Kitabı oku: «Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XLVI

"Yes, Miss Glenalvan, it is I," was the answer, as his burning eyes devoured her pale, frightened face. "Did you take me for a ghost?"

"Why should I take you for a ghost?" she faltered, trembling, but trying to brave it out with an air of defiance.

"Because you tried to murder me last night, and came very near succeeding," he replied.

"It is false. How dare you accuse me of such a crime?" she broke out, passionately, flying to her father's side, as if for protection.

"How dare you?" echoed John Glenalvan, furiously.

Bertram Chesleigh lifted his hand imperiously.

"Listen," he said, "I told you I had one more card to play. Your fair daughter there attempted to poison me last night with drugged wine. The physician who saved my life declared that I had taken arsenic in a draught of wine. Do you see where you stand now?"

"Do not believe him, father; it is false!" cried Elinor, furiously; but John Glenalvan, turning to look into her wild, frightened face, read the signs of guilt too plainly to be mistaken.

The sight forced a groan even from his hardened lips.

"You see where you stand," repeated Bertram Chesleigh, with stern brevity. "How will you bear to see your cherished daughter dragged into court on such a dreadful charge?"

"You will not dare do such a thing," Elinor flashed out, quivering with rage.

"That will be as your father says," was the firm reply. "If it pleases him to reveal the secret of Golden Leith's fate, I'll spare you and him; if not, you need expect no mercy from me."

The grim ultimatum was spoken. Elinor and her father knew by that flashing eye and stern-set lip that there was no appeal from the calmly-spoken decision.

"Coward, to threaten a girl," she cried, taking refuge in vituperation now that denial had failed.

But Mr. Chesleigh regarded them in silent scorn, and her father sternly silenced her. He was furious with wrath, and it seemed to him that not even for his daughter's sake could he forego his dear revenge.

"Elinor," he said, with a dark frown, "if indeed you have done this thing you must prepare to face the consequences. I will not accede to his demand. Nothing shall balk me of my revenge."

Abject terror and despair filled Elinor's soul at those threatening words. She knew too well how guilty she was. She was filled with terror at the too probable punishment of her wickedness.

Falling on her knees, she caught her father's hand in hers, and bathed them with her frightened tears.

"Oh, father, do not sacrifice me to your revenge," she cried, wildly. "Remember that I am your own child. I should be dearer to you than your revenge. Oh! for mercy's sake, make terms with the wretch, and save me from his wicked vengeance."

Mr. Chesleigh did not even notice her. He stood with folded arms and curling lips awaiting his enemy's reply.

The sullen determination on John Glenalvan's face softened as she continued her anxious pleading.

"Father, I cannot live if that wretched story becomes known," she wailed. "If you do not save me I shall drown myself."

A slight shudder convulsed his frame at the words. He looked down at the frightened, tear-wet face.

"Elinor," he said, "if I have to sacrifice my revenge for your sake, I shall hate you every moment of your future life."

"Anything but exposure," she wailed. "Oh, father, save me."

His dark brow lowered like a thunder cloud.

"So be it," he said, "but, mark me, girl, I shall hate you forever after."

"Then you will speak?" Bertram Chesleigh cried, gladly.

John Glenalvan hesitated a moment, then answered, gloomily:

"Yes, to save that wretched girl I will reveal the secret that has been locked in my breast for sixteen years."

CHAPTER XLVII

There was a moment's silence, then Bertram Chesleigh said, quickly:

"Come with me, Mr. Glenalvan. Let the secret you have kept so long be revealed in the hearing of your father and Richard Leith."

The guilty man recoiled from the demand. He said, hoarsely:

"I refuse to do so. I will reveal it to you, and you may bear the news yourself to them."

Bertram Chesleigh considered the reply a moment, then answered, firmly.

"I prefer that they should hear it from your own lips."

John Glenalvan regarded him with furious eyes.

"You wish to humble me all you can," he said.

"Not so," replied Mr. Chesleigh. "But I consider that they have too decided a right to hear your confession, for me to exclude them from this momentous interview."

The angry man regarded him silently a moment, then said, with a sigh of baffled rage:

"So be it. I am not now in a position to dictate terms, and must obey your will. You swear to keep Elinor's secret if I do this thing?"

"Yes," Bertram answered.

"I am ready to accompany you, then. Elinor," he turned a furious gaze on his daughter who was weeping nervously near the door; "go to your mother, now. Tell her that you have ruined all my plans, and that I forever curse the hour in which you were born."

She turned away, casting one last look of fiery anger and hatred on the man she had tried to murder, and left the room.

The two men went down together to Richard Leith's room. The lawyer was sitting up in an easy-chair, talking to old Hugh Glenalvan who occupied a chair near the window.

