Kitabı oku: «Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor», sayfa 18
CHAPTER LXVII.
TEDDY'S LOVE LETTERS
"Closely shut within my chamber,
Where the fire is burning bright,
All these letters, long since written,
I must read and burn to-night."
"I wonder what has detained Jack Wren? He promised to be here this evening at five o'clock sharp. Here it is six," Teddy Darrell said, impatiently, as he looked at his watch, then lingered dreamily a moment over the fair face of Kathleen smiling up at him from within the golden lid.
"Sweet darling! in a few more days she will be mine," he murmured, and forgot Jack Wren in sweet anticipations of his wedding-day now near at hand.
Teddy was waiting in his rooms for the detective; and now, to beguile the time, he took some letters from his inside pocket and began to run over their perfumed contents, smiling softly now and then to himself.
Then he got up, walked about the room, shook himself together and sighed, then laughed.
"Poor little dears! it's hard to give you up, after all."
The "little dears" probably referred to Teddy's old sweethearts, whose names were "legion"—such a string of them there was: Hatties, Helens, Lauras, Gussies, Saras, Emmies, Roses, Fredas, Annies, Nellies, Katies, Lenas, Noras, Mauds, Nannies, and so on through a list of the belles and beauties of several seasons, whose letters and photographs were treasured in Teddy's desk, soon to be ruefully sacrificed to the fire-fiend; for "Benedict, the married man," must not carry any of these sentimental mementoes of the past into his new life.
"Here a dainty school-girl's letter
Still retains its faint perfume,
But the little hand that wrote it
Molders in a foreign tomb.
Close beside it lies another
In an awkward, girlish hand,
Desperately sentimental—
Ah! I now can understand
Just how silly two such lovers
As we were then must have been—
She about a year my junior,
I a youngster just nineteen!"
Teddy unlocked a drawer of his desk and brought out a miscellaneous pile of letters, photographs, faded flowers, and locks of hair of every shade known to woman's head. I am ashamed to record it of Kathleen's prospective bridegroom that he cast glances of unfeigned regret at these treasures as he prepared to devote them to the flames—a sacrifice on the altar of his love for Kathleen.
How he lingered over those pretty photographs!—over Rose, the beautiful actress, in the dress she had worn as Iza in "The Clemenceau Case."
"Ah, Rose was a model girl!" he laughed, as he laid it down and turned to stately Laura in the two-thousand-dollar gown, the very envy of all her feminine friends when she wore it to Madame Frivolity's ball. Next to it was Gussie, with her sweet and serious face, the dark curls lying softly against her temples, the dimpled white shoulders peeping above the little sleeves of that simple white lace dress in which Teddy had liked her best. He gazed long and earnestly at the girlish face, and a memory came to him of that moonlight evening in the vine-covered arbor when Gussie's arms had clung about his neck, drawing his dark, handsome face down close to hers while the blue-gray eyes gazed tenderly into his dark ones as she whispered, in answer to his question, "My dear old Dark Eyes, I love you!"
"Upon my soul, I believe that flirtation hit me hard! She was the sweetest of them all, and I was almost sorry I let her marry Bob. Ah, well, Gussie, dear, I too shall be married soon, and these bitter-sweet memories of ours must be tossed into the rag-bag of the past!"
He sorted out her letters, and placed them with her picture in a secret drawer, for he had a lingering fondness for his old sweetheart, pretty Gussie, the famous novelist.
"I will just keep these," he said. "I don't believe Kathleen would care, for she reads and loves Gussie's novels. And if anything should happen that I do not marry Kathleen—and it was strange the way she acted about Chainey—I should like to know I have these still."
He gathered all his mementoes and, with a genuine sigh, flung them upon the glowing blaze.
"It is but just to Kathleen," he said, trying to stifle his regret.
"Back the mists of years are rolling
As these relics of the past,
With a wondrous fascination,
Have their spells around me cast.
Crowds of tender recollections
Fill my eyes with unshed tears;
Dimmer grows the glowing future—
Dimmer till it disappears."
