Читать книгу Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time - Alex. McVeigh Miller - Страница 6

"Did I dream the whole thing?" said Bertram Chesleigh to himself, "or was it, indeed, only a ghost that I kissed on the border of the lake? Do ghosts have warm, living flesh and blood, and balmy lips, and blushes that come and go, and delicious little tempers, and the power to thrill one's nerves with quivering darts of fire? Have I lost my heart to a phantom?"

He might well ask himself these questions. A day and night had gone since the Glenalvans had their little party, and so far he had been unable to learn anything at all concerning the beautiful girl whom all but himself believed to have been the ghost of the dead Erma Glenalvan.

As he had promised to keep little Golden's secret inviolate, he could of course make no opening inquiries, but his little, careless, artful speeches, and innocent inquiries all failed of effect.

He could learn nothing of the maid whose beauty and grace had literally carried his heart by storm. It seemed quite plain that she did not live in the house.

It was equally certain that she did not reside in the neighborhood, for his friend, young Fred Glenalvan, had often assured him that his father's family were the only living descendants of the once numerous race.

Mr. Chesleigh asked himself if there was indeed a mystery, or if he had been fooled by an elfish spirit from the world of shadows.

His heart and his reason answered in the negative. It was a human being, warm, breathing, living, whom he had clasped and kissed that night. His veins tingled with electric fire at the remembrance.

Alone in his room the second night after his rencontre with the ghost, Bertram Chesleigh walked up and down restlessly, half mad with himself that he should dwell so persistently on that one thought, yet finding it so dangerously sweet he would not willingly have forgotten it. It seemed to him that he had never really lived till now, when this romantic passion for the beautiful unknown fired his heart.

Elinor and Clare had been very much frightened at the appearance of the family ghost. They talked about it in low, awe-struck whispers.

When Bertram Chesleigh expressed a desire to visit the haunted suite of rooms they expressed themselves as horrified, and declared that the rooms of the hapless Erma had been walled up long years before, and that all the rooms of the western wing were in such a ruinous condition that it was exceedingly dangerous to venture there at all.

They declared that their father had engaged workmen to pull down the western wing on account of its precarious condition.

But singularly enough Bertram Chesleigh's thoughts were running on the haunted rooms almost continuously to-night. Everything connected with the Glenalvan ghost had a deep interest for him.

Some impulse impelled him to visit the western wing.

He knew that the wide hall on which his room door opened had a corridor leading from it into the ruined western wing of the hall.

Some impulse stronger than his will, some "spirit in his feet," tempted him forth under cover of the silence and the night to explore the dangerous region in the vague hope of finding some trace of the mysterious ghost of last night.

To have met her again he would have dared even more threatening dangers than the settling timbers and falling roof which Fred, and Clare and Elinor were unanimous in declaring menaced everyone who entered the decaying portion of the hall.

Softly shod in his velvet slippers, he opened the door and peered out into the long hall.

It was lighted by long windows at either end, through which the moonlight poured a flood of white radiance. Putting a convenient box of matches into the pocket of his dressing-gown, he sallied boldly forth.

Whether ghost or human, he longed to encounter the beautiful girl he loved again.

He entered the long corridor and walked along softly, guided by the moonlight that entered through the windows and lay in fantastic shadows upon the floor.

He found that the building was in a ruinous condition indeed. The rooms into which he looked were dismantled and bare, the papering hung in ragged, fantastic strips from the walls; huge rats scampered over the floor, frightened night-birds flapped against the windows with wild, unearthly noises. Surely, the place was well-fitted to be the abode of ghosts and shadows, it was so weird and uncanny.

But Bertram Chesleigh held on his way undauntedly. It seemed to him that he had explored every room on that upper floor, when suddenly he discovered a little passage down which he turned and found himself in front of a closed door.

The majority of the doors had stood open, swinging carelessly on their hinges.

The midnight explorer did not know why his heart beat so strangely when he stood before this closed one.

He turned the handle noiselessly, and entered, carefully closing the door behind him.

In the large and lofty apartment, where he now found himself, a dim and shaded night-lamp was burning, thick, dark curtains shaded the windows, a large rug covered the center of the floor, a low, white cottage-bed stood in the furthest corner, draped in neat and spotless white.

Then the midnight explorer started, and with difficulty repressed the cry that rose to his lips.

For the soft, white counterpane thrown over the bed, outlined the curves of an exquisite, girlish form.

On the white, ruffled pillow nestled a sleeping face as lovely as a budding rose.

The round, white arms were thrown carelessly up above her head, the wealth of curling, golden hair, strayed in rich confusion over the pillow; the golden-brown lashes lay softly on the rosy, dimpled cheeks; the lips were smiling as if some happy dream stirred the white breast that rose and fell so softly over the innocent heart.

