Kitabı oku: «Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XXXVI.
"ONLY TO SEE YOU, MY DARLING."

Oh, what a welcome Dainty received from the true hearts in that humble home!

They treated her like a queen, but so warm was their devotion, and so eager their interest, they soon drew from her lips all that had happened to her in Richmond.

The women's tears fell copiously, and even Hiram Peters could not help drawing the backs of his horny hands now and then across his kind, moist eyes, while he groaned:

"I swow you had troubles fit to kill you!"

"At the last I could bear my shame and misery no longer. I made up my mind to come back to West Virginia, and try to find some evidence of my marriage, that my child should not be born under a cloud of shame," said Dainty, sorrowfully.

"Poor lamb!" groaned mammy; and the others sighed in concert, for when they had heard all she could tell about her marriage, Mr. Peters was fain to confess that her prospects looked very dark.

"You see, Mrs. Ellsworth, madame," he said, proudly giving her her true name, bringing a flash of pleasure to her eyes, "that old man, the county clerk that must have issued the license, died soon after, and likewise the preacher of that little church in the woods; so, unless you can find out what became of the license, it will be a hard job to prove the marriage."

"I fear so," sobbed Dainty; then she added: "Do you think, mammy, that Mrs. Ellsworth is still unrelenting?"

"Hard as a stone, honey!"

"But perhaps if she knew the truth, that a child is to come of that secret marriage, she might relent and pity it enough to acknowledge me as Love's wife," sighed Dainty, anxiously.

But her listeners all persuaded her that such a thing was impossible. The woman would never acknowledge anything that would cause her to lose her grip on the wealth she was holding by a shameless fraud.

"Honey, don't yo' go nigh them deceitful wretches! Don't yo' even let them know that yo' are alive, or there'll be a new plot set on foot direckly 'ginst yo' sweet life and the one that's comin' too! Hab yo' forgot how the old 'oman shet yo' up in dat dark dungeon till yo' pisened yo'self, and how dem gals tried to burn yo' up in de ole cabin, and would hab 'ceeded, too, but for John Franklin breakin' in de winder and fetchin' yo' out—an' his face an' han's an' hair all scorched drefful!" expostulated mammy.

Among them all they persuaded her that it was better not to try to prove her rights than to lose her life.

"You stay here quietly long o' us, honey, and don't let no one know who you air, and arter your chile comes, you may leave it with me ef you wants, and I'll tek keer of it till the good Lord makes a better way for it. And all of us we'll pray and pray that good luck may come to you," exclaimed Mrs. Peters, piously, while her husband chimed in, fervently:

"You kin 'pend on us to be your firm fren's fer life, ma'am, and you air jist as welcome ter anythin' we got as any one of our nine boys!"

Oh, how their humble kindness went to her wounded heart, encouraging her to cry out, passionately:

"There is one thing I crave more than I ought on earth, and perhaps some one might manage it for me; it is to see my husband's face again!"

A dark cloud seemed suddenly to fall over them all, and she cried in dismay:

"Why do you all look so strange and frightened? Oh, my God! do not tell me he is dead!"

"No, deares', yo' husban' ain't dead!" sighed mammy, and burst into sudden loud sobs, as she added: "Dey done tooken him away dis larst week to New York, honey. Doctor Platt, dat good ole man, yo' know, and Franklin, his body-servant, as sabed yo' from de fire, yo' know. And yo' kain't nebber look on his face no mo', fer Doctor Platt say he was gettin' dang'ous an' might hurt somebuddy, so he 'suaded Missis Ellsworth to fasten him up in a 'sylum way off yonder, an' him'll nebber come home no mo'!"

CHAPTER XXXVII.
A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY

Fortune had indeed seemed to favor Mrs. Ellsworth.

Nearly nine months had passed since her step-son's attempted murder; and though his bodily health seemed good, no change for the better had taken place in his mental condition.

Another very pleasing fact was that Dainty Chase had never turned up again to annoy her with assertions of a secret marriage, to which she could produce no proof but her simple word. She wondered in her secret mind what had become of the girl, for her nieces were too prudent to confess to her the crime by which they supposed their beautiful cousin to have perished.

They suspected that while glad to have the girl out of the way, she might feel squeamish over downright murder.

So they decided that it was just as well not to tell her that they had tracked the hapless girl to the negro cabin, and having seen her fall senseless on the floor, had fired the ramshackle old place in front of both doors and fled.

As the cabin had burned completely to the ground, they supposed that their victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty consciences had never permitted them to venture near the debris to see if her charred bones remained a mute witness of their awful deed.

