JACK STRIKES A BLOW.
“Well! Miss Lillian Leigh!”
Lillian glanced up with a start at sound of that voice--or was it the
hiss of a serpent?--and her pale face flushed a little as she arose
to her feet. It was in Miss Raleigh’s sleeping-room, and she had
been dreaming over the fire, awaiting the coming of her tyrannical
task-mistress, and while she sat there these thoughts had been flitting
through her brain:
“I wonder what was the matter to-night? Just as I was about to open
the library door, when I went to carry Mrs. Raleigh’s fan, it opened
suddenly from within, and a strange, weird-looking old woman rushed
out, flew down the hall, and was out of the front door and gone before
I could recover my breath. And there were the library lights all
extinguished; and Mrs. Van Alstyne--that pale, proud-looking lady--had
fainted dead away. And Miss Raleigh looked so overcome with terror! It
must have been some very unusual excitement; but, of course, I dared
ask no questions, and it is no concern of mine. I am afraid of Mr.
Richard Raleigh,” she went on, after a brief pause, her busy brain full
of the late strange occurrences, “and but for Mr. Lyndon he might have
said more. I must avoid Mr. Raleigh as much as possible. How good Mr.
Lyndon is--so noble, so kind! I wonder--I wonder if he cares for Miss
Rosamond? And how she smiles upon him! I should think that--”
And then that shrill, high-pitched voice had broken in upon the girl’s
reverie, calling her name in a tone of authority.
“Get up, you lazy creature! Why have you not a chair before the fire
all ready for me when I come in, as--as my other maid used to do?
Here, I enter my room tired to death, and the hour late, and I find my
maid--my--maid,” with inexpressible scorn in the cutting voice, “seated
before my fire without a thought of my comfort. How dare you?”
Lillian stood still, quite overcome by this tirade; then she made haste
to wheel the chair which she had just vacated closer to the fire.
“I--I beg you pardon, Miss Raleigh,” she said, quietly. “I did not mean
to do anything wrong. I am tired, and as you told me to wait for you, I
naturally sat before the fire this cold night.”
With awful dignity Miss Raleigh motioned the chair aside.
“Get me another!” she commanded, insolently. “I do not care for a seat
which my servant occupies.”
The red blood crimsoned Lillian’s pale face, and her beautiful brown
eyes flashed. But she compressed her lips firmly, and brought another
chair, into which Miss Raleigh sunk with an air of intense fatigue.
“I am tired to death!” she exclaimed, savagely. “Come and take my hair
down, and brush it thoroughly. I am accustomed to having it brushed
every night for at least an hour before I retire!”
Poor Lillian glanced at the clock ticking away upon the velvet-draped
bracket near. The hands pointed to the hour of two.
Rosamond laughed disdainfully at sight of the consternation upon
Lillian’s face.
“Oh! you will soon find that you must keep all sorts of hours if you
remain in my employ, Miss Lillian Leigh!” she sneered, coarsely. “I
always make my waiting-maid earn her salary, you may well believe!
Whoever fills that position must earn the money, though the effort
should cost her her life. Ah! what is that?”
The ivory-backed brush trembled in Lillian’s grasp as she stood with
uplifted hand, the rosy fire-light flashing up painted a vivid red
spot upon Rosamond Raleigh’s pale cheek; then the flame sunk down into
feathery ashes once more. A sound had fallen upon their ears plainly,
distinctly; it was a low, hollow groan! Trembling like a leaf Miss
Raleigh started to her feet. Her long hair fell over her shoulders in
a streaming golden shower; she looked unearthly in the loose white
wrapper which she had already donned. Pale, and shaking like an aspen,
she went over to the door of the little octagonal room, and threw it
open wide.
“Lillian, come here!” she commanded; and slowly and wonderingly Lillian
obeyed. “Go into that room,” continued Miss Raleigh, authoritatively,
“and see if there is anybody hidden there! Look behind the curtains and
furniture; leave nothing unsearched.”
Wondering greatly, Lillian lighted a small bronze lamp which stood upon
a bracket, and slowly and hesitatingly she entered the little room. She
returned, after a brief absence, very pale and grave.
“There is no one there, Miss Raleigh,” she announced, placing the lamp
upon a marble table near.
“Come with me!”
Rosamond snatched up the lamp and forced her trembling slave to follow
her back into the little room once more. Everything was just as it
had been left that day when they had carried something away from
it--something stark and stiff and white, something which would never
come back again--would never come back. Would it not?
Rosamond Raleigh’s memory was a good one; she shivered involuntarily.
With mad haste she explored every corner of the room; peering behind
furniture, lifting silken curtains, leaving no chance for any human
being to remain concealed. Then she left the room and locked the door
behind her; after which she extinguished the lamp and threw herself
into the easy-chair once more.
