Читать книгу Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice - Alex. McVeigh Miller - Страница 12

Yes, pretty Geraldine, piqued and unhappy over her cruel disappointment in love, had joined the Clemens Company, the manager of which was also one of the actors—Cameron Clemens. He played the clever villain in "Hearts and Homes," his special play, while Clifford Standish took the hero's part.

Geraldine threw her whole heart into her work, and succeeded so well that she was promoted in a week, owing to the illness and withdrawal of the second lady from the company. It was the part of an ingenue, which just suited Geraldine's youth and naivette. She could act it to perfection without laying aside her pretty naturalness of manner.

They traveled from town to town, staying just a night or two in each place, usually drawing full houses, and Geraldine proved a great attraction, winning always so much admiration that it was a wonder her pretty little head was not turned by flattery.

It might have been had not her heart been so sore over its brief, broken love-dream.

To have known a man but two brief, bright, happy days, and not be able to forget him, it was absurd, she thought, in desperate rebellion against her own heart.

And yet, through the busy weeks of travel, study, and acting, Harry Hawthorne's image staid in her mind, and his voice rang through her dreams, sweet and low and tender as it had always been to her whenever he spoke.

In her waking hours she knew him light and false; in her dreams he was always tender and true, and inexpressibly dear.

Through all the changing days in which the silent struggle against a hopeless love went on in her young heart, Clifford Standish was ever near, patient, tender, devoted, telling her with his yearning eyes the love she was not ready to listen to yet.

And in spite of herself, Geraldine found a subtle comfort in his devotion.

It was a balm of healing to her proud heart, so deeply wounded by Harry Hawthorne's trifling.

Many hearts have been caught in the rebound in this fashion, many true loves won.

True, there are many proud ones who do not prize a love they can only have because it has been scornfully refused by another.

They will say, resentfully:

"I will not accept a love that is given me only because it was left by one who did not prize it."

Others, more humble, will gladly accept the grateful love of a wounded heart that finds consolation in their tenderness.

Clifford Standish, madly in love with Geraldine, was glad to accept such crumbs of love as might fall to him from the royal feast that had been spread for Harry Hawthorne.

So he hovered by her side, he paid her the most delicate attentions, anticipating every wish, and found ample reward as he saw himself gaining in her grateful regard.

At the same time the arch-traitor was intercepting the few letters that came to her, and the ones she wrote to Miss Carroll.

For Geraldine had long ago gotten over her pet with her friend, since she know in her heart how dear she was to Cissy, and that the girl had advised her for her own good.

Geraldine had found out that the career of an actress—even a young, pretty, and popular one—is not always strewn with roses.

She had to study hard, and she did not enjoy traveling all day, or even half a day, and then appearing on the boards at night. Sometimes the hotel accommodations of country towns where they stopped over were wretchedly indifferent. Sometimes her head ached miserably, but she must appear on the boards, all the same. And the free-and-easy ways of some of the company did not please the fastidious taste of the girl.

Now and then she found her thoughts returning to the old days behind the counter at O'Neill's with Cissy and the other girls, with an almost pathetic yearning. Secretly she longed to be back again.

How she wished that Cissy would write to her now, and beg her to return, so that she might have an excuse for following the dictates of her heart.

At last, believing that Cissy was too proud and stubborn to write first, she penned her a long, affectionate letter, through which breathed an underline of repentance and regret that her chum would be sure to answer it by writing:

"Come home, dear. I told you that you would get sick of being an actress."

But Geraldine was too weary and heart-sick to care for a hundred "I-told-you-so's" from the triumphant Cissy. What did it matter so that she got back to her dear old chum again and their cozy little rooms, and even to what she had once called her slavery behind the counter.

She recalled what Harry Hawthorne had told her about it being a slavery of the stage, too; then put the thought from her with an impatient sigh.

"What do I care what he said about it?" indignantly, then sighing, "even though I have found it to be, alas, too true!"

She wrote her letter to Cissy, and after that her heart felt lighter. She knew her chum would be glad to get the letter—glad to have her back.

Poor Geraldine! what a hopeless waiting she had for the letter that never came!

How could he bear the wistful light in her sad brown eyes, the wretch who had robbed her young life of happiness?

In his keeping rested the letters of the two fond girls to each other—the letters that would have brought happiness to three sad hearts.

And the weeks slipped into months while they echoed in their souls the poet's plaint:

It was two months now since they had gone upon the road, but not a word had Geraldine received. It seemed to her as if the past days were a dream, so different was her life now—all whirl, confusion, and excitement.

Once she had thought this would be charming. Now she found it the reverse.

How glad she was to hear that the company would go back to New York in time for Christmas. She was so tired of the West, where they had been all these weeks.

When they were on their homeward way, they stopped over for a night at a pretty West Virginia town a few hundred miles from New York.

They had come straight through from Chicago, and the stop-over was very agreeable to the weary members of the company.

They arrived in the afternoon, and the tired travelers, after resting a while at their romantic hotel on the banks of the beautiful Greenbrier River, set out to explore the little town of Alderson, first hurrying to the post-office for their letters, which they expected to be awaiting them there.

Geraldine did not expect any mail, poor girl! She waited at the door while Clifford Standish went in and came out with a little budget for himself.

"Nothing for you, Geraldine. It seems that Miss Carroll is still unforgiving," he laughed, without noting the sensitive quiver of her scarlet lips.

They walked on, and she pretended to be absorbed in contemplation of the beautiful mountain scenery, while he ran over his letters.

"Let us cross the railroad and walk on the bridge over there," she said, at last.

It was a beautiful sunny day, very calm and mild for December. They loitered on the broad bridge that spanned the romantic river between the two towns, Alderson and North Alderson, and while she watched the lapsing river and the mountain peaks against the clear blue sky, he read to her bits of his letters from New York.

"Here's one that will interest you," he laughed, meaningly, and read:

"'Well, old fellow, there's nothing that I know in the way of interesting news just now, unless that a girl you used to be sweet on is going to be married to-morrow. It's little Daisy Odell, you know, of Newburgh. She's been visiting a married sister here, and caught a beau. He's a fireman named Harry Hawthorne, a big, handsome fellow, the hero of several fires. The marriage will take place at Mrs. Stansbury's, and I've an invitation to it.'"

He looked from the letter to her face, and saw that she was deadly pale and grief-stricken.

"Oh, will you let me read that for myself?" she gasped, as if she could scarcely believe him.

"Why, certainly," he answered, but as he was handing her the crumpled sheet, the wind caught it somehow, and fluttered it beyond reach over the rail and down into the river.

"Oh! oh! oh!" he cried, with pretended dismay, but his outstretched hand could not grasp it.

"It's gone; but no matter—the news must be true, for Charlie Butler wrote it, and he always tells the truth," he said, carelessly.

And how was the unsuspecting girl to know that no such words were written in the letter, and that it was from a woman, instead of Charlie Butler?