Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday
day; but wearily, wearily, slumbered the exhausted girl, crouching on
the grass, with her pallid cheek in the hollow of her little hand, her
hair a tangle of glory glinting in the sun, as it shone through the
branches of the trees.
Heavily, wearily, she slept on as one too exhausted ever to wake again,
and presently the deep forest stillness was broken by the dip of oars in
the murmuring stream, while a man's voice cried, eagerly:
"Another speckled beauty for our string, Peters! Ye gods, what a royal
breakfast we shall have this morning! Is your wife a good cook, say? For
it would be a thousand pities to have these spoiled!"
The voice had the shrill twang of the commercial traveler, the daring
explorer who penetrates the depths of the forests as well as the heart
of the cities, and the answer came in the distinct _patois_ of the West
Virginian backwoodsman:
"Stranger, thar mought be better cooks than my Sairy Ann whar you hail
from up yon in New Yorrok; but, I swow, thar hain't another saw-mill in
West Virginny as can ekal the cookin' in my camp! Wait till Sairy Ann
br'ils these mountain trout and slaps 'em on to a pone of sweet corn
bread. See?"
"Yes, I see--in imagination--and my mouth waters! Let us go back to the
mill at once, Peters, and realize our anticipations. Hal-loo! what is
that--over on that bank, man?"
"Gee-whillikins! what, indeed?" roared the saw-mill man, rowing rapidly
to the bank and springing out so quickly as to almost upset his
companion into the pellucid stream.
Stooping over the sleeping form, the rough backwoodsman scrutinized
Dainty with amazement, ending by shaking her vigorously, as he
exclaimed, in wonder:
"Wake up, honey; wake up, and tell us whar in thunder you come from,
a-sleepin' here like the dead, your clothes all wet and drabbled, and
your little feet bare and torn and bloody with the rocks and briars!
Why, 'tis a sight to make that soft Sairy Ann cry her eyes out! What's
your name, chile, and whar'd you cum from anyway?" as the blue eyes
flared wide open and Dainty stared at his kindly, gray-bearded face with
a pitiful, unrealizing moan.
The commercial traveler fastened the boat to a tree and came on the
bank, too, full of curiosity; but all their efforts failed to elicit
anything intelligible from the sick girl, and at length they came to the
very intelligent conclusion that she must be some invalid strayed away
from home, and that the only thing to do under the circumstances was to
take her back to the saw-mill with them and await developments.
They did so, and thus our forlorn heroine found shelter in a rude shanty
deep in the forest, among a few sturdy toilers who were camping here for
the summer, a half score of rough but kindly men, the husband and sons
of a good soul, Sarah Ann Peters, who did all the household work for the
crowd, and accepted with open arms and heart this new claimant on her
sympathy.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MOTHER'S WOE.
The experienced eyes of this motherly woman soon saw that the lovely
young stranger was ill of fever, and in a very serious condition; but
having successfully raised a family of nine stalwart sons by her own
skill and without aid from the doctors, she "was not feazed," as her
husband quaintly said, "by the case." She simply put Dainty to bed, and
while she was getting breakfast, brewed a decoction of herbs, which she
said would do her a world of good.
Meanwhile, she gladdened the drummer's heart by a delicious breakfast of
broiled mountain trout, country ham, fresh butter, sweet corn pone, and
strong coffee with thick cream, and he presently went on his way
rejoicing after his night in the camp, and expressing the hope that the
lovely stranger would soon be well again and restored to her friends.
But those cordial hopes did not seem likely of fulfilment soon, for
Dainty continued quite ill for weeks in the lonely logging camp; and, to
the surprise of the loggers, none of her friends came in search of her,
and no inquiry was made for a missing sick girl.
In the stupor of her fever, she continued for weeks to be unconscious of
her surroundings, and the busy, stolid family, who cared for her, did
not think it their business to seek out her friends. They simply
accepted the duty of caring for her as Heaven-sent, and left the rest
to a gracious Providence.
As for Mrs. Ellsworth, she was struck with consternation when no dead
body was found the next morning where Sheila had placed it beneath the
tree; but on viewing the swollen, brawling stream, she concluded that it
must have swept Dainty's corpse away during the storm, and she lived in
daily expectation of its discovery, and the great sensation it would
create in the neighborhood.
Thus the summer days passed away, bringing the bright cool September
weather, and still the waters did not give up their beautiful dead; but
no search was made for Dainty, though Lovelace Ellsworth had astonished
his doctors and disappointed his step-mother by clinging to life in
spite of his grievous hurt, and was now on the road to recovery, so that
the trial of Vernon Ashley for his attempted murder soon took place, and
the prisoner received sentence of a term of years in the penitentiary.
Olive and Ela were now domesticated at Ellsworth as the acknowledged
heiresses of their aunt, who, by the failure of her step-son to marry on
his twenty-sixth birthday, now claimed to be the mistress of his wealth,
and took credit to herself for her charitable spirit in caring for the
unhappy invalid, who was now fast regaining health and strength.
As for Mrs. Chase, she had been virtually driven from Ellsworth by the
caprices of the two proud, heartless girls who had received so much
kindness at her hands in the days when they were poor school-teachers in
Richmond.
