CHAPTER XII.THE RECEPTION.
Mrs. Loring’s reception on Thursday evening proved to be a very brilliant one.
It was given nominally in honor of Gladys, but it really was as much for the sake of the daughter of the house, who was the pride and darling of her fond parents’ hearts, and her taste was consulted, her lightest wish gratified, in every arrangement.
The elegant mansion was beautifully decorated for the occasion.
A platform had been extended fifty feet from the broad south balcony and inclosed like a pavilion for dancing, while one of the finest bands in New York had been secured to discourse sweet music to entice tripping feet, andan elaborate supper had been ordered from Delmonico’s.
Mr. and Mrs. Huntress were, of course, among the invited guests, and Geoffrey had also been sent for and pressed to honor the occasion with his presence, for Gladys’ sake.
He had sent a telegram in reply, saying that he would come if possible, but at nine o’clock he had not appeared, and Gladys turned eagerly toward the door at every fresh arrival, hoping to see him enter.
Mr. Mapleson had not failed to present himself at an early hour, when he immediately constituted himself Gladys’ most devoted attendant, and was so persistent and marked in his attentions that the young girl began to feel a trifle uncomfortable and anxious, lest matters should grow more serious than she desired.
“Papa, where do you suppose Geoff is?” she inquired, with a troubled face, as Mr. Huntress came up to her, while Everet Mapleson was doing his utmost to be agreeable.
Mr. Huntress had been introduced to the young man earlier in the evening, and had been startled, as everyone else was, by his singular resemblance to the boy whom he had reared, and he had resolved to make some inquiries of him regarding his connections, hoping thus to gain some light upon Geoffrey’s early life.
“I do not know, dear,” the gentleman replied to his daughter’s question; “it is surely time that he was here. Possibly something detained him at the last moment, and he could not leave.”
“Oh, I hope not; the evening will be spoiled if he does not come,” Gladys cried, in a tone that made the blood surge angrily to Everet Mapleson’s brow, for it told him how little hope there was of his retaining Gladys’ companionship if his fortunate rival should make his appearance.
“I shall be sorry myself not to see Geoff; he needs the change and recreation, too, for he is working very hard,” responded Mr. Huntress, glancing wistfully toward the door himself. “But you must try to enjoy yourself, all the same, if he does not come. Mr. and Mrs. Loring will be disappointed if their reception does not prove a pleasant one, after all their effort.”
Gladys’ glance was bent upon her fan, with which she was nervously toying: her cheeks were flushed, her brow slightly clouded, her lips compressed, and it was evident that she was greatly disturbed.
All at once she turned her gaze again toward the door. She gave a sudden start.
“Why! there he is now! Oh! I am so glad,” she cried in a joyous tone, her beautiful face growing radiant with undisguised delight, as she saw Geoffrey, looking more handsome and manly than ever, just entering the room.
She instantly darted toward him without even thinking to excuse herself to her companions, thus leaving Mr. Huntress and young Mapleson to entertain each other.
The latter watched that graceful figure, a lurid fire in his eye, his lips compressed until they were colorless, his heart throbbing with jealous anger.
He saw her steal softly up to Geoffrey, who was looking in another direction, and slip one white hand within his arm, while she looked up at him, with a rogueish but happy glance, and addressed some bright words of welcome to him.
He saw, too, how Geoffrey’s countenance lighted, how his eyes glowed as he turned to look down upon that fair, upturned face, while the glad smile that wreathed his handsome mouth, told something of the joy which this meeting afforded him also.
Everet Mapleson read these signs as plainly as he would have read a printed page, and he knew that the young man loved the fair girl with all the strength of his manly nature, and the knowledge made him grind his teeth in silent rage.
But Mr. Huntress spoke to him just then, and he was obliged to turn his glance away from those two central figures, which were now moving out of the room together, and answer him.
Mr. Huntress was more and more impressed every moment that there must be kindred blood in the veins of these two young men, and he was resolved to learn the truth.
But he was destined to be disappointed, for Everet Mapleson repeated about the same story, with some additions, that he had already told Gladys, and there seemed no possibility of there being any relationship between them.
“My father was a colonel in the Confederate Army during the war,” Everet said, in reply to his companion’s query, “and my home, with the exception of a short residence abroad, has always been in the South.”
“And is your mother also a Southerner?”
Everet smiled, for he knew well enough what these questions meant.
“Oh, yes; she and my father were second cousins, and they were married in 1853.”
“Ah! in ’53,” remarked Mr. Huntress, reflectively; “and was that Colonel Mapleson’s first marriage?”
“Yes, sir; and it was a somewhat romantic affair. They had an uncle who was very wealthy, and when he died it was found that he had made a very singular will. He divided his fortune equally between them, but expressed a wish that they should unite it again by marriage; indeed, he made the possession of it conditional, and in this way. My father was about twenty, my mother seventeen, at the time of his death. Both were to come into their share of the property at once, but if either married some one else before my mother reached the age of twenty-five, he or she would forfeit that portion and it should go to the other. If both refused to carry out the conditions of the will and married contrary to his wishes, or remained single after my mother, who was the younger, reached the age of twenty-five, the whole fortune was to be made over to a bachelor cousin of the testator, and who was also a very singular character.”
“That was an exceedingly strange will,” observed Mr. Huntress.
“Very, though it was not more eccentric than the man who made it; but my father and mother chose to fulfill the conditions of the will; thus the property was all kept in the family.”
“And are you their only child?”
“Yes, sir. I never had either brother or sister.”
