Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time. Alex. McVeigh MillerЧитать онлайн книгу.
vigilance. She could not remain with her all day, because her housekeeping duties took her constantly into the lower part of the house, but she visited her intermittently, and at night rolled herself in a thick counterpane and slept on the floor by the side of Golden's couch.
She took the added precaution to turn the rusty key in the lock at night.
Old Dinah had never heard the familiar adage that "love laughs at locksmiths."
She was ordinarily a very sound and healthy sleeper. The mere accident of a rheumatic attack, and consequent sleeplessness, had caused her appearance the night Mr. Chesleigh had entered the room.
Usually she might have been lifted, counterpane and all, and carried away bodily without being aware of it.
Nearly two weeks after the night of her rencontre with Mr. Chesleigh, old Dinah awoke suddenly "in the dead waste and middle of the night," seized in the relentless grip of her old enemy, the rheumatism.
She rolled herself out of her quilt and sat upright, groaning dolorously, and rubbing her knees in which the pain had settled.
"Oh, Lordy! oh, Lordy!" she groaned, "how my ole bones does ache! Miss Golden! Miss Golden! my precious lam', wake up, and bid your ole brack mammy a las' far'well. I'm a-dyin', sartin, shuah!"
But Golden, usually a very light sleeper, made no reply. Dinah reared her woolly head upward and looked into the bed.
The bed was empty.
Then Dinah looked around her in amazement to see if Golden was not in the room, laughing at her lugubrious groans as she had often done before. But she saw no trace of her young mistress.
"Miss Golden! Miss Golden!" she called, "is you in de udder room? Ef you is, come in here! I'se berry sick, honey, almos' a-dyin'."
But her repeated calls elicited no reply. It appeared that pretty Golden was out of sight and hearing.
Suddenly old Dinah saw the dainty, white, ruffled night-dress, in which Golden had retired that night, lying in a snowy heap upon the floor.
Dinah seized upon the garment and shook it vigorously, as if she expected to see the slight form of her young mistress drop from its folds to the floor.
"Um—me-e-e," she groaned, "has de sperets carried de chile off?"
She glanced up at the row of pegs where she had hung Golden's few articles of apparel. Her best dress—a dark-blue cashmere—was gone, also her hat and a summer jacket.
"She hab runned away from us," old Dinah exclaimed, with almost a howl of despair.
The thought inspired her with such grief and terror that she forgot her ailment entirely. She hobbled out from the room and made her way down stairs to her master's apartment and burst into his presence—a ludicrous object indeed in her striped cotton bed-gown.
Old Hugh Glenalvan, late as it was, had not retired to bed. Wrapped in an old wadded dressing-gown he sat in an easy-chair before an old, carved oaken cabinet.
One quaint little drawer was open, and the white-haired old man was poring over some simple treasures he had taken from it—simple treasures, yet dearer to his heart than gold or precious stones—a few old photographs, an old-fashioned ambrotype in an ebony case, a thin, gold ring and some locks of hair.
Upon this sad and touching picture of memory and tenderness old Dinah's grotesque figure broke startlingly.
"Ole massa! ole massa!" she cried, wildly, "has you seen little missie? Is she here with you?"
The old man swept his treasures off his knees into the quaint cabinet and looked at his old servant in amazement.
"Dinah, what does this startling intrusion mean?" he inquired, pushing his spectacles off his brow and regarding her with a mild frown.
"Little Golden is missing. She hab runned away from us, ole massa!" shouted Dinah, desperately.
"Dinah, you must be crazy," repeated Mr. Glenalvan, blankly.
"It's de Lard's truth, ole massa. She hab done followed in her mudder's footsteps! Dat han'some man ober at John Glenalvan's has been and gone and 'ticed our Golden from us," wailed the old negress, in despair.
CHAPTER IX
It was not long before Mr. Glenalvan had heard the whole of Golden's simple love-story from his servant. They were filled with horror and grief at its too probable termination.
"Dinah, it may be that she has stolen out into the grounds for a walk in the fresh air. She was growing very restless with the close, indoor confinement. Have you thought of that?" he said, hoping feebly against hope.
"Shall I go out and look for her, den, ole massa?" said Dinah, in a tone that plainly betrayed her hopelessness.
"Let us both go," said old Hugh.
They sallied forth anxiously into the brilliant moonlight that lay in silvery brightness all over the sweet, southern landscape—old Hugh, bareheaded, in his tattered dressing-gown, old Dinah in her short night-dress, too ridiculous a figure for anyone to contemplate without inward mirth.
It so happened that Elinor, whom the hard exigencies of poverty compelled to be her own dressmaker, had sat up late that night to complete some alterations in a dress in which she had intended to array her fair self for the morrow.
Having stitched on the last bit of lace, she went to the window and leaned out to cool her heated brow.
"My head aches, and I am almost melted with sewing by that hot lamp," she said to herself, fretfully. "How I hate this poverty that grinds one down so! When once I am married to Bertram Chesleigh I will never touch a needle again! I will order all my dresses of Worth, of Paris. And I will marry Bertram Chesleigh! I swear it; and woe be to anyone that tries to prevent me!"
Her dark eyes flashed luridly a moment, and her white hand was angrily clenched.
She was thinking of Clare, who had persisted in rivaling her with Mr. Chesleigh.
At that moment the subdued murmur of voices floated up to her window from the lawn.
She glanced down quickly, and saw old Dinah and her master crossing the lawn, their grotesque shadows flying long and dark before them in the brilliant moonlight.
Quick as thought Elinor was out of her seat, and gliding softly through the door in quest of her father.
Before old Glenalvan and his servant had crossed the lawn, two dark figures stole forth from the hall and silently followed them.
On the green border of the silver lake two figures were standing in the beautiful moonlight. One was a man, tall, dark, splendid, with a princely beauty.
His arm was thrown protectingly about a slender form that clung lovingly to his side.
It was Golden Glenalvan, dressed in a dark suit and light cloth jacket, a neat, little walking-hat, set jauntily on her streaming, golden curls.
Her blue eyes were lifted tenderly, and yet anxiously to her lover's face.
"Oh, Bert," she said, giving him the tender name by which he had taught her to call him, "you must indeed let me go now. We have been saying good-bye at least a half an hour."
"Parting is such a sweet pain," said the lover, bending to kiss the tempting, up-turned lips. "Give me just one more minute, my darling."
"But I have been out so long," she objected, faintly. "What if black mammy should awake and find me gone?"
"There is not the slightest danger," said Bertram Chesleigh carelessly. "The old woman sleeps so soundly that a thunder-clap would scarcely wake her."
But just at that moment of his fancied security, old Dinah, in Golden's deserted chamber, was vigorously shaking her empty night-dress in a dazed attempt to evolve from its snowy folds the strangely missing girl.
Golden smiled, then sighed faintly. He kissed her lips before the sigh had fairly breathed over them.
"If you must indeed go, my darling," he said to her in a low voice, freighted with passionate tenderness, "tell me once again, my little