Kitabı oku: «Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XXI

At Golden's loud scream of alarm and anger, the door of Mrs. Desmond's sleeping apartment opened suddenly, and Celine, the maid, stood aghast upon the threshold.

She beheld the pretty, new nurse in the arms of her master, saw his handsome head bent over her as he kissed the beautiful crimson lips. At Celine's startled cry he turned upon her fiercely, at the same time releasing Golden.

"What do you mean by spying upon my actions, Celine?" he demanded angrily.

"Pardon, monsieur, I meant no offense," said the maid, as smooth as silk, "I but thought you were romping with little Miss Ruby, and looked in to behold the little one's delight."

Mr. Desmond saw that it was necessary to conciliate Mademoiselle Celine.

"I did come in to see Ruby," he replied, "but she had gone to ride. So I attempted a bit of harmless gallantry with her nurse, here, such as most pretty girls would have taken with pleasure, but she was timid and frightened at my little joke. Hold your tongue about it, Celine, and here's a trifle to buy you a new cap."

He tossed a gold piece at her feet, and Celine picked it up, curtsying and smiling. Little Golden, standing apart from them, regarded the scene with horror and disgust.

Mr. Desmond, turning suddenly to her, quailed at the look of fiery scorn in the beautiful, spirited young face.

"Are you very angry with me, Mary?" he inquired in a subdued voice.

"No words can do justice to my contempt for you," she replied, in a voice of cutting scorn. "How dared you maltreat and insult me so? Shame on you for your cruelty to a poor and helpless girl!"

She was so beautiful in her anger that he could scarcely remove his gaze from her face. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes were darkened and dilated with anger, her lovely lips were curled disdainfully. He read the proud purity of her young soul in every haughty movement of her lithe young figure and clenched, white hands.

He regarded her in silence a moment, then exclaimed with apparent frankness:

"Mary, I will tell you the truth, and then you will be able to pardon my conduct. My wife told me that she had engaged you totally without recommendation, and we both were afraid that we had run too great a risk in intrusting our little darling to your care. I determined therefore to test you. I have done so, and I am delighted to find that your principles and your virtue are so steadfast and true. Are you willing to grant me your pardon after this explanation?"

At this specious apology the simple girl looked from the hypocrite's anxious face to that of the maid.

Celine being a woman, she reasoned, would tell her whether to accept this explanation or not.

The artful maid gave her an encouraging smile.

"Monsieur is right," she said. "He did well to test your principles, Miss Smith. Do not be so rude as to withhold your forgiveness after his manly apology."

Golden, with her slight knowledge of the wicked world, thought that Mr. Desmond and Celine had told her the truth. She answered, falteringly, after a moment of silence:

"Then I will forgive you, Mr. Desmond, if you will promise not to molest me again. Otherwise I shall return to Mrs. Markham's protection."

"You must not think of leaving us. Ruby is so pleased with you that it would be a shame to desert her. You need not fear me. I am quite satisfied of your truth and worth, and my wife will be delighted when I tell her how nobly I have proved your virtue," said Mr. Desmond, hastily.

Then he looked at his watch, and muttering something about his business engagement, hurried away.

Celine looked at Golden with an odd, significant smile.

"Now, Miss Smith, you understand what I meant by saying that you were too good-looking for your place," she said.

"But I thought he said, and so did you, Celine, that he was only testing my virtue," said poor Golden, in perplexity.

"Bah! that was only master's blarney," replied Celine, airily. "Of course I had to agree with him, or lose my situation, and I don't choose to do that, for I have a good place and lots of perquisites. But the truth is that monsieur only invented that tale of testing you because he was frightened when he found he had tackled an honest girl, and he did not wish for the madam to get hold of it."

"Then he is a wicked villain, and I shall go away to-day," cried the girl, indignantly, "I love little Ruby, but I will go away, I cannot remain."

"If you take my advice you will stay and say nothing about it," replied the maid. "If you go to another place you are just as likely to encounter the same difficulty. You are too pretty to be a servant. I have told you that already."

"But I cannot remain here and encounter the persecutions of Mr. Desmond," replied Golden, decidedly.

