The pretty, picturesque villa was very small; there was no room available for a nursery. Wherever Dora sat, there must the little ones be; and although they were very charming to the mother and the nurse, the continued cries and noise irritated Ronald greatly. Then he grew vexed; Dora cried, and said he did not love them, and so the barrier grew day by day between those who should have been all in all to each other.
The children grew. Little Beatrice gave promise of great beauty. She had the Earle face, Ronald said. Lillian was a fair, sweet babe, too gentle, her mother thought, to live. Neither of them resembled her, and at times Dora wished it had been otherwise.
Perhaps in all Ronald Earle"s troubled life he never spent a more unsettled or wretched year than this. "It is impossible to paint," he said to himself, "when disturbed by crying babies." So the greater part of his time was spent away from home. Some hours of every day were pa.s.sed with Valentine; he never stopped to ask himself what impulse led him to seek her society; the calm repose of her fair presence contrasted so pleasantly with the petty troubles and small miseries of home. When Miss Charteris rode out he accompanied her; he liked to meet her at parties and b.a.l.l.s. He would have thought a day sad and dark wherein he did not see her.
When the little ones reached their first birthday, Valentine, with her usual kind thought, purchased a grand a.s.sortment of toys, and drove over quite unexpectedly to the villa. It was not a very cheerful scene which met her gaze.
Ronald was busily engaged in writing. Dora, flushed and worn, was vainly trying to stop the cries of one child, while the other pulled at her dress. The anxious, dreary face struck Valentine with pain. She laid the parcel of toys down, and shook hands with Ronald, who looked somewhat ashamed of the aspect of affairs. Then, turning to Dora, she took the child from her arms, and little Beatrice, looking at her with wondering eyes, forgot to cry.
"You are not strong enough, Dora, to nurse this heavy child," said Miss Charteris. "Why do you not find some one to help you?"
"We can not afford it," said Ronald, gloomily.
"We spend too much in gloves and horses," added Dora, bitterly; but no sooner were the words spoken than she would have given the world to recall them.
Ronald made no reply, and Valentine, anxious to avert the storm she had unwittingly raised, drew attention to the toys.
When Valentine left them, Dora and Ronald had their first quarrel long and bitter. He could ill brook the insult her words implied--spoken before Valentine, too!--and she for the first time showed him how an undisciplined, untrained nature can throw off the restraint of good manners and good breeding. It was a quarrel never to be forgotten, when Ronald in the height of his rage wished that he had never seen Dora, and she re-echoed the wish. When such a quarrel takes place between man and wife, the bloom and freshness are gone from love. They may be reconciled, but they will never again be to each other what they once were. A strong barrier is broken down, and nothing can be put in its place.
Chapter XIII
The angry, pa.s.sionate words spoken by Ronald--almost the first he had ever uttered--soon faded from his mind, but they rankled like poisoned arrows in Dora"s heart. She believed them. Before evening her husband repented of his anger, and called himself a coward for having scolded Dora. He went up to her and raised her face to his.
"Little wife," He said, "we have both been wrong. I am very sorry--let us make friends."
There was just a suspicion of sullenness in Dora"s nature, and it showed itself in full force now.
"It is no matter," she replied, coolly; "I knew long ago that you were tired of me."
Ronald would not answer, lest they should quarrel again, but he thought to himself that perhaps she was not far wrong.
From that day the breach between them widened. In after years Dora saw how much she was to blame. She understood then how distasteful her quiet, sullen reserve must have been to a high-bred, fastidious man like Ronald. She did not see it then, but nursed in her heart imaginary wrongs and injuries; and, above all, she yielded to a wild, fierce jealousy of Valentine Charteris.
For some weeks Miss Charteris saw the cloud deepening on Ronald"s face.
He grew silent, and lost the flow of spirit that had once seemed never to fail; and during the few weeks that followed, a strong resolution grew in her mind. She was his true friend, and she would try to restore peace and harmony between him and his wife. She waited for some days, but at her mother"s house it was impossible to see him alone. Yet she honestly believed that, if she could talk to him, remind him of his first love for Dora, of her simplicity and many virtues, she might restore peace and harmony to her old friend"s house.
She thought Ronald to blame. He had voluntarily taken active duties upon himself, and to her clearly, rightly judging mind, there was no earthly reason why he should not fulfill them. He would not feel hurt at her speaking, she felt sure, for he had voluntarily sought her aid years ago. So Valentine waited day after day, hoping to find a chance for those few words she thought would do so much good; but, as no opportunity came, she resolved to make one. Taking her little jeweled pencil, she wrote the following lines that were in after-time a death warrant:
"Dear Mr. Earle,--I wish to speak to you particularly and privately. I shall be in our grounds tomorrow morning about ten; let me see you there before you enter the house. Your sincere friend, Valentine Charteris."
