The Diamond Coterie Part 22

"Then I will just stretch myself here, Heath," replied Lamotte. "I don't feel equal to a start out just now; and, look here, old fellow," turning a shade paler, as he spoke, "deal gently with a fallen rival after this--disgrace. Of course, I quit the field; but--don't ride over me too hard."

The doctor drew on his riding gloves with grave precision, put his hat on his head, and took up his riding whip; then he turned toward Lamotte.

"I suppose you refer to Miss Wardour?" he said blandly.

"Of course."

"Then rest easy. I do not pretend in that quarter. Miss Wardour is yours for all me; and--you are not such a fool as to think that she will let your sister's affair alter her feelings for you--if she cares for you?"

Lamotte sprang up, staring with surprise.

"Why, but--Heath, you owned yourself my rival!"

"True."

"And--upon my word, I believe you were ahead of the field."

"True again; but--_I have withdrawn_." And Doctor Heath went out, closed the door deliberately, and ran lightly down the stairs. He found Ray Vandyck loitering on the pavement.

"I knew you would be down presently," said Vandyck, anxiously; "I want to say, Heath, don't notice what I said to that cad. He maddened me; above all, don't think that one word I uttered was intended to reflect upon _her_."

"He has withdrawn," muttered Francis Lamotte, settling himself back as comfortably as possible, and clasping his hands behind his head.

"And _he_ means what he says; something has happened in my absence; I can't understand it, but it's so much the better for me."

CHAPTER XII.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, Monday, three days; three nights. The events chronicled in the foregoing chapters, crowded themselves into the s.p.a.ce of three days.

But these were exceptional days; life does not move on thus, especially in the usually staid and well regulated town of W----. Men and women are not qualified to run a long, high pressure race. Action, and then--reaction. Reaction from every emotion, every sorrow, every joy.

G.o.d help us.

We weep for days, but not for years. We suffer, but here and there comes a respite from our pain. We live in a delirium of joy for a brief s.p.a.ce, and vegetate in dullness, in apathy, in hardness of heart, in indifference, or in despair, according to our various natures, for the rest of our natural lives. So let it be, it is the lot common to all.

"No man can hide from it, but it will find him out, Nor run from it, but it overtaketh him."

After the robbery, after the flight, after the coming and departure of the two detectives, dullness settled down upon our friends in W----.

It is needless to chronicle the effect of the news of their daughter's flight, upon Mr. and Mrs. Lamotte.

That is a thing we can all understand; we can picture it for ourselves.

Mrs. Lamotte shut herself up in her chamber, and refused to be comforted by family or friends. Mr. Lamotte, bitterly grieved, terribly shocked, did all that a father could do, which was in effect, nothing.

One day, the mail brought them a copy of the marriage certificate of Sybil Lamotte and John Burrill; but that was all. Where the fugitives had gone, could not be discovered.

Francis Lamotte went about as usual; with a little more of haughtiness, a little more reserve, and just a tinge of melancholy in his manner. He took Constance at her word, and came and went very much as of old, but was so watchful over himself, so subdued, and as she thought, improved in manner, that she declared confidentially to her aunt that he had become "really quite a comfortable person to have in one's parlor." She ceased snubbing him altogether, and received him with the frank graciousness that used to charm Doctor Heath; a.s.suring herself, often, that "trouble was improving poor Frank."

Evan Lamotte was Evan Lamotte still. Now drunk, now sober; a little more furious and ready to quarrel than usual, when in his cups; a little more taciturn and inclined to solitude in his sober moments.

Doctor Heath went about among his patients, wearing his usual cheery smile, speaking the usual comforting word, smoking, philosophizing, rallying his friends, satirizing his enemies, genial, independent, inscrutable as ever. He never called at Wardour Place, of course. He never sought an opportunity for meeting or seeing Constance, and he never avoided her; altogether, his conduct, from a romantic standpoint, was very reprehensible.

And Constance; perhaps of them all, these three days had effected the greatest change in her, as any chain of startling or strange events must, in a measure, change the current of thought and feeling in a life that has. .h.i.therto floated under a roseate cloud, on a sea without a ripple. She had been rocked by storm waves; had seen a bark shipwrecked close beside her; had even encountered mutiny in her own craft; when the lull came, and she drifted quietly, she found herself forever face to face with the facts that sorrow and trouble were abroad in the land, that crime existed outside of the newspapers; that heartache and self dissatisfaction were possibilities, and that even a queen absolute might come under the shadow of each and all. Not that Constance had never been aware of all these things, but we never can _realize_ what we have never experienced.

