Kitabı oku: «Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XXIV.
IN THE POWER OF A FIEND

 
"The bard has sung: God never formed a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete.
 
 
"But thousand evil things there are that hate
To look on happiness. These hurt, impede,
And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and bleed."
 

Cissy went back to her lonely rooms, stirred up the fire to a brighter blaze in the tiny stove, then sat down to a dreary retrospection of past days, her small hands folded idly in her lap, her dark head bowed in sadness.

The sight of the handsome actor-manager, Cameron Clemens, had brought her memories from the past sweet and bitter in a breath, kindling old love and renewing old pain.

"How dared he come? He must have known that Geraldine was with me! Did he think I would ever willingly meet him again?" she murmured, bitterly; then started to her feet, for there was another masculine rap upon the door.

"Who is it this time?" she wondered, as she opened the door.

A cry of surprise came from her lips for there stood Harry Hawthorne, handsome as a picture, in citizen's dress, his fireman's uniform laid aside, his stately figure looking its best in a long fur-lined overcoat.

"Good-evening, Miss Carroll. May I come in?" he asked, gayly, with that ring of happiness in his musical voice one hears from a recently accepted lover.

"Come in," Cissy answered, mechanically, in her amazement, letting him enter and close the door ere she asked, uneasily:

"Where's Geraldine? Didn't she come back with you?"

"With me? I don't understand you. I've just got away from my duties at the engine-house, and I thought if you and Geraldine didn't mind going out at night, we could have our sleigh-ride yet. There will be moonlight after a while."

Cissy grasped the back of a chair to steady herself. Her face was pale, her dove-eyes dilated.

"But—didn't you send a sleigh here just now for Geraldine?" she gasped.

It was his turn now to look startled, and his eyes went from her face to the next room as he exclaimed:

"Isn't Geraldine here now?"

"No, no—of course not. Didn't I just tell you that she went away just now in a sleigh that you sent to bring her to the engine-house?" answered Cissy, turning up the light in a mechanical way, as women will attend to trifles even in trouble.

She saw that he was deadly pale and excited, and he said, in a strained voice:

"But I did not send any sleigh. There must be some mistake."

"There is treachery somewhere. Oh, why did I let her go, poor child?" cried Cissy, with a sudden awful presentiment of evil.

He sank into a chair, trembling with dread.

"Tell me quickly what you mean—give me every clew you can—for I must go in search of her," he exclaimed, anxiously.

And Cissy told him about the man, Jem Rhodes, and the note, and the elegant sleigh in which Geraldine had gone away so blithely, her rosy face radiant with joy, thinking to meet her lover.

"Why, there is the note now," she said, taking it up from the table where Geraldine had left it, and handing it to Hawthorne.

He ran over it hastily, his blue eyes flashing with anger and apprehension.

"I never wrote this note—it is not in my writing! How did Geraldine ever make such a mistake?" he cried, hoarsely.

"She read it hastily by a dim light," said Cissy.

"And there is just enough likeness to my hand to have deceived her that way," he cried, in anguish, for the conviction of something dreadful had come to him. "Oh, my darling, you are the victim of some cruel plot," he groaned, his handsome face blanching to a deathly hue.

Poor Cissy breathed, faintly:

"Oh, who could have planned this outrage? Clifford Standish is the only man I know likely to be guilty of it. But he is in prison."

"Have you not heard? The villain escaped from the officers at the door of the Chambers street court-house this morning, and is still at large. No doubt he wrote this fraudulent note; no doubt it was he who carried Geraldine off. Tell me what the wretch looked like."

Then Cissy remembered that the man Rhodes had refused to enter the lighted room, and had been strangely taciturn, speaking only when necessity required, and then in a low, muffled voice.

"Oh, I ought to have suspected him then. I was culpably careless and thoughtless, letting that poor child go with him," she thought, in an agony of distress.

When she had described the man to Hawthorne, he declared his belief that Standish himself, with but slight disguise, had personated the mythical Jem Rhodes.

"She is in the power of that fiend at this moment!" he exclaimed, starting up in a passion of grief and anguish that made poor Cissy burst out into hysterical weeping.

