Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time

The maid only sighed more deeply, casting down her eyes as if in great distress.

"I hope you are not jealous, Celine," continued her mistress. "You know I have given you many such testimonials of my favor."

"Yes, that you have, and I'm not jealous—not a bit, dear mistress," cried Celine; "but, oh, dear, oh, dear! that you should have been so cruelly deceived and betrayed."

"Celine, what do you mean?" asked the lady, disturbed.

"Oh, my dear lady, I hate to grieve you, but I can't bear to see you imposed upon any longer by that shameless girl! Oh, my dear mistress, where are your eyes that you can't see her disgrace? Oh, how I wish I had told all I knew at first!" cried Celine, wringing her hands, while tears fell from her eyes.

Mrs. Desmond sprang up and caught her by the arm excitedly.

"Speak! What is it that you know?" she cried, passionately. "Have I been deceived in Mary Smith?"

"Yes, my dear lady—most cruelly deceived!" exclaimed Celine.

"But she has certainly been kind to the child. Else Ruby would have complained," said Mrs. Desmond in perplexity.

"Oh, yes, she was kind to the child, I admit, but it was all for a blind. And all the—all the while—oh, Mrs. Desmond, if you could only understand without my telling it," cried Celine, breaking off abruptly, with an appearance of grief and reluctance.

The passionate, jealous heart of the listener caught the artful bait instantly.

She gasped for breath, her brilliant face whitened to a marble pallor, and she caught at the back of a chair to steady herself.

If Celine had not been utterly selfish and pitiless she must have retracted her cruel lie in the face of that utter despair on the beautiful face of her mistress. But the greed of gold overpowered every other consideration in her base mind.

"Celine," the startled woman broke out, "do you mean to say that—my husband–" she paused, and her blazing eyes searched the woman's face.

"Your husband loves her—alas, yes, my poor, deceived mistress," cried the maid. "The deceitful creature has won his heart from you."

There was a moment's silence while Mrs. Desmond groped blindly in her mind for some tangible proof on which to pin her faith in her beloved husband.

"Celine, you must be mistaken," she exclaimed. "You know we have been away from home almost the whole time since the girl came to us. She has had no chance with my husband."

"Alas, Mrs. Desmond, you force me to tell you," sighed Celine. "Know, then, that it all began before you went south to Mr. Chesleigh. The very day after she came I caught Mr. Desmond kissing Mary Smith, with his arms around her waist."

"Celine, will you swear to this?" gasped the unhappy wife.

"I will take my Bible oath to its truth," was the emphatic reply.

"Then God help me," moaned the stricken woman. "Celine, why did you not tell me all this before?"

"I was afraid of master's anger," she replied. "He threatened me and I promised not to tell. Oh, my dear lady, will you promise to shield me from his wrath? I could not see you so imposed on any longer."

"So the affair has been going on from bad to worse, Celine?" inquired her mistress, faintly.

"Yes, my dear mistress. You remember how anxious he was to return to New York and take little Miss Ruby to the seashore. It was all an excuse to get back to the nurse. And since we came back yesterday—well, I've told enough already. Are you angry with me, my dear, injured lady?" inquired Celine breaking off, artfully, just where she really had nothing more to tell, unless she had fabricated a wholesale lie.

Mrs. Desmond shook her head and remained silent. The maid was disappointed. She had expected a wild outpouring of anger from the jealous wife, but instead she preserved an ominous quiet.

Her head drooped on her bosom, her face was colorless as death, her wild, burning, dark eyes were the only signs of life in her.

Celine was a little startled at the effect of her wickedness. She brought some eau de cologne, and tried to bathe the face of her mistress but was quickly motioned away.

"Go, Celine, send that girl here to me," she said, speaking in a dry, hard, unnatural voice.

The maid went out, and Mrs. Desmond waited but a moment before the door unclasped and little Golden entered. She paused in the middle of the room, and said in her gentle voice:

"You sent for me, Mrs. Desmond?"

Mrs. Desmond lifted her eyes and looked at the beautiful girl whom she believed to be the wicked destroyer of her happiness. Golden shrank before the withering scorn of that look.

"Oh, madam, is anything the matter?" she faltered.

