Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time
Then the midnight explorer started, and with difficulty repressed the cry that rose to his lips.
For the soft, white counterpane thrown over the bed, outlined the curves of an exquisite, girlish form.
On the white, ruffled pillow nestled a sleeping face as lovely as a budding rose.
The round, white arms were thrown carelessly up above her head, the wealth of curling, golden hair, strayed in rich confusion over the pillow; the golden-brown lashes lay softly on the rosy, dimpled cheeks; the lips were smiling as if some happy dream stirred the white breast that rose and fell so softly over the innocent heart.
"Ghost or human?" Bertram Chesleigh asked himself, as he gazed in astonishment and ecstacy at the beautiful, unconscious sleeper.
He came nearer with noiseless footsteps and bated breath to the bedside. He bent so near that he could hear the soft, sweet breath that fluttered over the parted lips.
"It is she," he said to himself, with mingled rapture and amaze.
Then, in the next breath, he murmured:
"I must beat a quiet retreat. How frightened and angry she would be, were she to awake and find me here!"
He was one of the purest and most honorable minded men in the world.
He turned to go, but could not tear his fascinated eyes from that beautiful, child-like, sleeping face.
His splendid black eyes lingered on its innocent beauty in passionate admiration.
"If I might only touch that little hand that lies so near me on the pillow, it would cool the thirst of my heart," he said wistfully to himself, while his heart beat fast with joy that he had found her again, this lovely creature of whom he had dreamed night and day for twenty-four hours.
He looked at the sweetly-smiling, parted lips, and his pulses thrilled at the remembrance of the tender caress he had pressed upon them such a short while before.
Carried away by the force of as pure and mad a passion as ever thrilled the heart of man, the enraptured lover bent his head and pressed a kiss as soft and light as the fall of a rose-leaf on the white hand that lay so temptingly near him.
He meant to go then, but as he lifted his head, blushing with shame at the temptation that had prompted him to that wrongful and stolen caress, a sharp indignant voice fell on his ears with the suddenness of a thunder-clap.
"Oh, you black-hearted wilyun—you wicked betrayer of innercence! Get out o' this afore I kill you with my own hands, you han'some debbil!"
Bertram Chesleigh turned and saw a ludicrous, yet startling sight framed in the open doorway of an inner chamber which in his agitation, he had not noticed before.
Old Black Dinah, who was the color of ebony and very tall and lean, stood before him, clad in a short night-gown of gay, striped cotton from which her slim legs and arms stuck out like bean-poles.
Her stubbly, gray wool seemed to stand erect on her head with horror, and her brandished arms, snapping black eyes, and furious face, made up a startling picture of wrath and horror, strangely combined with the ludicrous.
"You black-hearted wilyun!" old Dinah repeated, advancing angrily upon her dismayed foe, "get out o' de room o' my innercent lamb afore she wakes and finds you here, you wolf!"
"I beg your pardon—I stumbled into this room by the merest accident," Chesleigh was beginning to say, when, startled by Dinah's loud and angry tones, little Golden awoke, and flashed the light of her wide blue eyes upon their excited faces.
She uttered a cry of fear and terror when she saw the tall, manly form standing in the room.
Old Dinah ran to her instantly, and she hid her frightened face on the shoulder of the old black woman.
"Black mammy, what does all this mean?" cried the girl, nervously.
Dinah gave a prolonged and lugubrious groan, and rolled up the whites of her eyes in reply. The intruder saw that it was imperative that he should stay long enough to explain matters to the alarmed girl.
He said to himself that no one had ever been placed in such a strange and embarrassing position before.
Every instinct of delicacy and respect for the young girl prompted him to retire at once; yet he could not bear to go and leave a wrong impression on the mind of the beautiful girl whom he admired so much.
He retreated to the door, and, standing there, said, anxiously and respectfully:
"I entreat you to believe, Miss Glenalvan, that I entered here with no wrongful motive. Led by a fit of curiosity, I was exploring the ruined wing of the hall, and I entered without a dream of finding it occupied by any living being. I had been led to believe that these rooms were totally unoccupied, and were even unsafe to enter. Will you accept my apology?"
Little Golden's head was still hidden against Dinah's shoulder, and the old woman broke out sharply and quickly:
"Honey, chile, don't you go for to 'cept dat wilyun's 'pology! Ef he done really cum in dis room by accident, he would agone out ag'in when he found dat a young lady occupied de room. But no; de first sight my ole brack eyes saw when I jumped off my pallet and come to de door was dat strange man a-kissin' you, my precious lamb."
