AN UNWELCOME TELEGRAM.
It was all over. Fair’s tortured mother had found rest in the grave,
and the unhappy daughter had gone home with Sadie Allen to live,
scorning the offer that had come to her in a letter from George
Lorraine to forgive and forget, and let him take her to a home, where
he would work for her most faithfully.
The beautiful red lips curled in bitter scorn.
“Sadie, look at me, and think of it,” she said disdainfully: “The wife
of an Italian organ grinder, following him, with his monkey, perhaps,
around the streets, singing for a few pennies!”
“He is not an organ grinder. That was a falsehood of Belva’s,” said
Sadie. “I have taken pains to inquire, and I find that his real name is
Carl Bernicci, and that he keeps a little fruit-and-confectionery stand
near a wharf. His father was an organ grinder, and a real Italian, but
he married an American wife--the mother of Carl, who, it seems, has
been rather wild, and once got in some scrape in which Belva got him in
her power, hence her plot by which she avenged herself on your pretty
face. But the strangest part of my story is yet to come, my dear.
Prepare to be surprised.”
“If it is anything concerning George Lorraine, or Carl Bernicci, as I
believe you said his name was, I should not be surprised at anything,”
Fair replied disdainfully.
“Ah, you don’t know,” said Sadie, smiling roguishly, and thinking that
her news might divert Fair’s mind from brooding over her lost mother,
she continued: “Well, then, they say that old Bernicci, the organ
grinder--Carl’s father, you know--was actually a prince in his own
land--a poor prince, you know, without a penny in his purse, or a foot
of land to his name. His prodigal father had squandered everything, you
see, and the boy prince, disgusted, fled to America, where he could
earn his living without disgracing his titled ancestry. Now, what have
you to say to that?”
Fair shook her head wearily, and answered:
“Nothing, except that I hate and scorn him, and should feel the same
hatred and scorn for him if he were a king.”
And to her own heart she said bitterly, and wrote the same thing in her
journal that night:
“Prince or king, it would matter nothing. I should hate him still, for
I know too well that it was not for his own sake, nor even for his
boasted gold, that I accepted him, but only that, through him, I might
meet again my hero, Bayard Lorraine. It was a sin for me to marry with
such thoughts in my heart, and Heaven has punished me for my sin; but
I was young and ignorant. They dazzled me by their promises, and I
thought I could tolerate Carl Bernicci for the sake of what he could
bestow on me.”
Sadie looked at her gravely while these thoughts passed in her mind,
and answered:
“And in proportion as you hate him, that wretch loves you, and I fear,
Fair, that he is going to give you a great deal of trouble. I have
found out that he has been lurking in this neighborhood ever since you
came here, and I think he means to get you away by force if coaxing
will not prevail.”
“I would rather die than live with him,” the beautiful orphan cried,
shuddering violently.
“Then you must be very careful never to go out unless accompanied by
me,” said Sadie, and Fair found it perfectly easy to do this, as she
had been taken back to her old place at the factory, and the two always
went and came together, Fair always shrouding her lovely face in a
thick veil, lest she should catch a glimpse of Carl Bernicci’s dark
face watching her covertly as she went and came.
But in a few weeks, to her dismay, there came to Sadie Allen a telegram.
“It is from my brother-in-law in Philadelphia,” she said, bursting into
a flood of tears. “My sister--my only sister--is dying. She wishes
me to come at once. I shall have to go to Philadelphia at once, on
the first train, Fair,” continued Sadie Allen, drying her tears, and
beginning to get ready in haste. “But, my dear, I do not want to leave
you behind. Cannot you come with me?”
“I could not afford it. I have no money,” Fair answered, sighing.
She had expended all she had earned since her mother’s death in buying
a plain black dress and hat, and in contributing her joint share
toward their simple housekeeping expenses.
“And I have so little that I cannot lend you enough to accompany me.
How hard it is to be poor, and to have to live from hand to mouth,
as we do, Fair. One can never afford to gratify a generous impulse,”
sighed Sadie, as she went down on her knees to pack a calico wrapper
and a change of underclothing into a hand valise.
“It is very hard, but there are some things harder,” answered poor
Fair, who was thinking that she would not mind anything, hardly, if
only she were free of the terrible incubus that weighed upon her
like iron chains--the hated bond that gave Carl Bernicci liberty to
persecute her with his unwelcome love, and to hound her footsteps,
watching his opportunity to waylay and carry her off.
“How I hate and despise him now, and how could I ever have fancied
that I could tolerate him as a husband?” she thought, in bitter
self-reproach and self-disgust.
And then the knowledge that Sadie must leave her, and that she would be
compelled to traverse the streets of New York alone, in danger every
moment of encountering Carl Bernicci, overcame her with horror, and she
sobbed aloud.
“Dear Fair, please do not give way like that,” pleaded Sadie, who had
now packed the valise, and was doing up her hair before the small
toilet glass. She had her good-natured mouth full of hairpins, which
she took out one by one and stuck in her brown hair, as she proceeded:
“I’ve thought of a good plan: Get Lucy Miller or Alice Stevens to come
here and stay with you while I’m gone; then you can have company to and
from work. I don’t think Carl Bernicci will approach you in the street
if you have some one with you. Both those girls dote on you, and would
take your part like wild cats if any one molested you.”
“Yes, I think they would,” Fair answered. “But how am I to get them
here? I dare not venture out alone to-morrow.”
“Write a note to Mrs. Jones, explaining the circumstances, and ask her
to speak to the girls for you, and have one to come to-morrow evening
to stay all night; then you could go to work the next morning,” said
Sadie, whose brain was very fertile in resources, and who, being
almost ten years older than Fair, felt somewhat in the light of a
mother toward the unhappy girl.
Fair immediately fell to work to write the letter, and had it ready for
Sadie to put in a letter box when she left the house.
The two girls parted with a fond kiss and embrace, mutually promising
to write to each other.
They had just finished their evening meal when the telegram arrived,
and Sadie had quitted the house within half an hour of its reception,
to catch the first train for Philadelphia. Consequently Fair would have
to spend a long, dreary night alone before any of her friends at the
factory could possibly come to her assistance.
A strange sense of awe and loneliness came over her when she had shut
and locked the room door after Sadie. She had never spent a night alone
in her life, and although it seemed that she must certainly be safe in
the large building, crowded with honest working people like herself,
she felt nervous and fearful.