Buell Hampton
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“Not necessarily serious, but very annoying,” replied Mrs. Osborn. “Now, don’t let it worry you, Mrs. Horton, but Doctor Redfield is in Meade.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Horton, in great astonishment.
“Yes, I saw him last evening while driving with Lord Avondale. He was walking down the street with Mr. Stanton. It is rather deplorable that he should have turned up just at this time. There is no mistaking his broad shoulders and blond mustache.”
Mrs. Horton was seriously perplexed and noticeably agitated, while Lucy Osborn fidgeted about in her chair, as she remembered the part she had played in Ethel’s correspondence. She secretly wondered if Doctor Redfield had preserved that letter written over Mrs. Horton’s signature. It made her nervous to contemplate the possibly humiliating results of an investigation. Her almost reckless relations with Lord Avondale placed her in a position, however, that compelled her to go on doing his bidding, until the farce of his marriage to the American heiress was consummated. She was tired, alike, of the spiritless behavior of Ethel and the silly ambition of Mrs. Horton for an English alliance. True, it afforded Lucy Osborn a way of escape from the monotony of frontier life, and, at the same time, placed her on English soil with a firmer footing, she fancied, than ever before, and this thought was milk on which she fed her famishing ambition. That Ethel, in time, would become insanely jealous, or possibly would have ample reason to be so, if appearances counted for anything, she did not doubt. Her self-assurance, however, told her that she could easily call Lenox Avondale to her when his honeymoon with Ethel was over, and her beauty would compel him to be her champion. Another thought slipped in unbidden, and it made her shudder a little; the thought was this, – what would become of her when her beauty of face and figure was gone?
Mrs. Horton assured Lucy Osborn that she would not have a moment’s peace until Dr. Jack Redfield had taken his departure.
“My dear Mrs. Horton, I shall be constantly on the watch. Should any letters come, they might seriously complicate our arrangements, unless you intercept them and bring them to me.” Mrs. Horton blushed at the remembrance of her unworthy actions in regard to her daughter’s letters, and said, “Why, Doctor Redfield has evidently heard before this of the betrothal of my daughter, and he certainly is too honorable to interfere.”
When Mrs. Osborn and Lord Avondale were driving away from the Grove, he turned and asked her, rather brusquely, “Why did Miss Ethel refuse to see me?”
“Indeed, Lenox, I did not see her myself.”
“I will teach her, after we are married, that it is contrary to the canons of good form to go moping about and wearing that bored expression.” As he finished speaking, he gave the horse a stinging cut with his whip.
“Her actions are not very commendable, – in fact, rather disagreeable,” replied Mrs. Osborn.
“Stop!” said Lord Avondale, bluntly; “please have the kindness to say nothing of a disparaging nature concerning the future Lady Avondale. I will not permit it. Ethel is a noble woman, with a virtuous and wholesome air of purity about her.”
“Oh, how delicately considerate you are,” replied Mrs. Osborn, piqued and stung by his brusque words and manner.
“Do you doubt my estimate of her?” asked Avondale.
“No, I do not,” replied Mrs. Osborn, rather spiritedly, “but I certainly doubt your being worthy of her. In fact, I know you are not.”
“Take care, don’t go too far, Lucy!” exclaimed Lord Avondale, coloring with anger. “I do not claim to be a paragon of virtue, but you invited me to dishonor. You would make any man doubt the goodness of womankind.”
“It is false!” cried Lucy Osborn, while a dangerous anger flashed from her eyes. “A man who has made vows to as many women as you have, hesitating until invited to dishonor! Bah! Lenox, you weary me with your mock piety. That you should turn against me, after all my sacrifices and devotion, now that you have secured the promise of Ethel Horton to become your wife, proves you to be a contemptible toward, and destitute of chivalry or any sense of gratitude.”
“Come, come, my dear Lucy,” said Avondale, in a conciliatory tone, “you are a very clever woman; indeed you are, and have been quite invaluable to me. Do not be so hasty as to accuse me of ingratitude. I fancy you are trying to quarrel with me now for a purpose.”
“Indeed?” said Mrs. Osborn, haughtily. “Who commenced the quarrel, pray? And what object could I have in quarreling with you?” The carriage stopped before the Osborn home as she ceased speaking.
“I asked you this morning for an additional loan of a hundred pounds,” said Lord Avondale, “but as yet I have not received the favor.”