“It is very strange,” murmured Mr. Huntress, musingly.
Everet Mapleson regarded him curiously.
“You are thinking of my resemblance to Mr. Geoffrey Huntress,” he said, somewhat stiffly, after a brief pause.
“Yes, I am.”
“Surely you can have no idea that we are in any way related.”
“I—do—not know, of course; but——”
“You do not know!” interrupted the young Southerner. “Why, you surely ought to be able to trace his genealogy, since he is your nephew.”
“But he is not my nephew.”
“How?”
“I never saw the boy until about eight years ago.”
Everet Mapleson turned a look of blank astonishment upon his companion, while a strange pallor settled over his own face.
Mr. Huntress then related to him the circumstances which brought Geoffrey to his notice, telling of his unaccountable interest in him, of the experiment which had resulted in the restoration of the boy’s reason, and of his subsequent adoption of the lad.
Everet Mapleson grew very grave as he listened, and a hundred conflicting thoughts came crowding into his mind.
Could it be possible, after all, that this young man whom he had so disliked, and was fast learning to hate from a feeling of jealousy, was in some mysterious way connected with the proud family of Mapleson?
He did not know of a relative by that name, and yet there might be.
He resolved that he would sift the matter the very next time he went home.
“And you know absolutely nothing about him previous to that time?” he asked of Mr. Huntress.
“No, nothing; while he was evidently so young at the time he received the injury which deprived him of his reason that there was comparatively little that he could remember about himself. Of his father or mother he knew nothing; ‘Margery’ and ‘Jack’ are the only names that he has been able to recall, while his memories of them are very vague. I imagine, however, that the woman Margery must have been a sort of nurse who had the care of him.”
Everet Mapleson started and colored as he heard these names.
He instantly recalled the incident that had occurred a few days previous, on Broadway, when the poor old flower vender had detained him, believing that she had at last found the boy whom she had nursed so many years ago.
His first impulse was to tell Mr. Huntress of this adventure, but he checked the inclination, resolving that he would himself try to find old Margery again and glean all that he could from her regarding Geoffrey’s early history.
He began to realize that there was something very much more mysterious about their strange resemblance than had at first appeared.
It might not be so much a “freak of nature” as he had tried to think it, and if there was any importantsecret connected with the affair, he meant to ferret it out alone, and possibly it might give him an advantage over his rival in the future if he should stand in the way of his winning Gladys for his wife.
A little later, when he went in search of her, and found her pacing up and down the great hall leaning on Geoffrey’s arm, chatting with him in a free and unrestrained way, and saw both their faces so luminous and happy, and knew that already they had become all in all to each other, he ground his teeth savagely, and vowed that he would destroy their confidence and peace before another twelve months should elapse.
He stationed himself behind some draperies where he could see without being seen, and continued to watch them, although it drove him almost to a frenzy to see how happy and unreserved Gladys was with his rival.
Her face was eager and animated—it never had lighted up like that when in his presence—her eyes glowed, her lips were wreathed with smiles, and she chattered like a magpie. She seemed to have forgotten where she was, by whom surrounded, everything, save that she was with Geoffrey.
He knew well enough when she began to tell him about encountering his double in the cafe, for he saw Geoffrey start, change color, and then grow suddenly grave.
“Is Everet Mapleson here in New York?” he heard him ask, as they drew near where he was standing.
“Yes; and oh, Geoff, he is so like you. Even I could hardly detect any difference.”
Geoffrey smiled at the reply.
It implied a great deal; it told him thatshecould distinguish between them if any one could, and that her eyes, sharpened by affection, had been able to detect something unlike in them.
“Do you think you would always be able to tell us apart, Gladys?” Geoffrey eagerly asked.
“Of course I should, you dear old Geoff,” she affirmed, with a toss of her bright head.
“How?”
“Why, I only need to look into your eyes to know you,” she said, with a fond upward glance.
At this reply, Geoffrey hugged close to his side the small hand that lay on his arm, and his heart thrilled with a sweet hope.
“What is there in my eyes, Gladys, that is different from Everet Mapleson’s?” he asked.
She blushed crimson at the question, for she knew that it was only in their expression that she could detect any difference.
“Perhaps strangers could not tell you apart,” she admitted, with drooping lids; “probably it is because we have lived together so long that I know your every expression; then, too, there is a certain little quiver about your lips when you smile that he does not have. Your voices, though, are entirely different.”
“Yes; any one could distinguish between us to hear us speak,” Geoffrey assented; but his heart was bounding with joy, for he knew well enough that only the eye of love could have detected the points that she had mentioned.
Yet, in spite of all, he experienced a feeling of uneasiness over the fact that Everet Mapleson was spending his recess in New York and was cultivating the acquaintance of Gladys.
He had never mentioned him in any of his letters—had never spoken of that hazing experience, simply because his mind had been so engrossed with other things that he had not thought to do so.
“There is the band, Geoff,” Gladys exclaimed, as the music came floating in from the south balcony. “Mr. Loring has had the loveliest pavilion erected for dancing, and you know that I cannot keep still a moment within ear-shot of such enticing strains. Come, let us go out.”
“Which means, of course, that I am to have the first set with you,” he said, smiling.
“It does mean just that. You know I always like to dance with you, for you suit your step to mine so nicely. There! I’m so glad you asked me, for here comes Mr. Mapleson, this minute, doubtless to make the same request,” Gladys concluded, under her breath, as she saw the young man step out from among the draperies, where he had been watching them, and approach them.