Mrs. Desmond rose and towered above her in all the dignity of her insulted wifehood.

"Oh, no," she said, in a low, deep voice of concentrated passion, "there is very little the matter—only this trifle. You have shamelessly robbed me of my husband."

"Madam!" cried Golden, in alarm and consternation.

"You need not pretend innocence—you cannot deceive me," cried the outraged wife. "You have won his heart, you have stolen him from me, and you have forever ruined my life."

"Oh, madam, who has told you this dreadful tale? It is not true. I would sooner die than wrong you," cried Golden, with pitiful earnestness.

"Hush, do not lie to me," exclaimed Mrs. Desmond, lifting and pointing a scornful finger at the shrinking form. "Your looks declare your shame. Go, leave the house this moment wretched creature, before in my madness I lay violent hands on you!"

But Golden did not go. She knelt down before her angry accuser, and looked up at her pleadingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Desmond, you are mistaken! You wrong me bitterly by such a suspicion!" she cried, with the tears streaming down her fair cheeks.

"Wrong you!" Mrs. Desmond cried, "are you not then–" she bent and fairly hissed the remaining words into the girl's ear. Golden threw up her hands with a cry of dismay.

"Oh, my God, this is too horrible!" she wailed, "how can I bear it?"

"Did I not speak the truth?" Mrs. Desmond demanded.

"It is true, madam, I cannot deny it," replied the girl, crimson with burning blushes, "but I—oh, I call Heaven to witness my truth, Mrs. Desmond, I am nothing to your husband, I was—was—married before I came to you."

"Then where is your husband?"

"I cannot tell," faltered the white lips.

"That is strange," said Mrs. Desmond, scornfully. "Has he left you?"

"Yes, madam," with a pitiful droop of the fair head.

"Why did he do so?" inquired the lady

"I cannot tell you," Golden murmured, sorrowfully.

Ah, if Mrs. Desmond had only known the truth, that it was her brother's wife kneeling there ashamed and dejected before her. But she did not dream it, and her anger rose at the girl's unsatisfactory replies to her questions.

"I will not ask you any more questions," she said, "I do not wish to hear more of your weak falsehoods. Get up from there, and go. Leave the house now and at once, before I publish your conduct to everyone. You need not go to Mrs. Markham for sympathy. I shall go to her at once and tell her what you are."

Golden stood still, staring at her blankly a moment. She was dazed and frightened at the shameful suspicion that had fallen upon her, and she did not know how to convince Mrs. Desmond of her innocence.

"Oh, madam, if I could only induce you to believe that I am not the vile creature you think me," she cried in anguish.

"Hush; leave the room!" Mrs. Desmond answered stormily. "Go, and take with you the bitterest curse of an injured woman. May the good God speedily avenge my cruel wrongs!"

She crossed to the door, threw it open, and pointed silently to it.

Golden obeyed the mute sentence of her lifted finger and glided out, a forlorn, little figure, feeling almost annihilated by the vivid lightning of Mrs. Desmond's angry eyes.

The door slammed heavily behind her, and she walked along through the brightly lighted hotel corridor, for the twilight had fallen long ago.

The rain was falling heavily, and Golden shrank and trembled at the thought of encountering the black, inclement night. The thought came to her—why should she go?

She was ill, friendless, almost penniless. It was her husband's right to protect her.

And here she was passing his very door. Should she not appeal to him for comfort in this terrible hour?

Her trembling limbs refused to carry her past his door. She turned the handle with a weak and trembling hand and stepped over the threshold.

CHAPTER XXX

When Golden on the impulse of the moment had entered the room that she knew was Bertram Chesleigh's, she stood frightened and trembling inside the closed door, afraid to look up at first at the man who had treated her so cruelly.

Gathering courage at the shuddering remembrance of the terrors that awaited her in the darkness of the gloomy night outside, she looked up at last, determined to make at least one appeal to her husband.

The gas had been lighted and it threw a flood of brightness over every object in the room.

On a sofa at the further end Bertram Chesleigh lay sleeping in a careless position, as if he had just thrown himself down, wearied and overcome with fatigue.

The jet-black hair was tossed carelessly back from his high, white brow, and the thick, dark lashes lay heavily upon his cheeks, as if his slumber was deep and dreamless.

