Daisy Brooks: or, A Perilous Love

“I will marry you this very day, Daisy Brooks, whether you hate me or love me. I have done my best to gain your love. It will come in time; I can wait for it.”

“You will never make me love you,” cried Daisy, covering her face with her hands; “do not hope it–and the more you talk to me the less I like you. I wish you would go away.”

“I shall not despair,” said Stanwick, with a confident smile. “I like things which I find it hard to obtain–that was always one of my characteristics–and I never liked you so well as I like you now, in your defiant anger, and feel more determined than ever to make you my own.”

Suddenly a new thought occurred to him as he was about to turn from her.

“Why, how stupid of me!” he cried. “I could not bring the parson here, for they think you my wife already. I must change my plan materially by taking you to the parsonage. We can go from here directly to the station. I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes with a conveyance. Remember, I warn you to make no outcry for protection in the meantime. If you do I shall say you inherited your mother’s malady. I am well acquainted with your history, you see.” He kissed his finger-tips to her carelessly. “Au revoir, my love, but not farewell,” he said, lightly, “until we meet to be parted nevermore,” and, with a quick, springy step Lester Stanwick walked rapidly down the clover-bordered path on his fatal errand.

In the distance the little babbling brook sung to her of peace and rest beneath its curling, limpid waters.

“Oh, mother, mother,” she cried, “what was the dark sorrow that tortured your poor brain, till it drove you mad–ay, mad–ending in death and despair? Why did you leave your little Daisy here to suffer so? I feel such a throbbing in my own poor brain–but I must fly anywhere, anywhere, to escape this new sorrow. God has forgotten me.” She took one step forward in a blind, groping, uncertain way. “My last ray of hope has died out,” she cried as the memory of his cruel words came slowly back to her, so mockingly uttered–“the minister would be none the wiser–he is blind.”

CHAPTER XIV

When Lester Stanwick returned to the cottage he found that quite an unexpected turn of events had transpired. Miss Burton had gone out to Daisy–she lay so still and lifeless in the long green grass.

“Heaven bless me!” she cried, in alarm, raising her voice to a pitch that brought both of the sisters quickly to her side. “Matilda, go at once and fetch the doctor. See, this child is ill, her cheeks are burning scarlet and her eyes are like stars.”

At that opportune moment they espied the doctor’s carriage proceeding leisurely along the road.

“Dear me, how lucky,” cried Ruth, “Doctor West should happen along just now. Go to the gate, quick, Matilda, and ask him to stop.”

The keen eyes of the doctor, however, had observed the figure lying on the grass and the frantic movements of the three old ladies bending over it, and drew rein of his own accord to see what was the matter.

He drew back with a cry of surprise as his eyes rested on the beautiful flushed face of the young girl lying among the blue harebells at his feet.

“I am afraid this is a serious case,” he said, thoughtfully, placing his cool hand on her burning forehead; “the child has all the symptoms of brain fever in its worst form, brought on probably through some great excitement.” The three ladies looked at one another meaningly. “She must be taken into the house and put to bed at once,” he continued, authoritatively, lifting the slight figure in his strong arms, and gazing pityingly down upon the beautiful flushed face framed in its sheen of golden hair resting against his broad shoulders.

The doctor was young and unmarried and impressible; and the strangest sensation he had ever experienced thrilled through his heart as the blue, flaring eyes met his and the trembling red lips incoherently beseeched him to save her, hide her somewhere, anywhere, before the fifteen minutes were up.

A low muttered curse burst from Stanwick’s lips upon his return, as he took in the situation at a single glance.

As Daisy’s eyes fell upon Stanwick’s face she uttered a piteous little cry:

“Save me from him–save me!” she said, hysterically, growing rapidly so alarmingly worse that Stanwick was forced to leave the room, motioning the doctor to follow him into the hall.

“The young lady is my wife,” he said, with unflinching assurance, uttering the cruel falsehood, “and we intend leaving Elmwood to-day. I am in an uncomfortable dilemma. I must go, yet I can not leave my–my wife. She must be removed, doctor; can you not help me to arrange it in some way?”

“No, sir,” cried the doctor, emphatically; “she can not be removed. As her physician, I certainly would not give my consent to such a proceeding; her very life would pay the forfeit.”

