GRANNY'S REVENGE.
The half dozen pretty young girls who served for Miss Bray were
light-hearted, hopeful young creatures in spite of their poverty, and
at their daily work they sociably discussed their personal affairs with
the freedom and intimacy of friends. Beaus and dress were the choice
topics just as in higher circles of society. Liane Lester was the only
quiet one among them, granny's edicts barring her both from lovers and
finery.
Dolly Dorr was turning them all green with envy the next morning
by boasting of the attentions she had received from the grand Mr.
Devereaux, when one of the girls, Lottie Day, interposed:
"He is not likely to call on you again very soon, for I heard Brother
Tom saying at breakfast this morning that Mr. Devereaux had broken his
arm by a fall last night."
A chorus of compassionate remarks followed this announcement, and Dolly
exclaimed vivaciously:
"I wish I might be allowed to nurse the poor fellow!"
Nan Brooks replied chaffingly:
"Miss Roma Clarke might have some objection to that scheme. They say
she is engaged to him."
"That's why I want a good chance to cut her out. The proud, stuck-up
thing!" cried Dolly indignantly, and from the remarks that followed it
was plainly to be seen that Miss Clarke was not a favorite among the
pretty sewing girls.
Roma had never lost an opportunity to impress them with the difference
in their stations and her own, as if she were made of quite a superior
sort of clay, and the high-spirited young creatures bitterly resented
her false pride.
Not one of them but would have been glad to see Dolly "cut her out," as
they phrased it, with the handsome Devereaux, but they frankly believed
that there could be no such luck.
In their gay chatter, Liane alone remained silent, her beautiful head
bent low over her sewing to hide the tears that had sprung to her eyes
while they talked of Jesse Devereaux's accident.
"It was for my sake!" she thought gratefully, with rising blushes,
though her heart sank like lead when she heard them saying he was
engaged to Miss Clarke.
"He belongs to that proud, cruel girl! How I pity him!" she thought.
"Yet, no doubt, he admires her very much. She does not show him the
mean, selfish side of her character, as she does to us poor sewing
girls."
She would have given anything if only she had not yielded to her
passionate gratitude, and kissed his hand.
"He was disgusted at my boldness. He believed I had given him my love
unasked, and he turned away in scorn. Yet how could I help it, he was
so kind to me; first saving me from that ruffian, then from granny's
blows? Oh, how could I help but love him? And I wish, like Dolly, that
I might be permitted to nurse him as some reparation for his goodness,"
she thought, her cheeks burning and her heart throbbing wildly with the
tenderness she could not stifle.
Every way she looked it seemed to her she could see his dark face,
with its dazzling black eyes, looking at her with an admiration and
tenderness they should not have shown, if he were indeed betrothed to
another. Those glances and smiles had lured Liane's heart from her own
keeping and doomed her to passionate unrest.
She listened to everything in silence, nursing her sweet, painful
secret in her heart, afraid lest a breath should betray her, until
suddenly Ethel Barry, the girl next her, exclaimed:
"How quiet Liane is this morning, not taking the least interest in
anything we say!"
"No interest! Oh, Heaven!" thought Liane, but Dolly Dorr interposed:
"You would be quiet, too, if you had been beaten as Liane was by granny
last night, and forced to seek refuge with a friend."
Liane crimsoned painfully at having her own troubles discussed, but
granny's faults were public property, and she could not deny the truth.
"She is old and cross," she said, generously trying to offer some
excuse.
"You need not take up for her, Liane. She doesn't deserve it!" cried
one and all, while Mary Lang, the oldest and most staid of the six
girls, quickly offered to share her own room with Liane if she would
never return to the old woman.
She was an orphan, and rented a room with a widow, living cozily at
what she called "room-keeping," and the girls had many jolly visits
taking tea with Mary.
Liane thanked her warmly for her offer.
"But will you come?" asked Mary.
"I cannot."
"But why?"
The girl sighed heavily as she explained:
"Granny came to Mrs. Dorr's this morning, all penitence for her fault,
and begged me to come home, promising never to beat me again."
"Do not trust her; do not go!" cried they all; but it was useless.
"She is old and poor. How could she get along without me? She would
have to go to the poorhouse, and think how cruelly that would disgrace
me!" cried Liane, who had no love for the old wretch, but supported her
through mingled pride and pity.
And she actually returned to the shanty that day when her work was
done, much to the relief of the old woman, who feared she had driven
her meek slave off forever.