Teddy had a warm heart, and it was no disloyalty to Kathleen that made him sigh so sadly. He would not have exchanged her for any other girl he had ever loved; but somehow the thought of Gussie haunted him. She had been his first love, and it was a lover's quarrel that had driven them asunder. That was several years ago, and now she was married and a shining literary light: but it was quite certain that if ever Kathleen had a rival in Teddy's thoughts, it would be this one lost love.
A loud rap at the door startled him. It was Jack Wren, who entered in haste with an excited face.
"I had quite given you up, Mr. Wren," said Teddy, startled out of his tender recollections.
"Darrell, come with me. We have no time to lose. I have made a startling discovery. I have a cab waiting below, and you must come with me to the rescue of one you love, for she is at this moment in peril of her life! I have been on Ivan Belmont's track ever since I saw you, and he and Fedora, who escaped from the prison when the cyclone shattered it, are together now at Cooper's saw-mill, in Wild Cat Glen, plotting a terrible crime!" breathlessly answered Jack Wren.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
IN MORTAL PERIL
Listen to the water-wheel
All the live long day—
How the clinking of the mill
Wears the hours away.
—Old Song.
People always wondered why old Cooper ever built his saw-mill in so wild a place as that lonely glen; but the scene, the crazy old building, and the strange old man, all seemed to chime together, and no one was surprised that when he died he expressed the wish to be buried in the glen, close to the old mill, that his dreamless rest might be soothed by the sound of the grinding wheel day by day. Madame Rumor said that the old man's ghost haunted the wild, forbidding gorge, and Kathleen shuddered with dread as she climbed up the rocky path, with the cascade tumbling wildly beneath, on her rendezvous with her unknown correspondent. She had come within half a mile in a cab, which she left waiting for her while she made the rest of the journey on foot. To escape Helen's kind inquiries, she had said she was going to spend the night with Mrs. Stone, which she really intended doing on her return.
How gloomy the old mill looked in the pallor of the swiftly falling night! All winter the snows had held it bound in an icy thrall, but now the April sun had sent the mass of foaming, dashing water tumbling over the falls, and turned the old saw. What a scene for a crime! thought Kathleen, with a thrill of superstitious dread, as she hurried on in the deepening gloom, casting furtive glances about her, as though she expected to see Cooper's disembodied spirit hovering near. Frightened and nervous, she half regretted that she had come, and at the hooting of an owl in the tree near by, she uttered a frightened scream which rang through the gloomy glen in hollow, reverberating echoes, and fell prostrate on the ground.
An icy fear seemed to clutch her heart. It seemed to her that she had no strength to rise to go on. The gloom, the darkness, coupled with the mystery of the whole affair, began to weigh with crushing force upon her spirits.
She laid her fair golden head down on the rough stones, and prayed piteously:
"Dear God! give me strength to go on, to bear whatever is before me! For, oh! I love him so, I love him so! and I must know if he is worthy of that love! If he is not—if they tell me he is guilty of that sin with which Fedora accused him, dear God, let me die! I can not live and know him false and wicked! I would sooner throw myself over those rocks down into the terrible cascade, and end my wretched young life!"
New courage came with that incoherent prayer, and struggling to her feet, she tottered on, murmuring faintly:
"Oh, Ralph, dear Ralph, how much I must love you to risk so much for your sake!"
She gained the threshold at last. With a hopeful glance upward at the feeble glimmering light in the window, she knocked upon the door. It was jerked rudely open on the instant, and Kathleen saw before her a frowsy-looking old woman with a short clay pipe in her mouth.
This repulsive old woman thrust out a hand and dragged the trembling girl into the mill.
"What made you so long? I've been expecting you more than an hour!" she exclaimed, in a tone of savage anger.
Not waiting for an answer, she dragged the girl rudely along with her into a small room, and, turning quickly, slipped the bolt into the lock.
Kathleen gave a startled glance around the room. No one was there but the old hag, who was gazing at her with malicious eyes, in whose tigerish gleam of hate there was something so strangely familiar that she shuddered with terror, and a name leaped to her lips:
"Fedora!"
"Yes, Fedora; but you have keen eyes to see through this disguise," cried the woman. "Do you remember, I told you I would murder you if I ever got out of prison? Well, I shall keep my vow!" She sprung savagely toward her, but at the cruel grasp of her foe Kathleen uttered a moan of horror and slipped limply to the floor like one already dead.
