Kitabı oku: «Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter», sayfa 6
CHAPTER IX.
GONE!
Hours that seemed days; days that seemed years; weeks that seemed centuries; yet they all passed, and Madeline Payne scarce knew, when they were actually gone, that they were not all a dream.
Life, after that first yielding of heart and brain, had been a delirium; then a conscious torture of mind and body; next a burden almost too great to bear; and then a dreamy lethargy. Heaven be praised for such moods; they are saviors of life and reason in crises such as this through which the stricken girl was passing.
Madness had wrought upon her, and her ravings had revealed some otherwise dark places and blanks in her story to her guardian and nurses. Pain had tortured her. Death wrestled with her, and then, because he could inspire her with no fear of him, because she mocked at his terrors and wooed him, fled away.
In his place came Life, to whom she gave no welcoming smile. But Life stayed, for Life is as regardless of our wishes as is Death.
Forms had hovered about her; kindly voices, sweet voices, had murmured at her bedside. At times, an angel had held the cooling draught to her thirsty lips. At last these dream-creatures resolved themselves into realities:
Doctor Vaughan, who had ministered to her with the solicitude of a brother, the gentleness of a woman, and the goodness of an angel.
Olive Girard who, leaving all other cares, was ever at her bedside, and who came to that place at a sacrifice of feeling, after a wrestling with pride, bringing a bitterness of memory, and a patient courage of heart, that the girl could not then realize.
Henry, too, black of skin, warm of heart; who waited in the outer court, and seemed to allow himself full and free respiration only when the girl was pronounced out of danger.
Out of danger! What a misapplication of words!
From the scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomy mantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, face grave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to the somberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a note higher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager, trembling, waiting ones,
"The danger is past!"
Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend of long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer, the sometime comforter – has gone away with empty arms and reluctant tread, and – Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar.
And she is out of danger!
Hedged around about by sorrow, assailed by temptation, overshadowed by sin. And, "the danger is over!"
Buffeted by the waves of adversity; longing for things out of reach; running after ignis fatui with eager outstretched hands, and careless, hurrying feet, among pitfalls and snares. And, out of danger!
Open your eyes, Madeline Payne; lift up your voice in thanksgiving; you have come back to the world. Back where the sun shines and the dew falls; where the flowers are shedding their perfume and song birds are making glad music; where men make merry and women smile; where gold shapes itself into palaces and fame wreathes crowns for fair and noble brows; where beauty crowns valor and valor kisses the lips of beauty. And where the rivers sparkle in the sunlight, and, sometimes, yield up from their embrace cold, dripping, dead things, that yet bear the semblance of your kind – all that is left of beings that were once like you!
Out of danger!
Where want, and poverty, and – God help us! – vice, hide their heads in dim alleys and under smoky garret roofs. Where beaten mothers and starving children dare hardly aspire to the pure air and sunlight, the whole world for them being enshrined in a crust of bread. Where thieves mount upwards on ladders beaten from pilfered gold, and command cities and sway nations. Where wantonness laughs and thrives in gilded cages, and starves and dies in mouldy cellars.
Out of danger!
Madeline, the place that was almost yours, in the land of the unknowable, is given to another. The waters of death have cast you back upon the shores of the living. You are "out of danger!"
What was to become of Madeline, now that they had brought her back to life? This was a question which occurred to the two who so kindly interested themselves in the fate of the unknown and headstrong girl.
While they planned a little, as was only natural, yet they knew from what they had seen of their charge that, decide for her how they would, only so far as that decision corresponded with her own inclinations would she abide by it. So they left Madeline's future for Madeline to decide, and found occupation for their kindliness in ministering to her needs of the present.
Once during her illness, and just as the light of reason had returned to the lovely hazel eyes, Lucian Davlin came. But he found the door of the sick chamber closely shut and closely guarded. The slightest shock to her nerves would be fatal now, – they told him. And he, having done the proper thing, as he termed it, and not being in any way fond of the sight of pain and pallor, yielded with a graceful simulation of reluctance. Having been assured that with careful nursing, there was nothing to fear, he deposited a check on his bankers in the hands of her attendants, and went away contentedly, smiling under his mustache at the novelty of being turned away from his own door.
