Kitabı oku: «Daisy Brooks: or, A Perilous Love», sayfa 2
CHAPTER III
In an elegant boudoir, all crimson and gold, some hours later, sat Pluma Hurlhurst, reclining negligently on a satin divan, toying idly with a volume which lay in her lap. She tossed the book aside with a yawn, turning her superb dark eyes on the little figure bending over the rich trailing silks which were to adorn her own fair beauty on the coming evening.
“So you think you would like to attend the lawn fête to-night, Daisy?” she asked, patronizingly.
Daisy glanced up with a startled blush,
“Oh, I should like it so much, Miss Pluma,” she answered, hesitatingly, “if I only could!”
“I think I shall gratify you,” said Pluma, carelessly. “You have made yourself very valuable to me. I like the artistic manner you have twined these roses in my hair; the effect is quite picturesque.” She glanced satisfiedly at her own magnificent reflection in the cheval-glass opposite. Titian alone could have reproduced those rich, marvelous colors–that perfect, queenly beauty. He would have painted the picture, and the world would have raved about its beauty. The dark masses of raven-black hair; the proud, haughty face, with its warm southern tints; the dusky eyes, lighted with fire and passion, and the red, curved lips. “I wish particularly to look my very best to-night, Daisy,” she said; “that is why I wish you to remain. You can arrange those sprays of white heath in my hair superbly. Then you shall attend the fête, Daisy. Remember, you are not expected to take part in it; you must sit in some secluded nook where you will be quite unobserved.”
Pluma could not help but smile at the ardent delight depicted in Daisy’s face.
“I am afraid I can not stay,” she said, doubtfully, glancing down in dismay at the pink-and-white muslin she wore. “Every one would be sure to laugh at me who saw me. Then I would wish I had not stayed.”
“Suppose I should give you one to wear–that white mull, for instance–how would you like it? None of the guests would see you,” replied Pluma.
There was a wistful look in Daisy’s eyes, as though she would fain believe what she heard was really true.
“Would you really?” asked Daisy, wonderingly. “You, whom people call so haughty and so proud–you would really let me wear one of your dresses? I do not know how to tell you how much I am pleased!” she said, eagerly.
Pluma Hurlhurst laughed. Such rapture was new to her.
The night which drew its mantle over the smiling earth was a perfect one. Myriads of stars shone like jewels in the blue sky, and not a cloud obscured the face of the clear full moon. Hurlhurst Plantation was ablaze with colored lamps that threw out soft rainbow tints in all directions as far as the eye could reach. The interior of Whitestone Hall was simply dazzling in its rich rose bloom, its lights, its fountains, and rippling music from adjoining ferneries.
In an elegant apartment of the Hall Basil Hurlhurst, the recluse invalid, lay upon his couch, trying to shut out the mirth and gayety that floated up to him from below. As the sound of Pluma’s voice sounded upon his ear he turned his face to the wall with a bitter groan. “She is so like–” he muttered, grimly. “Ah! the pleasant voices of our youth turn into lashes which scourge us in our old age. ‘Like mother, like child.’”
The lawn fête was a grand success; the élite of the whole country round were gathered together to welcome the beautiful, peerless hostess of Whitestone Hall. Pluma moved among her guests like a queen, yet in all that vast throng her eyes eagerly sought one face. “Where was Rex?” was the question which constantly perplexed her. After the first waltz he had suddenly disappeared. Only the evening before handsome Rex Lyon had held her jeweled hand long at parting, whispering, in his graceful, charming way, he had something to tell her on the morrow. “Why did he hold himself so strangely aloof?” Pluma asked herself, in bitter wonder. Ah! had she but known!
While Pluma, the wealthy heiress, awaited his coming so eagerly, Rex Lyon was standing, quite lost in thought, beside a rippling fountain in one of the most remote parts of the lawn, thinking of Daisy Brooks. He had seen a fair face–that was all–a face that embodied his dream of loveliness, and without thinking of it found his fate, and the whole world seemed changed for him.
Handsome, impulsive Rex Lyon, owner of several of the most extensive and lucrative orange groves in Florida, would have bartered every dollar of his worldly possessions for love.
He had hitherto treated all notion of love in a very off-hand, cavalier fashion.
“Love is fate,” he had always said. He knew Pluma loved him. Last night he had said to himself: The time had come when he might as well marry; it might as well be Pluma as any one else, seeing she cared so much for him. Now all that was changed. “I sincerely hope she will not attach undue significance to the words I spoke last evening,” he mused.
