Kitabı oku: «My Pretty Maid; or, Liane Lester», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXVII.
WHEN HAPPINESS SEEMED NEAR!

Granny Jenks, after great bustling about and clattering of dishes, sat down at last to copious draughts of strong tea, flavored with whisky.

"Oh, granny, aren't you taking a drop too much?" ventured Liane apprehensively.

"Mind your own business, girl. I'll take as much as I choose! Ay, and pour some down your throat, too, if you don't look out!"

Liane drank her tea in silence, while the old woman went on angrily:

"I want that forty dollars you kept back from me, girl, and I mean to have it, too, or give you a beating!"

This was a frequent threat, so Liane did not pay much heed, she only gazed fixedly at the old hag, and said:

"Granny, suppose I were to go away and leave you forever, do you think you could be happy without me?"

"Humph! And why not, pray?"

Liane sighed, and answered:

"I was just thinking how I have been your slave, beaten and cuffed like a dog for eighteen years, and I was wondering if in all that time, when I have been so patient and you so cruel, if you had in your heart one spark of love for your miserable grandchild!"

"Eh?" cried granny, staring at her fixedly, while Liane continued:

"Ever since I could toddle I have labored at your bidding, fetching and carrying, with nothing, but scoldings and beatings in return, and not a gleam of sunshine in my poor life. You have not shown me either mercy or pity; you have made my whole life as wretched as possible, and I have sometimes wondered why Heaven has permitted my sufferings to continue so long. Now, I have a strange feeling, as if somehow it was all coming to an end, and I wonder if you will miss me, and regret your unnatural conduct, when I am gone out of your life forever?"

She spoke with such sweet, grave seriousness that the old woman regarded her earnestly, noting, as she had never closely done before, the beauty and sweetness of the young eyes turned upon her with such pathetic solemnity.

"Maybe you mean to run away with some rascal, like your mother!" she sneered at length.

"I was not thinking of any man, or of running away, granny; only, it seems to me, there's a change coming into my life, and I am going out of yours forever!"

"Do you mean you're going to die?"

"No, granny, I mean that I shall be happy, after all these wretched years; that my starved heart will be fed on love and kindness, and I want to tell you now that if Heaven grants me the blessings I look for, I shall leave you that forty dollars as a gift, for then I shall not need it," returned Liane solemnly.

"Better give it here, now; you might forget when your luck comes to you. And—and, you ain't never going to need it after to-night, anyway!" returned granny, with a ghastly grin.

"No, I prefer to wait till to-morrow!" the young girl answered, with a sudden start of fear, for the glare the old woman fixed on her was positively murderous.

She got up, thinking she would go down and see if Lizzie had returned from her work yet; but granny sprang from her chair and adroitly turned the key in the lock, standing with her back against the door.

Liane's eyes flashed with impatience.

"Let me out, granny!" she cried. "This is not fair!"

"Give me that money!" grumbled the hag, with the tone and look of a wild beast.

"I—I—Mrs. Brinkley put it in a savings bank for me!" faltered Liane, bracing herself for defense, for her startled eyes suddenly saw murder in the old woman's face.

She felt all at once as if she would have given worlds to be outside that locked door, away from the deadly peril that menaced her in the beastly eyes of half-drunken granny.

She was not a coward. Yesterday she had faced death bravely for Mrs. Clarke's sake, and would have given her life freely for another's; but this was different.

To be murdered by the old hag who had blasted all her young life, just as her hopes of happiness seemed about to be realized, oh, it was horrible! Unrelenting fate seemed to pursue her to the last.

She drew back with a gasping cry, for the old woman was upon her with the growl of a wild beast and the well-remembered spring of many a former combat, when the weak went down before the strong.

Liane, who had always been too gentle to strike back before, now realized that she must fight for her life. Granny intended to kill her this time, she felt instinctively, and silently prayed Heaven's aid.

She opened her lips to shriek and alarm the household, but granny's skinny claw closed over her mouth before she could utter a sound, and then a most unequal struggle ensued.

Liane was no match for the old tigress, who scratched, and bit, and tore with fury, finally snatching up a club that she had provided for the occasion, and striking the girl on her head, so that she went down like a log to the floor.

Granny Jenks snarled like a hyena, and stooped down over her mutilated victim.

She lay white and breathless on the floor, her pallid face marked with blood stains, not a breath stirring her young bosom, and the fiend growled viciously:

"Dead as a doornail, and out of my pretty Roma's way forever!"

Suddenly there came the loud shuffling of feet in the hall, and the pounding of eager fists on the locked door.

Granny Jenks started in wild alarm. She realized that the sounds of her struggle had been heard, and regretted her precipitate onslaught on Liane.

