CHAPTER XXVII.DEFEATED.
When they were within a few feet of the upper door, Mrs. Richards stepped toward them and stood directly in their path.
The hall was nearly empty, almost everybody being in the parlors or the dancing-hall, so there was no one by just at that moment to witness what transpired.
“What does this mean?” Mrs. Richards demanded, in a low but authoritative tone. “Stella Gladstone, how is it that I find you here? Uncle Jacob, where have you been all this time, and what strange freak of fortune brings you here in this unaccountable fashion?”
Mr. Rosevelt started slightly on beholding his niece standing in that excited attitude directly in his path; while Star grew pale at first, for she had always stood somewhat in fear of the arrogant woman while she was an inmate of her house. But remembering that everything was entirely different now, she quickly recovered herself.
But for all that, she clung a little more closely to Mr. Rosevelt’s arm, as if she was glad that he was there, though in no other way did she betray how disagreeable this encounter was to her, or appear as if she had ever met them before.
“Tell me what this means?” Mrs. Richards repeated, looking from one to the other, noting Star’s delicate beauty with a pang of bitter jealousy, her self-possession and grace; Mr. Rosevelt’s improved appearance, his rich apparel, and more than all, the air of pride and fondness which pervaded every look and attention which he bestowed upon his companion.
“Well, niece Ellen,” Mr. Rosevelt returned, in a quiet tone, while he met her eye with a cold, steady glance that made her very uncomfortable, “it appears that you are considerably excited over this unexpected meeting. Suppose we retire to yonder anteroom, where we can converse unobserved.”
He turned and led the way, with Star still upon his arm, to a small room upon the opposite side of the hall; they entered, and he shut the door, for he did not care that any one should overhear what passed between them, nor did he intend that Ellen Richards should do or say anything which should make them objects of remark.
“Now, Ellen, what is it that I am to account to you for?” he asked, in the same quiet tone which he had before used.
She colored angrily, but she was determined to get at the bottom of the matter.
“I have heard strange rumors to-night,” she remarked. “I am told that Stella has become an authoress—that she is very popular, as well as her book, and I want to know what it means. A year ago you were both dependents upon my bounty; now I find you sailing about, like a couple of meteors, among the other shining lights of society. I want an explanation of the cause of this change.”
“Certainly, Ellen; since you desire it, I will explain with pleasure. We left your house last October, as you doubtless will remember, and took up our abode in New York city. Star entered the Normal College at once, and by assiduous application to her studies, succeeded in completing the course, and graduated in June, since when we have been trying to get all the enjoyment out of life that we could. You have heard rightly, Ellen; she did write that popular little book, ‘Chatsworth’s Pride,’ and it is a source of pride to me that I have the honor of introducing in society its popular author as my ward and heiress——”
“Yourheiress!” Mrs. Richards cried, growing pale.
“Yes; Miss Gladstone is named as such in my will, which is now in the hands of my lawyer,” the old gentleman replied, quietly.
His niece looked from one to the other in blank dismay. She had feared she should hear something of the kind, but it was none the less a shock to her when it came.
“Your heiress—heiress towhat?” she demanded, sharply.
“To the whole of my fortune, madam.”
“Your fortune!” she sneered, but her voice was hoarse from passion and baffled hopes. “A year ago it was—beggary!”
Mr. Rosevelt smiled serenely.
“Apparently, yes,” he answered. “But I wasthen, what I amnow—a millionaire. The mistake of your life-time was made then, Ellen; for if you had cordially received the feeble old man who came to your house in such a forlorn condition; if you had given him kindness and sympathy, such as you were wont to do when he was rich and prosperous; if you had shown him something of love and tenderness, instead of coldness and contempt, making him feel that he was a burden and an intruder,youwould have had the bulk of my fortune, for your brother had already forfeited his share. I thought that my final return to this country would give me a good opportunity to test your and Henry’s sincerity, and I resolved to do so. I went to him as a poor man; I was received coldly, and made as uncomfortable as it was possible for any one to be made. Then I said to myself, ‘Ellen’s womanly heart will prompt her to be kind to me, if not for my own sake, for her father’s,’ and so I came to you also in the guise of poverty.”
“It was mean—it was dishonorable to take advantage of me in that way,” Mrs. Richards said, with white, quivering lips.
“Not at all. I wanted toknowyou as you were, not what you pretended to be. I do not need to tell you the result of my plan; we all know it but too well. No one gave me a word of sympathy or kindness save this dear girl”—he laid hishand tenderly on Star’s shoulder—“who did her utmost to make the old man forget as far as was possible his bitter disappointment, and who had already earned his love and gratitude by saving his life, almost at the sacrifice of her own, during that terrible voyage across the Atlantic. She has been like a sunbeam to me from the first; and when I saw how unkind you all were to her also—how you were betraying your trust and breaking your promise to her dying father—I resolved that she should become my especial care for the future.
