Kitabı oku: «Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor», sayfa 17

CHAPTER LXIV.
"YOUR FATHER IS GEORGE HARRISON, THE CONVICT!"

 
It is a common fate—a woman's lot—
To waste on one the riches of her soul,
Who takes the wealth she gives him, but can not
Repay the interest, and much less the whole.
 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"Another letter! Gad, they come thick and fast! Ta, ta, Fedora! sorry I haven't time to read it; but a fellow must look out for his own neck, and mine has felt deuced uncomfortable ever since I found out that that devil Jack Wren is on my trail. How did he strike it, I wonder; for I thought we had covered up our tracks very cleverly. But the fellow's a sleuth-hound, they tell me, and I've got to escape him. Poor Fedora! it's a pity to leave you to your fate, but the sooner I pack up and be afloat on the briny, the better for my neck," muttered Ivan Belmont, airily, as he moved about his shabby apartment, in a very unsavory quarter of Boston, gathering together his belongings, that were scattered about on chairs and tables.

The letter from Fedora that he had found on coming in he tossed unread into the fire, and as he ransacked the bureau drawers he hummed, carelessly:

 
"'Long have I been true to you,
Now I'm true no longer.'"
 

It was long past midnight. The tempest had spent its force, and only a fitful, soughing wind and gusty dashes of icy rain remained as souvenirs of its terrific fury. Its worst force had not reached this neighborhood, and Ivan little dreamed that the prison doors had been hurled asunder by the blind force of nature, and that his partner in wickedness had been released and was hastening to their rendezvous in eager joy.

Recklessly he flung on the floor her dainty garments and pretty trinkets, seeking the diamonds he had given her in the days when he loved her first—love that had long ago tired, and had now grown heedless, indifferent.

"But what the devil did she do with them? I'm positive she left them here. Can they have been stolen? They are worth a pretty penny to me now—they would help me to get away from this place that is getting too hot to hold me."

"Help you to get away, you coward! Who helped me, I wonder? The devil, I suppose. They say he takes care of his own!" said a mocking voice behind him. He turned with a start. There stood Fedora!

Fedora or her ghost? The voice was there, the glittering, steel-blue eyes; but where was all the prettiness, where the burnished golden locks, the silk attire? This woman was drenched with rain, clothed in rags, and the disheveled tresses that straggled over her brow and shoulders had turned dead white, and their silver gleam was in awful contrast with the drops of blood that trickled down her ashen face.

He stared like one turned to stone. He doubted the evidence of his own eyes. That voice, those eyes—but could it be Fedora?

"Yes, it is I," she said, answering that mute, wondering look. "I am here, escaped from the wreck of my prison to find you—you dastardly thief—trying to steal my jewels, your own gift to me! You shall suffer for this night's work! Villain! you tempted me to aid you in your crimes, then left me to suffer the penalty alone. But I will betray you, and you shall know how it feels to be shut within prison walls, deserted by the one who swore fealty forever in happier days!"

He had been so disgusted, so enraged, that he was about to retort in angry, sneering words that would drive her forever from him; but at her threatening words his defiant mood changed to one of cringing, abject fear. Though inwardly shrinking from her altered looks in keen disgust, he dared not show his feelings. He must temporize; he must turn her from her savage purpose.

He approached her; he held out his hand.

"Ta, ta, Dolly; we are not going to part in this fashion, are we? Surely you did not mind if I sold the diamonds to get you out of prison. It was a big bribe, I know; but the guard would not listen to a penny less. To-morrow you should have been free; but how lucky that you escaped, and we have the jewels still!" He slipped his arm around her, and—in spite of her anger, in spite of her suspicions of his falsity—the woman's head dropped against his breast.

She loved him with all the heart she had, this petted darling of the foot-lights; she who had trifled with the hearts of nobler men had found in this weak nature her ideal, and he led her on to lower and lower depths until she was wrecked on the shoals of sin.

Nestling in the arms that were so reluctant to hold her, Fedora told the man how she had escaped from her prison in the company of an aged prisoner—a convict under a life-sentence for murder.

"You have often told me that your father was dead, Ivan," she said. "Did you believe it, or was it a falsehood?"

"I—I—believed it," he replied, weakly.

"No, you did not," she replied, triumphantly. "Ah, my lord, how proud you have been of your connection with the Carews! Yet your father is an escaped convict under sentence for life! Have you forgotten his name? Let me refresh your memory. George Harrison—alias Dutch Fred. Ah, you start—you remember! Yes, he told me his whole history, and I gave him the address of your mother—once his wife. He will go to her, he said, and demand half her fortune!"

Ivan Belmont was silent a moment from chagrin. Then he rose superior to the situation.

