CHAPTER XXV.
Gertie Glenn never forgot the despairing cry that broke from Daisy'swhite lips as she repeated her command:
"I wish you to deliver this note to Mr. Rex Lyon himself."
"Oh, Miss Gertie," she cried, clasping her hands together in an agonyof entreaty, "I can not--oh, indeed I can not! Ask anything of me butthat and I will gladly do it!"
Both girls looked at her in sheer astonishment.
"What is the reason you can not?" cried Gertie, in utter amazement. "Ido not comprehend you."
"I--I can not take the note," she said, in a frightened whisper. "I donot--I--"
She stopped short in utter confusion.
"I choose you shall do just as I bid you," replied Gertie, in herimperious, scornful anger. "It really seems to me you forget yourposition here, Miss Brooks. How dare you refuse me?"
Opposition always strengthened Gertie's decision, and she determinedDaisy should take her note to Rex Lyon at all hazards.
The eloquent, mute appeal in the blue eyes raised to her own wasutterly lost on her.
"The pride of these dependent companions is something ridiculous," shewent on, angrily. "You consider yourself too fine, I suppose, to bemade a messenger of." Gertie laughed aloud, a scornful, mocking laugh."Pride and poverty do not work very well together. You may go to yourroom now and get your hat and shawl. I shall have the letter writtenin a very few minutes. There will be no use appealing to mamma. Youought to know by this time we overrule her objections always."
It was too true, Mrs. Glenn never had much voice in a matter whereBess or Gertie had decided the case.
Like one in a dream Daisy turned from them. She never remembered howshe gained her own room. With cold, tremulous fingers she fastened herhat, tucking the bright golden hair carefully beneath her veil, andthrew her shawl over her shoulders, just as Gertie approached, letterin hand.
"You need not go around by the main road," she said, "there is a muchnearer path leading down to the stone wall. You need not wait for ananswer: there will be none. The servants over there are awkward,blundering creatures--do not trust it to them--you must deliver it toRex himself."
"I make one last appeal to you, Miss Gertie. Indeed, it is not pridethat prompts me. I could not bear it. Have pity on me. You are gentleand kind to others; please, oh, please be merciful to me!"
"I have nothing more to say upon the subject--I have said you were togo. You act as if I were sending you to some place where you mightcatch the scarlet fever or the mumps. You amuse me; upon my word youdo. Rex is not dangerous, neither is he a Bluebeard; his only fault isbeing alarmingly handsome. The best advice I can give you is, don'tadmire him too much. He should be labeled, 'Out of the market.'"
Gertie tripped gayly from the room, her crimson satin ribbonsfluttering after her, leaving a perceptible odor of violets in theroom, while Daisy clutched the note in her cold, nervous grasp,walking like one in a terrible dream through the bright patches ofglittering moonlight, through the sweet-scented, rose-bordered path,on through the dark shadows of the trees toward the home of Rex--herhusband.
A soft, brooding silence lay over the sleeping earth as Daisy, with asinking heart, drew near the house. Her soft footfalls on the greenmossy earth made no sound.
Silently as a shadow she crept up to the blossom-covered porch; someone was standing there, leaning against the very pillar around whichshe had twined her arms as she watched Rex's shadow on the roses.
The shifting moonbeams pierced the white, fleecy clouds that envelopedthem, and as he turned his face toward her she saw it was Rex. Shecould almost have reached out her hand and touched him from where shestood. She was sorely afraid her face or her voice might startle himif she spoke to him suddenly.
"I do not need to speak," she thought. "I will go up to him and laythe letter in his hand."
Then a great intense longing came over her to hear his voice and knowthat he was speaking to her. She had quite decided to pursue thiscourse, when the rustle of a silken garment fell upon her ear. Sheknew the light tread of the slippered feet but too well--it was Pluma.She went up to him in her usual caressing fashion, laying her whitehand on his arm.
"Do you know you have been standing here quite two hours, Rex,watching the shadows of the vine-leaves? I have longed to come up andask you what interest those dancing shadows had for you, but I couldnot make up my mind to disturb you. I often fancy you do not know howmuch time you spend in thought."
Pluma was wondering if he was thinking of that foolish, romantic fancythat had come so near separating them--his boyish fancy for DaisyBrooks, their overseer's niece. No, surely not. He must have forgottenher long ago.
"These reveries seem to have grown into a habit with me," he said,dreamily; "almost a second nature, of late. If you were to come andtalk to me at such times, you would break me of it."
The idea pleased her. A bright flush rose to her face, and she madehim some laughing reply, and he looked down upon her with a kindlysmile.
Oh! the torture of it to the poor young wife standing watching them,with heart on fire in the deep shadow of the crimson-heartedpassion-flowers that quivered on the intervening vines. The letter sheheld in her hand slipped from her fingers into the bushes allunheeded. She had but one thought--she must get away. The very airseemed to stifle her; her heart seemed numb--an icy band seemedpressing round it, and her poor forehead was burning hot. It did notmatter much where she went, nobody loved her, nobody cared for her. Assoftly as she came, she glided down the path that led to theentrance-gate beyond. She passed through the moonlighted grounds,where the music and fragrance of the summer night was at its height.The night wind stirred the pink clover and the blue-bells beneath herfeet. Her eyes were hot and dry; tears would have been a world ofrelief to her, but none came to her parched eyelids.