Olive and Ela, who had so vigorously persecuted Dainty, with the able
assistance of their aunt, rejoiced without stint when they learned that
their machinations had driven their envied cousin to a premature death;
and they regretted that the young girl's body had been swept away by the
high waters, longing for her death to be made public, that they might
exult in secret over the poor mother's woe.
So bitterly had they hated and envied Dainty that it extended to her
gentle mother, and even the sight of her pale, sorrowful face, as she
moved unobtrusively about the place, giving the most motherly care to
Love in his affliction, goaded them to futile rage, until in the malice
of their natures they decided that she should no longer remain at
Ellsworth.
To further their purpose, they made secret complaints to their aunt that
Mrs. Chase was maligning them behind their backs to the servants, and
ridiculing them as "beggars on horseback," who had forgotten their
former poverty and toil in the sudden accession of riches.
No doubt Mrs. Ellsworth was glad of a pretext for ridding herself of one
whose sweet, sad face must have been a constant silent reproach to her
for driving her loved daughter to death; for she hastened to assail the
astonished creature with reproaches, dismissing her denials with
incredulous scorn, and declaring that under the circumstances the roof
of Ellsworth could no longer be her shelter.
"I will go this evening, madame," her sister-in-law answered with gentle
pride, her pale face flushing as she added: "I should not have
trespassed so long on your hospitality but I thought I was making myself
useful by nursing Mr. Ellsworth."
"There is a trained nurse," Mrs. Ellsworth said, loftily.
"Yes; but she has been both careless and incompetent."
"I shall dismiss her to-morrow. He will only need his man Franklin now,"
Mrs. Ellsworth returned; and they parted with cold bows on either side,
the heartless woman to return to her nieces with the news of Mrs.
Chase's banishment, and the latter to take a sorrowful leave of Lovelace
Ellsworth, and pack her trunk and Dainty's for immediate departure.
The hot tears that fell on each dainty piece of clothing as she packed
it away only the angels knew, for the mother's heart was breaking over
the loss of her child.
She could not bring herself to believe that Dainty had fled with another
man, for having accidentally made the acquaintance of the old black
mammy, she had been favored with a thrilling narration of all that her
daughter had suffered from the persecution of ghosts and the attempt at
kidnapping.
It was a terrible shock to the mother's heart, and after that she could
not believe that Dainty had eloped. She was sure that the girl had been
stolen away, and perhaps murdered.
Oh, the curse of poverty! How it goaded the poor mother's heart!
Too poor to spend a penny in search of the beloved only child who had
met such a mysterious fate, alone in the world, and almost friendless,
she journeyed sorrowfully back to Richmond, only to find that a fire on
the previous night had destroyed the cottage where her furniture was
stored, and that she had no shelter for her head and no work for her
hands. Was it any wonder her poor brain went wild?
CHAPTER XXVII.
IT SEEMED LIKE SOME BEAUTIFUL DREAM WHEN SHE
ENTERED THE GATES IN THE CHILLY SUNSET OF A
WINDY OCTOBER DAY.
"Thank Heaven! the crisis,
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last--
The fever called 'Living'
Is conquered at last!"
The day came, late in September, when the autumn leaves were turning red
and gold, that Dainty Chase opened wide her startled blue eyes upon the
world again.
She had closed them consciously over six weeks ago in the gloomy dungeon
beneath Ellsworth Castle, when, pressing to her desperate lips the
bitter draught of death, she had bidden the cruel world farewell.
In the long weeks of illness and delirium that followed, many things had
come and gone without her knowledge; and now, when consciousness
returned again; there was a dazed look in the beautiful pansy-blue eyes
that stared wide and dark out of her wan and wasted face, with the blue
veins wandering plainly beneath the transparent skin.
"Where am I?" she gasped, faintly, putting her weak little hands up to
her head, and wondering in a bewildered way what made her hair feel so
thin and short and curly, like that of a year-old infant.
The fact was, that Sairy Ann Peters had been compelled to cut off all
of Dainty's golden tresses to stay the progress of the devastating
fever, and she had anticipated with womanly grief the sadness of the
hour when the girl should realize her cruel loss.
She came quickly to the bedside and took the little trembling hands in
her toil-hardened but motherly ones, and said, tenderly:
"So you've come to yourself at last, dearie, and beginning to worrit the
fust thing because all your beautiful long curly hair is cut off! But
never mind, chile; it will grow again as pretty as ever all over in
shiny leetle rings like a babby's; and I was jest obleeged to crop it
off to save your sweet life, you had the fever so miserable bad."
"Where am I?" Dainty repeated, in amazement, her gaze lingering
confidently on the homely but gentle face before her and receiving in
return the smiling reply:
"Where you are is soon told, honey; you're in a logging-camp, where my
husband and nine grown sons are running a saw-mill till the first of
October, way up in the mountings, where we hain't seen but two faces
besides our own sence we come here the first day of April. It's 'bout
six weeks sence my husband found you at day-break, lying sick and raving
on the bank of the trout stream where he was fishing for our breakfast,
and brought you home with him. I gin you my best bed, and been nussin'
you all this while like you was my own darter, which I never had one,