Sweet Violet

Suddenly the door opened and Amber entered the room.

The handsome brunette looked as gay and smiling as if she, and not Violet, were the prospective bride.

“Ah, Violet, moping here all alone! What is the matter?” she cried, lightly.

Violet turned her dark-blue eyes from contemplating the distant hills, and fixed them on the smiling, treacherous face of her cousin, sighing:

“Ah, Amber, I am so unhappy!”

“Unhappy? When a few hours more will see you Cecil’s bride! I am surprised at you, child.”

“Oh, Amber, there is a dreadful weight on my heart—a foreboding of evil that I cannot reason away!”

“Perhaps you are repenting your promise to Cecil.”

“No, no!”

“You have had an interview with Mr. Castello. Perhaps his handsome face and the splendid diamonds he gave you, combined with his ardent pleadings, have caused your heart to waver between him and Cecil,” continued Amber, in a bantering tone.

Violet looked at her reproachfully and cried:

“How can you dream of such a thing, Amber? I hate the man and his jewels. Grandpapa forced me to go down and see him, but I told him candidly how much I hated him, and that I would rather die than marry him!”

“But he did not withdraw his suit for your hand?”

“No,” Violet answered, with a deep and heavy sigh, and again turned her eyes toward the sky with a sorrowful look, while she restlessly turned the opal ring upon her finger.

Amber’s eyes watched the gleaming jewel with interest and presently she said:

“I am sorry you feel so blue, my dear, but I suppose it is the suspense of waiting that makes you so nervous. But it is several hours yet before we can start for Washington, so I will beguile your impatience by telling you the story of the opal ring you wear.”

“Has it really a story, Amber?” the girl asked, listlessly.

“Yes, a very thrilling one. If I were a novelist, I could make a charming story of it; but I have no talent that way, so I must put it in plain words.”

Violet’s sad eyes began to look brighter. Everything about the Grants interested her, because she loved Cecil so dearly.

“Ah, I see you are looking brighter already,” laughed Amber. “Well, now I am about to begin. Once upon a time——”

“Yes,” Violet murmured, encouragingly, for her cousin had suddenly paused thoughtfully.

“Well, once upon a time,” resumed Amber, “a girl as young and beautiful as you wore that opal ring. Her name was Linda—Linda Grant—and she was young and gay and romantic, and as she was so charming, she had hosts of lovers; but, strange to say, none of them could win her favor. They said her mind was filled with visions of an ideal lover, grander and handsomer than any man she knew, and that for him she kept her heart.”

“Just as I kept mine for Cecil,” murmured Violet, tenderly.

“Yes,” Amber answered, with a frown on her averted face. Then she continued:

“Suddenly this beautiful Linda Grant, the boast of this whole country, disappeared as strangely as if the earth had opened and swallowed her.”

“Oh!” breathed Violet, in sorrow and dismay.

“It was on a Hallow Eve,” went on Amber. “The Grants were rich in those days, and there had been a grand party at Bonnycastle that night. They said afterward that Linda Grant that night was gayest of the gay and fairest of the fair. She wore pink brocaded silk in a court-train, with white lace draperies looped with wild roses, little high-heeled pink slippers, and pearl ornaments. On her finger glowed this opal ring, a mysterious gift from some unknown lover who had sent it with a perfumed note that declared himself to be the Prince Charming for whom Linda was waiting. The mysterious unknown begged her to wear the opal as their betrothal ring, until he came to claim her, which should be very soon. This romantic proceeding delighted the young girl, and she wore the opal ring for the first time at the Hallow Eve party. At midnight she left her friends with a light excuse, promising to return in a few minutes, and—was never seen again!”

“Her mysterious lover had claimed her,” breathed Violet, in a voice of awe.

“So it was believed for a long time, when all search for her had proved futile, but years passed away before it was learned that death itself had claimed the romantic little beauty that night.”

“Death?” cried Violet, trembling.

“Her remains were found five years afterward in an old unused well, and the explanation was perfectly clear. The romantic girl, believing in the witcheries of Hallow Eve, must have slipped away at midnight, when the moon was full, to look for her lover’s face in the old well. She probably lost her balance and fell in, and the mystery of her fate remained unknown all that time.”

“Poor Linda!” sobbed Violet, with tears upon her cheeks. “And the lover, Amber—did he ever come to seek his betrothed?”

“No, never; and when Linda was found in the well, with the opal ring on her skeleton hand, superstitious people shook their heads and declared the ring was of evil origin, that the Evil One himself had sent it to summon Linda to her dreadful death. Many, many strange stories were told by the credulous country people, and especially the silly slave-folk, but the one most generally credited was the story of Linda’s singing.”