All the world might have read the note--there was nothing wrong in it--good intentions and a kindly heart dictated it, but it worked fatal mischief. When Ronald was leaving her mother"s house, Miss Charteris openly placed the letter in his hands.
"This is the first note I have ever written to you," she said, with a smile. "You must not refuse the request it contains."
"I will send him home happy tomorrow," she thought, "he is easily influenced for good. He must make up the misunderstanding with his pretty little wife--neither of them look happy."
Ronald did not open the letter until he reached home. Then he read it with a half-consciousness of what Valentine wanted him for.
"She is a n.o.ble woman," he thought. "Her words made me brave before--they will do me good again."
He left the folded paper upon the table in his studio; and jealous little Dora, going in search of some work she had left, found it there.
She read it word by word, the color dying slowly out of her face as she did so, and a bitter, deadly jealousy piercing her heart like a two-edged sword. It confirmed her worst fears, her darkest doubts.
How dared this brilliant, beautiful woman lure Ronald from her? How dared she rob her of his love?
Ronald looked aghast at his wife"s face as she re-entered the sitting room. He had been playing with the children, and had forgotten for the time both Valentine and her note. He cried out in alarm as she turned her white, wild face to him in dumb, silent despair.
"What is the matter, Dora?" he cried. "Are you ill or frightened? You look like a ghost."
She made no reply, and her husband, thinking she had relapsed into one of her little fits of temper, sighed heavily and bade her good night.
Poor, foolish, jealous heart--she never lay down to rest!
She had quite resolved she would go and meet the husband who was tired of her and the woman who lured him away. She would listen to all they had to say, and then confront them. No thought of the dishonor of such a proceeding struck her. Poor Dora was not gifted with great refinement of feeling--she looked upon the step she contemplated rather as a triumph over an enemy than a degradation to herself. She knew the place in the grounds where they should be sure to meet. Miss Charteris called it her bower; it was a thick cl.u.s.ter of trees under the shade of which stood a pretty, rustic seat; and Dora thought that, if she placed herself behind the trees, she would be able to hear all unseen.
Before Ronald partook of breakfast, Dora had quitted the house on her foolish errand. She knew the way to the house and the entrance to the garden. She had no fear; even were she discovered there, no one could surmise more than that she was resting on her way to the house. She crouched behind the trees and waited. It was wrong, weak, and wicked; but there was something so pitiful in the white face full of anguish, that one would hardly know whether to pity or blame her.
The sunshine reached her, the birds were singing in the trees, the flowers were all blooming--she, in her sorrow and desolation, heeded nothing. At length she saw them--Valentine in her white morning dress, her beautiful face full of deep, earnest emotion, and Ronald by her side. As she surmised, they walked straight to the trees, and Valentine signed to Ronald to take a seat by her side. Sweetly and clearly every word she uttered sounded to Ronald, but they fell like drops of molten lead on the jealous heart of Ronald"s wife.
"You must try," Valentine was saying; "I used to think you would be a hero. You are proving yourself a very weak and erring man."
Dora could not distinguish Ronald"s words so plainly; he said something about life and its mistakes.
"I told you once," said Valentine, "that the man who could endure so bravely the consequences of his own actions was a true hero. Grant the worst--that you have made a mistake. You must make the best you can of it, and you are not doing that now."
"No," he said gravely. "I am very unhappy--more so than you can imagine, Valentine. Life seems to have lost all its charms for me. I had such great hopes once, but they are all dead now."
"You are too young to say that," she replied; "a little courage, a little patience, and all will be well. If it comforts you to know that my warmest, deepest sympathy is with you--"
Valentine Charteris never finished her sentence; a pale, angry face and dark, gleaming eyes full of pa.s.sion suddenly flashed before her.
"You may spare your pity, Miss Charteris," cried a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Why have you made my husband dissatisfied with me? Why have you taken his love from me? Why do you write notes asking him to meet you, that you may both speak evil and wrong of his low-born wife?"
"Hush!" said Ronald, sternly, grasping her arm. "Stop those wild words, Dora! Are you mad?"
"No, not yet," she cried; "but this false woman will drive me so!"
Then Miss Charteris rose, her calm, grand face unruffled, not a quiver on her proud lips.
"Stay, Miss Charteris, one moment, I pray you," said Ronald, "while my wife apologizes for her folly."
"It is all true," cried Dora. "She wrote and asked you to meet her here."
"Dora," said her husband, gravely, "did you read the letter Miss Charteris wrote to me?"
"I did," she replied.
"And you deliberately came here to listen to what she had to say to me?" he continued. "You deliberately listened to what you were never intended to hear?"