Daisy Brooks: or, A Perilous Love

“No one has ever loved me but poor old Uncle John!” She bent her fair young head and cried out to Heaven: “Why has no mercy been shown to me? I have never done one wrong, yet I am so sorely tried. Oh, mother, mother!” she cried, raising her blue eyes up to the starry sky, “if you could have foreseen the dark, cruel shadows that would have folded their pitiless wings over the head of your child, would you not have taken me with you down into the depths of the seething waters?” She raised up her white hands pleadingly as though she would fain pierce with her wrongs the blue skies, and reach the great White Throne. “I must be going mad,” she said. “Why did Rex seek me out?” she cried, in anguish. “Why did Heaven let me love him so madly, and my whole life be darkened by living apart from him if I am to live? I had no thought of suffering and sorrow when I met him that summer morning. Are the summer days to pass and never bring him? Are the flowers to bloom, the sun to shine, the years to come and go, yet never bring him once to me? I can not bear it–I do not know how to live!”

If she could only see poor old, faithful John Brooks again she would kneel at his feet just as she had done when she was a little child, lay her weary head down on his toil-hardened hand, tell him how she had suffered, and ask him how she could die and end it all.

She longed so hungrily for some one to caress her, murmuring tender words over her. She could almost hear his voice saying as she told him her pitiful story: “Come to my arms, pet, my poor little trampled Daisy! You shall never want for some one to love you while poor old Uncle John lives. Bless your dear little heart!”

The longing was strongly upon her. No one would recognize her–she must go and see poor old John. She never thought what would become of her life after that.

At the station she asked for a ticket for Allendale. No one seemed to know of such a place. After a prolonged search on the map the agent discovered it to be a little inland station not far from Baltimore.

“We can sell you a ticket for Baltimore,” he said, “and there you can purchase a ticket for the other road.”

And once again poor little Daisy was whirling rapidly toward the scene of her first great sorrow.

Time seemed to slip by her unheeded during all that long, tedious journey of two nights and a day.

“Are you going to Baltimore?” asked a gentle-faced lady, who was strangely attracted to the beautiful, sorrowful young girl, in which all hope, life, and sunshine seemed dead.

“Yes, madame,” she made answer, “I change cars there; I am going further.”

The lady was struck by the peculiar mournful cadence of the young voice.

“I beg your pardon for my seeming rudeness,” she said, looking long and earnestly at the fair young face; “but you remind me so strangely of a young school-mate of my youth; you are strangely like what she was then. We both attended Madame Whitney’s seminary. Perhaps you have heard of the institution; it is a very old and justly famous school.” She wondered at the beautiful flush that stole into the girl’s flower-like face–like the soft, faint tinting of a sea-shell. “She married a wealthy planter,” pursued the lady, reflectively; “but she did not live long to enjoy her happy home. One short year after she married Evalia Hurlhurst died.” The lady never forgot the strange glance that passed over the girl’s face, or the wonderful light that seemed to break over it. “Why,” exclaimed the lady, as if a sudden thought occurred to her, “when you bought your ticket I heard you mention Allendale. That was the home of the Hurlhursts. Is it possible you know them? Mr. Hurlhurst is a widower–something of a recluse, and an invalid, I have heard; he has a daughter called Pluma.”

“Yes, madame,” Daisy made answer, “I have met Miss Hurlhurst, but not her father.”

How bitterly this stranger’s words seemed to mock her! Did she know Pluma Hurlhurst, the proud, haughty heiress who had stolen her young husband’s love from her?–the dark, sparkling, willful beauty who had crossed her innocent young life so strangely–whom she had seen bending over her husband in the pitying moonlight almost caressing him? She thought she would cry out with the bitterness of the thought. How strange it was! The name, Evalia Hurlhurst, seemed to fall upon her ears like the softest, sweetest music. Perhaps she wished she was like that young wife, who had died so long ago, resting quietly beneath the white daisies that bore her name.

“That is Madame Whitney’s,” exclaimed the lady, leaning forward toward the window excitedly. “Dear me! I can almost imagine I am a young girl again. Why, what is the matter, my dear? You look as though you were about to faint.”