Golden began to sob, and Mr. Chesleigh mentally anathematized the old woman's long tongue that had thus betrayed the secret he had intended to keep so carefully.
His face grew scarlet as he hastened to say:
"I kissed your hand, Miss Glenalvan, and I entreat your pardon for yielding to that overmastering temptation. Can you forgive me?"
But Golden was still weeping bitterly, and old Dinah, in her fear and indignation for her darling, pointed quickly to the door.
"Go," she said. "Don't you see how you frighten the chile by staying?"
There seemed nothing to be gained by staying. The old woman was utterly unreasonable, and Golden was so agitated she could not speak.
The embarrassed intruder silently withdrew to his own apartment, where he spent the night brooding over the strange discovery he had made and the unpleasant position in which he had placed himself.
CHAPTER VII
"Honey, chile, where did you git 'quainted wid dat ondecent man?" inquired old Dinah of her nursling, as soon as Mr. Chesleigh had quitted the room.
"What makes you think I am acquainted with him, mammy?" inquired the child in surprise.
Dinah shook her woolly head sagely.
"Don't try to deceabe your ole brack mammy, my lamb," she said. "He called you Missie Glenalvan—do you think I didn't notice that?"
Golden's pretty cheeks grew scarlet with blushes.
"I shall have to 'form your grandpa of what he done, the impident wilyun!" continued Dinah, emphatically.
"Oh, black mammy, please don't tell," cried the girl impulsively. "You heard what he said—it was a mere accident, I am quite, quite sure he meant no harm."
"Ole massa shall be de jedge o' dat," replied Dinah decidedly. "I'll miss my guess if de ole man don't put a pistol-hole frew my fine, han'some gentleman!"
"Oh, black mammy! then you shall not tell," cried Golden in terror. "Indeed, indeed, he is not the wicked man you believe him. He has kept my secret for me, and I must keep his now. That would only be fair."
"Ah, den you do know him," cried Dinah, horrified. "Tell me all about it dis minute, if you know what's best for you, chile."
Golden did not resent the old nurse's tone of authority. She knew the old woman's love for her too well. She dried her eyes and reluctantly related her escapade two nights before.
"He kept my secret," she concluded, "and it would not be fair for us to make trouble for him, would it, black mammy?"
Old Dinah had slipped down to the floor, and sat with her long, black arms clasped around her knees, looking up into her nursling's eager, fearful face, with a good deal of trouble in her keen, black eyes.
The old woman was shrewd and intelligent in her way. She foresaw trouble, and perhaps the bitterest sorrow from these two meetings between the handsome guest of John Glenalvan and the young mistress.
"Black mammy, promise me you will not tell grandpa," Golden pleaded. "I will do anything you ask me if only you will not tell him."
Thereupon Dinah announced her ultimatum.
"If you will promise me never to speak to the strange gentleman again, little missie, I will not tell ole massa."
Golden opened wide her blue eyes. She looked very lovely as she leaned back among the snowy, ruffled pillows, her golden hair straying loosely about her shoulders, her cheeks tinted with a deep, warm blush, her little hands nervously clasping and unclasping each other.
"Black mammy, I think you are very cross to-night," she pouted. "Why should I never speak to the handsome gentleman again?"
"Because it's best for you. Ole brack mammy knows better dan you, chile."
"But I liked him so much," said Golden, blushing rosy red.
"You had no business to like him," responded Dinah. "He's to marry Miss Elinor."
"I do not believe it," said Golden, quickly.
"He's not for you, anyway," retorted Dinah. "You'll nebber marry no one, my dear."
"Why not?" asked the child. "Will nobody ever love me?"
"Nobody'll ever love ye like your grandpa, honey, and 'taint likely dat ever he will give ye away to anyone."
Golden was silent a moment. She seemed to be thinking intently. After a moment she said gravely and sadly:
"Grandpa is old, and I am young. Who will take care of me when he is gone?"
"Your old brack mammy, I guess, honey."
"You are old, too," said Golden. "You may not live as long as I do."
"Bless the chile's heart, how she do talk," said the old negress. "Ah, my precious lamb, I has outlived dem as was younger and fairer dan ole black Dinah."