Rex did not care to return again among the throng; it was sweeter far to sit there by the murmuring fountain dreaming of Daisy Brooks, and wondering when he should see her again. A throng which did not hold the face of Daisy Brooks had no charm for Rex.
Suddenly a soft step sounded on the grass; Rex’s heart gave a sudden bound; surely it could not be–yes, it was–Daisy Brooks.
She drew back with a startled cry as her eyes suddenly encountered those of her hero of the morning. She would have fled precipitately had he not stretched out his hand quickly to detain her.
“Daisy,” cried Rex, “why do you look so frightened? Are you displeased to see me?”
“No,” she said. “I–I–do not know–”
She looked so pretty, so bewildered, so dazzled by joy, yet so pitifully uncertain, Rex was more desperately in love with her than ever.
“Your eyes speak, telling me you are pleased, Daisy, even if your lips refuse to tell me so. Sit down on this rustic bench, Daisy, while I tell you how anxiously I awaited your coming–waited until the shadows of evening fell.”
As he talked to her he grew more interested with every moment. She had no keen intellect, no graceful powers of repartee, knew little of books or the great world beyond. Daisy was a simple, guileless child of nature.
Rex’s vanity was gratified at the unconscious admiration which shone in her eyes and the blushes his words brought to her cheeks.
“There is my favorite waltz, Daisy,” he said, as the music of the irresistible “Blue Danube” floated out to them. “Will you favor me with a waltz?”
“Miss Pluma would be so angry,” she murmured.
“Never mind her anger, Daisy. I will take all the blame on my shoulders. They are unusually broad, you see.”
He led her half reluctant among the gay throng; gentlemen looked at one another in surprise. Who is she? they asked one of the other, gazing upon her in wonder. No one could answer. The sweet-faced little maiden in soft, floating white, with a face like an angel’s, who wore no other ornament than her crown of golden hair, was a mystery and a novelty. In all the long years of her after life Daisy never forgot that supremely blissful moment. It seemed to her they were floating away into another sphere. Rex’s arms were around her, his eyes smiling down into hers; he could feel the slight form trembling in his embrace, and he clasped her still closer. With youth, music, and beauty–there was nothing wanting to complete the charm of love.
Leaning gracefully against an overarching palm-tree stood a young man watching the pair with a strange intentness; a dark, vindictive smile hovered about the corners of his mouth, hidden by his black mustache, and there was a cruel gleam in the dark, wicked eyes scanning the face of the young girl so closely.
“Ah! why not?” he mused. “It would be a glorious revenge.” He made his way hurriedly in the direction of his young hostess, who was, as usual, surrounded by a group of admirers. A deep crimson spot burned on either cheek, and her eyes glowed like stars, as of one under intense, suppressed excitement.
Lester Stanwick made his way to her side just as the last echo of the waltz died away on the air, inwardly congratulating himself upon finding Rex and Daisy directly beside him.
“Miss Pluma,” said Stanwick, with a low bow, “will you kindly present me to the little fairy on your right? I am quite desperately smitten with her.”
Several gentlemen crowded around Pluma asking the same favor.
With a smile and a bow, what could Rex do but lead Daisy gracefully forward. Those who witnessed the scene that ensued never forgot it. For answer Pluma Hurlhurst turned coldly, haughtily toward them, drawing herself up proudly to her full height.
“There is evidently some mistake here,” she said, glancing scornfully at the slight, girlish figure leaning upon Rex Lyon’s arm. “I do not recognize this person as a guest. If I mistake not, she is one of the hirelings connected with the plantation.”
If a thunderbolt had suddenly exploded beneath Rex’s feet he could not have been more thoroughly astounded.
Daisy uttered a piteous little cry and, like a tender flower cut down by a sudden, rude blast, would have fallen at his feet had he not reached out his arm to save her.
“Miss Hurlhurst,” cried Rex, in a voice husky with emotion, “I hold myself responsible for this young lady’s presence here. I–”
“Ah!” interrupts Pluma, ironically; “and may I ask by what right you force one so inferior, and certainly obnoxious, among us?”
Rex Lyon’s handsome face was white with rage. “Miss Hurlhurst,” he replied, with stately dignity, “I regret, more than the mere words express, that my heedlessness has brought upon this little creature at my side an insult so cruel, so unjust, and so bitter, in simply granting my request for a waltz–a request very reluctantly granted. An invited guest among you she may not be; but I most emphatically defy her inferiority to any lady or gentleman present.”
