Dainty's Cruel Rivals Part 29

Ailsa Scott wanted her to see a doctor, but she always refused to do so.

"I want to die! I would rather not take any medicine from the best doctor in the world!" she exclaimed, rebelliously.

She had not told her friend the strange story of her secret marriage, fearing lest the threatened revenge of Mrs. Ellsworth should find her out even this far away; but Ailsa guessed well at some sad secret, and pitied the poor girl with all her gentle heart.

By and by Miss White returned in a very good humor indeed, saying that Miss Scott said everything was all right, and she would call to see her friend on her way from school the next day.

"I saw Mr. Sparks, too, and really, he is the most charming man I ever met," she simpered, adding: "I don't see how you could repulse his addresses, Miss Chase; he is so handsome and agreeable. Then, too, poor man, his sweet little children stand so much in need of a mother that he was excusable for haste, though he ought to have picked an older woman than you."

"I should say that you, Miss White, would be the most suitable woman in the world for him," Dainty ventured, with a faint smile.

"Thank you for the compliment. I wonder if he thinks so, too? He was certainly quite attentive, and I didn't let him guess I knew he was looking for a wife; but I made up my mind to buy my groceries from him in future," smirked the delighted spinster, thinking what a little fool that girl was to refuse such a man.

Ailsa came next day, and was indignant when she heard how her step-father had treated Dainty, while she rejoiced that the girl had found such a refuge, for she believed that Miss White was in the main a very good woman.

"But, oh! Dainty, she has set her cap at Sparks, and I believe her flatteries have made an impression on him that will heal the wounds your scolding gave. Depend on it, that will be a match, and, as I believe she would make a real good step-mother to my little half-brothers and sisters, you and I will rent rooms and live together like sisters after the wedding!" she cried, cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the pale, lily-like face over which the tears streamed as the girl sighed:

"Oh, Ailsa, you are like an angel to me!"

"I am very sorry," continued Ailsa, "that you have promised to work for your board, for you need a little money as you go along--all girls do--and when I found you were gone without a cent I was nearly crazy. I gave old Sparks such a lecture as he will never forget, and I fairly hugged that primpy old maid when she came to tell me where you were.

Now, dear, take this ten dollars from your sister Ailsa, and use it in time of need. No, you shall not refuse it, or you may be sorry for it if Miss White should turn you out in the streets some day as heartlessly as old Sparks did."

She had not the least idea of such a thing happening again, but she wanted to frighten Dainty into taking the gift, and she succeeded, after which she left, promising to see her friend often.

The weeks came and went, and Dainty toiled at her sewing with aching limbs and a heavy heart filled with dire forebodings that she dare not utter aloud to any human being, even gentle Ailsa, and at night her lonely pillow was wet with tears, and her piteous cry was ever:

"Oh, mother, mother, if only you were with me now to pity and help me in my trouble!"

For awhile Miss White was quite kind, for at the bottom of her heart she felt secretly grateful to the girl for having in a way brought about her acquaintance with Sparks--an acquaintance that she prosecuted with much vigor, running in and out daily for trifles from the store, till her broad flatteries and fondness for the children awakened a warm sentiment in his heart, and he began to pay her such pleasing attentions as calling on Sunday evenings for social chats, Dainty always keeping out of the way, reluctant to meet him again, and quite unaware that in his spite he was doing all he could to turn Miss White's heart against her hapless _protege_.

March came with its bleak winds and occasional hints of spring, but Dainty's heart sank heavier day by day, her cheeks grew more pale, her eyes more heavy, as she drooped over her work s.h.i.+vering, with the thick cape always wrapped about her form, and looking as if death would soon claim her as its own.

They were dark, sad days for Dainty, for the gay young girls, Miss White's a.s.sistants, began to shun her, and to look askance at the form always bundled up so closely from the winter cold. Two hands quit work abruptly and never returned, and the three others held private conversations with their employer, after which she came straight to Dainty, saying harshly:

"You wicked girl, you have imposed on me!"

Dainty was putting away the tea-things, and she started so violently that a china cup fell through her thin fingers and crashed upon the floor.