“Her singing!” Violet echoed, in affright.

“Yes, she had an exquisite voice, and sang like a nightingale, ’tis said, and after her death she assumed the part of a banshee at Bonnycastle. It is said that whenever trouble or death hovers over that household, a phantom voice is heard singing over the old tower, in tones so sweet and sad and ghostly, that the very blood of the listener is curdled in the veins.”

Violet shuddered and looked with new interest at the ring on her hand—the mysterious betrothal ring of poor romantic Linda, who had met so terrible a fate.

“Does it frighten you to wear the ring now that you know its gruesome history?” inquired Amber, adding: “I am not a coward myself, but nothing could induce me to wear that ring. For one thing, the opal is always considered unlucky, and you must acknowledge that it brought misfortune to poor Linda Grant. Besides, I should always be wondering if it really had an evil origin, and it would frighten me to remember the years in which it was hidden from sight in the old well on that dead girl’s skeleton hand.”

She expected to see Violet tear the magnificent jewel from her finger, and cast it away in horror, but she was disappointed, and chagrined, for the fair young girl raised it to her lips and kissed it as though it were sacred.

“How different we are, Amber,” she said, softly. “All that you have told me only makes this ring dearer. My heart aches for poor dear Linda, and the lover who could never claim her for his own. I am sure he was a real, living lover, and probably her disappearance broke his heart. Their ill-fated love makes it sacred to me; and, besides, I must always remember that it is a pledge of my Cecil’s love, and that so long as it keeps its radiance undimmed, his love for me remains unchanged.”

And as she had kissed the ring first for the sake of hapless dead Linda, she kissed it again for Cecil, her noble lover, with the love-light in his dark, tender eyes, and the music in his wooing voice.

Amber was chagrined and baffled in her longing to see Violet cast the ring away in fear and disgust. So far her clever plot for possessing herself of the jewel had utterly failed, and her hazel eyes flashed malignantly under their drooping lashes.

Trying to keep the bitter anger out of her voice, she added:

“I will tell you how that old story was recalled to my mind to-day. Phebe told me that she met Mrs. Grant’s old servant, Uncle Bob, down the road this morning, and the old darky was in a state of excitement because the ghost had been singing over the tower last night, and Mrs. Grant was almost in hysterics to-day looking for some dreadful misfortune to befall the family.”

“May Heaven watch over that beautiful lady and her noble son, my beloved, and keep them from misfortune!” breathed Violet, turning her sweet, blue eyes heavenward.

Amber gave a low, sarcastic laugh, and exclaimed:

“It would seem as if the Grant’s family ghost considers your approaching marriage to Cecil in the light of a misfortune.”

“Ah, Amber, do not say such a thing, even in jest, for it would break my heart to bring trouble to my darling Cecil!” almost sobbed Violet, in nervous alarm.

“Of course I was jesting, child, although I fancy that the proud Mrs. Grant might be better pleased if her son had married some rich heiress, who could help him redeem the family estates, than a poor girl who will be only a burden to them both. But it cannot be helped, since Cecil has chosen you, and I consider that the banshee showed bad taste in bewailing the affair,” Amber rejoined, in a tone of delicate sarcasm.

“Oh, Amber, I do not believe that Cecil’s mother is at all mercenary, for I have heard it several times hinted that she refused our rich grandfather several years ago.”

“She must be a very silly woman if she did, for grandpapa’s money would have restored old Bonnycastle to its original splendor. But perhaps she thought Cecil would be sure to marry an heiress. Won’t she be furious when he brings home Judge Camden’s disinherited granddaughter as his bride!” said Amber, determined to torture her cousin all she could in a sly way.

She was succeeding well, for Violet burst into low, nervous sobbing, hiding her lovely face in her little white hands.

“Pshaw, Violet, do not cry like a baby. I was only teasing you, and if I did not approve of the marriage, I certainly would not have proposed the elopement,” Amber cried, reprovingly, and added:

“Do you know it is but two hours now until we start? You had better lie down and get a little sleep, Violet, so as to look fresh and pretty for the wedding. I will leave you now; and, remember, I will be back in two hours for you; you must be ready in your traveling dress and hat, and we will slip away without any one knowing.”

She went away, and Violet lay down as she was bidden, but sleep refused to visit her eyes.

Amber’s artful innuendoes had made her cousin ten times more unhappy than before. The shadow of a lowering sorrow, heavy but inexplicable, hovered with black vulture-like wings over her heart, filling it with a nameless terror. Frightened and despondent, she rose and knelt down to pray instead of sleep, asking her heavenly Father to be good to her and Cecil.