“Rex–Mr. Lyon,” says Pluma, icily, “you forget yourself.”
He smiled contemptuously. “I do not admit it,” he said, hotly. “I have done that which any gentleman should have done; defended from insult one of the purest and sweetest of maidens. I will do more–I will shield her, henceforth and forever, with my very life, if need be. If I can win her, I shall make Daisy Brooks my wife.”
Rex spoke rapidly–vehemently. His chivalrous soul was aroused; he scarcely heeded the impetuous words that fell from his lips. He could not endure the thought that innocent, trusting little Daisy should suffer through any fault of his.
“Come, Daisy,” he said, softly, clasping in his own strong white ones the little fingers clinging so pitifully to his arm, “we will go away from here at once–our presence longer is probably obnoxious. Farewell, Miss Hurlhurst.”
“Rex,” cried Pluma, involuntarily taking a step forward, “you do not, you can not mean what you say. You will not allow a creature like that to separate us–you have forgotten, Rex. You said you had something to tell me. You will not part with me so easily,” she cried.
A sudden terror seized her at the thought of losing him. He was her world. She forgot the guests gathering about her–forgot she was the wealthy, courted heiress for whose glance or smiles men sued in vain–forgot her haughty pride, in the one absorbing thought that Rex was going from her. Her wild, fiery, passionate love could bear no restraint.
“Rex,” she cried, suddenly falling on her knees before him, her face white and stormy, her white jeweled hands clasped supplicatingly, “you must not, you shall not leave me so; no one shall come between us. Listen–I love you, Rex. What if the whole world knows it–what will it matter, it is the truth. My love is my life. You loved me until she came between us with her false, fair face. But for this you would have asked me to be your wife. Send that miserable little hireling away, Rex–the gardener will take charge of her.”
Pluma spoke rapidly, vehemently. No one could stay the torrent of her bitter words.
Rex was painfully distressed and annoyed. Fortunately but very few of the guests had observed the thrilling tableau enacted so near them.
“Pluma–Miss Hurlhurst,” he said, “I am sorry you have unfortunately thus expressed yourself, for your own sake. I beg you will say no more. You yourself have severed this night the last link of friendship between us. I am frank with you in thus admitting it. I sympathize with you, while your words have filled me with the deepest consternation and embarrassment, which it is useless longer to prolong.”
Drawing Daisy’s arm hurriedly within his own, Rex Lyon strode quickly down the graveled path, with the full determination of never again crossing the threshold of Whitestone Hall, or gazing upon the face of Pluma Hurlhurst.
Meanwhile Pluma had arisen from her knees with a gay, mocking laugh, turning suddenly to the startled group about her.
“Bravo! bravo! Miss Pluma,” cried Lester Stanwick, stepping to her side at that opportune moment. “On the stage you would have made a grand success. We are practicing for a coming charade,” explained Stanwick, laughingly; “and, judging from the expressions depicted on our friend’s faces, I should say you have drawn largely upon real life. You will be a success, Miss Pluma.”
No one dreamed of doubting the assertion. A general laugh followed, and the music struck up again, and the gay mirth of the fête resumed its sway.
Long after the guests had departed Pluma sat in her boudoir, her heart torn with pain, love, and jealousy, her brain filled with schemes of vengeance.
“I can not take her life!” she cried; “but if I could mar her beauty–the pink-and-white beauty of Daisy Brooks, which has won Rex from me–I would do it. I shall torture her for this,” she cried. “I will win him from her though I wade through seas of blood. Hear me, Heaven,” she cried, “and register my vow!”
Pluma hastily rung the bell.
“Saddle Whirlwind and Tempest at once!” she said to the servant who answered her summons.
“It is after midnight, Miss Pluma. I–”
There was a look in her eyes which would brook no further words.
An hour later they had reached the cottage wherein slept Daisy Brooks, heedless of the danger that awaited her.
“Wait for me here,” said Pluma to the groom who accompanied her–“I will not be long!”
CHAPTER IV
“Daisy,” said Rex, gently, as he led her away from the lights and the echoing music out into the starlight that shone with a soft, silvery radiance over hill and vale, “I shall never forgive myself for being the cause of the cruel insult you have been forced to endure to-night. I declare it’s a shame. I shall tell Pluma so to-morrow.”