"Is she dead so easily? I hope not, for I want to torture her first!" hissed Fedora, spurning the prostrate body with her foot.
She tore open the door at a slight tap upon it, and stood face to face with Ivan Belmont.
He spoke hurriedly:
"Ralph Chainey is coming, Fedora! Quick! lock the girl in, and come out and meet him alone. I must not be seen yet."
Fedora obeyed him, and Kathleen, coming back to life with a shuddering gasp, found herself alone, locked in, and heard outside the voice of her lover, and the words spoken held her spell-bound.
"Kathleen? Where is Kathleen? She told me to meet her here."
With a hissing laugh of savage hate, Fedora flung off the hood that she wore and stood revealed, scarred, hideous, gray-haired, but Fedora still—the woman who held his honor in her light keeping and bore his name.
"Kathleen is dead!" she laughed. "Dead, and I killed her without a blow! My weapon was a lie. It slew her as fatally as a dagger!"
He could not speak. He could only stare at her in dumb horror as she continued:
"Do you see these diamonds flashing in my ears? They are the ones that were stolen from Kathleen Carew the night of the attempted murder, when you found and saved her at Lincoln Station. I told her that you, my husband, did that foul deed, and robbing her of her money and jewels, brought them to me. A fiendish lie, you say? Ha! ha! but it killed her, all the same. Do you want to know the real thief? It was Ivan Belmont, my lover; and she was slain by a lie!"
Kathleen had struggled with difficulty to her feet. She tottered to the little window that looked into the mill; she saw her noble lover's handsome face, and uttered a piercing cry:
"Ralph! Ralph! I am here! Save me! Save me!"
He sprung toward the voice. The movement was fatal.
Ivan Belmont had stolen up softly behind him, bearing a heavy mallet in his hand. A moment more, and it was lifted high in air, and Kathleen's anguished eyes beheld her darling struck down before her into apparent death!
Kathleen would never forget the horror of that moment. It seemed to her that she went mad with grief and terror. Shriek after shriek burst from her lips, and she beat her little hands wildly against the smoky little window-pane, struggling wildly to get free. But the fiends before her did not heed her cries. Between them they lifted the inanimate form of their victim, and bearing it a short distance away, but in full view of the window, they laid it on a plank upon a table in front of the large steel circular saw. Kathleen saw his arms fall limply to his side, and the dark curly head drop back heavily. The death-white face, the closed eyes, assured her that he was either in a deep swoon or already dead from the terrible blow that had felled him to the ground.
Hushing the piercing shrieks upon her blanched lips, Kathleen watched in terrible suspense the movements of the two fiends.
Perhaps they doubted whether their victim was already dead, for they bent over him, feeling his pulse and listening for his heart.
"He lives," Ivan Belmont said, with fiendish joy. "Let us bind him hand and foot, and leave him on the plank till he revives. I want to enjoy his agony when he realizes the awful death that lies before him. He must know that Kathleen is here, that she will witness his death, and then meet the same horrible fate."
It was a scene on which the devils in hell might have gloated: the old mill, with its dim lights and strange, flickering shadows; the prostrate man, with his death-white face; the two fiends binding him with strong cords, lest he should recover and escape their vengeful fury; and looking on with anguished eyes at the doom of her beloved was our beautiful Kathleen.
"He revives!" hissed Fedora.
"Good!" laughed Ivan, hoarsely; and he looked back over his shoulder at Kathleen's convulsed, almost supernaturally pale face at the window.
"Ha! ha! my proud lady, you would send me to prison for stealing your diamonds, would you? But I foiled your game! It was I that decoyed you to Richmond with a lying letter; I that flung you into the deep, dark river to perish. Well, you escaped then, but you will not be so fortunate now. Do you realize the fate that lies before you? I decoyed both you and your lover here. Why, you ask? For revenge upon you both. Do you see yonder glittering saw, with its hungry teeth, waiting to cut your delicate body to atoms and drink your life-blood? Well, we are only waiting for you to see your lover dead before we devote you to the same torture. He is dead already, you say? No; he is reviving. See that tremor creep along his frame! See his eyelids tremble! Ha! his eyes open! he sees! he understands! Oh, the anguish on his face! How happy it makes me! Look, Fedora, at his tortures. Are we not already avenged?"
