Kitabı oku: «The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret», sayfa 21

CHAPTER XV

The time passed slowly enough to the impatient Vinton while the boy-of-all-work was gone on his mission to Mrs. Bowers. He paced up and down impatiently, now and then casting surly looks of hatred and revenge upon the honest farmer who had dared to defy him and protect his trembling victim.

Mrs. Thorn, seeing that Queenie was better and did not need her attention, busied herself in setting the neglected breakfast upon the table. She put on the smoking coffee, the hot corn-cakes, the fried bacon and eggs, the fresh butter and milk, and invited her visitors to partake of the homely fare.

Leon Vinton declined the invitation by a surly nod, but Queenie, who had been watching her movements eagerly, readily signified her consent.

"I am very hungry," she declared, "for owing to the wickedness of yonder man, I have not tasted food for several days."

"Oh, my poor, demented little sister," exclaimed the hypocritical Vinton, "would to God your reason might be restored!"

Queenie only cast a look of scorn upon him as she took her place at the breakfast-table. Her heart was infused with fresh courage owing to the noble conduct of the farmer and his wife in repelling the persecutions of Leon Vinton.

She determined to get the farmer to go into town for her father, and she resolved that these kind people should be most liberally rewarded for the resolute course by which they had secured her happiness. So inspired was she by this brilliant hope, and so strengthened by the warm coffee, that a faint flush came into her cheek, and her blue eyes sparkled with excitement and animation.

"Your breakfast has set you up quite a bit, ma'am," exclaimed Mrs. Thorn, admiringly. "You don't hardly look like the same woman we took up for dead in the road."

"Your kindness has put new life in me, madam," answered Queenie, gratefully. "It is the hope of escape from this man that fills me with joy and lights up my face with gladness."

"Poor dear!" exclaimed the woman, turning a look of scorn on Vinton as he still moodily paced the floor.

"Ah, madam," exclaimed he, catching that look, "in a little while, when my sister arrives and corroborates my story, you will see how much you have wronged me in giving credence to the senseless ravings of this poor lunatic."

Even as he spoke there was a stir and a bustle at the door. The farmer hastened to open it, and Mrs. Bowers, elegantly dressed and visibly excited, rushed in. Leon Vinton sprang to meet her.

"Oh, my dear sister!" he exclaimed, "I have found our poor little one!"

Mrs. Bowers took the cue at once.

"Oh, brother!" she cried, theatrically, "you fill me with joy! What tortures, what agonies I have endured in the fear that she was dead!"

She rolled her eyes around the room, and seeing Queenie sitting near the fire, ran up and vigorously embraced her.

"Oh, my poor, unhappy darling," she cried, "how could you grieve your poor old sister so?"

Queenie pushed her off frantically like the mad creature they accused her of being.

"You are not my sister," she cried, angrily. "Go away Mrs. Bowers. You cannot impose on these good people with your shameless lies! They would not believe Leon Vinton and they will not believe you. They are friends to me, and they will help me back to my husband."

Mrs. Bowers threw up her hands and looked at her coadjutor in villainy sadly.

"You see she is still as mad as a March hare," he answered, "and would you believe it, Alice, dear, our little sister has so imposed on these good people with her cunning insanity, that they actually believe her stories, and look upon me, her devoted brother, as a perjured villain seeking her destruction. They will not even permit me to remove my poor, demented sister home without proof of my assertion."

Mrs. Bowers looked around at the farmer and his wife with an air of indulgent pity.

"Oh, my good people, is it possible that you have been so weak as to let this cunning maniac deceive you? But no wonder—for insanity has baffled wiser heads than yours or mine. It is quite natural she should deceive you, as I do not suppose you ever saw a crazy person before. But now let me assure you that my brother has told you the simple truth. This is our own sister, and she has been a year insane. She escaped from us this morning before daylight, and he has been seeking her everywhere. I have come in the carriage, and I suppose you will not now raise any further objection to our removing her to her home."