As the winter wore away and no more was heard of Dainty or her mother, they confidently looked on the girl as dead; but if their consciences reproached them for their sin, they allowed no sign of it to appear on their careless faces as they plunged into every gayety offered by their new position. The winter had been an epoch in their hitherto poverty-stricken lives, and they made the most of it, Mrs. Ellsworth giving them a lavish allowance, and permitting them to travel with friends wherever they chose.

Thus they had had a trip to California in December, and on returning in February had been given glimpses of the gay season in New York and Washington before returning in March to silent, gloomy Ellsworth, where the mistress had remained inflexibly on guard over her step-son, lest the doctors, peradventure, should do something to restore his mind.

"That meddlesome old Doctor Platt keeps on hoping for something to happen. The other physicians have given it up, and say that Love will be an idiot for life. He is sure that if the bullet could be removed, he would be restored; but I will not permit them to cut into the poor boy's head, and perhaps destroy his life as well as his reason," she often complained, until the old doctor gave up all hopes of gaining her consent to the operation that he wished performed.

But he still came to visit Love in a friendly way, although the young man continued in the same state of seeming hopeless idiocy, never improving with the lapse of time, until, in desperation, the old man, with Franklin's assistance, concocted a daring scheme.

He had read with contempt and abhorrence the mind of the woman, and knew that she wished to keep her step-son in his present state, and that no proposition looking to his cure would be entertained by the selfish creature who wished to keep her grip on the young man's property. She would rather see him dead than restored to his rich dower of brains and wealth.

So when, late in March, she was first informed by Franklin, and afterward by Doctor Platt himself, of a change for the worse in the patient, she was more pleased than sorry.

Love's condition was changing, they said, from simple idiocy to active insanity that would necessitate his removal from Ellsworth to a place of close confinement.

"He may develop at any moment a homicidal mania, and prove terribly dangerous to his attendants. Indeed, Franklin has grown nervous already over some of his more violent moods, and threatens to resign his place," said Doctor Platt.

This was indeed most welcome news for Mrs. Ellsworth. Nothing except Love's death could have pleased her better.

Though she had been fond of him once, his opposition to her will, and his contempt of her two favorite nieces, had turned her lukewarm fondness to active hate.

So it was hard for her to assume a look of concern when it was all she could do to keep from openly rejoicing. She dropped her face in her hands to keep the keen old doctor from openly reading its expression.

"It is a very delicate and peculiar case," continued Doctor Platt. "You can not place him in an idiot asylum, because he is not now an idiot—yet his lunacy is not developed enough to commit him for lunacy. At the same time, he may become violent at any time and—do murder! It is not right to keep him at Ellsworth with such terrible risks attached to his staying. I have a plan, if you choose to consider it. If not, you may consult other physicians."

"Let me hear your plan first," she answered, affably, in her secret joy.

"Let me take him to a private sanitarium in New York, well known to me as the best place in the United States for a person in his condition. It is a high-priced place, but you can afford it for the sake of the relief of mind you would experience in removing this threatening danger from Ellsworth, and in knowing that his hopelessly incurable insanity had the kindest treatment."

Those two words caught her instant attention.

"You honestly believe him hopelessly insane?" she cried.

"Yes," he replied; saying, inwardly: "God forgive me for lying, but it is in a righteous cause!"

In fact, he was quaking with fear lest she should suspect the motive lying at the bottom of his anxiety to take his patient to New York.

If she had been a well-read woman, he would have been afraid to risk such a plot; but he knew that she scarcely ever scanned the columns of a newspaper.

Otherwise she would have been cognizant of the new scientific discovery, one of the greatest of the nineteenth century triumphs, and most important to the medical cult—the discovery of the wonderful X-ray of light by the famous German savant, Professor Roentgen.

She would have known that by the operation of this X-ray the formerly dense human body could be made transparent enough to be seen through, revealing not only the skeleton with all its delicate mechanism, but the presence of every foreign element, so that already bullets had been located and removed from the bodies of patients who had suffered tortures from them for years. These wonderful facts filled the columns of newspapers and the pages of magazines. The whole world was wild with enthusiasm. It was the greatest and most beneficial discovery of the nineteenth century, they said, and Professor Roentgen's thoughtful brow was laureled with a fame that made him greater than a king.

Mrs. Ellsworth had never read a line about the X-ray. If you had asked her she would not have understood what you meant.

But every fiber of the intelligent old doctor's body vibrated with joy of the new discovery, and the hope that through its means his patient might be restored to health.