“And I am not at all sure that you will,” replied Lucy Osborn, disdainfully, as he handed her from the carriage. Lord Avondale, lifting his hat, bowed low, while Mrs. Osborn turned stiffly away and disappeared through the doorway of her home.
CHAPTER XXXI. – THE PASSING OF LORD AVONDALE
REACHING the privacy of her room, Mrs. Osborn threw herself into a chair and cried. She felt relieved afterward and thought how foolish it was of her to have quarreled with Lord Avondale. Unlocking a small drawer of her writing-desk, she fondly scrutinized, with an absorbing and passionate glance, a late photograph of the blasi Englishman.
“Yes,” she said aloud, “I was very rude to Lenox. But I will make amends. He shall come to-night, and we shall be friends again. Of course the dear fellow can have the money for which he asked.”
Drawing some writing material toward her, she wrote the following letter:
“My own dear Lenox: – I am so sorry that we quarreled to-day. No, it was not your fault, but all my own. When I think of you, and how much we have been to each other, I wonder that I could ever have spoken so rudely to you. You will forgive me, will you not, dear?
“Oh, Lenox, I forget all else at times in trying to make you happy. You cannot know how much you are to me.
“Come to-night at eleven. I will admit you at the side door of my room. Will have the money you requested.
“With my heart’s best love, I am, all your own, Lucy.”
Laying the letter aside, she wrote a note to her husband, enclosing her personal check for five hundred dollars and requesting him to bring the currency that evening. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost four o’clock. Addressing two envelopes, one to Lord Avondale and the other to her husband, she hastily enclosed the letters and rang for her maid, requesting her to deliver them at once.
“I want the captain’s letter handed to him before the bank closes. Call at the bank first, and afterward on Lord Avondale at the hotel. If he is out, push it under the door of his room.”
The maid hurried away, and Mrs. Osborn turned to her toilet, determined to surpass herself, in point of beauty and fascinating allurements, when Avondale should call that evening. It was a question whether it was adoration or adorers that she courted most.
It was scarcely four o’clock when one of the bank clerks informed Hugh that Captain Osborn wanted to see him in his private room. As Hugh entered the apartments of the president, he noticed that his old friend was under a strain of great excitement. His face was very white and his hands trembled.
“Close the door, Stanton,” said Captain Osborn, with forced calmness. “Perhaps you had better turn the key. I have something of a very private nature to talk to you about.”
Hugh complied with his requests, and, as he seated himself, Captain Osborn handed him his wife’s letter. “You will observe,” said he, “the envelope is addressed to me. Please read the letter carefully.”
As Hugh perused the billet-doux, he discovered that clever Mrs. Osborn had at last entrapped herself, and, by mistake, had enclosed the letter for Avondale in the envelope addressed to her husband.
“My old friend,” said Hugh, after he had read the letter to the end, “I am not only heartily sorry for you, but I stand ready to do your bidding in any way within my power.” He held out his hand, which Captain Osborn grasped eagerly.
“Ah, Hugh,” he replied, huskily, “there are many sorrows in life, but those which have to do with the heart cause the most suffering. Happiness at best, where a woman is concerned, is usually coextensive with our ignorance. Do not think that I have been entirely blind in the months past. We all have sorrows, but it really seems to me that I have had my heart-strings tugged at rather more than my share. I should have killed that scoundrel of a fortune-hunter months ago; I would have done so, had it not been for little Harry, – poor little chap, I love him so tenderly that I don’t want the blot of murder on his family name, – it is not fair to bequeath dishonor to such a loving little fellow.” Hugh hardly knew what to say, the captain seemed so noble, so deserving of respect and pity. Presently he said: “Had we not better secure the letter written by your wi – Mrs. Osborn to you? It might help us to act more intelligently.”
“That’s right, Hugh, do not speak of her as my wife,” replied the captain. “I told you once that my wife could do no wrong; neither can she, for a woman ceases to be a wife when she dishonors her marriage vows. Go to the hotel and secure the other letter, if possible. I shall be very impatient for your return.”
Hugh left Captain Osborn alone in his room, and half an hour later returned.
“I found this letter, Captain, pushed partly under Lord Avondale’s door,” said he.
“It is Mrs. Osborn’s writing,” said the captain, as he scrutinized the superscription. “A military necessity compels me to open it,” he continued, and, after glancing it over, he handed it to Hugh. “Cash the check, and bring me the currency,” he said.