"I will not go with you!" exclaimed Queenie, filled with terror lest the woman's specious acting should deceive the simple country people. "Every word you have uttered is a base falsehood! I am nothing to either of you—nothing! Go away and leave me in peace!"

In her wild excitement she sprang up and shook her hands violently at Mrs. Bowers. Her loose, disheveled hair, her flashing eyes, her waving hands made her look like a wild creature. Mrs. Bowers pointed at her triumphantly.

"You see for yourselves that she is mad," she said. "She is going off into one of her violent and dangerous fits, and she is just as apt as not to catch up a knife from the table there and kill one of you. Oh, for God's sake, brother, take her and put her in the carriage!"

Leon Vinton advanced to do her bidding, but Queenie fought him off like a young lioness at bay.

"Oh, good people!" she cried, "help me, for Heaven's sake! Do not suffer this villain to take me!"

"I have given you full proof now that this is my sister," exclaimed Leon Vinton to the farmer. "I warn you if you interfere with me further it will be at your peril!"

The farmer and his wife had been completely deceived by the spirited and natural acting of Mrs. Bowers. They began to believe that they had indeed been deceived into believing the artful ravings of a violent maniac.

Therefore, when Queenie called on them for help they only stood aloof, regarding her frightened, excited aspect with newly-awakened fear.

"Ha! so you are now convinced of the truth," exclaimed Leon Vinton, triumphantly, seeing that they made no effort to molest him.

"Yes, sir, we are," said the farmer, in a conciliatory tone; "and I wish to make my apology to you for the trouble I've put you to. The young girl's acting was very nat'ral, but I see now that you told the truth about her."

"I told you so, father!" exclaimed Jennie, triumphantly.

"Tut, tut, Jen—hold your tongue, you impudent girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorn, sharply.

Queenie had dropped into a chair at the farmer's renunciation of her claims, and, hiding her face in her hands, burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Mrs. Bowers stood by her making a pretended effort at consoling her, but her pretended brother paid no heed to the wretched girl. He looked at Jennie's bright, pretty face, and then turned to her father.

"I think you said your daughter was out of a place, at present," he said, blandly. "Do you wish to secure another one for her?"

"Yes, we do," was the ready answer. "We have to put her out to service, for we cannot afford to keep her at home. She must earn her clothes and a bit more to help us along at home."

"I think my sister needs just such a girl about the house, to help her with the housekeeping," said Leon Vinton; and, turning to Mrs. Bowers, he said: "Do you think Miss Jennie would suit you?"

The woman stared at him in surprise for a moment, but he gave her a significant glance, and she answered with apparent frankness:

"Yes, I think I should like to have her very much."

"Very well, then," and, turning to the farmer he inquired if his sister could have Jennie, naming a liberal, but not too large compensation, for fear of exciting suspicion. He did not ask the girl, herself, for he had already read her consent in her beaming eyes. She was perfectly fascinated by the handsome stranger, and was ready to go anywhere that she might daily see him and hear his voice.

Before the farmer could speak, Queenie sprang to his side, and laid her delicate white hand, all sparkling with jewels, on his coarse sleeve, lifting her blue eyes pleadingly to his face.

"Oh! sir," she said, "you think me mad, but for Heaven's sake be warned by me! Do not suffer your pretty, simple girl to stray into the snare this man and woman are setting for her. If you give your consent you will rue it in dust and ashes, when you see her innocence betrayed and her virtue lost."

Leon Vinton glared at her fiercely as the farmer hesitated.

"Come, decide, at once," he said. "The carriage is waiting, and she can accompany us if you are willing. Of course you need pay no attention to the ravings of that poor maniac."

Mr. Thorn looked at his daughter. Her face was bright with smiles, for the artful villain, with his tender glances, had made her believe that he was deeply enamored of her charms.

"Do you want to go, Jennie?" he asked, doubtfully.

"Oh, yes, father, if you'll let me," she said.

"She may go for a month, then, and if she don't like the place she may come home again," said the farmer.

