Little Nobody
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Ida Hayes saw him lingering by his wife, and called him away to sing with her.
"That duet we used to sing, you know," she said; and her familiar tone and coquettish smile half maddened Una with pain. She drew back without a word, and let Eliot pass her, and between Sylvie and her sister he had no more chance to speak to her in the drawing-room that evening. When the music was done he was drawn into a game of chess, and as Una was ignorant of the game she was perforce left out. She sat apart and talked to some callers who had dropped in, and when they left she was only too glad to find that the evening was over and the family were separated for the night.
She went upstairs very slowly, and along the carpeted hall to her room, with a bitter sense of loneliness and disappointment, vaguely comprehending the malice of the two women who had so cleverly kept Eliot from her side all the evening.
"They hate me for my unconscious fault," she thought, miserably.
"Good-night, Una," a voice said, suddenly, almost at her side.
It was Eliot who had followed her upstairs. As she turned round her white, startled face, he drew her hand in his arm and walked with her toward her door.
"You forgot to tell me good-night," he said, smiling. "Or—did you deliberately snub me again because of—a fit of ill-temper?"
Too truthful to deny the imputation, she said, bashfully:
"I'm afraid so. I thought Miss Hayes wasn't going to let you off long enough to say good-night, so I came away."
Pressing her little hand very close against his side, he replied, ardently:
"I should like to see the Miss Hayes that could keep me from saying good-night to my darling little wife."
They had reached her door. She paused, trembling with delight, but in the dim light he could not see the gladness in the beautiful dark eyes. He only felt the trembling of the form beside him, and thought that she was nervous and frightened.
"Do not be afraid of me, Una," he said, hurriedly, and with sharp disappointment. Then he drew the little figure close to his heart, and held her there a moment, while he pressed on her warm lips the ardent kiss of a lover. A moment more he turned away and left her to enter her room alone, with some sweet, passionate words ringing in her ears:
"Good-night, my darling, my little wife! Sleep well, and dream of your own Eliot."
"Did he mean it? Is he learning to love me at last?" she whispered to herself, sobbing wildly with hysterical delight, and trembling with bashful pleasure. She unrobed and lay down on her dainty white bed, not to sleep, but to live over and over again, in fancy, his tender looks and words and his warm caress.
But Eliot, in whom a passionate hope and longing had been stirring all day, went to his solitary room vaguely disappointed.
"Poor darling! I frightened her by my vehemence," he said, remorsefully, to himself. "Her beauty and her gentleness tempted me almost beyond my strength. Ah, she little dreamed what a struggle it cost to leave her there and to wait, still wait, although half maddened with love and longing."
For him, too, the drowsy god tarried to-night, and he tossed sleeplessly on his pillow, dreaming of Una just as Una was dreaming of him, with infinite love and yearning.
Weary with the night's restlessness, Una slept too soundly next morning for the breakfast-bell to rouse her from her slumbers. Eliot, who had to be at the office by a certain hour, fidgeted uneasily, and at last sent Edith to see if she was awake.
In a minute she came out on tiptoe.
"She is sleeping so sweetly, I had not the heart to wake her," she said. "But, Eliot, you might just slip in and kiss her good-bye in her sleep."
Her keen young eyes saw the sensitive color mount to his temples.
"Una would not like it," he replied, gravely.
Candid Edith shut the door softly behind her, and gave her brother a playful little shake as she went with him along the hall.
"Eliot, you are a great goose, that's what you are!" she cried. "Una is your wife. You have a right to go in her room and kiss her if you like, and I don't believe she would object, either!"
With a sigh, he replied:
"You must remember how sudden our marriage was, Edith. My little girl had no time to learn to love me, or get used to me. Is it not right that I should leave her in peace until I shall have won her heart as well as her hand?"
Edith stared at him in wonder.
"Eliot Van Zandt, you are as blind as a bat!" she exclaimed, and darted away without another word.
But although she would not say another word to Eliot, she made up her mind to lecture Una.
So the first thing when Una opened her heavy eyes, she saw Edith sitting demurely in the big willow rocker by the bedside.
