Читать книгу: «Jolly Sally Pendleton: or, the Wife Who Was Not a Wife», страница 6

CHAPTER XX

"IT WOULD BE WISER TO MAKE A FRIEND THAN AN ENEMY OF ME."

Bernardine Moore drew herself up to her full height, and looked the scorn she felt for the man standing before her, as he gave utterance to his hatred of Doctor Gardiner.

"It is a coward only who threatens one who is not present to defend himself!" she answered; adding, icily: "I imagine when you meet Doctor Gardiner you will find a foeman worthy of your steel."

"You are not in the most amiable mood this evening. I hope you will receive me more pleasantly the next time. Good-night, my beautiful sweetheart. Au revoir for the present, obstinate though fairest of all sweethearts."

Ere Bernardine had time to divine his intention, he had caught her in his arms, pressed her close to his throbbing heart, and although she struggled all she knew how, he succeeded in covering her face, her neck, her brow with his hot, wine-tainted kisses, the while laughing hilariously as he noted how loathsome they were to the lovely young girl.

Bernardine, with a wild shriek, broke at last from his grasp, and dashed madly from the sitting-room to her own apartment, which she reached in time to fall fainting in Miss Rogers' arms, the sting of those bitter kisses burning her lips like flame.

As Jasper Wilde leisurely put on his hat and walked out of the sitting-room, Miss Rogers suddenly confronted him.

"I would like a word with you, Jasper Wilde," she said, brusquely, barring his way.

"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" he demanded, with a harsh imprecation on his lips, thinking her one of his father's tenants.

"I want to intercede with you for poor Bernardine Moore," she said, simply. "Let me plead with you to forego this marriage, which I earnestly assure you is most hateful to her, for she loves another."

The flashing fire in his hard black eyes might have warned her that he was an edged tool, and that it was dangerous to encounter him.

"Out of my way, you cursed old fool!" he cried, savagely; "or I'll take you by the neck and fling you to the bottom of the stairs!"

Miss Rogers was sorely frightened, but she nobly held her ground.

"Your bullying does not terrify me in the least, Jasper Wilde," she said, calmly. "I have seen such men as you before. I would have talked with you quietly; but since you render that an impossibility, I will end my interview with one remark, one word of warning. Attempt to force Bernardine Moore into this hateful marriage, and it will be at your peril. Hear me, and understand what I say: She shall never wed you!"

"I should be as big a fool as you are, woman, if I lost time bandying words with you!" he cried, sneeringly. "If Bernardine has deputized you to waylay me and utter that nonsensical threat, you may go back and tell her that her clever little plan has failed ignominiously. I am proof against threats of women."

Miss Rogers looked after him with wrathful eyes.

"If there was ever a fiend incarnate, that man is one," she muttered. "Heaven help poor Bernardine if she carries out her intention of marrying him! He will surely kill her before the honeymoon is over! Poor girl! what direful power has he over her? Alas! I tremble for her future. It would be the marriage of an angel and a devil. Poor Bernardine! why does she not elope with the young lover whom she loves, if there is no other way out of the difficulty, and live for love, instead of filial duty and obedience?"

Bernardine worked harder than ever over her basket-making during the next few days – worked to fill every moment of her time, so as to forget, if she could, the tragedy – for it was nothing less – of her approaching marriage to Jasper Wilde.

She grew thinner and paler with each hour that dragged by, and the tears were in her eyes all the while, ready to roll down her cheeks when she fancied she was not observed.

Once or twice she spoke to Miss Rogers about the man she loved, telling her how grand, noble, and good he was, and how they had fallen in love with each other at first sight; but she never mentioned his name.

"God help poor Bernardine!" she sobbed. "I do not know how to save the darling girl. I think I will lay the matter before my dear young friend, Doctor Gardiner. He is bright and clever. Surely he can find some way out of the difficulty. Yes, I will go and see Jay Gardiner without delay; or, better still, I will write a note to have him come here to see me."

She said nothing to Bernardine, but quietly wrote a long and very earnest letter to her young friend, asking him to come without delay to the street and number where he had left her a week previous, as she had something of great importance to consult him about.

CHAPTER XXI

JASPER WILDE MEETS WITH AN ADVENTURE

Miss Rogers had taken the greatest pains to direct her all-important letter to Doctor Jay Gardiner, and had gone to the nearest box to mail it herself. But, alas! for the well-laid plans of mice and men which gang aft aglee.

