Kitabı oku: «Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time», sayfa 5

CHAPTER XIV

From the fair southern clime where her lines had hitherto been cast, little Golden traveled straight to the great, thronged city of New York.

During her long day and night of intense suffering, the thought, first suggested to her mind by old Dinah, of seeking and reclaiming her erring mother, had fastened on her mind with irresistible force and power.

Every thought and feeling of this beautiful, unhappy child was as pure as that of an angel.

The knowledge that the young mother who had given her birth was living a life of sin and dishonor was most revolting to her mind. She could not think of it without a mortal shudder.

When Dinah fell asleep by her pillow the girl awakened suddenly and lay for a little while in silent meditation. The idea she had been silently revolving in her mind all day gathered strength in the solitude and stillness of the midnight hour.

Golden was young, buoyant, ignorant of the world, and thought not of the difficulties that would hedge the path of duty which she was marking out for her little, untried feet.

She did not know how dear she was to her grandfather's heart, and how bitterly he would be wounded by her desertion. She only thought of escaping from the life which had suddenly become so unbearable, and of filling her heart with other aims now that the love she had given so lavishly from the depths of a warm and generous heart, had been cast back to her in scorn and contempt.

In the pocket of her best cashmere dress was a little purse filled with gold pieces of which no one knew but herself.

Bertram Chesleigh had given it to her in a happy, never-to-be-forgotten hour which now it almost killed her even to recall.

Almost staggering with weakness, Golden rose and silently and cautiously dressed herself in her blue cashmere dress and hat and jacket.

She decided not to take anything with her. It would be easier to purchase new things when she had arrived in New York.

When she was ready to go, Golden knelt down a moment and pressed her fair cheek lovingly and sorrowfully to the toil-worn wrinkled hand of her old black mammy.

She loved the old negress dearly. Under that homely black breast beat the only heart that had ever given a mother's love to the beautiful, forsaken child of poor, wronged and misguided little Golden.

Then with a lingering, loving, backward glance around, the girl left the room and proceeded to her grandfather's apartment.

The kind old man was asleep with a look of care and anxiety deeply imprinted on his pale, worn features.

Golden pressed her trembling lips to the thin, gray locks that straggled over the pillow, and her girlish tears fell on them, shining like jewels in the dim gleam of the night-lamp.

Then Golden stole away noiselessly. There was one more farewell to be said ere she set forth on the mission whose only clew lay in the crumpled card hidden away securely in the little purse of gold.

She knelt down on the banks of the tranquil little lake she had always loved so dearly, and clasped her little hands and lifted her white face in the bright moonlight.

"Farewell, little lake," she murmured to the silvery, tranquil sheet of water. "I pray God that the time may come when I shall kneel by you again, and tell you that I have reclaimed my erring mother, and that her soul has been washed as pure and free from sin as the lilies sleeping on your breast."

Was it only little Golden's excited fancy, or did a shadow, soft and impalpable as a mist wreath, and pale as the moonbeams, glide across the still water in the form of a woman, and a voice as soft and low as the sigh of the breeze murmur sadly:

"Bless you, my daughter."

She started and looked around; the voice and vision had been so real she could hardly imagine it fancy, but the phantom shape had dissolved into moonbeams again, and the voice had melted into music on the "homeless winds."

"If my poor mother was dead I should believe that her spirit had blessed me," said the beautiful girl to herself. "But she is alive, so it could not have been she, perhaps it was my guardian angel."

She plucked a beautiful, large, white lily from the lake and started on her way to the railway station, carrying the spotless flower in her hand.

Perhaps some thought of the poet, Longfellow's, verses came to her mind:

 
"Bear a lily in thine hand,
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand,
Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth,
On thy lips the smile of truth,
In thy heart the dew of youth."
 

CHAPTER XV

We will return to Bertram Chesleigh, little Golden's recreant lover.

All of John Glenalvan's influence had been brought to bear on the proud young man to induce him to relinquish his pursuit of the beautiful girl whose acquaintance he had so strangely and imprudently formed.

Mr. Chesleigh's own pride of birth, united to John Glenalvan's artful innuendoes, was a powerful ally in the young man's mind against his love for the lonely and beautiful little girl.

In the light of John Glenalvan's revelations, a great revulsion had taken place in his mind.

He heartily wished that he had never made the acquaintance of the lovely little creature, or that he had not followed it up with such ardor and passion.

With few, if any exceptions, men are naturally selfish. Bertram Chesleigh, who had never known a desire unfulfilled in the course of his prosperous life, was no exception to the general rule.

In pursuing his acquaintance with little Golden, he had been actuated more by a regard for his own pleasure than by any thought of risk for her.