He was rushing to the door, and he looked back at the sound of her sobs, and said, gently:

"Don't take it so hard, Miss Carroll, for Heaven's sake. You are not to blame, neither was she, for that note was plausible enough to deceive any one. But I'll find her and bring her back to you, or I'll have that villain's cursed life!"

CHAPTER XXV.
UNDER SUSPICION

 
"Through the blue and frosty heavens
Christmas stars were shining bright;
Glistening lamps throughout the city
Almost matched their gleaming light;
While the winter snow was lying,
And the winter winds were sighing,
Long ago one Christmas night."
 

We must follow Clifford Standish on his successful flight from justice that Christmas morning, when the spirit of the day was so much in every heart that no one who witnessed his escape cared to give chase to the fugitive. Perhaps, indeed, they thought that one who could outwit two stalwart policemen deserved his liberty.

Be that as it may, the actor made good his escape to a place of refuge, where he lay a while perdu, concocting new plans for retrieving last night's disaster.

The thought that he had lost pretty Geraldine forever was bitterness to his heart.

But he felt just as certain of it as if he had witnessed all that had transpired last night.

He knew well that when he was not by to guard Geraldine, that her friends in the box would swoop down upon her and carry her off in triumph.

There would be fond meetings, eager explanations, and all his treachery to her would be painted in its blackest colors. His only hold on her esteem, her touching belief in his truth and goodness, would be destroyed.

He would stand forth in his true colors before her horrified eyes—a black-hearted wretch, the husband of another woman, who had sought by the blackest lies and foulest arts to lure her—pretty Geraldine—to irrevocable ruin.

She would thank God that He had interfered in time to save her from him at almost the very last moment.

Standish gnashed his teeth as he thought of her joy over her escape, for he knew well how she had secretly shrunk from him, though out of her wounded pride she had promised him her hand.

He guessed well that all was explained between her and Hawthorne now, and that they were already betrothed lovers.

If hate could have killed this pair in their exquisite happiness, then Clifford Standish would have sent a bolt of it to strike both of them dead.

In his jealous fury he raged and swore almost constantly. The little room he occupied became stifling with the fumes of wine and tobacco that he used to solace him in his terrible defeat.

But he was careful not to drink too much. He did not wish to stupefy his brain.

He wished to keep it clear that he might plot new deviltry.

Almost any man in his place would have given up the game after being so signally worsted by fate.

Not so with Clifford Standish. The stroke of adversity only roused in him a devilish obstinacy, a determination to rule or ruin.

Hate for Harry Hawthorne, and a mad passion for Geraldine Harding, drove him on to new wickedness.

He spent a good part of the day in seclusion, laying his wicked plans, like a crafty spider weaving his web; then, disguising himself with a wig, beard, glasses, and cosmetics, dressed himself in a cheap new suit, and sallied forth to victory. No look of Clifford Standish remained except the stately walk, and even this he could change at will.

So, later on, he imposed on Geraldine and Cissy as Jem Rhodes, the trusty friend of the fireman.

But, before coming on his fatal mission, he had informed himself as to everything that was necessary to make the daring abduction he had planned an absolute success.

He knew that Harry Hawthorne had become engaged to Geraldine through eavesdropping at the door when the Stansburys called on her. He had also heard her tell them that she and Cissy were to have a grand sleigh-ride with Harry, although it might be late in the day when he got off duty.

The unsuspected listener smiled grimly to himself as he muttered:

"You shall certainly have your sleigh-ride, my little beauty, but not with your Harry and Cissy—no, indeed!"

Between the hours of five and six he sought a livery stable, and asked for a driver and sleigh to take himself and a lady to the Cortlandt street ferry.

As the stable keeper was a stranger to him, he did not think it necessary to disguise his voice; but spoke in his natural tone, and a youth who was lounging about the office started and gave him a keen, curious glance.

Standish did not notice the young man, or he would have perhaps recognized him as the messenger-boy from the hospital where Harry Hawthorne had been taken after the accident—the youth from whom he had taken the letter to Geraldine.

