Jolly Sally Pendleton: or, the Wife Who Was Not a Wife

If he died, she would be a wealthy woman for life, and she would never be obliged to look again into the face of the handsome husband whom she hated – the husband who hated her, and who did not take the pains to conceal it in his every act each day since he had married her.

Ah! if he only died here and now it would save her from all the ills that menaced her and were closing in around her. This was her opportunity. Fate – fortune had put the means of saving herself in her hands.

Even the good doctor was sorely perplexed. He saw that young Mrs. Gardiner was a desperate woman, and that she meant what she said.

"Will nothing under Heaven cause you to relent?" cried Margaret, wringing her hands, her splendid courage breaking down completely under the great strain of her agony. "My poor mother lies in the next room in a death-like swoon, caused by the knowledge of her idolized son's fatal illness. If he should die, she would never see another morning's sun after she learned of it. One grave would cover both."

CHAPTER LI

We must now return to Bernardine, dear reader.

"Oh, I was mad – mad to remain a single instant beneath this roof when I discovered whose home it was!" she moaned, sinking down on the nearest hassock and rocking herself to and fro in an agony of despair. "I – I could have lived my life better if I had not looked upon his face again, or seen the bride who had won his love from me. I will go, I will leave this grand house at once. Let them feast and make merry. None of them knows that a human heart so near them is breaking slowly under its load of woe."

She tried to rise and cross the floor, but her limbs refused to act. A terrible numbness had come over them, every muscle of her body seemed to pain her.

"Am I going to be ill?" she cried out to herself in the wildest alarm. "No, no – that must not be; they would be sure to call upon him to – to aid me, and that would kill me – yes, kill me!"

Her body seemed to burn like fire, while her head, her feet, and her hands were ice cold. Her lips were parched with a terrible thirst.

"I must go away from here," she muttered. "If I am going to die, let it be out in the grounds, with my face pressed close to the cold earth, that is not more cold to me than the false heart of the man to whom I have given my love beyond recall."

Like one whose sight had suddenly grown dim, Bernardine groped her way from the magnificent boudoir out into the corridor, her one thought being to reach her own apartment, secure her bonnet and cloak, and get out of the house. She had scarcely reached the first turn in the corridor, ere she came face to face with a woman robed in costly satin, and all ablaze with diamonds, who was standing quite still and looking about her in puzzled wonder.

"I – I beg your pardon, miss," said the stranger, addressing Bernardine. "I am a bit turned around in this labyrinth of corridors."

What was there in that voice that caused Bernardine to forget her own sorrows for an instant, and with a gasp peer into the face looking up into her own?

The effect of Bernardine's presence, as the girl turned her head and the light of the hanging-lamp fell full upon it, was quite as electrifying to the strange lady.

"Bernardine Moore!" she gasped in a high, shrill voice that was almost hysterical. "Do my eyes deceive me, or is this some strange coincidence, some chance resemblance, or are you Bernardine Moore, whom I have searched the whole earth over to find?"

At the first word that fell from her excited lips, Bernardine recognized Miss Rogers.

"Yes," she answered, mechanically, "I am Bernardine Moore, and you are Miss Rogers. But – but how came you here, and in such fine dress and magnificent jewels? You, whom I knew to be as poor as ourselves, when you shared the humble tenement home with my father and me!"

Miss Rogers laughed very softly.

"I can well understand your bewilderment over such a Cinderella-like mystery. The solution of it is very plain, however. But before I answer your question, my dear Bernardine, I must ask what you are doing beneath this roof?"

"I am Mrs. Gardiner's paid companion," responded Bernardine, huskily.

"And I am Mrs. Gardiner's guest, surprising as that may seem. But let us step into some quiet nook where we can seat ourselves and talk without interruption," said Miss Rogers. "I have much to ask you about, and much to tell you."

"Will you come to my apartment?" asked Bernardine.

The little old lady nodded, the action of her head setting all her jewels to dancing like points of flame.

Bernardine led the way to the modestly furnished room almost opposite Mrs. Gardiner's, and drawing forward a chair for her companion, placed her in it with the same gentle kindness she had exhibited toward poor, old, friendless Miss Rogers in those other days.