When Hugh returned to the room, the captain placed the money in his pocket, and then enclosed the Englishman’s letter in the envelope addressed to him, saying, “Seal it as carefully as you can, and push it under the door of his room at the hotel. I want the titled scoundrel to keep his appointment!”
It was after eleven o’clock that night when Captain Osborn, who had ever been most considerate and deferential to his wife, admitted himself with his private key to her boudoir, without ceremony. The pretty little room was brilliantly lighted. Mrs. Osborn and the Englishman occupied a dainty settee, a rare creation of a French upholsterer. Their faces were partially turned from the door through which the captain entered. Before them, on a small, richly-carved table, was a basket of fruit, some cake, and a bottle of wine.
“Pardon me for intruding,” said the captain, in a cold, metallic voice. With one startled impulse they turned, and saw standing before them the wronged husband.
“What, you here, Captain!” exclaimed his wife, angrily, “and unannounced? Why, how dare you, sir; how dare – ” She could not finish the sentence. Her eyes fell before the keen, stern look of the old veteran.
“Yes, strange as it may seem, I, your own husband, under his own roof, venture to visit you; a privilege you have not encouraged me in, I admit, but one I insist upon in this instance.”
The captain spoke calmly, and, whatever internal emotion he might have felt was concealed behind a cold, gleaming smile of determination and sorrowful triumph.
Avondale permitted his eye-glass to fall from its accustomed place, and started to arise. “Ah, really, sir,” said he, “I must be going. It is getting so late, I – ”
“Remain where you are, sir!” said the captain, in deep, resolute tones. There was an iron ring in his voice that startled the Englishman. “Late as it may be,” the captain went on, “you have been in this room less than fifteen minutes. Subterfuges are unavailing.”
Lucy Osborn raised her queenly head, and, with one resentful glance at the old captain, hissed, “Spying on your wife is hardly in keeping with the dignity of a financier.”
“I have surrendered dignity, Lucy, in the hope of saving you,” replied the captain, calmly.
Her eyes flashed an angry glance at him. “What do you mean?” she stammered. “I don’t quite – ” She broke off in silence, as her eyes met his sorrowful and yet scornful glance. There was something in the searching gaze of her husband that seemed to read the very secrets of her soul. It stung her proud heart with remorse.
Turning to Avondale, the captain said: “I ought to have killed you long ago, before this liaison with Mrs. Osborn began. I should have shot you to death like some vile cur, d – you, and would have done so but for my little son.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Avondale, now thoroughly alarmed. “Really, sir, you are mis-tak – ”
“Stop!” cried the captain, fiercely, “do not add to your dastardly crimes by lying. I know all. Give me the letter – the one which Mrs. Osborn wrote you this afternoon – in which she promised to give you some money.”
Lord Avondale seemed to shrivel up before the captain’s emphatic demand. He nervously fumbled the letter from his pocket. The captain unceremoniously took possession of it.
“Really, sir,” stammered Avondale, “I am only a man, not a saint, you know, and these improprieties with Mrs. Osborn can hardly be considered as any fault of mine.” Mrs. Osborn turned toward her paramour, and a look of disgust flitted across her face. It began to dawn upon her that he was an arrant coward.
“Adam attempted to lay the blame on the woman in the Garden of Eden,” shouted the captain, in anger. “You, perhaps, are a gentleman by birth, but you are an infernal wretch by practice. Titled you may be, but at heart you are betrayer of the virtue of a weak woman. The nobility at your hands is a prostituted aristocracy; your admiration and attentions are an insult to all good women. Return to the shores whence you came, you contemptible scoundrel, and never again set foot on free America’s soil. Your mission was one of adventure and fortune-hunting. Release that noble girl, Ethel Horton, from the promise of marriage which you and your coterie of damnable conspirators have forced and inveigled her into making, or, by the Eternal, your bones shall bleach in Dead Man’s Hollow! Will you do this?”
“Yes, indeed – certainly,” stammered Lord Avondale, who was shaking from head to foot in cowardly fright.
“Then go!” fairly yelled the captain, “cur that you are, and, if you value your worthless life, never let me look into your licentious face again. I will look for you to-morrow morning at sunrise, and if I find you in this part of the State, by the living God, your life or mine shall pay the penalty.”