She burst out unceremoniously:
"You lazy girl, you have slept until breakfast was over, and your husband gone down-town. Poor boy! he waited and waited outside your door for you to wake, but you just dreamed on until he had to go. I told him to slip in and kiss you good-bye in your sleep, but he was afraid you would be angry. I do say, Una Van Zandt, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
Una was sitting up in bed very wide awake indeed now, a lovely picture of amazement and distress, with her loose, golden hair falling on her half-bare, white shoulders, her eyes dilated with wonder, her cheeks flushed from sleep.
"Oh, Edith, what have I done now? I don't know what you're talking about," she faltered.
"Don't you, Mistress Van Zandt? Listen, then: I'm talking about what a tyrant you are to my brother. Here you have been married to him almost a year and I don't believe you've ever given the poor boy as much as a kiss or one fond word. Do you think he is a stick or a stone, without any feeling, that you behave so heartlessly? I tell you it made me angry to see him this morning afraid to come inside this room to tell you good-bye. Don't you know he has a right to be in this room with you if he choose, only he is too afraid of you to assert himself? There is no other man on earth half so good and chivalrous as Eliot. Fancy Bryant being afraid to put his foot inside Sylvie's door. Why, they both would tell you it was all nonsense. You treat Eliot—"
Una held out her hands entreatingly.
"Hush, Edith, don't scold me so," she begged, with quivering lips; but she did not utter a word in her own defense. She was too wretched and heart-sick, feeling that Eliot's fault, his persistent avoidance of his wife, need not be held up to his sister's condemnation.
"Far rather would I shield him by letting the blame rest wholly upon myself," she resolved, firmly.
CHAPTER XXXV
Sylvie pretended to be very anxious that day over the appearance her sisters-in-law would make at the theater-party.
"Have you anything new?" she inquired. "Because I have invited several young ladies and gentlemen, and ordered a supper here after the performance at the theater. Of course, I want you all to do credit to Bryant."
"We haven't a new thing," declared Edith, lugubriously. "You and Ida will have to uphold the honor of the family by your elegant dressing, for Maud and I will be sure to look like dowdies."
Mme. Sylvie did not seem to take the information much to heart. She said carelessly:
"And Eliot's wife?"
"Oh, she will be a dowdy, too," replied roguish Edith.
So Sylvie and Ida could scarcely believe their eyes that evening when Maud and Edith sallied in, the dark-haired Maud in gold-colored satin, red roses, and rubies, and Edith in lustrous rose-color with white lace flounces, while diamonds flashed from her throat and ears. Both girls looked as handsome in their way as the bisque dolls who were splendid in Parisian toilets and a profusion of gleaming jewels.
Sylvie stared in amaze and jealous displeasure.
"You told me you had nothing fit to wear!" she exclaimed, acrimoniously.
"I beg your pardon—nothing new," Edith replied, dimpling with mischief. "These are our mother's old dresses made over."
"But diamonds and rubies—I am sure Bryant told me that all your mother's jewels were sold to help pay your father's debts when he failed!" Sylvie exclaimed, in wonderment and displeasure.
"So they were," Maud answered. "But, Sylvie, these do not belong to us. We borrowed them from Una."
Ida Hayes broke in with inexpressible anger and spite:
"I thought Eliot was too poor to give such jewels to his wife."
Edith flashed her a glance of scorn.
"Fortunately poverty is no disgrace, Ida," she said. "But Eliot did not give them to Una. They were bridal presents from her Southern friends."
"Dear me, Sylvie! and you said she was poor and a nobody!" Ida exclaimed, insolently, turning around to her sister.
"Eliot said so," Sylvie answered; and forthwith there began a war of words that was fortunately stopped by Bryant's entrance, and his instant laying on the table of the heated subject of debate.
On his part he was glad to see his young sisters so charmingly dressed and looking so lovely. He took the exciting fact of Una's jewels with manly equanimity.
"There is no reason why Una should not have them," he said. "Her adopted father, Pierre Carmontelle, is one of the richest men in the South. If he and his friends gave her costly bridal presents, it was no more than she had a right to expect."
Sylvie and Ida dared say no more, but their thoughts were full of rancor, and the former muttered, sotto voce:
"I suppose she will come down presently covered with diamonds!"
Meanwhile, quite a different scene was transpiring in Una's room upstairs. Fifteen minutes ago, as she had stood before her mirror, putting the last touches to her sweet, simple toilet, there had come a light, quick rap at her door.