The train whirled swiftly past–the broad, glittering Chesapeake on one side, and the closely shaven lawn of the seminary on the other. It was evidently recess. Young girls were flitting here and there under the trees, as pretty a picture of happy school life as one would wish to see. It seemed to poor hapless Daisy long ages must have passed since that morning poor old John Brooks had brought her, a shy, blushing, shrinking country lassie, among those daintily attired, aristocratic maidens, who had laughed at her coy, timid mannerism, and at the clothes poor John wore, and at his flaming red cotton neckerchief.

She had not much time for further contemplation. The train steamed into the Baltimore depot, and she felt herself carried along by the surging crowd that alighted from the train.

She did not go into the waiting-room; she had quite forgotten she was not at the end of her journey.

She followed the crowds along the bustling street, a solitary, desolate, heart-broken girl, with a weary white face whose beautiful, tender eyes looked in vain among the throngs that passed her by for one kindly face or a sympathetic look.

Some pushed rudely by her, others looked into the beautiful face with an ugly smile. Handsomely got-up dandies, with fine clothes and no brains, nodded familiarly as Daisy passed them. Some laughed, and others scoffed and jeered; but not one–dear Heaven! not one among the vast throng gave her a kindly glance or a word. Occasionally one, warmer hearted than the others, would look sadly on that desolate, beautiful, childish face.

A low moan she could scarcely repress broke from her lips. A handsomely dressed child, who was rolling a hoop in front of her, turned around suddenly and asked her if she was ill.

“Ill?” She repeated the word with a vague feeling of wonder. What was physical pain to the torture that was eating away her young life? Ill? Why, all the illness in the world put together could not cause the anguish she was suffering then–the sting of a broken heart.

She was not ill–only desolate and forsaken.

Poor Daisy answered in such a vague manner that she quite frightened the child, who hurried away as fast as she could with her hoop, pausing now and then to look back at the white, forlorn face on which the sunshine seemed to cast such strange shadows.

On and on Daisy walked, little heeding which way she went. She saw what appeared to be a park on ahead, and there she bent her steps. The shady seats among the cool green grasses under the leafy trees looked inviting. She opened the gate and entered. A sudden sense of dizziness stole over her, and her breath seemed to come in quick, convulsive gasps.

“Perhaps God has heard my prayer, Rex, my love,” she sighed. “I am sick and weary unto death. Oh, Rex–Rex–”

The beautiful eyelids fluttered over the soft, blue eyes, and with that dearly loved name on her lips, the poor little child-bride sunk down on the cold, hard earth in a death-like swoon.

“Oh, dear me, Harvey, who in the world is this?” cried a little, pleasant-voiced old lady, who had witnessed the young girl enter the gate, and saw her stagger and fall. In a moment she had fluttered down the path, and was kneeling by Daisy’s side.

“Come here, Harvey,” she called; “it is a young girl; she has fainted.”

Mr. Harvey Tudor, the celebrated detective, threw away the cigar he had been smoking, and hastened to his wife’s side.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” cried the little lady, in ecstasy. “I wonder who she is, and what she wanted.”

“She is evidently a stranger, and called to consult me professionally,” responded Mr. Tudor; “she must be brought into the house.”

He lifted the slight, delicate figure in his arms, and bore her into the house.

“I am going down to the office now, my dear,” he said; “we have some important cases to look after this morning. I will take a run up in the course of an hour or so. If the young girl should recover and wish to see me very particularly, I suppose you will have to send for me. Don’t get me away up here unless you find out the case is imperative.”

And with a good-humored nod, the shrewd detective, so quiet and domesticated at his own fireside, walked quickly down the path to the gate, whistling softly to himself–thinking with a strange, puzzled expression in his keen blue eyes, of Daisy. Through all of his business transactions that morning the beautiful, childish face was strangely before his mind’s eye.

“Confound it!” he muttered, seizing his hat, “I must hurry home and find out at once who that pretty little creature is–and what she wants.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

The sunny summer days came and went, lengthening themselves into long weeks before Daisy Brooks opened her eyes to consciousness. No clew could be found as to who the beautiful young stranger was.

Mr. Tudor had proposed sending her to the hospital–but to this proposition his wife would not listen.

“No, indeed, Harvey,” she exclaimed, twisting the soft, golden curls over her white fingers, “she shall stay here where I can watch over her myself, poor little dear.”

