As soon as she had reached the seclusion of her own chamber, little
Golden threw herself across her bed and wept as though her tender heart
would break.
Strangely nurtured as she had been, the pride of race had been as
strong in her young heart as that of any Glenalvan of them all, and the
shock of her grandfather's revelation had been a terrible one.
"I wish that I had died in my innocent babyhood," she wept; and her
black mammy, who had been lingering near her unobserved, came forward
to her and said quickly, while she smoothed the golden hair lovingly
with her old black hands:
"You must not say dat, honey, chile. I has great hopes in your life. I
has almos' wore out my ole brack knees a-prayin' an' a-prayin' to de
good Lawd dat you might be de instrument to sabe your mudder from her
sinful life."
Little Golden looked at her black mammy with a kind of pathetic wonder
in her beautiful, tearful eyes.
"How could I do that, black mammy?" she said.
"By seekin' dat poor soul out, Miss Golden, and 'suadin' her to forsake
dat wicked man, an' spend de balance ob her life in prayin' an'
repentin' ob her deadly sins," said Dinah, devoutly and earnestly.
Golden sat up in the bed and looked at Dinah with eager, shining eyes
and impulsively clasped hands.
"Ah, black mammy, if I only could," she cried; "but you forget I do not
know where to find her. I do not even know the name of that dreadful
man."
And she shivered at the thought of his wickedness. She remembered that
he was her father, that his bad blood flowed in her veins.
Old Dinah was looking at her strangely.
"Little missie, what would you think if I could tell you his name?" she
said, with a little note of triumph in her tone.
"Could you--oh, could you?" cried little Golden, impulsively.
"Jest wait one minute, darlin'," said Dinah, hobbling out of the room.
Golden waited, wonderingly and impatiently.
After a little while Dinah returned, and laid a small package, wrapped
in tissue paper, in her hand.
Golden removed the wrappers tremblingly. A small bit of crumpled
pasteboard fell out into her hand.
She straightened it out and devoured with eager eyes the aristocratic
name printed upon it in small, clear, black type.
Then she raised her gleaming eyes to the excited face of the old black
woman.
"So," she said with a long, deep, sobbing breath, "this is my father's
name?"
"Yes, chile, leastways I has de berry best reason for finking so,"
replied Dinah, promptly.
"Then you are not sure?" cried the girl, and there was a note of keen
disappointment in her voice.
"All I know is dis, honey. It fell outer your mudder's pocket de night
when you was born. She was drawin' out her handkercher, an' it fell
onto de floor 'thout her seein' it. I didn't say nofin' to de poor,
distracted chile. I only picked the keerd up and put it away. I sabed
it for you, honey, chile."
"And I am very grateful to you, black mammy," said the girl. "You had
very good reason for thinking it was my father's name. But it is a
wonder you never gave it to grandpa, or to Uncle John."
"Who? _Me_ gib John Glenalvan anything, or tell him anything? Not to
sabe his brack soul from de debbil, who's got a bill ob sale for him!"
cried Dinah, flying into a rage, as she always did at the mention of
Golden's uncle.
"Black mammy, why do you hate my uncle so bitterly?" asked Golden.
"'Cause he's a snake in de grass," replied Dinah, shortly.
"I know that--at least I have always felt it," said Golden,
meditatively; "but there must be some particular reason, mammy. Tell me
what it is."
"Well, den, if you mus' know, dere's two reasons," said Dinah. "De
first is dat he hated your pore, sweet mudder. De second one is dat
he's like a human wampire fastened on your gran'pa."
"I don't understand what you mean by your second reason," said Golden,
gravely.
Dinah looked at her a moment in meditative silence; then she said
abruptly:
"I don't keer what dey say, I'll tell you, my chile. Your Uncle John
done badgered and badgered your grandpa while you was a leetle, teeny
babby until, for de sake ob peace, dat pore ole man done made John a
deed to Glenalvan Hall and de whole estate. Your gran'pa ain't no more
dan a beggar in the ole hall his own fader left him in his will."
"But why did my grandfather give away his property like that?" asked
the girl.
"'Cause John swore if he didn't do it dat he would carry you off and
put you into a foundling asylum. You was a pore, leetle, deliky babby
then, and we skeecely 'spected you would live from one day to de nex'
one. So to hab de pleasure ob keepin' an' tendin' you de ole man
'sented to beggar hisself."
"Grandpa did all that for my unworthy sake, and yet I reproached him
for being strict and hard with me! Oh, how wicked and ungrateful he
must think me," cried the girl, tearfully.
"No he don't, honey, chile," said the black woman, soothingly, "you see
he knowed dat you wasn't 'ware of all what you had to t'ank him for."
"No, indeed, I never dreamed of all I had cost him," exclaimed
beautiful Golden, self-reproachfully. "And so, black mammy, we are only
staying at Glenalvan Hall on the sufferance of my uncle?"
"Dat's jest de way ob it, missie. And, look ye, too dat ongrateful,
graspin' wilyun has done threaten your pore gran'pa, time and ag'in, to
pack bofe of you'uns off to de pore-house."
"The unnatural monster!" exclaimed little Golden, in a perfect tempest
of passionate wrath.
"Well you may say so," cried Dinah, in a fever of sympathy. "De debbil
will nebber git his due till he gets John Glenalvan! De blood biles in
my ole vains when I fink ob all de insults dat man has heaped on his
own fader, 'long ob you and your pore misguided mudder."