She paid little heed to the direction she took. One idea alone tookpossession of her--she must get away.
"If I could only go back to dear old Uncle John," she sighed. "Hislove has never failed me."
It seemed long years back since she had romped with him, a happy,merry child, over the cotton fields, and he had called her his sunbeamduring all those years when no one lived at Whitestone Hall and thewild ivy climbed riotously over the windows and doors. Even Septima'svoice would have sounded so sweet to her. She would have lived overagain those happy, childish days, if she only could. She rememberedhow Septima would send her to the brook for water, and how shesprinkled every flower in the path-way that bore her name; and howSeptima would scold her when she returned with her bucket scarce halffull; and how she had loved to dream away those sunny summer days,lying under the cool, shady trees, listening to the songs the robinssang as they glanced down at her with their little sparkling eyes.
How she had dreamed of the gallant young hero who was to come to hersome day. She had wondered how she would know him, and what were thewords he first would say! If he would come riding by, as the judge didwhen "Maud Muller stood in the hay-fields;" and she remembered, too,the story of "Rebecca at the Well." A weary smile flitted over herface as she remembered when she went to the brook she had always puton her prettiest blue ribbons, in case she might meet her hero.
Oh, those sweet, bright, rosy dreams of girlhood! What a pity it isthey do not last forever! Those girlish dreams, where glowing fancyreigns supreme, and the prosaic future is all unknown. She rememberedher meeting with Rex, how every nerve in her whole being thrilled, andhow she had felt her cheeks grow flaming hot, just as she had readthey would do when she met the right one. That was how she had knownRex was the right one when she had shyly glanced up, from under herlong eyelashes, into the gay, brown hazel eyes, fixed upon her soquizzically, as he took the heavy basket from her slender arms, thatnever-to-be-forgotten June day, beneath the blossoming magnolia-tree.
Poor child! her life had been a sad romance since then. How strange itwas she was fleeing from the young husband whom she had married andwas so quickly parted from!
All thi
s trouble had come about because she had so courageouslyrescued her letter from Mme. Whitney.
"If he had not bound me to secrecy, I could have have cried out beforethe whole world I was his wife," she thought.
A burning flush rose to her face as she thought how cruelly he hadsuspected her, this poor little child-bride who had never known onewrong or sinful thought in her pure, innocent young life.
If he had only given her the chance of explaining how she had happenedto be there with Stanwick; if they had taken her back she must haveconfessed about the letter and who Rex was and what he was to her.
Even Stanwick's persecution found an excuse in her innocent,unsuspecting little heart.
"He sought to save me from being taken back when he called me hiswife," she thought. "He believed I was free to woo and win, because Idared not tell him I was Rex's wife." Yet the thought of Stanwickalways brought a shudder to her pure young mind. She could notunderstand why he would have resorted to such desperate means to gainan unwilling bride.
"Not yet seventeen. Ah, what a sad love-story hers had been. Howcruelly love's young dream had been blighted," she told herself; andyet she would not have exchanged that one thrilling, ecstatic momentof rapture when Rex had clasped her in his arms and whispered: "Mydarling wife," for a whole lifetime of calm happiness with any oneelse.
On and on she walked through the violet-studded grass, thinking--thinking.Strange fancies came thronging to her overwrought brain. She pushed herveil back from her face and leaned against the trunk of a tree; her brainwas dizzy and her thoughts were confused; the very stars seemed dancingriotously in the blue sky above her, and the branches of the trees werewhispering strange fancies. Suddenly a horseman, riding a coal-blackcharger, came cantering swiftly up the long avenue of trees. He saw thequiet figure standing leaning against the drooping branches.
"I will inquire the way," he said to himself, drawing rein beside her."Can you tell me, madame, if this is the most direct road leading toGlengrove and that vicinity? I am looking for a hostelry near it. Iseem to have lost my way. Will you kindly direct me?" he asked, "or tothe home of Mr. Rex Lyon?"
The voice sounded strangely familiar to Daisy. She was dimly conscioussome one was speaking to her. She raised her face up and gazed at thespeaker. The cold, pale moonlight fell full upon it, clearly revealingits strange, unearthly whiteness, and the bright flashing eyes, gazingdreamily past the terror-stricken man looking down on her, with white,livid lips and blanched, horror-stricken face. His eyes almost leapedfrom their sockets in abject terror, as Lester Stanwick gazed on theupturned face by the roadside.
"My God, do I dream?" he cried, clutching at the pommel of his saddle."Is this the face of Daisy Brooks, or is it a specter, unable to sleepin the depths of her tomb, come back to haunt me for driving her toher doom?"
Daisy Brooks; Or, A Perilous Love Page 25