A small table was drawn closely to his side, littered with writing materials, and a pen with the ink scarcely dried upon it, lay beside a letter just stamped and sealed, and addressed to:

Richard Leith.

No. – Park Avenue, New York.

As Golden glided across the room, and paused, with her small hand resting upon the table, the superscription of the letter caught her eyes by the merest chance. She started, caught it up in her hand and scanned it eagerly.

"Richard Leith," she read, and her voice trembled with eagerness. "How strange! Why is he writing to Richard Leith?"

She glanced at the sleeper, but not the quiver of an eyelash betrayed disturbance at her presence.

She drew a slip of paper toward her, and neatly copied the address from the letter, placing it securely in her little purse.

Then she paused, turning another wistful glance from the letter which she still held in her hand, to the pale, handsome face of the husband who had discarded her because she had been born to a heritage of shame.

She wondered again if Bertram Chesleigh knew Richard Leith, and why he had written to him, but no thought of the truth came into her mind, or how gladly she would have flown to the quiet sleeper and folded him in her loving arms, and sobbed out her gladness on his broad breast.

Instead she stood gazing at him a few moments in troubled silence, the tear-drops hanging like pearls on her thick, golden lashes, her breast heaving with suppressed sighs.

Then she turned and went out of the room, her first impulse to awaken him having been diverted into another course by her opportune discovery of the address of the man whom she believed to be her father.

"Bertram would only despise and defy me if I appealed to him, perhaps," she murmured, "I will seek my misguided mother instead."

She gave him one sad, reproachful glance and hurried out of the room.

As she closed the door it inadvertently slammed and awakened the sleeper. He started up, confusedly passing his hand across his brow, and looking up for the person whom he supposed had entered the room.

"I distinctly heard the door slam," he said to himself. "Someone either entered or left the room."

But as no one appeared, he concluded that someone had entered, and finding him asleep, had gone out again.

He crossed to the door and looked out into the lighted corridor.

No one was visible, and he was about to close the door again, when his sister Edith came suddenly in sight.

He waited until she came up to him, her dark silk dress rustling as she moved hurriedly along.

"Come in, Edith," he said. "I am sorry I was asleep when you came in just now. Why did you not awaken me? I was only dozing. The closing of the door awakened me instantly."

She looked up at him in surprise, and then he saw that her brilliant face was quite pale, and her dark eyes had a strange, unnatural glare in them.

"I have not been in your room since morning," she replied. "What made you think so, Bert?"

"Someone must have come in and gone out again, for I was awakened by the closing of the door, and I thought at first it must have been you. Doubtless it was only a servant. It does not matter. But, Edith, has anything happened? You look pale and strange."

She threw herself down into a chair, and her unnatural calm gave way to a flood of tears.

Mr. Chesleigh was shocked and distressed. He bent over her and entreated her to tell him the cause of her grief.

Checking her tears by a great effort of will, Mrs. Desmond told him all that had passed.

"I will never live with Mr. Desmond again," she said, passionately, when she had finished her story. "Ever since we married he has outraged my love and my pride by his glaring flirtations, but this last affair is too grievous and shameful to be tamely endured. I hate him for his falsehood and infidelity, and I will never live with him again!"

"Edith, think of the scandal, the notoriety, if you leave your husband," he remonstrated.

"I do not care," she replied, her dark eyes blazing with wrath and defiance; "let them say what they will; I will not tamely endure such a cruel insult! You must make some arrangement for me, Bertie, for I will never, never live with Mr. Desmond again!"

And Bertram Chesleigh, with his heart on fire at his beloved sister's wrongs and his brain puzzled over the best way to right them, little dreamed that his own weakness and wrong-doing had been the sole cause of her sorrow. His fiery indignation was spent upon his brother-in-law when it should have been bestowed upon himself.

CHAPTER XXXI

"I will not go in to bid little Ruby farewell," Golden said to herself sadly, as she left the room of Bertram Chesleigh. "The little one loves me and I could not bear her grief at parting with me. I will slip into the next room without her knowledge, get my hat and jacket, and go away quietly. When I am gone, perhaps Mrs. Desmond may become reconciled to her husband."

