CHAPTER XIV.
When the rash words had passed Leola’s lips a great trembling seized upon her, a horror of life she had never felt before, and she longed to scream out aloud to him that she must take back her promise—that she could not bind her beautiful, throbbing young life to oily, unctuous Giles Bennett, the man more than twice her age, and who in no way could be her fitting mate, not if he paid a million dollars instead of what he offered.
But when she saw Wizard Hermann’s radiant face, she dared not utter her passionate protest against being sold in the market like a beautiful Circassian slave to the highest bidder. She feared a fit of violence, or that he might fall down dead at her feet of the revulsion of feeling from relief to disappointment.
She restrained the words that ached in her throat, and leaned back, helplessly, in her chair, her eyes half shut, her face death-white, her senses reeling, and heard, half-consciously only, the profuse thanks he was pouring out, and the dazzling picture he was painting of her future as a rich man’s wife, even adding, consolingly, that the fat old man might drop off any day from apoplexy, and leave her a rich and happy young widow.
“Go, leave me,” she sighed, faintly, and he hurried out, nothing loath, to spread the good news.
The next thing Leola knew she was in bed again, and Miss Tuttle was reviving her with cold water on her face mixed with hot tears that fell from her own eyes.
“Oh, Miss Tuttle, what are you crying about?” she sighed, curiously. “Is it true, then, that he made me—promise to—to”—
“To marry Giles Bennett; is that what you mean? Yes, he says you promised to marry that wretch to-morrow. Oh, oh, oh, this will break my heart!” and poor Miss Tuttle and Leola, clasped in each other’s arms, mixed their tears together.
When they grew a little calmer Leola explained how the promise had been extorted from her by appeals to her gratitude.
“Oh, do you think it can be true? Am I only a pauper, taken from the almshouse, for charity’s sake—perhaps nameless, too?” she sobbed, bitterly.
Miss Tuttle could give her no comfort, for although she had been Leola’s governess from the age of three, she had never fathomed the mystery about her charge. But she tried to reassure her, saying:
“Do not brood over it, dear girl, it is possibly one of old Hermann’s false tales tocoerce you into obedience. I should sooner believe that he has appropriated to his own use money that belonged to you, and thinks he can make it up to you this way.”
“To live with Giles Bennett as his wife—that old Falstaff of a man!—I loathe the prospect!” sobbed Leola.
“While I envy you with all my heart!” exclaimed the governess. “Oh, Leola, how strangely fate plays at cross purposes with human beings! How gladly I would change places with you and become his wife!”
“Oh, that you could, dear soul!” Leola answered, and neither one slept that night for the tumult of their thoughts—Leola’s all grief and repugnance, Miss Tuttle’s all envy and wounded love—and when the sunshine of the July morning peeped into the windows their faces were haggard and pain-drawn, and both felt as if the day of execution had dawned, for Hermann had told the governess to prepare Leola to be married at sundown that evening, when the carriage would be waiting to convey her at once to her new home.
With heavy eyes they looked into each other’s faces, wondering how they could escape their doom, and Leola cried, desperately:
“There is one chance left, and I shall take it. When I have paid my debt of gratitude to my guardian by marrying Giles Bennett, I—I—shall not be among the living to-morrow!”
“Do you mean it, Leola?”
“I swear it,” answered the girl, recklessly, and Miss Tuttle knew, by the somber gaze of the beautiful dark eyes, that it was true. Life, that had flowed along like a silvery rippling stream between flower-fringed banks, had suddenly become a muddy torrent rushing onward to destruction, and naught could stay its onward course. Desperate, reckless, she was ready to rush unbidden into the Great Beyond, daring the unknown future in terror of the awful present.
“Oh, Leola, you must not! It would be a terrible sin! Promise me you will not!” cried the poor soul, timorously.
But Leola’s shut lips kept a deadly silence, and Miss Tuttle continued, conciliatory:
“If you could escape this marriage, Leola, would you then be willing to live?”
The sudden gleam of hope in the dark eyes assured her that Leola might yet find something to live for in her shadowed life, and she continued:
“Dearie, I have a plan that might help you. I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, but I never should have broached it had it not been for your dreadful threat.”
“Tell it to me,” implored the girl, and glancing cautiously around, that none might overhear, Miss Tuttle bent and whispered some rapid words into Leola’s ear.
A light began to dance in the dark eyes, the pale lips smiled a little, and Leola cried:
“It will be a terrible risk to run, but if you can manage it and are not afraid, I will help all I can, for I long to punish Giles Bennett for his meanness!”
“I’ll take all the responsibility for everything,” smiled Miss Tuttle, glowing with eagerness. “Don’t you worry one bit, Leola; it will all come right in the end. But, oh, dear, I’ve got to put in a busy day getting the bride ready.”
“Make her as pretty as you can, and let the veil be very thick,” laughed Leola, with renewed good humor. “And, by-the-way, Miss Tuttle, you are to tell my guardian that before the ceremony begins Giles Bennett must destroy the mortgage in my presence, or I will not marry him at all.”
So the busy day began, for the whole household was in a state of excitement over the sudden wedding.
Mrs. Stirling and her daughter entered heartily into the spirit of the affair, and set the servants to work transforming the dingy parlor into a floral bower, with wildflowers and evergreens.
The scheming pair were delighted to think of getting rid of Leola so easily, hoping that some fortunate turn of fortune’s fickle wheel might yet bring back Chester Olyphant into Jessie’s power.
While they worked downstairs on the parlor, Miss Tuttle reported herself as very busy upstairs, getting ready the simple outfit of the bride, and packing her trunk for the flitting. Leola would not admit anybody else inside the door. She said she was too busy and too nervous.
Inside that locked door there were strange doings, to be sure.
You would have thought them a pair of amateur actresses, from the way they went on.
The governess had dragged down from the garret a little old trunk containing some stage properties that had once upon a time belonged to an actress who had died while on a visit to Wizard Hermann’s mother. Her relatives had never taken away the box, and many a time Leola had amused herself looking over the queer things on rainy days when she could not go out.
She and Miss Tuttle were amusing themselves again, brushing and combing over the old wigs, Leola trying on the sedate brown front, and Miss Tuttle the curly golden one, that certainly took fifteen years off her age, after Leola made up her sallow face with rouge and powder.
Then Miss Tuttle tried on Leola’s best gown, the dark brown cloth with the silk waist and loose jacket. The pretty brown toque was not unbecoming, with the double veil of white dotted malines, and Leola, who had never expected to smile again, had to giggle like a little school girl at the tout ensemble.
“Oh, Miss Tuttle, you will make a lovely bride! I am sorry I shall not have a handsome gift for you!” she cried.
“You will have given me the desire of my heart!” cried the governess, so seriously and gratefully that Leola laughed harder than ever, thinking she was certainly very easy to please, since portly Giles Bennett could fill the measure of her happiness. It made her think of the old adage Betsy, the cook, had repeated to her the other day: “Ever’buddy to deir taste, missie, as de ole ’oman said when she kissed de cow.”
However, it was very lucky for Leola that Miss Tuttle was so infatuated with the rotund widower that she was willing to win him by hook or crook, so her laughter grew more and more joyous as she added, merrily:
“Be sure that you put a little water in all the kerosene lamps about the house, so that they will flicker and grow dim.”