Not Pretty, but Precious; And Other Short Stories Part 19

"I did."

"Do you remember the portrait of Lola Montez?"

"Certainly--as though I had seen it yesterday."

"Marion resembles that portrait very strikingly, particularly in the shape and carriage of her head."

"I am not mistaken--it is she. Would that I had never lived to see this day!" And Mrs. Rutherford wrung her hands in an agony of helpless, hopeless distress.

"It is she?" repeated Horace, in perplexity. "Whom do you mean, mother?

Who was Marion Nugent?"

"She is not Marion Nugent--this impostor who has thrust herself into our midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower."

"And who, then, is she?"

Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read his thoughts in his countenance.

"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy?

Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable anguish.

Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own.

"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all.

If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be freed from the matrimonial chain."

"Could that be possible?"

"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if you will but confide in me."

"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_ tell you all."

Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest, numbering among her pa.s.sengers Horace Rutherford.

Chapter III.

Striking the Flag.

The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all afforded food for the insatiable appet.i.te of the scandal-mongers. Then Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street, with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten"

would honor with its august presence the ball which Mrs. Clement Rutherford proposed giving on Shrove Tuesday, which in that year came about the middle of March. But as to that, it was generally conceded that they would. Youth, beauty, wealth and the shadow of an old family name could cover a mult.i.tude of such sins as rapid manners, desperate flirtations and a questionable origin; and notwithstanding her fastness, and, worse still, her _ci-devant_ governess-ship, Mrs. Clement Rutherford was a decided social success.

On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual manner.

"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me something about your travels."

"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message for your wife: can I see her?"

A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother.

"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke.

"Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her _boudoir_, as she calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see her."

He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his hand.

"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married life?"

"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "_they_ are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss."

"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy,"

muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight before, me."

The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fres...o...b.. an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the tiny apartment. etageres of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian gla.s.s, Dresden and Sevres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring and _riante_ style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a barren and precipitous sh.o.r.e.

Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened and his sister-in-law entered. He turned to greet her, and her beauty, enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an involuntary glance of admiration. Her dress was an exemplification of how much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate. She wore a robe of turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise. A band of the same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and showed to advantage the perfection of her figure. A brooch and long ear-pendants of l.u.s.treless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer.

"Welcome home, Horace!" she said in that low sweet voice which was one of her most potent charms. "How kind it is of you to pay me a visit so soon after your return!"

She placed herself on the couch and motioned to him to take a seat near her. He drew up his chair, and a short, embarra.s.sed pause succeeded.

Mrs. Rutherford toyed with her fan and stole glances from under her long black lashes at her visitor, who sat twisting one of his gloves and wishing most ardently that Providence had entrusted the painful task before him to some one of a more obdurate and less chivalrous nature.

Wearied of silence, the lady spoke at last.

"Have you nothing of interest respecting your travels to tell me?" she asked.

Her voice seemed to break the spell which paralyzed him. He turned toward her with the look of one who nerves himself up to take a desperate resolution:

"Yes: I have a story to relate to you, and one of more than common interest."

"Really!" She yawned behind her fan. "Excuse me, but I was at Mrs.

Houdon's ball last evening, and the 'German' was kept up till five o'clock this morning. I am wretchedly tired. Now do go on with your story: I have no doubt but that I shall find it amusing, but do not be much surprised if I fall asleep."

"I think you will find it interesting, and I have no fear of its putting you to sleep. But you must make me one promise. I am but a poor narrator, and you must engage not to interrupt me."

"I have no hesitation in promising to remain perfectly quiet, no matter how startling your incidents or how vivid your descriptions may be."

She leaned back among the cushions with another stifled yawn and shaded her eyes with her fan. Without heeding the veiled impertinence of her manner, Horace commenced his narrative:

"Some twenty-five years ago a friendless, penniless Englishwoman died at one of the cheap boarding-schools in Dieppe, where she had officiated for some time as English teacher and general drudge. She left behind her a little girl about five years of age--a pretty, engaging child, whose beauty and infantile fascinations so won the heart of Madame Tellier, the proprietress of the establishment, that she decided to take charge of the little creature and educate her, her project being to fit her for the post of English teacher in her school. But the pretty child grew up to be a beautiful but unprincipled girl, with an inborn pa.s.sion for indolence and luxury. At the age of seventeen she eloped from the school with a young Parisian gentleman, who had been spending the summer months at one of the seaside hotels in Dieppe, and her benefactress saw her and heard of her no more.

"We will pa.s.s over the events of the next few years. It would hardly interest you to follow, as I did, each step by which the heroine of my history progressed ever downward on the path of vice. We find her at last traveling in Italy under the protection of the Count von Erlenstein, an Austrian n.o.ble of great wealth and dissolute character. She has cast aside the name she once bore, and, antic.i.p.ating the jewel-borrowed cognomens of Cora Pearl and La Reine Topaze, she adopts a t.i.tle from the profusion of pink coral jewelry which she habitually wears, and Rose Sherbrooke is known as Rose Coral."

Horace paused. A short, sharp sound broke the momentary silence: it was caused by the snapping of one of the gilded fan-sticks under the pressure of the white, rigid fingers that clasped it. But the listener kept her face hidden, and but for that convulsive motion the speaker might have fancied that she slept, so silent and motionless did she remain. After a short pause Horace continued:

"The attachment of Count von Erlenstein proved to be a lasting one, and we find Rose Coral at a later period installed in a luxurious establishment in Vienna, and one of the reigning queens of that realm of many sovereigns, the _demi-monde_ of the gay capital of Austria. But the count falls ill; his sickness speedily a.s.sumes a dangerous form; his death deprives Rose Coral of her splendor; and the sunny streets of Vienna know her fair face no more. I will not retrace for you, as I could do, each step in her rapid descent from luxury to poverty, from splendor to vice, from celebrity to ruin. But one day she makes her appearance, under the name of Rhoda Steele, on board the steamship America, bound for New York.

The state-room which she occupies is shared by a young girl named Marion Nugent, whose future career is to be that of a governess in the United States. On the first night out one of the occupants of the state-room is taken suddenly ill and dies, the corpse is committed to the deep, and it is reported throughout the ship that the name of the deceased is Rhoda Steele. The tale was false: it was Marion Nugent who died--it was Rose Sherbrooke, _alias_ Rose Coral, _alias_ Rhoda Steele, who lived to rob the dead girl of her effects and to a.s.sume her name!"