“You amaze me, my dear,” expostulated her husband, mildly. “You can not tell who you may be harboring.”

“Now, Harvey,” exclaimed the little woman, bending over the beautiful, still, white face resting against the crimson satin pillow, “don’t insinuate there could be anything wrong with this poor child. My woman’s judgment tells me she is as pure as those lilies in yonder fountain’s bed.”

“If you had seen as much of the world as I have, my dear, you would take little stock in the innocence of beautiful women; very homely women are rarely dangerous.”

“There is no use in arguing the point, Harvey. I have determined she shall not be sent to the hospital, and she shall stay here.”

Mrs. Tudor carried the point, as she always did in every argument.

“Well, my dear, if any ill consequences arise from this piece of folly of yours, remember, I shirk all responsibility.”

“‘When a woman will, she will, you may depend on’t,And when she won’t–she won’t, and there’s an end on’t,’”

he quoted, dryly. “I sincerely hope you will not rue it.”

“Now, you would be surprised, my dear, to find out at some future time you had been entertaining an angel unawares.”

“I should be extremely surprised; you have put it mildly, my dear–nay, I may say dumbfounded–to find an angel dwelling down here below among us sinners. My experience has led me to believe the best place for angels is up above where they belong. I am glad that you have such pretty little notions, though, my dear. It is not best for women to know too much of the ways of the world.”

“Harvey, you shock me!” cried the little lady, holding up her hands in horror at her liege lord’s remarks.

Still she had her own way in the matter, and Daisy stayed.

Every day the detective grew more mystified as to who in the world she could be. One thing was certain, she had seen some great trouble which bid fair to dethrone her reason.

At times she would clasp his hands, calling him Uncle John, begging him piteously to tell her how she could die. And she talked incoherently, too, of a dark, handsome woman’s face, that had come between her and some lost treasure.

Then a grave look would come into the detective’s face. He had seen many such cases, and they always ended badly, he said to himself. She had such an innocent face, so fair, so childish, he could not make up his mind whether she was sinned against or had been guilty of a hidden sin herself.

Love must have something to do with it, he thought, grimly. Whenever he saw such a hopeless, despairing look on a young and beautiful face he always set it down as a love case in his own mind, and in nine cases out of ten he was right.

“Ah! it is the old, old story,” he muttered. “A pretty, romantic school-girl, and some handsome, reckless lover,” and something very much like an imprecation broke from his lips, thorough man of the world though he was, as he ruminated on the wickedness of men.

Two days before the marriage of Rex and Pluma was to be solemnized, poor little Daisy awoke to consciousness, her blue eyes resting on the joyous face of Mrs. Tudor, who bent over her with bated breath, gazing into the upraised eyes, turned so wonderingly upon her.

“You are to keep perfectly quiet, my dear,” said Mrs. Tudor, pleasantly, laying her hands on Daisy’s lips as she attempted to speak. “You must not try to talk or to think; turn your face from the light, and go quietly to sleep for a bit, then you shall say what you please.”

Daisy wondered who the lady was, as she obeyed her like an obedient, tired child–the voice seemed so motherly, so kind, and so soothing, as she lay there, trying to realize how she came there. Slowly all her senses struggled into life, her memory came back, her mind and brain grew clear. Then she remembered walking into the cool, shady garden, and the dizziness which seemed to fall over her so suddenly. “I must have fainted last night,” she thought. She also remembered Pluma bending so caressingly over her young husband in the moonlight, and that the sight had almost driven her mad, and, despite her efforts to suppress her emotion, she began to sob aloud.

Mrs. Tudor hurried quickly to the bedside. She saw at once the ice from the frozen fountain of memory had melted.

“If you have any great sorrow on your mind, my dear, and wish to see Mr. Tudor, I will call him at once. He is in the parlor.”

“Please don’t,” sobbed Daisy. “I don’t want to see anybody. I must go home to Uncle John at once. Have I been here all night?”

“Why, bless your dear little heart, you have been here many a night and many a week. We thought at one time you would surely die.”

“I wish I had,” moaned Daisy. In the bitterness of her sorely wounded heart she said to herself that Providence had done everything for her without taking her life.

“We thought,” pursued Mrs. Tudor, gently, “that perhaps you desired to see my husband–he is a detective–upon some matter. You fainted when you were just within the gate.”