"I do not believe he will annoy you again," said Celine, confidently. "He has found out that you are honest, and he will be afraid to pursue you any further. The child is so pleased with you it would be a pity to forsake her. You may take my word for it that monsieur is too much afraid of his wife to bother you again. Why, she is so jealous that if she knew her husband had kissed you, she would want to cut your ears off."

Golden shivered at Celine's vivid words.

"It is better I should go, then," she said, with a sigh. "I would not, for the world, create trouble between husband and wife."

"You had better stay," said Celine. "I shall not tell of you, and you may be pretty sure master won't. So Mrs. Desmond need never know."

"It is better I should go," said Golden, decidedly; and then she threw herself down upon a lounge and burst into tears.

"Oh! why are women so weak, and men so cruel?" she wildly sobbed.

"It's their nature," replied Celine, but Golden made her no answer. She only continued to weep heart-brokenly.

"I am the most miserable girl on earth," she sobbed. "I wish that I had never been born!"

The maid's curiosity was greatly excited by Golden's words. She knelt down by the girl and inquired the cause of her sorrow, and promised her her friendship and advice if she would confide in her.

But in Golden's pure mind there was an instinctive distrust of Celine. Her ready acceptance of her master's bribe had excited her disgust and dislike. She answered evasively that she had nothing to confide, and only desired to be left in peace.

"Oh, very well, miss," replied the maid, "you can be left alone, I'm sure, but you'll find that it's better to make a friend of Celine Duval than an enemy."

She flounced out of the room as she spoke, and Golden was left alone to the companionship of her own sad thoughts. She lay silently a long while looking at the portrait of Bertram Chesleigh, and weeping bitter tears over her unhappy fate. How beautiful and life-like was the picture!

The blissful hours she had spent with the original rushed over her mind, making the contrast with the gloom of the present more harrowing. She found herself exclaiming:

 
"Oh, that those lips had language—life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard them last."
 

But no sound came from the lips of the false-hearted lover, who had given her a few hours of happiness only to leave her to the darkness of despair.

CHAPTER XXII

Golden had quite decided in her mind that she would rather leave Mrs. Desmond at once, than risk a renewal of her husband's distasteful attentions, but little Ruby's first words on returning from her drive, dispelled the idea for the present at least from her thoughts.

"Oh, Mary!" the little one had cried, with childish directness, as soon as she entered the room. "Oh, Mary! I have heard bad news!"

"I am very sorry for you, dear," said Golden, gently.

Ruby looked up into the face of her uncle, where it hung against the wall.

"Oh, poor Uncle Bertie!" she sighed.

"Was it about Mr. Chesleigh, Ruby?" she inquired.

"Yes," said the child. "Mamma has had a telegram from some people about him. He is very sick, and he is away down south at a place called Glenalvan Hall."

Golden drew her breath heavily, and sank into a chair. It seemed as if an arrow had pierced her heart. She could not speak, but stared at Ruby with a dumb misery in her eyes, that the little one could in nowise understand.

"Some of us will have to go to him—mamma and papa, I suppose," continued Ruby. "I asked mamma to let me go, but she says it would be too warm for me at this time of the year in the south, because I am so delicate."

"Is he very sick? Will he die?" inquired Golden, speaking in a strange, unnatural voice.

"They hope not, but he is very sick," said Ruby; and at that moment Mrs. Desmond swept into the room.

Her bright eyes looked dim and heavy as though she might have been weeping.

"I am very sorry you have had bad news, madam," said Golden, trying to appear quiet and natural, though her pulse was beating at fever-heat, and her eyes were heavy and dim beneath their drooping lashes.

"Ruby has told you of my brother's illness, then," said Mrs. Desmond, more gently than she usually spoke to her dependents.

"Yes, madam," said Golden, faintly, unable to utter another word.

"He has brain fever," said Mrs. Desmond, despondently. "Mr. Desmond will leave for the south to-night, and if he is no better when he arrives, he will telegraph for me to go to him. He is unwilling for me to go if it can be prevented, as it is so warm down there at this time of year. Besides, I am unwilling to leave Ruby, and I could not run the risk of taking her."

She threw herself into a chair, and wept a few genuine tears.

