Kitabı oku: «Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THAT WORD WAS LIKE A DAGGER IN HER HEART

 
"Words are mighty, words are living;
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings.
 
 
"Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies."
 

Pete, the driver of the sleigh in which Clifford Standish had so successfully accomplished the abduction of Geraldine, had told the truth about the affair.

Geraldine had indeed fainted at some words he had said to her, and while in this condition he had lifted her in his arms and carried her aboard the train.

Ere she recovered from her long spell of unconsciousness, the train was flying across the country in the gloom of the falling night, that, dark as it was, could not equal the blackness of the fate to which Clifford Standish had destined his hapless victim.

On reaching the station he had said, abruptly, to Geraldine:

"Kindly wait here for me while I go and find Hawthorne."

In reality he secured tickets for Chicago, and, returning to her, he said, still in that strange, muffled voice of his:

"The time has come for me to explain why Hawthorne trusted you to my care to bring you here."

"Did you not find him?" exclaimed Geraldine, uneasily.

"Yes."

"Is he not coming to me? This looks strange!" she said, with rising resentment.

"Be patient, Miss Harding, and let me explain," he said, wheedlingly.

They were standing at an obscure place on the platform, and very few people were about except the depot officials. No one noticed the tall, bearded man and his beautiful companion, with her great starry brown eyes and masses of sunshiny hair.

Standish proceeded, in an oily voice:

"Something shocking happened to my friend Hawthorne this afternoon, and he is compelled to flee the city on this train that you see them making up now. He is watched for at every station in the city, so he dare not come to you now, for his arrest is certain. His sending for you was a desperate expedient to see you once more and bid you farewell forever, or—to take you with him in his flight from justice."

With every word he uttered he saw her face grow paler and paler, her large eyes widening with nameless fear; but, without pausing for her to speak, he continued, rapidly:

"He is mad with remorse over the awful deed he has done, and wild with grief at the thought of leaving you. He says that you have promised to marry him, and why not now as well as later? He prays you to go with him now on his exile, and to become his bride as soon as his destination is reached."

Her pale lips parted, and she interrupted.

"Oh, let me see him, let me speak to him! This is so horrible, so sudden!"

"You will have to board the train to see him. He is in the rear car, having slipped on almost under the eyes of an officer watching for him. Come," and he attempted to take her hand and draw her forward.

But she shrank back in nameless terror, moaning:

"Oh, I—can't—go! I am afraid. Oh, tell me what it is that he has done!"

He bent closer, muttering one terrible word:

"Murder!"

The word struck her like a blow in the face, then pierced like a dagger to her heart.

"Oh-h-h!" she gasped, throwing out her white, agonized hands as if to ward off a stroke of fate.

The next moment her senses gave way before the shock.

She reeled blindly forward and fell like a log at the dastard's feet.

This was what Jem Rhodes had hoped and expected.

With a laugh of demoniac satisfaction he lifted Geraldine in his arms, and bore her to a second-class coach, having bought tickets for this with a distinct purpose.

To his joy he found that he and Geraldine would be the only passengers on this coach.

"The foul fiend helps me! I'll have a fair field for my love-making," he thought, exultantly, as the train steamed out from the station.

Presently Geraldine, whom he had lain back on her seat, stirred and opened her eyes with a dazed look.

"Oh, what does this mean? Where am I?" she gasped.

Standish bent over her, and said, soothingly:

"Don't you remember, Miss Harding? I brought you here to see Hawthorne. He will be here in a moment."

"But—but—the train is moving," she cried, in a frightened voice.

"Hush!" he hissed, and suddenly Geraldine felt the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against her warm, white temple, and a hoarse voice continued:

"You are at the mercy of a desperate man! Do not move or speak, or I will blow your brains out and then leap from the train in the darkness. I swear it. I have much to say to you, and I shall say it with my finger on the trigger of this pistol, ready to kill you if you utter one word without my permission. Now the conductor is coming in to take up our tickets. Do not dare to speak to him or show one sign of excitement."

Life is sweet to the young and loving, and Geraldine dared not disobey that hoarse command. She crouched, trembling in her seat while the gruff conductor took up the tickets and passed on to the next car.

They were again alone, and in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions Geraldine waited for the next words of her companion.

In his hoarse voice, vibrant with passion, she had suddenly recognized Clifford Standish.

She comprehended that he had set a trap for her, and that she had fallen into it. The horror of her thoughts no pen could tell!

He bent toward her as he sat on the opposite seat, and though her heart swelled with a terrible hate, she dared not utter a word of remonstrance, for she saw that, half-hidden by his coat-sleeve, he carried his deadly weapon ready to wreak vengeance on her for the least disobedience.

