LUCIFER'S VOTARIES RAMPANT.
"Yes, Silas Jones shall hear of how we found his precious Sarah Kane alone in a man's bedroom," sneered the coldly cruel voice of Mrs. Cole, entering, and not making a seductive picture in bright green dressing gown, with large purple flowers, her hooked nose as red as her high cheek bones, her awful eyes fixed, staring and stony, her uncle and aunt following.
"Oh dear, oh dear! Heaven help us! I forgot to lock the door when I brought the poor fellow the foot-warmer," thought Sarah Kane, distractedly.
"I thought I heard a jabbering going on before you called me, Margaret," said her uncle, savagely.
"How dare you bring disrepute on a virtuous home by coming to a man's bedroom at night, and alone, Sarah Kane?" asked Miss Stone, quivering with rage at being disturbed after her late supper.
"Sarah Kane, go and pack up, and see that you develop no light-finger tricks; you leave Broadlawns at daybreak," hissed Margaret, between her teeth.
"Please let me stay, ma'am, until Mr. Cole recovers; indeed, indeed he is very, very ill."
"That is my affair—go!" and she points to the now open door.
"She has been kind to me, she must stay; I am too ill for her to leave me; if she goes she must take me," said Cole, sitting upright, his pulse rapidly rising.
"We don't harbor women of her stamp," said Margaret, beside herself with rage at her having gained the ear of Cole; she would willingly have torn her limb from limb.
"Get out of here, and at once, Sarah Kane, unless you would have me use violence," said Stone, savagely; for from the words of Cole he sees she has made a favorable impression.
"I implore you not to go and leave me here," said the sick man, excitedly; "my brain is on fire. I am weak and ill; oh! by everything you hold sacred, stay by me and nurse me; if not, I go too, if I have to crawl to the door;" and he attempted to rise.
"This is nonsense, Cole; she must go; I have wanted to turn her adrift before this. We shall procure you a medical attendant at once; though, I think, did you take a berth in a steamer immediately for America, it would be best, and set you up all right, especially with Margaret as nurse. Sarah Kane, what are you waiting for?"
"For the impetus of someone's foot, I presume," sneered Margaret.
Sarah Kane, with a pitiful look at Cole, her lip quivering and whole frame trembling, prepared to leave the room, saying, as she smoothed his pillows:
"Try and keep calm, sir, you will get well all the quicker, and I shall go and tell Silas Jones, and see if he can help you."
At a sign from Margaret, her uncle followed her from the room, when she said, hurriedly:
"I am going to give the wretch permission to remain until morning, to prevent an interview with Silas Jones; after breakfast, you say you will drive her in to Mrs. Mansfield's. We have never let her know she wants her, but now she will be capital bait; Sarah Kane will bite, and so be hooked, when you can lodge her for safe keeping at Tom Lang's, who, if needs be, may give her the luxury of a straight-jacket."
"I feel inclined to say No, and kick her out at once; otherwise, yours is a good plan."
"It is the only gag to fit the case; but out of that room she shall go. She may go and pack up. I'll show them who is mistress."
"Yes, do; besotted fool, that Cole is, to have turned us against him. You don't think that viper will go to Silas Jones at daybreak, do you?"
"No; his shop won't be open until seven. By that time cook can have an early breakfast for you, and you will then at once drive off to London, and if Silas Jones comes prowling around here after her, leave him to me, that's all," she said, cruelly, returning to the sick room.
"Go to your room at once, Sarah Kane, pack up your things, and be ready to leave this house at seven sharp; go," she said, stamping her foot. "Don't pollute us by your presence any longer."
"I pray of you to let me stay and nurse him; I will do just what you wish, spare you from fatigue, be no trouble, only let me stay," she cried, imploringly.
Margaret turned her stony gaze upon her. "Put her out, Uncle Timothy, or I shall."
"Get out, woman," he said, taking her by the shoulder, Miss Stone shoving her, and saying:
"Be thankful, hussy, you are getting off so well."
"At your peril send her forth; it will be the worse for you all when I recover, if you do," said Cole, with the utmost excitement.
"Keep cool, Cole; you don't know what a viper we have harbored. I am only going to take her to a Mrs. Mansfield's, and, if she can speak so much truth, she will tell you she is a friend of hers," said Stone, vengefully.
"You are heaping coals of fire on the viper's head by taking her there, Timothy," said Miss Stone, wonderingly.
"Is this person a friend of yours, Sarah?" asked Cole, forlornly pressing both hands to his throbbing temples. "How cruel they are to send you from me. Do you know of a good physician, Sarah?"
"Oh, yes, sir; Dr. Annesley, of London; he——"
"Hold your prate, Sarah Kane, and mind your own business," cried Margaret, trembling with rage. "Get out of here," and with a smart push she is outside and the key turned.
For a few moments Sarah Kane stood irresolute, when the clock struck three.
"Yes, that will be best," she thought, "but I have no time to lose," and, quickly flying to her own apartment, she hurriedly packs up, but not the handsome wardrobe willed her by her late mistress, of which she knows not, but simply her own modest apparel; this she places in two trunks, weeping silently the while for the evil come upon the poor sick man in yonder east chamber, for her own forced desertion of him into the cruel hands of the inmates at Broadlawns, for her own undefined plans to find her young mistress, and endeavor to reinstate her in the fortune willed her, which she is in doubt now that the law will give her, as she has not married Charles B. Cole. She weeps on, as she thinks of the fearful fraud that has been committed; for here is Mr. Cole married! actually married to Miss Villiers, in Sarah Kane's estimation, the most wicked woman that lives, when he had been the intended husband of her sweet, gentle Miss Pearl.