In the light of recent developments, he thought also first of himself. How to escape from the consequences of his headlong passion became momentarily a paramount consideration.

When his conscience reproached him he replied to it that it was only natural and right that he should think first of himself.

He had his high social station to maintain, and he was quite sure that his friends and relations would have declined to receive even as his bride, a woman of stained birth.

Golden had, it seemed, no place in the world, no social status whatever.

If he made her his bride, his troubles and embarrassments would be legion. If he left her all would go well with him, and he argued with himself that the child would speedily forget him and resign herself to her strange and lonely life.

So, under the influence of these vexing thoughts, and John Glenalvan's specious arguments and representations, that unjust letter was written to poor, suffering little Golden.

Ah, we are so careless and so thoughtless over what we write. Bertram Chesleigh was not a bad man, and never meant to be cruel, and yet he had done more harm in the writing of that letter than if he had pierced the tender heart with a dagger.

Even while writing it he felt ashamed and sorry, yet no premonition came to tell him of the dim future when he would have given tears of blood to have obliterated even the memory of that letter from the heart of little Golden which it had seared as with the breath of fire.

He never forgot a single word of that letter he had written to her, although in his haste and agitation he had kept no copy of it. It did not seem so hard to him at first as it did afterward, when he knew what suffering the writing had caused and the consequences were forever beyond recall.

After he had written and dispatched it he made his adieu to the family of John Glenalvan and departed, feeling like a coward, while if he had truly understood the depth of tenderness and capabilities of woe in the girl he had deserted, he might have felt more like a murderer.

The Glenalvans, while terribly disappointed in their hopes for Elinor, were relieved at the departure of their guest for the present. Elinor entreated her father to make arrangements for removing Golden out of the way in case the young man should repeat his visit, and he promised, with an oath more forcible than polite, that he would certainly do so.

But before he had taken any decisive step in the furtherance of his purpose, the unfortunate girl had taken her fate in her own hands. When John Glenalvan entered the ruined wing the second day for the purpose, as he had emphatically expressed it, of "having it out with his father in cursed few words," he found the old man and his faithful old servant in a frenzy of grief and despair over Golden's farewell letter.

John was unfeignedly glad that Golden had gone away herself without giving him the trouble and annoyance of sending her.

"It is much better as it is, father," he said to the poor, broken-hearted old creature. "I fully intended to send the girl away. She has only saved herself the ignominy of a summary dismissal. Do not fret yourself over her. She has only forsaken you to lead a life of shame with her erring mother. I hope that a lightning flash may strike her dead before she ever returns here again to disgrace and shame us yet further!"

"Forbear, John. You are cruel and impious," cried the old man, lifting his hand feebly, and his son strode angrily out of the room, muttering curses "not loud but deep," and followed by the vivid lightnings of old Dinah's black eyes.

"Oh, de brack-hearted wilyun!" she muttered. "May de good Lard hasten de time ob punishment for his cruel sins!"

CHAPTER XVI

The first thing that happened to little Golden Glenalvan after she arrived in the city of New York, was something that not infrequently happens to simple and inexperienced travelers.

She had her pocket picked of her purse by some expert thief. Such things have often happened in the annals of New York crime, and will again, but it is probable that no one's life was ever so much affected by such a loss as was the unfortunate little Golden's.

She found herself by this totally unlooked-for catastrophe thrown into the streets of the great, wicked city penniless, friendless, and utterly forsaken. Every cent she possessed in the world had been in the little purse, together with the card that bore her father's name. The latter was not so great a loss to her. The name of the man who had wronged her mother was engraven on her mind in characters that were never to be destroyed.

Her little plans for the discovery of her mother, laid with such girlish art, were all turned away by this accident. She had meant to take cheap lodgings somewhere, and prosecute her search, but now she knew not what to do, nor where to turn.

The great, busy city, with its strange faces and hurry and bustle frightened her, even though she dreamed not in her girlish innocence of its festering sin and underlying wickedness.

Sinking down on a secluded seat in Central Park where she had been walking when she first discovered her loss, she sobbed bitterly in her grief and distress—so bitterly that a well-dressed, benevolent-looking lady who was walking along a path with a pretty poodle frisking before her, went up to her with kind abruptness.

"My dear little girl," she said, laying her hand gently on the showering, golden wealth of hair that escaped from Golden's little sailor hat, "what is the matter? Can I help you?"

Golden lifted her head and the lady who had a kind, middle-aged face, decidedly aristocratic, started and uttered a cry of surprise at the beautiful, girlish face with its tearful eyes like purple-blue pansies drowned in dew.

