Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice

"No, no, mamma; I was only smiling at my transformation. Such a little while ago I was simply a poor shop-girl in a New York dry-goods store, and engaged to marry a fireman, who was considered an exceedingly good match for me. Now I find myself a rich young heiress, betrothed to an English nobleman. It is quite startling."

"I believe you regret your good fortune!" cried the lady.

Geraldine answered with a burst of tears.

For a few moments she sobbed vehemently; then calming herself, she sighed.

"Dear mamma, I can never regret that I have found you, but I can never cease to deplore your hardness of heart that would part me from my heart's chosen one!"

"Hardness of heart," echoed the mother, reproachfully.

"Oh, mamma, you do not know how fondly I love him!" sobbed the daughter, and for a little while there was a painful silence.

Mrs. Fitzgerald was a woman of strong will and high ambition.

She could not forego her plans for Geraldine.

So presently she said, soothingly:

"My darling girl, I know you would not wish to have me break my plighted word. When I was in Europe, at the time when you were two years old, I spent two months at the home of a New York cousin of mine who had married a rich lord. They had a son seven years old—a bright, manly little lad—who fairly worshiped you; and one day his mother said, gayly: 'Leland, why don't you ask little Geraldine to be your wife when she grows up?'

"The pretty blue-eyed boy laughed and knelt down by your side, repeating the question his mother had prompted, and you kissed him and lisped 'yes.'"

"But I was only a baby, mamma. Of course, such a betrothal was not binding," remonstrated Geraldine, though she was touched at the pretty, childish betrothal.

"Wait till I have finished, darling. Lady Putnam, my cousin, smiled at me with tears in her eyes, and said that she hoped that the childish love would endure till they were grown, and that they might indeed marry. I agreed to this, and we solemnly betrothed the children next day, buying a tiny diamond ring on purpose to fit your finger. Little Leland was delighted with his promised bride, and grieved bitterly when we left him and returned to New York."

Geraldine was about to speak, but her mother interrupted:

"Wait, dear, till I have finished the story I began. Then I will listen to your objections."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

GERALDINE'S DEFIANCE

"There are some sweet affectionsThat wealth cannot buy,That cling but still closerWhen sorrow draws nigh;As the mistletoe clingsTo the oak, not in part,But with leaves closely round it,The root in its heart."Charles Swain.

Mrs. Fitzgerald sighed, and continued:

"I must touch briefly now on a subject painful to us both—your father's faithlessness."

"Oh, mamma, how could he be false to one like you—so noble, so beautiful?" cried Geraldine, in wonder.

"He was weak and easily flattered by a designing woman—that is all I will say, Geraldine, for how can I disparage an erring father to his child? Well, while I remained at my cousin's in Devonshire, my husband kept running back and forth to Paris, seeming infatuated by its charms. At length a rumor reached me that he was lavishing money and attention on a notorious woman who had caught his fancy. I wrote to him, begging that he would deny it, but he treated my letter with disdain, plunging more recklessly into dissipation, and even appearing in public by the side of the woman who had lured him from me, seated in a magnificent vehicle he had purchased for her use. To be brief, Geraldine, his vile conduct killed every spark of love I ever had for him. I returned to my home in New York and secured a divorce as soon as possible, encouraged by my father, who was then living. But he died in a few months, and afterward I was very lonely, having no near relatives to cheer me except you, my pet and darling. At a watering-place I met Mr. Fitzgerald, and a mutual fascination for each other was followed by an early marriage. Soon after our return from our bridal tour, your father—enraged, perhaps that I could find happiness with another—came to Chicago and stole you away. A cruel fate foiled all my efforts to trace you, until that day when chance brought us face to face."

"Do not call it chance, mamma; it was Providence, surely, that saved me from that wretch!" cried pretty Geraldine, fervently.

"We will call it Providence, then," agreed her mother, and continued: "Until the last few years, when my heart and thoughts were all occupied by your step-father's failing health, I kept up a regular correspondence with my cousin, Lady Putnam, and her letters were filled with praises of her noble son, Leland. She had a sweet little daughter also, called Amy, but her pride seemed to centre in the boy who would inherit his father's rank and wealth."