CHAPTER XXXII. – THE SILENCING OF GOSSIP
WHEN Lord Avondale had gone, Captain Osborn turned mechanically toward his wife. She stood before him, defiant and beautiful, like a tigress at bay, without defense or chance of escape. “Lucy,” said he, in resolute and yet sorrowful tones, “my very soul revolts at you. A pretty-faced woman whose purity is questioned is like a rose broken from its stem. We cannot use the one as a decoration and dare not trust the other as a companion.”
She started to speak, but he motioned her to silence.
“Explanations,” he continued, “are unavailing. Should you attempt to explain, you would but stultify the wife that I once knew and loved, and sink yourself still deeper into the quagmires of shame and dishonor. I have not been ignorant of the fact that the wagging tongues of scandal have for months proclaimed the liaison of which you are guilty. Yes, I have been silent while brooding over your shame, and yet, Lucy, I have suffered the tortures of hell. For the sake of my son, I had hoped that you would leave the Southwest forever; and I had arranged that a letter should follow you to England, requesting you never to return to further disgrace my name. In that letter I had expected to express all that I am now saying. Your marriage vows at the holy altar have been made a football of convenience to shield your wickedness under the protection of my good name. You have brought disgrace not only upon your family, but even upon the very name of wifehood and womanhood.”
The face of Lucy Osborn was indeed a study. Her haughtiness melted away before the ringing words of the old captain. She tried in vain to regain her self-control.
“Lyman, Lyman,” she finally sobbed, clasping her jeweled hands together, “this chastisement is worse than death.” She sank to the floor in humiliation. “Oh, that I were dead,” she moaned. “Lyman, Lyman, what will become of me?”
The captain was visibly affected. A stifled sob seemed, for a moment, almost to shake his resolution.
“Lucy,” said he, “you are true to your selfish instincts even in your utter wretchedness. Self-love prompts you to inquire as to your fate rather than to consider the effect that your tarnished name will have on our little son, – to say nothing of myself. I have a question to ask. Was that letter to Doctor Redfield sent at Mrs. Horton’s request or with her knowledge?”
“No, no, she was quite ignorant of my having sent it.” Mrs. Osborn arose from the floor, where she had thrown herself in anguish. Approaching her escritoire, she unlocked a small drawer, and, in a hopeless endeavor to mend the luster of a dimmed diamond, she handed the captain four letters, – one addressed to Doctor Redfield and three addressed to Ethel Horton. The captain put them in his pocket.
“You ask,” said he, “in regard to your future. I have considered this question carefully since receiving that misdirected letter this afternoon. It is wonderful what painstaking consideration we can give some questions on a very few hours’ notice. Written evidence of the black passionflower of your choice is now in my possession. I have but one course to suggest. Your friend, the adventurer, is such a contemptible coward that I doubt not he is already on nis way to Dodge City. You can easily overtake him in New York, by leaving Meade to-morrow. You have your own private fortune, well invested in government bonds. This fortune is quite ample – it is even princely. I will forward your securities to you immediately. To-morrow morning I shall hand you ten thousand dollars, which will be quite sufficient to provide you and also your friend, the adventurer, with the necessities if not indeed the luxuries of life until you receive your quarterly interest. Lucy, I have but one request; in memory of other, sweeter and holier days, give me your promise that after to-morrow we shall never meet again. Your love for Harry, even though you have none for me, now that the blighting sense of shame has swept over your weak and foolish heart, should prompt you to see the wisdom of this.”
There was a cold, rasping ring in his voice, denoting unfaltering determination. The interview had evidently cost him great effort and much pain.
“Never, never!” she cried, with hysterical bitterness. “Oh, I loathe the very thought of that man; his name, even, has become a terrible nightmare to me. How could I have been so blind and wicked as to forget your strength and nobility! Lyman, oh, Lyman, my husband, is there no possible way to regain your pity, if not your love? Must I forever be separated from our little Harry? Yes, I shall go away from this home, if you insist, and shall never return, but for God’s sake, Lyman, believe me, here on my bended knees before you and before God, when I say that I shall never again willingly look upon the face of Lenox Avondale. Should I meet him by chance, I would not even speak to him. Believe this of me, and all else shall be as you wish.”
The captain looked into her tear-stained free, and he saw truth written thereon.
“Lucy, do not kneel to me: kneel to your God.”
