CHAPTER VIII.
For a long time there could be nothing heard but the ticking of the clock, and the loud breathing of Nellie’s pet cat, in whose soft fur the girl had entwined her fingers. The other hand was enclosed in Tom’s.
“I am not your cousin, Nellie,” he said deliberately after a while.
“Not my cousin? Then who are you, and who am I?” This startled exclamation brought the tears to the man’s eyes.
“Oh, dear,” Nellie added as she saw that Tom was not answering, “I’ve treated you just like my cousin, kissed you many times, and——”
“I hope you will kiss me many times again,” said Tom, his tones having taken on a deepness which caused the tender face of the girl to flood with color.
“But I want to be a relation to you, Tom, dear,” cried the girl sharply.
“And so you shall, darling,” said Tom.
“I’m glad of that,” was the satisfied reply. “Now go on with the—the—fairy story, Tom.”
“Then once upon a time——”
And here Tom stopped. How was he going to describe that dreadful prison without telling her all about it? His pride forbade that.
“Well, once upon a time,” answered Nellie impatiently.
“There was once a beautiful island——”
And again Tom paused.
“Oh, I remember it,” cried Nellie. “It was all ivy windows, with shutters, iron shutters, and—and——” Here she rubbed her forehead and added: “A great stone wall all about it; is that what the castle was, Tom?”
Biddy had ventured back. By the terrible expression upon Tom’s face she feared he would tell the whole story.
“That’s it, darling, that’s it. I remember the castle myself.”
Tom drew a long sigh as he had passed the only breaker safely thus far.
“It was a very hard castle to get into,” ventured Nellie as if struggling for a better memory.
“But a worse place to get out of,” said Biddy with a poke at Tom’s ribs.
He gave her a dreadful look and he went on hastily.
“There was a beautiful little girl brought to this island, and that child was you, my Helen.”
Tom was leaning over the table and looking into Helen’s eyes.
The startled expression hurt him much, for he feared the girl would call to her mind what kind of a castle they were living in, but without a word she put out her slender arms and drew the dark head down to her lips.
“There’s a sweet kiss, Tom.”
Biddy smacked her lips suspiciously, as she always had to do something. She did not want to cry, and Tom did look so solemn.
“Then I lived there in that island?” asked Helen.
“Yes.”
“Was there anybody living there beside us?”
The question was so innocent and sweet that Tom thought his heart would break, and Biddy again came to his rescue.
“Anybody else? Well, I should think so. I was there half the time myself. And there were more people on that beautiful island than you’d ever expect to see in such a small island again.”
Tom looked reproachfully at Biddy.
“Yes,” said he slowly, “I lived there myself.”
“Oh, did you now?” laughed Nellie, “and I did, too. Wasn’t it romantic?”
“Very,” replied Tom, giving a dreadful look at Biddy.
“What did you do there, Tom?” asked the girl.
This was hard to get over, but Biddy, with her Irish wit, was not to be stumped in such a matter.
“Sure, me darlint, he worked for the government.”
“Oh, I’m sure that was a lovely position, for I often see the soldiers go by, and they work for the government, don’t they, Tom?”
This was too much. Tom groaned in spirit, but again Biddy came to the rescue.
“Tom always groans when he thinks of how near you got killed over there, don’t you, Tom?”
The man bowed his head. Biddy was a darling anyway.
“Then do hurry and tell me how I came with you, and who my father is and my mother, for I will know, Tom.”
“And so you shall, my darling Helen, you shall know.”
“One dark night I left the island with another fellow——”
Tom could not go on, and Biddy took up the thread.
“And the bold, bad boy had you in his arms, and our Tom saw him trying to throw you in the water, and when he did it Tom jumped in after——”
Nellie stood up with a cry.
“I remember it all,” said she slowly, “all about the island, a sick woman, and you taking me from the water. That was nice, Tom, the way youcrawled up the rock with me clinging to your back.”
The man made no answer, and Nellie went around and took his hands in hers.
“I’m your girl forever, ain’t I, Tom? I want to always be with you. Are you telling me this story so as to send me away from you to my relatives?”
