CHAPTER LIX
Was it chance or fate that brought Mr. Gordon down, a few weeks later, to consult with Mrs. Lynn about the publication of her new book?
She was down on the shore with her little Laurence and his playmate, Trixy Wentworth. The little girl's mother had promised to join her presently. She and Mrs. Lynn had become quite intimate friends by this time. They were fond of each other, as two young, pretty, noble women like Beatrix and Laurel are apt to be when thrown together. Beatrix had told all her romantic story to Mrs. Lynn, and Laurel had heard it silently and made no sign. She said to herself that that unhappy girl, over whose fate Beatrix drowned her blue eyes in regretful tears, must remain as one dead to all the world. She would not confess her secret. She would remain Mrs. Lynn to the end of the chapter.
She sat still on her low camp chair, with her large parasol held open over her head, and waited for Beatrix to come. She had a book open in her lap, but she was not reading. Her large, dark, thoughtful eyes wandered from the pretty children at play with their attentive nurses, to the billowy foam-capped waves rolling into her feet with a hollow, mystical murmur full of woe and mystery.
Mr. Gordon came out to her there, and he was puzzled, as he always was, when he saw Mrs. Lynn, by her subtle likeness to someone he had seen or known, and whom he could not now recall.
"Have I ever told you how strangely you affect me, Mrs. Lynn?" he said. "You are like someone I have known whom I cannot now recall. If I could bring myself to believe in theories I have heard advanced, I should say I had known you in some other previous world."
She knew where he had seen her. It was at Eden that fatal night that had struck her down from happiness to the keenest despair. Her face grew pale, her limbs trembled beneath her.
"Some day the truth will break upon him with the suddenness of the lightning's flash. He will recognize me as Laurel Vane, the girl he refused to forgive and pity that fatal night. He will know that the scorn of proud, rich people did not quite crush me, that I survived it all," she said to herself with the pride that had become a part of her nature.
But she did not mean that he should recognize her if she could help it. Certainly, she would never own the truth even if he taxed her with it: so she answered with a careless smile:
"The world is full of chance resemblances that puzzle and amaze us, Mr. Gordon. You see that little girl playing with my son there? Well, when I first saw her I had the oddest fancy that she was like someone I had seen or known. The likeness was haunting and troublesome at first, but I have grown used to it now. It does not trouble me any longer. Do look at her, Mr. Gordon. Is she not a lovely child?"
He looked, and a sudden cry of wonder came from his lips. The years rolled backward, and in the face of little Trixy he seemed to see his own Beatrix in her tender childhood—his beautiful, beloved daughter, who had been so willful and disobedient, and to whose sin he had refused his forgiveness.
"She is like someone I have known, too. Ah, so like, so like!" he said, in a strange voice. "Who is she, Miss Lynn?"
"Her name is Trixy Wentworth, Mr. Gordon. She is an American child, but she was born in England. Her parents lived there for nearly nine years. They have come back to New York to live now. Mr. Cyril Wentworth is in business there. Trixy is here with her mother for her health."
He stifled something like a groan upon his lips. Laurel saw how pale he had suddenly grown, and followed up her advantage by calling the little one to her and setting her on Mr. Gordon's knee.
"Give the gentleman a kiss, Trixy," she said to the lovely little golden-haired creature. "He is very lonely; he has no little girl of his own."
Trixy's ready sympathies were instantly enlisted by that, to her mind, pathetic statement. She gave Mr. Gordon a fastidious look-you-over stare, and, seeing that he was pleasant to look upon, put her round, dimpled arms about his neck and gave him a bear-like hug and a resounding kiss.
"Is it true that you really have no little girl?" she asked him, bending back her pretty head to look into his face with eyes that pierced his heart with their likeness to Beatrix—Beatrix, his little girl whom he had put away from his heart, hated and unforgiven because she had disobeyed him.
He could not speak for a moment, and Mrs. Lynn said, gently, looking away at the restless sea the while:
"This little girl has a grandpapa in New York, Mr. Gordon, who has never seen her. Her mother made a marriage that displeased him, and he has never forgiven her. He has missed a world of love by his hardness and sternness—do you not think so?"