The old black face looked very sad for a moment, then Dinah continued:
"Little missie, it's my clair duty to tell old massa de sarcumstances of the case to-morrow morning. Leastwise, unless you promise me nebber to speak to dat man ag'in."
"That is very hard," sighed Golden.
"Hard," said Dinah. "I should think you would be so mad at the wilyun, a-comin' in and kissin' you so unceremonious, dat you would nebber want to speak to him any more."
Golden hid her face in the pillows, and a deep sigh fluttered over her lips.
"Come, dearie, won't you promise?" said Dinah. "I knows what's for your good better dan you does yourself, chile."
"Must I promise it, indeed?" sighed the innocent child, lifting her flushed face from the pillow a moment to fix her big, blue, imploring eyes on the old woman's obdurate face.
"Yes, you must sartainly promise it," was the uncompromising reply.
There was silence for a moment, and Dinah saw the tears come into the sweet, blue eyes.
"Honey, chile, does you promise me?" she inquired, only confirmed in the opinion by this demonstration.
"Yes, I promise not to speak to him unless you give me leave, black mammy," replied Golden, with quivering lips.
"That's right, darling. Mammy can depend on your word. Lie down, and go to sleep, honey, and I'll fetch my pallet in yere, and sleep on de flo' by your bedside, so that no one kin 'trude on you ag'in."
The girl laid her fair head silently on the pillow, and Dinah threw down a quilt on the floor and rolled herself in it. She was soon snoring profoundly.
Not so with beautiful Golden. It was quite impossible for her to sleep again. She shut her eyelids resolutely, but the busy, beautiful brain was too active to admit of her losing consciousness again. She lay thinking of the splendid, dark-eyed stranger.
"He has kissed me twice," she whispered to her heart, "and yet I do not even know his name. I wonder if I shall ever see him again. I hope I shall."
As she remembered how earnestly he had apologized for his presence in her room, she could not believe him the wicked villain old Dinah had so loudly represented him.
"He is handsome, and I believe that he is good," the girl said to herself, "and they tell me Elinor wants to marry him; I would like to marry him myself, just to spite my cousins."
Poor little Golden! Her spite against her cousins was almost as old as her years. They had always hated her, and Golden had been quick to find it out and resent it.
She had a quick and fiery temper, but it did not take her long to repent of her little fits of passion.
She was a bright, winsome, lovable child. It was a wonder that anyone could hate her for her beautiful, innocent life.
Yet there were those who did, and it was beginning to dawn vaguely on the mind of the girl that it was so. She knew that her life was passed differently from that of the other girls of her age and class.
There were no teachers, no companions, no pleasures for her, and no promise of any change in the future.
She wondered a little why it was so, but she never complained to her grandfather. It was, perhaps, only his way, she said to herself, little dreaming of the dark mystery that lay like a deep, impassible gulf between her and the dwellers in the outside world of which she knew so very, very little.
CHAPTER VIII
A week elapsed, and there seemed but little prospect of the little prisoner's release from the haunted chambers of the ruined wing.
The Glenalvans' guest lingered on, fascinated, it appeared, by the attractions of the beautiful Elinor. At least Elinor stoutly maintained this fact in the privacy of the family circle, while Clare as obstinately persisted that Mr. Chesleigh was perfectly impartial in his attentions to both.
But however doubtful was Elinor's impression, the fact remained that he was pleased with his visit.
He consented by their urgent invitation to prolong his stay another week. The girls were jubilant over his decision.
Meanwhile, old Dinah watched her secluded nursling with unremitting vigilance. She could not remain with her all day, because her housekeeping duties took her constantly into the lower part of the house, but she visited her intermittently, and at night rolled herself in a thick counterpane and slept on the floor by the side of Golden's couch.
She took the added precaution to turn the rusty key in the lock at night.
Old Dinah had never heard the familiar adage that "love laughs at locksmiths."
She was ordinarily a very sound and healthy sleeper. The mere accident of a rheumatic attack, and consequent sleeplessness, had caused her appearance the night Mr. Chesleigh had entered the room.
Usually she might have been lifted, counterpane and all, and carried away bodily without being aware of it.
Nearly two weeks after the night of her rencontre with Mr. Chesleigh, old Dinah awoke suddenly "in the dead waste and middle of the night," seized in the relentless grip of her old enemy, the rheumatism.