"So you are back? That's a good girl!" she said approvingly, and added:
"They may tell you, those foolish girls, that I am too strict with you,
Liane, but I'm an old woman, and I know what's best for you, girl. It
was through letting your mother have her own way that she went to her
ruin; that's why I'm so strict on you."
"My mother went to her--ruin!" faltered Liane, flushing crimson, but
very curious, for she had never been able to extract a word from granny
about her parents, except that they were both dead and had been no
credit to her while living.
"Yes, her ruin," granny replied, with a malicious side glance at the
startled girl. "She ran away from me to be an actress when she wasn't
but seventeen, and a year later she came back to me with a baby in her
arms--you! She had been deceived and deserted, and you, poor thing, had
no lawful name but the one she had picked out of a book--Liane Lester."
"Oh, Heaven!" sobbed the girl, burying her white face in her hands,
thinking that this blow was more cruel even than one of the old woman's
beatings.
At heart Liane had a strange pride, and she was bitterly ashamed of her
low origin and her cruel grandmother, whom no one respected because of
her vile temper.
To be told now that she had no lawful name, that her mother had been
deceived and deserted, was like a sword thrust in the poor girl's heart.
She sobbed bitterly, as granny added:
"I didn't never mean to tell you the truth, but now that you are
getting wild and willful, like your mother was, it's best for you to
know it, and take her fate as a warning."
Liane knew the accusation was not true, but she did not contradict it;
she only sobbed:
"Did my mother die of a broken heart?"
"No, indeed, the minx; she got well and ran away again, and left you on
my hands."
"Is she living now?"
"She is, for all I know to the contrary. But she takes good care never
to come near me, nor to send me a dollar for your support."
"I take care of myself, and you, too, granny."
"Yes, the best you can; but she ought to help--the ungrateful
creature!" granny exclaimed so earnestly that she could scarcely doubt
the truth of her story.
It was a cruel blow to Liane's pride, and up in her bare little chamber
under the eaves that night she lay awake many hours sobbing hopelessly
over her fate.
"I would rather be dead than the daughter of a woman who was deceived
and deserted! Mr. Devereaux would never give me a second thought if he
knew," she sighed, with burning cheeks, as she sank into a restless
sleep, troubled with dreams in which her hero's magnetic, dark eyes
played the principal part--dreams so sweet that she grieved when the
cold gray light of dawn glimmered upon her face and roused her to
reality and another day of toil.
Very eagerly the girls questioned her when she reached Miss Bray's as
to granny's mood, and she answered quietly:
"No, she did not scold me or strike me this time; she was kind in her
way."
But she did not tell them granny's way of kindness, for her heart sank
with shame as she looked around the group of her light-hearted friends,
thinking how different their lot was from hers; all of them having
honorable parentage, and dreading lest they would not wish to associate
with her if they knew she had no right to her pretty name, Liane
Lester, that her wronged mother had simply picked it out of a story
book.
Miss Bray had a hurry order this morning--a white gown ruffled to the
waist--so she set all the girls to work, and as they worked their
tongues flew--they knew pretty nearly everything that had happened in
the village since yesterday.
The choice bit of gossip was that Miss Clarke's maid, Sophie Nutter,
had left her, and gone to Boston.
"They say she had a sick spell night before last, and went out of her
head, talking awful things, so that the servants were quite frightened,
and called up their mistress herself. Sophie had hysterical spasms, and
accused Miss Roma of dreadful crimes right before her mother's face,"
said Mary Lang.
"Miss Roma must have been very angry--she has such a temper," cried
Dolly, as she threaded her needle.
"Oh, Miss Roma wasn't present, and her mother took steps never to let
her find it out, you may be sure."
"It must have been something awful," said Lottie Day.
"I should say so! She declared to Mrs. Clarke she had seen Miss Roma
push Mr. Devereaux over the bluff and drown him! Just think--when Mr.
Devereaux had not been near the place, but was lying at his hotel with
a broken arm!"
"It was all a dream," said Miss Bray from her cutting board.
"Yes, but she could hardly be convinced yesterday morning that she had
not really seen Miss Roma commit a murder. They had to send for the
doctor to tell her that Mr. Devereaux was really alive at his hotel,
having broken his arm by a fall on the sands. They say she went off
into more hysterics when she heard that, and muttered: 'A fall over
the cliff was more likely, but how he escaped death and got to shore
again puzzles me. And why did she do it, anyway? It must have been a
lovers' quarrel. I must get away from here. She will be pushing me over
the bluff next.' And she had her trunk packed and went off to Boston,
though she looked too ill to leave her bed," added Mary Lang, who had
had the whole story straight from the housekeeper at Cliffdene.