Chapter XXVI

As Golden had feared, little Ruby's day and night of excitement proved too much for her. She was unable to rise from her bed the next morning, being prostrated by one of her nervous headaches.

To add to her ill-feeling, damp, rainy weather set in during the night, spoiling all the pleasant plans of the newly-arrived party for the day.

Golden darkened the room, lighted a fire on the hearth, and carefully tended the little patient who dozed fitfully until mid-day, when she awakened and declared herself better.

"Has no one been in to see me, Mary?" she inquired, and Golden answered:

"Yes, your mamma came to the door while you were sleeping, but went away again, saying that she would not disturb your rest."

"You may go and tell her to come now, Mary."

"I think she is with your uncle just now, dear. Cannot you wait a little while?" said Golden. "She said she would go to him a little while, as you were asleep.

"No, I cannot wait," replied Ruby fretfully. "Tell mamma to bring Uncle Bert with her."

"If you have too much company your head will ache again, Ruby."

"No, it will not. It is ever so much better. Why don't you do as I ask you, Mary?" cried the spoiled child.

Golden went out without any further objection. She asked Celine, whom she met in the hall, to deliver Ruby's message to her mother and her uncle.

Celine looked into the sick-room a minute later to say that they were engaged just at present, but would come in about fifteen minutes.

"Oh, dear," fretted the ailing little one, "that is a long time to wait. Give me my dolls, Mary. I'll try to amuse myself with them."

Golden brought the miscellaneous family of dolls and ranged them around Ruby on the bed, chatting pleasantly to her the while in the hope of lessening the weariness of waiting.

"You must keep your promise and let me go out when they come," she said, presently, feeling that she was growing so nervous she could not possibly remain in the same room with Bertram Chesleigh.

"Very well; you may go into the next room," replied the child.

"You may leave the door just a little ajar that I may call you when I want you."

"I hope you will not want me until they are gone out again," replied Golden.

When the expected rap came on the door, the girl opened it with a trembling hand. She did not look up as Mrs. Desmond and her brother entered, but softly closing the door after them, glided precipitately from the room.

Bertram Chesleigh saw the little, retreating figure in the huge cap and gray gown, and laughed as he kissed his little niece.

"I suppose that was Mary Smith, the prodigy?" he said.

"Yes, and you must not laugh at her," said Ruby, a little resentfully. "She is very good and sweet, and I love her dearly."

There was an element of teasing in Bertram Chesleigh's nature, and Ruby's words roused it into activity.

"She looked very prim and starched," he observed. "She must be an old maid--is she not, Ruby?"

He expected that the little girl would grow indignant at this comment on her favorite, but instead of this she puckered her little brows thoughtfully.

"I don't quite know what you mean by an old maid," she replied.

"You are caught in the trap, Bert. You will have to define yourself," said Mrs. Desmond, laughingly.

"I don't know whether I can," he replied as gayly. "But I think, Ruby, that an old maid is a person who--who doesn't like men, and grows old and never marries."

"Then my nurse is an old maid. You guessed right, Uncle Bert," said the child, with perfect soberness.

"Why do you think so, my dear?" inquired her mother, very much amused at the child's notion.

"Because I know it, mamma. Mary Smith hates men. She told me she did. She does not like to be where men are. That is why she went out just now. She says she will always stay out of the room when Uncle Bert is with me."

"That is very sensible indeed in Mary," said Mrs. Desmond, with decided approval, while Bertram Chesleigh only laughed and said that men were not ogres, and he would not have eaten Miss Smith even if she had remained in the room.

Meanwhile Golden had retreated to the sitting-room, leaving the door ajar as Ruby had bidden her.

Every word of the conversation which had so strangely turned upon herself was distinctly audible.

She listened in fear and trembling to Ruby's disclosures regarding her antipathy to men, dreading to hear some further revelation that would draw suspicion upon her, but the child had no idea of imparting anything she had promised to keep a secret, and the conversation gradually turned upon indifferent subjects, so that Golden, whose heart was beating wildly at the sound of her lover's voice, ventured at last on a sly peep at him through the open door.

The breath came thick and fast over the sweet parted lips as she gazed--hardly as he had used her, the ineffable love and pity of a woman's heart came up to the beautiful blue eyes, and shone out upon the unconscious ingrate who dreamed not whose eyes were yearning over him with all the pain and pathos of a loving, yet outraged heart.

"Oh, how pale and ill he looks," cried the poor child to herself. "He looks sad and altered, too. He has suffered almost as much as I have. Was it that which made him ill, I wonder? After all, he loved me dearly. But if he had overlooked the shame of my birth and brought me here, his sister would have scorned me. Ought I to blame him so very, very much?"

As she asked herself the piteous question, the memory of some words rose into her mind--solemn words not to be lightly forgotten.

"Will you, forsaking all others, cleave only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

By the light of those words, Golden answered her own question. With a tearless sob she turned her eyes away from the too dear face of the false one.

But though she would not look at him, she could not help hearing his voice as he answered little Ruby's voluble chatter.

Presently the child showed him her great, wax doll, and when he had admired it sufficiently to please her, she said with an air of mystery:

"You could not guess dollie's name if you tried all day, Uncle Bertie."

"It is something high-flown, no doubt," he laughed. "It is Queen Victoria, or Princess Louise, or something like that."

"You are quite wrong," she replied, with sparkling eyes.

"Am I? Well, I have it now. You have called her Mary Smith, after your old-maid nurse."

"No, I have not," said the little one, merrily. "I have called her Golden--Golden Chesleigh."

In the next breath she added, quickly:

"Oh, Uncle Bert, what made you start just as if someone had shot you?"