"Ha! ha! how the mater will rave!" he laughed. "I wish papa success in plucking the madame. The devil knows what a time I had coaxing and wheedling pennies out of her pocket."

The vision rising in his mind of this proud mother and sister's consternation roused his risibilities, and he laughed loud and long. They had discarded him—flung him off like a dog. What a glorious retribution!

But they turned presently from even this savory morsel to their own affairs. Both were in peril, and it would not do to remain in reach of the law. Yet Ivan was by no means ready to give up his cherished plans. They sat far into the wintry dawn, exchanging confidences and plotting new schemes, to be unraveled on Fate's dark loom.

CHAPTER LXV.
A STARTLING DÉNOUEMENT

 
You may bury it deep, and leave behind you
The land, the people that knew your slain;
It will push the sods from its grave and find you
On wastes of water and desert plain.
 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

"Jones says there is a horrible old man down-stairs, mamma, asking for you, and will not go away until he sees you," Alpine Belmont said, entering her mother's boudoir one rainy evening just a few days after the cyclone.

"I will not see him. I have just refused to see that old impostor—my husband's brother, indeed!" contemptuously—"and I will not be annoyed again. Tell Jones to send the old beggar away."

Alpine was pale. Her eyes had a troubled look.

"He says that he is not a beggar, mamma—that he has claims on you. I am afraid you had better see him. He is making such a noise at the door, and Jones says he is somewhat intoxicated."

"Tell Jones to pitch him into the street."

"He tried to, but the old man was more than a match for him. Do come, mamma; it's so disgraceful, the sensation he is creating. People are gathering around the house. Let us have him in and try to pacify him."

Her arguments conquered, and Mrs. Carew sent down word to admit the old man to a small room where the servants were accustomed to come to her for orders.

Alpine's trepidation had somewhat unnerved her mother, and as she swept into the little room her air was a trifle less haughty, and her proud eyes gazed anxiously about for the cause of this commotion.

There he lay, sprawled upon a luxurious sofa—an old, blear-eyed man in ragged garments, but with a very close-shaven head, and the stubble of several days' growth upon his chin. His keen, close-set eyes devoured with a hungry gaze the handsome face before him.

A cry of surprise and terror burst from her blanching lips:

"George!—George Harrison!—you!"

"Yes, George Harrison—your husband!" answered the intruder, and a hoarse cry of despair broke upon the air from the lips of Alpine, who had glided in unheeded by both.

She stood behind her mother, gazing with affrighted eyes at the man's coarse, leering face.

Mrs. Carew recoiled—she threw out her white hands, all glittering with costly rings, as though to shut out some terrible sight.

The man laughed at her terror and, gliding forward, seized and held her hands.

"Are you glad to see me, my wife? Come, give me a kiss for the old times' sake, my beauty!"

She struggled with him, loathing the offered caresses, and Alpine sprung to her mother's assistance, beating him back with dainty jeweled hands.

He turned then and saw her for the first time. His narrow eyes dilated with surprise.

"Why, you pretty wild-cat, you must be my daughter Alpine! How do you do, my dear? Give your papa a kiss, dear!"

"You are not—not–" she choked over the word, and he answered, with sudden gravity:

"I am your father, George Harrison, my little girl, and I went to prison for life for killing a man who was once my dearest friend. Why? Well, your mother might tell you if she would. I will spare her for your sake. You seem to love her." He seemed to have grown suddenly sober after the first sight of his daughter's face. "Well, she has prospered, has she not? She is rich and grand, while I have lain in prison all these years, but a few miles from her, my heart burning with hate for her, and aching with love for my boy and girl, Ivan and Alpine, while she taught them to forget that they ever had a father other than Vincent Carew, the proud millionaire. Alpine, speak to me for once; call me father!"

A spasm of pain contracted the worn features he raised longingly to her face. Love shone in his eyes, poor convict that he was, and although he had come to curse the mother and extort money from her, the memory of it fled from him now as he gazed imploringly on Alpine's lovely, soulless face. With outstretched hands he besought her kindness.

Surely the fiends in hell could have had no more hateful look than the girl turned upon the suppliant as he bowed the knee before her so entreatingly. Angrily she struck at the outstretched, toil-worn hands, exclaiming:

"You have no claim on me. I hate you—hate you!"

Could a strong man's heart break for so common a thing as a child's hardness and ingratitude? It would seem so, for the escaped felon turned aside with such a look on his face as it might have worn had a dagger pierced his heart. It seemed as if he meant to go. He staggered toward the door, tripped, and fell prostrate. His face quivered with one or two spasms, then he lay still and dead, his white face upturned to their startled gaze.

