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CHAPTER I
A warm day in the southern part of West Virginia was fast drawing to a close; the heat during the day had been almost intolerable under the rays of the piercing sun, and the night was coming on in sullen sultriness. No breath of cooling air stirred the leafy branches of the trees; the stillness was broken only by the chirping of the crickets, and the fire-flies twinkled for a moment, and were then lost to sight in the long grasses.
On one of the most prosperous plantations in that section of the country there was a great stir of excitement; the master, Basil Hurlhurst, was momentarily expected home with his bride. The negroes in their best attire were scattered in anxious groups here and there, watching eagerly for the first approach of their master’s carriage on the white pebbled road.
The curtains of Whitestone Hall were looped back, and a cheerful flood of light shone out on the waving cotton fields that stretched out as far as the eye could reach, like a field of snow. The last touches had been given to the pillars of roses that filled every available nook and corner, making the summer air redolent with their odorous perfumes. Mrs. Corliss, who had maintained the position of housekeeper for a score of years or more, stood at the window twisting the telegram she held in her hand with ill-concealed impatience. The announcement of this home-coming had been as unexpected as the news of his marriage had been quite a year before.
“Let there be no guests assembled–my reasons will be made apparent to you later on,” so read the telegram, which puzzled the housekeeper more than she cared to admit to the inquisitive maid, who stood near her, curiously watching her thoughtful face.
“’Pears to me it will rain afore they get here, Hagar,” she said, nervously, and, as if in confirmation of her words, a few rain-drops splashed against the window-pane.
Both stood gazing intently out into the darkness. The storm had now commenced in earnest. The great trees bent to and fro like reeds before the wind; the lightning flashed, and the terrific crash of roaring thunder mingled with the torrent of rain that beat furiously against the casement. It seemed as if the very flood-gates of heaven were flung open wide on this memorable night of the master’s return.
“It is a fearful night. Ah! happy is the bride upon whose home-coming the sunlight falls,” muttered Mrs. Corliss under her breath.
Hagar had caught the low-spoken words, and in a voice that sounded strange and weird like a warning, she answered:
“Yes, and unhappy is the bride upon whose home-coming rain-drops fall.”
How little they knew, as they stood there, of the terrible tragedy–the cruelest ever enacted–those grim, silent walls of Whitestone Hall were soon to witness, in fulfillment of the strange prophecy. Hagar, the maid, had scarcely ceased speaking ere the door was flung violently open, and a child of some five summers rushed into the room, her face livid with passion, and her dark, gleaming eyes shining like baneful stars, before which the two women involuntarily quailed.
“What is this I hear?” she cried, with wild energy, glancing fiercely from the one to the other. “Is it true what they tell me–my father is bringing home his bride?”
“Pluma, my child,” remonstrated Mrs. Corliss, feebly, “I–”
“Don’t Pluma me!” retorted the child, clutching the deep crimson passion-roses from a vase at her side, and trampling them ruthlessly beneath her feet. “Answer me at once, I say–has he dared do it?”
“P-l-u-m-a!” Mrs. Corliss advances toward her, but the child turns her darkly beautiful, willful face toward her with an imperious gesture.
“Do not come a step nearer,” cried the child, bitterly, “or I shall fling myself from the window down on to the rocks below. I shall never welcome my father’s wife here; and mark me, both of you, I hate her!” she cried, vehemently. “She shall rue the day that she was born!”
Mrs. Corliss knew but too well the child would keep her word. No power, save God, could stay the turbulent current of the ungovernable self-will which would drag her on to her doom. No human being could hold in subjection the fierce, untamed will of the beautiful, youthful tyrant.
There had been strange rumors of the unhappiness of Basil Hurlhurst’s former marriage. No one remembered having seen her but once, quite five years before. A beautiful woman with a little babe had suddenly appeared at Whitestone Hall, announcing herself as Basil Hurlhurst’s wife. There had been a fierce, stormy interview, and on that very night Basil Hurlhurst took his wife and child abroad; those who had once seen the dark, glorious, scornful beauty of the woman’s face never forgot it. Two years later the master had returned alone with the little child, heavily draped in widower’s weeds.
The master of Whitestone Hall was young; those who knew his story were not surprised that he should marry–he could not go through life alone; still they felt a nameless pity for the young wife who was to be brought to the home in which dwelt the child of his former wife.
There would be bitter war to the end between them. No one could tell on which side the scales of mercy and justice would be balanced.
At that instant, through the raging of the fierce elements, the sound of carriage wheels smote upon their ears as the vehicle dashed rapidly up the long avenue to the porch; while, in another instant, the young master, half carrying the slight, delicate figure that clung timidly to his arm, hurriedly entered the spacious parlor. There was a short consultation with the housekeeper, and Basil Hurlhurst, tenderly lifting the slight burden in his strong, powerful arms, quickly bore his wife to the beautiful apartments that had been prepared for her.
In the excitement of the moment Pluma was quite forgotten; for an instant only she glanced bitterly at the sweet, fair face resting against her father’s shoulder, framed in a mass of golden hair. The child clinched her small hands until she almost cried aloud with the intense pain, never once deigning a glance at her father’s face. In that one instant the evil seeds of a lifetime were sown strong as life and more bitter than death.
Turning hastily aside she sprung hurriedly down the long corridor, and out into the darkness and the storm, never stopping to gain breath until she had quite reached the huge ponderous gate that shut in the garden from the dense thicket that skirted the southern portion of the plantation. She laughed a hard, mocking laugh that sounded unnatural from such childish lips, as she saw a white hand hurriedly loop back the silken curtains of her father’s window, and saw him bend tenderly over the golden-haired figure in the arm-chair. Suddenly the sound of her own name fell upon her ear.
“Pluma,” whispered a low, cautious voice; and in the quick flashes of lightning she saw a white, haggard woman’s face pressed close against the grating, and two white hands were steadily forcing the rusty lock. There was no fear in the fiery, rebellious heart of the dauntless child.
“Go away, you miserable beggar-woman,” she cried, “or I shall set the hounds on you at once. Do you hear me, I say?”
“Who are you?” questioned the woman, in the same low, guarded voice.
The child threw her head back proudly, her voice rising shrilly above the wild warring of the elements, as she answered:
“Know, then, I am Pluma, the heiress of Whitestone Hall.”
The child formed a strange picture–her dark, wild face, so strangely like the mysterious woman’s own, standing vividly out against the crimson lightning flashes, her dark curls blown about the gypsy-like face, the red lips curling scornfully, her dark eyes gleaming.
“Pluma,” called the woman, softly, “come here.”
“How dare you, a beggar-woman, call me!” cried the child, furiously.
“Pluma–come–here–instantly!”
There was a subtle something in the stranger’s voice that throbbed through the child’s pulses like leaping fire–a strange, mysterious influence that bound her, heart and soul, like the mesmeric influence a serpent exerts over a fascinated dove. Slowly, hesitatingly, this child, whose fiery will had never bowed before human power, came timidly forward, step by step, close to the iron gate against which the woman’s face was pressed. She stretched out her hand, and it rested for a moment on the child’s dark curls.
“Pluma, the gate is locked,” she said. “Do you know where the keys are?”
“No,” answered the child.
“They used to hang behind the pantry door–a great bunch of them. Don’t they hang there now?”
“Ye–es.”
“I thought so,” muttered the woman, triumphantly. “Now, listen, Pluma; I want you to do exactly as I bid you. I want you to go quickly and quietly, and bring me the longest and thinnest one. You are not to breathe one word of this to any living soul. Do you understand, Pluma–I command you to do it.”
“Yes,” answered the child, dubiously.
“Stay!” she called, as the child was about to turn from her. “Why is the house lighted up to-night?”
Again the reckless spirit of the child flashed forth.
“My father has brought home his bride,” she said. “Don’t you see him bending over her, toward the third window yonder?”
The woman’s eyes quickly followed in the direction indicated.
Was it a curse the woman muttered as she watched the fair, golden-haired young girl-wife’s head resting against Basil Hurlhurst’s breast, his arms clasped lovingly about her?
“Go, Pluma!” she commanded, bitterly.
Quickly and cautiously the child sped on her fatal errand through the storm and the darkness. A moment later she had returned with the key which was to unlock a world of misery to so many lives.
“Promise me, Pluma, heiress of Whitestone Hall, never to tell what you have done or seen or heard to-night. You must never dare breathe it while you live. Say you will never tell, Pluma.”
“No,” cried the child, “I shall never tell. They might kill me, but I would never tell them.”