“I do not need to recall to your memory the last night that we spent in your house in Yonkers. It must be as fresh to you as it is to me. You taunted us both with our poverty and dependence. You droveherto desperation by your unjust accusations and your heartless language. She could not endure that kind of a life any longer, and she knew that I also was anything but happy; so she came to me, told me the secret of her success as an author, and of the income which her book bade fair to bring her, and begged of me to go with her to share her substance, asking in return only the comfort of congenial companionship and the protection which my presence would give her. I was sorely tempted, as I have told her, to confess the part I had been playing, and proclaim her my heiress on the spot. But I thought, considering all things, it would be better to wait until she was through with school, while I wanted to study her a little more closely before committing my all to her. She has stood the test most nobly. She has been the light of our home. She has labored early and late to minister to my comfort and happiness, andnowshe is going to reap her reward. Everything that Icando for her to make her life bright, Ishalldo while I live, and when I am gone, she will have the fortune which, under different circumstances, would have been mostly yours.”
Mrs. Richards was pallid with anger, mortification, and bitter disappointment when Mr. Rosevelt concluded.
It was a terrible blow to her to lose this great fortune, and remorse for her heartless treatment of her uncle was gnawing keenly at her heart-strings.
Mr. Richards had met with heavy losses in his business of late, and it was only by straining every nerve, calculating, and contriving, that she and Josephine had been able to come to Newport at all that season, and it was simply maddening to think that Star, whom she had so disliked from the first, should have won, by little acts of kindness, what she would have spared no pains to secure had she once suspected the truth.
“Well, miss, you have played your cards very cleverly, haven’t you?” she finally found breath to ejaculate, and turning with blazing eyes upon the fair girl who, all unwittingly, had usurped her place in her uncle’s affection and will.
Mr. Rosevelt’s face grew stern.
“She certainly has, Ellen,” he said, before Star could speak, even had she wished to do so, “especially as she could not, by any means, have known that there was anything worth winning by her acts of devotion and self-denial. And now let me tell you, that true kindness and sympathy willalwayswin, where arrogance and pride will only gain contempt, and lead to disappointment and regret.”
“Uncle Jacob, you cannot mean what you have said. Surely you will not discard those of your own blood, your kin, for the offspring of a stranger!” Mrs. Richards said, appealingly.
Mr. Rosevelt looked down at Star with a tender, tremulous smile.
“The offspring of a stranger!” he repeated, softly; then added: “Ellen, there is a stronger bond uniting this dear child to me thaneverbound me to either of my brother’s children.”
“What do you mean?” cried his niece, in a startled tone.
“Surely, atyourage, you do not contemplate——”
Mr. Rosevelt stopped her with a motion of his hand before she could complete her sentence.
“No; you are wide of the mark; although I am not surprised that a designing woman like yourself should jump at such an absurd conclusion. But, lest you should wound her by your foolish insinuations, I will tell you that Star is the granddaughter of the only woman whom I ever loved; and, therefore, you perceive that I had additional cause to be displeased with you on account of your unkindness to her.”
“Really, Mr. Rosevelt, you have more of sentiment in your composition than I gave you credit for. Therewasa love passage, then, in the old bachelor’s life!” sneered Mrs. Richards while an angry flush mounted to her brow.
Then, with more bitterness than she had yet betrayed, she continued, with a look at Star:
“I can congratulate Miss Gladstone upon being more successful in wheedling you out of your fortune than she was in her maneuvers to become Lady Carrol.”
This was a cruel thrust, and wholly unexpected on the part of either Mr. Rosevelt or Star.
A shiver of agony ran through every nerve of her body at this rough probing of the still unhealed wound, and a painful crimson shot over her beautiful face.
But it quickly subsided, leaving only the bright spots on her cheeks.
She arose from the chair where Mr. Rosevelt had placed her, drew herself up proudly, her eyes gleaming as bright as the diamonds in her ears, and, entirely ignoring the coarse woman’s malicious thrust, she looked up at her companion, and said, in her clearest, sweetest tones:
“Uncle Jacob, I believe we were going out to see the illumination.”
“True, child, true,” he said, taking her white-gloved hand and laying it upon his arm, while he cast a dark look upon his niece for her cowardly attack. “Come, we will go at once;” and with a formal inclination to Mrs. Richards and herdaughter, but with an angry gleam in his eyes, he led Star from the room, shutting the door, with no gentle sound, after them.
“Did you ever hear anything like it!” Mrs. Richards said, hopelessly, after they had gone.
“No, indeed; and it is just as you suspected—he wasplayingpoverty all the time,” Josephine answered.
“Oh, if I could only have known it!” groaned her mother, to whom the calamity appeared to grow more appalling every moment.
“He makes a perfect fool of himself over that girl,” snapped Josephine, ill-naturedly. “Just think of the amount of money it must have cost to deck her out to-night.”
“I am going back to our hotel,” Mrs. Richards said, rising, with a desperate air. “I am not going to stay here to see her play the fine lady and crow over us.”
“I’m ready to go. I’ve had enough of this thing, and I never did like the —— House very well, anyway,” replied her daughter, in no amiable tones.