Miss White continued, angrily:

"I took you in as an honest girl and treated you kindly. In return you imposed on me, disgraced my house, and broke up my business!"

"Oh, madame!"

"Two of my best hands have quit me in disgust, and the other three threaten to go unless I turn you away at once. Do you know the reason, pray?"

Crimson with shame, Dainty dropped forlornly before her with down-dropped eyes, speechless with fear, and the woman continued, sharply:

"Take off that cape you've been shrouded in all the winter, pretending to suffer from the cold, and let me see if it is really hiding your disgrace."

"Oh, spare me!"

"Do as I bid you! There! I've dragged it off in spite of you! Oh, for shame--shame! How could you be so wicked with that innocent face?"

"Oh, I am not as bad as you think! I--I--"

"Hus.h.!.+ You can't excuse your disgrace. Mr. Sparks told me all along you were a bad girl, and told me when we became engaged I must send you to the right-about before we were married. But, somehow, I couldn't believe ill of you, till I see it now with my own eyes."

"Oh! may I stay till to-morrow? You will not drive me out into the streets to-night?" imploringly.

"I ought to do it to pay you for cheating me so; but I'm a Christian woman, and, somehow, I pity you, and I can't be hard on you. You may stay to-night; but you must leave in the morning directly after breakfast. There's a hospital in this city for poor girls that's gone astray like you. You can go there, and the good doctor will take you in and let you stay till your child is born. Then you can put it in the foundlings' home and some good people may adopt it."

"Merciful G.o.d, have pity!" shrilled over the girl's tortured lips, as she sank on her knees, overcome by the horror of her thoughts.

Her child--Love Ellsworth's lawful heir--to be born in a home for "girls gone astray," and placed in a foundlings' home, to be "adopted by some good people." Had she come to this? She, whose future had promised so radiantly nine brief months ago! A wild prayer to Heaven broke from her pallid lips:

"Oh, G.o.d! take us both--the forsaken mother and child--to heaven!"

"It's too late to take on now. Better behaved yourself right at first,"

the old maid admonished her; adding, soothingly: "Go to bed now, and I'll send to-morrow for the good doctor to come and take you to the lying-in hospital."

But in the gray dawn of the cold morning she found the bed empty, and poor Dainty gone.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

GRAND COMPANY.

A strange chance, or, perhaps, a kindly Providence, brought Sarah Ann Peters and old black mammy together that spring at the railway station near Ellsworth, where both were then living.

The indefatigable white woman was laid low with la grippe, and her husband, in seeking a maid-of-all-work to fill her place, could find no one to take the situation but the aged Virginia.

As six of the large brood of sons were away at school, mammy undertook "to do for the rest," as she expressed it; and the last of March found her domesticated at the six-roomed frame house on the edge of the woods, a mile from the station.

Here the thrifty Peters family had lived for ten years throughout the winters, removing each spring to the lonely saw-mill in the mountains, where by hard, unremitting toil they succeeded in earning enough money to send their children to good schools in the cold weather.

Already Peters was making his arrangements to remove to the woods in April, when his good wife was stricken with a heavy cold that laid her low during the last three weeks of March; though her st.u.r.dy const.i.tution triumphed then, and she sat up the first day of April, a little pale and wasted, but, as she expressed it, "feeling just as stout as ever, but glad to have mammy there awhile yet to take the heft of the work off her tired shoulders."

In her secret heart black mammy felt cruelly hurt at having come down, in her old age, to work for ordinary "po' w'ite trash;" but she had fallen on evil days in this latter end of her pilgrimage.

After the terrible misfortune that had befallen Love Ellsworth, his heartless step-mother had made full use of her power to oppress all who had taken the part of poor Dainty Chase.

For many years mammy, with her son and her daughter-in-law, had inhabited rent free, their cabin on the Ellsworth estate, Love also allowing them the use of a patch of ground for their garden. The negroes having belonged to his ancestors in slavery times, he felt that this kindness was but their honest due.

But no sooner had Mrs. Ellsworth usurped the reins of government than she proceeded to drive away the poor negroes from the cabin. Thereupon mammy's son and his wife removed to the coal mines of Fayette County, and left the old woman to s.h.i.+ft for herself.