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

She wondered despairingly if she should ever get free from the power of her cruel jailer, or if she should die here, as old Jane had boldly threatened.

The woman had become very impatient over Geraldine's continued weeping, and one day she said, roughly:

"You might as well hush that snivelin' an' make your mind up ter marry that man, for if you don't he'll kill you!"

"Kill me! He dare not!"

"He'll dare anything, and if he don't, I will. Sho! I don't mind killin' anybody. I beat a poor-house chile to death last year, and only three months ago I p'isened my husband with arsenic. An' that isn't all I done, neither, for–" She paused in the recital of her crimes, for the listener had dropped limply in a swoon, overcome by the horror of the story.

Oh, the weary days, and the terror-haunted nights! How did the poor captive drag through them? The wonder to her ever afterward was that she did not go mad.

At last Clifford Standish came.

It was a full week since he had brought her there and the storm had somewhat abated in violence, but the snow still lay deep upon the ground, and the wailing of the winter wind was like the knell of hope in her ears.

The door opened, and her cowardly abductor stood within the room, gazing at his cruel work.

Pretty Geraldine had wept till her brown eyes were dim and heavy, with purple shadows beneath them, and her cheeks all wan and sunken. She had not taken the trouble to exchange her blanket wrapper for the cloth gown Miss Erroll had put in the hand-bag. She had not given a thought to her appearance.

But even her disheveled locks and haggard looks could not quench the fire of passion in the villain's heart. He looked at her gloatingly, exclaiming:

"Good-morning, pretty Geraldine. I suppose that after your week with Jane Crabtree, you are glad to see even me!"

CHAPTER LVIII.

SENTENCE OF DEATH

"Alas, a wicked man am I;With temper fierce, too prone to strife,And quick to wrath, my hands I plyTo evil deeds."Benjamin Hathaway.

Geraldine gave the smooth villain a glance of measureless contempt as she answered, bitterly:

"The sight of his satanic majesty would be more welcome than you, Clifford Standish!"

"Still defiant!" he laughed, mockingly. "Why, I thought that a week of Mrs. Crabtree's society would bring you to your senses!"

"Say rather would cause me to lose my senses!" she retorted, bitterly, and there was a moment's silence, which he broke by saying, impatiently:

"I will come to the purpose of my visit, Geraldine, I wish to marry you."

"So you have told me before," disdainfully.

"Well, I tell you so again, and I am fully determined that you shall become my wife!"

"You have a wife already, you villain!"

"She died in New York recently, and I am free to offer you my hand in honorable marriage. Will you accept it, Geraldine?"

"Never! I would die before I would marry you!"

"It is the alternative you must accept unless you become my bride!"

The steel-blue glitter of his eyes was diabolical as he fixed them upon her, and continued:

"Of course you understand that I have run a great risk in bringing you here, and made myself liable to the law for kidnaping—that is, unless you marry me, and give the affair the color of an elopement."

He paused, but she did not speak, so he went on:

"No search is being made for you by your friends, for a note was left in your room, stating that you had fled to marry your lover, Harry Hawthorne. Your mother believes that statement, and so there is not the least suspicion that I carried you off."

"You fiend!" she cried; then added: "But Harry Hawthorne will search for me!"

"Harry Hawthorne gave up the search for you weeks ago, and sailed for Europe."

"It is false!"

"It is perfectly true. Why he went, I know not, but I have read in a New York paper of his going. Believe me or not, as you will, my charmer, but you are entirely in my power, without hope of rescue, and I am desperate with love for you. I will not permit rivalry from any living man. Either my bride you shall be, or the bride of Death!"

She sat listening and shuddering before the terrible decision of his words, and the blue fire of his determined eyes. She felt that neither prayers nor tears would move him. He was mad with love, stubborn with a sense of power.

Changing his mood, he began to pour out in burning words all the mighty strength of his passion, pleading, raving, imploring her kindness in return.

He might as well have prayed to a statue, so changeless was the scorn of her silent lips.

He asked her, almost frantically:

"Do you understand that unless you marry me there is no appeal from the sentence of death?"

"Yes, I understand; but I consider death preferable to a union with you."

Angered by the scorn of her words, he retorted:

"It will be a cruel death, I warn you, at the hands of old Jane Crabtree and your body will not even have Christian burial. It will be flung into an old disused well on the premises, and the secret of your fate will never be known."

"Be it so. At least, you cannot murder my soul. It will return to the God who gave it," she replied, dauntlessly bravely, determined that he should not have the satisfaction of seeing her wince before his threats.

He rose, with a baffled air, exclaiming:

"I shall not consider this answer final. I shall give you one more week in which to decide your fate."

Geraldine's heart leaped with joy. Another week's respite! And who could tell what might happen in that time? She had been praying, praying, praying all the while. Perhaps God would save her from her enemy's wiles.

Smiling grimly, Clifford Standish continued:

"I shall leave old Jane to plead my cause with you, and I believe that she will prove a powerful advocate. So sure am I of her ultimate success, that in a week I shall return, bringing with me a justice of the peace, empowered with authority to join us in matrimonial bonds. If you refuse, I shall go away, leaving you in the hands of old Jane, to be tortured to death and buried in the old well!"