"Before I say anything, my dear," began Miss Rogers, "I want to know just what took place from the moment you fled from your father's humble home up to the present time. Did you – elope with any one?"

She saw the girl's fair face flush, then grow pale; but the dark, true, earnest eyes of Bernardine did not fall beneath her searching gaze.

"I am grieved that you wrong me to that extent, Miss Rogers," she answered, slowly. "No, I did not elope. I simply left the old tenement house because I could not bear my father's entreaties to hurry up the approaching marriage between the man I hated – Jasper Wilde – and myself. The more I thought of it, the more repugnant it became to me.

"I made my way down to the river. I did not heed how cold and dark it was. I – I took one leap, crying out to God to be merciful to me, and then the dark waters, with the awful chill of death upon them, closed over me, and I went down – down – and I knew no more.

"But Heaven did not intend that I should die then. I still had more misery to go through; for that was I saved. I was rescued half drowned – almost lifeless – and taken to an old nurse's home, where I lay two weeks hovering between life and death.

"On the very day I regained consciousness, I learned about the terrible fire that had wiped out the tenement home which I had known since my earliest childhood, and that my poor, hapless father had perished in the flames.

"I did my best to discover your whereabouts, Miss Rogers, at first fearing you had shared my poor father's fate; but this fear proved to be without foundation, for the neighbors remembered seeing you go out to mail a letter a short time before the fire broke out.

"I felt that some day we should meet again, but I never dreamed that it would be like this."

"Have you told me all, Bernardine?" asked Miss Rogers, slowly. "You are greatly changed, child. When you fled from your home, you were but a school-girl, now you are a woman. What has wrought so great a change in so short a time?"

"I can not tell you that, Miss Rogers," answered Bernardine, falteringly. "That is a secret I must keep carefully locked up in my breast until the day I die!" she said, piteously.

"I am sorry you will not intrust your secret to me," replied Miss Rogers. "You shall never have reason to repent of any faith you place in me."

"There are some things that are better left untold," sobbed Bernardine. "Some wounds where the cruel weapons that made them have not yet been removed. This is one of them."

"Is love, the sweetest boon e'er given to women, and yet the bitterest woe to many, the rock on which you wrecked your life, child? Tell me that much."

"Yes," sobbed Bernardine. "I loved, and was – cruelly – deceived!"

"Oh, do not tell me that!" cried Miss Rogers. "I can not bear it. Oh, Heaven! that you, so sweet, and pure, and innocent, should fall a victim to a man's wiles! Oh, tell me, Bernardine, that I have not heard aright!"

Miss Rogers was so overcome by Bernardine's story, that she could not refrain from burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears as the girl's last words fell on her startled ear.

CHAPTER LII

Tears were falling from Bernardine's eyes and sobs were trembling on the tender lips, she could restrain her feelings no longer, and, catching up the thin, shriveled-up figure of the dear little old spinster in her arms, she strained her to her heart and wept.

"Ah, my dear girl. You are the good angel who took me in and cared for me, believing me to be a pauper.

"And now know the truth, my darling Bernardine. I, your distant kinswoman, am very rich, far above your imagination. I have searched for you since that fire, to make you my heiress– heiress to three millions of money. Can you realize it?"

Bernardine was looking at her with startled eyes, her white lips parted in dismay.

"Now you can understand better why I am here as the guest of Margaret Gardiner and her proud mother? The wealthy Miss Rogers, of New York, is believed to be a valuable acquisition to any social gathering. I loved your mother, my fair, sweet, gentle cousin. I should love you for her sake, did I not love you for your own."

"You will make the necessary arrangements to leave Mrs. Gardiner's employ at the earliest moment, my dear, for I wish you to take your place in society at once as my heiress."

But much to Miss Rogers' surprise, Bernardine shook her head sadly.

"Oh, do not be angry with me, dear Miss Rogers," she sobbed, "but it can never be. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind intentions, but it can never be. Heaven did not wish me to be a favorite of fortune. There are those who are born to work for a living. I am one of them. I have no place in the homes of aristocrats. One fell in love with me, but he soon tired of me and deserted me."