He went back to Bellair, to Cora, and to the web they were weaving, little dreaming whose hands would take up the thread and continue and complete what they had thus begun.
And now the day has come for Madeline to leave the shelter that she hates. Pale and weak, she sits in the great easy chair that had served as a barrier between herself and her enemy, and converses with Olive Girard while they await the arrival of Clarence Vaughan, who is to take them from the place so distasteful to all three.
It has been settled that, for the present, Madeline will be the guest of Olive. What will come after health and strength are fully restored, they have not discussed much. Olive Girard and Doctor Vaughan had agreed that all thoughts of the future must bring a grief and care with them, and the mind of the invalid was in no condition for painful thought and study. So Olive has been careful to avoid all topics that might bring her troubles too vividly to mind.
But partly to divert Madeline's mind from her own woes, partly to enable the unfortunate girl to feel less a stranger among them, she has talked to her of Doctor Vaughan, of her sister, and at last of herself.
And Madeline has listened to her description of merry, lovely Claire Keith, and wondered what she could have in common with this buoyant, care-free girl, who was evidently her sister's idol. Yet she found herself thinking often of Olive's beautiful sister. Once, in the brief absence of Olive, she had said to Doctor Vaughan:
"Mrs. Girard has told me of her sister; is she very lovely? And do you know her well?"
"She is very fair, and sweet, and good. You will love her when you know her, and I think you will be friends."
She had not needed this; the tell-tale eye was sufficient to reveal the fact that it was not, as she had at first supposed, Olive Girard, but the younger sister, whom Clarence Vaughan loved.
"I might have known," she murmured to herself. "Olive Girard has the face of one whose love dream has passed away and lost itself in sorrow; and he looks, full of strength and hope, straight into the future."
As they sat together waiting, there was still that same contrast, which you felt rather than saw, between these two. They might have posed as the models of Resignation and Unrest.
The look of patient waiting was five years old upon the face of Olive Girard. Five years ago she had been so happy – a bride, beautiful and beloved. Beautiful she was still – with the beauty of shadow; beloved too, but how sadly! Philip Girard had been convicted of a great crime, and for five long years had worn a felon's garb, and borne the anguish of one set apart from all the world.
The hand that had darkened the life of Olive Girard, and the hand that had turned the young days of the girl Madeline into a burden, was one and the same.
Afterwards Madeline listened to the pathetic history of Olive's sorrow.
Sitting in that great lounging chair, Madeline looked very fair, very childlike. Sadly sweet were her large, deep eyes, and her hair, shorn while the fever raged, clustered in soft tiny rings about her slender, snowy neck and blue-veined temples. She had not been permitted to talk much during her convalescence, and Olive had as yet gleaned only a general outline of her story.
"Mrs. Girard," said the girl, resting her pale cheek in the palm of a thin, tiny hand, "you once said something to me about – about some one who had been wronged by – " Something sadder than tears choked her utterance.
As Olive turned her grave clear eyes away from the window, and fixed them in expectation upon her; Madeline's own eyes fell. She sat before her benefactress with downcast lids, and the hateful name unuttered.
"I know," said Olive, after a brief silence; "I referred to a girl now lying in the hospital. She is very young, and has been cruelly wronged by him. She is poor, as you may judge, and earned her living in the ballet at the theater. She was thrown from a carriage which had been furnished her by him, to carry her home from some rendezvous – of course the driver took care of himself and his horses. The poor girl was picked up and carried to the hospital. She was without friends and almost penniless. She sent to him – for him; he returned no answer. She begged for help, for enough to enable her to obtain what was needed in her illness. Message after message was sent, and finally a reply came, brought by a messenger who had been bidden to insist upon receiving an answer. The servant said that his master had directed him to say to any messenger who called, that he was out of town."