Not a word came from the white lips of the girl, but the scorn of her eyes was fiery enough to make him hurry from her presence with a stifled oath.

She saw him leave with a great strangling sob of relief, and murmured:

"Thank Heaven, he will not come again for a week. Something will surely happen in all that time."

But she did not know yet all the horrors that week held in store for her, or why Clifford Standish had smiled so grimly, when he spoke of old Jane's advocacy of his suit.

They had planned a desperate expedient.

Each day the cruel woman presented herself with the harsh question:

"Will you marry Clifford Standish?"

Geraldine always answered "Never!" and each time the old woman flew at her in a fury, and administered a severe beating.

"He told me to do it," she would exclaim, angrily.

The prints of her cruel hands would be left on Geraldine's tender face in crimson streaks; her arms and shoulders bore purple bruises on their whiteness, but though each day brought a more severe chastisement than the last, Geraldine's answer was still the same:

"Never! Never!"

Her daily portions of food grew less in quantity, and more inferior in quality, so that only the severest pangs of hunger forced her to swallow the coarse mess. But for the hope of rescue, she would have left it untouched, and starved herself.

The old fiend began also to neglect the fire, so that the freezing winter winds, as they swept across the snow-covered prairie land, penetrated the cracks of the old frame house and chilled poor Geraldine until her fair face looked blue and pinched from the cold.

"I shall beat, and starve, and freeze you into consent!" snarled wicked old Jane, in a rage at the girl's stubbornness.

"You may kill my body, but you cannot bend my will!" answered the resolute victim.

But from weakness of the body her hopefulness began to fail. She cried out that God had forgotten her; she ceased to pray for rescue; she asked only that death would come quickly.

But the slow days and nights dragged on till the week was at an end, and still the strength of youth kept life in her sore and aching frame.

Late that afternoon old Jane came up stairs.

"He is coming. I see the sleigh off in the distance now. He will bring the justice to marry you to him!" she snarled.

Geraldine did not answer; she had already been beaten and kicked that day so that she was barely able to rise from the chair where she was crouching.

The woman continued, threateningly:

"If you do not marry him, he will leave you here for me to kill. Do you know how I shall do it?"

"No."

"I shall turn the dog on you. He has been kept without food two days, to make him savage. He would tear a stranger to pieces. He has never seen you, so when I 'sic' him on you, he will spring at your throat and make mincemeat of you. While you are still warm and bleeding, I shall throw your body into the old well!"

It was horrible to listen to her, but Geraldine only trembled and hid her face. Two weeks of misery had inured her to such brutality.

"I must go now and chain up Towser, so they can get in," added the old wretch, going down, after locking the door as usual, to receive her guests.

They came in, Standish and the justice of the peace he had bribed to accompany him—a villain, if ever a man's face spoke truly, who would stop at nothing if tempted by gold.

The actor whispered to Jane Crabtree, nervously:

"Has she consented?"

"No—although I've half-killed her tryin' to break her will."

Curses, low and deep, breathed over his lips; then he said:

"Well, we won't go up stairs to see her yet. We're half-frozen with this beastly cold, anyway, so we'll thaw out over the fire and a bottle of wine."

CHAPTER LIX.

WEDDED TO HER CHOICE

"'Oh, darling', she said, and the whispered wordsIn a dreamy cadence fall,'Can I help but choose thee who art the bestAnd the noblest among them all * * *And since in thine eyes I shyly readThat thy thoughts hold a place for me—I bring thee a love, and a heart, and a life,And consecrate all to thee!'"

They drew up their chairs to the glowing kitchen fire, smoked, drank, and even played a game of cards, for now that the final moment had arrived, the villain's nerve began to fail him, and he began to realize his crime in all its enormity.

And while he lingered there, dreading the consummation of the crowning act of his villainy, along the road he had traveled another sleigh was speeding toward the farm—a double sleigh—and in it were seated Harry Hawthorne, Detective Norris, and two stalwart policemen detailed on special duty for this occasion.

Fast flew the gallant horses under the gently urging hand of the driver, until they were in sight, then Norris exclaimed:

"There's the old house now. And, see!—a sleigh at the gate! Perhaps Standish is there now, the villain! We will be extremely lucky if we catch him on the spot!"

At the same moment, Standish tossed off a bumper of wine, exclaiming:

"Here's to the bride, the beautiful heiress! Come, let's get the ceremony over!"

The three conspirators filed up stairs and into the room where Geraldine, more dead than alive, crouched in her chair in terror of their coming.

Standish, whose spirits were much elated by generous potations of wine, crossed over to her, crying, gayly:

"Give us a kiss, pretty one! I've come to marry you at last! Here's the preacher—justice, I mean. He can tie the knot just as well. Hello, Jane! if you're the bridesmaid, get her up on her feet by my side, will you?"

The justice planted himself in readiness to perform the ceremony, but Geraldine would not permit any one to drag her up from her seat.

She fought off their hands with a wonderful strength, born of desperation, and shriek after shriek, loud, agonized, ear-piercing, burst from her pale lips.

