Kitabı oku: «Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XXXII.
IT WAS THE OVERFLOWING DROP OF SORROW IN THE CUP THAT ALREADY BRIMMED OVER
"Alone with my hopeless sorrow,
No other mate I know!
I strive to awake tomorrow,
But the dull words will not flow.
I pray—but my prayers are driven
Aside by the angry Heaven,
And weigh me down with woe!"
Young, beautiful, penniless, and alone in the world! Oh, what a cruel fate!
Dainty realized it in all its bitterness when she arrived in Richmond that dull October day, and found the first snow of the season several inches deep on the ground, making her shiver with cold in her thin summer gown and straw hat.
But her heart was warm with the thought of the dear mother she was going to rejoin.
What a glad reunion it would be for both in spite of her bitter troubles, when, clasped in that dear mother's arms, she should lay her weary head on that dear breast, and sob out all her grief to sympathizing ears.
She had a little money in a small purse that Franklin had forced her to take as a loan, and she hired a cab to take her to her old home, where she had not a doubt of still finding her mother.
Alas! what was her horror to find the small house burned to the ground!
Dismissing the cab, she started on a round of the neighborhood, seeking news of the dear one.
But there were new neighbors in the sparsely settled place, and no one knew anything about the little lady who had kept boarders at the house on the corner.
Half frozen with the bitter cold, she dragged herself to the corner grocery, thinking that Mr. Sparks could surely give her some information.
His stolid, well-fed face was the first familiar one she had met, and she wondered why he wore that broad band of crape about his coat-sleeve.
"Is it really you, Miss Chase? Well, well! you're quite a stranger! Been ill? You don't look as blooming as when you went away in the summer. Well, it was hard on you losing your little mother in that cruel fashion! But death is no respecter of persons. He robbed me of my ailing wife about the same time your mother was called. What! you don't understand? Bless me! the girl's dropped like I'd shot her! Ailsa! Ailsa!" he called in alarm, as he picked up the unconscious girl, and hurried with her to the back of the store, which was also his dwelling.
Then a pretty, brown-eyed girl, sitting with several noisy children, sprang up, and cried in wonder:
"What is the matter?"
"Here's your old neighbor and school-mate, Ailsa, little Dainty Chase. She came into the store, and I was talking to her about the death of my wife and her mother, when she dropped in a sort of fit. See to her, will you, while I run back to my customers?"
Pretty Ailsa Scott hastened to resuscitate her old school-mate, and when she revived, was startled to hear her sob, hysterically:
"I came to find my mother, Ailsa. I have been lost from her for wretched months; but your step-father told me she was dead! Oh, it can not be true! God would not be so cruel!"
Ailsa Scott had passed through the recent loss of her own mother, and she knew what a blow it would be to Dainty when she heard the cruel truth; but there was no escaping it, so she clasped her gentle arms about the stricken girl, saying sadly:
"It makes my heart ache for you, dear Dainty, but it would be useless to deceive you. About the time that mother lay in her last sickness it was rumored that your mother came back here the very day after the house was burned. I did not see her myself, but it was in all the papers that she went suddenly insane, and after wandering wildly about the city all day, calling for you, took poison and died in an alley. I do not know where she is buried, for mother was so very ill, and died the same week. Since then I've had my heart and hands both full with the care of the children, and teaching school, too, for I would not depend on my step-father for a penny. You know"—whispering—"I always hated him, and there wasn't much love lost between us. Indeed, I wouldn't have stayed here a day after mother's death only for my little half-brothers and sisters. He had no relations to help him, and hired help is not very reliable. He keeps a servant, but they tell me she is unkind to the children when I'm at school. If you have no friends to go to, dear, I wish you would stay with me awhile, and look after the little ones while I'm away."
It was a delicate offer of a shelter, for Ailsa's eyes had taken in the poverty of her guest, and Dainty was but too glad of a refuge in which to nurse her deep despair.
When Ailsa informed her step-father questioningly of her offer, he smiled approval, and made Dainty welcome in his simple home, while tender-hearted Ailsa soothed her all she could in the bitterness of her bereavement.
"We are both orphans, dear, and we can sympathize with each other," she said, tenderly, and helped her friend to get some neat mourning gowns, in which she looked so frail and lily-like that she seemed to be fading away like a broken flower.
She tended patiently on the little children and won their love, and the exuberant gratitude of their father, this latter so effusive that it grew irksome to the sorrowful, reserved girl.