She rolled herself out of her quilt and sat upright, groaning dolorously, and rubbing her knees in which the pain had settled.
"Oh, Lordy! oh, Lordy!" she groaned, "how my ole bones does ache! Miss Golden! Miss Golden! my precious lam', wake up, and bid your ole brack mammy a las' far'well. I'm a-dyin', sartin, shuah!"
But Golden, usually a very light sleeper, made no reply. Dinah reared her woolly head upward and looked into the bed.
The bed was empty.
Then Dinah looked around her in amazement to see if Golden was not in the room, laughing at her lugubrious groans as she had often done before. But she saw no trace of her young mistress.
"Miss Golden! Miss Golden!" she called, "is you in de udder room? Ef you is, come in here! I'se berry sick, honey, almos' a-dyin'."
But her repeated calls elicited no reply. It appeared that pretty Golden was out of sight and hearing.
Suddenly old Dinah saw the dainty, white, ruffled night-dress, in which Golden had retired that night, lying in a snowy heap upon the floor.
Dinah seized upon the garment and shook it vigorously, as if she expected to see the slight form of her young mistress drop from its folds to the floor.
"Um—me-e-e," she groaned, "has de sperets carried de chile off?"
She glanced up at the row of pegs where she had hung Golden's few articles of apparel. Her best dress—a dark-blue cashmere—was gone, also her hat and a summer jacket.
"She hab runned away from us," old Dinah exclaimed, with almost a howl of despair.
The thought inspired her with such grief and terror that she forgot her ailment entirely. She hobbled out from the room and made her way down stairs to her master's apartment and burst into his presence—a ludicrous object indeed in her striped cotton bed-gown.
Old Hugh Glenalvan, late as it was, had not retired to bed. Wrapped in an old wadded dressing-gown he sat in an easy-chair before an old, carved oaken cabinet.
One quaint little drawer was open, and the white-haired old man was poring over some simple treasures he had taken from it—simple treasures, yet dearer to his heart than gold or precious stones—a few old photographs, an old-fashioned ambrotype in an ebony case, a thin, gold ring and some locks of hair.
Upon this sad and touching picture of memory and tenderness old Dinah's grotesque figure broke startlingly.
"Ole massa! ole massa!" she cried, wildly, "has you seen little missie? Is she here with you?"
The old man swept his treasures off his knees into the quaint cabinet and looked at his old servant in amazement.
"Dinah, what does this startling intrusion mean?" he inquired, pushing his spectacles off his brow and regarding her with a mild frown.
"Little Golden is missing. She hab runned away from us, ole massa!" shouted Dinah, desperately.
"Dinah, you must be crazy," repeated Mr. Glenalvan, blankly.
"It's de Lard's truth, ole massa. She hab done followed in her mudder's footsteps! Dat han'some man ober at John Glenalvan's has been and gone and 'ticed our Golden from us," wailed the old negress, in despair.
CHAPTER IX
It was not long before Mr. Glenalvan had heard the whole of Golden's simple love-story from his servant. They were filled with horror and grief at its too probable termination.
"Dinah, it may be that she has stolen out into the grounds for a walk in the fresh air. She was growing very restless with the close, indoor confinement. Have you thought of that?" he said, hoping feebly against hope.
"Shall I go out and look for her, den, ole massa?" said Dinah, in a tone that plainly betrayed her hopelessness.
"Let us both go," said old Hugh.
They sallied forth anxiously into the brilliant moonlight that lay in silvery brightness all over the sweet, southern landscape—old Hugh, bareheaded, in his tattered dressing-gown, old Dinah in her short night-dress, too ridiculous a figure for anyone to contemplate without inward mirth.
It so happened that Elinor, whom the hard exigencies of poverty compelled to be her own dressmaker, had sat up late that night to complete some alterations in a dress in which she had intended to array her fair self for the morrow.
Having stitched on the last bit of lace, she went to the window and leaned out to cool her heated brow.
"My head aches, and I am almost melted with sewing by that hot lamp," she said to herself, fretfully. "How I hate this poverty that grinds one down so! When once I am married to Bertram Chesleigh I will never touch a needle again! I will order all my dresses of Worth, of Paris. And I will marry Bertram Chesleigh! I swear it; and woe be to anyone that tries to prevent me!"
Her dark eyes flashed luridly a moment, and her white hand was angrily clenched.