But though she dared not speak, Geraldine could not restrain the indignation that flashed upon him from her contemptuous eyes, and surely that glance was enough to wither him with its burning scorn.

But, unmoved by her wrath, Clifford Standish asked, calmly:

"Have you recognized me yet, Geraldine?"

She nodded in silent, ineffable scorn, and he went on:

"I have much to tell you, and when I am done you will not despise me as you do now, for I have been cruelly wronged and defamed, just to gratify the spite of envious people."

The dark, scornful eyes looked at him in silent amazement as he went on:

"Geraldine, that arrest on the stage last night was simply for the purpose of turning your heart against me. Another man envied me, and concocted that villainous plot to make you believe I was married, that he might win you himself. I have no wife, nor ever shall have, unless you will keep your promise to be mine."

His voice sank to the low, tremulous cadence that he had found so effective on the stage, but the unchanging scorn of the bright eyes assured him that she was not moved by his ranting.

Heaving a deep sigh, he went on, passionately:

"It was a deep-laid scheme of that contemptible fireman, that low fellow, to turn you against me. And you know I had no time to explain anything to you. I was simply dragged away like a dog! Well, when my case came up in court this morning, the woman who had been hired to testify against me broke down in the witness chair, and owned that she did not even know me. Hawthorne had bribed her, she said, to claim me for her husband. I was discharged, as I told you last night that I would be to-day. Had you not heard, Geraldine, of my discharge, cleared of the foul imputation on my honor?" he demanded, anxiously, wondering if her knowledge of the truth would enable her to cast back the falsehood in his teeth.

But Geraldine had heard nothing, so, when he said again, "Speak Geraldine, did you not know I was free?" she answered, simply:

"No, I did not know it."

He breathed a sigh of relief at her ignorance of his escape, and resumed his falsehoods with more self-confidence:

"I was free, but half broken-hearted over the thought of the ignominy to which I had been subjected and the cruel impression it had made on my betrothed bride."

He saw her shudder at the last two words, but he was pitiless in his resolve to sacrifice her to his mad passion.

"Ah, Geraldine, was it not a fiendish act to turn your heart against me like that?" he cried. "I left the court-house and went to the hotel to see you. All the members of the company received me joyfully, but they had cruel news for me. They told me you had left them for Hawthorne—that you were betrothed to him, and he had demanded your retirement from the stage. Was this true, Geraldine?"

She bowed a cold, affirmative answer.

"It was true! I knew it, and I was in despair," ranted Standish. "Oh, how easily a woman's heart can turn against a man! You might have waited a day, Geraldine, and given me a chance to clear myself from that false charge. But, no! in your wounded pride you turned against me, and pledged yourself to the traitor who had plotted that vile outrage—my arrest on the stage—to further his own base ends."

She sat listening dumbly while the train rushed on and on, bearing her farther and farther away from New York and her own true lover—for she knew in her heart that he was true, and that the actor was telling her vile falsehoods—and her poor heart sank like a stone in her breast.

Oh, what would be her fate now, she wondered in anguish, hating herself because she had fallen so easily into this fatal trap.

Standish continued, in a pleading tone:

"What could I do in my despair, darling, but oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud? I knew that if I came to you in my own person, I should not even be allowed to see you. My enemies would separate us, keep us apart so that you should never know how cruelly I had been wronged. So I planned to get you away from them and into my power. I determined to have my promised bride if I had to steal her away from our enemies. I knew," eagerly, "that when you heard the truth, sweet Geraldine, you would forgive me for this bold move, and love me again. So—we are on our way now to Chicago, and there you shall become my bride!"

CHAPTER XXIX.
A LEAF OUT OF HIS OWN BOOK

 
"As I came through the valley of Despair,
As I came through the valley, on my sight,
More awful than the darkness of the night,
Shone glimpses of a past that had been fair,
And memories of eyes that used to smile,
And wafts of perfume from a vanished isle,
And, like an arrow in my heart I heard
The last faint notes of Hope's expiring bird,
As I came through the valley."
 

Poor Geraldine! poor Geraldine! What a cruel ending this was to the Christmas Day that had dawned so auspiciously upon her life.

She had had a few hours of exquisite happiness—the pure and perfect happiness of tender mutual love, that brings heaven down to earth for young, ardent hearts.

 
* * "That passionate love of youth,
That comes but once in its perfect bliss—
A love that, in spite of its trust and truth,
Seems never to thrive in a world like this."
 

From bliss to despair—that was the story of Geraldine's one day.

But for the shining ring on her little hand she would have believed it all a dream, so swiftly had the brightness fled.