In a moment the lady's quick eyes had seen from the cut and fashion of Golden's simple garments that she was a stranger in New York. She repeated kindly:

"What ails you, my child? Have you become separated from your friends?"

"No, for I have not a friend in this whole, great city. But I have lost my purse," answered Golden, with childish directness.

The lady sat down beside her and regarded her a moment in thoughtful silence. She saw nothing but the most infantile sweetness, purity and truth in the lovely, troubled young face. She was touched and interested.

"So you have lost your purse?" she said. "Have you had your pocket picked?"

"I do not know," answered Golden, forlornly. "I carried it in my jacket pocket, and awhile ago, when I felt for it I discovered that it was gone."

"Now, I am quite sure you are a stranger in New York," said the lady. "If you belonged in the city you would know better than to carry your purse carelessly in the pocket of your walking jacket. New York is full of sneak thieves who are on the watch for the unwary. You say you have not a friend in the city. Where are you from, my child?"

"From the south," replied Golden.

"Did you come to New York alone?"

"Yes madam. I am an orphan," replied the girl, not wishing to disclose her history to her interrogator.

"What do you wish for in this great city?" asked the lady.

"I want to find some employment at present. Can you help me?" asked Golden, timidly and beseechingly lifting her large blue eyes to the interested face of the lady.

"Perhaps I can," said the lady, smiling gently. "What kind of employment do you wish? What kind of work can you do?"

The beautiful, girlish face grew a little blank. She remembered her careless, idle life at Glenalvan Hall, where no one ever taught her anything but her grandfather and old Dinah. She was compelled to confess despondently that she did not know how to do anything.

The lady who was a really good woman with a decidedly benevolent turn, studied the drooping face attentively. She saw that there was some mystery about the girl, but the lovely young face was so guileless and winning that she could see no evil in it. She asked her, rather abruptly, what her name was.

"Golden Glenalvan," answered the girl, and the lady frowned slightly, and said it was too fanciful and pretty.

"If you are going to work for your living, I would advise you to call yourself by some plain and common name, such as Jones or Brown or Smith."

"Then I will call myself Mary Smith," replied Golden, resignedly.

"That will do very well. Now, my child, do you think you would like to undertake chambermaid's work?"

She glanced, as she spoke, at the girl's ungloved hands, and saw that they were delicately white and aristocratic, so she answered the question negatively to herself before Golden answered, shrinkingly and timidly:

"I do not believe I would like it, madam, but I am willing to try. I must do something to support myself, and I have no choice left me since I do not know how to do anything."

The lady looked at her a little wonderingly.

"My child, if you would tell me something about yourself I might know better how to help you," she said. "It is quite evident that you have met with reverses. You are unaccustomed to labor, and you look like a born lady."

Golden was silent, and a deep blush colored her face. Not for worlds would she have told her sad story to this gentle woman.

She fancied that the sweet pity beaming from her gray eyes now would change to scorn and contempt, if she could know that she was a nameless child seeking a lost and guilty mother.

"Perhaps you have imprudently run away from your friends," she said, questioningly, and striking so near the truth that Golden burst into tears again, and would have left her but that she detained her by a firm yet gentle pressure of the hand.

"Do not go," she said. "I want to help you if I can. Perhaps I could tell you something you are far too young and innocent to know."

"What is that, ma'am?" asked Golden, looking at her questioningly.

"This, my child—that one so pretty and simple as you are should not be alone and friendless in this great city. You are in the greatest danger. Beauty is only a curse to a poor girl who has to earn her own living."

"Yes, madam," Golden answered, with perfect meekness, though she crimsoned painfully.

"So I think," continued her kind friend, "that a home and shelter in even the humblest capacity is better for you than to be wandering alone in the streets homeless and penniless."

"I know that," said Golden, "but I have nowhere to go," and the pathos of the tearful tone touched the kind lady's heart.

"My child, I have been thinking about that," she said. "I have a friend who needs a nurse for her little invalid girl. Should you like to try for the situation?"

"Oh, yes," Golden answered, gratefully.

"The little girl is the petted and only daughter of wealthy people," continued the kind lady. "She is delicate, and has been humored and spoiled injudiciously all her life, until she is, at times, quite overbearing and disagreeable, so much so indeed that her mother can scarcely keep a nurse for her more than a week or two at a time. Are you frightened at my description? Have you a good store of patience?"

"I have been impatient and self-willed all my life," confessed Golden, frankly.

"Yet you have a sweet-tempered face, if there is any truth in physiognomy," said her new friend. "It seems to me that you could not grow impatient ministering to the needs of that poor, little invalid child. Think how much happiness you could give the poor, ailing little soul if you tried. And when you are as old as I am," she added, with a faint sigh, "you will understand that the greatest pleasure in life is in giving happiness to others."