Fate, strange, inexorable Fate, which meddles in all of our earthly affairs, whether we will or not, ordained that this letter should not reach its destination for many a day, and it happened in this way:

Quite by accident, when it left Miss Rogers' hand, the letter dropped in the depths of the huge mail-box and became wedged securely in a crevice or crack in the bottom.

The mail-gatherer was always in a hurry, and when he took up the mail on his rounds, he never noticed the letter pressed securely against the side down in the furthermost corner.

Sitting anxiously awaiting a response to her missive, or her young friend to come in person, Miss Rogers watched and waited for Jay Gardiner, or any tidings of him, in vain.

Meanwhile, the preparations for the obnoxious marriage which she seemed unable to prevent went steadily on.

All the long nights through Bernardine would weep and moan and wring her little white hands. When Miss Rogers attempted to expostulate with her, declaring no one could compel her to marry Jasper Wilde against her will, she would only shake her head and cry the more bitterly, moaning out that she did not understand.

"I confess, Bernardine, I do not understand you," she declared, anxiously. "You will not try to help yourself, but are going willingly, like a lamb to the slaughter, as it were."

David Moore seemed to be as unnerved as Bernardine over the coming marriage. If he heard a sound in Bernardine's room at night, he would come quickly to her door and ask if anything was the matter. He seemed to be always awake, watching, listening for something. The next day he would say to Miss Rogers:

"I was sorely afraid something was happening to Bernardine last night – that she was attempting to commit suicide, or something of that kind. A girl in her highly nervous state of mind will bear watching."

"Your fears on that score are needless," replied Miss Rogers. "No matter whatever else Bernardine might do, she would never think of taking her life into her own hands, I assure you."

But the old basket-maker was not so sure of that. He had a strange presentiment of coming evil which he could not shake off.

Each evening, according to his declared intention, Jasper Wilde presented himself at David Moore's door.

"There's nothing like getting my bride-to-be a little used to me," he declared to her father, with a grim laugh.

Once after Jasper Wilde had bid Bernardine and her father good-night, he walked along the street, little caring in which direction he went, his mind was so preoccupied with trying to solve the problem of how to make this haughty girl care for him.

His mental query was answered in the strangest manner possible.

Almost from out the very bowels of the earth, it seemed – for certainly an instant before no human being was about – a woman suddenly appeared and confronted him – a woman so strange, uncanny, and weird-looking, that she seemed like some supernatural creature.

"Would you like to have your fortune told, my bonny sir?" she queried in a shrill voice. "I bring absent ones together, tell you how to gain the love of the one you want – "

"You do, eh?" cut in Jasper Wilde, sharply. "Well, now, if you can do anything like that, you ought to have been able to have retired, worth your millions, long ago, with people coming from all over the world to get a word of advice from you."

"I care nothing for paltry money," replied the old woman, scornfully. "I like to do all the good I can."

"Oh, you work for nothing, then? Good enough. You shall tell me my fortune, and how to win the love of the girl I care for. It will be cheap advice enough, since it comes free."

"I have to ask a little money," responded the old dame in a wheedling tone. "I can't live on air, you know. But let me tell you, sir, there's something I could tell you that you ought to know – you have a rival for the love of the girl you want. Look sharp, or you'll lose her."

"By the Lord Harry! how did you find out all that?" gasped Jasper Wilde, in great amazement, his eyes staring hard, and his hands held out, as though to ward her off.

She laughed a harsh little laugh.

"That is not all I could tell if I wanted to, my bonny gentleman. You ought to know what is going on around you. I only charge a dollar to ladies and two dollars to gents. My place is close by. Will you come and let me read your future, sir?"

"Yes," returned Jasper Wilde. "But, hark you, if it is some thieves' den you want to entice me to, in order to rob me, I'll tell you here and now you will have a mighty hard customer to tackle, as I always travel armed to the teeth."

"The bonny gentleman need not fear the old gypsy," returned the woman, with convincing dignity.

Turning, he walked beside her to the end of the block.

She paused before a tall, dark tenement house, up whose narrow stair-way she proceeded to climb after stopping a moment to gather sufficient breath.

Jasper Wilde soon found himself ushered into a rather large room, which was draped entirely in black cloth hangings and decorated with mystic symbols of the sorceress's art.

An oil lamp, suspended by a wire from the ceiling, furnished all the light the apartment could boast of.