There was a pathos in the girl’s voice that wrung the tears from her listeners. Tom did not reply for a moment.
Nellie turned quickly to Biddy.
“Oh, Biddy, who is going to have me? I want to stay with you and Tom.”
She dropped upon a chair, and Tom Cooper regained his voice.
“God forbid, my darling,” cried he, “that you should ever be with any one in the world but your own Tom and Biddy. No, little Helen Standish, you have no relatives to whom Biddy and I will ever give you. You belong alone to us.”
“Oh, I am so glad—oh, so happy,” and the girlrubbed her face against the whiskers without which she had never known her Tom.
“And now I am going to place something about your neck which was yours many years ago, this little locket which was your mother’s.”
Helen Standish took the trinket, and lifted it tenderly to her lips.
“I’ve never known another mother but you, Biddy, and no other friend but Tom, but pardon me if I weep for my dead mother.”
She rose to her feet, and walked away toward the window, where the night shadows were falling. Her heart beat gratefully for these two good people who had taken her into their lives and home.
“Tom,” she began without looking at him, “I can remember many times I have been naughty and seemed ungrateful to you, but will you believe that all my life I have loved you better than any one else?”
There was the big Irishwoman waiting for her turn, and her little sob drew Nellie’s attention.
“And you, too, my own Biddy. I do not deserveall you have done for me. I have always meant to be a good girl, but have failed miserably.”
“Now, now, my pretty darlint,” sobbed Biddy, “don’t you go and make your hearties cry. We both loves you, and there ain’t nothing to forgive, is there, Tom?”
“No, indeed,” and then such a longing came over him that his heart seemed suffocated, and he wanted to take the girl in his arms and press her to his bosom, and something in his face seemed to tell the girl of his wish.
“Say it, Tom,” whispered she, oblivious of Biddy’s presence.
“I love, I love you, my own darling, and I want you to be my own little wife.”
They looked into each other’s eyes solemnly, and Biddy crept to a chair and sat down.
Nellie walked to her lover and laid her hands in his.
“I shall count it one of the greatest honors of my life to be your wife,” said she, “and I love you, Tom Cooper.”
Then they talked, Biddy leaving them alone, and Tom explained everything save that the island was a prison. Her mother was given the highest of eulogies.
“I knew her when she was a little girl, although she was older than I. I loved her very dearly. Now then, you have one second cousin living, but your mother did not want to have him ever see you, or to let him know of your existence. He has the fortune which you ought to have.”
“My fortune?” asked Nellie wonderingly.
“Yes,” and slowly the girl understood why this same cousin should want to get her out of the way and should want to kill the little child who had never done him any harm.
As they were finishing their love-making Biddy came in with a great noise.
“If you children won’t mind,” said she, giving Tom a wink, “I’m going to bed; I’m so tired.”
“We won’t mind, will we, Tom?” put in Nellie; “I’ve a great deal to say to Tom before I go to bed.”
Biddy, with a yawn, went to her room, saying,as she closed the door: “Now, don’t sit up all night, my children.”
It amused Nellie to hear Biddy call Tom a child, for he was many years her own senior, and there could not be over a few years between her lover and Biddy.
“We’ll go to bed as soon as the sun goes down,” laughed Tom.
In fact it was dark, but Biddy had always had the habit of going to bed so early and getting up at an unusual hour that Tom was always making sport of her.
“I wanted to ask you something, Tom,” said Nellie, after Biddy’s door was tightly closed. “What makes you wear those long whiskers? Most men shave them off, don’t they?”
Tom thought a moment.
“Well, I guess it’s habit,” said he slowly. He wished he could take them off and show her the handsome face beneath, but he could not, for it would require an explanation about wearing the grizzly hair upon his face.
“Oh, you know I do not care,” replied Nellie,“for I love you just the same, but I just wondered; that’s all.”
For a long time they were silent. They were each whispering to their own heart what a happiness had been found.
A man slouched along close to the river. His hat was on one side, and his hands were in his pockets.
Every boathouse he came to he read the name upon the top, as evidently he was looking for some one.