Her answer was a laugh of fiendish triumph.
"Oh, yes; it is glorious—glorious! I am in no haste for their death. I like to see them suffering like this. I want to prolong their torture!" she exclaimed. "What do you say, dear Ivan? Shall we let them live a few hours yet to realize the horrors that surround them? What avails their love, their beauty, their wealth now? To-morrow they will be lifeless clods, and I the rich widow, Mrs. Chainey!"
"Baffled!" said a hoarse, triumphant voice, and, turning, she met Ralph Chainey's burning gaze. "You mistake," said her victim, faintly but audibly. "I made my will weeks ago, and divided my whole fortune between my mother and Kathleen."
A scream of baffled fury escaped her lips; but Ivan said, quickly:
"You can contest the will, Fedora."
"Yes; I will fight for my rights to the bitter end!" she shrieked, then sprung toward him in a fury. "Let us end this farce; let us show them no further mercy. He dies now, Ivan! Go, set the saw in motion!"
He moved forward in eager obedience to her order, and Ralph Chainey realized that his moments were indeed numbered, and that death in the most horrible and soul-sickening shape was approaching. He made an almost superhuman effort to burst the bonds that held him fast, but the attempt was useless. He was weakened by the illness through which he had just passed, and could not move. With a prayer in his heart to Heaven, he turned his dark, despairing eyes toward the beautiful, anguished face at the window.
"Courage, my own love!" he called to her, bravely. "Death is but a fleeting pang, and then it will be life forever. Turn your sweet eyes away, my own Kathleen; do not torture yourself with the sight of my fate. You will come to me soon, and we–" His voice broke, drowned by the whir of the wheel as it began its revolutions, slowly drawing the plank with its doomed victim within its jaws.
Oh, God, what a moment!
Surely the pitying angels, who know and see all things, hovered near and aided weak, despairing Kathleen in her frantic struggle for liberty.
As Ivan Belmont stepped out to open the water-chute, she sprung with a strength born of despair against the door. The rusty lock yielded to her onslaught, the door fell crashing beneath her weight, and staggering, tottering, her loosened golden hair flying like a banner behind her, Kathleen fled across the moonlit space, the torturing sound of the revolving wheel grating on her ears, the flying sawdust blinding her eyes, and gained his side. Brave Kathleen, noble Kathleen, you are not one-half a second too soon! The swift revolutions of the saw are drawing your doomed lover closer to the encroaching steel! Throw out in an agony those fair white arms, gifted with such momentary, wondrous strength, grasp your loved one wildly, eagerly, and draw him madly from his couch of deadly peril! Saved! And watching angels weep joyful tears at the victory of love over hate and revenge.
Fedora, dazed with wonder, mad with rage, darted forward to thwart Kathleen's angelic purpose. But Heaven had interposed. Ere she reached them, Kathleen's frenzied hands had dragged Ralph from the fatal plank. His falling body struck the fiend, tripping and throwing her violently upon the cruel saw. Blindly she threw up her arms, shrieked in demoniac fear, and then—there came a horrible, grating sound, the sickening smell of fresh blood spurting into the air, and—Fedora's headless body fell with an awful thud upon the floor, while from the gloom beyond there followed upon her dying shriek the sound of pistol-shots and men's angry voices! Jack Wren and Teddy Darrell had arrived upon the scene; but only that the heavenly hosts had helped Kathleen, they would have come too late.
Ivan Belmont, in the midst of his exultation over his terrible crime, had met a swift retribution. Turning to rejoin Fedora, and gloat with her over the destruction of their victims, he was confronted by the detective and Teddy Darrell. Snatching a pistol from his breast, he fired at the foremost one, and received in return a fatal bullet from the ready weapon of the dashing detective. He fell dead, and his crime-stained soul wandered forth on the wings of the night, with that of Fedora, to the realms of darkness and eternal gloom.
Hastening into the mill in search of Kathleen, the two men were horrified to find upon the floor the ghastly, decapitated body of Fedora.
In another moment they saw near at hand the inanimate forms of Ralph and Kathleen.