"Dead!" muttered Mrs. Carew, staring down in mingled terror and relief.

"Dead!" echoed Alpine, in a sort of awe.

And for a few minutes there was a terrible silence.

Then Alpine crept to her mother's side.

"Mamma, was it true?"

"Yes, it was true. There, you have my awful secret. Bury it deep in your heart, Alpine, for no one must ever know. Now we must call the servants to put the body out. We can not have anything so vulgar as a dead tramp lying in the house!"

She moved toward the door, but her steps were arrested by a stern voice:

"Stay!"

She turned with a start and shudder.

A man had emerged from behind the curtain. At first sight it seemed to be Uncle Ben Carew, the old man so cordially despised.

But with a rapid hand he flung off wig, whiskers, and spectacles, standing revealed in majestic beauty—Vincent Carew!

"My God!" she cried, and flew to embrace him.

He repulsed her with scorn and loathing.

"How dare you, you Jezebel?" he cried. "Down on your knees to that dead man there, you and your cowardly daughter, and pray his forgiveness for the sin that wrecked his life! Vile creature that you are, you would throw him into the street like a dog! No; let him lie there to be buried at my expense. I heard all that was said. I know all your guilty secrets!"

"Oh, Vincent, forgive me, forgive me! My temptation was so great!" she cried, frantically; but he spurned her outstretched hands.

"Can one forgive a fiend?" he said, sternly. "I tell you I know all—the plot that broke my Zaidee's heart, and drove her to madness and death—perhaps you murdered her—who knows?"

"No, no—I swear I did not! I am innocent of that charge. She was so young, so jealous, it was easy to drive her mad. But, Vincent, it was for love of you! Can you not forgive so great a love?"

If scorn could have blasted her, his look would have struck her dead at his feet.

"Forgiveness is not possible," he answered, bleakly, and silenced her with a gesture of his hand. "Listen," he said, looking her in the face: "I was not lost at sea when my ship burned. I was cast away on a desert island, where I remained until a few months ago. When I returned I took a fancy to masquerade to see how matters were going. There is no Uncle Ben. I never had a brother, but the disguise has served its purpose. I know you now—you and your scheming daughter. Now listen to your fate. No, do not speak. Hear me out. I will keep the secret of your disgrace; and—you were to have sailed to-morrow—you two—for Europe. Your trunks are packed—your passage taken. You will go, just the same, but you will never return. You have no claim on me. You belong to that dead man there. Go now to your rooms. I wish never to look on your faces again, but the curse of a broken-hearted man will follow you to your grave!"

CHAPTER LXVI.
"I WILL GO TO THE OLD HAUNTED MILL," SAID KATHLEEN, BRAVELY

 
"We must love and unlove and forget, dear,
Fashion and shatter the spell
Of how many a love in a life, dear,
Ere we learn to love once and love well."
 

Kathleen Carew sat in the library of Helen Fox's home, with her cheek bowed in the hollow of her delicate hand, and a very sad expression in her downcast eyes. She was thinking of the tragedy of two weeks ago, by which the prison walls had been rent asunder, sending so many wicked souls to their account with God.

"And in that awful wreck Fedora perished—poor guilty soul!—and with her died the secret I would have risked so much to know. Now I shall never know it; but Ralph, dear Ralph, I must trust you blindly. I must not let this dark cloud of suspicion drift between us. But, oh, Heaven! that it might have been lifted!" she half sobbed, in her self-absorption.

In those two weeks many things had transpired of interest to Kathleen. The Carews had gone abroad, and, although Kathleen knew it not, they had faded forever out of the life that they had done so much to wreck and ruin. Uncle Ben, as he still called himself, had not yet disclosed his identity to his daughter, but kept up his incognito for reasons best known to himself. The grand Carew mansion remained closed and silent, and people said that Mrs. Carew and Miss Belmont intended to be absent for years.

Ralph Chainey, under the magical influence of renewed hope, was fast recovering his health again. Kathleen and Helen had been to see him several times, and, although no tender words had been uttered between them, Ralph no longer feared and dreaded handsome Teddy. He fancied that all would come right between him and his darling.

But Kathleen was very sad at heart. She had the greatest esteem and regard for her betrothed, and shrunk from telling him the unflattering truth that her heart belonged to another man.

"He has been so good and kind to me, how can I grieve him so?" she thought.

The ring of the door-bell startled her from her sad thoughts.

Several letters were handed in. On one she recognized the writing of her cousin Chester. She broke the seal with eager impatience, and as she read on smiles began to dimple her scarlet lips.

Helen, who was reading her own letters, was startled at a gay exclamation from her friend.

"Oh, Helen! good news! Chester and Daisy are—engaged!"

