Читать книгу Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter - Lynch Lawrence L. - Страница 10

Four months. We find Madeline standing in the late Autumn sunset, "clothed and in her right mind," strong with the strength of youth, and beautiful with even more than her olden beauty.

Fair is the prospect as seen from the grounds of Mrs. Girard's suburban villa, and so, perhaps, Claire Keith is thinking.

She is looking down the level road, and at the trees on either hand, decked in all their October magnificence of scarlet and brown and gold, half concealing coquettish villas and more stately residences.

The eyes of Madeline were turned away from the vista of villas and trees, and were gazing toward the business thoroughfare leading into the bustle of the town; gazing after the receding figure of Doctor Clarence Vaughan as he cantered away from the villa; gazing until a turn of the road hid him from her view. Then – and what did she mean by it? – she turned her face toward Claire with a questioning look in her eyes – the question came almost to her lips. But the words were repressed.

Bonnie Clair was thinking of anything but Clarence Vaughan just then. Presently she turned a bright glance upon her companion, who was gathering clusters of the fallen maple leaves, with face half averted.

"A kiss for your thoughts, beautiful blonde Madeline. I certainly think it is ten minutes since Doctor Vaughan departed and silence fell upon us."

She bent down, and taking her companion's head between two dimpled hands, pulled it back, until she could look into the solemn brown eyes.

"Come, now," coaxingly, "what were you thinking?"

Madeline extricated herself from Claire's playful grasp, and replied with a half laugh: "It must be mutual confession then, you small highwayman; how do you like my terms?"

"Only so so," flushing and laughing. "I was meditating the propriety of telling you something some day, and was thinking of that something just now, but – "

"But," mimicked Madeline, with half-hearted playfulness; "what will you give me to relieve your embarrassment, and guess?"

"You can't," emphatically.

"Can't I? We will see. My dear, I fear you have left a little corner of your heart behind you in far-away Baltimore. You didn't come to pay your annual visit to your sister, quite heart free."

Anyone wishing to gain an insight into the character of Claire Keith might have taken a long step in that direction could he have witnessed her reception of this unexpected shot. She opened her dark eyes in comic amazement, and dropping into a garden chair, exclaimed, with a look of frank inquiry:

"Now, how ever could you guess that?"

"Because," said Madeline, in a constrained voice, and with all the laughter fading from her eyes; "Because, I know the symptoms."

"I see," dropping her voice suddenly. "Oh, Madeline, how I wish you could forget that."

"Why should I forget my love dream," scornfully, "any more than you yours?"

"Oh, Madeline; but you said you had ceased to care for him; that you should never mourn his loss."

"Mourn his loss!" turning upon Claire, fiercely. "Do you think it is for him I mourn my dead; my lost happiness, my shattered dreams, my life made a bitter, burdensome thing. Mourn him? I have for Lucian Davlin but one feeling – hate!"

Madeline, as she uttered these last words, had turned upon Claire a face whose fierce intensity of expression was startling. For a moment the two gazed into each other's eyes – the one with curling lip and somber, menacing glance, the other with a startled face as if she read something new and to be feared, in the eye of her friend.

Claire had been an inmate of her sister's house for four weeks. When first she arrived, she had heard Madeline's story, at Madeline's request, from the lips of her sister Olive, and now the girls were fast friends. Generous Claire had found much to wonder at, to pity and to love, in the story and the character of the unfortunate girl. Possessing a frank, sunshiny nature, and never having known an actual grief, she could lavish sweet sympathy to one afflicted. But she could not conceive what it would be like to live on when faith had perished and hope was a mockery. She had never known, therefore never missed, a father's love and care. Indeed, he who filled the place of father and guardian, her mother's second husband, was all that a real parent could be. Claire seldom remembered that Mr. James Keith was not her father, and very few, except the family of Keith, knew that "Miss Claire Keith, daughter of the rich James Keith, of Baltimore," was in truth only a step-daughter.

Mrs. Keith, whose first husband was Richard Keith, cashier in his wealthy cousin's banking house, had buried that husband when Olive was five years old, and baby Claire scarce able to lisp his name. In a little less than two years she had married James Keith, the banker-cousin, and shortly after the marriage, James Keith had transferred his business interests to Baltimore, and there remained.

So Claire's baby brothers had never been told that she was not their "very own" sister, for of Olive they knew little, her marriage having separated them at first, and subsequently her obdurate acceptance of the consequences of that marriage.

When the law pronounced her husband a criminal, Mr. Keith had commanded Olive to abandon both husband and home, and return to his protection. This, true-hearted Olive refused to do. Her step-father, enraged at her obstinacy in clinging to a man who had been forsaken by all the world beside, bade her choose between them. Either she must let the law finish its work of breaking Philip Girard's heart by setting her free, or she must accept the consequences of remaining the wife of a criminal.

Olive chose the latter, and thenceforth remained in her own lonely home, never even once visiting the place of her childhood.

"He called my husband a criminal," she said, "and I will never cross his threshold until he has had cause to withdraw those words."

Claire, however, announced her intention of visiting her sister whenever she chose, and she succeeded, in part, in carrying out her will, for every year she passed two months or more with Olive.

What a picture the two girls now made, standing face to face.

Madeline, with her lithe grace of form, her pure pale complexion lit up by those fathomless brown eyes, and rendering more noticeable and beautiful the tiny rosy mouth, with its satellite dimples; with such wee white, blue-veined hands, and such a clear ringing, yet marvelously sweet voice. Madeline was very beautiful, and Claire, as she looked at her, wondered how any man could bear to lose such loveliness, or have the heart to betray it; as if ever pure woman could fathom the depth of a bad man's wickedness.

Bonnie, bewitching Claire! Never was contrast more perfect. A scarf, like scarlet flame, flung about her shoulders, set off the richness of her clear brunette skin, through which the crimson blood flamed in cheek and lip. Eyes, now black, now gray, changing, flashing, witching eyes: gray in quiet moments, darkening with mirth or sadness, anger or pain; hair black and silky, rippling to the rounded, supple waist in glossy waves. Not so tall as Madeline, and rounded and dimpled as a Hebe.

Bringing her will into service, Madeline banished the gloom from her face and said, with an attempt at gayety: