Madame Barto’s ideas of a parlormaid seemed rather confused, for her
gloomy little brick house had no occupants save herself and Jessie,
and before business hours in the morning she and Jessie did up all
the household work, after which they separated, madame to sit in her
dingy parlor and read detective stories in the intervals of waiting for
customers, and Jessie to wait in a tiny anteroom off the hall to answer
the doorbell.
The first thing that morning madame had gone out and bought her maid
a neat, black gown finished with black and white ribbons, at neck and
waist, and a neat little pair of buttoned boots that made quite an
improvement in her appearance.
“This comes in advance out of your first month’s salary, and I think
you will agree I am very generous to trust you,” she said frankly.
“I am very grateful, madame,” faltered the girl shyly, for she stood
greatly in awe of the tall, dark, homely fortune teller, with her stern
face and grenadierlike walk.
“See that you prove so,” the woman said dryly, adding, as she seized
the girl’s hand and turned the pink palm to the light: “Let us see what
fate has in store for such a pretty girl.”
“Shall I ever be married?” queried Jessie timidly, and Madame Barto
laughed:
“Ha, ha, the first thought of a young girl--‘shall I ever be married?’
Yes, yes, pretty one. I can promise you a husband for certain! Girls
like you--so lovely and naïve--are very sure to marry, for the men will
not give them any peace. But you’ll repent it afterward if you’re like
most women. I know, for marriage is a lottery, and more blanks are
drawn than prizes.”
“I am sorry. I thought love must be so sweet,” said the girl with a
little, unconscious sigh.
“Poor thing!” answered the woman, with a half sneer, her keen, deep-set
eyes following the lines of the delicate palm while she pursued:
“I see dark clouds lowering over your life--and the line of life is
strangely crossed. I foresee tragic elements in your future. The
chances of happiness are against you, but you may possibly overcome
these adverse influences. Let us hope so. Otherwise----” she paused,
looked keenly at the girl, and exclaimed:
“You will not thank me if I tell you any more. What is the use, anyway?
You will find it out soon enough yourself. These people who pay me a
dollar for reading the future, what fools they are! If they wait they
will know it for nothing!”
Jessie hung her golden head in cruel disappointment, having hoped that
a good fortune might have been promised from the reading of her little
hand, while the madame continued briskly:
“Come, now, you will sit here in the anteroom with this bit of sewing
until the doorbell rings, then you will answer it, usher the caller in
here, and come to me for instructions. Will you remember this?”
“Oh, yes, madame,” sitting down obediently with the roll of ruffling
madame had given her to hemstitch, eager to be alone with her sad
thoughts.
Sad they were, indeed, poor Jessie, thus wrenched from all she had
known and loved in the past, and thrown alone on the world, to face the
untried future.
Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet.
At the clanging of the doorbell she started quickly to her feet with a
strange, inexplicable throb of the heart.
She flew out into the hall and turned the doorknob to admit the caller.
Had she guessed that it was the little god Cupid knocking, would she
have unbarred the door?
Alas! destiny is strong. We could not shirk it if we would.
The fair little hand shot back the bolt and turned the doorknob.
And as the lid of Pandora’s box was opened, letting out evil on the
world, so with the opening of the door Jessie let in love and pain:
Those kinsfolk twain.
On the threshold confronting her stood a young man of perhaps four and
twenty, and if you had searched New York over you could not have found
a more perfect specimen of manly grace, strength, and beauty.
Tall, athletic, with fine, clear-cut features, eyes like deep,
blue pools under thick-fringed lashes, brown, clustering locks of
silken gloss and softness, he was a man to look at twice with frank
admiration, and when you added to nature’s gifts the best efforts of
the tailor, a man to set any girl’s heart throbbing wildly in her
breast.
“I wish to see Madame Barto, please,” he said, in a voice of such
strong agitation that Jessie looked at him in wonder at the deep pallor
of his handsome young face and the lines of pain between his knitted
brows.
“I will tell madame,” she said, leaving him in the anteroom, walking
impatiently up and down.
Madame was deeply interested in her detective story, and she yawned
impatiently, saying:
“Tell him I’m engaged with a caller, and will be at leisure in about
ten minutes.”
“But he is in a hurry, and in some great trouble, madame. You could
read it in his face and his voice, so strained and tremulous, poor
fellow!” cried Jessie warmly.
Madame laughed heartlessly:
“Oh, I know the type! Jealous young fool, just had a quarrel with his
sweetheart and wants to find out if she will ever make it up with him!
Let him wait. Suspense will cool his temper. Meantime, I must have ten
minutes to finish this thrilling chapter! Go!” turning eagerly to her
book again.
The girl hurried back to the caller, who was pacing impatiently up and
down the room just as she had left him.
“Madame Barto will be at leisure in ten minutes,” she said gently,
sitting down to her work again, while the young fellow went to the
window and drummed a restless tattoo on the pane.
Jessie’s fingers had grown suddenly tremulous, and the color flushed up
in her young face, for through her drooping lids she felt him gazing at
her with suddenly aroused attention.
And one looking once at Jessie Lyndon could not help looking twice.
Of that rarest, most exquisite type, a dark-eyed blonde, she was
possessed of most alluring beauty that not even want and poverty had
sufficed to dim.
A little above medium height, slight and graceful, with perfect
features, an oval face, a skin as delicate as a rose leaf, pouting,
crimson lips, large, dark, haunting eyes, and a mass of curling golden
hair, she would enchant any lover of beauty.
The young man, after watching her in blended admiration and curiosity
several minutes, suddenly exclaimed:
“Excuse me, are you Madame Barto’s daughter?”
Jessie lifted those large, dark, haunting eyes to his face in wonder,
answering:
“No, I am an orphan girl--living with madame and working for her
because I have no home nor friends.”
The pathos of the low-spoken words went to his heart, and his voice
grew soft with sympathy as he said:
“My name is Frank Laurier. May I know yours?”
“It is Jessie Lyndon,” she replied, dropping her eyes with a deepening
blush at his eager glance.
“A pretty name. I should like to know you better, Miss Lyndon. Will
you take a little drive with me in the park some afternoon?”
She started in such surprise that the sewing fell from her little,
trembling hands.
“Sir, I--I----” she faltered confusedly.
He smiled at her dismay, and added eagerly:
“No, no, I don’t mean to be impertinent. I would like the pleasure of a
drive with you, and would return you safe to madame afterward. Please
say you will accept my invitation,” he pleaded, his dark-blue eyes
shining with a light that sent a sweet, warm thrill through her heart
like a burning arrow--the flame-tipped arrow of love.
She grew dizzy with the thought of driving with him in the park--she,
little Jessie Lyndon, poor, obscure, friendless, to be chosen by this
splendid young exquisite, it was too good to be true.
“Will you go--to please me!” pleaded the musical, manly voice, and she
murmured tremulously:
“I--would--go--if madame----”
“Leave that to me. I will coax her,” he said radiantly, as a little
tinkle of the bell summoned him to the fortune teller.