Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time

"Someone must have come in and gone out again, for I was awakened by the closing of the door, and I thought at first it must have been you. Doubtless it was only a servant. It does not matter. But, Edith, has anything happened? You look pale and strange."

She threw herself down into a chair, and her unnatural calm gave way to a flood of tears.

Mr. Chesleigh was shocked and distressed. He bent over her and entreated her to tell him the cause of her grief.

Checking her tears by a great effort of will, Mrs. Desmond told him all that had passed.

"I will never live with Mr. Desmond again," she said, passionately, when she had finished her story. "Ever since we married he has outraged my love and my pride by his glaring flirtations, but this last affair is too grievous and shameful to be tamely endured. I hate him for his falsehood and infidelity, and I will never live with him again!"

"Edith, think of the scandal, the notoriety, if you leave your husband," he remonstrated.

"I do not care," she replied, her dark eyes blazing with wrath and defiance; "let them say what they will; I will not tamely endure such a cruel insult! You must make some arrangement for me, Bertie, for I will never, never live with Mr. Desmond again!"

And Bertram Chesleigh, with his heart on fire at his beloved sister's wrongs and his brain puzzled over the best way to right them, little dreamed that his own weakness and wrong-doing had been the sole cause of her sorrow. His fiery indignation was spent upon his brother-in-law when it should have been bestowed upon himself.

CHAPTER XXXI

"I will not go in to bid little Ruby farewell," Golden said to herself sadly, as she left the room of Bertram Chesleigh. "The little one loves me and I could not bear her grief at parting with me. I will slip into the next room without her knowledge, get my hat and jacket, and go away quietly. When I am gone, perhaps Mrs. Desmond may become reconciled to her husband."

She did not dream that the proud woman's anger and resentment against her husband would carry her to the length of a separation with him.

She donned her hat and jacket, and tied her few articles of clothing into a compact bundle. Taking them in her hand, she stole noiselessly out, and made her way to the lower portico of the great hotel.

She paused there, a little dismayed, and looked out at the black and starless night with the chill September drizzle falling ceaselessly. She would be obliged to walk two miles through the storm to take the midnight train for New York.

It would have been perfectly easy to have hired a conveyance but she had only nine dollars left in her purse after discharging her debt to Mrs. Markham, and not knowing how much her fare to the city might be, she was afraid to waste a penny in hack hire.

She decided that she must walk, so, unfurling her small sun-umbrella as some slight protection against the beating rain, she plunged with a shiver into the wet and darkness of the untoward night.

She groped along wearily in the dreary road, scarcely conscious of her physical discomfort and peril in the agonizing pain and humiliation that ached at her heart. She had been driven forth under the ban of cruel shame and disgrace.

Bertram Chesleigh would hear the story of Ruby's wicked, deceitful nurse, and would hate her memory, little thinking that it was his own wretched wife, and that she had borne Mrs. Desmond's angry charge without defending herself, and all for his sake, because he was too proud to acknowledge her claim on him.

The weary walk was accomplished at last, and Golden waited several hours in her wet and draggled garments in the fireless room at the station for the train that was to take her to New York.

It came at last, and in a few more miserable hours she was safe in the city. She found, after paying her fare, that she had enough left to pay for a bed and breakfast at a hotel, and gladly availed herself of the privilege.

Wretched and impatient as she felt, her overstrained mind yielded to the physical weakness that was stealing over her, and she slept soundly for several hours. Rising, refreshed and strengthened, she made a substantial breakfast and sallied for No. – Park Avenue. She hardly knew what she would do when she arrived there, but the conviction was strong upon her that she must go.

She had no difficulty in finding the number. The house was large and elegant, with a flight of brown stone steps in front. Golden climbed them a little timidly, and rang the bell.

The servant in waiting stared at her cheap attire a little superciliously as he opened the door, but when she inquired if Mrs. Leith were at home his aspect changed.

"Oh, you are come in answer to the advertisement for a maid," he said. "Yes, my mistress is at home, and she will see you at once. Come this way."

Golden followed him in silence to the lady's dressing-room. The thought came to her that this would be an admirable pretext for making the acquaintance of the Leiths, so she did not deny that she was seeking a situation.

A beautiful, golden-haired lady opened the door at her timid knock. The girl's heart gave a great, muffled throb.

"My mother," she thought.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Mrs. Leith, this is a young woman who has answered the advertisement for a maid," said the man, respectfully, as he turned away.

The beautiful lady nodded Golden to a seat, and looked at her with careless condescension.

"What is your name?" she inquired.

"Mary Smith," answered the girl in a low, fluttering voice.

"Have you any recommendations?"

"Not as a maid, as the occupation is new to me. I have been a nurse heretofore, but if you will try me I will do my best to please you," said Golden, anxiously.

"I am very hard to please," said Mrs. Leith.

She did not tell Golden that she was so very hard to please that no one could suit her, leaving her to find that out for herself, as she would be sure to do if she remained.

There was a moment's silence, and Golden gravely regarded Mrs. Leith. She was petite and graceful in form, with large, blue eyes, waving masses of golden hair, and beautifully-moulded features. She was barely thirty years old in appearance, and was richly and becomingly attired.

Yet Golden shivered and trembled as she regarded the fair, smiling beauty. How could she look so bright and careless with the brand of deadly sin upon her? There was neither sorrow nor repentance on the smiling, debonair face.

"And this is my mother," Golden thought to herself, with a strange heaviness at her heart. "She seems utterly indifferent at her wickedness. Ah, she little dreams that the poor babe that she deserted so heartlessly is sitting before her now."

Mrs. Leith's light, careless voice jarred suddenly on her mournful mood.

"Well, I will try you, Mary, for I need a maid. My last one was so incapable I had to discharge her. You may do my hair for me now. I am going to drive in the park with Mr. Leith, if his troublesome clients do not detain him. My husband is a lawyer, Mary, and his time is almost wholly engrossed by his business."

"Her husband," Golden repeated to herself, as she wound the shining tresses into braids. "So they keep up that farce before the world. Poor mother! how she must love my father to remain with him on such humiliating terms. Is she really happy, or does she only wear a mask?"

But there was no apparent sorrow or remorse on the complacent face of the lady as she gave her orders and directions to the new maid.

The uppermost thought in her mind was how to make the most of her beauty.

Golden had to arrange her hair twice before she was suited, and she tried several dresses in turn before she decided on one. She was inordinately vain and fond of finery, and Golden thought pitifully to herself:

"Her beauty is the only hold she has on my father, and she is compelled to make its preservation the sole aim of her life."

She wondered a little that no yearning throb had stirred her heart at the sight of her beautiful mother, but she told herself that it was simply because her mother's sin had wholly alienated the natural affection of her purer-hearted daughter.

She pitied her with a great, yearning pity, but no impulse prompted her to kiss the dewy, crimson lips, she had no temptation to pillow her head on the fair bosom that had denied its shelter and sustenance to her helpless infancy.

Mrs. Leith did not look as if she would have made a tender mother.

"Have you any children, madam?" she asked, suddenly, and Mrs. Leith answered:

"No," rather shortly, but added a minute later: "And I am glad of it, for I do not love children. But Mr. Leith does, and is rather sorry that we have none."