For a few moments Lester Stanwick paced up and down the hall lost in deep thought; his lips were firmly set, and there was a determined gleam in his restless black eyes. Suddenly he stopped short directly before the doctor, who stood regarding him with no very agreeable expression in his honest gray eyes.

“How long will it be before the crisis is past–that is, how long will it be before she is able to be removed?”

“Not under three weeks,” replied the doctor, determinedly.

“Good heavens!” he ejaculated, sharply. “Why, I shall have to–” He bit his lip savagely, as if he had been on the point of disclosing some guarded secret. “Fate is against me,” he said, “in more ways than one; these things can not be avoided, I suppose. Well, doctor, as I am forced to leave to-day I shall leave her in your charge. I will return in exactly two weeks. She has brain fever, you say?”

The doctor nodded.

“You assure me she can not leave her bed for two weeks to come?” he continued, anxiously.

“I can safely promise that,” replied the doctor, wondering at the strange, satisfied smile that flitted like a meteor over his companion’s face for one brief instant.

“This will defray her expenses in the meantime,” he said, putting a few crisp bank-notes into the doctor’s hand. “See that she has every luxury.”

He was about to re-enter the room where Daisy lay, but the doctor held him back.

“I should advise you to remain away for the present,” he said, “your presence produces such an unpleasant effect upon her. Wait until she sleeps.”

“I have often thought it so strange people in delirium shrink so from those they love best; I can not understand it,” said Stanwick, with an odd, forced laugh. “As you are the doctor, I suppose your orders must be obeyed, however. If the fever should happen to take an unfavorable turn in the meantime, please drop a line to my address, ‘care of Miss Pluma Hurlhurst, of Whitestone Hall, Allendale,’” he said, extending his card. “It will be forwarded to me promptly, and I can come on at once.”

Again the doctor nodded, putting the card safely away in his wallet, and soon after Lester Stanwick took his departure, roundly cursing his luck, yet congratulating himself upon the fact that Daisy could not leave Elmwood–he could rest content on that score.

Meanwhile the three venerable sisters and the young doctor were watching anxiously at Daisy’s bedside.

“Oh, my poor little dear–my pretty little dear!” sobbed Ruth, caressing the burning little hands that clung to her so tightly.

“Won’t you hide me?” pleaded Daisy, laying her hot cheek against the wrinkled hand that held hers. “Hide me, please, just as if I were your own child; I have no mother, you know.”

“God help the pretty, innocent darling!” cried the doctor, turning hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture that gathered in his eyes. “No one is going to harm you, little one,” he said, soothingly; “no one shall annoy you.”

“Was it so great a sin? He would not let me explain. He has gone out of my life!” she wailed, pathetically, putting back the golden rings of hair from her flushed face. “Rex! Rex!” she sobbed, incoherently, “I shall die–or, worse, I shall go mad, if you do not come back to me!”

The three ladies looked at one another questioningly, in alarm.

“You must not mind the strange ravings of a person in delirium,” said the doctor, curtly; “they are liable to imagine and say all sorts of nonsense. Pay no attention to what she says, my dear ladies; don’t disturb her with questions. That poor little brain needs absolute rest; every nerve seems to have been strained to its utmost.”

After leaving the proper medicines and giving minute instructions as to how and when it should be administered, Dr. West took his departure, with a strange, vague uneasiness at his heart.

“Pshaw!” he muttered to himself, as he drove briskly along the shadowy road, yet seeing none of its beauty, “how strange it is these young girls will fall in love and marry such fellows as that!” he mused. “There is something about his face that I don’t like; he is a scoundrel, and I’ll bet my life on it!”

The doctor brought his fist down on his knee with such a resounding blow that poor old Dobbin broke into a gallop. But, drive as fast he would, he could not forget the sweet, childish face that had taken such a strong hold upon his fancy. The trembling red lips and pleading blue eyes haunted him all the morning, as though they held some secret they would fain have whispered.

All the night long Daisy clung to the hands that held hers, begging and praying her not to leave her alone, until the poor old lady was quite overcome by the fatigue of continued watching beside her couch. Rest or sleep seemed to have fled from Daisy’s bright, restless eyes.

“Don’t go away,” she cried; “everybody goes away. I do not belong to any one. I am all–all–alone,” she would sigh, drearily.