Robert had promised Hawthorne that he would at some time pay Standish for his treachery, but fate had been unkind to him so far in the continued absence of Standish from the city, and the youth had almost forgotten the incident until the clear, ringing voice of Standish, familiar to his ears from hearing it on the stage, broke on him, awakening remembrance like a flash of light.

He started and gave him a keen glance that quickly penetrated the actor's disguise, especially as he was off guard for the moment, and his square shoulders and erect bearing betrayed him to those suspicious eyes.

Robert shrank back into the shadow, thinking:

"So he's got back to town, that scamp! Now I wonder what he's up to in that disguise? But he can't fool me! I know his voice and his square shoulders too well. I wish I could do him up, the grand villain, for playing me that low trick!"

On the alert for something on which to base a plan of retaliation, he followed every word and movement, and, to his amazement, when Standish got into the elegant sleigh, he heard him give the address of Geraldine, where he had carried Hawthorne's note.

Now, Robert had left the hospital, and obtained a place with his cousin, the keeper of the livery stable, and a wild thought came into his mind.

"That fellow's up to some mischief, or he wouldn't be in that rig—whiskers and spectacles! Wonder if that girl's got back, anyway? S'pose I go and tell the fireman about it, and see if he can make anything out of this strange lark?"

Turning to his cousin, who was very fond of the quick-witted youth, he said, roguishly:

"Seems like that fellow's going to take his best girl for a jolly sleigh-ride. Puts me in mind to take mine, too. Can't I get off for an hour and have a little one-horse sleigh?"

"Who's to pay for it, Impudence?"

"I am, of course! You can keep my week's salary for it. Who minds a little extravagance like that for his best girl, I'd like to know?" and ten minutes later he was driving in style to the Ludlow street engine-house.

"Mr. Hawthorne in the house?" he hallooed to a fireman in front.

"Too late, sonny. He left fifteen minutes ago."

"Where to?"

"Don't know, really."

"Can't you form some idea, please?" the boy cried, dropping the jaunty air in some anxiety.

The blue-shirted fireman stuck his hands in his pocket, whistled, and answered:

"Oh, he's gone to see his best girl, I reckon."

"What's her name?" queried Robert, wondering if Hawthorne was off with the old love, and on with a new one.

"I don't know," and Robert was about to turn off in disgust at the good-natured levity of the other when Captain Stansbury, who was inside, overheard him, and came to the rescue.

"You want Hawthorne?" he said. "Well, he isn't here."

"I know, but I want him very particular. Can't you tell me where to find him?"

The genial captain laughed, and answered:

"I can tell you, but I can also tell you, young man, that he doesn't like to be bothered when he goes a-courting!"

"Has he gone to see Miss Harding?"

"Yes."

"At the old address?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," and Robert whirled his keen little cutter about, and was soon out of sight.

"A likely lad," laughed the fireman, and then he and the captain went indoors.

Five minutes later a double sleigh whirled around the nearest corner, and came to a sudden stop in front of the engine-house. A man got out in the snow, and waded over to the door, followed by the yearning eyes of a girl whose fair face glowed like a rose, it was so beautiful in its eager tenderness.

"Oh, my love, how long the day has been without you, but I shall see you at last!" she whispered to herself, fondly.

The man went inside the double-doors and looked at the splendid horses neighing in their stalls. No one was in sight. The men were back in the office amusing themselves with a game of cards. He could hear them laughing and bantering each other.

He remained there a moment out of sight of Geraldine, then, with a sigh of relief, hurried back to the sleigh.

"It's very strange, but Mr. Hawthorne has gone," he said, in that thick, muffled voice. "He left word for me to bring you to Cortlandt street ferry."

"That is so far. I think he might have waited for us," the girl said, half to herself, and pettishly.

"Oh, maybe there was a fire down that way," Jem Rhodes returned, plausibly. "Go on, driver."

As they started, Captain Stansbury, who fancied he had heard something stopping outside, came and looked out and Geraldine saw his portly figure framed there a moment in the glare of an electric light.