"Sit down," said the woman, pointing to an arm-chair on the opposite side of a black-draped table.

Jasper Wilde took the seat indicated, and awaited developments.

"I tell by cards," the woman said, producing a box of black pasteboards, upon which were printed strange hieroglyphics.

It was almost an hour before Jasper Wilde took his departure from the wizard's abode, and when he did so, it was with a strangely darkened brow.

He looked fixedly at a small vial he held in his hand as he reached the nearest street lamp, and eyed with much curiosity the dark liquid it contained.

"I would do anything on earth to gain Bernardine's love," he muttered; "and for that reason I am willing to try anything that promises success in my wooing. I have never believed in fortune-tellers, and if this one proves false, I'll be down on the lot of 'em for all time to come. Five drops in a glass of water or a cup of tea."

CHAPTER XXII

While the preparations for the marriage which poor, hapless Bernardine looked forward to with so much fear went steadily on, preparations for another wedding, in which Jay Gardiner was to be the unwilling bridegroom, progressed quite as rapidly.

On the day following the scene in which Sally Pendleton had turned Miss Rogers from the house – which had been witnessed by the indignant young doctor – he called upon his betrothed, hoping against hope that she might be induced to relent, even at the eleventh hour, and let him off from this, to him, abhorrent engagement.

He found Sally arrayed in her prettiest dress – all fluffy lace and fluttering baby-blue ribbons – but he had no eyes for her made-up, doll-like sort of beauty.

She never knew just when to expect him, for he would never give her the satisfaction of making an appointment to call, giving professional duties as an excuse for not doing so.

Sally arrayed herself in her best every evening, and looked out from behind the lace-draped windows until the great clock in the hall chimed the hour of nine; then, in an almost ungovernable rage, she would go up to her room, and her mother and Louisa would be made to suffer for her disappointment.

On the day in question she had seen Jay Gardiner coming up the stone steps, and was ready to meet him with her gayest smile, her jolliest laugh.

"It is always the unexpected which happens, Jay," she said, holding out both her lily-white hands. "Welcome, a hundred times welcome!"

He greeted her gravely. He could not have stooped and kissed the red lips that were held up to him if the action would have saved his life.

He was so silent and distrait during the time, that Sally said:

"Aren't you well this morning, Jay, or has something gone wrong with you?" she asked, at length.

"I do feel a trifle out of sorts," he replied. "But pardon me for displaying my feelings before – a lady."

"Don't speak in that cold, strange fashion, Jay," replied the girl, laying a trembling hand on his arm. "You forget that I have a right to know what is troubling you, and to sympathize with and comfort you."

He looked wistfully at her.

Would it do to tell her the story of his love for Bernardine? Would she be moved to pity by the drifting apart of two lives because of a betrothal made in a spirit of fun at a race? He hardly dared hope so.

"I was thinking of a strange case that came under my observation lately," he said, "and somehow the subject has haunted me – even in my dreams – probably from the fact that it concerns a friend of mine in whom I take a great interest."

"Do tell me the story!" cried Sally, eagerly – "please do."

"It would sound rather commonplace in the telling," he responded, "as I am not good at story-telling. Well, to begin with, this friend of mine loves a fair and beautiful young girl who is very poor. A wealthy suitor, a dissipated roué, had gained the consent of her father to marry her, before my friend met and knew her and learned to love her. Now, he can not, dare not speak, for, although he believes in his heart that she loves him best, he knows she is bound in honor to another; and to make the matter still more pitiful, he is betrothed to a girl he is soon to marry, though his fiancée has no portion of his great heart. Thus, by the strange decrees of fate, which man can not always comprehend the wisdom of, four people will be wedded unhappily."

As Sally listened with the utmost intentness, she jumped to the conclusion that the "friend" whose picture Jay Gardiner had drawn so pathetically was himself, and she heard with the greatest alarm of the love he bore another. But she kept down her emotions with a will of iron. It would never do to let him know she thought him unfaithful, and it was a startling revelation to her to learn that she had a rival. She soon came to a conclusion.

"It is indeed a strangely mixed up affair," she answered. "It seems to me everything rests in the hands of this young girl, as she could have either lover. Couldn't I go to her in the interest of your friend, and do my best to urge her to marry him instead of the other one."

"But supposing the young girl that he – my friend – is betrothed to refuses to give him up, what then?"

"I might see her," replied Sally, "and talk with her."