Little Golden, watching her with dry eyes and pale, mute lips, wondered if the sister's heart ached half so heavily and painfully as her own did.

"Yet why should I grieve for him?" the poor child asked herself. "I should rather rejoice. He has forsaken and deserted me."

She could find no answer to that question in her heart, save that she loved him. Loved him in despite of her cruel wrongs.

Before night another telegram was received, saying that Bertram Chesleigh had asked repeatedly for his sister. So it was decided that Mrs. Desmond should accompany her husband.

"Mary, do you think that you and the housekeeper can take care of my little Ruby while I am gone?" inquired Mrs. Desmond, tearfully.

Golden promised so earnestly to give her whole care and attention to the little one that Mrs. Desmond could not help confiding in her promise.

The child herself, though half-distracted with grief at the parting with her parents, promised bravely to be a good and patient girl for Uncle Bertie's sake.

Celine was to accompany her mistress, and was in a bustle of pleasant preparation. The hours passed swiftly, and the time for the farewells soon came and passed.

Little Ruby sobbed herself to sleep dismally, with her arms around Golden's neck, unconscious that the girl shed sadder tears than her own, when her little charge was peacefully dreaming.

CHAPTER XXIII

"The slow, sad hours that bring us all things ill," waned slowly, while Golden and Ruby waited impatiently for news of the travelers.

Ruby was very restless and capricious, besides her daily headaches grew worse as the heat of the summer season advanced. She fretted very much over her postponed trip to the seaside.

At length a telegram came from the travelers to say that they had reached Glenalvan Hall, and Mr. Chesleigh was no better. After this these bulletins came almost daily, but with no encouraging words. Very ill, and no prospect of improvement yet, was their daily burden.

In about two weeks Mr. Desmond returned unexpectedly.

Ruby was overjoyed. She laughed and wept together, as she hung around his neck.

"Uncle Bertie must be better, or you would not have returned," she cried.

But her father shook his head gravely.

"No, dear, I am sorry to say he is not improving at all. Indeed the case is so critical that it may be weeks before your mother can return. That is why I have come."

"Shall you go back, then?" inquired Ruby.

"Yes, in about a week. Have you fretted for us very much, Ruby?"

"A great deal," she replied. "Oh, papa," clapping her little hands, "now I know why you have come back. You are going to take me to mamma and Uncle Bert."

"Nothing is further from my intentions," replied Mr. Desmond. "I have come to take you to the seashore."

"The seashore—while my uncle is so ill?" cried the child, a little surprised.

"Yes, Ruby. You must remember your own health is very frail. Your mother is very anxious about you. You will go to the seashore in the care of Mrs. Markham. Will that arrangement please you?"

"Very much," smiled Ruby. "I love Mrs. Markham. Of course I shall take my nurse?"

"Yes, of course," he replied, then inquired, carelessly: "Are you still satisfied with Mary Smith?"

"Oh, yes, Mary is a splendid girl—I do not intend ever to part from her," replied the child, enthusiastically, "I am quite getting over my sulky spells since she came. Mary does not tease and cross me as the others did."

Golden, who had sat sewing quietly by the window, without ever lifting her eyes from her work since Mr. Desmond entered, crimsoned painfully at thus having his attention drawn upon her.

But he took no notice of her except to say patronizingly:

"I am glad you have found such a treasure, Ruby. I hope she will remain with you. Are you willing to accompany Ruby to the seaside, Mary?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, quietly.

"Very well, I will go and see Mrs. Markham now. If she can go by the last of the week I will accompany the party and see you all safely settled before I return south."

Golden made him no answer, thinking that none was necessary, and he went out to call on Mrs. Markham.

It was all carried out as Mr. Desmond wished. In the latter part of the week he accompanied the party to the seashore, saw them installed in comfortable quarters, and after staying two days took leave again.

During his short stay, he enjoyed himself according to his flirting tastes with the lively seaside belles.