“Was it your garden?” asked Daisy, surprisedly. “I thought it was a park!”

“Then you were not in search of Mr. Tudor, my dear?” asked his wife, quite mystified.

“No,” replied Daisy. “I wanted to get away from every one who knew me, or every one I knew, except Uncle John.”

“I shall not question her concerning herself to-day,” Mrs. Tudor thought. “I will wait a bit until she is stronger.” She felt delicate about even asking her name. “She will seek my confidence soon,” she thought. “I must wait.”

Mrs. Tudor was a kind-hearted little soul. She tried every possible means of diverting Daisy’s attention from the absorbing sorrow which seemed consuming her.

She read her choice, sparkling paragraphs from the papers, commenting upon them, in a pretty, gossiping way.

Nothing seemed to interest the pretty little creature, or bring a smile to the quivering, childish lips.

“Ah! here is something quite racy!” she cried, drawing her chair up closer to the bedside. “A scandal in high life. This is sure to be entertaining.”

Mrs. Tudor was a good little woman, but, like all women in general, she delighted in a spicy scandal.

A handsome stranger had married a beautiful heiress. For a time all went merry as a marriage-bell. Suddenly a second wife appeared on the scene, of which no one previously knew the existence. The husband had sincerely believed himself separated by law from wife number one, but through some technicality of the law, the separation was pronounced illegal, and the beautiful heiress bitterly realized to her cost that she was no wife.

“It must be a terrible calamity to be placed in such a predicament,” cried Mrs. Tudor, energetically. “I blame the husband for not finding out beyond a doubt that he was free from his first wife.”

A sudden thought seemed to come to Daisy, so startling it almost took her breath away.

“Supposing a husband left his wife, and afterward thought her dead, even though she were not, and he should marry again, would it not be legal? Supposing the poor, deserted wife knew of it, but allowed him to marry that some one else, because she believed he was unhappy with herself, would it not be legal?” she repeated in an intense voice, striving to appear calm.

“I can scarcely understand the question, my dear. I should certainly say, if the first wife knew her husband was about to remarry, and she knew she was not separated from him by law or death, she was certainly a criminal in allowing the ceremony to proceed. Why, did you ever hear of such a peculiar case, my dear?”

“No,” replied Daisy, flushing crimson. “I was thinking of Enoch Arden.”

“Why, there is scarcely a feature in Enoch Arden’s case resembling the one you have just cited. You must have made a mistake?”

“Yes; you are right. I have made a mistake,” muttered Daisy, growing deadly pale. “I did not know. I believed it was right.”

“You believed what was right?” asked Mrs. Tudor, in amazement.

“I believed it was right for the first wife to go out of her husband’s life if she had spoiled it, and leave him free to woo and win the bride he loved,” replied Daisy, pitifully embarrassed.

“Why, you innocent child,” laughed Mrs. Tudor, “I have said he would not be free as long as the law did not separate him from his first wife, and she was alive. It is against the law of Heaven for any man to have two wives; and if the first wife remained silent and saw the sacred ceremony profaned by that silence, she broke the law of Heaven–a sin against God beyond pardon. Did you speak?” she asked, seeing Daisy’s white lips move.

She did not know a prayer had gone up to God from that young tortured heart for guidance.

Had she done wrong in letting Rex and the whole world believe her dead? Was it ever well to do a wrong that good should come from it?

And the clear, innocent, simple conscience was quick to answer, “No!”

Poor Daisy looked at the position in every possible way, and the more she reflected the more frightened she became.

Poor, little, artless child-bride, she was completely bewildered. She could find no way out of her difficulty until the idea occurred to her that the best person to help her would be John Brooks; and her whole heart and soul fastened eagerly on this.

She could not realize she had lain ill so long. Oh, Heaven, what might have happened in the meantime, if Rex should marry Pluma? She would not be his wife because she– who was a barrier between them–lived.

CHAPTER XXXV

Daisy had decided the great question of her life. Yes, she would go to John Brooks with her pitiful secret, and, kneeling at his feet, tell him all, and be guided by his judgment.

“I can never go back to Rex,” she thought, wearily. “I have spoiled his life; he does not love me; he wished to be free and marry Pluma.”