They both looked up in surprise at the unexpected sight of John Glenalvan, whom they had supposed to be far away in hiding somewhere.

Bertram spoke at once, quietly:

"You will pardon this late intrusion, Mr. Glenalvan. This gentleman has an important communication to make to you, and I ventured to bring him at once."

"A communication?" faltered the old man, looking blankly at his son.

"Yes," answered Mr. Chesleigh, with the flush of joyful triumph on his handsome face. "He will solve for you the strange mystery of your daughter's disappearance, sixteen years ago."

A cry came from Richard Leith's white lips. The old man echoed it feebly, as he rose and went to his son, but John waved him rudely back.

"Do not come near me," he said, harshly; "I have always hated you because you loved my sister best."

"I could not help it, John. She was more lovable than you," the father faltered, feebly.

"And so she stole your love from me and earned my hate. But I have had a great revenge," said the relentless wretch, grimly.

"Oh, John, John!"

The wailing cry came from the old man's lips; he looked at his son in surprise and horror.

"Yes, revenge," repeated John Glenalvan, seeming to take a malicious pride in his wickedness now that its revelation was forced upon him. "I hated her, and when my opportunity came, I seized upon it. I knew she was a wife, yet it was my hand that sent her that lying letter that made her leave her husband."

"Devil!" Richard Leith muttered, making an effort to spring upon him, but Bertram Chesleigh held him back, and the villain who had so wronged him laughed mockingly.

"She came home," he went on, after a minute, "came home, and her child was born. The following night came her mysterious disappearance which I accounted for by declaring that she had returned to her deceiver, unable to exist away from him."

All eyes were fixed on his dark, demoniac face as he proceeded. Every heart hung trembling on his further words.

At last the fearful mystery of little Golden's fate would be known to those who loved and mourned her.

Old Dinah had stolen silently in, and sat crouching in a corner, her beady, black eyes fixed intently on the face of the man whom she had always distrusted.

"Speak," Richard Leith thundered, almost mad with impatience. "Speak! You know she never came to me. Where is she now, my poor, wronged darling?"

"Is she dead or living?" echoed the wronged woman's father.

"She is dead!" John Glenalvan answered, coldly.

"Dead!" they echoed, despairingly.

"She has been dead these sixteen years," he answered.

"Vile wretch, then you murdered her," cried Richard Leith, struggling frantically in Bertram Chesleigh's strong hold.

The villain laughed heartlessly.

"Not so," he replied. "I hated her, but I would not have risked hanging for her sake. It was no fault of mine that she came to her death so tragically."

"Dead and buried these sixteen years," old Hugh moaned, wringing his feeble hands, and weeping as if the bereavement were but of yesterday. "John, tell me where to find my darling's grave."

"She lies in the bottom of the lake!" he replied, and those who watched him saw him shudder and turn pale for the first time.

"How came she there?" broke out Bertram Chesleigh.

"My sister was a somnambulist, Mr. Chesleigh. You will not deny that fact, father. She wandered from the house in her sleep, and walked deliberately into the lake."

"You saw her?"

"Yes, I was the only witness to the tragic deed," he replied, and again they saw a shudder shake his strong frame, and the chill dew beaded his forehead.

"Devil, you lie! You pushed her in!" cried Richard Leith, wild with rage and grief.

"Did you, John? Oh, tell me the truth," moaned his father.

"No, I did not, as there is a Heaven that hears me. I hated Golden because you and my mother loved her best, and because half of your property would go to her, but the thought of murder had not entered my head. I was out late that night, and returning with my mind full of envious thoughts toward my sister, I saw her crossing the moonlighted lawn, and on coming nearer saw that she was asleep. Keeping near to her, I followed her down to the lake, and she walked on straight, without pause or backward glance, into the water."

"And you put out no hand to save her—murderer!" cried Bertram Chesleigh, in terrific scorn.

"I did not know what she would do until all was over," he replied.

"You might have saved her even then," Bertram Chesleigh said.

"Yes, I might, but I hated her, and the devil whispered to me that this was my opportunity, so I watched the water close over her head, and then I walked away," he replied.

"Oh, my God, is de vengeance ob Hebben asleep dat such debbils roam de yerth?" wailed old Dinah.

They echoed her cry. Surely the vengeance of Heaven slumbered that such demons walked the earth unsmitten.

"Then temptation entered my soul," he continued. "I did not think it was right for Golden's child to inherit her share of the property when I needed it so much for my own growing family. So I fabricated that slander, and eventually forced my father to make over the remnant of the Glenalvans' possessions to me, and I transferred my hatred from Golden to her child. Now you know all."

Old Hugh pointed to the door with a shaking finger.