The dream that he dreamed night and day was to carry Lovelace Ellsworth to New York and have the bullet in his head located by means of the wonderful X-ray.

"Once located it might in all probability be removed, and your master restored to himself," he said confidentially to the clever Franklin, who rejoiced exceedingly at this little ray of hope in the darkness of his master's fate.

But realizing the deep interest Mrs. Ellsworth had in preventing Love's restoration to reason, they knew it was useless to tell her of the new discovery with any hope of her consent to having any experiment tried on her step-son.

Nothing remained to them but strategy, and they resorted to its use with flattering success.

Mrs. Ellsworth had had so many triumphs, that she regarded this one as only her due—a reward of her clever plotting, as it were.

The removal of Love to a sanitarium would be a great relief to her mind; and she jumped at the proposition with alacrity, even twitting the old doctor with her superior judgment.

"I told you all along that you were foolish ever to expect his recovery, and you see I was right."

"The women are always right," he replied, gallantly, in his joy at having gained his point.

So armed with a liberal check from her hand, the old doctor and Franklin journeyed to New York with the patient, in the hope of restoring his wrecked mind and of righting a great wrong.

For, removed from the influence of Mrs. Ellsworth's threat, the faithful servant decided that he would keep silence no longer. He confided to Doctor Platt the pathetic story of Dainty's return to Ellsworth, her claim to be Love's wife, her banishment by her wicked aunt, the wrong that Olive and Ela had attempted, and lastly, how, at the peril of his own life, he had rescued the poor girl from the burning cabin, and sent her away secretly to Richmond.

Doctor Platt listened aghast to these startling disclosures, and said, angrily:

"You should not have been intimidated by that wicked woman's threats, for such crimes as hers and her nieces' should be proclaimed from the house-tops, and punished as they deserve. I would give anything I own if you had brought that worse than widowed bride to me and given me the task of righting her cruel wrongs."

"She is no doubt safe with her mother, and your help now will be as welcome as it would have been last fall," replied Franklin, consolingly. So they postponed the search for the girl, who was presumably safe in Richmond, until after they had taken Lovelace to the New York doctors for treatment.

By the middle of April they met with a reward of their labors and the realization of their hopes in the complete success of the X-ray experiment on Love.

The murderer's bullet had not entered the victim's brain. It was imbedded in the thick part of the skull, and its pressure on the brain had benumbed the intellectual faculties, producing all the phenomena of idiocy.

A very delicate surgical operation removed the cause of trouble, and Lovelace Ellsworth took up life instantly again where he had left it off at the moment when the fatal bullet had pierced his head.

"My friends, I am here to tell you that a foul crime has been perpetrated; but the design of the guilty party will not succeed, thanks to precautions that I took two weeks ago in the fear of this treachery. My precious Dainty has been stolen away in the hope of preventing our marriage this morning, and a false story has been circulated that she has eloped with another. But Mrs. Ellsworth has overreached herself in her eagerness to forward the interests of Miss Peyton and Miss Craye. She will realize this fact when she hears that I was married secretly to Dainty Chase two weeks ago, and—" Here he rolled his large dark eyes around the room, and gave a start of surprise, faltering, "Where are they all—my wedding guests?"

The moment had come when he must learn all the cruel truth.

But they broke it to him as gently and favorably as they could, leaving out all of the worst, to be told when he was strong and well again.

The result was a terrible agitation, coupled with a passionate yearning to go at once in search of his missing bride.

But that was impossible, said the doctors. He must remain quietly at the hospital until the incision they had made in his head healed.

He took counsel with his noble friend, Doctor Platt, and the result was that two personals were sent to the leading newspapers of Virginia and West Virginia. One personal asked for news of the whereabouts of Miss Dainty Chase; the other for information regarding a marriage license issued in July to Lovelace Ellsworth and Dainty Chase. In both cases large rewards were offered, and the address was given fictitiously as "Fidelio, New York City."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GOOD NEWS

The two personals caught the eyes of Ailsa Scott the eighteenth day of April, as she was tying up a bundle in a copy of The Richmond Times several days old.

Her sad thoughts had been fixed on Dainty; for only to-day Miss White had called to acquaint her with Dainty's flight.

She had also mentioned the girl's bad behavior and delicate condition, blaming Ailsa for having recommended such a girl to her favor.

The young girl's brown eyes flashed with resentment as she answered:

"Miss White, I will not allow you to speak unkindly of my dear friend. She was very unhappy, I know, and, to speak plainly, I suspected her condition some time ago; but I would not wound her feelings by referring to it, hoping that she would see fit to explain matters herself later on. But she is a noble girl, and I have not lost confidence in her by what you tell me, for I believe Dainty was secretly married, and that the truth will come out some day."