She looked back, but he did not recognize her as the sleigh whirled past. Alas! why did not some subtle voice in her heart warn her that she was in deadly peril, and make her cry out to him to follow and save her from the snare into which she had fallen?

The call at the engine-house was only a part of the actor's plan for lulling Geraldine's suspicions to rest.

It had succeeded splendidly, and, with an exultant heart, he resumed his place by her side, burning with the desire to take her fair form in his arms and crush it against his breast.

But the time for this was not yet. He must first carry out one of the most daring plans ever conceived by man to elope with an unwilling beauty and make her his by sheer force of fraud and impudence.

And the worst of it all lay before him.

He was succeeding well in his plan for getting her to the ferry, but after that, how was he to manage?

CHAPTER XXVI.
TOO LATE! TOO LATE

 
"'What is life?'
A battle, child,
Where the strongest lance may fail,
Where the weariest eye may be beguiled,
And the stoutest heart may quail,
Where foes are gathered on every hand,
And rest not day or night
But the angels of heaven are on thy side,
And God is over all."
 

When Robert returned from the engine-house, he was in doubt whether he ought to follow Hawthorne or not.

"If he has gone to Miss Harding's house, everything must be all right between them. It must be some other lady in the same house that Standish is going to take away. It's a lodging-house, and he may be acquainted with a dozen ladies there, for all I know."

But still, in spite of these thoughts, he kept on driving to the house.

"I'll go past it anyway, and see if the fellow is there yet with his grand sleigh."

He threw himself back with an air of importance, for he was certainly enjoying his little outing. The road was gay with vehicles, and the air musical with the ring of sleigh-bells. New York was enjoying its Christmas.

Almost before he realized it, he found himself on the obscure street, and in front of the shabby house where Geraldine lived, a pure pearl in an uncouth setting.

He reined up in front of the house and cogitated:

"The sleigh isn't here. Mr. Standish must have got his girl and gone. Maybe I ought to go, too. I don't see that I have any business going in!"

Smiling to himself at his humorous play on the verb to go, he waited a minute, glancing curiously at the front of the four-story house that looked dark and still as though most of the people had gone out or retired.

He pictured to himself the handsome fireman within that tenement, sitting by the side of his sweet young love, Geraldine, perhaps holding her dainty hand and looking love into eyes that answered love again.

"No, I mustn't go in. I might interrupt a charming tete-a-tete," he decided, and was about to turn back to the livery stable, when the door before him opened suddenly, and a man appeared, reeling down the steps like one under the influence of liquor or some heart-breaking emotion.

Robert stared at the handsome figure a moment, then called, questioningly:

"Mr. Hawthorne?"

Hawthorne stopped, looked up, and asked, hoarsely:

"Who is that? Oh, Robert, is it you? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you, Mr. Hawthorne."

"What can I do for you? Speak quickly, for I'm going—oh, God! where—for I know not where to turn!"

The words were a cry of agony, and as he came up to the side of the sleigh, the youth saw that his face was deathly pale, as if from terrible trouble.

His first fear that Hawthorne was intoxicated gave way to the conviction that something was wrong about Geraldine, and he said, quickly:

"You're in trouble, sir, and I think I can help you if you'll tell me all about it. Get in the sleigh, won't you, and let me drive you wherever you want to go."

"Thank you, Robert. I came on a car, and this is very welcome," said Hawthorne, getting in by the youth's side.

"Where to?" asked Robert, taking up the reins.

"Where? Oh, God, where!" groaned Hawthorne, despairingly. "Wait," he added, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Ah, Robert, this is one of the darkest hours of a life that has had many shadows. I came here to see my betrothed bride, my heart full of joy that has turned to keenest pain, for I found her gone from me—lured away by a scheming villain that she hates—and what her terrible fate may be, God only knows, for I have not a single clew to follow."

"Oh, yes, you have—a clew to follow the villain himself. You mean Standish, don't you?" shouted Robert, wildly, in his excitement.