Queenie said no more. She saw that her enemies had triumphed over her this time, and her heart was almost broken. She made an ineffectual struggle to escape through the door, but was captured and borne struggling to the carriage, followed by her pretended sister and the pretty Jennie, who was falling so unconsciously into the pit spread for her unwary feet.

CHAPTER XVI

Jennie Thorn was delighted with the beautiful furnishing and elegant ease of the cottage by the river.

Mrs. Bowers proved to be one of the most indulgent of mistresses, and the girl's position speedily became a sinecure as far as work was concerned.

At first she was given a few light tasks to avert suspicions, and lead her to think that everything was right. Then Mrs. Bowers began to flatter her, and one day she said:

"You are too pretty and refined, Jennie, to stay in the kitchen with that vulgar cook. You shall stay in the parlor and be my companion."

Nothing could have pleased the vain little creature better, for she thought that her master would respect her more in her new situation, and also that she would have more frequent opportunities of seeing him than had fallen to her lot in her menial position. She accordingly consented with ill-concealed delight.

Leon Vinton had played his cards very cleverly to win the farmer's pretty daughter.

She saw him very seldom at first, as he spent the greater part of his time in town, only visiting the cottage two or three times in the space of a week.

On the occasion of these visits Jennie saw but little of him, but some glance of his eye or tender smile made her heart beat fast and kept him in her thoughts when he was away.

But when the little maid was promoted to the parlor, Leon Vinton began to appear at home more frequently.

He lounged about the parlor with his cigar and newspaper, and chatted a great deal with his pretended sister and her pretty little companion.

Very often Mrs. Bowers would leave the room, and remain away for hours, leaving the handsome man and susceptible girl alone together.

On one of these occasions he threw away his cigar, and took a seat by Jennie. She looked up from a trifle of sewing in her hand, and then, with a deep blush, let her glance fall to the rich velvet carpet.

Mr. Vinton looked at her admiringly. Mrs. Bowers had presented her with a fine dark-blue cashmere dress, and with soft, white laces at throat and wrists, and a few bright-colored ribbons, the little country girl looked quite the lady. Leon Vinton confessed to himself that she was wonderfully pretty in her new surroundings. They suited her beauty much better than the homely, humble farm-house had done.

"Jennie," he said abruptly, "do you know that the probationary month which your father allowed you with us is at an end to-day?"

She started, and looked at him, the pretty pink color fading from her cheeks, a look of alarm in her dark eyes.

"Yes, I know," she faltered, "and you—you're not pleased with me, and you're going to send me home to father, I suppose."

He smiled at the piteous quiver in the girl's voice.

"I'll send you if you want to go," he said, laughing.

"I don't want to go. I like to stay here with—with your sister," she answered, quickly.

"Well, I don't blame you," he said. "This kind of life is better suited to you than that. You're too pretty and dainty, by George, to be working around in people's kitchens!"

She did not answer, save by a blush and a smile of gratified vanity.

"Little Jennie," he said after a moment, "how would you like to live here always, and never have any work to do—nothing to do but adorn your beauty with silks and laces, and jewels, and ride and walk and amuse yourself!"

She clasped her toil-worn little hands, and looked at him with beaming eyes, and a happy smile on her red lips.

"Oh, I should like it above anything!" she breathed, gladly.

He took her hand in his, then dropped it with a slight frown. It was hardened and enlarged by honest toil, and not pretty like her face. He was used to velvet hands, white as the lily, for he seldom descended to women in her station of life. She did not see the slight curl of his lip, for he turned his head away, and when he looked back he was smiling, and there was a beam of tenderness in his eyes.

"Jennie, dearest," he said, "you can have all that, and what is better, you can have one fond, devoted heart to adore you if you will only speak the word."

She looked up blushing and smiling.

"You mean," she said, and then paused.

"I mean," he answered, "that I will lavish every luxury and pleasure upon you if you will only accept my love."