The next moment she was alone. Stunned and bewildered, she turned her face slowly toward the house. The storm did not abate in its fury; night-birds flapped their wings through the storm overhead; owls shrieked in the distance from the swaying tree-tops; yet the child walked slowly home, knowing no fear. In the house lights were moving to and fro, while servants, with bated breath and light footfalls, hurried through the long corridors toward her father’s room. No one seemed to notice Pluma, in her dripping robe, creeping slowly along by their side toward her own little chamber.
It was quite midnight when her father sent for her. Pluma suffered him to kiss her, giving back no answering caress.
“I have brought some one else to you, my darling,” he said. “See, Pluma–a new mamma! And see who else–a wee, dimpled little sister, with golden hair like mamma’s, and great blue eyes. Little Evalia is your sister, dear. Pluma must love her new mamma and sister for papa’s sake.”
The dark frown on the child’s face never relaxed, and, with an impatient gesture, her father ordered her taken at once from the room.
Suddenly the great bells of Whitestone Hall ceased pealing for the joyous birth of Basil Hurlhurst’s daughter, and bitter cries of a strong man in mortal anguish rent the air. No one had noticed how or when the sweet, golden-haired young wife had died. With a smile on her lips, she was dead, with her tiny little darling pressed close to her pulseless heart.
But sorrow even as pitiful as death but rarely travels singly. Dear Heaven! how could they tell the broken-hearted man, who wept in such agony beside the wife he had loved so well, of another mighty sorrow that had fallen upon him? Who was there that could break the news to him? The tiny, fair-haired infant had been stolen from their midst. They would have thanked God if it had been lying cold in death upon its mother’s bosom.
Slowly throughout the long night–that terrible night that was never to be forgotten–the solemn bells pealed forth from the turrets of Whitestone Hall, echoing in their sound: “Unhappy is the bride the rain falls on.” Most truly had been the fulfillment of the fearful prophecy!
“Merciful God!” cried Mrs. Corliss, “how shall I break the news to my master? The sweet little babe is gone!”
For answer Hagar bent quickly over her, and breathed a few words in her ear that caused her to cry out in horror and amaze.
“No one will ever know,” whispered Hagar; “it is the wisest course. The truth will lie buried in our own hearts, and die with us.”
Six weeks from the night his golden-haired wife had died Basil Hurlhurst awoke to consciousness from the ravages of brain-fever–awoke to a life not worth the living. Quickly Mrs. Corliss, the housekeeper, was sent for, who soon entered the room, leaning upon Hagar’s arm.
“My wife is–” He could not say more.
“Buried, sir, beneath yonder willow.”
“And the babe?” he cried, eagerly. “Dead,” answered Hagar, softly. “Both are buried in one grave.”
Basil Hurlhurst turned his face to the wall, with a bitter groan.
Heaven forgive them–the seeds of the bitterest of tragedies were irrevocably sown.
CHAPTER II
One bright May morning some sixteen years later, the golden sunshine was just putting forth its first crimson rays, lighting up the ivy-grown turrets of Whitestone Hall, and shining upon a little white cottage nestling in a bower of green leaves far to the right of it, where dwelt John Brooks, the overseer of the Hurlhurst plantation.
For sixteen years the grand old house had remained closed–the plantation being placed in charge of a careful overseer. Once again Whitestone Hall was thrown open to welcome the master, Basil Hurlhurst, who had returned from abroad, bringing with him his beautiful daughter and a party of friends.
The interior of the little cottage was astir with bustling activity.
It was five o’clock; the chimes had played the hour; the laborers were going to the fields, and the dairy-maids were beginning their work.
In the door-way of the cottage stood a tall, angular woman, shading her flushed and heated face from the sun’s rays with her hand.
“Daisy, Daisy!” she calls, in a harsh, rasping voice, “where are you, you good-for-nothing lazy girl? Come into the house directly, I say.” Her voice died away over the white stretches of waving cotton, but no Daisy came. “Here’s a pretty go,” she cried, turning into the room where her brother sat calmly finishing his morning meal, “a pretty go, indeed! I promised Miss Pluma those white mulls should be sent over to her the first thing in the morning. She will be in a towering rage, and no wonder, and like enough you’ll lose your place, John Brooks, and ’twill serve you right, too, for encouraging that lazy girl in her idleness.”