“You must not think of the troubles of other people, my dear,” said Mrs. Tudor, briskly, noting the thoughtful expression of the fair young face. “Such cases as I have just read you are fortunately rare. I should not have read you the scandals. Young girls like to hear about the marriages best. Ah! here is one that is interesting–a grand wedding which is to take place at Whitestone Hall, in Allendale, to-morrow night. I have read of it before; it will be a magnificent affair. The husband-to-be, Mr. Rexford Lyon, is very wealthy; and the bride, Miss Pluma Hurlhurst, is quite a society belle–a beauty and an heiress.”

Poor Daisy! although she had long expected it, the announcement seemed like a death-blow to her loving little heart; in a single instant all her yearning, passionate love for her handsome young husband awoke into new life.

She had suddenly awakened to the awful reality that her husband was about to marry another.

“Oh, pitiful Heaven, what shall I do?” she cried, wringing her hands. “I will be too late to warn them. Yet I must–I must! It must not be!” she cried out to herself; “the marriage would be wrong.” If she allowed it to go on, she would be guilty of a crime; therefore, she must prevent it.

Pluma was her mortal enemy. Yet she must warn her that the flower-covered path she was treading led to a precipice. The very thought filled her soul with horror.

She wasted no more time in thinking, she must act.

“I can not go to poor old Uncle John first,” she told herself. “I must go at once to Pluma. Heaven give me strength to do it. Rex will never know, and I can go quietly out of his life again.”

The marriage must not be! Say, think, argue with herself as she would, she could not help owning to herself that it was something that must be stopped at any price. She had not realized it in its true light before. She had had a vague idea that her supposed death would leave Rex free to marry Pluma. That wrong could come of it, in any way, she never once dreamed.

The terrible awakening truth had flashed upon her suddenly; she might hide herself forever from her husband, but it would not lessen the fact; she, and she only, was his lawful wife before God and man. From Heaven nothing could be hidden.

Her whole heart seemed to go out to her young husband and cling to him as it had never done before.

“What a fatal love mine was!” she said to herself; “how fatal, how cruel to me!”

To-morrow night! Oh, Heaven! would she be in time to save him? The very thought seemed to arouse all her energy.

“Why, what are you going to do, my dear?” cried Mrs. Tudor, in consternation, as Daisy staggered, weak and trembling, from her couch.

“I am going away,” she cried. “I have been guilty of a great wrong. I can not tell you all that I have done, but I must atone for it if it is in my power while yet there is time. Pity me, but do not censure me;” and sobbing as if her heart would break, she knelt at the feet of the kind friend Heaven had given her and told her all.

Mrs. Tudor listened in painful interest and amazement. It was a strange story this young girl told her; it seemed more like a romance than a page from life’s history.

“You say you must prevent this marriage at Whitestone Hall.” She took Daisy’s clasped hands from her weeping face, and holding them in her own looked into it silently, keenly, steadily. “How could you do it? What is Rexford Lyon to you?”

Lower and lower drooped the golden bowed head, and a voice like no other voice, like nothing human, said:

“I am Rex Lyon’s wife, his wretched, unhappy, abandoned wife.”

Mrs. Tudor dropped her hands with a low cry of dismay.

“You will keep my secret,” sobbed Daisy; and in her great sorrow she did not notice the lady did not promise.

In vain Mrs. Tudor pleaded with her to go back to her husband and beg him to hear her.

“No,” said Daisy, brokenly. “He said I had spoiled his life, and he would never forgive me. I have never taken his name, and I never shall. I will be Daisy Brooks until I die.”

“Daisy Brooks!” The name seemed familiar to Mrs. Tudor, yet she could not tell where she had heard it before.

Persuasion was useless. “Perhaps Heaven knows best,” sighed Mrs. Tudor, and with tears in her eyes (for she had really loved the beautiful young stranger, thrown for so many long weeks upon her mercy and kindness) she saw Daisy depart.

“May God grant you may not be too late!” she cried, fervently, clasping the young girl, for the last time, in her arms.

Too late! The words sounded like a fatal warning to her. No, no; she could not, she must not, be too late!

At the very moment Daisy had left the detective’s house, Basil Hurlhurst was closeted with Mr. Tudor in his private office, relating minutely the disappearance of his infant daughter, as told him by the dying housekeeper, Mrs. Corliss.