"He will be glad enough to seek you again when you are known as my heiress," declared Miss Rogers, patting softly the bowed, dark curly head.

"No, no!" cried Bernardine; "if a man can not love you when you are poor, friendless and homeless, he can not love you with all the trappings of wealth about you. I say again, I thank you with all my heart and soul for what you are disposed to do for me; but I can not accept it at your hands, dear friend. Build churches, schools for little ones, homes for the aged and helpless, institutions for the blind, hospitals for those stricken low by the dread rod of disease. I am young and strong. I can earn my bread for many a long year yet. Work is the only panacea to keep me from thinking, thinking, thinking."

"Nay, nay," replied Miss Rogers; "let me be a judge of that. I know best, my dear. It will be a happiness to me in my declining years to have you do as I desire. The money will all go to you, and at the last you may divide it as you see fit. Do not refuse me, my child. I have set my heart upon seeing you the center of an admiring throng, to see you robed in shining satin and magnificent diamonds. I will not say more upon the subject just now; we will discuss it – to-morrow. I shall go down and join the feasters and revelers; my heart is happy now that I have found you, Bernardine. Early to-morrow morning we will let Mrs. Gardiner and her daughter Margaret into our secret, and they will make no objection to my taking you quietly away with me – at once. Do not let what I have told you keep you awake to-night, child. I should feel sorry to see you look pale and haggard to-morrow, instead of bright and cheerful."

With a kiss, she left Bernardine, and the girl stood looking after her long afterward, wondering if what she had just passed through was not a dream from which she would awaken presently.

The air of the room seemed to stifle Bernardine. Rising slowly, she made her way through one of the long French windows out into the grounds, and took a path which led in the direction of the brook around which the alders grew so thickly.

She was so preoccupied with her own thoughts, she hardly noticed which way her footsteps tended. All she realized was, that she was walking in the sweet, rose-laden grounds, away – far away – from the revelers, with the free, cool, pure air of Heaven blowing across her heated, feverish brow.

"An heiress!" She said the words over and over again to herself, trying to picture to herself what the life of an heiress would be.

If she had been an heiress, living in a luxurious, beautiful home, would Jay Gardiner have deserted her in that cruel, bitterly cruel, heartless fashion?

She never remembered to have heard or read of the lover of a wealthy heiress deserting her. It was always the lovers of poor girls who dared play such tricks.

How shocked Jay Gardiner would be when he heard that she was – an heiress!

Would he regret the step he had taken? The very thought sent a strange chill through her heart.

The next instant she had recovered herself.

"No, no! There will be no regrets between us now," she sobbed, hiding her white face in her trembling hands. "For he is another's and can never be anything more to me save a bitter-sweet memory. To-night I will give my pent-up grief full vent. Then I will bury it deep – deep out of the world's sight, and no one shall ever know that my life has been wrecked over – what might have been."

Slowly her trembling hands dropped from her face, and, with bowed head, Bernardine went slowly down the path, out of the sound of the dance-music and the laughing voices, down to where the crickets were chirping amid the long grasses, and the wind was moaning among the tall pines and the thick alders.

When she reached the brook she paused. It was very deep at this point – nearly ten feet, she had heard Miss Margaret say – and the bottom was covered with sharp, jagged rocks. That was what caused the hoarse, deep murmur as the swift-flowing water struck them in its hurried flight toward the sea.

Bernardine leaned heavily against one of the tall pines, and gave vent to her grief.

Why had God destined one young girl to have youth, beauty, wealth, and love, while the other had known only life's hardships? Miss Rogers' offer of wealth had come to her too late. It could not buy that which was more to her than everything else in the world put together – Jay Gardiner's love.

The companionship of beautiful women, the homage of noble men, were as nothing to her. She would go through life with a dull, aching void in her breast. There would always be a longing cry in her heart that would refuse to be stilled. No matter where she went, whom she met, the face of Jay Gardiner, as she had seen it first – the laughing, dark-blue eyes and the bonny brown curls – would haunt her memory while her life lasted.

"Good-bye, my lost love! It is best that you and I should never meet again!" she sobbed.

