylde, of Richmond—a fine young man in every respect, handsome, rich, and of fine family. Juliette adored him, and was very jealous, so that when he engaged in a flirtation with a designing little beauty of the lower classes Juliette would take no excuses, but dismissed him in bitter anger. He went abroad, leaving her to repent her harshness, and to try to mourn her haste; for love soon conquered pride, and she would give the world now to win him back. I had reason, a year ago, to believe that they had made up their quarrel and would soon be married, but I was mistaken, and Juliette no doubt is still pining for her lost lover.”
Pansy made no comment, for her husband’s words still rang in her ears:
“‘A designing little beauty of the lower classes.’ Oh, what if he knew! what if he knew!” she thought, in terror that held her lips dumb.
Colonel Falconer took up a package of newspapers, and drew out one—the Richmond Dispatch.
“Ah, this, too, is from Juliette. No doubt it contains the notice of her mother’s death,” he said.
His surmise was correct. It recorded the death of Mrs. Ives, at the age of fifty-four, for she had been his elder by several years.
He placed the paper, as he had done the letter, before Pansy’s eyes; and she read and reread the words announcing her enemy’s death, but in a dull, mechanical way, without any triumph in the fact that those cruel lips would never utter any falsehoods against her again. She felt half dazed by the suddenness with which the past had risen before her just as she began to hope and believe that it was buried forever.
Her dull eyes traveled soberly up and down the short list of married and dead, and suddenly a wild gleam came into them. A familiar name had caught her attention. She read:
On the 6th instant, at the residence of her mother, on Church Hill, Rosa Laurens, aged nine years and seven days, of diphtheria. Funeral private.
It was Pansy’s youngest sister—the baby, as she was always called in the family. A wave of passionate grief overflowed Pansy’s heart and forced a cry of despair from her white lips. Then she slipped from her chair and lay in a long swoon upon the floor.
When reason returned she was lying upon her bed, with her maid chafing her cold hands anxiously, and her husband bending over her with frightened eyes.
“Oh, Pansy, what a shock you have given me!” he exclaimed; and as everything rushed quickly over her she realized that she must hide her troubles under a mask of smiles.
With a pitiful attempt at gayety, she faltered:
“You must learn not to be frightened at a woman’s fainting. It means nothing but temporary weakness.”
“Are you sure of that?” he asked. “Because——” Then he paused.
“What?” she questioned.
“I feared you had read something in that paper that grieved or frightened you,” he answered, remembering at the same time that when she had that illness in California Mrs. Scruggs had asserted that something she had read in a paper was the primary cause.
But Pansy denied that anything in the paper had affected her in the least.
“How could it be so, when I had never been in Richmond, and knew no one there?” she said. “Besides, I had but just taken the paper and had read nothing but your sister’s death, when suddenly I felt my strength leaving me, and I fell. Tell him, Phebe,” she said, looking at her maid, “that it is a very common occurrence for ladies to faint.”
Phebe asserted that all fashionable ladies were given to fainting, and his own experience bore him out in the fact. The only difference was that he had never regarded Pansy in the light of a society lady. She was a beautiful, natural child of nature, he had been proud to think.
She insisted on getting up to dress and to drive in the park.
“I want fresh air,” she said; and, looking at her pale cheeks and heavy eyes, he thought so, too.
“Mind you don’t give me another such scare shortly,” he said, as he went out to order the carriage, for they had taken a pretty house in Park Lane for the season, and surrounded themselves with luxuries. They had been going into society some little, but neither cared much for it. He had seen enough of it to be blasé, and she was timid.
When they were driving along he said abruptly:
“I suppose we must make some plans for my poor niece. What do you say, darling? Shall we go home and take care of Juliette?”
“Oh, must we go home? I am so happy here!” she cried.
“But I shall be obliged to go back and settle up my sister’s affairs, Pansy.”
“Couldn’t you leave me, and come back when you had fixed everything?” she inquired vaguely.
“But—Juliette?” he objected.
“Couldn’t you give her some money, and leave her there with—with some of her friends?”
He looked in surprise at the girl who was usually so sweet and gentle. Her words sounded heartless.
“How strangely you talk—as if you had taken a dislike to that poor orphan girl whom you have never even seen,” he said severely.
“Oh, forgive me!” she cried, frightened at his displeasure. Nestling closer to his side, she murmured: “It is naughty of me, I know, but I can’t help feeling jealous of that girl you like so much. She will come between us. We will never be as happy again as we were in this past year.”
“Nonsense!” he answered; but he was secretly pleased at her jealousy, although there was really no cause for it, as he hastened to assure her. “I am only thinking of what people will say,” he explained. “I am sure we should be happier without her, spoiled little beauty that she is. But she has no relative but me, and if I desert her people will say that it is all your fault. Do you realize this, my pet?”
Yes, she began to realize it with a sort of wonder. The fate of Juliette Ives, her bitter enemy, lay in her hands to make or mar. She knew that she could mold her noble husband to her will if she chose; could make Juliette Ives’ life infinitely bitter and hard. For a moment she was pleased with the thought, half tempted to use her power.
Then her better nature triumphed. She flung revenge to the winds.
“I cannot do it. I cannot be so mean,” she thought, with keen self-scorn. “Poor soul! Why should I blame her? We both suffered through his falsity, and now I will be her friend if she will let me.”
With all that she knew of Juliette, she did not fully comprehend the girl’s ignoble soul. She pitied her, and, out of a generous impulse, resolved to stand her friend.
“I will go back with you, Colonel Falconer, and I will try to be a true friend to your orphan niece,” she said, believing that as his wife she could fairly run the risk of a return to her old home.
“I look older now. No one will recognize me,” she decided confidently.