"Maud or Edith," she thought, and called out, carelessly: "Come in!"
The door opened softly, and Eliot, her husband, appeared on the threshold, looking marvelously handsome in full evening-dress, a bouquet of pure white flowers in one hand, a long, white box in the other.
When he saw lovely Una standing there in the soft, white robe, with the pearls around her bare, white throat, and her round arms uncovered, save by the dainty white gloves, her dark eyes shining with innocent joy at her own fairness, he uttered a cry of delight:
"Oh, Una, how angelic you look! But," dubiously, "do I intrude?"
"No," she answered, with a blush and tremor; so Eliot shut the door and came to her side.
"I have brought you some flowers and an opera-cloak," he said, pulling it out of the box and dropping it on her shoulders. It was a dainty white cashmere affair, not costly but very pretty, with a shining fringe of pearl and silver beads. With the white dress and flowers, it made Una look bride-like and lovely as a dream.
"Does it suit you? Will it be warm enough?" he asked, with shining eyes; and Una held out her hands to him with sudden tears on her lashes.
"Oh, how good you are to me, who should expect so little from you! How can I ever requite your kindness?" she murmured, tremulously.
He caught the white hands in his, and drew the dainty white figure into the clasp of his yearning arms.
"Only love me, my darling!" he whispered, passionately, against her crimson cheek. "That will pay all."
She lay still, trembling with rapture in the close pressure of his fond arms. She felt his kisses falling softly, warmly on her face, her lips, her hair. At last she drew herself from him, saying, with rapturous wonder:
"You really want me to love you, Eliot?"
Half smiling at her wondering tone, he exclaimed:
"What a strange question, Una! Have I not been waiting almost a year for your heart to wake from its childish sleep and respond to mine? And how else could you requite aught I have done for you? Do you not know, my darling, that love must be paid in its own coin?"
Doubting, wondering, she looked up into those glorious blue-gray orbs now full of a radiant fire impossible to describe. Something of the truth dawned on her bewildered soul. She cried out impulsively:
"Oh, Eliot, then you do love me? And I have been so wretched, so afraid, so—"
No more, for he had caught her in his arms, crushing her passionately to his breast, whispering that he had loved her always, always, and had grown so weary, so impatient waiting to win her heart.
"There was no need to wait if you had not been so blind," answered truthful Una. "For I loved you, Eliot, from the very first!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
If Edith had not come upstairs to see what kept Una dressing so long, they would have forgotten all about the theater-party in their absorption of each other. As it was, they started apart in surprise when she came softly in.
"Oh, Eliot, I did not know you were here," she said, drawing back.
"Come in, Edith, and congratulate us," he said, drawing Una to his side again. "We have just found out that we are in love with each other."
"Every one else knew that ages ago," replied the saucy girl, laughing.
But she kissed both with a great amount of girlish fervor, and to hide her emotion, exclaimed:
"The carriages are waiting, and Sylvie is fuming with impatience, so you had better bring your bride down-stairs, Eliot."
They went down together, and when the spiteful Sylvie saw the two handsome, happy faces, she was more vexed than if Una had indeed been covered with diamonds, as she had spitefully said. She could not help seeing that a reconciliation had taken place between the two, and felt instinctively that her cruel revelation to Una had precipitated the understanding it was intended to avert.
But she could not avoid one poisoned shaft of malice at the happy girl, and so, with a sneer, she exclaimed:
"Dear me! Una still posing as a bride at this late day? Your wedding-day must have been a very happy one, since you love to recall it so well."
No one replied to the impertinent speech, for all, even Bryant, understood its spleen. Una only shrunk closer to her husband, and they went out to the carriages that were waiting to convey them to the theater.
Two boxes had been taken for the evening, and there were twelve in the party, including the two ladies and three gentlemen that Sylvie had invited. Una was very glad that Sylvie and Ida did not come into the same box with herself and Eliot. Their cold, sneering looks made her shiver and feel unhappy, so she was glad when she found Maud and Edith with one other young lady and one gentleman as the evening's companions.