She was thinking of Clare, who had persisted in rivaling her with Mr. Chesleigh.
At that moment the subdued murmur of voices floated up to her window from the lawn.
She glanced down quickly, and saw old Dinah and her master crossing the lawn, their grotesque shadows flying long and dark before them in the brilliant moonlight.
Quick as thought Elinor was out of her seat, and gliding softly through the door in quest of her father.
Before old Glenalvan and his servant had crossed the lawn, two dark figures stole forth from the hall and silently followed them.
On the green border of the silver lake two figures were standing in the beautiful moonlight. One was a man, tall, dark, splendid, with a princely beauty.
His arm was thrown protectingly about a slender form that clung lovingly to his side.
It was Golden Glenalvan, dressed in a dark suit and light cloth jacket, a neat, little walking-hat, set jauntily on her streaming, golden curls.
Her blue eyes were lifted tenderly, and yet anxiously to her lover's face.
"Oh, Bert," she said, giving him the tender name by which he had taught her to call him, "you must indeed let me go now. We have been saying good-bye at least a half an hour."
"Parting is such a sweet pain," said the lover, bending to kiss the tempting, up-turned lips. "Give me just one more minute, my darling."
"But I have been out so long," she objected, faintly. "What if black mammy should awake and find me gone?"
"There is not the slightest danger," said Bertram Chesleigh carelessly. "The old woman sleeps so soundly that a thunder-clap would scarcely wake her."
But just at that moment of his fancied security, old Dinah, in Golden's deserted chamber, was vigorously shaking her empty night-dress in a dazed attempt to evolve from its snowy folds the strangely missing girl.
Golden smiled, then sighed faintly. He kissed her lips before the sigh had fairly breathed over them.
"If you must indeed go, my darling," he said to her in a low voice, freighted with passionate tenderness, "tell me once again, my little Golden, how dearly you love me."
"Love you," echoed the beautiful girl, and there was a Heaven of tenderness in the starry blue eyes she raised to his face. "Oh, my dearest, if I talked to you until the beautiful sun rose to-morrow, I could not put my love into words. It is deep in my heart, and nothing but death can ever tear it thence."
She threw her arms around his neck, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss. There was a silence broken only by the soft sigh of the rippling waves, while they stood
"tranced in long embraces,Mixed with kisses, sweeter, sweeterThan anything on earth."On that hush of exquisite silence that brooded round them, broke hastening footsteps and angry voices.
The lovers started back from each other in dismay to find themselves surrounded by an astonished group.
Old Dinah formed a central and conspicuous figure, beyond which old Hugh Glenalvan's silvery locks fluttered forlornly in the breeze.
John Glenalvan and Elinor, his daughter, brought up the rear. Perhaps the old gentleman and his servant were as much astonished at seeing these followers as they were at the sight that met their eyes.
Old Dinah recovered her self-possession first of all, perhaps because she had vaguely suspected some such eclaircissement from the facts already in her possession.
She rushed forward and caught her disobedient nursling by the hand.
"Oh, my darlin', my honey, chile," she cried. "Come away from dat black-hearted wilyun to your grandpa and your ole brack mammy."
But to the consternation of everybody, the girl shook Dinah's hand off, and clung persistently to her lover.
He drew his arm protectingly around the slight figure, and Golden cried out with pretty, childish defiance:
"He loves me! he loves me! and I will not leave him."
That sight and those words fairly maddened Elinor Glenalvan. The blood seemed to boil in her veins.
"Loves you—ha! ha! loves you, the child of sin and shame!" she cried out, in a hoarse voice of bitter scorn and passion. "Oh, yes, he loves you. That is why he has lured you to your ruin, as a stranger did your mother before you."
"Hush, Elinor," said John Glenalvan, in his sternest tone; then he looked at his father, who had crept to Golden's side, and stood there trembling and speechless. "Father," he said, harshly, "take the girl away. I must speak with Mr. Chesleigh alone."
"I will not go," said Golden, and she looked up into her lover's face with a strange, wistful pleading in her soft, blue eyes, and in her sweet, coaxing lips.
He bent down and whispered something that made her leave his side and put her small hand gently into her grandfather's.
"Grandpa, I will go home with you now," she said to him, tremulously, and he led her away, followed by Dinah, who glared angrily behind her, and muttered opprobrious invectives as she went.