"The wretch! He deserves death!"
Madeline's eyes blazed, and she lifted her head with some of her olden energy.
"Softly, my dear: 'Thou shalt do no murder.'"
"It is not murder to kill a human tiger!"
Olive made no answer.
"Is she still very ill, this girl?" questioned Madeline.
"She can not recover."
"Shall I see her?"
"If you wish to; do you?"
"Yes."
Another long pause; then Madeline glanced up at her friend, and said listlessly: "What do you intend to do with me?"
"Do with you?" smiling at her. "Make you well again, and then try and coax you to be my other sister. Don't you think I need one?"
No answer.
"Life has much in store for you yet, Madeline."
"Yes;" bitterly again.
"You are so young."
"And so old."
"Madeline, you are too young for somber thoughts and repining."
"I shall not repine."
"Good! You will try to forget?"
"Impossible!"
"No; not impossible."
"I do not wish to, then."
"And why?"
"Wait and see."
"Madeline, you will do nothing rash? You will trust me, and confide in me?"
The girl raised her eyes slowly, in surprise. "I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose one."
"Thank you, dear; then we will let the subject drop until we are stronger. And here is the carriage, and Doctor Vaughan."
Out into the sunny Summer morning went Madeline, and soon she was established in a lovely little room which, Olive said, was hers so long as she could be persuaded to occupy it. Here the girl rested and, ministered unto by gentle hands, she felt life coming back.
And Lucian?
Late in the afternoon of the day that saw Madeline depart from his elegant rooms, Mr. Davlin arrived, and found no one to deny him admittance. All the doors stood ajar, and Henry was flitting about with an air of putting things to rights. The bird had flown.
He gained from Henry the following: "I don't know, sir, where she went. A gentleman came with a carriage, and the young lady and the nurse went away with him."
Lucian was not aware what manner of nurse Madeline had had in her illness. And Henry, having purposely misled him, enjoyed his discomfiture.
"She told me to give you this, sir," said he, handing his master a little package.
Tearing off the wrapper, Lucian held in his hand the little pistol that had inflicted upon him the wounded arm. From its mouth he drew a scrap of paper, and this is what it said:
When next we meet, I shall have other weapons!
CHAPTER X.
BONNIE, BEWITCHING CLAIRE
Four months. We find Madeline standing in the late Autumn sunset, "clothed and in her right mind," strong with the strength of youth, and beautiful with even more than her olden beauty.
Fair is the prospect as seen from the grounds of Mrs. Girard's suburban villa, and so, perhaps, Claire Keith is thinking.
She is looking down the level road, and at the trees on either hand, decked in all their October magnificence of scarlet and brown and gold, half concealing coquettish villas and more stately residences.
The eyes of Madeline were turned away from the vista of villas and trees, and were gazing toward the business thoroughfare leading into the bustle of the town; gazing after the receding figure of Doctor Clarence Vaughan as he cantered away from the villa; gazing until a turn of the road hid him from her view. Then – and what did she mean by it? – she turned her face toward Claire with a questioning look in her eyes – the question came almost to her lips. But the words were repressed.
Bonnie Clair was thinking of anything but Clarence Vaughan just then. Presently she turned a bright glance upon her companion, who was gathering clusters of the fallen maple leaves, with face half averted.
"A kiss for your thoughts, beautiful blonde Madeline. I certainly think it is ten minutes since Doctor Vaughan departed and silence fell upon us."
She bent down, and taking her companion's head between two dimpled hands, pulled it back, until she could look into the solemn brown eyes.
"Come, now," coaxingly, "what were you thinking?"
Madeline extricated herself from Claire's playful grasp, and replied with a half laugh: "It must be mutual confession then, you small highwayman; how do you like my terms?"
"Only so so," flushing and laughing. "I was meditating the propriety of telling you something some day, and was thinking of that something just now, but – "
"But," mimicked Madeline, with half-hearted playfulness; "what will you give me to relieve your embarrassment, and guess?"