How she loathed and hated the smooth, smiling villain before her, who, while pretending to love her, had actually threatened her with death; who held at that moment, under his hand, a deadly weapon with which to compel her obedience.

The poor girl sat looking at him with angry tears in her large brown eyes, her cheeks alternately red and pale with the blood that rushed to and fro from her wildly throbbing heart. At one moment she would feel ill enough to faint, the next her burning indignation would drive away all weakness.

She did not believe one word of the smooth story he had related to her, hoping that her girlish credulity would accept it for truth.

And she was determined that she would die before she would marry the wretch.

But how was she to escape if he stood guard over her all the way to Chicago, with a deadly weapon in his hand?

If she shrieked out to the conductor for assistance, her abductor would kill her on the spot.

It was a situation to blanch the bravest cheek, and Geraldine was only a poor, weak girl. No wonder that the blood ran cold in her veins with despair.

She could see nothing before her but death—certain death at the hands of the desperate villain by her side.

For he was determined to marry her or kill her; and of the two calamities she resolved to choose the last.

But—and a faint spark of hope came to her—if she could only get him to leave her side a while, she might escape—might jump from the flying train in the darkness.

He was watching her changing face with eager anxiety as to what she was going to say to him now, and suddenly he saw it brighten with a thought he could not fathom.

There had flashed over Geraldine a remembrance of his last words:

"What could I do in my despair but oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud?"

Her sombre eyes brightened as she thought:

"He has taught me a lesson that I will profit by. Perhaps I can thus throw him off his guard."

Standish exclaimed, eagerly and curiously:

"What have you to say, Geraldine, to my story? Will you accept it for the truth, and renew your faith in my love and honor?"

Duplicity was a stranger to Geraldine's nature, and it was hard indeed to act the part she was planning, but her stage training enabled her to carry it off superbly.

Her lovely face softened inexpressibly, and she looked up at him with a shy yet tender glance that thrilled him with hope.

"Oh, what a strange story you have told me!" she twittered, sweetly, and added: "How can you forgive me for my unfaith?"

Clifford Standish started with blended surprise and joy, for he had not counted on such an easy victory.

He had expected that Geraldine would accuse him of falsehood, scorn him, flout him—do anything else but weaken in this simple way.

But his masculine vanity made the task of gulling him an easy one, for he thought instantly:

"How weak and silly women are! They will believe any garbled story a man chooses to tell them."

Aloud, he said, joyously:

"Then you believe me, Geraldine? They have not turned your heart against me?"

She answered, with seemingly pretty penitence:

"At first they did—for—for it all seemed so real on the stage last night—the arrest and all, you know. And I was wild with pain and humiliation; so I let them persuade me into anything. But, now that you have explained all to me, I see it in a different light, for of course you would not have wished to marry me if you had a wife already."

"Of course not," he echoed, smiling to himself at her innocent ignorance.

"So," continued Geraldine, smiling also, but at his gullibility, "you may put away your pistol, for it makes me very nervous to see it. And you do not need to stand guard over me, and I am ready to keep my promise to marry you."

"Geraldine," he cried, transported with joy at her sweetness, and bent to kiss her, but she repulsed him with shy grace.

"No, no—wait till we are married, sir!"

"Very well, darling; but—will you promise me not to speak to any one on the train but myself?" suspiciously.

"I promise you that," she answered, carelessly, hoping that he would leave her, but it seemed that he had no such amiable intention.

He removed the glasses under which he had posed as Jem Rhodes, the better to feast his eyes on her peerless beauty, and remained by her side, talking to her until she was wild with disgust.

Yet she had to wear her brightest smile, and answer him with seeming vivacity, to keep up the impression she had made of satisfaction with her fate.

Meanwhile the train rushed on to the first station and passed it without interruption. Hawthorne's telegram had not overtaken the fugitives. Poor Geraldine's fate was sealed, and Standish was triumphant.

"I wish something would happen," she thought, desperately. "I wish the train would get off the track and hurt him, and nobody else, so that I might escape!"

How strangely our impetuous wishes are answered sometimes.

Something did happen to Geraldine the very next moment.

The conductor came back from the Pullman coach, and, pausing at her seat, said, respectfully:

"I beg your pardon, miss, but there is a lady back in the Pullman whose husband has just died suddenly from a frightful hemorrhage. In her distress there is not a woman to comfort her except an unfeeling negro maid, who is too busy flirting with the porter to attend to her duties. Could you—would you go back in there and speak a word of comfort to the poor soul?"

His gruff voice was very kindly now that his sympathies were awakened, and he gazed almost pleadingly at the girl who looked, in turn, questioningly at Standish.

