Fashion and Famine Part 43

Leicester did look, for his gaze was fascinated by the soft eyes lifted to his from the pillow; the sweet, sweet smile that played around that lovely mouth. It went to his soul--that impenetrable soul--that Ada's anguish had failed to reach.

"She heard it all. She saw everything that pa.s.sed between you and your wife," said Jacob.

"What--and smiles upon me thus?" There was something of human feeling in his voice. He stooped down, and put back some raven tresses that fell over the eyes that were searching for his.

Then the smile broke into a laugh so wild with insane glee, that even Leicester shuddered and drew back. Florence started up in the bed. The lace of her wedding garments was crushed around her form--her arms were entangled in the rich white veil which still clung, torn and ragged, to the diamond star fastened over her temple. The cypress and jessamine wreath, half torn away, hung in fragments among her black tresses. She saw that Leicester avoided her, and tearing the veil fiercely, set both her arms free. She leaned half over the bed, holding them out, as a child aroused from sleep, pleads for its mother. Leicester drew near, for a fiend could not have resisted that look. She caught both his hands, drew herself up to his bosom, and then began to laugh again.

That moment a female, whose black garments contrasted gloomily with the drift-like whiteness of the couch, came from the shadowy part of the room, and taking Florence in her arms laid her gently back upon the pillows. She had seen that of which Leicester and Jacob were unconscious--Ada Leicester, standing in the gorgeous gloom of her dressing-chamber, and watching the scene.

"Mother, you here also!" exclaimed Leicester, and his voice had, for the instant, something of human anguish in it. His mother pointed toward the dressing-room, and only answered--

"Would you drive her mad also?"

"Would to Heaven it were possible," answered Leicester, with a cold sneer. He bowed low, and with a gesture full of sarcastic defiance moved toward the dressing-room. Jacob followed him.

"Stay," said Ada, standing before them--"what is this--who are the persons you have left in my chamber?"

"One of them," answered Leicester, with calm audacity, "one of them is of little consequence, though you may find in her, my dear madam, an old acquaintance. The other is a young lady, very beautiful, as you may see even from here--to whom I had the honor of being married last evening.

How she became your guest I do not know, but treat her with all hospitality, I beseech you, if it were only for the love that I bear her--love that I never felt for mortal woman before."

"Go," said Ada, stung into some degree of strength by his insolence, "or, rather let me go, if you are indeed the master here."

She took a shawl which had been flung across a chair, and folded it around her.

"Take everything, but let me go in peace. Jacob, oh, my friend, _you_ will not abandon me now?"

"No," answered Jacob, with a degree of respectful tenderness that gave to his rude features something more touching than beauty. "Take off your shawl, madam--he has lost all power to harm you--there is desperation in his insolence, nothing more. His own crimes have disabled him."

"How? how? Not that which he hinted--not marriage with another? Tell me, that it was only bravado. Rather, much rather, could I go forth penniless and bare-headed into the street."

She approached Leicester, holding out her hands. He saw all the unquenched love that shed anguish over that beautiful face, and took courage. In this weakness, lay some hope of safety.

"Ada let me see you alone," he said, with an abrupt change of voice and manner. She looked at Jacob irresolutely. He saw the danger at once, and taking her hand, led her with gentle force into the bed-chamber. "Look,"

he said, pointing to Florence, who lay upon the couch--"ask her, she will tell you what it means."

Ada advanced toward the old lady, who came to meet her as one who receives the mourners who gather to a funeral.

"It is Leicester's mother," broke from the pale lips of Leicester's wife.

"My poor daughter," said the old lady, wringing the trembling hand that Ada held out.

"Will you--can you, call me daughter? oh madam, how long it is since that sweet word has fallen on my ear." The pathos of her words--the humility of her manner--melted the old lady almost to tears. She opened her arms, and received the wretched woman to her bosom.

Jacob went out and found Leicester in the boudoir.

"Will she come? I am tired of waiting," he said, as Jacob closed and locked the door leading to the dressing-room.

"Expect nothing from her weakness--never hope to see her again. It is with me--not a weak, loving, forgiving woman, you have to deal."

"With you--her father's clownish farmer-boy--my own servant."

"I have no words to throw away, and you will need them to defend yourself," answered Jacob, with firm self-possession. "You have committed, within the last twenty-four hours, two crimes against the law. You have married a woman, knowing your wife to be alive. I am the witness, I, her playmate when she was a little girl, her protector and faithful servant in the trouble and sin which you heaped upon her after she was a woman. I went with her to the hotel that night, I witnessed all--all--to the scene last evening. Let that pa.s.s, for it _should_ pa.s.s, rather than have her history connected with yours before the world. But another crime. This forged check--this attempt to ruin as warm-hearted and honest a boy as ever lived. In this, her name cannot, from necessity, appear; for this you shall suffer to the extent of the law; for this, you shall live year after year in prison, not from revenge, mark, but that she, Ada Wilc.o.x, may breathe in peace. Leave this house, sir, quietly, for I must not have a felon arrested beneath her roof. Go anywhere you like, for a few hours, not to the hotel, for Robert Otis is waiting in your chamber with an officer; not to ferry, or steamboat, in hopes of escaping; men are placed everywhere to stop you; but till noon you are safe from arrest."