We look sadly sympathetic, and murmur "poor things," when we see some mourner weeping over a dead loved one, but we never comprehend the sorrow until we bury our own dead.

Constance had loved Sybil Lamotte as a sister; she thought and sorrowed not a little over the strange freak Fate had played with her friend's life, and she wondered often if Doctor Heath had really lost all regard for her; she knew, as what woman does not, that a warm regard had once existed; and she a.s.sured herself that whether he had or not, was a matter of no consequence to her. "She had not the slightest interest in Doctor Heath," so she told Mrs. Aliston, and, like him, she never sought nor avoided a meeting.

It is singular, however, that a man who possessed for her "not the slightest interest" should so often present himself to her thoughts, and certain it is that at this period of our story her mind had a most provoking habit of running away from a variety of subjects straight to Clifford Heath, M. D. But women at best are strange creatures, and subject to singular phenomena.

Mrs. Aliston just here experienced some dissatisfaction; Clifford Heath was with her a favorite; Francis Lamotte was her pet hatred. To see the favorite made conspicuous by his absence, and have his name, like that of a disinherited daughter, tabooed from the family converse, while the obnoxious Francis, because of his provokingly good behavior, made rapid strides into the good graces of the queen of the castle, would have exasperated most good, maneuvering old ladies, but Mrs. Aliston maneuvered princ.i.p.ally for her own comfort, so she sighed a little, regretted the present state of affairs in a resigned and becoming manner, ceased to mention the name of Doctor Heath, and condescended to receive Francis graciously, after that young man had made a special call, during which he saw only Mrs. Aliston, and apologized amply and most humbly for his unceremonious ejectment of that lady in favor of Constance, on the day when the former undertook, "as gently as possible," to break to him the news of his sister's flight.

To make an apology gracefully is in itself, an art; and this art Francis Lamotte was skilled in; indeed but for a certain physical weakness, he would have been an ornament to the diplomatic service. Alas, that there must always be a "but" in the way of our moral completeness, our physical perfection and our life's success.

Days and weeks pa.s.sed on, and the household of Wardour remained in utmost quiet; that at Mapleton, shrouded in gloom and sorrowful seclusion. Mrs. Lamotte saw no one. Mr. Lamotte went out only to look after his business interests.

When the copy of Sybil's marriage certificate came, Frank, like a loyal knight, came to Constance with the news, told it with a sad countenance and in few words, and went away soon and sorrowfully.

One day, not long after, Mrs. Aliston returned from the town where she had spent four long hours in calling upon the wives of the Episcopalian, the Unitarian and the Presbyterian ministers, for Mrs. Aliston was a liberal soul, and hurled herself into Constance's favorite sitting room, in a state of unusual excitement.

"Well, Con.," she panted, pulling hard the while at her squeezed on gloves, "I've found it out;" and she dropped into the easiest chair, and pulled and panted afresh.

Constance looked up from a rather uninteresting "Novel with a Moral,"

and asked, as indifferently as possible:

"What have you found out, auntie?"

"About Sybil."

Constance laid down her book, and her tone underwent a change.

"If it's any thing more than gossip, auntie, tell me quick."

"Oh, it isn't gossip; at least they all say it's true. And as for gossip, Con., I tell you, you have done something toward stopping that."

Con. laughed like one who is conscious of her power.

"Yes, indeed," rattled on Mrs. Aliston. "Mrs. Wooster says, and if she _is_ a Unitarian she is certainly a very good and truthful woman, that she has heard from various ones that you have openly declared against the handling of poor Sybil's name among the people who have called themselves her friends, and accepted so often her mother's hospitality.

And she said--these are her very words, Con.--'I was delighted, dear Mrs. Aliston, for we all know that these gossip lovers, every one of them, will deny themselves the luxury of tearing Sybil to pieces, knowing that she has a champion in Miss Wardour.' So much for influence, Con."

"Bah!" retorted Con., wise in her generation. "So much for money, and how do I know that I have not lost my prestige along with my diamonds.

Auntie, you have lost the thread of your discourse; you always do."