He hesitated a moment, as if about to refuse, then answered, quietly:

"Yes, go, and I will accompany you," and, like a jailer guarding a prisoner, he followed her to the Pullman coach.

CHAPTER XXX.
A STARTLING DECLARATION

 
"Eyes that are closed to earthly sight,
Can never wake to weep;
Nor pain, nor woe, nor grief, nor blight,
Can move that slumber deep.
 
 
"So hearts of dust all griefs forsake,
They never break nor bleed;
The living hearts that throb and ache
Our tender pity need."
 

The newly made widow leaned against the berth where the dead man lay with his face hidden beneath the sheet, her face in her hands, sobbing in a subdued but heart-broken way. None of the other berths had been made up yet, and the few men in the car looked solemn and ill at ease. A gayly dressed mulatto woman, evidently the lady's maid, was whispering to the smart yellow porter.

Geraldine paused by the weeping woman with a timid glance that took in every detail of her appearance—the elegant curves of the stately figure in a fine cloth traveling gown, the glint of golden hair beneath the dark, close hat, the glittering rings on the hands that held the handkerchief to her face.

She whispered, shyly, to Standish:

"She is one of those grand aristocrats that I used to see at O'Neill's store. I'm afraid to speak to her. Some of them are so proud, so haughty, they can wither you with a look."

"Suppose we go back, then, to our seats," he returned, eagerly.

But something held Geraldine by the mourner's side, in spite of her terror of proud, rich women; and as a sudden low sob broke on the air, she started hurriedly forward with a gentle touch on the lady's arm, bending her face down to whisper, brokenly, out of the wealth of her sympathy:

"Oh, I am so sorry for you, I am so sorry for you! May God help you to bear it!"

The mourner lifted up a lovely face framed in golden hair—the face of a woman somewhere between thirty and forty—and met the glance of those sweet brown eyes swimming in sympathetic tears, and her heart seemed to answer the girl's words. With another heart-breaking sob, she dropped her face against Geraldine's shoulder, and let the girlish arms infold her like a daughter's clasp.

"Come away to a seat," she whispered, and led her away some distance from the berth.

Sitting side by side, they mingled their tears together, for it seemed to Geraldine as if she could feel, by some divine instinct, all the force of the other woman's grief.

"For what, if I were married to my darling Harry, and Death took him—oh, it would break my heart!" she thought, wildly.

Standish had followed and taken a seat just behind her, where he could listen to every word that passed.

Oh, how she hated him for his dastardly espionage, but she dared not openly revolt. She bided her time.

She felt with a keen thrill of pleasure how the strange lady clung to her in the abandonment of her grief, nestling her weary head so confidingly against her shoulder, and letting her arm rest around the girl's waist.

"Tell me if there is anything I can do for you," she whispered, kindly, and the mourner hushed her sobs and murmured:

"Tell the conductor to make arrangements to take—take—my poor husband through to Chicago, our home."

Standish beckoned the conductor back to the seat, and there was a colloquy for some time over mournful details. When he went away, the lady who had grown calmer, lifted her tearful face, and looked at Geraldine, eagerly, tenderly.

"Who are you, child, with that voice and face from the haunting past? What is your name?"

"I am Geraldine Harding!"

"Geraldine Harding! Oh, Heaven!" springing to her feet in strange excitement, her blue eyes glittering through their tears.

Geraldine did not know what to make of her strange excitement, so she waited, mutely, while the lady went on, breathlessly:

"Where did you live?—oh, I mean, tell me all about yourself! Oh, I am in such trouble that I cannot express myself clearly! I mean no impertinence, but I am terribly interested in you and in your past."

"There is not much in my past that could interest you, dear madame—only the simple story of a poor country girl who came to New York, with another girl, to earn her own living," Geraldine said, modestly.

"So young, so lovely! Yet thrown on the world to earn her bread!" murmured the lady, tearfully. She caught the girl's hand, holding it tightly as she continued: "Your parents, dear? Why did they let you leave them?"

"I was an orphan, madame."

"An orphan! Where was your home?"

"I lived in the country near New York, with a farmer, to whom my father took me when I was a delicate child. The farmer's name was Newell, and his wife, Malinda, had formerly been a servant to my mother. She gave me tender, motherly care, and raised me from a frail child to a robust girl. My father sent money for a while, then he died, and left me dependent on those people. They were poor and had a hard struggle to get along with their large brood of children, so I—I—wearied of the life, and ran away to seek my fortune in the great city."

"And your mother, Geraldine?"

"My father said that she was dead," she replied, simply.

"It was false! He, your cruel father, took you from me! I am your own mother, darling!" cried the lady, extending imploring arms.