"Ghost or human?" Bertram Chesleigh asked himself, as he gazed in astonishment and ecstacy at the beautiful, unconscious sleeper.

He came nearer with noiseless footsteps and bated breath to the bedside. He bent so near that he could hear the soft, sweet breath that fluttered over the parted lips.

"It is she," he said to himself, with mingled rapture and amaze.

Then, in the next breath, he murmured:

"I must beat a quiet retreat. How frightened and angry she would be, were she to awake and find me here!"

He was one of the purest and most honorable minded men in the world.

He turned to go, but could not tear his fascinated eyes from that beautiful, child-like, sleeping face.

His splendid black eyes lingered on its innocent beauty in passionate admiration.

"If I might only touch that little hand that lies so near me on the pillow, it would cool the thirst of my heart," he said wistfully to himself, while his heart beat fast with joy that he had found her again, this lovely creature of whom he had dreamed night and day for twenty-four hours.

He looked at the sweetly-smiling, parted lips, and his pulses thrilled at the remembrance of the tender caress he had pressed upon them such a short while before.

Carried away by the force of as pure and mad a passion as ever thrilled the heart of man, the enraptured lover bent his head and pressed a kiss as soft and light as the fall of a rose-leaf on the white hand that lay so temptingly near him.

He meant to go then, but as he lifted his head, blushing with shame at the temptation that had prompted him to that wrongful and stolen caress, a sharp indignant voice fell on his ears with the suddenness of a thunder-clap.

"Oh, you black-hearted wilyun—you wicked betrayer of innercence! Get out o' this afore I kill you with my own hands, you han'some debbil!"

Bertram Chesleigh turned and saw a ludicrous, yet startling sight framed in the open doorway of an inner chamber which in his agitation, he had not noticed before.

Old Black Dinah, who was the color of ebony and very tall and lean, stood before him, clad in a short night-gown of gay, striped cotton from which her slim legs and arms stuck out like bean-poles.

Her stubbly, gray wool seemed to stand erect on her head with horror, and her brandished arms, snapping black eyes, and furious face, made up a startling picture of wrath and horror, strangely combined with the ludicrous.

"You black-hearted wilyun!" old Dinah repeated, advancing angrily upon her dismayed foe, "get out o' de room o' my innercent lamb afore she wakes and finds you here, you wolf!"

"I beg your pardon—I stumbled into this room by the merest accident," Chesleigh was beginning to say, when, startled by Dinah's loud and angry tones, little Golden awoke, and flashed the light of her wide blue eyes upon their excited faces.

She uttered a cry of fear and terror when she saw the tall, manly form standing in the room.

Old Dinah ran to her instantly, and she hid her frightened face on the shoulder of the old black woman.

"Black mammy, what does all this mean?" cried the girl, nervously.

Dinah gave a prolonged and lugubrious groan, and rolled up the whites of her eyes in reply. The intruder saw that it was imperative that he should stay long enough to explain matters to the alarmed girl.

He said to himself that no one had ever been placed in such a strange and embarrassing position before.

Every instinct of delicacy and respect for the young girl prompted him to retire at once; yet he could not bear to go and leave a wrong impression on the mind of the beautiful girl whom he admired so much.

He retreated to the door, and, standing there, said, anxiously and respectfully:

"I entreat you to believe, Miss Glenalvan, that I entered here with no wrongful motive. Led by a fit of curiosity, I was exploring the ruined wing of the hall, and I entered without a dream of finding it occupied by any living being. I had been led to believe that these rooms were totally unoccupied, and were even unsafe to enter. Will you accept my apology?"

Little Golden's head was still hidden against Dinah's shoulder, and the old woman broke out sharply and quickly:

"Honey, chile, don't you go for to 'cept dat wilyun's 'pology! Ef he done really cum in dis room by accident, he would agone out ag'in when he found dat a young lady occupied de room. But no; de first sight my ole brack eyes saw when I jumped off my pallet and come to de door was dat strange man a-kissin' you, my precious lamb."

Golden began to sob, and Mr. Chesleigh mentally anathematized the old woman's long tongue that had thus betrayed the secret he had intended to keep so carefully.

His face grew scarlet as he hastened to say:

"I kissed your hand, Miss Glenalvan, and I entreat your pardon for yielding to that overmastering temptation. Can you forgive me?"

But Golden was still weeping bitterly, and old Dinah, in her fear and indignation for her darling, pointed quickly to the door.

"Go," she said. "Don't you see how you frighten the chile by staying?"

There seemed nothing to be gained by staying. The old woman was utterly unreasonable, and Golden was so agitated she could not speak.

The embarrassed intruder silently withdrew to his own apartment, where he spent the night brooding over the strange discovery he had made and the unpleasant position in which he had placed himself.