PLAYING WITH HEARTS
He was a cripple, without education or any accomplishments, and it was wrong in Mary Mackey to encourage the boy in falling head over heels in love with her, but she was only a school girl, with a desire for romance and excitement, and Lyndal Mason, with his boyish adoration and loyalty was just what she wanted to make life tolerable. In a way she liked Lyndal, because he was full of romantic and heroic tales of adventure, most of the tales being coined to suit the occasion.
I often wonder why boys, without future prospects or opportunity to make life a success, are always falling seriously in love, with thoughts of matrimony in the near future.
Looking back to my own early boyhood days, I can see myself in love with girls who only laughed at my grotesque aspirations. I never once thought of the responsibilities that go with matrimony. I only knew that there was one girl on earth I could not live without possessing her love. But I did live through it all, after discovering that she did not care a fig for me. I always took consolation by falling in love with some other girl. By the time I was eighteen years old, I had been slighted and jilted so often that I began to realize my worth—or worthlessness, rather.
It was different with Lyndal, because Mary encouraged him and led him on. She even sent him an invitation to her graduation at the high school where she attended, and where Lyndal often called on her. I remember now that he came to me and asked for a job to earn some money to buy Mary a graduation present. I remember still how hard he worked and how pleased he was at sight of the money he had earned. He bought her a pretty little pin, and the superstitious told him it would prick the love bubble and let out all her affections.
He sent his present by mail, for Mary’s parents were trying to break up the youthful flirtation, and had forbidden her to encourage the young man any longer. He sat away back in the school room on the commencement night, but not too far back to notice the fact that she was not wearing the pin he gave her as a graduation present. No, but at her throat she wore the gold pin Oliver Birdsall had given her. He knew the pin because he saw young Birdsall buy it. This young man was the son of wealthy parents, and would be very acceptable to Mary’s parents. Lyndal saw his rival throw a bouquet of carnations at the feet of Mary at the conclusion of her address. She picked it up and smiled her thanks back to Oliver, and Lyndal read his fate in that smile—Mary Mackey was forever out of his reach.
Oh, the agony of the moments that followed that revelation. Had Mary ever dreamed of the sorrow she was creating for the poor boy when she led him on, would she have done so?
Playing with human hearts is a very dangerous game, yet some heartless, thoughtless people take great delight in love conquests. They find a morbid pleasure in the pain suffered by others. To have some one plainly longing to possess them, satisfies their vanity. Youth is cruel and heartless. To feel that hearts are aching for their smiles is food for their ambition. They want to be heart breakers and the destroyers of peace. The triumphant look Mary glanced at Lyndal as she passed out of the school room on Birdsall’s arm, brought comfort to her giddy soul.
Did she ever regret it? It is hard to tell. Some people love notoriety and to have some one die for them is the climax to earthly triumph. I have often tried to picture in my mind the feelings of poor crippled Lyndal Mason as he walked home through the darkness of the night, with a denser darkness falling like a pall of gloom all around his throbbing heart.
In the morning he did not come downstairs at the usual hour, and when his mother went to his room, she noticed a peculiar odor of laudanum on the air. With a wail of injured mother love she fell upon his stiffened form and kissed his white face in a frenzy of despair. Could Mary Mackey have seen this sad picture, would she have been sorry? I do not know. They say she looked stunned when presented with the message written by Lyndal on that fatal night. It was written with an unsteady hand, and said: “Good-bye Mary—your plaything is at rest.”