The house was full, and the curtain had risen on the first act—a brilliant scene with a fine setting. Mme. Leonie had not made her appearance yet, and the audience felt at liberty to turn a good many curious lorgnettes upon the handsome theater-party. Una, all in white, with her waving golden hair, red lips, and large dark eyes, immediately fixed attention. The murmur ran from lip to lip:
"A bride—a bride!"
Eliot saw what a sensation her beauty was creating, and smiled in pride; but Una was too innocent to comprehend the truth. In fact, she scarcely looked at the audience. Her eager eyes intently watched the stage.
She was anxious to see the great actress of whom the newspapers spoke in such lavish praise.
So, while the adoring young husband by her side kept his fond eyes on her face, Una watched the stage, and her eagerness was soon rewarded by a sight of Mme. Leonie.
Mme. Leonie was tall, beautiful, stately, and the black velvet robe, starred with diamonds, in which she was assaying a queenly rôle, became her well. Una gave a little gasp of honest admiration.
Mme. Leonie's voice rose on the air clear, sweet, shrill, and Eliot Van Zandt turned with a quick start toward the stage.
At the same moment, he became aware that Una's little hand had clutched tightly, spasmodically around his arm.
He looked into her face. Its usual pure, creamy pallor had deepened to ashy whiteness, her dark eyes were wild and frightened.
"Una!"
"Oh, Eliot, look!" she whispered, tremblingly. "It is she—Madame Lorraine!"
He turned his eyes to the stage, from which, a moment ago, that voice had given him such a start.
Yes, Una was right. There she stood—the beautiful, cruel woman who had doomed him to such an awful fate; who had made Una's life so bitter, whose malice and spite had been so supremely fiendish—Mme. Lorraine!
CHAPTER XXXVII
Every eye was turned to the stage, and tumultuous applause greeted the appearance of the favorite, so no one noticed the agitation of the young husband and wife who, tightly clasping each other's hands, stared with loathing eyes at the beautiful actress.
It seemed to both an evil omen—this meeting with cruel, heartless Mme. Lorraine in the first hour of their supreme happiness after the months of doubt and reserve that had held them apart.
All unconscious of the eyes that watched her—the eyes she believed closed forever in the sleep of death, the clever actress went on with her part, and, shrinking closer to Eliot's side, Una whispered with a strange, foreboding fear:
"Let us go home before she sees us. Do not let her find out that we are still living."
Man-like, he smiled at her terror, and whispered back:
"My darling, we have nothing to fear from Madame Lorraine's hatred now. Can you not trust to your husband to protect you?"
"Yes—oh, yes," the girl-wife murmured; but the chill foreboding of evil did not leave her mind, and she shrunk back into the shadow of the heavy box-curtain, praying in her heart that Mme. Lorraine's hateful glance might not find her out.
Perhaps it might not have done so, for, to madame's credit be it said, she did not ogle the boxes after the manner of some actresses. She was intent on her part, and, beyond the knowledge that she had a large and fashionable audience, she took no particular interest in the throng of people.
But a perverse spirit had entered into Eliot Van Zandt, and seeing the woman so cool, calm, and heartless, he longed to let her know that her vengeance failed of its aim and her victims escaped her. He pictured to himself her jealous, impotent fury when she should know that both he and her Little Nobody lived, and that they were happily married and beyond the reach of her venom.
And in that last belief he made his great mistake.
He whispered his thoughts to Una. In truth, he was longing to take his exquisite vengeance on his enemy.
Una forced a smile of meek acquiescence. She said to herself that she could not let her splendid young husband know what a little coward she was, and how she feared her old tyrant and enemy.
At the close of the third act Eliot said, eagerly:
"Will you let me have your bouquet, Una? To-morrow I will bring you a sweeter one."
With secret reluctance she let him have it. He wrote hurriedly a few words on a card and attached it to the flowers.
Una looked over his shoulder. She read:
"Compliments of Eliot Van Zandt and his bride, the 'Little Nobody.'"
"Oh!" the girl cried, with a shiver; but Eliot had already thrown it upon the stage at the feet of the tragedy queen, who was bowing and smiling in response to an enthusiastic recall.
Among a dozen floral tributes she saw that pure, white, bride-like one flung from the opera-box. She took it up, lifted it to her lips, and bowed, then scanned the name written on the card, while Eliot watched her with a triumphant smile, Una with nameless fear.