"Woe, woe, that I did not go to Dr. Annesley, and tell him of the prolonged absence of Miss Pearl, instead of watching here, or to a lawyer; but I dreaded their fees, as they have paid me no salary for five years, nor can I claim it, as they told me if I staid I should get nothing. I have erred in judgment. God help me and that poor sick man. Yes, I must slip away and tell Silas. It is fortunate Mary is with him still, or they (if by some mischance they miss me) might again make occasion to malign me as to going to see a man; how easily those smooth-tongued hypocrites can take away one's character, and they doing the real harm all the while. My grey ulster and hat will not be too heavy; it is quite a cool morning, and being up all night, and supperless to bed, makes me feel chilly. How surprised Silas and his sister will be. I know he will want me to marry him at once, but I feel too old and grey; but, as he says, so I have told him for years; and he has waited and waited until the clouds at Broadlawns would lighten, and now they are blacker than ever. Kind Silas, good and true Silas, what will you say to this terrible marriage of poor Mr. Cole to awful Miss Villiers?"
And now her expeditious fingers having set her house in order, her grey hair rolled back from her brow, her small, regular features, sensitive mouth, and good blue eyes looking wan and anxious, locking her door, she slips down the back stairs, and out into the chill dulness of an October morning. In fifteen minutes she knocks at the house of Silas Jones, the front room of which he calls his shop, selling in a quiet way stationery and current literature. The city clocks are ringing the last quarter before four, and Mary is the first to hear the unusual sound on the knocker at that early hour. Waiting to hear it repeated, she lifts the window, when, at Sarah Kane's voice calling Silas, they both hasten down to open the door.
"Dear me, Sarah; what's up?" said Mary, kissing her. "What a scare you gave me!"
"You have been up all night, Sarah," said Silas Jones, reproachfully, leading her in, as he again locked the door. "However, as this is the earliest kiss I have ever had, I shall not scold you too much; but whom have you been looking nearer your own grave for this time, Sarah? You have been nursing again, I suppose, and are returning to Broadlawns?"
"How you chatter, Silas, dear; Sarah can't get in a word edgeways," said Mary, kindly, but curiously.
"I was only giving our Sarah time to catch her breath, she has been running and is cold," he said, rubbing her hands. "Make her a hot drink over the spirit-lamp, Mary, please."
"The very thing, Silas, dear; what a good man you will make our Sarah; here, drink this, Sarah, and promise to marry Silas this day week (my wedding-day too, Sarah), for indeed, you want someone to make you stay in your bed o' nights."
"Yes, Sarah, dear, Mary is right; for it's my belief the wretches at Broadlawns wish to see you in your grave, seeing as you know too much."
"Oh, Silas, that young man, Mr. Cole, came; and they have married him to Miss Villiers, instead of our sweet Miss Pearl," blurted out Sarah, in trembling tones.
"You don't say, Sarah; what a fearful piece of wickedness," cried Mary, with distended eyes.
"I am not surprised at any villainy on their part," said Silas, with knitted brows. "Let me see, the will reads, on Miss Pearl coming of age and marrying young Mr. Cole, she inherits all (so Dr. Annesley told me, and, by the way, he sent me word he wants to see me); well they have got rid, the de'il knows how, of Miss Pearl, and this ugly vixen marries the man to inherit; bad business, their having similar Christian names; so it's from there you come, and not from sick nursing? Tell us all, dear."
"Well, Silas, that's just what I ran here for, for they've as good as turned me out, at least, I am to go at daybreak, and——"
"Did they dare to turn you out, you a lady born, though their drudge—faithful in nursing, faithful in your housekeeping. Shielding them, when you could have put the blood-hounds of the law on their track, hoping things would right themselves in this very marriage; but to Miss Pearl—turn you out, after wasting your youth and mine in a martyr's life, to see that right was eventually done to the innocent daughter of your dead friend, growing literally grey in this self-imposed duty, while we both lived lonely lives apart, when they should be in a felon's dock for breach of trust; never mind, it is my turn now, they shall be exposed, and compelled to disgorge; Miss Pearl must be found, Mrs. Mansfield may know something."
"Mrs. Mansfield, yes, Silas, that is where Mr. Stone is going to drive me at seven sharp this a.m., and, oh dear, it is near six; I must hasten back, else they may make me black in Bayswater, for they have called me a hussy to-night, Silas, because I went to poor Mr. Cole's bedroom, who is very ill, and he was sorry when they turned me out, Silas, for he knows he has fallen into their net, and he is ill in mind and body; God help him. He is kindly and handsome, is yielding and pliable, and so an easy prey; he was to have met his father, he tells me. Ah, he would have saved him, but he is ill, he learned on his arrival, and away off across the sea at Montreal; but I had to come and tell you, Silas, for I missed you last evening, when they sent me to the city, so I should be out of the way, and alas! I came back too late to save him," she said, tearfully.
"Don't go near them again, Sarah," said Mary, sympathetically.
"Yes, Sarah, that's it; stay with us, and we will pet and nurse you, and you will be my wife."
"No dears, I could not remain inactive so near poor Mr. Cole; he hates them as his enemies, it is best for me to go to Mrs. Mansfield, I shall be near Dr. Annesley, and must see what can be done; you will come and see me at Mrs. Mansfield's, so good-bye, now, dears."
"I shall come to the city to-morrow, Sarah, so look out for me, dear," he said, buttoning her ulster.
"You shouldn't be parting us at all, Sarah," said Mary, tearfully.
"But only for a few days, Mary."
"You must marry me this day week, Sarah, dear, for somehow I feel as if evil will come to you parted from me; promise, it will bridge the time," he said, following her out into the grey morning light.
"I promise." And there and then, in the dim gaze of the earliest bees in life's hive, she is pressed to his loyal heart.