Again she fancied she was with Rex, standing beneath the magnolia boughs in the sunshine; again, she was clinging to his arm–while some cruel woman insulted her–sobbing pitifully upon his breast; again, she was parting from him at the gate, asking him if what they had done was right; then she was in some school-room, begging piteously for some cruel letter; then out on the waves in the storm and the on-coming darkness of night.

The sisters relieved one another at regular intervals. They had ceased to listen to her pathetic little appeals for help, or the wild cries of agony that burst from the red feverish lips as she started up from her slumbers with stifled sobs, moaning out that the time was flying; that she must escape anywhere, anywhere, while there were still fifteen minutes left her.

She never once mentioned Stanwick’s name, or Septima’s, but called incessantly for Rex and poor old Uncle John.

“Who in the world do you suppose Rex is?” said Matilda, thoughtfully. “That name is continually on her lips–the last word she utters when she closes her eyes, the first word to cross her lips when she awakes. That must certainly be the handsome young fellow she met at the gate. If he is Rex I do not wonder the poor child loved him so. He was the handsomest, most noble-looking, frank-faced young man I have ever seen; and he took on in a way that made me actually cry when I told him she was married. He would not believe it, until I called the child and she told him herself it was the truth. I was sorry from the bottom of my heart that young fellow had not won her instead of this Stanwick, they were so suited to each other.”

“Ah,” said Ruth, after a moment’s pause, “I think I have the key to this mystery. She loves this handsome Rex, that is evident; perhaps they have had a lovers’ quarrel, and she has married this one on the spur of the moment through pique. Oh, the pretty little dear!” sighed Ruth. “I hope she will never rue it.”

CHAPTER XV

Slowly the days came and went for the next fortnight. The crisis had passed, and Dr. West said she would soon recover. The beautiful, long, golden hair had been shorn from the pretty little head, and the rose-bloom had died out of the pretty cheeks, but the bright, restless light never left the beautiful blue eyes–otherwise there was but little change in Daisy.

It had been just two weeks that morning, they told her, as she opened her eyes to consciousness, since she had first been stricken down.

“And I have been here ever since?” she inquired, wonderingly.

“Yes, my dear,” replied Ruth Burton, softly patting the thin white cheeks; “of course you have been here ever since. I am afraid we are going to lose you soon, however. We have received a letter from your husband, saying he will be here some time to-morrow. Shall you be pleased to see him, dear?”

In one single instant all the dim, horrible past rushed back to Daisy’s mind. She remembered flinging herself down in the clover-scented grass, and the world growing dark around her, as the terrible words of Stanwick rang in her ears–he would be back in just fifteen minutes to claim her.

Ah, bonny little Daisy, tossing on your pillow, babbling empty nothings, better would it have been for you, perhaps, if you had dropped the weary burden of your life into the kindly arms of death then and there than to struggle onward into the dark mystery which lay entombed in your future.

“Shall you be glad to see Mr. Stanwick, dear?” repeated the old lady, and, unconscious of any wrong, she placed the letter he had written in Daisy’s hands. Like one in a terrible dream, Daisy read it quite through to the end. “You see, he says he incloses fifty dollars extra for you, dear. I have placed it with the twenty safe in your little purse.”

“Oh, Miss Ruth, you are so very kind to me. I shall never forget how good you have all been to me,” said Daisy, softly, watching the three peaceful-faced old ladies, who had drawn their rocking-chairs, as was their custom, all in a row, and sat quietly knitting in the sunshine, the gentle click of their needles falling soothingly upon Daisy’s poor, tired brain.

“We shall miss you sadly when you go,” said Ruth, knitting away vigorously. “You have been like a ray of sunshine in this gloomy old house. We have all learned to love you very dearly.”

“You love me?” repeated Daisy, wonderingly. “I was beginning to believe every one hated me in the whole world, every one has been so bitter and so cruel with me, except poor old Uncle John. I often wonder why God lets me live–what am I to do with my life! Mariana in the moated grange, was not more to be pitied than I. Death relieved her, but I am left to struggle on.”

“Heaven hear her!” cried Ruth. “One suffers a great deal to lose all interest in life. You are so young, dear, you could not have suffered much.”

“I have lost all I hold dear in life,” she answered, pathetically, lifting her beautiful, childish blue eyes toward the white fleecy clouds tinted by the setting sun.