"Go, now, before I call down the terrible vengeance of God on your guilty head!" he cried. "Go, and leave me to weep for my murdered darling!"

CHAPTER XLVIII

The next day men were set to work to drag the lake for Golden Leith's body.

A poor, bleached skeleton, partially petrified by the action of the water, and therefore in a good state of preservation, was all they found.

The broad, gold band of a wedding-ring still clung to the fleshless finger, and the name within was all that remained to assure them that this was she whom they sought—the hapless girl whose bright life had been blasted by a brother's sin, and whose name had been covered with ignominy and shame for sixteen years.

They placed the precious remains in a coffin, and prepared to give them Christian burial the next day.

All night and all day it stood on trestles in Hugh Glenalvan's sitting-room, with mourners at head and foot—the husband and father, so tragically bereaved of their darling, sat there dumb and tearless in their great affliction, and old Dinah stole in and out, with the corner of her apron pressed to her streaming eyes, her old black face convulsed with grief.

Only a few days ago the daughter's coffin had stood there where the mother's rested now.

Both her nurslings were gone, and the faithful, old creature's heart was almost broken.

Throughout the night and day not a member of John Glenalvan's family was visible. The curtains remained drawn at the windows, the doors closed, there was no sign of life within the house.

The time came when poor little Golden's remains were to be consigned to the kindly shelter of the grave.

It was a beautiful evening about the first of March. The grass was blue with violets, the birds twittered softly in the orange and magnolia trees, the sun shone brightly as it slowly declined in the western sky; Dinah had been in and deposited some beautiful wreaths of flowers upon the bier.

The friends who had loved the dead woman long ago had come to know her mournful fate at last, and had sent these sweet testimonials of their sympathy and grief.

They were waiting in the graveyard to pay the last outward tokens of respect to the lost one, but they would not venture to the house to intrude on the privacy of the bereaved ones.

So the gentle minister came and told them that they must bid a last farewell to the loved one, and Bertram Chesleigh stood ready to support the still feeble footsteps of Richard Leith with his strong young arm.

"Oh, my daughter, my daughter, how cruelly God has afflicted me," moaned the bereaved father, laying his white head down upon the coffin-lid, while the first heavy tears splashed down his cheeks.

"Do not arraign your Maker. Rather thank Him that your child has at last been proven pure and innocent," said the minister, to whom Golden's whole history was known.

"Thank God," Bertram Chesleigh uttered fervently, then, with a sigh that was almost a sob, he added: "Ah, if only my wife had lived to see this day!"

"She lives—she is here!" said a low, clear voice in the doorway.

All looked around, startled. Two figures were entering the room. Both were clothed in deep mourning.

One was Gertrude Leith, pale and grave-looking, the other was alight, and deeply veiled. She clung to Mrs. Leith's arm tremblingly. They crossed the floor and stood by that long, dark, solemn object that occupied the center of the room. Mrs. Leith raised her companion's veil.

All started and uttered a cry of incredulous surprise.

Little Golden's daughter, pallid, beautiful, tearful, was standing there, looking at them across her mother's coffin.

"Thank God!" she said, in her sweet, clear voice, with a sound of tears in its sweetness. "Thank God, my mother was pure and innocent! The dream of my life-time is fulfilled at last."

"Does the grave give up its dead?" they cried, and Bertram Chesleigh went to her side and touched her white hand, half-fearfully.

"My wife," he said.

"Yes, your wife," she answered, lifting her violet eyes to his face with such deep reproach in their tragic depths, that he was awed into momentary silence.

Then she turned from him, and went to her grandfather, who was gazing at her with dazed eyes full of grief and dread. She put her arms around his neck, and kissed his poor, withered cheek with her sweet, quivering lips.

"Grandpa, you must not take me for a ghost," she said. "It is your own little Golden come back to live and love you again. I was not dead, after all. Did I not tell you I could not die yet? But I cannot tell you all the story of my rescue from the grave now. Let us give all our thoughts to our martyred dead."

She looked up and saw her father and old Dinah waiting to greet her.

It was a strange scene beside that flower-wreathed coffin.

There was passionate joy over the living girl, and bitter sorrow over the dead.

Mrs. Leith had beckoned Bertram Chesleigh away. Behind the heavy hangings of the bay-window she said to him, gently:

"Do not press your wife yet, Mr. Chesleigh. Remember you have wronged her deeply, and she does not yet know how you have repented and atoned."

"I can never atone," he said, heavily.

"Perhaps she may think differently when she knows all," said Mrs. Leith. "Women are very tender and forgiving, you know."

"If she never speaks to me again, I shall still rejoice that she is living," he said, with a beam of gladness in his large, black eyes.