"Oh, Ailsa, I do not wish to seem ungrateful, but I dislike the man as much as you do, and his attentions are getting too pointed to be agreeable. I am afraid I shall have to leave you and the dear children, much as I love you," she sighed, in December, after two quiet months in the little house; and her friend rejoined, indignantly:
"I see he is trying to court you, although his wife, my dear mother, has been dead but a few months. Oh, why did she ever marry such a brute? I believe he broke her heart, for it was a strange decline of which she died. He was always flirting with his women customers, and scolded his wife harshly when she objected. He made her bitterly unhappy, the coarse, unfaithful wretch, and that is why I hate him so for my own papa never spoke an unkind word to her up to the day of his death. You will have to repulse him, but not too unkindly to arouse his enmity."
But the crisis came suddenly the next day while Ailsa was at school. Mr. Sparks boldly proposed marriage to the indignant girl.
Her blue eyes flashed disdain upon him, as she cried:
"How can you be so coarse and unfeeling, sir, showing so little respect to the memory of the wife dead but a few months?"
"She is as dead now as she will be in ten years hence!" he replied, with a grin that filled her with disgust; while he added, wheedlingly: "But I know how particular women folks are over these trifles, and I would have waited till spring before I spoke to you on the subject, but the fact is, the neighbors are gossiping about my keeping house with two pretty girls, and neither one any kin to me. So I thought I'd better marry one of them, and shut scandal's mouth. And as for Ailsa, I never liked her. She is always throwing up to me that her pa was a nicer man than I am. But as for you, Dainty, I worship the very ground you walk on, and I'll marry you to-morrow if you'll say the word."
"I can't marry you, sir. I—I—oh I am going right away, Mr. Sparks! I couldn't breathe the same air with a man that was so disrespectful to his first wife's memory as to court another in three months after her death!" the young girl cried, in passionate disgust, arousing such bitter spite that the rejected suitor cast courtesy to the winds, rejoining, hotly:
"Go, then, Miss Pert, and the sooner the better! Shall I call a wagon to take your trunk?" sarcastically.
"You know I have no trunk, Mr. Sparks, but I will pack my valise at once, and perhaps you will let it stay till I can take it away. I must rent a room somewhere first," she murmured.
"No; take it with you, I say. Your clothes might get contaminated breathing the same air with me!" he answered, angrily.
So presently Dainty went away in the teeth of a howling winter storm, without a penny in her purse, or a shelter for her head, while the little ones sobbed out to Ailsa when she returned that bad papa had driven sweet Dainty away.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A NEW HOME
Dainty dragged herself slowly along the snowy street, almost exhausted by the weight of the hand-bag; and she wondered pathetically if it might not be best to follow her mother's example, and seek refuge from life's woes by the straight gate of death?
"Dear mother, if I only knew where to find the lonely grave where strangers laid you, I would stretch myself upon it and die!" she sobbed, the tears in her cheeks mixing with the melting snow, as it flew into her pale face, driven by the bleak December gale.
She crept presently into a quiet area-way, and somewhat sheltered from the driving storm, pondered on what she was to do now, without friends and without money, in a cold, suspicious world.
Presently she heard girlish chatter and tittering, and glancing through a window, saw several young girls busy at sewing-machines, directed by an angular spinster whom she took to be a dress-maker.
A sudden temptation seized her, and she rapped timidly on the basement door, bringing the spinster hurriedly to it.
"Do you want a dress made?" she inquired, glancing at Dainty's hand-bag.
"No, madame. I am in search of work. Do you wish another hand to sew?" faltered Dainty.
"Um! yes—I don't know. Bring in your valise, and let us talk it over;" ushering her into a tiny, cozy kitchen, where they could talk in private.
"Now, then, what's your name, and how came you out hunting work in the face of such weather? Tell the truth," she said, suspiciously; and Dainty obeyed.
"I have been employed to help nurse some children, and was discharged to-day. My name is Miss Chase."
"Did you bring a recommendation?" sharply.
"No, ma'am; but I think I can refer you to Miss Ailsa Scott, on this same street. It was her mother's children I was nursing; but the father sent me away."
"I know Mr. Sparks. Why did he send you away?"
"I would rather not tell."
"Then I can not give you work!" curtly.
"Oh, madame, I am ashamed to tell you! The man wanted to marry me, and his poor wife dead but a few months! I refused with scorn, and he drove me away," the girl answered, wearily.