Perhaps it was the sound of those defiant shrieks that drowned the sound of bells as the second sleigh dashed up to the gate, and the men tumbled out pell-mell into the lane.

But the winter wind bore to their ears the sound of Geraldine's awful cries, and their feet seemed winged, as, headed by Hawthorne, they rushed up the lane and threw themselves altogether against the locked door.

It yielded and fell in with their united weight, tumbling all together upon the kitchen floor.

But each sprang to his feet and followed the sound of those frantic shrieks up a rickety stair-way to another locked door.

"Now all together again, lads—push!" shouted Hawthorne, and under the strong onslaught the second door yielded, the lock fell off, and they were on the scene of action.

And, oh, what a scene!

Clifford Standish and the old woman had dragged Geraldine from her chair, despite her desperate shrieks and struggles, and were holding her up between them, while the half-drunken justice mumbled over the words of the marriage service.

The conspirators, thus taken by surprise, dropped their victim and turned to fly, but the clubs of the agile policemen quickly strewed the floor with three groaning wretches.

As for Hawthorne, he thought only of Geraldine. She flew to him, and he clasped her in his arms, crying:

"Oh, my love, my love! I have come to save you!"

It was a tender meeting, but its pathos was quite lost on Norris and the policemen, who were busy putting handcuffs on the three prisoners, whose dose of clubs had reduced them to a dazed condition that made them easy to conquer.

The surprise had been a complete one, and extremely successful—so much so that all three of the conspirators were taken away as prisoners by the jubilant Norris and the two policemen.

And, to dispose of the subject at once, we may add that all three were committed to jail, had a speedy trial, and were convicted of kidnaping and conspiracy. An indignant judge and jury awarded them the severest sentence under the law, and they were sent to prison for a long term of years during which their energies were expended in labor for the State of Illinois.

It would be too great a task to describe the joy of the Fitzgerald household that evening when Harry Hawthorne restored Geraldine to her home, or their grief and indignation when they learned the terrible persecutions she had suffered.

Mrs. Fitzgerald's gratitude to Harry Hawthorne was boundless.

She scarcely remembered the existence of the English nobleman, whose title she had so ardently desired for Geraldine.

She realized how true was Hawthorne's affection when she saw him weep the bitterest tears over the cruel bruises that for several days empurpled the poor girl's face and hands—marks of the brutal blows she had been given by Jane Crabtree while trying to force her consent to marry Clifford Standish.

"He loves her with the devotion of a noble heart, and I will not stand between them, even though he is only a poor fireman. Besides, he really saved her life from those murderous wretches, and it belongs to him," she thought, generously.

So, when he came to her a few days later, asking her for the second time for her approval of his suit for Geraldine's hand, she accepted him with pleasure for her son-in-law.

And then she said, with a smile:

"But I hope you will not carry my dear girl away from me when you are married. This house is large enough for us all."

Thinking that he was poor, she wished to make the future as easy for him as possible.

But Hawthorne answered:

"I thank you for your generosity, but I have a home in England, and a widowed mother awaiting me."

"I do not understand," she said, wonderingly.

Just then Geraldine and Cissy came in, with the two children, who were enjoying the freedom of having no governess at present.

Mrs. Fitzgerald called Geraldine to her side, kissed her beautiful brow, and said:

"I have just given you away, my darling, to your worthy lover."

Geraldine blushed deeply, as Hawthorne drew her to his side and said:

"Dearest, I have just been telling your dear mother that our home must be in England when we are married. Indeed, I have a letter of introduction from my own mother to yours, which I must now deliver."

He bowed gracefully to Mrs. Fitzgerald, who opened the letter with a mystified air.

Directly she looked up, exclaiming:

"But this is very puzzling. The letter is from my English cousin, Lady Putnam, to introduce her son, Lord Leland Harry Putnam."

"I am he, Mrs. Fitzgerald," the young man said, with another low bow, but it took many minutes of explanation to convince her of the truth, and then she said, beamingly:

"But why did you deceive us?"

"Can you not guess? I wished to test Geraldine's love, and to win your regard as simple Harry Hawthorne, the poor fireman. I have succeeded, and now I am perfectly happy."

So were they all, if their radiant faces were an index of their feelings, and Lord Putnam made Geraldine blush very brightly when he added:

"My mother and sister told me to tell you that they will come to America to our wedding, and they hope it will be soon, as Amy especially is anxious to see this country."

When he brought Ralph Washburn and Leroy Hill to call the next day, they sounded the praises of beautiful Lady Amy so persistently that Geraldine was in love with her new sister before she ever saw her, and she wondered which one of the handsome young lovers would win the charming beauty.

She persuaded Cissy to be married on the same day as herself and Cameron Clemens, although very impatient for the marriage, consented to the postponement to please the two fair brides.

"Won't it be just too lovely to be married on the same day, Cissy, and cross the ocean together on our bridal tour and spend our honeymoons at Castle Raneleigh? We must write and tell the Stansburys and Odells, and send them invitations," cried pretty Geraldine, who was so happy in her love that she wanted all her old friends to rejoice with her when she was wedded to her heart's dear choice.

The happy day is set for June, dear reader, and I am invited to the double wedding.

(THE END.)