"Oh, Heaven, we are too late! They are all dead!" exclaimed Teddy in anguish; but a low moan from Kathleen arrested him.
He stooped over his beautiful betrothed and lifted her in his arms. She opened her eyes, but they gazed blankly into his, and Kathleen murmured, gladly:
"Ralph, darling! I have saved you from a terrible death. Thank God! thank God! for I love only you, and had you died, I should have gone mad with grief!"
Teddy Darrell started and shivered, but the arms that held Kathleen did not let her fall, only pressed her closer to his throbbing heart.
"She loves Ralph Chainey. That is the key to the mystery of her coldness for me," he murmured, sadly. "Oh, my beautiful love! must I then lose you? I loved you so, and I would have tried to make you so happy. Must I give you up?" And only the pitying angels knew the pang that rent his heart.
CHAPTER LXIX.
"I'LL TAKE YOU HOME AGAIN, KATHLEEN."
I know you love me, Kathleen, dear,
Your heart was ever fond and true,
I always feel when you are near
That life holds nothing dear but you.
Oh, I will take you back, Kathleen,
To where your heart will feel no pain,
And when the fields are fresh and green
I'll take you to your home again.
Thomas P. Westendorf.
But true love is never selfish. Teddy Darrell's heart bore that cruel wrench gravely and in silence. They took Ralph and Kathleen home; and a few days later, when the girl was stronger and better, her noble young betrothed came to her and bravely gave her back her promise.
"I know all your love for Ralph," he said. "I know how bravely you have held to your promise to me. I have not one unkind thought of you, dear, and I give you back your vow, for I know you would be happier with him than me. But think sometimes of me, Kathleen, for I shall always love you."
He meant what he said, and he thought it would be so, but something happened just a few weeks later that changed all the world to handsome Teddy Darrell.
Far away, in a beautiful Southern home, where the magnolias bloomed and the orange groves drooped their white blossoms down on her dark head, a beautiful young widow laid aside her pen too often to dream of one who had been her lover in the dear old days, before that fatal quarrel had driven her into a marriage for pique with the proud, rich man who had now been lying for more than a year beneath a costly granite shaft in Howard Cemetery.
To-day, in a magazine that she had been reading, some sweet, sad lines had touched her heart. Obeying an uncontrollable impulse, she drew pen and ink toward her, exclaiming:
"What if I copy these sweet, sad verses and send them to my dear old Dark Eyes? He is not married yet, I know, and I will send him the notice of Bob's death with the verses; for I love Ted still, and I would give the world to win him back!"
And so the letter came to Teddy from that far-off Southern home, and he read with tender eyes the little poem, entitled "Dark Eyes," which it contained:
Which eyes do I love the best,
Dark or blue or gray?
Each are beautiful and blest
In their way.
But I think if some sweet soul
Dearer to us than the rest
Shone through light or dark, we'd love
That color best.
One I loved in happier days,
Under happier skies,
One whose looks breathed only praise,
Had dark eyes.
Darkly radiant eyes that rest
Nevermore to wake,
And I love dark eyes the best
For his sake.
Dark eyes, oh, you haunt me yet
With your magic splendor!
All my heart holds one regret
Deep and tender.
Oft you come as all sweet things,
Memory-saddened, come;
As the scent of roses brings
Dead perfume.
As the sadly dying strain
Of a song we used to know
Stirs the heart to sudden pain,
You come and go;
Shining on me in my dreams
With the light you used to wear,
Deepening with your starlight beams
My despair,
Till the sad heart in my breast
Throbbing seems to break,
And I love dark eyes the best
For his sake!
Teddy's dark eyes grew dim, but he smiled as he exclaimed:
"Bob had blue eyes, so she must mean me, for she used to call me her 'Dark Eyes.' Poor fellow! I'm sorry he died; but I do believe all the old love for Gussie is coming back again. I'll take the first 'flier' for the South." And, sure enough, it was only a few months later that he bore away from the Crescent City the fairest flower of the Magnolia State, his bonny bride.
But it was long before Teddy's wedding-day that he had cards to attend a grand reception at the Carew mansion on Commonwealth Avenue.