Their hearts ached for the pretty, lonely little creature. They believed she was thinking of her mother. So she was–and of Rex, the handsome young husband whom she so madly idolized in her worshipful childish fashion, who was worse than dead to her–the husband who should have believed in her honor and purity, though the world had cried out to him that she was false. He had thrust aside all possibility of her writing to him; cast her out from his life; left her to be persecuted beyond all endurance; bound by a vow she dare not break to keep her marriage with Rex a secret. Though he was more cruel than death, she loved Rex with a devotion that never faltered.

Daisy lay there, thinking of it all, while the soft, golden sunlight died out of the sky, and the deep dusk of twilight crept softly on.

Then the old ladies arose from their chairs, folded their knitting, and put it away. Dusk was their hour for retiring.

They were discussing which one should sit up with Daisy, when she summoned them all to her bedside.

“I want you all to go to bed and never mind me,” coaxed Daisy, with a strange light in her eyes. “Take a good sleep, as I am going to do. I shall be very happy to-morrow–happier than I have ever been before!”

She clasped her white arms about their necks in turn, clinging to them, and sobbing as though she was loath to part with them.

Ruth’s hand she held last and longest.

“Please kiss me again,” she sobbed. “Clasp your arms tight around me, and say ‘Good-night, Daisy.’ It will be so nice to dream about.”

With a cheery laugh the old lady lovingly complied with her request.

“You must close those bright little eyes of yours, and drift quickly into the Land of Nod, or there will be no roses in these cheeks to-morrow. Good-night, my pretty little dear!”

“Good-night, dear, kind Ruth!” sighed Daisy.

And she watched the old lady with wistful, hungry eyes as she picked up her shaded night-lamp, that threw such a soft, sweet radiance over her aged face, as she quietly quitted the room.

A sudden change came over Daisy’s face as the sound of her footsteps died away in the hall.

“Oh, God! help me!” she cried, piteously, struggling to her feet. “I must be far away from here when daylight breaks.”

She was so weak she almost fell back on her bed again when she attempted to rise. The thought of the morrow lent strength to her flagging energies. A strange mist seemed rising before her. Twice she seemed near fainting, but her indomitable courage kept her from sinking, as she thought of what the morrow would have in store for her.

Quietly she counted over the little store in her purse by the moon’s rays.

“Seventy dollars! Oh, I could never use all that in my life!” she cried. “Besides, I could never touch one cent of Stanwick’s money. It would burn my fingers–I am sure it would!”

Folding the bill carefully in two she placed it beneath her little snowy ruffled pillow. Then catching up the thick, dark shawl which lay on an adjacent table, she wrapped it quickly about her. She opened the door leading out into the hall, and listened. All was still–solemnly still.

Daisy crept softly down the stairs, and out into the quiet beauty of the still, summer night.

“Rex,” she wailed, softly, “perhaps when I am dead you will feel sorry for poor little Daisy, and some one may tell you how you have wronged me in your thoughts, but you would not let me tell you how it happened!”

In the distance she saw the shimmer of water lying white and still under the moon’s rays, tipped by the silvery light of the stars.

“No, not that way,” she cried, with a shudder; “some one might save me, and I want to die!”

In the distance the red and colored gleaming lights of an apothecary’s shop caught her gaze.

“Yes, that way will be best,” she said, reflectively.

She drew the shawl closer about her, pressing on as rapidly as her feeble little feet would carry her. How weak she was when she turned the knob and entered–the very lights seemed dancing around her.

A small, keen-eyed, shrewd little man stepped briskly forward to wait upon her. He started back in horror at the utter despair and woe in the beautiful young face that was turned for a moment toward him, beautiful in all its pallor as a statue, with a crown of golden hair such as pictures of angels wear encircling the perfect head.

“What can I do for you, miss?” queried the apothecary, gazing searchingly into the beautiful dreamy blue eyes raised up to his and wondering who she could possibly be.

“I wish to purchase some laudanum,” Daisy faltered. “I wish it to relieve a pain which is greater than I can bear.”

“Toothache, most probably?” intimated the brisk little doctor. “I know what it is. Lord bless you! I’ve had it until I thought I should jump through the roof. Laudanum’s a first-class thing, but I can tell you of something better–jerk ’em out, that’s my recipe,” he said, with an odd little smile. “Of course every one to their notion, and if you say laudanum–and nothing else–why it’s laudanum you shall have; but remember it’s powerful. Why, ten drops of it would cause–death.”