"You can't," emphatically.
"Can't I? We will see. My dear, I fear you have left a little corner of your heart behind you in far-away Baltimore. You didn't come to pay your annual visit to your sister, quite heart free."
Anyone wishing to gain an insight into the character of Claire Keith might have taken a long step in that direction could he have witnessed her reception of this unexpected shot. She opened her dark eyes in comic amazement, and dropping into a garden chair, exclaimed, with a look of frank inquiry:
"Now, how ever could you guess that?"
"Because," said Madeline, in a constrained voice, and with all the laughter fading from her eyes; "Because, I know the symptoms."
"I see," dropping her voice suddenly. "Oh, Madeline, how I wish you could forget that."
"Why should I forget my love dream," scornfully, "any more than you yours?"
"Oh, Madeline; but you said you had ceased to care for him; that you should never mourn his loss."
"Mourn his loss!" turning upon Claire, fiercely. "Do you think it is for him I mourn my dead; my lost happiness, my shattered dreams, my life made a bitter, burdensome thing. Mourn him? I have for Lucian Davlin but one feeling – hate!"
Madeline, as she uttered these last words, had turned upon Claire a face whose fierce intensity of expression was startling. For a moment the two gazed into each other's eyes – the one with curling lip and somber, menacing glance, the other with a startled face as if she read something new and to be feared, in the eye of her friend.
Claire had been an inmate of her sister's house for four weeks. When first she arrived, she had heard Madeline's story, at Madeline's request, from the lips of her sister Olive, and now the girls were fast friends. Generous Claire had found much to wonder at, to pity and to love, in the story and the character of the unfortunate girl. Possessing a frank, sunshiny nature, and never having known an actual grief, she could lavish sweet sympathy to one afflicted. But she could not conceive what it would be like to live on when faith had perished and hope was a mockery. She had never known, therefore never missed, a father's love and care. Indeed, he who filled the place of father and guardian, her mother's second husband, was all that a real parent could be. Claire seldom remembered that Mr. James Keith was not her father, and very few, except the family of Keith, knew that "Miss Claire Keith, daughter of the rich James Keith, of Baltimore," was in truth only a step-daughter.
Mrs. Keith, whose first husband was Richard Keith, cashier in his wealthy cousin's banking house, had buried that husband when Olive was five years old, and baby Claire scarce able to lisp his name. In a little less than two years she had married James Keith, the banker-cousin, and shortly after the marriage, James Keith had transferred his business interests to Baltimore, and there remained.
So Claire's baby brothers had never been told that she was not their "very own" sister, for of Olive they knew little, her marriage having separated them at first, and subsequently her obdurate acceptance of the consequences of that marriage.
When the law pronounced her husband a criminal, Mr. Keith had commanded Olive to abandon both husband and home, and return to his protection. This, true-hearted Olive refused to do. Her step-father, enraged at her obstinacy in clinging to a man who had been forsaken by all the world beside, bade her choose between them. Either she must let the law finish its work of breaking Philip Girard's heart by setting her free, or she must accept the consequences of remaining the wife of a criminal.
Olive chose the latter, and thenceforth remained in her own lonely home, never even once visiting the place of her childhood.
"He called my husband a criminal," she said, "and I will never cross his threshold until he has had cause to withdraw those words."
Claire, however, announced her intention of visiting her sister whenever she chose, and she succeeded, in part, in carrying out her will, for every year she passed two months or more with Olive.
What a picture the two girls now made, standing face to face.
Madeline, with her lithe grace of form, her pure pale complexion lit up by those fathomless brown eyes, and rendering more noticeable and beautiful the tiny rosy mouth, with its satellite dimples; with such wee white, blue-veined hands, and such a clear ringing, yet marvelously sweet voice. Madeline was very beautiful, and Claire, as she looked at her, wondered how any man could bear to lose such loveliness, or have the heart to betray it; as if ever pure woman could fathom the depth of a bad man's wickedness.