“God will forgive me,” she sobbed, turning her eyes toward heaven, “but, Lyman, you will not.”
She arose and came close to him, and gazed sorrowfully up into his face.
“You do not understand me,” said the captain. “My pity you already have, although it is worth but little. Pity comes from the heart, and my heart has been made poor with long and bitter suffering.”
“But, Lyman, have you no forgiveness for the penitent? Must I go out into the world alone, believing that you will never forgive my sins? I do not ask you to compromise yourself by forgetting them; but, oh, will you not tell me that you forgive them?”
Captain Osborn sighed, as if a scalding tear had fallen down into his withered heart. His eyes rested for a moment upon her, and then he walked thoughtfully back and forth. His just resentment struggled with his innate tenderness of soul. He returned to where she was standing and said, in a low, husky voice, “Lucy, you have sinned against yourself, against me, against our baby boy, and against God; but if your contrition can gain the forgiveness of the Infinite, it certainly should gain the forgiveness of a poor, finite being like myself.” He turned away, and for a moment seemed to be struggling for mastery over himself. “Lucy,” said he, “our paths from this night must lead in opposite directions; but as I, myself, hope to be forgiven in the world to come, where mortal souls are weighed in the unerring scales of justice, so I, in my poor, weak heart forgive you.”
She sobbed aloud in fervent thanksgiving for her escape. “Oh, Lyman, Lyman, my tears are now of joy, rather than of sorrow! I feel regenerated and purified. Your mercy means more than you know.” Her countenance grew strangely fair. A halo of light seemed to envelop her. A tear trembled on the cheek of the old veteran as he said, “Good night.”
At an early hour of the following morning the muffled stroke of church bells sounded thirty-six times.
Lucy Osborn was dead. A council of physicians said that death had come to her through heart failure, caused by some great mental strain.
The clods that fell upon ner coffin sounded a plaintive requiem over the remains of an erring woman. However, they stilled the tongue of gossip. The captain may have been weak in his great forgiveness, but his was a weakness tempered with much mercy.
CHAPTER XXXIII. – A RIDE AMONG SUNFLOWERS
WHEN Mrs. Horton learned of the flight of Lord Avondale and of the death of her friend, Lucy Osborn, she was prostrated with grief and chagrin. The Englishman had sent her a hastily-scrawled note, briefly stating that he released her daughter from their engagement, and that his immediate departure was of the greatest importance.
A few mornings after this, Ethel asked her father if she might go with him on a trip that he had planned to the Cimarron River. “I just feel, daddy,” said she, “like taking a wild ride down the valley. It will do me good. Mamma is much improved, and I can go as well as not.” The cattle king looked at his daughter with delighted astonishment. “Go? Of course you may,” said he. “Why, Ethel, you are beginning to look like yourself again. It will seem like old times to have my little girl galloping over the range with me.”
Soon they mounted their horses, and were off for an all-day jaunt. Ethel rode her horse with queenly grace, and, as they dashed along, the color came back into her velvet cheeks, and her face beamed once more with girlish delight. Occasionally a long-eared jack-rabbit would be startled from his cover, and go skipping away like a deer, while Ethel would rein her horse after him in a wild, mad gallop, not with any expectation of overtaking the rabbit, but simply in a spirit of frolicsome excitement.
“Look at the sunflowers, daddy!” exclaimed Ethel. “What a wonderful wealth of them!”
“Yes,” replied her father, “the sunflower, you know, is the emblem of our State. It grows here in generous profusion, and is certainly as emblematic of plenty, for the cattlemen at least, as the seeds of the pomegranate.”
As they advanced toward the Cimarron River, the fields of sunflowers grew more plentiful, and finally they found themselves in a veritable wilderness of this Kansas emblem. Hundreds of acres stretched away, thickly peopled with these blazing sun-worshipers, ever turning and following with their queenly heads the course of the king of day. The darkened multitude of seeds, like black-eyed-susans, were encircled with bordering crowns of yellowest gold. The gentle wind stirred them into rythmic melody of motion. Every petal seemed to have caught the sunshine of heaven, and to hold within its gracefully nodding head a warmth of welcome to the visitor. The brown stalks were suggestive of brawny health and strength, while their fanlike leaves presented an unrivaled background to the golden grandeur of a waving sea of yellow. They resembled an army of officers with a burnished epaulet on every shoulder.