“Don’t be too hard on little Daisy, Septima,” answered John Brooks, timidly, reaching for his hat. “She will have the dresses at the Hall in good time, I’ll warrant.”
“Too hard, indeed; that’s just like you men; no feeling for your poor, overworked sister, so long as that girl has an easy life of it. It was a sorry day for me when your aunt Taiza died, leaving this girl to our care.”
A deep flush mantled John Brooks’ face, but he made no retort, while Septima energetically piled the white fluted laces in the huge basket–piled it full to the brim, until her arm ached with the weight of it–the basket which was to play such a fatal part in the truant Daisy’s life–the life which for sixteen short years had been so monotonous.
Over the corn-fields half hid by the clover came a young girl tripping lightly along. John Brooks paused in the path as he caught sight of her. “Poor, innocent little Daisy!” he muttered half under his breath, as he gazed at her quite unseen.
Transferred to canvas, it would have immortalized a painter. No wonder the man’s heart softened as he gazed. He saw a glitter of golden curls, and the scarlet gleam of a mantle–a young girl, tall and slender, with rounded, supple limbs, and a figure graceful in every line and curve–while her arms, bare to the elbow, would have charmed a sculptor. Cheek and lips were a glowing rosy red–while her eyes, of the deepest and darkest blue, were the merriest that ever gazed up to the summer sunshine.
Suddenly from over the trees there came the sound of the great bell at the Hall. Daisy stood quite still in alarm.
“It is five o’clock!” she cried. “What shall I do? Aunt Septima will be so angry with me; she promised Miss Pluma her white dresses should be at the Hall by five, and it is that already.”
Poor little Daisy! no wonder her heart throbbed painfully and the look of fear deepened in her blue eyes as she sped rapidly up the path that led to the little cottage where Septima grimly awaited her with flushed face and flashing eyes.
“So,” she said, harshly, “you are come at last, are you? and a pretty fright you have given me. You shall answer to Miss Pluma herself for this. I dare say you will never attempt to offend her a second time.”
“Indeed, Aunt Septima, I never dreamed it was so late,” cried conscious Daisy. “I was watching the sun rise over the cotton-fields, and watching the dewdrops glittering on the corn, thinking of the beautiful heiress of Whitestone Hall. I am so sorry I forgot about the dresses.”
Hastily catching up the heavy basket, she hurried quickly down the path, like a startled deer, to escape the volley of wrath the indignant spinster hurled after her.
It was a beautiful morning; no cloud was in the smiling heavens; the sun shone brightly, and the great oak and cedar-trees that skirted the roadside seemed to thrill with the song of birds. Butterflies spread their light wings and coquetted with the fragrant blossoms, and busy humming-bees buried themselves in the heart of the crimson wild rose. The basket was very heavy, and poor little Daisy’s hands ached with the weight of it.
“If I might but rest for a few moments only,” she said to herself, eying the cool, shady grass by the roadside. “Surely a moment or two will not matter. Oh, dear, I am so tired!”
She set the basket down on the cool, green grass, flinging herself beside it beneath the grateful shade of a blossoming magnolia-tree, resting her golden head against the basket of filmy laces that were to adorn the beautiful heiress of whom she had heard so much, yet never seen, and of whom every one felt in such awe.
She looked wistfully at the great mansion in the distance, thinking how differently her own life had been.
The soft, wooing breeze fanned her cheeks, tossing about her golden curls in wanton sport. It was so pleasant to sit there in the dreamy silence watching the white fleecy clouds, the birds, and the flowers, it was little wonder the swift-winged moments flew heedlessly by. Slowly the white lids drooped over the light-blue eyes, the long, golden lashes lay against the rosy cheeks, the ripe lips parted in a smile–all unheeded were the fluted laces–Daisy slept. Oh, cruel breeze–oh, fatal wooing breeze to have infolded hapless Daisy in your soft embrace!
Over the hills came the sound of baying hounds, followed by a quick, springy step through the crackling underbrush, as a young man in close-fitting velvet hunting-suit and jaunty velvet cap emerged from the thicket toward the main road.
As he parted the magnolia branches the hound sprang quickly forward at some object beneath the tree, with a low, hoarse growl.
“Down, Towser, down!” cried Rex Lyon, leaping lightly over some intervening brushwood. “What kind of game have we here? Whew!” he ejaculated, surprisedly; “a young girl, pretty as a picture, and, by the eternal, fast asleep, too!”