It seemed that Mrs. Carew really meant to stay abroad for years, for Madame Rumor said, in a week after their departure, that the handsome old house had been rented to a rich and eccentric old man, a relative of the late Vincent Carew. Kathleen herself was surprised when she received that letter from Uncle Ben, far away in his country home, telling her all about it.
"I wanted to give you a big party on your betrothal to that grand young actor, Ralph Chainey, my dear, so I rented the house from the agent, and I want you to be sure to come, Kathleen," he wrote. "Never mind about buying a new dress, dear. Uncle Ben is not as poor as he looks, and you must come in your every-day dress. Go up to your own old room, and you will find there a new dress and jewels, a gift from Uncle Ben."
To know that Uncle Ben was rich was surprise enough, but when Helen and Kathleen arrived with Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Stone at the mansion, she was transported with joy to meet in the hall her aunt, Mrs. Franklyn, her cousin Chester, and beautiful, happy Daisy Lynn.
"Uncle Ben invited us on a long visit," they exclaimed, and hurried her upstairs to the beautiful rooms once her own, but to which, for almost two years, Kathleen had been a stranger.
Kathleen, now the happy promised bride of noble Ralph Chainey, could not keep back the tender tears as she crossed the threshold of the familiar rooms; but Daisy wiped them away, begging her to look at her new dress.
"The people will be coming presently, and you don't want Mr. Chainey to see you with pink rims around your beautiful dark eyes," she said, gayly, and hurried her into the beautiful white dress costly enough for a bride.
"And here are these diamonds, Kathleen, that he gave you to replace those that you lost by the villainy of Ivan Belmont," continued Daisy, lifting a set of glorious diamonds from their white velvet bed.
They slipped through her white fingers like rivers of light, and Kathleen uttered a cry of rapture.
"They are worth a fortune! Oh, how good Uncle Ben is to me! I must put them on and go down to him, Daisy."
But when she was going along the hall in the beautiful, bride-like robes, she paused suddenly at the library door.
"Daisy, I must go in alone to see papa's portrait first," she said, and tears came into the lovely eyes as she crossed the threshold.
Again she knelt before the portrait, weeping for the loved and lost, but suddenly Uncle Ben came in and stood by her side.
"He wronged you, my darling, and left you to fight the bitter battle of poverty alone. How can you forgive him?"
She put her hand in his, and answered, sweetly:
"My step-mother was to blame, I'm sure, Uncle Ben, and so I have never harbored one unkind thought of my dear, dead father; and, oh, what would I not give if he were alive to-night to bless Ralph and me in our happiness!"
"My angel daughter!" cried the old man, and he flung aside the disfiguring disguises in which he had masqueraded while unmasking his wicked wife. There he stood, tall, dark and handsome, although with a sadness that would never leave his face—Vincent Carew, her beloved father!
She flew to his arms, and they had a blessed half hour of sacred rejoicing and love. Then there came a light rap on the door.
It was Ralph Chainey, handsome as a prince in his evening suit.
"They told me to come here for you, my darling! Oh, how beautiful you are!" he cried, taking her into his arms.
Vincent Carew came forward into the light.
"See, papa has come back to me," she said; and he smiled on the pair of lovers. He had had a rooted antipathy to actors, but for Kathleen's sake he was willing to accept Ralph Chainey for a beloved son-in-law. Kathleen had whispered to him that she was to marry her lover soon, and he shook hands most cordially now with the young man ere he turned away and left them together for a few sweet moments before they joined the guests.
Ralph took beautiful Kathleen in his fond arms, and kissed that radiant face with adoring love.
"My love, my bride so soon to be," he whispered; and then she drew him away.
"We must go, although I had rather stay here with you, dear love," she whispered; and they went along the hall arm in arm, happiest lovers the world ever knew.
Daisy Lynn was singing at the piano when they entered the crowded drawing-room. It was a song that Vincent Carew had chosen. The words rang out in sweet and jubilant echoes on the air:
"I'll take you home again, Kathleen,
Across the ocean wild and wide,
To where your heart has ever been
Since first you were my bonny bride.
To that dear home beyond the sea
My Kathleen shall again return;
And when thy old friends welcome thee
Thy loving heart will cease to yearn!"