"I should have waited till they were all asleep; but that whisky fired my blood too soon!" she muttered, as, paying no heed to the outside clamor, she dragged the limp body of her lovely victim to the inner room, throwing it on the bed and drawing the covers over it, leaving a part of her face exposed in a natural way, as if she were asleep.

She was running a terrible risk of detection but nothing but bravado could save her now.

She dimmed the light, and returned to the other room, demanding:

"Who is there? What do you want?"

Several angry voices vociferated:

"Let us in! You are beating Liane!"

At that she snarled in rage and threw wide the door, confronting Mrs. Brinkley and her sister, with the two new boarders.

"You must be crazy!" she exclaimed. "I was pounding a nail into the wall to hang my petticoat on, and Liane is asleep in the bedroom. If you don't believe me, go and look!"

They did not believe her, so they tiptoed to the door and peeped inside, and there, indeed, lay the girl, seeming in the dim half light to be sleeping sweetly and naturally.

"You can wake her if you choose, but she said she was very tired, and hoped I would not disturb her to-night," said artful granny coolly, though in a terrible fright lest she be taken at her word.

They retreated in something like shamefaced confusion, leaving granny mistress of the situation.

"What made you so sure she was beating the girl?" asked Carlos Cisneros of Sophie Nutter, who had raised the alarm.

"I used to know them at Stonecliff, where they lived, and she beat her there, poor thing, so when I heard the noise I thought she was at her old tricks again!" replied Sophie, going back downstairs to the parlor, where she had been looking at Mrs. Brinkley's photographs.

The language teacher followed her, and as he was rather handsome, and knew how to be fascinating with women, he soon gained her confidence, and found out everything she knew about Stonecliff, even to the cause of her leaving Roma Clarke's service. His eyes gleamed with interest as she added earnestly:

"Although I have seen Mr. Devereaux alive since, and they tell me I was raving crazy that night, still I can never be persuaded that I did not see Miss Clarke push a man over the bluff to his death."

She was astounded when he answered coolly:

"You were not mistaken, but the man was not Devereaux. It was another, who held a dangerous secret of hers, so that she wanted him dead."

Sophie looked at him suspiciously.

"Did you see her push him over the bluff as I did? Ugh! That horrible scene! It comes before me now, as plain as if it was that night!" she shuddered.

She was amazed when he answered:

"I was the man she tried to drown!"

He was secretly delighted that there had been a witness to Roma's crime. It made his hold upon her that much firmer.

He added, in reply to Sophie's gasp of wonder:

"I was saved by a passing yacht, and put in a hospital, where I nearly died from a wound on my head."

Sophie gasped out:

"And—and aren't you going to punish the hussy?"

His eyes flashed, but he answered carelessly:

"Well, not just yet!"

"Shall you ever?"

"Wait and see," he replied. "Can you imagine what brought her into this house to-day?"

"I cannot. I suppose she knew Granny Jenks at Stonecliff; but I am sure she hated sweet Liane, because she carried off the beauty prize over her head."

Carlos Cisneros gleaned all he could from Sophie, but he gave her no further information about himself, content with making a very good impression, indeed, on Sophie's rather susceptible heart.

Meanwhile, upstairs, granny, having locked the door with a stifled oath, dropped down on the rug, and lay for long hours in a drunken stupor, while the dreary night wore on.

Suddenly, as the bells hoarsely clanged four in the morning, granny started broad awake, shivering with cold in the fireless room, and sat up and looked about her, whimpering like a startled child:

"Liane! Liane!"

A sudden comprehension seemed to dawn upon her, and, getting up heavily, she stalked into the inner room.

The dim lamp was burning low, casting eerie shadows about the room, and she walked over to the bed, where she had thrown something the evening before.

The ghastly thing lay there still, just as she had placed it with the coverlid drawn up to the chin, the silent lips fallen apart, the eyes a little open and staring dully, as granny placed her skinny claw over the heart, feeling for a pulsation.

There was none. She had done her work well. Her victim—the victim of eighteen years of most barbarous cruelty—lay pale and motionless before her, the mute lips uttering no reproach for her crime.

The old woman gazed and gazed, as if she could never get done looking, and then her face changed, her lips twitched, she blinked her eyelids nervously, and sank down by the bed, overcome by a sudden and terrible remorse.

"My God! What have I done?" she groaned self-reproachfully.

Far back in granny's life was a time when she had been a better woman. It seemed to return upon her now.

She groped beneath the coverlid for Liane's cold, stiff hand.