“Oh, no–no–please don’t, Mr. Rex. I–I–had no right to waltz with you,” sobbed Daisy, “when I knew you were Pluma’s lover.”
“Don’t say that, Daisy,” responded Rex, warmly. “I am glad, after all, everything has happened just as it did, otherwise I should never have known just how dear a certain little girl had grown to me; besides, I am not Pluma’s lover, and never shall be now.”
“You have quarreled with her for my sake,” whispered Daisy, regretfully. “I am so sorry–indeed I am.”
Daisy little dreamed, as she watched the deep flush rise to Rex’s face, it was of her he was thinking, and not Pluma, by the words, “a certain little girl.”
Rex saw she did not understand him; he stopped short in the path, gazing down into those great, dreamy, pleading eyes that affected him so strangely.
“Daisy,” he said, gently, taking her little clinging hands from his arm, and clasping them in his own, “you must not be startled at what I am going to tell you. When I met you under the magnolia boughs, I knew I had met my fate. I said to myself: ‘She, and no other, shall be my wife.’”
“Your wife,” she cried, looking at him in alarm. “Please don’t say so. I don’t want to be your wife.”
“Why not, Daisy?” he asked, quickly.
“Because you are so far above me,” sobbed Daisy. “You are so rich, and I am only poor little Daisy Brooks.”
Oh, how soft and beautiful were the eyes swimming in tears and lifted so timidly to his face! She could not have touched Rex more deeply. Daisy was his first love, and he loved her from the first moment their eyes met, with all the strength of his boyish, passionate nature; so it is not strange that the thought of possessing her, years sooner than he should have dared hope, made his young blood stir with ecstasy even though he knew it was wrong.
“Wealth shall be no barrier between us, Daisy,” he cried. “What is all the wealth in the world compared to love? Do not say that again. Love outweighs everything. Even though you bid me go away and forget you, Daisy, I could not do it. I can not live without you.”
“Do you really love me so much in so short a time?” she asked, blushingly.
“My love can not be measured by the length of time I have known you,” he answered, eagerly. “Why, Daisy, the strongest and deepest love men have ever felt have come to them suddenly, without warning.”
The glamour of love was upon him; he could see no faults in pretty little artless Daisy. True, she had not been educated abroad like Pluma, but that did not matter; such a lovely rosebud mouth was made for kisses, not grammar.
Rex stood in suspense beside her, eagerly watching the conflict going on in the girl’s heart.
“Don’t refuse me, Daisy,” he cried, “give me the right to protect you forever from the cold world; let us be married to-night. We will keep it a secret if you say so. You must–you must, Daisy, for I can not give you up.”
Rex was so eager, so earnest, so thoroughly the impassioned lover! His hands were clinging to her own, his dark, handsome face drooped near hers, his pleading eyes searching her very soul.
Daisy was young, romantic, and impressible; a thousand thoughts rushed through her brain; it would be so nice to have a young husband to love her and care for her like Rex, so handsome and so kind; then, too, she would have plenty of dresses, as fine as Pluma wore, all lace and puffs; she might have a carriage and ponies, too; and when she rolled by the little cottage, Septima, who had always been so cruel to her, would courtesy to her, as she did when Pluma, the haughty young heiress, passed.
The peachy bloom on her cheeks deepened; with Daisy’s thoughtless clinging nature, her craving for love and protection, her implicit faith in Rex, who had protected her so nobly at the fête–it is not to be wondered Rex won the day.
Shyly Daisy raised her blue eyes to his face–and he read a shy, sweet consent that thrilled his very soul.
“You shall never regret this hour, my darling,” he cried, then in the soft silvery twilight he took her to his heart and kissed her rapturously.
His mother’s bitter anger, so sure to follow–the cold, haughty mother, who never forgot or forgave an injury, and his little sister Birdie’s sorrow were at that moment quite forgotten–even if they had been remembered they would have weighed as naught compared with his lovely little Daisy with the golden hair and eyes of blue looking up at him so trustingly.
Daisy never forgot that walk through the sweet pink clover to the little chapel on the banks of the lonely river. The crickets chirped in the long green grass, and the breeze swayed the branches of the tall leafy trees, rocking the little birds in their nests.
A sudden, swift, terrified look crept up into Daisy’s face as they entered the dim shadowy parlor. Rex took her trembling chilled hands in his own; if he had not, at that moment, Daisy would have fled from the room.