Bonnie, bewitching Claire! Never was contrast more perfect. A scarf, like scarlet flame, flung about her shoulders, set off the richness of her clear brunette skin, through which the crimson blood flamed in cheek and lip. Eyes, now black, now gray, changing, flashing, witching eyes: gray in quiet moments, darkening with mirth or sadness, anger or pain; hair black and silky, rippling to the rounded, supple waist in glossy waves. Not so tall as Madeline, and rounded and dimpled as a Hebe.
Bringing her will into service, Madeline banished the gloom from her face and said, with an attempt at gayety:
"I must be a terrible wet blanket when my ghost rises, Claire. But come, you have excited my curiosity; let us sit down while you tell me more of this mighty man who has pitched his tent in the wilderness of your heart, to the exclusion of others who might aspire."
They seated themselves upon a rustic bench and Claire replied:
"Don't anticipate too much, inquisitor; I have no acknowledged lover, but – " blushing charmingly, "I have every reason to think that I am loved fondly and sincerely. He is very handsome, Madeline, and – but wait, I will show you his picture."
Madeline nodded, and Claire bounded away, to return quickly bearing in her hand a finely wrought cabinet photograph, encased in velvet and gilt, a la souvenaire. Placing it in her companion's hand, she sat down with a little triumphant sigh, and gazed over Madeline's shoulder with a proud, glad look in her eyes.
"Blonde?" suggested Madeline.
"Yes," eagerly; "such lovely hair and whiskers, – perfect gold color; and fair as a woman."
"So I should judge," and she continued to gaze.
Blonde he was, certainly; hair thrown carelessly back from a brow broad and white; eyes, light, but with an expression that puzzled the gazer.
"Eyes, – what color?" she said, without taking her own off the picture.
"Blue; pale blue, but capable of such varying expression."
"Just so," dryly; "they look mild and saintly here, but I think those eyes are capable of another expression. I could fancy the brain behind such eyes to be – "
"What?" eagerly.
"Cruel, crafty, treacherous."
"Oh, Madeline!"
"There, there; I didn't say that he," – tapping the picture – "possessed these qualities. His eyes are unusual ones; did you ever see his mouth?"
"What a question – through all those whiskers? no; but he has beautiful teeth."
"So have tigers. There, dear, take the picture; I am no fit judge, perhaps. Remember, I once knew a man with the face of an angel, and the heart of a fiend. Your friend is certainly handsome; let us hope he is equally good."
"He is; I know it," asserted Claire.
Then she told her companion how she had met him at the house of a friend; how he was very learned and scientific; very grave and dignified; and very devoted to herself. And how, beyond these few facts, she knew little if anything of her blonde hero, Edward Percy.
Madeline received this information in a grave silence, whose chill affected Claire as well, and after a few moments, as if by mutual consent, they arose and entered the house.
Olive Girard had been absent a week; gone on a journey, sacred to her as any Meccan pilgrimage, a visit to the place of her husband's imprisonment. Every year she made this journey, returning home in some measure comforted; for she had seen her beloved.
She came back on this evening, as the two girls were mingling their voices in gay bravura duets – by mutual consent they avoided all songs of a pathetic order, for reasons which neither would have cared to acknowledge.
The evening having passed away, Claire found herself in her chamber gazing at her lover's pictured face and thinking how good, how noble, it was, and what a little goose she had been to allow anything Madeline had said to apply to him. A sudden thought occurred to her, and going to Madeline's door, she tapped gently. The door opened, and Claire, raising a warning finger, said:
"Madeline, I forgot to tell you that Olive knows nothing of Edward Percy, and – I don't want to tell her just yet. You will not mention it?"
"No."
"Then good-night, and pleasant dreams."
"Thank you," in a grave voice; "good-night."
Claire returned to her room and penned a long letter to Edward Percy, full of sweet confidence, gayety and trustfulness. She reperused his last letter, said her prayers, or rather read them, for Claire was a staunch little church-woman, and then slept and dreamed bright dreams.