"Humph! I can't see what he wanted with a chit like you for a wife," the spinster returned, tossing her false frizzes disparagingly, and adding: "I do need another hand, but the pay is too much. I can not afford it."
"Oh, madame, I would work for my board awhile, if you will let me stay here!" pleaded Dainty, eagerly; and the woman answered:
"I don't know but that would suit me very well. I live here by myself, all the girls going home in the evenings. You may take off your things, and I'll get some work ready for you. But, mind, I'll call on Ailsa Scott to-night, and unless you have spoken the truth, out you go in the morning."
"I have only spoken the truth, madame," Dainty sighed, as she obeyed the commands, and soon found herself seated among the busy sewing girls, basting away on a ruffle, and thanking God in her heart for even this poor shelter that must be paid for with constant toil.
The girls all seemed to be gay enough, in spite of their poverty; but Dainty, poor, nervous girl, was glad when they went away at sunset, and left her alone with Miss White, as she found the name of her employer to be.
The spinster was not more than forty, and rather good-looking, in spite of her angularity. She asked Dainty many questions about Sparks, betraying quite a lively interest in the widower; and by and by she dressed herself smartly in a black silk gown and red bonnet, and went off to get Dainty's character from Ailsa Scott, leaving the girl alone in the house, save for some tenants in the upper part.
Dainty was very tired and sad; but she washed the tea-things and put them away, and lay down on the lounge in the sewing-room, with a sigh of relief at the chance to rest.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THROWN ON THE WORLD
Poor Dainty was always tired and sad now. She had never been very strong since her illness in the mountains.
Her face was always thin and pale, her blue eyes hollow, with dark circles beneath them, while her breath was short and palpitating. She knew that she was strangely ill, and had a fancy that she was going into a rapid decline.
Ailsa Scott wanted her to see a doctor, but she always refused to do so.
"I want to die! I would rather not take any medicine from the best doctor in the world!" she exclaimed, rebelliously.
She had not told her friend the strange story of her secret marriage, fearing lest the threatened revenge of Mrs. Ellsworth should find her out even this far away; but Ailsa guessed well at some sad secret, and pitied the poor girl with all her gentle heart.
By and by Miss White returned in a very good humor indeed, saying that Miss Scott said everything was all right, and she would call to see her friend on her way from school the next day.
"I saw Mr. Sparks, too, and really, he is the most charming man I ever met," she simpered, adding: "I don't see how you could repulse his addresses, Miss Chase; he is so handsome and agreeable. Then, too, poor man, his sweet little children stand so much in need of a mother that he was excusable for haste, though he ought to have picked an older woman than you."
"I should say that you, Miss White, would be the most suitable woman in the world for him," Dainty ventured, with a faint smile.
"Thank you for the compliment. I wonder if he thinks so, too? He was certainly quite attentive, and I didn't let him guess I knew he was looking for a wife; but I made up my mind to buy my groceries from him in future," smirked the delighted spinster, thinking what a little fool that girl was to refuse such a man.
Ailsa came next day, and was indignant when she heard how her step-father had treated Dainty, while she rejoiced that the girl had found such a refuge, for she believed that Miss White was in the main a very good woman.
"But, oh! Dainty, she has set her cap at Sparks, and I believe her flatteries have made an impression on him that will heal the wounds your scolding gave. Depend on it, that will be a match, and, as I believe she would make a real good step-mother to my little half-brothers and sisters, you and I will rent rooms and live together like sisters after the wedding!" she cried, cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the pale, lily-like face over which the tears streamed as the girl sighed:
"Oh, Ailsa, you are like an angel to me!"
"I am very sorry," continued Ailsa, "that you have promised to work for your board, for you need a little money as you go along—all girls do—and when I found you were gone without a cent I was nearly crazy. I gave old Sparks such a lecture as he will never forget, and I fairly hugged that primpy old maid when she came to tell me where you were. Now, dear, take this ten dollars from your sister Ailsa, and use it in time of need. No, you shall not refuse it, or you may be sorry for it if Miss White should turn you out in the streets some day as heartlessly as old Sparks did."
She had not the least idea of such a thing happening again, but she wanted to frighten Dainty into taking the gift, and she succeeded, after which she left, promising to see her friend often.
The weeks came and went, and Dainty toiled at her sewing with aching limbs and a heavy heart filled with dire forebodings that she dare not utter aloud to any human being, even gentle Ailsa, and at night her lonely pillow was wet with tears, and her piteous cry was ever:
"Oh, mother, mother, if only you were with me now to pity and help me in my trouble!"