"Did I start?" he inquired. "It must have been because I am very nervous since my illness. Well, and what did you say your elegant doll was named?"

"Did you not understand me before? It is Golden Chesleigh--Chesleigh after you, Uncle Bert. Is it not a pretty name?"

"Very!" he rejoined, pale to the lips. "Did you think of it yourself, Ruby?"

"Not at all; I asked Mary for a name, and she said Golden. Then I added Chesleigh."

Some curiosity came over him to see the good nurse who loved Ruby and was kind to her, but who hated men, and who had chosen for the pretty wax doll, the sweet and unusual name of Golden.

* * * * *

There came a light tap on the outer door. Mrs. Desmond rose to open it. Golden peeped again and saw her cousin Elinor coming in.

"May I come in and see the invalid?" she asked, brightly, and Bertram Chesleigh answered:

"Yes, do, Miss Glenalvan. Ruby is better and is holding a levee of her humble subjects."

Elinor kissed the child and sat down as near as she dared to Mr. Chesleigh.

She looked very bright and blooming, and her dress was as usual fashionable and becoming.

Golden could see that Mrs. Desmond regarded her with a real fondness. Elinor had found out the lady's weakness and played upon it skillfully.

She saw that she was jealous of her husband, and immediately affected an indifference to, and an utter obliviousness of the fascinations of the handsome Mr. Desmond, that delighted his wife and drew her heart to Elinor.

Clare, on the contrary, had an uncontrollable propensity for flirting, and took a malicious pleasure in witnessing the grand lady's silent rage at her walks and talks, and careless enjoyment of her flippant husband's society.

The result was that Elinor received a charmingly worded invitation to return to the north with Mrs. Desmond, while Clare was silently and chillingly ignored.

She was bitterly angry at missing the trip, and sorely repented her weakness, but too late for the repentance to avail, while Elinor was transported with delight.

Surely, she thought, a whole winter in New York, with beautiful Golden out of the way, would be sufficient for the accomplishment of her designs upon Bertram Chesleigh's heart.

Sweet Golden read her cousin's purpose plainly in the tender glances she gave Mr. Chesleigh now and then, from beneath her black-fringed lashes, and the heart of the innocent girl sank heavily.

"She will win him from me," she said, drearily to herself. "Elinor is so beautiful, and graceful, and brilliant, it is a wonder that he ever liked me better than he did her. It was but a light fancy after all, perhaps. He will forget it and turn to her."

The thought gave her inexpressible pain.

She sank upon the floor and hid her face in her hands, weeping silent and bitter tears while the hum of gay talk and laughter flowed on unheeded in the next room.

So it is ever in the busy, jostling world. Sorrow and joy go side by side.

The bridal train meets the funeral procession. Life is mingled sunshine and shadow.

Ah, if Bertram Chesleigh could only have known what true and faithful little heart was breaking so near him.

After awhile the brightness died from Ruby's eyes, the little face looked tired and wan. She said, almost petulantly:

"Now I shall send you all away. Miss Glenalvan laughs so much she makes my head ache."

"Fie, my darling," cried her mother.

"It is the truth, mamma," cried the willful little girl. "I want you all to go now and Mary shall bathe my head until I get better."

"Who is Mary? I feel quite jealous of her," said Elinor, sweetly, but inwardly raging at the spoiled child's "whims" as she termed them to herself.

"Mary is my nurse," said the child, and her uncle laughingly added:

"A person with antipathy to me, Miss Glenalvan. You should cultivate her. She must be a _rara avis_."

"Do you suppose that all women admire your sex, sir?" retorted the young lady, spiritedly, and they left the room exchanging lively _badinage_, while Mrs. Desmond looked inside the other door for Golden.

She saw her sitting quietly, her sweet face bent over some sewing, no trace apparent of the heartache she was silently enduring.

"Mary, you may come to your charge now," she said with so much more than her usual kindness of tone that Golden's delicate lip quivered. Mrs. Desmond had been pleased to hear that Ruby's beautiful nurse disliked men and was not willing to remain in the room with one.

She laid aside her sewing and went in to Ruby. Mrs. Desmond bent to kiss her pet, and said, fondly:

"Shall I stay and bathe your head, love?"

"No, mamma, I would rather have Mary," she replied.

"I shall be jealous of Mary. You are so fond of her," the mother rejoined as she left the room.

Golden put the dolls away and bathed the brow of the little sufferer until she fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

Then she sat near the window and watched the gloomy September rain pattering drearily down, and the white mist rising from the sea.

The door opened and Celine came in softly, and sat down.

"I want to talk to you a little, Mary," she said, in her low voice. "Shall I disturb the child?"

"Not if you talk softly," replied Golden, hoping that Celine would tell her something about Glenalvan Hall.

She was not disappointed, for the maid said at once:

"I want to tell you about a queer old black woman I saw at that place where Mr. Chesleigh was ill--Glenalvan Hall," watching her narrowly.

Golden started and looked up eagerly.

"Yes, tell me about her, Celine," she said, with repressed excitement.

"Well, to begin with," said Celine, "she was a most ridiculous-looking old creature, full of grumblings and complaints. This old creature when she found I was from New York, came to me secretly, and asked me the oddest question."

Golden, chancing to look up at that moment, met Celine's eyes fixed upon her with such a strange expression that her heart gave a frightened bound. It was evident that the maid had some suspicions of her.

She forced a calmness she did not feel, and replied carelessly:

"The blacks, you know, Celine, are very ignorant. Their questions appear quite ridiculous sometimes to intelligent and well-informed people."