"Liane, little angel, I am sorry," she muttered. "I would bring you back if I could! Oh, why did the foul fiend send her here to tempt me to the damnation of this deed? But she is safe now! Roma is safe now! And she has promised that I shall not miss Liane's labor."

A new thought struck her. It would soon be day, and she must hasten to hide the evidence of her crime.

She started up nervously, and busied herself searching Liane for the coveted money, but not finding it, she began other necessary preparations.

It was that dismal hour that comes before the dawn, when she stole through Mrs. Brinkley's dark halls and passed like a shadow through the side door, escaping safely into the street with a shawled and hooded burden that must be safely hidden from the sight of men.

Lightly and softly fell the cold December snow, covering up the footprints of the skulking woman; but they could not blot the dark stain of crime from her black soul.

Dawn came slowly, and broadened into perfect day, and in the Brinkley house the household stirred and went about accustomed tasks. Soon granny's voice went snarling through the open door, calling shrilly downstairs:

"Liane! Liane!"

Lizzie White answered back from the kitchen:

"She is not here!"

Then granny tapped on Miss Nutter's door.

"Is that lazy baggage in here?"

"I have not seen her since last night," answered Sophie, and presently the house rang with granny's cries of anger and distress.

All went in haste to her rooms, and she reported that Liane had certainly run away, as she had many times threatened to do. All her clothes and little trinkets, together with her little hand bag, were missing.

Granny's blended anger and grief were so superbly acted that her simple listeners did not doubt her truth.

Mrs. Brinkley, thinking of the fine presents Liane had received from some unknown admirer, secretly doubted the story the girl had told her, and confided to Lizzie her belief that she had indeed eloped, and would most likely come to a bad end.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
A SWORD THRUST IN HIS HEART

A hopeless love must always evoke pity in a generous mind. Devereaux could not help being touched when he found Roma installed as his sister's guest, and comprehended that it was love for himself that had brought her there.

Men, even the bravest and strongest, are pitiably susceptible to woman's flattery. Roma's persistent love, faithful through all the repulses it had received, was a subtle flattery that touched Devereaux's heart, cruelly wounded by Liane's rejection, and made him think better of himself again.

Roma brought all the batteries of her fascination to bear on her recreant lover that first evening, and he submitted to be amused with charming grace, that thrilled her with renewed hope.

Mrs. Carrington, too, lent her womanly aid to further the little byplay she saw going on between the estranged lovers. She knew that propinquity is a great thing in such a case, and believed that a reconciliation was certain. Of course, she did not know that Devereaux's heart belonged to Liane, or she would not have been so confident.

Roma telegraphed for her maid the next morning, fully resolved to make the most of her visit, and after breakfast, when she saw Devereaux preparing to go out, in spite of her blandishments, she asked him to call on her mother at the hotel, and tell her that she would be Mrs. Carrington's guest during her short stay.

She was more than ever determined to marry the young millionaire now, and thus make her position in life secure, even if by any untoward accident she should be ousted from her place as the Clarkes' daughter and heiress.

Devereaux promised to do as she asked, and sallied forth, in reality tired of Roma's company, though too polite to show it.

About the middle of the day he called at Mrs. Clarke's hotel to convey Roma's message, and was surprised to find her father there also.

They greeted him most cordially, and Mrs. Clarke exclaimed:

"Is it not tedious, waiting by the hour for a caller who never comes?"

"Do you mean your daughter?" he asked, hastening to deliver Roma's message.

"Then she has not heard of my accident yet?" exclaimed the lady.

"No!" he replied, and with unwonted animation she hastened to pour out the whole story of yesterday.

She did not spare herself in the least, frankly describing her pride and hauteur.

"I will not deny that I was vexed and jealous, and hated her because she had rivaled Roma for the beauty prize," she confessed. "I am ashamed of it now, and bitterly repented after learning her angelic sweetness and nobility of heart."

Devereaux's heart thrilled with joy at these generous praises of lovely Liane, and he listened in eager silence to all Mrs. Clarke had to say, glad, indeed, that she proposed to adopt the girl, but wondering much if Roma would agree to the plan.

"So, then, it is Miss Lester you are awaiting?" he said, with a quickened heart throb.

"Yes; and I think it most strange that she has not kept her promise to come here early this morning. If I knew her address, I should have gone long ago to her house, but, unfortunately I forgot to ask it," sighed Mrs. Clarke, while her husband listened to everything with a glad, eager face.

"I wrote you, Mr. Clarke, two days ago, sending you her address, which I had myself just discovered," said Devereaux, looking at him.

"That is very strange. I did not receive it."

"Perhaps it had not been delivered when you left home."

"Perhaps so."