Suddenly he stopped before an unusually pretty house, with the boathouse below.
“Biddy Roan,” he read on the sign.
“The old dear lives here,” said he out loud. “Oh, I know she will be glad to see me again after all these years for my mother’s sake, if not for my own.”
Then he knocked at the door.
“Who is there, do you suppose, Tom?” asked Nellie softly; “it is late for any one to come for boats.”
“Yes, but we will soon find out.”
He went to the door, and opened it, when a man stepped in, but halted as he saw a beautiful girl standing there.
“Does Biddy Roan live here?” asked the stranger.
“Yes.”
“Well, may I see her? Tell her an old friend has come back from abroad and wants to see her. Will you tell her, cove?”
“Let me,” whispered Nellie, and she went to the bedroom door. But before she opened it she heard an ejaculation from Tom’s lips.
The stranger was staring at her lover with a crafty expression in his eyes, while Tom was looking like death.
She did not say a word to Biddy, but ran back to Tom.
“What is it? Do you know this man, dear Tom?”
“I once knew him, Nellie,” said Tom, eyeing his former companion with an expression of hatred.
Had not this same sneaky fellow almost killedhis darling? Had he not taken the dainty child fresh from its mother’s bosom and thrown it into the water?
“Tom Cooper!” he was heard to mutter.
“Yes, I am Tom Cooper, and you are——”
“Jim Farren. Don’t bother to wake Biddy to-night, but tell her her cousin called to see her, a cousin on our mother’s side.”
With this he gave a horrid laugh and sped out of the door, and Tom sank down upon a seat, and his heart felt in his bosom like a lump of lead.
“Who is that man?” asked Nellie pointedly.
“He is the man who threw you from the boat, and, Nellie, if he should come to-morrow while I am away and they ask you to go with them, would you go? I knew he recognized you, for he looked hard at the locket on your neck. He tried to steal it from you that night in the river.”
Helen Standish showed her force of character as she took Tom’s large head in her hands and kissed him.
“I would no more think of leaving you, Tom,than I would to leave Biddy, nor half as quick, for you are going to be my husband, are you not?”
“Oh, Nellie, those words make me so happy, but what if they should offer you a great fortune?”
“Without you, my darling, I would not take it, for I want only this little family circle. Don’t worry about that, you cannot get rid of your sweetheart so easy.”
“God forbid that anything like that should ever happen.”
Then they left each other, and little Nellie, with a happy, singing heart, crawled in beside Biddy.
But not so with Tom Cooper. He could see close to him a great shadow rising before him, and could feel the shiver of the cold bracelets about his hands.
Of course, this fiend would tell George Benson where he was, and what would there be left for him but to finish out a term in prison, but there was a possibility that Biddy would know some way out of the trouble.
He opened his bedroom door cautiously at thefirst peep of day, and there stood Biddy in her night clothes.
“Biddy,” whispered Tom, “did Nellie tell you about the man that came here last night?”
“No, sure she didn’t, I was asleep when she came to bed.”
“Jim Farren was here.”
“Bad cess to him,” cried Biddy, “what in the devil’s name did he want now? I thought he was dead.”
“So did I,” commented Tom.
“But you needn’t be afraid of him,” said Biddy consolingly. “He won’t dare peach on you, for that would bring him into trouble, too.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” replied the man, “for he did not get the reward which was to have been his at the death of the child. Now if he can get her into the villain’s hands he will get the amount which was coming to him.”
“Now you are worrying over nothing, Tom. Be cheerful, and we will go to some other place, for this ain’t the only home in the world.”
“But, Biddy,” argued Tom, “you cannot giveup your home for my sake, and you have spent the best of your days here.”
He had come near the woman then, and they were looking into each other’s eyes.
“I don’t care fer that,” said she, “and if you think you and Nellie’s a-going away and leave this poor Biddy Roan, then youse is mistaken.”
“God bless you, my own Biddy,” ejaculated Tom. “Then this morning we three will pack our things and we’ll go away, and if Nellie has to know the truth then will I tell her.”