"But I thought it was you he loved, my dear."

"Oh, a mere fancy! It is that dear, darling Daisy Lynn he loves. And she—there's a little note from her, too—she has forgotten or outlived that old love—gives her whole tender heart to Chester. Listen, Helen, how he writes me—apologetically, you know, fearing I may think him fickle."

She read aloud, with a mischievous smile playing round her lips:

 
"'Both born of beauty at one birth,
She held o'er hearts a kindred sway,
And wore the only form on earth
That could have lured my heart away.'"
 

Helen smiled in sympathy.

"Poor boy! I'm glad he's to be made happy," she said. Then she nervously fingered a letter she held.

"Mine is from Loyal," she said, bashfully.

"From Loyal? Oh, Helen, is he ever coming back to America? You cruel girl! why did you send him away?"

"I did not know my own mind," the beautiful young girl answered, in a low voice, and then she added, softly: "You remember those sweet lines of Jean Ingelow?

 
"'Thou didst set thy foot on the ship, and sail
To the ice-fields and the snow;
Thou wert sad, for thy love did not avail,
And the end I could not know.
How could I tell I should love thee to-day
Whom that day I held not dear?
How could I know I should love thee away,
When I did not love thee anear?'"
 

"Oh, you darling, I'm so glad!" cried Kathleen, springing to her friend's side and giving her a girlish hug. "That dear Loyal Graham! I always thought he was perfectly grand, and I know you will be happy with him. Does he know yet, darling?"

"Yes; and he is coming home to me;" and her soft blue eyes drooped with a loving smile to the dear letter.

Ah, the gladness, ah, the madness, ah, the magic of a letter!

And Helen recalled the beautiful lines of Adelaide Proctor:

 
"Dear, I tried to write you such a letter
As would tell you all my heart to-day.
Written Love is poor; one word were better—
Easier, too, a thousand times, to say.
 
 
"I can tell you all: fears, doubts unheeding,
While I can be near you, hold your hand—
Looking right into your eyes, and reading
Reassurance that you understand.
 
 
"Yet I wrote it through; then lingered, thinking
Of its reaching you—what hour, what day;
Till I felt my heart and courage sinking
With a strange, new, wondering dismay.
 
 
"Then I leant against the casement, turning
Tearful eyes towards the far-off west,
Where the golden evening light was burning,
Till my heart throbbed back again to rest.
 
 
"And I thought: 'Love's soul is not in fetters,
Neither space nor time keep souls apart;
Since I cannot—dare not—send my letters,
Through the silence I will send my heart.
 
 
"'She will hear, while twilight shades infold her;
All the gathered Love she knows so well—
Deepest love my words have ever told her,
Deeper still—all I could never tell.
 
 
"'Wondering at the strange, mysterious power
That has touched her heart, then she will say:
"Some one whom I love, this very hour
Thinks of me and loves me far away."'
 
 
"So I dreamed and watched the stars' far splendour
Glimmering on the azure darkness start,
While the star of trust rose bright and tender
Through the twilight shadows of my heart."
 

"I must go and tell mamma that I shall marry Loyal, after all," said the blushing Helen, gliding from the room; and then Kathleen turned to her other letter.

It was superscribed in a strange hand—feminine, yet bold and dashing.

"It is a strange hand," Kathleen said to herself, as she tore it open; but stranger yet were the words it contained—strange, few, mysterious:

"If you wish to have full proof of the guilt or innocence of the man you love, come alone at twilight this evening to the old Cooper saw-mill, where I am dying. I can not survive the night. Do not hesitate about coming. I know that a beautiful young girl like you will do and dare all for love and happiness, and it is all-important that you should know what I have to tell you. If I die with the secret untold, you will forever rue it. Come without fail, secretly and alone. Destroy this letter.

"One Who Knows All."

Kathleen read and reread this strange letter with fascinated eyes.

"I know the old Cooper saw-mill," she murmured. "It is on the old country road where we used to drive so often, near the glen and the waterfall. I have seen old Myron Cooper, too, that strange old man with his long gray duster. People said he wrote poetry as wild and gloomy as the glen where he lived. Yes, I will go, although they say the old mill is haunted after nightfall. But my unknown correspondent is right. A young girl will do and dare much for love—love, that mighty passion that moves the whole world."

She spent the remainder of the day in restless thought, longing for the hour to come when she should go upon her strange mission, and yet half ashamed of the longing to know all the truth about her lover.

"Why is it that I can not trust him wholly?" she asked herself; but the reckless curiosity of a woman's nature drove her forward on that perilous quest fraught with mystery and danger. "I must know!" she declared, passionately, to herself.