"I will not leave this house without speaking with Ada," said Leicester, in a whisper so deep and fierce, that it came through his clenched teeth like the hiss of a wounded adder.

"Five minutes you have for deliberation; go forth quietly, and as a departing guest, or remain to be marshalled out by half a dozen men, whom the chief of police has sent to protect the grounds--you understand, to protect the grounds."

Leicester did not speak, but a sharp, fiendish gloom shot into his eyes, and he thrust one hand beneath his snowy vest, and drew it slowly out; then came the sharp click of a pocket pistol. Jacob watched the motion, and his heavy features stirred with a smile.

"You forget that I am your servant; that I laid out your wedding dress, and loaded the pistol; put it up, sir--as I told you before, when I play with rattlesnakes, I take a hard grip on the neck."

Leicester drew his hand up deliberately, and dashed the pistol in Jacob's face. The stout man recoiled a step, and blood flowed from his lips. It was fortunate for him that Leicester had found the revolver which he was in the habit of wearing too heavy for his wedding garments.

As it was, he took out a silk handkerchief, and coolly wiped the blood from his mouth, casting now and then a look at the tiny clock upon the mantel-piece. The fiendish smile excited by the sight of his enemy's blood was just fading from Leicester's lip, when Jacob put the handkerchief back in his pocket.

"You will save a few hours of liberty by departing at once," he said.

"To a man, who has nothing but prison walls before him, they should be worth something."

"Yes, much can be done in a few hours," muttered Leicester to himself, and gently settling his hat, he turned to go.

"Open the door," he said, turning coolly to Jacob; "your wages are paid up to this time, at any rate."

Jacob bowed gravely, and dropping into his awkward way, followed his master down stairs. He opened the princ.i.p.al door, and Leicester stepped into the street quietly, as if the respectful attendance had been real.

The morning had just dawned, cold, comfortless, and humid; a slippery moisture lay upon the pavements, dark shadows hung like drapery along the unequal streets; Leicester threaded them with slow and thoughtful step. For once, his great intellect, his plotting fiend, refused to work. What should he do? how act? His hotel, the very street which he threaded perhaps, beset with officers; his garments elegantly conspicuous; his arms useless, and in his pockets only a little silver and one piece of gold. Never was position more desperate.

Hour after hour wore on, and still he wandered through the streets. As daylight spread over the sky, kindling up the fog that still clung heavily around the city, Leicester saw two men walking near him. He quickened his pace, he loitered, turned again, down one street and up another; with their arms interlaced, their bodies sometimes enfolded in the fog, distinct or shadowy, those strange wanderers had a power to make Leicester's heart quail within him.

All at once he started, and stood up motionless in the street. That child--those two old people! He had recognized them at once the night before as Mr. Wilc.o.x and his wife, poor, friendless; he had striven to cast them from his mind, to forget that they lived. The after events of that night had come upon him like a thunder-clap; in defending himself or attacking others, he had found little time to calculate on the discovery of his daughter and her old grand parents. Now, the thought came to his brain like lightning. He would secure the young girl--Ada's lost child. The secret of her existence was his; it should redeem him from the consequence of his great crime. The old people were poor--they would give up the child to a rich father, and ask no questions. With this last treasure in his power, Ada would not refuse to bribe it from him at any price. Her self-const.i.tuted guardian, too, that man of rude will, and indomitable strength, he who had sacrificed a lifetime to the mother of this child, who had tracked his own steps like a hound, could he, who had given up so much, refuse to surrender his vengeance, also?

This humble girl, from whom Leicester had turned so contemptuously, how precious she became as these thoughts flashed through his brain.

Leicester proceeded with a rapid step to the neighborhood that he had visited the previous night. He descended to the area, glided through the dim hall, and entered the back bas.e.m.e.nt just as old Mr. Warren, or Wilc.o.x we must now call him, was sitting down to breakfast with his wife and grandchild. A look of poverty was about the room, warded off by care and cleanliness, but poverty still. Leicester had only time to remark this, when his presence was observed. Old Mr. Wilc.o.x rose slowly from his chair, his thin face grew pale as he gazed upon the elegant person of his visitor, and the rich dress, so strongly at variance with the place. A vague terror seized him, for he did not at once recognize the features, changed by time, and more completely still, by a night of agonizing excitement. At length he recognized his son-in-law, and sinking to his chair, uttered a faint groan.

Julia started up, and flung her arms around the old man's neck.

Leicester came quietly forward.

"Have you forgotten me, sir?" he said, laying one hand softly upon the table.

"No," gasped the old man, "no."

"And the little girl, she seems afraid of me, but when she knows--"

"Hush," said the old man, rising, with one arm around the child, "not another word till we are alone. Wife, Julia, leave the room."

The old woman hesitated. She, too, had recognized Leicester, and dreaded to leave him alone with her husband. Julia looked from one to the other, amazed and in trouble.

"As you wish. I have no time to spare. Send them away, and we can more readily settle my demands and your claims."

"Go!" replied the old man, laying his hand on Julia's head.