She did not dream that the proud woman's anger and resentment against her husband would carry her to the length of a separation with him.

She donned her hat and jacket, and tied her few articles of clothing into a compact bundle. Taking them in her hand, she stole noiselessly out, and made her way to the lower portico of the great hotel.

She paused there, a little dismayed, and looked out at the black and starless night with the chill September drizzle falling ceaselessly. She would be obliged to walk two miles through the storm to take the midnight train for New York.

It would have been perfectly easy to have hired a conveyance but she had only nine dollars left in her purse after discharging her debt to Mrs. Markham, and not knowing how much her fare to the city might be, she was afraid to waste a penny in hack hire.

She decided that she must walk, so, unfurling her small sun-umbrella as some slight protection against the beating rain, she plunged with a shiver into the wet and darkness of the untoward night.

She groped along wearily in the dreary road, scarcely conscious of her physical discomfort and peril in the agonizing pain and humiliation that ached at her heart. She had been driven forth under the ban of cruel shame and disgrace.

Bertram Chesleigh would hear the story of Ruby's wicked, deceitful nurse, and would hate her memory, little thinking that it was his own wretched wife, and that she had borne Mrs. Desmond's angry charge without defending herself, and all for his sake, because he was too proud to acknowledge her claim on him.

The weary walk was accomplished at last, and Golden waited several hours in her wet and draggled garments in the fireless room at the station for the train that was to take her to New York.

It came at last, and in a few more miserable hours she was safe in the city. She found, after paying her fare, that she had enough left to pay for a bed and breakfast at a hotel, and gladly availed herself of the privilege.

Wretched and impatient as she felt, her overstrained mind yielded to the physical weakness that was stealing over her, and she slept soundly for several hours. Rising, refreshed and strengthened, she made a substantial breakfast and sallied for No. – Park Avenue. She hardly knew what she would do when she arrived there, but the conviction was strong upon her that she must go.

She had no difficulty in finding the number. The house was large and elegant, with a flight of brown stone steps in front. Golden climbed them a little timidly, and rang the bell.

The servant in waiting stared at her cheap attire a little superciliously as he opened the door, but when she inquired if Mrs. Leith were at home his aspect changed.

"Oh, you are come in answer to the advertisement for a maid," he said. "Yes, my mistress is at home, and she will see you at once. Come this way."

Golden followed him in silence to the lady's dressing-room. The thought came to her that this would be an admirable pretext for making the acquaintance of the Leiths, so she did not deny that she was seeking a situation.

A beautiful, golden-haired lady opened the door at her timid knock. The girl's heart gave a great, muffled throb.

"My mother," she thought.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Mrs. Leith, this is a young woman who has answered the advertisement for a maid," said the man, respectfully, as he turned away.

The beautiful lady nodded Golden to a seat, and looked at her with careless condescension.

"What is your name?" she inquired.

"Mary Smith," answered the girl in a low, fluttering voice.

"Have you any recommendations?"

"Not as a maid, as the occupation is new to me. I have been a nurse heretofore, but if you will try me I will do my best to please you," said Golden, anxiously.

"I am very hard to please," said Mrs. Leith.

She did not tell Golden that she was so very hard to please that no one could suit her, leaving her to find that out for herself, as she would be sure to do if she remained.

There was a moment's silence, and Golden gravely regarded Mrs. Leith. She was petite and graceful in form, with large, blue eyes, waving masses of golden hair, and beautifully-moulded features. She was barely thirty years old in appearance, and was richly and becomingly attired.

Yet Golden shivered and trembled as she regarded the fair, smiling beauty. How could she look so bright and careless with the brand of deadly sin upon her? There was neither sorrow nor repentance on the smiling, debonair face.

"And this is my mother," Golden thought to herself, with a strange heaviness at her heart. "She seems utterly indifferent at her wickedness. Ah, she little dreams that the poor babe that she deserted so heartlessly is sitting before her now."

Mrs. Leith's light, careless voice jarred suddenly on her mournful mood.

"Well, I will try you, Mary, for I need a maid. My last one was so incapable I had to discharge her. You may do my hair for me now. I am going to drive in the park with Mr. Leith, if his troublesome clients do not detain him. My husband is a lawyer, Mary, and his time is almost wholly engrossed by his business."