Still Daisy slept on, utterly unconscious of the handsome brown eyes that were regarding her so admiringly.
“I have often heard of fairies, but this is the first time I have ever caught one napping under the trees. I wonder who she is anyhow? Surely she can not be some drudging farmer’s daughter with a form and face like that?” he mused, suspiciously eying the basket of freshly laundered laces against which the flushed cheeks and waving golden hair rested.
Just then his ludicrous position struck him forcibly.
“Come, Towser,” he said, “it would never do for you and me to be caught staring at this pretty wood-nymph so rudely, if she should by chance awaken just now.”
Tightening the strap of his game-bag over his shoulder, and readjusting his velvet cap jauntily over his brown curls, Rex was about to resume his journey in the direction of Whitestone Hall, when the sound of rapidly approaching carriage-wheels fell upon his ears. Realizing his awkward position, Rex knew the wisest course he could possibly pursue would be to screen himself behind the magnolia branches until the vehicle should pass. The next instant a pair of prancing ponies, attached to a basket phaeton, in which sat a young girl, who held them well in check, dashed rapidly up the road. Rex could scarcely repress an exclamation of surprise as he saw the occupant was his young hostess, Pluma Hurlhurst of Whitestone Hall. She drew rein directly in front of the sleeping girl, and Rex Lyon never forgot, to his dying day, the discordant laugh that broke from her red lips–a laugh which caused poor Daisy to start from her slumber in wild alarm, scattering the snowy contents of the basket in all directions.
For a single instant their eyes met–these two girls, whose lives were to cross each other so strangely–poor Daisy, like a frightened bird, as she guessed intuitively at the identity of the other; Pluma, haughty, derisive, and scornfully mocking.
“You are the person whom Miss Brooks sent to Whitestone Hall with my mull dresses some three hours since, I presume. May I ask what detained you?”
Poor Daisy was quite crestfallen; great tear-drops trembled on her long lashes. How could she answer? She had fallen asleep, wooed by the lulling breeze and the sunshine.
“The basket was so heavy,” she answered, timidly, “and I–I–sat down to rest a few moments, and–”
“Further explanation is quite unnecessary,” retorted Pluma, sharply, gathering up the reins. “See that you have those things at the Hall within ten minutes; not an instant later.”
Touching the prancing ponies with her ivory-handled whip, the haughty young heiress whirled leisurely down the road, leaving Daisy, with flushed face and tear-dimmed eyes, gazing after her.
“Oh, dear, I wish I had never been born,” she sobbed, flinging herself down on her knees, and burying her face in the long, cool grass. “No one ever speaks a kind word to me but poor old Uncle John, and even he dare not be kind when Aunt Septima is near. She might have taken this heavy basket in her carriage,” sighed Daisy, bravely lifting the heavy burden in her delicate arms.
“That is just what I think,” muttered Rex Lyon from his place of concealment, savagely biting his lip.
In another moment he was by her side.
“Pardon me,” he said, deferentially raising his cap from his glossy curls, “that basket is too heavy for your slender arms. Allow me to assist you.”
In a moment the young girl stood up, and made the prettiest and most graceful of courtesies as she raised to his a face he never forgot. Involuntarily he raised his cap again in homage to her youth, and her shy sweet beauty.
“No; I thank you, sir, I have not far to carry the basket,” she replied, in a voice sweet as the chiming of silver bells–a voice that thrilled him, he could not tell why.
A sudden desire possessed Rex to know who she was and from whence she came.
“Do you live at the Hall?” he asked.
“No,” she replied, “I am Daisy Brooks, the overseer’s niece.”
“Daisy Brooks,” said Rex, musingly. “What a pretty name! how well it suits you!”
He watched the crimson blushes that dyed her fair young face–she never once raised her dark-blue eyes to his. The more Rex looked at her the more he admired this coy, bewitching, pretty little maiden. She made a fair picture under the boughs of the magnolia-tree, thick with odorous pink-and-white tinted blossoms, the sunbeams falling on her golden hair.
The sunshine or the gentle southern wind brought Rex no warning he was forging the first links of a dreadful tragedy. He thought only of the shy blushing beauty and coy grace of the young girl–he never dreamed of the hour when he should look back to that moment, wondering at his own blind folly, with a curse on his lips.