The simple, untutored country girl did not for a moment comprehend his meaning. She turned to him with clasped hands and a face full of joyful emotion.

"Oh, sir," she said, fervently, "you know that I shall only be too happy and thankful to be your wife!"

"The devil!" exclaimed the villain to himself. "The little simpleton thinks I meant marriage."

It suddenly dawned on him that there could be no question of love with this honest little country girl without marriage.

He determined to humor her fancy.

"So you will be my wife, my sweet one?" he inquired.

"Yes," she replied, "I will marry you if father is willing."

Mr. Vinton suddenly assumed an expression of deep concern.

"Ah! my little darling," he said, as he bent down and kissed her ruby lips, "that is just where the trouble comes in. If I marry you now, as my ardent love prompts me to do, I cannot ask your father to give you to me, for our marriage must be a secret, unknown to any but ourselves."

"Why so?" she inquired, looking disappointed.

"I cannot tell you the reason now, Jennie," he replied, evasively. "There are several things which would prevent our marriage if I declared our intention beforehand; but there is one reason I can give you. My sister, though she is fond of you in her way would never consent to it. She is very proud, and she wishes me to marry a rich woman of her choosing. If I openly defy her she has the power to keep me out of my fortune and make me a poor man."

Jennie was too simple and innocent to be undeceived by that transparent lie.

"Darling, after this explanation you will surely consent to a private marriage—will you not? Remember how well I love you," pleaded the wretch.

"How could we manage a secret marriage?" asked Jennie, blushing with delight at his fond words.

"Easily enough. You can tell my sister that you wish to go home and spend a week with your parents. Then I can take you to the city right away and marry you. We can spend a week traveling about and enjoying our honeymoon, after which I can send you back here, and Mrs. Bowers will think that you have been at the farm the whole time. By-and-bye, when my affairs get straight, we will declare our marriage to everybody. By George, how surprised they will be then! Now, my dear little wife that is to be, will you consent to my plan?"

Jennie hesitated a moment, then murmured a timid and joyful "yes."

CHAPTER XVII

The summer sunshine waned, the summer roses faded, and the "melancholy days—the saddest of the year," hurried swiftly on. The chilling winds howled drearily about the river cottage, but long ere the last autumn leaf was whirled from the tall trees standing round about like giant sentinels, the fickle fancy that Leon Vinton had felt for the farmer's dark-eyed daughter had perished like the frailest flower of the summer.

"The illusion was soon over," he said to himself. "It was the briefest fancy I ever had. But that was her own fault. She was too easily won. The game was not worth the candle."

Simple little Jennie had been living in a "Fool's Paradise" ever since the mock-marriage which the deceiver had duly caused to be celebrated. Ostensibly she remained as the companion of Mrs. Bowers, and that kind lady appeared to be perfectly blind and deaf to all the strange things that went on around her.

If Jennie had not been the most innocent of women she could not have failed to know that Mrs. Bowers was perfectly cognizant of her secret, and was only laughing in her sleeve all the while that she appeared so stupid and good-natured to the new victim of her employer.

"I am heartily tired of the little fool," he said to her one day in confidence, when the autumn days had given place to the freezing ones of winter; "I wish I could get rid of her."

"Your fancy was soon over this time," remarked Mrs. Bowers.

"Her own fault," grumbled the wretch. "In the first place she was too lightly won. In love more than half the pleasure lies in the pursuit, and 'lightly won is lightly lost.' She is changed now, also. How rosy and bright she was at first—how pale, how altered, how plain she is now!"

"She is ill," said Mrs. Bowers, in a significant tone.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Leon Vinton, angrily. "Why, then, I surely must get rid of her. But how to do it—that's the question!"

"Tell her the truth—that she is not married at all—and send her home to her parents," said the woman, heartlessly.

He did not reply for a moment, but paused to light a cigar and place it between his lips. Then he threw himself back on the lounge where he sat, and remarked indifferently:

"Yes; I suppose I shall have to do that. There will be a scene, I suppose."