She paused, sighed, then added:

"Now, Geraldine, you see how I had planned your future before you were so cruelly stolen from me. And now that you have been restored to my heart, all my old ambitions for you have revived. Can you wonder that I prefer for you to marry noble Leland Putnam, whom I have known and loved ever since his childhood, rather than a stranger, who, however worthy, is poor and obscure, and could not elevate you to the position your beauty merits?"

Geraldine had listened silently and earnestly. The romantic story of her childish betrothal pleased her, but it could not turn her true heart from its firm allegiance.

She said, gently:

"You have told me a deeply touching story, dear mamma. I grieve that my own father proved so false and unworthy, and I rejoice that I did not inherit his fickleness, for my heart is true as steel to the first object of its choice. I can never cease to love Harry Hawthorne, and as for the betrothal you speak of, it was simply a childish affair, forgotten, no doubt by all but yourself."

"You are mistaken, my dear; for my cousin often mentioned it in her letters after you were lost to us, as we feared, forever. I shall write to her this very day, and tell her you are found again."

"But not one word of that childish engagement, please, mamma! I will not be offered to any man!" remonstrated Geraldine, in alarm.

"Certainly not, Geraldine. Of course, I know what is due to you. But if Leland revives it of himself, if he still claims you, you cannot refuse to marry him!"

Geraldine felt as if she were choking.

A cruel fate seemed to destine her to a loveless marriage.

Oh, how could her mother be so cruel, so heartless, wrapped up in sordid ambition, reckless of a young heart's misery!

Filled with fear and anger at her threatening fate, she sprang to her feet, crying, passionately:

"Mamma, I do not wish to offend you, but—but—I will not be forced into a loveless marriage. I will be true to Harry, though the whole world oppose me! Why, I would rather have remained a poor salesgirl forever than have lost him, my own true love, by finding myself an heiress!"

The passionate defiance was out, and the mother knew that all her ambitions were likely to be defeated by a girl's perversity.

She called it perversity in her mind. She would not own that it was love—constant, faithful love, that has been the theme of poets since first they struck the sounding lyre.

She did not want to excite the girl any further now, though she determined that in the end she should yield to her mother's will.

Rising from her seat, she quitted the room like a skillful general, though casting one single glance backward that rankled reproachfully in Geraldine's heart.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"A WOMAN'S HONOR IS INVOLVED, AND MY SILENCE IS ITS ONLY SAFEGUARD."

"Woman's honor is nice as ermine—Will not bear a soil.""Her maiden pride, her haughty name,My dumb devotion shall not shame;The love that no return doth crave,To knightly levels lifts the slave."

When Clifford Standish plunged the dagger into Hawthorne's breast, and heard the groan of the victim, felt the hot blood spurting over his hands as he rolled over in the snow, he thought he had killed him.

But no pang of remorse touched his cruel heart.

He exulted in the deed that he had done.

Springing to his feet, he glanced hurriedly around, and seeing no one near, coolly wiped his bloody hands on Hawthorne's overcoat, and hastened away, exclaiming:

"I am rid of my dangerous rival at last!"

But there had been an unsuspected witness of the deadly crime he had committed.

From a window above a young man had been looking down just as the rivals closed in mortal combat.

He had come to the place to call on a friend who roomed there, and learned that he was out, but was told that he would be in directly.

Without removing his hat and overcoat, he walked restlessly up and down the room, and at last became so impatient that he pushed up the window and looked out to see if his friend was yet in sight.

But the narrow street, its snowy expanse lighted by the flaring electric lights, was deserted, save by two men, who hurled themselves with tremendous force against each other in deadly conflict.

Mr. Hill was not alarmed at first. He smiled, and murmured, whimsically:

"Whew! A prize-fight! I bet on the one that whips!"

Oblivious of the cold air that rushed through the open window into his friend's warm steam-heated apartment, he leaned out and watched the contest, adding:

"I don't suppose they would thank me for spoiling their sport, so I won't interfere. It's the blue-coat's business to break it up, but they're never in place when needed."

The battle went on, and the unseen witness gazed admiringly at the well-pitted antagonists.