In her capacity of Ruby's nurse Golden was compelled to see him a great deal, but he treated her at all times with such subdued respect and delicate attention that the girl grew less afraid of him, and began to think that Celine was right when she said he would abandon his pursuit of her now that he had found out she was an honest girl. She did not know that Mr. Desmond's quiet respect and delicate courtesy was more dangerous than his former open advances had been. Still she was relieved when he was gone, and she was left alone with little Ruby and Mrs. Markham, who was very kind to the lonely girl though in a decidedly patronizing fashion.

When Golden and Ruby had been at the seaside a month with Mrs. Markham, the glad tidings that Mr. Chesleigh was beginning to improve, were conveyed to little Ruby in a short but affectionate letter from her mother.

"Your dear uncle has had a great fight for his life, but the doctor now says that he is likely to get well," Mrs. Desmond wrote. "If he continues to improve, we shall be able to start home with him in about two weeks, journeying slowly. We will join you then at the seaside, as the physician thinks that a month by the sea will quite restore Bertram's health."

It was Golden's task to read this letter to the little six-year-old, whose education, owing to her extreme frailty of constitution, had not yet commenced.

The child cried out noisily for joy at the welcome news, but Golden said not a word. Yet her thoughts were very busy.

"I shall see him again very soon," she said to herself. "Will he recognize, in his sister's servant, the girl that loved him so dearly?"

Then the thought came to her that he would not wish to see her again; she had no part nor lot in his life henceforth, by his own desire.

Musing sadly by the great, moaning sea, while little Ruby gathered the rosy-tinted shells along the sands, she murmured to herself those sweet, pathetic lines of Owen Meredith:

 
"Oh, being of beauty and bliss! Seen and known
In the depths of my heart, and possessed there alone,
My days know thee not, and my lips name thee never,
Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever;
We have met, we have parted,
No name is recorded
In my annals on earth."
 

CHAPTER XXIV

In few more days Mrs. Markham received a letter from Mrs. Desmond. Her brother was so much better that she had quite recovered the tone of her spirits, and wrote, cheerfully:

"If nothing more happens, I shall be with you the first of September. Bertram will be with me, and I shall also bring a very charming young lady whom I have invited to spend the winter months with me in New York. She is the daughter of our host, and has been Bert's unwearied attendant throughout his illness. Between you and me, dear friend, she is so desperately in love with my brother, that she has neither eyes nor ears for anyone else. She has a younger sister whom I have not invited. I do not like her. She is the most abominable flirt I ever saw, and has done nothing but make eyes at Mr. Desmond since we came to Glenalvan Hall."

"Glenalvan Hall," mused Mrs. Markham, holding the letter in her hand, and drawing her eyebrows thoughtfully together. "How familiar the word sounds! Where have I heard it?"

She puzzled over it awhile, then gave it up. In the gay whirl of fashionable society, she had forgotten the pretty name of the poor girl she had befriended.

But she carried her letter into Ruby's room and read it aloud to her, and Golden's cheeks that had grown very pale and delicate of late, grew paler still.

"Elinor is coming," she said to herself, in dismay. "What shall I do?"

She thought at first that she would go away quietly before they came.

She could not stay and face her proud cousin, Elinor, and the man who had loved her, and then despised her for the stain upon her.

But the thought came into her mind, where would she go? She had never received any of her wages from Mrs. Desmond yet. If she went away she would be utterly friendless and penniless.

She clung to little Ruby because the child loved her very dearly, and without her love she was utterly alone.

And underlying all was a fierce, passionate longing she could not still, to see Bertram Chesleigh's face once more, to hear again that musical, luring voice, whose accents she had hung upon so fondly.

A few days before the first of September, she turned timidly to Mrs. Markham, who was amusing herself with little Ruby down on the sands.

"Mrs. Markham," she said, "will you tell me this, please? Are not green glasses good for weak eyes?"

"I have heard so," replied the lady. "Are your eyes weak, Mary?"

She looked into the girl's face as she spoke, and saw that the sweet, blue eyes were dull and heavy.

How was she to guess that sleepless nights and bitter tears had dimmed their sapphire sparkle.

"Are your eyes weak, Mary?" she repeated, seeing that the girl hesitated.

A blush tinged the pearly cheek, and Golden glanced out at the foam-crested waves rolling in toward the shore.

"I think that the glare of the sun on the sands, and on the water, is very weakening to the sight," she replied, evasively.