Mrs. Bowers merely laughed in reply, as if he had uttered the most harmless jest. She was thoroughly wicked and heartless, and cared not a jot for the miseries of the whole world.

"Well, the sooner the better," went on Vinton, heartlessly. "I believe I'll go and have it out with her now."

He arose as heartlessly and indifferently as if he were going about a mission of happiness instead of being about to strike the cold steel of despair into the young heart that trusted him so fondly.

Jennie was sitting by a window in the parlor looking out at the great, blinding flakes of snow that whirled through the air and covered the ground with a pure white carpet.

She looked pale, but very pretty in a black dress with scarlet trimmings, and a scarlet shawl was draped about her shoulders, partly concealing her form.

As Mr. Vinton entered the room her dark eyes turned from the window and rested on him with a very fond and loving smile.

"You've come at last," she said, in a tone of joy and relief. "Where have you been all this long week?"

"In town," he answered, laconically, as he dropped into a chair near her.

A look of disappointment came into her eyes. She rose and went to his side, winding her arms about his neck, and pressing her lips on his brow.

"I've missed you so much," she said, lovingly. "I sha'n't let you leave me so long again."

"I shall not ask your leave!" he answered, sharply, and muttering an oath between his teeth as he rudely pushed her off.

The movement was so sudden that she nearly fell. It was only by catching the back of a convenient chair that she steadied herself. She turned a white, frightened face toward him.

"What's the matter?" she said. "Are you angry with me, Leon?"

"I'm sick of your baby fondness," he answered brutally. "Have done with it."

Jennie fell back into her chair as if shot, and looked at him with reproachful eyes.

"You're angry with me," she said, plaintively; "and I had something to tell you—something very particular."

"Tell it, then," he answered, with a frown as black as night on his handsome face.

The trembling young creature before him remained silent for a few minutes, so utterly confounded was she by the unaccountable change in her husband. His manner had always been the perfection of gentlemanly refinement before. This sudden change to coarse brutality amazed and frightened her. When she spoke her voice was low and broken, and her eyes rested on the carpet.

"I waited to tell you, Leon," she said, with a scarlet blush, "that—that we will have to make some change soon. You'll be obliged to tell Mrs. Bowers that we are married, or take me to some other place. If you don't she'll find out our secret pretty soon. We are compelled to make a change!"

"I have been thinking so myself," he answered, coolly.

"You have," she said, with an accent of gladness. "Then what do you think we had better do?"

"I think you had better go home to your mother," he answered, brutally.

She looked up at him in surprise and doubt.

"You mean to own our marriage, then, do you?" she asked, and there was a faint suggestion of hope in her tone.

"No, by George! I don't," he answered quickly.

"You don't," she exclaimed. "Then how can I go home? They would—they would think I had disgraced myself. Father would turn me out of doors!"

"I'm very sorry for you, then," he answered, coolly. "I see no other resource for you."

"Leon, I don't know what you mean!" exclaimed Jennie, in surprise and pain at his careless words and utterly indifferent manner; "you are not one bit like yourself. What makes you talk so strange to your own wife?"

She looked up at the handsome man with the tears of wounded feeling starting into her eyes, but all unconscious of the terrible blow that was to fall upon her defenseless head.

"You are not my wife!" he replied, with a dark and threatening frown.

"Not your wife!" she cried, turning as white as death. "Oh, Leon, you surely are going mad! What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," he answered, curtly. "It's time you knew the truth, Jennie. You are not my wife—never have been! The marriage ceremony was read over us, to be sure, but it was only a mock-marriage to quiet your scruples. The pretended preacher was a friend of mine—the wickedest blade in town—with a soul as black as the devil!"

She sat still and looked at him, her eyes wild and frightened, her face as white as the snow which whirled past the window. At last she spoke, but her voice was low and thick, and did not seem like her own.

"You're joking with me, Leon—you can't mean it?"