He was a jovial young fellow, and he really felt inclined to cheer the gallant athletes, so cleverly did they handle each other.

But he restrained his inclination, and continued his watching, and wondering who the combatants were and which would gain the mastery.

But all at once he uttered a startled cry:

"Heavens! that was murder!"

He had heard the ripping sound of the dagger pressed upward into the victim's breast, and his dying groan as he rolled over in the snow.

Starting away from the window, he ran away from the room into the hall, eager to make his way into the street.

In the lower hall he blundered against another man, who caught him by the arm, saying, roughly:

"Hello! what are you running away like this for, eh?"

"Don't you know me, Doctor Rowe? Come with me, for God's sake, into the street. I was looking out of the window, and saw a murder being done."

They rushed into the street, but the little delay had enabled the murderer to make his escape.

Nothing was to be seen of any human creature but that still form lying there in a drift of snow that had turned crimson with the blood that was spurting from his breast.

With exclamations of pity and horror, they bent over him, the physician quickly feeling for his heart.

"Is he dead?" asked Leroy Hill, his laughing dark eyes growing soft with pity.

"Not yet; his heart beats faintly, but this flow of blood must be stopped at once. It is very fortunate we came to him so quickly," returned the old physician, tearing open Hawthorne's shirt-bosom and preparing to stanch the flow of blood.

Several people came out of the house and joined them, and a crowd collected quickly, a policeman coming at last around the corner.

Those who could assist the doctor did so, others plied each other with questions.

"Who is he?"

"Who killed him?"

No one could answer either question.

No cards nor letters were found on the stranger's person to prove his identity, and no one present recognized him.

Leroy Hill could only tell that he had seen the encounter from an upper window, and that the assassin had escaped before he reached the street.

Doctor Rowe looked up, asking: "Has any one 'phoned for an ambulance to take him to the hospital? His last chance of life will soon be gone if he has to lie here in the street."

A bystander interposed, sarcastically:

"And he won't have much chance of life among some of those brutal nurses at the hospital, neither."

Mr. Hill's absent friend had come up a moment before, and the young man turned to him, saying, kindly:

"Let's give the poor devil a chance for his life, Ralph. Can't we get a room in the house and hire a nurse for him?"

"Why, certainly, Lee. Glad you thought of it! We will put him in my bedroom and I can sleep on the lounge in my study," returned Ralph Washburn who was an author, and had the kindest heart in the world.

And so Harry Hawthorne found true friends among those jolly, big-hearted Westerners, and, under their faithful ministrations, he came back to the life that had used him so hardly.

And then they found that he was inclined to throw a bit of a mystery around himself, for he was unwilling to answer questions about anything.

"Don't think me ungrateful, boys," he said to Ralph and Lee, as they sat by his bed. "God only knows how grateful I am for your goodness, and I hope to prove it to you some day. I'm from the North; I don't belong in Chicago—I'll own that. I won't tell my name yet—call me Jack Daly; that will do as well as anything until the time comes when I can safely confess all."

They liked him in spite of his mysterious ways, for there was too much nobility in his face to lead any one astray. They felt sure that he was worthy of honor and respect.

"But, Jack Daly," began Leroy Hill, smiling as he ran his white hand through his clustering auburn curls, "I'm going to ask you one question. Do you mean to shield the man who tried to murder you?"

"To shield him? Was he not a stranger?"

"I do not believe he was a stranger to you. You did not meet as strangers. You had a terrible quarrel. Perhaps it was about a woman. Listen: I found a bloody glove in the snow that night, and it belonged either to you or to him. I deciphered in it a name—Clifford Standish!"

"Heavens!" exclaimed the patient.

"Then that is your name?"

"No."

"Then it was your assailant's, and I am bound to put the police in possession of this important clew."

The patient raised himself on his elbow, crying, feverishly:

"For God's sake! spare that villain, Mr. Hill; not for his sake, no, no—but for a woman's sake! Listen: there is a tragedy behind what you know. A woman's honor is involved, and my silence is its only safeguard!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"STOP THE CARRIAGE!"