"And," pursued Devereaux, with a crimson flush mounting up to his brow at thought of seeing the dearest of his heart again, "if I can serve you in doing so, I will go and bring Miss Lester here to see you. It may be her excessive modesty that keeps her away."

They fairly jumped at his offer, and he hurried away, most eager, indeed, to do them this favor, glad in his heart of this grand opportunity for poor Liane.

Mrs. Clarke looked at her husband, with a half sigh tempering her soft smile.

She exclaimed:

"He is in love with that charming girl! Could you not see it? Alas, for my poor Roma!"

"Roma scarcely deserves our sympathy in the matter. She lost him by her own folly," Mr. Clarke replied impatiently, and the subject was dropped. He did not care to discuss Roma with his heart full of his own dear child.

Meanwhile Devereaux took a carriage to Liane's humble abode, full of a joy he could not repress at thought of seeing Liane again.

But he sighed to himself:

"I shall feel guilty in her presence, because I was indirectly the means of her losing Malcolm Dean! Ah, had she but loved me instead, what happiness would be mine instead of this aching loneliness of heart."

When he alighted at Mrs. Brinkley's door and rang the bell, the small family, excepting a servant, was out, and a neat maid answered the ring.

"Miss Lester?" with a comprehensive grin. "Oh, sir, she beant here! She runned away last night with her beau!" she exclaimed.

It was like a sword thrust quivering in his heart, those sudden words. He grew pale, and stared at her, muttering:

"Impossible!"

"But, sir, it's true as gospel! And her poor granny is in a fine taking over it, too. She says as how Liane was cruel to go off so, and leave her in poverty to end her days in the poorhouse!"

"Where is the old woman? I should like to see her," he said dismally, hoping for some light.

"She's out, sir, looking for the girl, swearing to kill the man as persuaded her off."

"And the family?"

"All out, sir. Mrs. Brinkley went to market, and her sister Lizzie to the store, where she and Liane worked."

Devereaux pressed a dollar into the good-natured servant's hand, and stumbled back to the carriage, almost blind with pain from this sudden stroke of fate.

The servant looked after him with mingled wonder, admiration, and gratitude, and describing him afterward to the family, exclaimed:

"The prettiest man I ever saw in my life—coal-black eyes and hair, straight nose, dimple in his chin, slim, white hands, diamond ring, good clothes, fit to kill! He must 'ave been another of Liane's beaus, for, when I told him she had eloped, he turned white as a corpse, and kind of staggered, like I had hit him in the face. But he didn't forget his company manners, for he bowed like a prince and put a whole silver dollar in my hand as he went back to his carriage."

"That sounds like Jesse Devereaux, Miss Clarke's lover!" cried Sophie Nutter, and Mrs. Brinkley said quickly:

"Well, Liane knew that man, and was in love with him, but he snubbed her with the proudest bow I ever saw, one day when we passed by his grand home on Commonwealth Avenue."

"So he lives on Commonwealth Avenue!" remarked Carlos Cisneros, with a flash of his somber, black eyes. He was thinking of the house he had followed Roma's carriage to yesterday—the palatial mansion on Commonwealth Avenue.

"So she is there at my rival's house, and she dares to think I will let her marry him! And I have two scores to settle with the handsome Devereaux!" he thought.

Devereaux could scarcely believe the terrible news.

He hoped there might be some mistake, and he determined to go to the store and see if she might not be there.

But there were no pansy-blue eyes smiling over the glove counter, but a pair of sparkling black ones, whose owner smiled.

"Miss Lester? No; she is not here to-day. I cannot tell you anything about her; but there's her friend, Miss White, you can ask her—Lizzie!"

Lizzie White hurried forward, but she could tell him no more than he had already heard.

She wondered whom the handsome stranger could be, but she was too timid to ask his name, only she thought within herself that he must surely be in love with Liane, he was so pale and disturbed looking.

It seemed to her that he was most loath to accept the theory that the girl had gone away with a lover.

"Is there no possibility she has run away alone to escape her grandmother's cruelty?" he insisted.

Lizzie said she could not tell, she had never heard Liane mention any man's name, but she had been more confidential with her mother.

"Could you—would you—tell me her lover's name?" he pleaded; but Lizzie answered that it would not be right to betray her friend's confidence.

"He was a rich young man, and not likely to marry my poor friend," she added sorrowfully, and after that admission he could extract no more from Lizzie.

With a sad heart he returned to the Clarkes' with his ill news.

Mr. Clarke was terribly excited:

"I will not believe she has gone with any man! I should sooner believe that that old hag has made way with the girl! Give me the address, Devereaux, and I will go and wring the truth from her black heart, if you will stay and cheer my wife while I am gone!" he exclaimed, springing up in passionate excitement.