For awhile Miss White was quite kind, for at the bottom of her heart she felt secretly grateful to the girl for having in a way brought about her acquaintance with Sparks—an acquaintance that she prosecuted with much vigor, running in and out daily for trifles from the store, till her broad flatteries and fondness for the children awakened a warm sentiment in his heart, and he began to pay her such pleasing attentions as calling on Sunday evenings for social chats, Dainty always keeping out of the way, reluctant to meet him again, and quite unaware that in his spite he was doing all he could to turn Miss White's heart against her hapless protege.
March came with its bleak winds and occasional hints of spring, but Dainty's heart sank heavier day by day, her cheeks grew more pale, her eyes more heavy, as she drooped over her work shivering, with the thick cape always wrapped about her form, and looking as if death would soon claim her as its own.
They were dark, sad days for Dainty, for the gay young girls, Miss White's assistants, began to shun her, and to look askance at the form always bundled up so closely from the winter cold. Two hands quit work abruptly and never returned, and the three others held private conversations with their employer, after which she came straight to Dainty, saying harshly:
"You wicked girl, you have imposed on me!"
Dainty was putting away the tea-things, and she started so violently that a china cup fell through her thin fingers and crashed upon the floor.
Miss White continued, angrily:
"I took you in as an honest girl and treated you kindly. In return you imposed on me, disgraced my house, and broke up my business!"
"Oh, madame!"
"Two of my best hands have quit me in disgust, and the other three threaten to go unless I turn you away at once. Do you know the reason, pray?"
Crimson with shame, Dainty dropped forlornly before her with down-dropped eyes, speechless with fear, and the woman continued, sharply:
"Take off that cape you've been shrouded in all the winter, pretending to suffer from the cold, and let me see if it is really hiding your disgrace."
"Oh, spare me!"
"Do as I bid you! There! I've dragged it off in spite of you! Oh, for shame—shame! How could you be so wicked with that innocent face?"
"Oh, I am not as bad as you think! I—I—"
"Hush! You can't excuse your disgrace. Mr. Sparks told me all along you were a bad girl, and told me when we became engaged I must send you to the right-about before we were married. But, somehow, I couldn't believe ill of you, till I see it now with my own eyes."
"Oh! may I stay till to-morrow? You will not drive me out into the streets to-night?" imploringly.
"I ought to do it to pay you for cheating me so; but I'm a Christian woman, and, somehow, I pity you, and I can't be hard on you. You may stay to-night; but you must leave in the morning directly after breakfast. There's a hospital in this city for poor girls that's gone astray like you. You can go there, and the good doctor will take you in and let you stay till your child is born. Then you can put it in the foundlings' home and some good people may adopt it."
"Merciful God, have pity!" shrilled over the girl's tortured lips, as she sank on her knees, overcome by the horror of her thoughts.
Her child—Love Ellsworth's lawful heir—to be born in a home for "girls gone astray," and placed in a foundlings' home, to be "adopted by some good people." Had she come to this? She, whose future had promised so radiantly nine brief months ago! A wild prayer to Heaven broke from her pallid lips:
"Oh, God! take us both—the forsaken mother and child—to heaven!"
"It's too late to take on now. Better behaved yourself right at first," the old maid admonished her; adding, soothingly: "Go to bed now, and I'll send to-morrow for the good doctor to come and take you to the lying-in hospital."
But in the gray dawn of the cold morning she found the bed empty, and poor Dainty gone.
CHAPTER XXXV.
GRAND COMPANY
A strange chance, or, perhaps, a kindly Providence, brought Sarah Ann Peters and old black mammy together that spring at the railway station near Ellsworth, where both were then living.
The indefatigable white woman was laid low with la grippe, and her husband, in seeking a maid-of-all-work to fill her place, could find no one to take the situation but the aged Virginia.
As six of the large brood of sons were away at school, mammy undertook "to do for the rest," as she expressed it; and the last of March found her domesticated at the six-roomed frame house on the edge of the woods, a mile from the station.
Here the thrifty Peters family had lived for ten years throughout the winters, removing each spring to the lonely saw-mill in the mountains, where by hard, unremitting toil they succeeded in earning enough money to send their children to good schools in the cold weather.
Already Peters was making his arrangements to remove to the woods in April, when his good wife was stricken with a heavy cold that laid her low during the last three weeks of March; though her sturdy constitution triumphed then, and she sat up the first day of April, a little pale and wasted, but, as she expressed it, "feeling just as stout as ever, but glad to have mammy there awhile yet to take the heft of the work off her tired shoulders."