“Brush my hair!” she commanded, ungraciously. “I am half dead with
fatigue.”
And there poor Lillian stood for a whole mortal hour, brushing out the
beauty’s shining, silken hair until her brain reeled, and her cold hand
shook so that she could scarcely move the brush, and the white lids
began to droop over the weary eyes, while the cat-like orbs of her
cruel task-mistress seemed never to court slumber. At last, in sheer
exhaustion, Lillian came to a halt.
“Miss Raleigh, excuse me to-night, will you not?” she pleaded. “I am
not accustomed to such late hours, and I have been through a great deal
to-day, and am so tired that I can scarcely stand.”
Rosamond snatched the brush from her hand and threw it across the room
in a childish outburst of temper.
“Go!” she cried, stamping her foot savagely. “I see plainly the sort of
a maid you will make!”
Pale and resolute, Lillian faced the woman before her.
“Miss Raleigh, will you please bear in mind that I did not apply for
the position of waiting-maid? Your advertisement said a companion;
and I, of course, believed that my duties would be simply those of a
companion--to read to you, sew, sing and play if you desired it, write,
go errands--all such light duties. But to dress and undress you, to
keep the fire burning in your room indefinitely, and to stand and brush
your hair all night long, I must confess my inability to cope with all
that. I am young and not very strong. I have never worked before in my
life--only a little type-writing, and my health would soon break down
under such endless work as this, which keeps a girl employed all day
and all night, too. Good-morning, Miss Raleigh; the clock is about to
strike three. I beg leave to retire.”
Rosamond gathered up her mass of shining hair and secured it for the
night.
“Very well,” her steely eyes fixed upon the girl with cold disdain, “we
will speak further upon this subject in the morning. After to-night I
intend to have you sleep in the little round room next to mine. I am
lonely here in the wing of the house away from every one else.”
“Very well.”
Lillian grew deathly pale. She had heard the story of the round room
hinted at by the servants, even during her brief sojourn at the Raleigh
mansion, and she was afraid--afraid. For she was timid, and the
whispers in the servants’ quarters hinted at a dark deed.
But, glad to escape from her task-mistress, she hastened away to the
little room which had been assigned her, at the furthest end of the
hall, and hastily retiring, the friendless orphan girl was soon fast
asleep. And in dreams she was no longer poor, and alone, and forsaken;
but happy as mortals are never happy upon this earth--only in dreams.
“Only in dreams is a ladder thrown
From the lonely earth to the vaulted skies;
But the dream departs, and the vision flies,
And the sleeper awakes on his pillow of stone.”
The next day passed quite uneventfully. Rosamond had compromised with
Lillian, retaining her as general factotum, on condition that she
should not be compulsively detained from her rest after midnight. So
night came down once more, and Rosamond, in her sumptuous apartment,
was preparing to attend the opera.
“I will wear blue silk and pearls!” she announced. “Mamma and I are
going to hear ‘Il Trovatore’ with Mr. Lyndon. He is quite the fashion
now, so I venture to go with him, although of course he is not in our
set, and is only a poor journalist. And--oh, yes, Lillian, before it
gets too late, I want you to run down to the greenhouse--the one away
at the further end of the grounds--and tell Barnes, the gardener, to
send me a bouquet of pink rosebuds. Make haste now, for I don’t like to
be kept waiting.”
To hear was to obey. Lillian made haste to do so. Five minutes later
she was standing at the entrance to the long greenhouse, dimly lighted
by a hanging lamp, and lying like a great dark shadow athwart the dusk
of early night. She peered eagerly through the gloom.
“Barnes!” she called, timidly, “Miss Raleigh has sent me to--”
An arm stole around her waist, and a slim, dark hand crowned by a
flashing diamond closed down upon Lillian’s hand, while Richard
Raleigh’s silky voice cried:
“Ah! my pretty wild bird--caged at last!”
With a wild cry Lillian wrenched herself away from his hold, her face
pale, her eyes blazing.
“How dare you?” she gasped, brokenly.
And at that very instant her quick eyes caught sight of a tall form
hastening through the grounds, and she called, wildly:
“Barnes, is it you? Oh, come--quick--help!”
With a muttered oath, Raleigh had grasped her arm once more, and held
her fast, trying to calm her wild outcries.
The tall figure turned swiftly and hurried footsteps reached her side.
Not Barnes the gardener, but tall, handsome Jack Lyndon, who had heard
her frenzied cry, and had come to the rescue.
“Mr. Raleigh, unhand that lady!” a low voice panted, furiously, “or, by
Heaven! you cowardly dog, I will kill you!”