"I will try to be patient and kind to the child, if you will be so kind as to get the place for me," said little Golden, trembling with eagerness.

"Very well, my dear; I will myself accompany you to my friend's house and speak a kind word in your favor. It is rather a risk to run, this introducing and vouching for a total stranger, but I believe that your gentle, honest face will be a passport to Mrs. Desmond's favor, just as it has been to mine. You will follow me, now, my child."

Golden walked on with the warm-hearted woman some distance through the beautiful green park, when, to her surprise, her benefactress stopped before an elegant, liveried carriage, with quite an imposing-looking driver in a white hat and gloves.

"Drive to Mrs. Desmond's, John," she said, as the footman handed her and her timid protege into the carriage.

Little Golden felt like one in a bewildering dream as she lay back among the luxurious satin cushions and was whirled through the stately streets, past the beautiful buildings and brown-stone palaces until they stopped at last before one more splendid than all the rest, and she found herself gliding up the marble steps, her young heart throbbing fast at the novelty and strangeness of her position.

She was going to be a servant in this splendid house! She, one of the Glenalvans of Glenalvan Hall, a name that had been proud and honored in the past until her girlish mother had stained its haughty prestige with shame.

Her heart beat heavily and slow. The thought came to her mind that these proud and wealthy people would not even permit her to be a servant to their daughter if they knew that she was a nameless child.

CHAPTER XVII

Mrs. Markham, little Golden's kind, new friend, was evidently on terms of intimacy with Mrs. Desmond.

Instead of sending her card to the lady and awaiting her appearance in the formal drawing-room, she was at once conducted up stairs to a charming boudoir hung with rose-colored silk and white lace.

The carpet was white velvet strewn with a pattern of pink moss rosebuds, and the chairs and couches were upholstered in a deeper shade of rose-color.

Everything in the room was costly and tasteful, and vases of freshly-cut flowers diffused delicious fragrance through the air.

Little Golden had never before been in such a costly and tasteful room, and she uttered an involuntary low exclamation of surprise and delight at which Mrs. Markham smiled indulgently.

"Does this pretty room surprise you?" she inquired.

"Yes, madam, I have never seen anything so beautiful and costly before," answered the simple child.

At that moment the heavy draperies that hung between the boudoir and the dressing-room were swept aside by a white, jeweled hand, and the mistress of all this magnificence entered the room.

She was a beautiful young lady, with great, velvety black eyes, dark, waving hair, crimson lips, and rounded cheeks like the sunny side of a peach. Her morning-dress was elegant, costly and becoming.

"Ah, Mrs. Markham, good-morning. I am very glad to see you," she cried, then she looked past her friend inquiringly at the little, shrinking figure of Golden.

"Edith, this is a little protege of mine, Mary Smith by name," Mrs. Markham hastened to say. "If you have not secured a nurse yet, will you try her for little Ruby?"

"I shall be very glad to do so if you think she will suit," returned Mrs. Desmond as they all seated themselves.

Then the handsome brunette looked patronizingly at the new applicant for her favor. The scrutiny did not seem to please her. The slender, arched, black brows met over the bright eyes in a slight frown.

"Child, why do you not put your hair up?" she asked, glancing at the bright wealth of loosely flowing ringlets. "It is not becoming to nurses to wear it in that way."

"I can put it up if you wish me, ma'am," Golden replied in a low voice, her eyelids drooping that the lady might not see the childish resentment that flashed into them at her slightly scornful tone.

"Very well, I shall insist upon that if I engage you," replied Mrs. Desmond. "You will tuck it up and wear a nurse's cap over it. Have you any recommendations to give with her, Mrs. Markham?" she continued, expectantly.

"No, for Mary has never been in service before," replied the kind lady. "She is a young southern girl seeking employment in this city, and I should like to befriend her if possible. I fancied that her gentle, innocent face might recommend her to your favor as it did to mine."

Mrs. Desmond turned to look at Golden again, and met the gaze of the soft blue eyes fixed on her with a kind of puzzled intentness.

"Child, why do you stare at me so curiously?" she inquired.

The deep color rushed into Golden's face, making her more lovely than ever.

"I beg your pardon," she hastened to say, falteringly. "You remind me so much of someone I have known that I could not keep from looking at your face. It was very rude, I know."

"Never mind, I am not angry," answered Mrs. Desmond. "Do you think you would make a good, patient nurse for my little girl, Mary?"

"I will do the best I can," little Golden replied, in her gentle, refined voice.

Mrs. Desmond looked at her friend.