"Do you wonder how she was saved?" she inquired.

"Yes."

"I will tell you, then, briefly," she answered. "You remember how you bribed the grave-digger to open her coffin for you that night?"

"Yes, and then I was too ill to keep my appointment," he answered.

"That wild fancy of yours was the means of her rescue," said Mrs. Leith. "When the man opened the coffin to be in readiness for you, he discovered slight signs of life in Golden. Growing alarmed and impatient at your tardiness, he sent his son to look for you, and the youth encountered me. I went with him, and we removed her to the man's little cottage near by. Little by little we fed the signs of reviving life, and you see the result."

"For which I bless and thank you forever," he said, kissing her hand respectfully.

"I have but little more to say," she went on, smiling a little sadly, "and it is this: Golden is very weak and exhausted yet. She is not strong enough to bear the excitement of her mother's burial. I will remain here with her while they are bearing Mrs. Leith to the grave, and I will tell her your whole story. She shall hear how you came back here to seek her in two days after your ill-considered desertion of her, and found her gone. I will tell her how nobly you vindicated her honor beside her grave. She shall know that you forced John Glenalvan to reveal the hidden story of her mother's fate. When you come back I think she cannot fail to forgive you."

"You will do all this for me?" he said, with a strange moisture in his eyes. "I cannot thank you sufficiently. You are an angel."

"No, only a very faulty and sad-hearted woman," she replied, with a pensive sigh, and then they went back to the mourners.

She kept her promise nobly. While they bore the poor remains of Richard Leith's first wife to the grave, his second wife sat with his daughter and tried to turn the swelling current of her grief by relating the story of Bertram Chesleigh's repentance and atonement.

"Golden, if you could have heard his noble vindication of your honor beside your grave; how proudly he claimed you for his wife, and your child for his own, you could not fail to pity and forgive him for the one great error into which he was led by his own pride and John Glenalvan's evil counsel."

"I have suffered so much through his fault," said the wronged wife, with mournful pathos.

"Yes, dear, but you must show your own nobility of soul now," said the step-mother, gently. "You must remember:

 
"'To err is human,
To forgive divine.'"
 

The beautiful, pale face grew very grave and troubled.

"If only I could forget his cruelty," she said. "Ah, my friend, I was hurt so cruelly by that letter he sent me! I trusted him so fully. I believed in his truth as I believed in my God. I was almost maddened by the suddenness of my sorrow. Every word is branded upon my memory. See! I can repeat every sentence:

"'Though it almost kills me to forsake you, Golden, I must go away. The disgrace of your birth is so terrible that I can never claim you for my wife. Pride and honor alike forbid it. You must see for yourself, poor child, that your terrible misfortune has wholly set you apart from the world, and as you have sworn to keep our private marriage a secret until I give you leave to reveal it, I must beg you to hold the story unspoken in your breast forever.'"

She paused and looked at Mrs. Leith with a whole tragedy of sorrow in her violet orbs.

"Were they not cruel words to write to his own wife?" she said pathetically. "But I obeyed him. Through all the shame and sorrow that came afterward I kept my promise. Do you think I did not suffer more than death in keeping it? When Mrs. Desmond drove me out in such terrible disgrace do you think I did not long to say to her: I am as good and pure as you are; I am your brother's wife! And what did I not suffer when I knew she was separated from her husband on my account? Then when my own father disowned and despised me, how my heart ached to answer, I am Bertram Chesleigh's own wife! Oh, Gertrude, is it right and just that I should forgive him for all that I have suffered and made others suffer for his sake?"

"Yes, dear, because his repentance was so quick and his remorse so deep," said the gentle monitor. "You must remember, Golden, that if you had not gone away that night you would have escaped all that suffering; your husband returned in twenty-four hours to claim you, and John Glenalvan told him that you had gone away with the deliberate intention of leading a sinful life. Do you wonder that it threw him on a bed of sickness that almost cost him his life? You must forgive him and love him again, dear, because he is so penitent and devoted now."

And when the mourners returned from that sad funeral, Mrs. Leith sent him in to his wronged wife.

He knelt down before the pale, golden-haired girl, and begged her to forgive him, not that he deserved it, but because he loved her so dearly.

With the meek tenderness of woman, she forgave him and there was peace between them.

Several hours later he had led her out to old Hugh Glenalvan who was dozing sadly in his easy-chair.

"Mr. Glenalvan," he said, "you see my darling has risen from the grave to forgive me. Will you keep the promise you made, and forgive me too?"

"Yes, grandpa, you must forgive him, for I love him dearly," said little Golden.

So the old man forgave him, and solemnly blessed them as they knelt before him, one withered hand resting kindly on the dark, bowed head, and the other on the golden one.