"Come love! Until thy face I see,All things seem valueless to me;Nor singing birds nor blooming flowersCan make less sad the weary hours.Friends cannot cheer, mirth cannot move,While thou art absent, dearest love.Dejection holds my heart in thrallTill thou art here, my all-in-all."Francis S. Smith.

"How strange, oh, how strange, that Harry does not answer my letter!" cried Geraldine, impatiently.

About ten days had passed since she had posted the letter with her own hands to Hawthorne, and for days she had been waiting in silent anxiety for his reply.

But, as we know that he had left New York suddenly, without leaving directions to forward his mail, we can understand the cause of the silence that was torturing her tender heart. Since the day when Geraldine had impulsively defied her mother to turn her heart from her betrothed, a slight reserve had grown up between them that nothing seemed to bridge. Mrs. Fitzgerald never brought up again the subject of her daughter's lover. She was bitterly and unreasonably offended at the stand the girl had taken.

So she became more chary of showing affection to Geraldine, and lavished caresses on her two younger children, the charming Earl and Claire.

Geraldine, who was as loving as she was proud and willful, suffered sorely from her mother's coldness. She began to feel like an alien in the great, splendid mansion. In secret she pined for Cissy and her old happy life among the girls at O'Neill's before her own mad ambition for the stage had cut her off from those pleasant days forever.

"I have a great mind to run away from my grand home and ambitious mother and go back to Cissy," she sobbed one night to her lonely pillow.

But she did not have the heart to carry out her threat, for Mrs. Fitzgerald was kind in spite of her reserve, lavishing beautiful gowns and jewels upon her, as if to make up to her for her heart-loneliness. Dressmakers and milliners had carte blanche, and Geraldine had an outfit fine enough for a young princess.

These beautiful gowns, these flashing jewels, and the luxury of her home would have made the lovely girl very happy, but for the cruel separation from her lover. Without him there was a blank in everything.

"Where I am the halls are gilded,Stored with pictures bright and rare;Strains of deep, melodious musicFloat upon the perfumed air.Slowly, heavily, and sadlyTime with weary wings must flee,Marked by pain and toil and sorrow,Where I fain must be."

One day a sudden thought came into her mind.

"Why not have Cissy come and make me a visit?"

She spoke to her mother about it the same day, asking timidly for the privilege of inviting Cissy to spend a month with her in Chicago.

Mrs. Fitzgerald readily acquiesced, and gave Geraldine a liberal check for her friend's traveling expenses.

Geraldine flew to her room to write to her friend, and she did not fail to inquire of Cissy what had become of Harry Hawthorne.

"Tell him I have written to him and received no reply," she added, naively, in her keen anxiety.

She felt a little happier when the letter had been dispatched to Cissy. It would be a comfort to have her old friend with her, in spite of the fact that many of her mother's rich, fashionable friends had called and offered their friendship in affectionate terms.

But they were strange and new to Geraldine, and they could not make her happy yet. The transplanted flower had not taken root in this new, rich soil. It pined for its old habitation. It was strange to be a greenhouse exotic instead of a fresh wild-flower nodding to its mates beneath the free blue sky.

"But if I only had those I love with me, I should be supremely happy," she sighed, wistfully.

"There is no friend like an old friend,Whose life-path mates our own,Whose dawn and noon, whose even and endHave known that we have known.It may be when we read her faceWe note a trace of care;'Tis well that friends in life's last graceShare sighs as smiles they share."

More than a week had passed since Clifford Standish's visit, and they saw and heard no more of him.

Both mother and daughter supposed that he had passed out of their lives forever.

But the handsome governess, Miss Erroll, might have told them a different story had she dared.

She had received several letters from him, and she knew from them that the actor was weaving a spider's web to entrap poor Geraldine.

But she dared not speak, dared not warn the beautiful unconscious victim.

She was in the villain's power, through his knowledge of her past, and her terror for her own safety commanded her silence.

She was a weak woman, who had erred and repented; and now that she had begun to live a better life, she had a terror of losing her situation. She could not betray Clifford Standish, although she would have rejoiced in doing so with safety to herself.

So the days went by, and it was almost a week since Geraldine had written to Miss Carroll. She began to look eagerly for an answer.

Mrs. Fitzgerald proposed a shopping tour the next day.