"I am not in the habit of engaging help without recommendation. It is rather a risk to run," she remarked, "but to please you, my friend, and because I really need a maid for Ruby, I will give Mary Smith a trial. When can you come Mary?"

"She can stay now, if you like, Edith," said Mrs. Markham.

"That will suit me very well," said Mrs. Desmond. "I will engage you for one month at least, Mary, and I will pay you ten dollars a month. Will that suit you?"

"Yes, thank you," Golden answered, timidly.

"Very well, you may stay now, and you may go at once to Ruby, for I have been compelled to lend her my own maid, for a week past, and she is so dissatisfied with the position that she threatens to leave me if she is not relieved. I can assure you that you will find your position no sinecure. I hope you will try to find means to amuse the child. You must be very kind and patient with her, Mary. I allow no scolding or fault-finding, for my little girl is very frail and delicate."

Golden rose and stood waiting while the languid, fine lady talked.

When she had ended her little speech, she pointed her white finger at the dressing-room door.

"Go through the drawing-room," she said, "into my bed-chamber. You will find that it has a door connecting with the nursery. You will find my little daughter in there. You may introduce yourself to her. Mrs. Markham and I will look in presently and see how Ruby is pleased with you."

"Try and make a good impression on the little one's mind at first," said Mrs. Markham, kindly. "First impressions are everything with children."

Beautiful Golden thanked her with a grateful look, and silently withdrew to follow Mrs. Desmond's instructions.

"You do not seem as pleased as I had expected, Edith," Mrs. Markham said, in a tone of disappointment, when they were alone.

"To tell the truth, I think the girl is too pretty," Mrs. Desmond replied, with some embarrassment.

"I thought you liked pretty things about you," said her friend.

"So I do, but I do not like pretty servants," was the significant reply. "As a rule they are vain and trifling, and do not attend to their business. They are always looking out to attract admiration to their pretty faces."

"I do not believe that Mary Smith is one of that kind," said Mrs. Markham. "She seems a good, simple, innocent girl. But if she fails to suit you, Edith, you may return her to me, and I will find some other place for her. I imagined that you would be delighted with such a girl for Ruby's attendant."

"And so I am, and I am ever so much obliged to you for thinking of me. I hope that she will please Ruby better than the girls we have had lately, for I feel quite worn out with anxiety over the dear little creature," replied Mrs. Desmond, but so constrained that Mrs. Markham saw that she was only half-hearted in her pleasure, and wondered why it was that Golden's beauty, which was so attractive to her own eyes, was distasteful to Mrs. Desmond, who was beautiful herself, and liked to gather beautiful things around her.

It is said that every family has its skeleton. Mrs. Markham did not know that the skeleton in her friend's closet was the lurking fiend of jealousy. Mrs. Desmond was a charming lady, but she secretly disliked every pretty woman she knew.

Little Golden went on through the dressing-room to the bed-chamber, which was a perfect bower of elegance and repose, and timidly opened the nursery door, for the description of little Ruby Desmond had rather intimidated her.

She found herself in a large, airy, sunny chamber, splendidly adapted for a nursery, and luxuriously fitted up for that purpose.

In a low rocking-chair a smart French maid was indolently lounging and yawning over a French novel.

In a corner of the room a little girl of six years, small for her age, and pale and delicate-looking, was sobbing fretfully in a fit of the sulks.

She dashed the tears from her eyes and looked up curiously at the timid intruder.

"Who are you?" she demanded, abruptly.

"I am Mary Smith, your new nurse, little Miss Ruby," said Golden, in a clear, sweet voice, and with a winning smile.

The French maid threw down her novel and stared, and little Ruby came out of her corner.

"So you are my new maid, are you?" she asked, pertly. "Well, I hope you will not be as hateful as Celine here is, for if you do I shall be sure to throw my top at your head. I am very glad you are come, for I am perfectly tired of Celine, and I want her to leave me at once—at once, do you hear me, Celine?"

Celine flounced out of the room in a huff, and the little one continued:

"There is one comfort, you are not as ugly as Celine and the others! I hate ugly people, and so does my papa, but mamma likes them best. You are the prettiest nurse I ever saw! You look just like my big wax doll, with your blue eyes and long hair. Nurses always wear their hair under a cap, did you not know that?"

Little Golden did not answer one word to the voluble discourse of the spoiled child.

She stood silently in the center of the large apartment, her small hand pressed to her beating heart, her pale lips apart, her blue eyes upraised to a large portrait that hung against the wall in a splendid frame of gold and ebony. The dark, handsome, splendid face that smiled down upon her was the face of her lost lover, Bertram Chesleigh.