"Her husband," Golden repeated to herself, as she wound the shining tresses into braids. "So they keep up that farce before the world. Poor mother! how she must love my father to remain with him on such humiliating terms. Is she really happy, or does she only wear a mask?"

But there was no apparent sorrow or remorse on the complacent face of the lady as she gave her orders and directions to the new maid.

The uppermost thought in her mind was how to make the most of her beauty.

Golden had to arrange her hair twice before she was suited, and she tried several dresses in turn before she decided on one. She was inordinately vain and fond of finery, and Golden thought pitifully to herself:

"Her beauty is the only hold she has on my father, and she is compelled to make its preservation the sole aim of her life."

She wondered a little that no yearning throb had stirred her heart at the sight of her beautiful mother, but she told herself that it was simply because her mother's sin had wholly alienated the natural affection of her purer-hearted daughter.

She pitied her with a great, yearning pity, but no impulse prompted her to kiss the dewy, crimson lips, she had no temptation to pillow her head on the fair bosom that had denied its shelter and sustenance to her helpless infancy.

Mrs. Leith did not look as if she would have made a tender mother.

"Have you any children, madam?" she asked, suddenly, and Mrs. Leith answered:

"No," rather shortly, but added a minute later: "And I am glad of it, for I do not love children. But Mr. Leith does, and is rather sorry that we have none."

"He is justly punished for his sin," thought his unknown daughter, while she secretly wondered why he had never claimed the child his wife had heartlessly deserted to return to him.

"Perhaps she told him I was dead," thought Golden, looking at the beautiful woman with a strange thrill of repulsion. "Perhaps he would have loved me and cared for me, had he known I lived."

A thrill of pity, half mixed with tenderness, stirred her heart for the father who had been cheated of the child he would have loved.

She became conscious of a burning desire to meet her father—the man who had wronged her mother, and who had been wronged in turn, in that he had never beheld the face of his child.

There was a manly step at the door, and it opened, admitting a tall, handsome man in the prime of life.

Golden's heart gave a quick, wild throb, then sank heavily in her breast.

She retreated hastily to the shade of a window-curtain, where she could observe the new-comer, herself unobserved.

Richard Leith was tall, dark, and very handsome, though there were iron-gray threads in his dark, waving hair, and in the long, magnificent beard that rippled down upon his breast.

He looked like a man who had known trouble and sorrow. His face was both sad and stern, and his dark eyes were cold and gloomy.

Mrs. Leith looked up at him carelessly, and his grave face did not brighten at the sight of her beauty, enhanced as it was by the rich, blue silk, and becoming white lace bonnet with its garland of roses.

"Are you ready for your drive, Mrs. Leith?" he inquired, with punctilious politeness.

"Yes, I am just ready," she replied, carelessly. "You see I have a new maid; she is rather awkward, but I shall keep her until I can do better."

Mr. Leith gave an indifferent nod toward the gray gown and white cap that was dimly visible at the furthest corner of the room, then he went out with his wife, and Golden sank down upon the carpet and wept some bitter, bitter tears, that seemed to lift a little bit of the load of grief from her oppressed bosom.

After all, she had found her father and mother, and it was possible that she might bring them to see the wickedness of their course, and to seek reformation.

She determined not to reveal her identity just yet.

She would stay with them a little and learn more of them before she made her strong appeal to them in behalf of truth.

She would not reproach them just yet for the blight they had cast on her innocent life. She would patiently bide her time.

It was a strange position to be placed in.

Under the roof of her own parents, unknown and unacknowledged, with her whole life laid bare and desolate through their sin.

A hot and passionate resentment against them surged up into Golden's wounded heart.

What right had her mother to be so fair and happy when she had sinned so grievously?

Perhaps she would be very angry when she knew that the child she had so pitilessly deserted had hunted her down to confront her with her sin.

"I will wait a little. I will not speak yet," she said. "I shall know them better after awhile, and I shall know how to approach them better."

So the days waned and faded.

Golden began to become very well acquainted with the beautiful woman whom she believed to be her mother. She was vain, frivolous, heartless.