Suddenly she became aware that she was not standing there alone. Scarcely ten feet from her she beheld the figure of a man, and she realized that he was regarding her intently.

CHAPTER LIII

For a single instant Bernardine felt her terror mastering her; it was certainly not an idle fear conjured up by her own excited brain.

The clock from an adjacent tower struck the hour of midnight as she stood there by the brookside, peering, with beating heart, among the dense shadow of the trees.

She gazed with dilated eyes. Surely it was her fancy. One of the shadows, which she had supposed to be a stunted tree, moved, crept nearer and nearer, until it took the form of a man moving stealthily toward her.

Bernardine's first impulse was to turn and fly; but her limbs seemed powerless to move.

Yes, it was a man. She saw that he was moving more quickly forward now, and in a moment of time he had reached her side, and halted directly before her.

"Ah!" he cried in a voice that had a very Frenchy accent. "I am delighted to see you, my dear lady. Fate has certainly favored me, or, perhaps, my note reached you and you are come in search of me. Very kind – very considerate. They are having a fine time up at the mansion yonder in your honor, of course. Knowing your penchant for lights, music, laughter, and admiration, I confess I am very much surprised to see that you have stolen a few minutes to devote to – me."

Bernardine realized at once that this stranger mistook her for some one else – some one who had expected to see him. She tried to wrench herself free from the steel-like grasp of his fingers, that had closed like a vise about her slender wrist; but not a muscle responded to her will, nor could she find voice to utter a single sound.

"Let us come to an understanding, my dear Mrs. Gardiner. I do not like this new move on your part."

It was then, and not till then, that Bernardine found her voice.

"I am not Mrs. Gardiner!" she exclaimed, struggling to free herself from the man's detaining hold on her arm.

The effect of her words was like an electric shock to the man. He reeled back as though he had been suddenly shot.

"You – are – not – young Mrs. Gardiner?" he gasped, his teeth fairly chattering. "Then, by Heaven! you are a spy, sent here by her to incriminate me, to be a witness against me! It was a clever scheme, but she shall see that it will fail signally."

"I am no spy!" replied Bernardine, indignantly, "No one sent me here, least of all, young Mrs. Gardiner!"

"I do not believe you!" retorted the man, bluntly. "At any rate, you know too much of this affair to suit me. You must come along with me."

"You are mad!" cried Bernardine, haughtily. "I have, as you say, unwittingly stumbled across some secret in the life of yourself and one who has won the love of a man any woman would have been proud to have called – husband!"

"So you are in love with the handsome, lordly Jay, eh?" sneered her companion. "It's a pity you had not captured the washing millionaire, instead of pretty, bewitching, coquettish Sally," he went on, with a fit of harsh laughter.

"Sir, unhand me and let me go!" cried Bernardine. "Your words are an insult! Leave me at once, or I shall cry out for help!"

"I believe you would be fool-hardy enough to attempt it," responded her companion; "but I intend to nip any such design in the bud. You must come along with me, I say. If you are wise, you will come along peaceably. Attempt to make an outcry, and – well, I never yet felled a woman, but there's always the first time. You invite the blow by going contrary to my commands. My carriage is in waiting, fortunately, just outside the thicket yonder."

Bernardine saw that the man she had to deal with was no ordinary person. He meant every word that he said. She tried to cry out to Heaven to help her in this, her hour of need, but her white lips could form no word.

Suddenly she felt herself lifted in a pair of strong arms, a hand fell swiftly over her mouth, and she knew no more. Sky, trees, the dark, handsome, swarthy face above her and the earth beneath her seemed to rock and reel.

Carrying his burden swiftly along a path almost covered by tangled underbrush, the man struck at length into a little clearing at one side of the main road. Here, as he had said, a horse and buggy were in waiting.

A lighted lantern was in the bottom of the vehicle. He swung this into the unconscious girl's face as he thrust her upon the seat. He had expected to see one of the servants of the mansion – a seamstress, or one of the maids, perhaps – but he was totally unprepared for the vision of girlish loveliness that met his gaze.

While he had gazed with fascinated eyes at the faultlessly beautiful face of Bernardine, his heart had gone from him in one great, mad throb of passionate love.