In her secret heart black mammy felt cruelly hurt at having come down, in her old age, to work for ordinary "po' w'ite trash;" but she had fallen on evil days in this latter end of her pilgrimage.
After the terrible misfortune that had befallen Love Ellsworth, his heartless step-mother had made full use of her power to oppress all who had taken the part of poor Dainty Chase.
For many years mammy, with her son and her daughter-in-law, had inhabited rent free, their cabin on the Ellsworth estate, Love also allowing them the use of a patch of ground for their garden. The negroes having belonged to his ancestors in slavery times, he felt that this kindness was but their honest due.
But no sooner had Mrs. Ellsworth usurped the reins of government than she proceeded to drive away the poor negroes from the cabin. Thereupon mammy's son and his wife removed to the coal mines of Fayette County, and left the old woman to shift for herself.
Though she did her work faithfully for Mrs. Peters, she did not fail to impress on the good woman the superiority of the position from which she had fallen, and the grandeur of the family that had formerly owned her, always adding that "Massa Love wouldn't a let her kem to sech a pass ef he had kep' his mind."
Mrs. Peters, with the kindest heart and warmest sympathies in the world, listened patiently to black mammy's tales, till the loquacious old negress at last confided to her the whole story of her young master's blighted love dream, down to the moment when Franklin had brought Dainty Chase to the station, bought her ticket, and sent her on to her mother in Richmond.
Then the interested Mrs. Peters also had a story to tell, for she had recognized in the heroine of the story the lovely patient she had tended so faithfully, last fall, at the logging camp in the woods.
"And I believe she told the truth to that wicked woman, that she was secretly married to Mr. Ellsworth," she affirmed. "For, Virginny, I'll tell you a secret that hain't never passed my lips before, not even to Peters, and I don't often keep secrets from my good old man. But this is it: I more nor suspected that that pore young chile was in a way to become a mother."
"Lord, have mercy!" ejaculated black mammy, and the tears rolled down her fat, black cheeks.
After that the two women could talk of little else but sweet Dainty and her sorrowful plight—an unacknowledged wife soon to be a mother.
They counted up the months on their fingers, and found that the important event was almost at hand—must happen within the next two weeks—and mammy exclaimed:
"I see it all plain as daylight now! Massa Love was 'fraid sumpin' would happen to 'vent de marriage, so he took his sweetheart off on de sly, an' dey got married; den he sent me home an' fix up dat room nex' to his own fer his bride, so 'at he kin tek keer ob her ebery night—dat's it. An' den dey bofe feel so easy in dey min's, little finkin' what turrible fings gwine happen on de birfday. Oh! ain't it de awfules' 'fliction you ebber hear on, Mis' Peters? Dat pore man wif de bullet in his haid, an' his senses gone, an' dat pore wife druv away in poverty, an' dem wretches rollin' in gold dat belongs to Massa Love an' his sweet bride! An' to fink dat I is cheated, too, out o' a hunnerd dollars! fer I done match dat torn piece ob torchon lace to Sheila Kelly's night gownd long ago, an' ef Massa Love was in his senses, I could claim dat big reward."
That night, the last of March, Mrs. Peters confided the whole story to her surprised and sympathizing husband.
"I never heard anything to ekal it!" he declared, indignantly; adding: "I wish sumpin' could be done to git that poor young wife her rights, and I'm willin' to spend time and money helpin' ef I only knew which end to begin at! Them wimmen at Ellsworth ought to be tarred and feathered and rid on a fence rail, I swow! But likely they'll make it hot for any one as tries to bring home their sins to 'em."
The next day he rode over to the station at sunset on his old gray mare Stonewall, for some groceries from the store, and the supper things being cleared away, mammy took her black pipe and sat down by the roadside to smoke, just outside the front gate.
By and by, through the cloud of smoke and the purple haze of twilight, she saw him returning with his bundles, and, sitting behind him on old Stonewall's back was a woman, whom he presently lifted down, exclaiming, cheerfully:
"Git up, mammy. Come out to the gate, Sairy Ann! I've brought you gran' company from the train, and you must spread a feast and rejoice! Come in, and welcome, Mrs. Ellsworth!"
"Oh, mammy! I've come back to you to die!" sobbed Dainty, falling wearily on the old woman's ample breast.