Beautiful little Golden sat upright regarding the excited old woman in
grave silence. Her blue eyes were on fire with indignation and grief.
At times she would murmur: "Poor, dear grandpa, dear true-hearted
grandpa," and relapse into silence again.
She roused herself at last from her musing mood, and looked up at
Dinah. There was a hopeful light in the soft, blue eyes, so lately
drowned in tears of sorrow and despair.
"Black mammy, I have been thinking," she said, "and I will tell you
what I mean to do."
"What, honey?"
"I will tell you a secret, mammy. Mr. Chesleigh loves me. We are--that
is, I will be his wife one of these days."
"Miss Golden, is dat so?" cried black mammy, delighted. "I am so glad!
I was 'fraid--well, nebber min' what I was 'fraid of, chile; but 'deed
I is so glad dat Mr. Chesly's gwine to marry you. He is a rich man,
honey. You kin snap your lily fingers at ugly Marse John, when once you
is Mr. Chesly's wife."
"Yes, he is very rich, black mammy," said the girl, with a pretty,
almost childish complacency. "He has told me so, and he tells me I
shall have jewels and fine dresses, and all that heart could desire
when I go to live with him--I mean," blushing rosy red, "when I become
his wife."
"And powerful pretty you will look in dem fine tings, honey," said her
black mammy, admiringly.
"But the best thing of all, black mammy, is that I shall be able to
take grandpa away from this place, and love him and care for him,"
cried Golden, exultantly. "I shall take you, too, mammy, for you have
been the only mother I ever knew. Grandpa shall have the happiest home
in the world, and Bert and I will both love him dearly, dearly!"
"And your pore, lost mudder, darlin', you had forgotten her," said
Dinah, a little wistfully, her thoughts straying back through the mist
of years, to the lost little nursling who had fluttered from the safe
parental nest, and steeped the white wings of her soul in the blackness
of sin.
But Golden shook her dainty head decidedly.
"No, black mammy, I had not forgotten," she said. "When I am Bert's
wife, he shall help me to seek and save my poor, lost mother. We
will try to win her back to the path of right, and save her soul for
Heaven," she concluded, with girlish ardor and fervency.
"May the good Lawd help you to succeed, my innercent lamb," said the
good old black woman, prayerfully. "Her little soul was too white
and tender for de brack debbil to git it at de last for his brack
dominions."
There was a sudden tap at the door. Golden looked at it eagerly and
expectantly, while Dinah threw it open.
A small black boy, a servant of John Glenalvan, stood outside with a
sealed letter in his hand.
"For Missie Golden, from Mass Chesleigh," he said, putting it in
Dinah's hand, and quickly retiring.
Dinah carried it silently to her mistress, who kissed the
superscription, and eagerly tore it open.
The thick, satin-smooth sheet rustled in the trembling little hand as
the blue eyes ran over it, lovingly and eagerly.
As she read, the tender, loving eyes grew wild and startled, an ashen
shade crept around the rosebud lips, the young face whitened to the
corpse-like hue of death. She crumpled the sheet in her hand at last,
and threw it wildly from her, while a cry of intolerable anguish
thrilled over her white lips.
"Oh, mammy, mammy, my heart is broken--broken! I shall never see him
again. He has forsaken me for my mother's sin!"
Then she fell back cold and rigid, like one dead upon the bed. Dinah
flew to her assistance, cursing in her heart the wickedness and
heartlessness of men.
But though she worked busily and anxiously, the morning sun rode
high in the heavens before the deeply-stricken girl recovered her
consciousness. Her grandfather was watching beside her pillow when her
eyes first opened, and she threw her arms around his neck and wept long
and bitterly on his faithful breast.
"You were right," she whispered to him. "You know the cruel world
better than I did. He has left me, grandpa--I shall never see him
again. He discards me for my mother's sin."
She wept and moaned all day, refusing all consolation. She was
terrified by the coldness and cruelty of the world that condemned her
for the sins of others.
Many and many a time she had chafed at the narrowness and loneliness of
her lot, but she had never known sorrow until to-day.
Its horrible reality crushed her down before its pitiless strength like
the fury of the storm-rain. A crushed and bleeding victim, she lay weak
and stunned in its victorious path.
At nightfall she slept, wearied out by the force and violence of her
deep, overmastering emotion.
Old Dinah persuaded her weary, haggard old master to retire to his room
and bed, promising to watch faithfully herself by the sick girl.
She dozed until midnight, when, as Golden still slept on heavily,
she permitted herself to take a wary nap in an old arm-chair. It was
daylight when the weary, suffering old creature awoke. The beautiful
Golden was gone.
A little three-cornered note lay on the pillow that still held the
impress of the dear little head. The child had written sorrowfully to
her grandfather:
"Grandpa, darling, I have only brought you trouble and sorrow all my
life-time, so I am going away. Your son will be kinder to you when I
am gone, and your life will be less hard; perhaps black mammy will
be kind and faithful to you, so you will not miss your thoughtless
little Golden very much. God bless you, grandpa, you must pray for
me nightly, for I am going to seek my mother, the erring mother who
cursed me with life! If indeed, she is living in sin and shame,
I will strive to reclaim her and restore her to the safe path of
virtue. I have nothing else to live for. Love and happiness, the
delights of this world, are not for me. It shall be _the dream of my
life-time_ to find and save my wronged and erring mother."