"Yes, he has lured her away by a cunning trick—" began Hawthorne again, but the youth interrupted:

"Yes, yes, I know; he has taken her to the Cortlandt street ferry—going to elope with her, I reckon. But we'll follow and outwit the villain," and chirping to his horse, Robert drove to the ferry as fast as he dared.

On the way he told Hawthorne all that he knew, and received his confidence in turn.

So the actor's plot was laid bare. No doubt existed as to his intentions to abduct Geraldine.

On their way, just half a block from the ferry, Robert exclaimed:

"There's our sleigh going back now to the stables. Hello, Pete!"

The driver drew rein, and he asked, anxiously:

"Where's the lady and gentleman you took down to the ferry?"

And the answer was like the trump of doom to Hawthorne's sore heart.

"The lady and gentleman, sir? Oh, they took the Pennsylvania Limited train to Chicago."

"Are you sure?" cried Robert.

"Oh, yes; I crossed the river with them, and saw them board the train. That is, the man carried her in his arms. She got sick, or fainted, maybe, just beforehand, and he grabbed her up and climbed on with her just as the whistle blew. Oh, they're off, for sure. Is anything wrong?" added the driver, curiously, scenting an elopement.

CHAPTER XXVII.
HAWTHORNE CLUNG TO HOPE, IN SPITE OF HIS TROUBLE

 
"Has Fate o'erwhelmed thee with some sudden blow?
Let thy tears flow.
But know when storms are past the heavens appear
More pure, more clear;
And hope, when farthest from their shining rays,
For brighter days!"
 

The curious sleigh-driver got no answer to his question.

Robert touched up his horse, and it bounded toward the ferry.

"What now?" queried Hawthorne, in a dazed way, so crushed by the shock he had received that he was for the moment incapable of coherent thought.

The quick-witted youth answered, readily:

"Aren't we going to telegraph ahead to arrest Standish at the first station?"

"Yes—oh, yes, of course we are; but I was so dazed by this shock that it seemed impossible for the moment for me to think clearly. Thank you for suggesting something, Robert. Perhaps, after all, we may foil the villain!" exclaimed Hawthorne, gladly and gratefully.

The youth smiled, well pleased at this praise from Hawthorne, and they proceeded on their way.

The telegram to arrest Standish having been sent, the pair next drove to Police Headquarters, where they lodged information of the whereabouts of Standish, who was wanted now, not only on the warrant of wife desertion, but for knocking over the policemen in his escape that morning.

"What next?" queried Robert, when they were once more seated in the sleigh.

"My good fellow, are you not weary of my troubles yet?" cried the grateful Hawthorne.

"I want to help you in every way I can, Mr. Hawthorne, not only because I like you, sir, but because I'm interested in that sweet young girl, and I also have a grudge against that wretch, Standish, for the trick he played all of us once. So now there's three motives urging me on, and you may command my services just as long as you have need of them," returned the intelligent youth, so earnestly that Hawthorne wrung his hand gratefully, exclaiming:

"Believe me, I'll never, never, forget this kindness."

"Thank you, sir," returned the gratified youth, and added:

"But what can we do next?"

"You can drive me back to the ferry, Robert, for I shall follow Geraldine on the first train. Think how lonely and terrified she will be with that wretch, who has told her, God only knows what artful story, to get her aboard the train with him. I must go to her assistance as fast as I can."

"You are right, sir, for she must be frightened almost to death. By Jove, but I'd like to go with you and see that fellow's face when he meets you, but I must go back with the sleigh."

"And, besides, I have another task for you, my faithful Robert. It is to return to the engine-house when I am gone, and tell Captain Stansbury all that we have discovered. From the engine-house back to Geraldine's home, and tell the young lady, Miss Carroll, the same story," continued Hawthorne, mindful of Cissy's cruel anxiety, and anxious to relieve it by some certainty of what had really happened.

"Tell Miss Carroll to keep up her spirits—that I will certainly bring Miss Harding back by to-morrow," he added, hopefully.

It was a sad ending for the Christmas Day that had dawned so pleasantly for the just reunited lovers, but Hawthorne would not permit himself to dwell despairingly on it. He told himself that by this time to-morrow he would be sure to have Geraldine back again.