"So it is. I have heard others complain of the same thing. If the light affects your eyes I would advise you, by all means, to wear the glasses."

"Thank you. I believe I will try a pair," returned Golden.

"Oh, Mary, you will be a perfect fright, if you do!" cried out little Ruby, in childish disapproval. "You have covered up all your long, gold hair under that ugly cap, and now, if you cover up your pretty, blue eyes, you will be as horrid-looking as—as—I don't know what!"

"Never mind the looks, my dear," said Mrs. Markham, in her gentle way. "If Mary is kind and loving at heart her looks will not signify."

"But I do so love pretty things," said the child, "and I love to look at Mary. She looks like a picture at night when she combs out her shining hair over her shoulders. There is not a lady at the seaside this summer as pretty as my nurse!"

"Fie, my dear; you must not make Mary vain," cried the lady, half smiling.

"I want to ask you a favor, Mrs. Markham," said Golden, blushing very much.

"A favor! What is it, Mary?" asked Mrs. Markham, encouragingly.

Golden glanced down at her blue cashmere dress, which had grown very shabby and worn during the two months she had been in little Ruby's service.

"You see I had lost all my money when I went into Mrs. Desmond's service," she said falteringly, "and I have not received any of my wages yet, and—and I am getting too shabby to be respectable-looking."

That was little Golden's plea, but the truth was that she did not wish her Cousin Elinor and Bertram Chesleigh to recognize her, and so wished to lay aside the blue cashmere which had been her best dress at Glenalvan Hall.

"Oh, you poor child!" burst out Mrs. Markham, "why did you never tell me that before? I see, now; you want me to lend you the money to buy a new dress."

"If you will be so very, very kind," faltered Golden, gratefully.

"I will do it with the greatest pleasure," answered Mrs. Markham, whose purse was ever open to the needy and distressed.

So on the first of September little Golden appeared in quite an altered guise. The pretty, blue cashmere that was so becoming to her rose-leaf complexion was laid aside, and she wore a sober, dark-gray dress, so long and plain that she looked a great deal taller and older. She had pinned a dark silk handkerchief high up around her white throat, thus concealing its fairness and graceful contour. She had fashioned herself a huge, abominable cap that hid every wave of her golden hair. Dark-green spectacles were fastened before the bright, blue eyes, and with her long, tucked, white apron, little Golden made the primmest-looking nurse-maid that could have been imagined. She looked in the mirror and decided that no one who had known her at Glenalvan Hall would recognize her now.

But little Ruby exclaimed dolorously at her strange appearance:

"Oh, Mary, you have made yourself quite ugly!" she cried, "and I had been thinking how I would show Uncle Bert my pretty nurse."

"Oh, Ruby, you must not!" cried Golden, in terror. "Promise me you will not."

"Will not—what?" asked the little one, surprised.

"Will not show me to Mr. Chesleigh, nor tell him that you think I am pretty," said Golden, in alarm.

"Very well, I won't," said the little one, disappointed, "but I am very sorry, for I am sure Uncle Bertie would be glad to know that I have a good and pretty nurse. He used to laugh at the ugly ones, and he said their faces were so horrid it was not strange they were bad tempered."

"There is another thing I want you to promise me, please, darling," said Golden, who was on the best of terms with her little charge.

"What is it, Mary?" inquired the child.

"When your uncle comes to sit and talk with you, Ruby, you must let me run away and stay until he leaves you."

"Why should you do that?" asked Ruby.

"I have some sewing to do," replied Golden, evasively.

"I know, but you always do your sewing with me," said Ruby.

"You see it would be quite different with a man in the way."

"Uncle Bert would not bother you one bit. I cannot see why you are afraid of him," rejoined the child.

"But I do not like men, Ruby. I do not like to be where a man is. Now, dear, will you excuse me?" pleaded Golden.

"Yes, I will, since you insist on it," answered Ruby. "But I can't see what makes you hate men! Now I like them. I like papa, I like Uncle Bert, and I shall like my husband when I grow big enough to have one. Do you ever intend to have a husband, Mary?" said the child, with a child's thoughtlessness.