Eliot was quite curious to note what effect that startling card would have upon the wicked actress. It seemed to him that she would be stunned, that she would fall to the floor in abject terror, crying out for mercy from him she had wronged.
Una, too, expected every instant that she would fall down unconscious, overcome by fear and anger.
Neither one comprehended the stoicism, the incomparable will-power of the gifted, wicked French woman.
Terrible and overwhelming as was the knowledge thus suddenly acquired, Mme. Lorraine neither by word nor sign gave any evidence that she had received a shock. She merely stood still—very still—for a minute or so with her eyes riveted upon the card, and the audience, suspecting nothing of this strange by-play, received the impression that the writing on the card was rather illegible, hence the slowness of the actress in deciphering the name.
At last, with an inward shudder, madame lifted her eyes from the bit of pasteboard upon which she had been gazing as one looks at a serpent hidden among flowers. Her glance went straight to the box where Eliot and Una, so beautiful, so happy, in their youth and love, sat with bated breath watching her face. She recognized them instantly; a subtle smile dawned on her face, she bowed profoundly.
The audience, still unconscious of the truth, applauded madame's graceful courtesy to the echo, and kissing the tips of her fingers, smiling right and left, she retired.
Una drew a long, sobbing breath of relief as the beautiful woman vanished from sight. Eliot smiled and whispered:
"She accepts her defeat with equanimity. Her self-command is admirable, enviable."
"I am so glad she took it so coolly; I dare say she does not care," Una murmured, gladly, and some of the stifling fear and dread left her heart.
If she could have looked behind the scenes into madame's dressing-room, she would not have felt so confident.
Mima had to exert all her skill to bring her mistress up to the mark to enable her to go on with the fourth and last act in the play.
Her agitation upon reaching the dressing-room had been great, and Mima for a moment had been scarcely less shaken; but her nerves were very strong, and she soon began to reassure Mme. Lorraine.
"It is nothing—pshaw! Do not let your mind be upset, madame. Be glad that the fair-faced lad lives. Your conscience is that much lighter, and for the rest, he was never worthy the passion of so magnificent a woman!"
"He was the only man I ever loved!" madame cried, obstinately. "He was splendid, whatever you say, Mima, and to think that she, the Little Nobody, has come back from the very grave to part us, to win him from me! Oh, it is bitter! I will not endure it. He was mad to fling that defiance in my face. I will make him pay dearly, dearly for that insolence!"
"Nonsense! You shall not get yourself into any more scrapes over that boy!" Mima cried, angrily.
Mme. Lorraine laughed hysterically.
"You shall see," she said. "I will come between them; I will part them. I swear it!"
"Nonsense!" Mima said again. "You do not even know where they live."
"I shall find out!" the actress cried, obstinately; and then she gave vent to a sudden cry of shrill delight.
"Oh! oh!"
"What is it, then?" curtly.
"Fortune favors me. You know I am invited to a little petit souper to-night after the theater. It is at the house of one of the Boston bon ton, and the name on the card is 'Mrs. Bryant Van Zandt.'"
Even the imperturbable Mima started with surprise.
"Well?"
Madame laughed, and the laugh was not good to hear.
"I have no doubt they are relatives of my Yankee friend," she said. "Perhaps, even they live in the same house. I shall be sure to go, and then—che sarâ, sarâ!" Her voice had a fiendish threat in its angry cadence.
She went back on the stage, smiling, insolent. She looked once or twice into the box from whence the white flowers had been thrown to her, and smiled whenever she looked. And Una's blood ran cold whenever she met that smile. She instinctively felt that it was one of menace.
She was very, very glad when it was all over, and she could nestle by Eliot's side in the carriage with her cold little hand in his.
Maud and Edith rode with them, but they did not utter one word to even hint to them that Mme. Leonie, the actress, was Mme. Lorraine, the wicked woman who had been so cruel to them in New Orleans.
Both said to themselves that it did not matter now. Let her enjoy her fame, if she could, since out of her cruel plans had come their wedded happiness.
She would leave Boston to-morrow for Philadelphia, where she was to play next, and in all likelihood her path would never cross theirs again.
So, dismissing the wicked woman from their minds, Eliot and Una waited with the girls in the drawing-room for the coming of the rest of the party who were a little late.