"It is hard for him to marry her, when every throb of his heart is for another," answered Jay Gardiner, despondently.

"Who is this young girl who is so beautiful that she has won the love of both these lovers?" she asked in a low, hard voice.

"Bernardine – Ah! I should not tell you that," he responded, recollecting himself. But he had uttered, alas! the one fatal word – Bernardine.

CHAPTER XXIII

"I can never rest night or day until I have seen this Bernardine and swept her from my path!" she cried.

She made up her mind that she would not tell her mother or Louisa just yet. It would worry her mother to discover that she had a rival, while Louisa – well, she was so envious of her, as it was, she might exult in the knowledge.

But how should she discover who this beautiful Bernardine was of whom he spoke with so much feeling?

Suddenly she stopped short and brought her two hands together, crying, excitedly:

"Eureka! I have found a way. I will follow up this scheme, and see what I can find out. Jay Gardiner will be out of the city for a few days. I will see his office attendant – he does not know me – and will never be able to recognize me again the way I shall disguise myself, and I will learn from him what young lady the doctor knows whose name begins with Bernardine. It is not an ordinary name, and he will be sure to remember it, I am confident, if he ever heard it mentioned."

It was an easy matter for Sally to slip out of the house early the next day without attracting attention, although she was dressed in her gayest, most stunning gown.

Calling a passing cab, she entered it, and soon found herself standing before Jay Gardiner's office, which she lost no time in entering.

A young and handsome man, who sat at a desk, deeply engrossed in a medical work, looked up with an expression of annoyance on his face at being interrupted; but when he beheld a most beautiful young lady standing on the threshold, his annoyance quickly vanished, and a bland smile lighted up his countenance. He bowed profoundly, and hastened to say:

"Is there anything I can do for you, miss?"

"I want to see Doctor Gardiner," said Sally, in her sweetest, most silvery voice. "Are you the doctor?"

"No," he answered, with a shadow of regret in his tone. "I am studying with Doctor Gardiner. He has been suddenly called out of the city. He may be gone a day, possibly a week. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I fear not, sir. Still, I will tell you my errand, if I may be seated for a few moments."

"Certainly," he responded, placing a chair for his lovely young visitor; adding: "Pray pardon my seeming negligence in not asking you to be seated."

Sally sunk gracefully into the chair the young physician watching her the while with admiring eyes.

"My call on Doctor Gardiner is not to secure his services in a professional capacity," she began, hesitatingly; "but to learn from him the address of a young lady I am trying to find."

"If it is any one who is his patient, or has been at any time, I think I can help you. He has the addresses down in a book."

"But supposing he knew her socially, not professionally, her name would not be apt to be down on his list, would it?" she queried, anxiously.

"No," he admitted. "But I think I know every one whom the doctor knows socially – every one, in fact, save the young lady – a Miss Pendleton, whom he is soon to marry. You see, we were college chums, and I have been his partner in office work over five years. So I will be most likely to know if you will state the name."

"That is just the difficulty," said Sally, with her most bewildering smile, which quite captivated the young doctor. "I met the young lady only once, and I have forgotten her address as well as her last name, remembering only her Christian name – Bernardine. I met her in Doctor Gardiner's company only a few weeks ago. He would certainly recollect her name."

"Undoubtedly," declared the young physician. "I regret deeply that he is not here to give you the desired information."

"Would you do me a favor if you could, sir?" asked Sally, with a glance from her eyes that brought every man she looked at in that way – save Jay Gardiner – to her dainty feet.

The young physician blushed to the very roots of his fair hair.

"You have only to name it, and if it is anything in my power, believe that I will do my utmost to accomplish it. I – I would do anything to – to please you."

"I would like you to find out from Doctor Gardiner the address of Bernardine," said Sally, in a low, tremulous voice; "only do not let him know that any one is interested in finding it out save yourself. Do you think you can help me?"

He pondered deeply for a moment, then his face brightened, as he said:

"I think I have hit upon a plan. I will write him, and say I have found the name Bernardine on a slip of paper which he has marked, 'Patients for prompt attention,' the balance of the name being torn from the slip, and ask the address and full information as to who she is."

"A capital idea!" exclaimed Sally, excitedly. "I – I congratulate you upon your shrewdness. If you find out this girl's address, you will place me under everlasting obligations to you."

"If you will call at this hour two days from now, I shall have the address," he said, slowly.