The dark-eyed little Laurence came running up before he could frame a reply.
"Oh, but, Trixy, you shouldn't be sitting on that gentleman's lap, you know," he exclaimed, "for you have promised to be my little wife!"
This childish jealousy provoked such a laugh from the elders, that it quite drowned the sound of a light, quick step that came up behind them. In a moment more Beatrix Wentworth came around in front of the group.
The smile died on her lips, as she saw her little daughter sitting on the lap of the stern father she had not beheld for more than nine years. Poor Beatrix looked frightened and dismayed. The pretty rose tint faded from her face, her lips trembled, and the words she strove to utter died silently upon them.
Laurel rose with an encouraging smile and drew her friend forward.
"Mr. Gordon," she said, "this is my friend, Mrs. Wentworth. She is little Trixy's mother."
Beatrix looked at the face of her father through blinding tears and put out her hand.
"Papa, forgive me," she murmured, sadly.
There was a moment's dead silence. Mr. Gordon had put the child from his knee and risen, but he did not answer his daughter. She went on, in gentle, pleading tones.
"Papa, I have written to you so often and begged you to forgive me, and every time my letters came back to me unopened. Papa, I cannot say I am sorry for my fault, because Cyril is good and kind, and he makes me very happy. But I have grieved sorely for you and Mamma, I have longed to be reconciled to you. Oh, surely you will not refuse to forgive me now that we are face to face!"
"Forgive her, Mr. Gordon," cried Laurel, impulsively.
The two fair faces, the pleading voices, and the wondering eyes of the little children were too much for Mr. Gordon's calmness. His pride and sternness melted into love and remorse. Laurel gave one glance at his quivering face and turned gently away. She knew that the end was won—that love had conquered pride. He would forgive Beatrix.
But she did not know that at this moment when the ice melted around his hard, cold heart and he forgave his disobedient daughter, a new light had broken upon his mind. The sight of Beatrix had supplied the missing link that connected Mrs. Lynn so subtly with his past. Like a flash of lightning, it dawned upon him that this was Laurel Vane.
That night at Eden rushed over his mind, freshly as though it were but yesterday. He saw again the beautiful impostor who had personated his own daughter and married the master of Eden.
While he gave Beatrix the tender embrace of forgiveness, he seemed to see in fancy the kneeling, suppliant girl to whom he had refused his forgiveness, whom no one had pitied, whom all had forsaken and ignored. Even in his anger that night he had been struck by the wondrous beauty of the girl. This was the same lovely face, with its charm only intensified by time; this was the same sweet voice asking him to pardon Beatrix that had begged forgiveness vainly for herself. He was full of wonder over his sudden discovery.
"They said that Le Roy's wife drowned herself, but it cannot be true. There is some terrible mistake, some unexplained mystery. This is Louis Vane's daughter, and she has inherited all the genius of her erratic father," he said to himself.
He did not know what to do. He was frightened at his own discovery. He wondered if Beatrix knew the truth. He was inclined to believe that she did, but when he found an opportunity and questioned her he was rather staggered to find that Mrs. Lynn had resolutely denied her identity with Laurel Vane.
"I do not believe her. She is St. Leon Le Roy's wife, and the child is his. It bears its paternity on its face. What is your opinion, Beatrix?" asked the great publisher, thoughtfully.
"I believe that you are right," she replied; "I have believed that she was Mr. Le Roy's wife ever since I first met her several weeks ago. Her assertions to the contrary had no weight with me, although I held my peace and respected her reserve. I have been silent, but I have not been convinced."
"What is her object in this strange denial of herself?" he asked, thoughtfully.
"Pride and wounded feeling," Beatrix answered, with the unerring instinct of a woman.
When he remembered that night long years ago he did not blame her much. They had scorned and flouted her cruelly among them—they had no pity on the erring girl—they had driven her to desperation, forgetting how young and friendless she had been. He wondered much what had been the history of the intervening years, and how she had come by her name of Mrs. Lynn.
"Only her nom de plume, perhaps," he thought; and then he said, aloud: "Beatrix, do you not think I ought to write to St. Leon Le Roy to come down here?"
"I think it would be perfectly proper," she replied.
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