"You have not made the tour of the Chicago shops yet, but I assure you they compare favorably with those of New York. We will drive to State street, and go through Marshall Field's immense establishment, which is one of the finest here. Then, too, we must visit Stevens & Brothers' magnificent silk store. We may find something to please us there. How sorry I am that I cannot introduce you formally to society yet, because of my mourning. You would be a vision of beauty in an evening dress."

Geraldine's thoughts flew back to the only time she had ever worn an evening dress—the night of the firemen's ball at Newburgh, when she had been so happy because Harry Hawthorne's eyes had told her over and over of her beauty. Ah, she would never be quite so happy again, she feared.

They entered the elegant liveried carriage and were driven to State street.

It was Geraldine's first shopping tour with her mother, and she found a great deal of zest in it, in spite of the sorrow that ached at her loving heart.

How delightful it was to be buying beautiful fabrics instead of selling them; to have a purse full of money to spend on whatever she liked!

How different from the days of the shabby black serge gown and the waiting on customers from morning till night, with weary feet and oft-times aching back. She looked at the pretty salesgirls of Chicago with kind, pitying eyes, and was careful to give as little trouble as possible when making her purchases. They looked at the rich young beauty in her sealskin cloak enviously, little dreaming that but a short while ago she had been a simple working-girl like themselves, with no prospect of the good fortune that had come to her so suddenly and strangely.

They re-entered the carriage, and Mrs. Fitzgerald gave the address of an artist.

"I must have some picture of you in your carriage suit, and this is such a bright, sunny day, just suited to a sitting," she said.

It pleased her to have her beautiful daughter photographed in several graceful styles, then they left Stevens' and proceeded home.

"You have had fatigue enough for one day, but we will come out again to-morrow and see more of the city," said Mrs. Fitzgerald, kindly.

The carriage drove away, and neither of them noticed three men who had been walking slowly toward them as they entered the carriage, and who had paused to gaze admiringly at Geraldine as she crossed the pavement.

They were Ralph Washburn, Leroy Hill, and Harry Hawthorne. The two former had brought their patient out for the first time for a short walk.

He had convalesced very fast, the wound not being as deep as at first supposed.

But the keen stroke of Standish had only missed a fatal ending because it had been blunted by passing through a cigar case in Hawthorne's breast-pocket.

His high health and vitality had enabled him to pull through fast, and to-day he was out for the first time, looking pale and thin, his restless glances roving from side to side, seeking ever for one beautiful face so deeply loved, so cruelly lost.

And suddenly he encountered it—where least expected—in the garb and the trappings of wealth.

He gave a gasp like one dying, and clutched young Hill's arm in icy fingers.

The latter looked around, exclaiming:

"What is it, Jack, eh? Have we brought you too far in your weak state? Oh, I see, you're looking at the beauty! You're hard hit, aren't you? So am I! She's a stunner!"

At that moment the footman closed the door on Geraldine, and the carriage rolled away.

She did not look out of the window, or she would have seen Hawthorne—the lover over whom her fond heart was yearning—start forward with outstretched arms toward the carriage, crying, wildly:

"It is she! it is she! Stop the carriage, I say! I must speak to her one moment!"

But his friends restrained him on either side. They feared that he had suddenly gone daft.

Weak as he was, he struggled with them, broke their hold, and ran a few paces after the carriage.

Then he dropped, exhausted, to the pavement.

They overtook him and raised him up between them.

He looked at them pleadingly.

"You think I am crazy, I know. But let me explain. I know that girl in the carriage. I came to Chicago to find her, and now, she has escaped me!" he groaned.

"What! you know the beautiful Miss Fitzgerald, of Prairie avenue?" exclaimed Ralph Washburn, in surprise.

"That is not her name!" cried Hawthorne.

"Oh, yes, it is Miss Fitzgerald, certainly. You have made a mistake," returned the young author, who had seen Mrs. Fitzgerald often, and had read in the society newspapers that her lovely daughter, Miss Fitzgerald, who had been educated abroad, had just been called home by her father's death.

But to make assurance doubly sure, he ran up to the photographer's studio to inquire. They assured him that their late sitters were Mrs. and Miss Fitzgerald.