“How many drops did you say?” asked Daisy, bending forward eagerly. “I–I want to be careful in taking it.”

“Ten drops, I said, would poison a whole family, and twenty a regiment. You must use it very carefully, miss. Remember I have warned you,” he said, handing her the little bottle filled with a dark liquid and labeled conspicuously, “Laudanum–a poison.”

“Please give me my change quickly,” she said, a strange, deadly sickness creeping over her.

“Certainly, ma’am,” assented the obliging little man, handing her back the change.

Daisy quite failed to notice that he returned her the full amount she had paid him in his eagerness to oblige her, and he went happily back to compounding his drugs in the rear part of the shop, quite unconscious he was out the price of the laudanum.

He was dreaming of the strange beauty of the young girl, and the smile deepened on his good-humored face as he remembered how sweetly she had gazed up at him.

Meanwhile Daisy struggled on, clasping her treasure close to her throbbing heart. She remembered Ruth had pointed out an old shaft to her from her window; it had been unused many years, she had said.

“The old shaft shall be my tomb,” she said; “no one will think of looking for me there.”

Poor little Daisy–unhappy girl-bride, let Heaven not judge her harshly–she was sorely tried.

“Mother, mother!” she sobbed, in a dry, choking voice, “I can not live any longer. I am not taking the life God gave me, I am only returning it to Him. This is the only crime I have ever committed, mother, and man will forget it, and God will forgive me. You must plead for me, angel-mother. Good-bye, dear, kind Uncle John, your love never failed me, and Rex–oh, Rex–whom I love best of all, you will not know how I loved you. Oh, my love–my lost love–I shall watch over you up there!” she moaned, “and come to you in your dreams! Good-bye, Rex, my love, my husband!” she sobbed, holding the fatal liquid to her parched lips.

The deep yawning chasm lay at her feet. Ten–ay, eleven drops she hastily swallowed. Then with one last piteous appeal to Heaven for forgiveness, poor, helpless little Daisy closed her eyes and sprung into the air.

CHAPTER XVI

A strong hand drew Daisy quickly back.

“Rash child! What is this that you would do?” cried an eager, earnest voice, and, turning quickly about, speechless with fright, Daisy met the stern eyes of the apothecary bent searchingly, inquiringly upon her.

“It means that I am tired of life,” she replied, desperately. “My life is so full of sadness it will be no sorrow to leave it. I wanted to rest quietly down there, but you have held me back; it is useless to attempt to save me now. I have already swallowed a portion of the laudanum. Death must come to relieve me soon. It would be better to let me die down there where no one could have looked upon my face again.”

“I had no intention to let you die so easily,” said the apothecary, softly. “I read your thoughts too plainly for that. I did not give you laudanum, but a harmless mixture instead, and followed you to see if my surmise was correct. You are young and fair–surely life could not have lost all hope and sunshine for you?”

“You do not know all,” said Daisy, wearily, “or you would not have held me back. I do not know of another life so utterly hopeless as my own.”

The good man looked at the sweet, innocent, beautiful face, upon which the starlight fell, quite bewildered and thoughtful.

“I should like to know what your trouble is,” he said, gently.

“I could tell you only one half of it,” she replied, wearily. “I have suffered much, and yet through no fault of my own. I am cast off, deserted, condemned to a loveless, joyless life; my heart is broken; there is nothing left me but to die. I repeat that it is a sad fate.”

“It is indeed,” replied the apothecary, gravely. “Yet, alas! not an uncommon one. Are you quite sure that nothing can remedy it?”

“Quite sure,” replied Daisy, hopelessly. “My doom is fixed; and no matter how long I live, or how long he lives, it can never be altered.”

The apothecary was uncomfortable without knowing why, haunted by a vague, miserable suspicion, which poor Daisy’s words secretly corroborated; yet it seemed almost a sin to harbor one suspicion against the purity of the artless little creature before him. He looked into the fresh young face. There was no cloud on it, no guilt lay brooding in the clear, truthful blue eyes. He never dreamed little Daisy was a wife. “Why did he not love her?” was the query the apothecary asked himself over and over again; “she is so young, so loving, and so fair. He has cast her off, this man to whom she has given the passionate love of her young heart.”