"I do mean it—it's the truth," he replied, coolly; "come, now, Jennie, don't take it hard. We've had a pleasant time—have we not? And now you can go home to your mother. I am tired of you, I confess it; and I'm going away myself—to Europe, I think. So of course you can't stay here. My sister would turn you out of doors as soon as she found you out. Go home to the farm, and there's a hundred dollars to help you through your trouble."

He tossed a roll of bank-notes into her lap with a complacent air as if his munificent generosity condoned everything.

The girl had been sitting quite still, looking at him with a terrible pain frozen on her pretty young face, but at his concluding words she sprang up and tossed the roll of notes into the fire as if it had been a serpent. Her dark eyes blazed with passion and her voice shook with rage as she wildly confronted her base betrayer.

"Oh, you devil!" she cried, "I would not touch one cent of that money to save your soul from the torments of hell! My curses be upon your head! May the Lord never forgive you for this cruel sin! May you die by the hangman's rope!"

The handsome villain laughed mockingly, and turning on his heel walked out of the room.

As he passed through the hallway he heard the sound of a heavy fall. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that his victim had fallen senseless upon the floor.

He walked on and entered the room of Mrs. Bowers, his housekeeper, and not his sister, as he had pretended.

"I have told her," he said, "and she has fainted—as they mostly do. I am going away now, and I shall be absent a week. You must try and get her away from here before I come back!"

"Oh! you wicked man," said Mrs. Bowers, laughing, and shaking a finger at him. "Where shall I send her?"

"To the devil for aught I care!" said the gentleman, smarting with the recollection of Jennie's curse and the burning of his hundred dollars. "I care not where she goes so that I am rid of her. But take good care of the other one. Do not suffer her to escape."

He tossed a roll of bills into her lap and walked away humming a tune. In a few minutes after she heard him riding off down the road to the city. She locked her money carefully away in a drawer, then went up to the parlor where poor Jennie lay insensible upon the floor, and sitting down in an easy-chair, carelessly regarded the poor girl whom she had pitilessly helped to ruin.

It was a long time before the unhappy girl revived from her deep swoon, but the housekeeper made no effort to restore her to life though the thought crossed her mind more than once as she sat there that she might die without assistance.

"And no matter if she does," said the heartless woman to herself. "It would be all the better for her and for all parties concerned."

But it was not to be as Mrs. Bowers thought and almost wished. Life came back to the poor girl with a long, fluttering sigh, and the first thing she saw when she looked up was the angry face of the woman glaring down upon her.

"So you're alive, are you?" she said fiercely. "Why didn't you die and hide your shame and disgrace in the grave?"

"Ma'am?" faltered poor Jane, blankly.

"I say why didn't you die and hide your shame and disgrace in the grave?" repeated the housekeeper, angrily. "Ah! I've found you out, Jennie Thorn! I took you in my house for an honest girl, but you've ruined yourself and disgraced your poor old parents; I'll not keep such trash in my respectable home. Out of my house you go before night!"

The poor girl rose and looked out of the window. The cold winter twilight was already falling and the great, white flakes of snow still filled the air.

"Oh! Mrs. Bowers," she said, piteously, "it is night already, and where could I go?"

"You should have thought of that sooner," said the pitiless woman. "It's too late now. Go get your cloak and hat and put them on."

Almost stunned by her sorrow Jennie mechanically obeyed her imperious command.

"Now, leave here!" said the housekeeper.

"Oh! Mrs. Bowers," cried the wretched girl, "let me stay at least until morning! Indeed I am not what you think me! I was deceived by a mock-marriage, and I thought myself an honest wife until Mr. Vinton told me just now how cruelly he had betrayed me. Oh! for God's sake have pity on me, and don't turn me out to-night in the cold and the darkness!"

For all answer Mrs. Bowers caught her by the arm and rudely dragged her along the hall to the front door.

"You can't deceive me with your trumped up lies, you shameless thing!" she said. "Go now, and never let me see your face here again."

She opened the door and pushing the poor, weeping, betrayed and deserted girl out into the blinding storm, slammed and locked the door.