“Only a little courage, Daisy,” he whispered, “then a life of happiness.”
Then as if in a dream she stood quite still by his side, while the fatal ceremony went on; in a confused murmur she heard the questions and responses of her lover, and answered the questions put to her; then Rex turned to her with a smile and a kiss.
Poor little thoughtless Daisy–it was done–in a moment she had sown the seeds from which was to spring up a harvest of woe so terrible that her wildest imagination could not have painted it.
“Are we really married, Rex?” she whispered, as he led her out again into the starlight; “it seems so much like a dream.”
He bent his handsome head and kissed his pretty child-bride. Daisy drew back with a startled cry–his lips were as cold as ice.
“Yes, you are my very own now,” he whispered. “No one shall ever have the right to scold you again; you are mine now, Daisy, but we must keep it a secret from every one for awhile, darling. You will do this for my sake, won’t you, Daisy?” he asked. “I am rich, as far as the world knows, but it was left to me under peculiar conditions. I–I–do not like to tell you what those conditions were, Daisy.”
“Please tell me, Rex,” she said, timidly; “you know I am your–your–wife–now.”
Daisy blushed so prettily as she spoke. Rex could not refrain from catching her up in his arms and kissing her.
“You shall know, my darling,” he cried. “The conditions were I should marry the bride whom my mother selected for me. I was as much startled as you will be, Daisy, when you hear who it was–Pluma Hurlhurst, of Whitestone Hall.”
“But you can not marry her now, Rex,” whispered the little child-bride, nestling closer in his embrace.
“No; nor I would not if I could. I love you the best, my pretty wild flower. I would not exchange you, sweet, for all the world. I have only told you this so you will see why it is necessary to keep our marriage a secret–for the present, at least.”
Daisy readily consented.
“You are very wise, Rex,” she said. “I will do just as you tell me.”
By this time they had reached Daisy’s home.
“I will meet you to-morrow at the magnolia-tree, where first I found my little wood-nymph, as I shall always call you. Then we can talk matters over better. You will be sure to come while the dew sparkles on your pretty namesakes?” he asked, eagerly.
Before she had time to answer the cottage door opened and Septima appeared in the door-way. Rex was obliged to content himself with snatching a hasty kiss from the rosy lips. The next moment he was alone.
He walked slowly back through the tangled brushwood–not to Whitestone Hall, but to an adjoining hostelry–feeling as though he were in a new world. True, it was hard to be separated from his little child-bride. But Rex had a clever brain; he meant to think of some plan out of the present difficulty. His face flushed and paled as he thought of his new position; it seemed to him every one must certainly read in his face he was a young husband.
Meanwhile Daisy flitted quickly up the broad gravel path to the little cottage, wondering if it were a dream.
“Well!” said Septima, sharply, “this is a pretty time of night to come dancing home, leaving me all alone with the baking! If I hadn’t my hands full of dough I’d give your ears a sound boxing! I’ll see you’re never out after dark again, I’ll warrant.”
For a moment Daisy’s blue eyes blazed, giving way to a roguish smile.
“I wonder what she would say if she knew I was Daisy Brooks no longer, but Mrs. Rex Lyon?” she thought, untying the blue ribbons of her hat. And she laughed outright as she thought how amazed Septima would look; and the laugh sounded like the ripple of a mountain brook.
“Now, Aunt Seppy,” coaxed Daisy, slipping up behind her and flinging her plump little arms around the irate spinster’s neck, “please don’t be cross. Indeed I was very particularly detained.”
Stptima shook off the clinging arms angrily.
“You can’t coax me into upholding you with your soft, purring ways. I’m not Brother John, to be hoodwinked so easily. Detained! A likely story!”
“No,” laughed Daisy; “but you are dear old Uncle John’s sister, and I could love you for that, if for nothing else. But I really was detained, though. Where’s Uncle John?”
“He’s gone to the Hall after you, I reckon. I told him he had better stop at home–you were like a bad penny, sure to find your way back.”
A sudden terror blanched Daisy’s face.
“When did he go, Aunt Seppy?” she asked, her heart throbbing so loudly she was sure Septima would hear it.
“An hour or more ago.”
Daisy hastily picked up her hat again.
“Where are you going?” demanded Septima, sharply.
“I–I–am going to meet Uncle John. Please don’t stop me,” she cried, darting with the speed of a young gazelle past the hand that was stretched out to stay her mad flight. “I–I–must go!”