"Perhaps you know where she is now? I feel very uneasy over her fate, and am sorry now that I spoke so harshly to the poor girl in my surprise!" exclaimed Miss White, softening under the influence of Ailsa's loving faith.

"Sorrow will not bring her back now. You should have shown a more Christian spirit to the unhappy girl, and perhaps she might have given you her confidence, showing you that she was not as bad as you thought. But I do not know where she is. You know, Miss White, I have had to nurse the dear little children through bad colds, and have not seen Dainty for over two weeks. Perhaps the poor girl thought I had forsaken her, too," added Ailsa, bursting into tears.

Miss White was a weak woman, but not a cruel one. Ailsa's distress moved her to such keen sympathy that she wept too, declaring that if only she could find the sweet, unfortunate child she would make amends for her unkindness.

"If you hear from her you'll let me know, Ailsa, won't you? And I shall tell Mr. Sparks he did wrong to try to turn me against Dainty. She is a good girl, I believe, after all, and I'll stand her friend, even after I'm married, if she will forgive me for last night," she said, before she went away.

Ailsa wept most bitterly, for she feared that it would be long ere she saw Dainty's sweet face again.

"She thinks I have forsaken her, and she will be too proud to let me know where she is," she thought.

Then came the startling discovery of the personals offering a reward for news of Dainty Chase, and of the marriage license that had been granted to her and Love Ellsworth.

Ailsa hunted up the back numbers of the newspapers, and found that the personals had been running more than a week, and that they were inserted in all the city journals.

She thought:

"Fidelio—that means faithful—so it must be some dear friend of Dainty's that wants to find her so badly—perhaps her husband; for I am bound to believe she was secretly married. So I will write to Fidelio, and tell him all I know of the dear girl's fate."

On the same day, almost the same hour, a pretty, sad-faced woman at the insane asylum in Staunton sat reading the same personals in some newspapers the matron had given her that morning.

It was Mrs. Chase, and a great change had come over the sweet little woman. In fact, the doctors and attendants declared that she was quite well of her suicidal mania, and that at the next meeting of the board of directors, on the twentieth of April, her discharge would be asked for as a cured woman. Every one would be sorry to see her go, she was so gentle and refined and helpful now, and the violence of her first sorrow had subsided into patient, uncomplaining resignation.

But the strangest thing about her was that she did not seem to have a friend in the world. No one ever came to see her or wrote to inquire how she was. They wondered where she would go when she was discharged.

One of the new supervisors, a pale, middle-aged woman in widow's weeds, passed through the ward when Mrs. Chase was reading the papers, and found her weeping violently. She stopped, and asked kindly what was the matter.

"Read these personals and I will tell you," was the sobbing reply.

The supervisor, Mrs. Middleton by name, obeyed, and cried out in surprise:

"How very, very strange!"

"Is it not?" cried Mrs. Chase, pathetically. "You see, that girl, Dainty Chase, is my own child. I went crazy about her, they say; but between you and me, Mrs. Middleton, I don't believe I ever was really insane, you know, only just wild and hysterical over my lost child, fearing her cruel enemies had killed her, and if only they had not shut me up in this place, I believe I should have found her long ago. If you had time to listen, I would like to tell you my whole sad story."

"I will take time, for I am more deeply interested than you can possibly guess," said the kind supervisor.

"Did you ever hear anything so sad? And is it any wonder that I temporarily lost my mind and tried to throw away my life?" cried Mrs. Chase; adding: "Is it not strange that the search for Dainty is being revived now? It would almost seem as if Lovelace Ellsworth has recovered the use of his senses."

"Perhaps the bullet in his head has been discovered by the use of that wonderful X-ray we have been reading about in the newspapers. It must be so, for who else could have an interest in that marriage license?" exclaimed the supervisor, excitedly; adding: "I have something wonderful to tell you, Mrs. Chase. I am the widow of the preacher that married your daughter to Lovelace Ellsworth, and I have in my possession the license and the certificate of marriage, given me by my husband to keep until called for. And I also witnessed the marriage ceremony, peeping through the vestry door, as Mr. Middleton said there ought really to be one witness, although the young pair insisted not. But now you see how important it was, for my husband died soon after, and in my grief I forgot all about the secret marriage till recalled to memory of it by this personal. So now I shall write to this Fidelio with my good news, and tell him all about your case too, poor thing!"