"This lovely bird has walked directly into my drag-net," he muttered. "Why should she not be mine, whether she loves or hates me?"

CHAPTER LIV

On and on the dark-browed stranger urges the almost thoroughly exhausted horse, until after an hour's hard driving he comes upon a small farm-house standing in the midst of a clearing in the dense wood.

Here he drew rein, uttering a loud "Halloo!"

In answer to his summons, two men and a woman came hurrying forward, one of the men going toward the horse.

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the woman, amazedly, "Victor Lament has brought the young woman with him."

"No comments!" exclaimed Lamont, harshly, as he lifted his unconscious burden out of the buggy.

"And why not, pray?" demanded the woman, impudently. "Why should I not make comments when my husband is your pal in all your schemes; that is, he does the work while you play the fine gentleman, and he doesn't get half of the money by a long shot?"

"But I insist upon knowing now," declared the woman. "Who is the girl you are carrying in your arms, and why have you brought her here – of all places in the world?"

By this time they had reached the house, and Lamont strode in and laid his unconscious burden upon a wooden settee, which was the only article of furniture the apartment possessed.

"Why don't you answer, Victor Lamont?" cried the woman, shrilly. "Ten to one it's some girl whose puny, pretty face has fascinated you, and you're in love with her."

"Well, supposing that is the case," he replied, coolly; "what then?"

"I would say your fool-hardiness had got the better of your reason," she replied.

"That is the case with most men who do so foolish a thing as to fall in love," he answered, carelessly.

"Keep an eye on the girl, and do not let her leave this farm-house until after our work around here is done."

"I will promise under one condition," replied his companion; "and that is that you will not attempt to see the girl, or speak to her."

"Do you think I am a fool?" retorted Lamont.

"I do not think; I am certain of it – where a pretty face is concerned," responded the woman, quickly and blandly.

"I shall make no promises," he said, rudely turning on his heel. "Attend to the girl; she is recovering consciousness. You dare not permit her to escape, no matter what you say to the contrary. I must return to the Gardiner mansion to direct the movements of the boys. They will be waiting for me. Order a fresh horse saddled, and be quick about it. I've already wasted too much time listening to your recriminations."

Very reluctantly the woman turned to do his bidding. She saw that she had gone far enough. His mood had changed from a reflective to an angry one, and Victor Lamont was a man to fear when he was in a rage.

As soon as the woman had quitted the room, Lamont returned to his contemplation of the beautiful face of the girl lying so white and still on the wooden settee, as revealed to him by the light of the swinging oil lamp directly over her head.

The longer Victor Lamont gazed, the more infatuated he became with that pure, sweet face.

"You shall love me," he muttered; "I swear it! Victor Lamont has never yet wished for anything that he did not obtain, sooner or later, by fair means or foul; and I wish for your love, fair girl – wish, long, crave for it with all my heart, with all my soul, with all the depth and strength of my nature! I will win you, and we will go far away from the scenes that know me but too well, where a reward is offered for my capture, and where prison doors yawn to receive me. I will marry you, and then I will reform – I will do anything you ask of me; but I must, I will have your love, or I – will – kill – you! I could never bear to see you the bride of another."

CHAPTER LV

"Yes, you shall marry me, though Heaven and earth combine to take you from me!" muttered Victor Lamont, gazing down upon the pure, marble-white face of Bernardine. "It is said that some day, sooner or later, every man meets his fate, and when he does meet that one of all others, his whole life changes. The past, with all those whom he has met and fancied before, is as nothing to him now, and his dreams are only of the future and that elysium where he is to wander hand in hand with the one he loves.

"Hand in hand – will I ever dare clasp in mine that little white hand that I know must be as pure and spotless as a lily leaf? Would not my own hand, dark and hardened in sin, ay, bathed in blood even, wither away at the contact?

"If I had lived a good, honorable, upright life, I might have won the love and the respect of this young girl. If she knew me as I am, as the police know me, she would recoil from me in horror; but she must never know– never! I do not think she saw my face – ay, I could swear that she did not. I will tell her that I was a traveler happening to pass and saw her at the mercy of a ruffian, and rescued her.