Daisy Brooks Or A Perilous Love
CHAPTER I
A warm day in the southern part of West Virginia was fast drawing to a close; the heat during the day had been almost intolerable under the rays of the piercing sun, and the night was coming on in sullen sultriness. No breath of cooling air stirred the leafy branches of the trees; the stillness was broken only by the chirping of the crickets, and the fire-flies twinkled for a moment, and were then lost to sight in the long grasses.
On one of the most prosperous plantations in that section of the country there was a great stir of excitement; the master, Basil Hurlhurst, was momentarily expected home with his bride. The negroes in their best attire were scattered in anxious groups here and there, watching eagerly for the first approach of their master’s carriage on the white pebbled road.
The curtains of Whitestone Hall were looped back, and a cheerful flood of light shone out on the waving cotton fields that stretched out as far as the eye could reach, like a field of snow. The last touches had been given to the pillars of roses that filled every available nook and corner, making the summer air redolent with their odorous perfumes. Mrs. Corliss, who had maintained the position of housekeeper for a score of years or more, stood at the window twisting the telegram she held in her hand with ill-concealed impatience. The announcement of this home-coming had been as unexpected as the news of his marriage had been quite a year before.
“Let there be no guests assembled–my reasons will be made apparent to you later on,” so read the telegram, which puzzled the housekeeper more than she cared to admit to the inquisitive maid, who stood near her, curiously watching her thoughtful face.
“’Pears to me it will rain afore they get here, Hagar,” she said, nervously, and, as if in confirmation of her words, a few rain-drops splashed against the window-pane.
Both stood gazing intently out into the darkness. The storm had now commenced in earnest. The great trees bent to and fro like reeds before the wind; the lightning flashed, and the terrific crash of roaring thunder mingled with the torrent of rain that beat furiously against the casement. It seemed as if the very flood-gates of heaven were flung open wide on this memorable night of the master’s return.
“It is a fearful night. Ah! happy is the bride upon whose home-coming the sunlight falls,” muttered Mrs. Corliss under her breath.
Hagar had caught the low-spoken words, and in a voice that sounded strange and weird like a warning, she answered:
“Yes, and unhappy is the bride upon whose home-coming rain-drops fall.”
How little they knew, as they stood there, of the terrible tragedy–the cruelest ever enacted–those grim, silent walls of Whitestone Hall were soon to witness, in fulfillment of the strange prophecy. Hagar, the maid, had scarcely ceased speaking ere the door was flung violently open, and a child of some five summers rushed into the room, her face livid with passion, and her dark, gleaming eyes shining like baneful stars, before which the two women involuntarily quailed.
“What is this I hear?” she cried, with wild energy, glancing fiercely from the one to the other. “Is it true what they tell me–my father is bringing home his bride?”
“Pluma, my child,” remonstrated Mrs. Corliss, feebly, “I–”
“Don’t Pluma me!” retorted the child, clutching the deep crimson passion-roses from a vase at her side, and trampling them ruthlessly beneath her feet. “Answer me at once, I say–has he dared do it?”
“P-l-u-m-a!” Mrs. Corliss advances toward her, but the child turns her darkly beautiful, willful face toward her with an imperious gesture.
“Do not come a step nearer,” cried the child, bitterly, “or I shall fling myself from the window down on to the rocks below. I shall never welcome my father’s wife here; and mark me, both of you, I hate her!” she cried, vehemently. “She shall rue the day that she was born!”
Mrs. Corliss knew but too well the child would keep her word. No power, save God, could stay the turbulent current of the ungovernable self-will which would drag her on to her doom. No human being could hold in subjection the fierce, untamed will of the beautiful, youthful tyrant.
There had been strange rumors of the unhappiness of Basil Hurlhurst’s former marriage. No one remembered having seen her but once, quite five years before. A beautiful woman with a little babe had suddenly appeared at Whitestone Hall, announcing herself as Basil Hurlhurst’s wife. There had been a fierce, stormy interview, and on that very night Basil Hurlhurst took his wife and child abroad; those who had once seen the dark, glorious, scornful beauty of the woman’s face never forgot it. Two years later the master had returned alone with the little child, heavily draped in widower’s weeds.
The master of Whitestone Hall was young; those who knew his story were not surprised that he should marry–he could not go through life alone; still they felt a nameless pity for the young wife who was to be brought to the home in which dwelt the child of his former wife.
There would be bitter war to the end between them. No one could tell on which side the scales of mercy and justice would be balanced.
At that instant, through the raging of the fierce elements, the sound of carriage wheels smote upon their ears as the vehicle dashed rapidly up the long avenue to the porch; while, in another instant, the young master, half carrying the slight, delicate figure that clung timidly to his arm, hurriedly entered the spacious parlor. There was a short consultation with the housekeeper, and Basil Hurlhurst, tenderly lifting the slight burden in his strong, powerful arms, quickly bore his wife to the beautiful apartments that had been prepared for her.
In the excitement of the moment Pluma was quite forgotten; for an instant only she glanced bitterly at the sweet, fair face resting against her father’s shoulder, framed in a mass of golden hair. The child clinched her small hands until she almost cried aloud with the intense pain, never once deigning a glance at her father’s face. In that one instant the evil seeds of a lifetime were sown strong as life and more bitter than death.
Turning hastily aside she sprung hurriedly down the long corridor, and out into the darkness and the storm, never stopping to gain breath until she had quite reached the huge ponderous gate that shut in the garden from the dense thicket that skirted the southern portion of the plantation. She laughed a hard, mocking laugh that sounded unnatural from such childish lips, as she saw a white hand hurriedly loop back the silken curtains of her father’s window, and saw him bend tenderly over the golden-haired figure in the arm-chair. Suddenly the sound of her own name fell upon her ear.
“Pluma,” whispered a low, cautious voice; and in the quick flashes of lightning she saw a white, haggard woman’s face pressed close against the grating, and two white hands were steadily forcing the rusty lock. There was no fear in the fiery, rebellious heart of the dauntless child.
“Go away, you miserable beggar-woman,” she cried, “or I shall set the hounds on you at once. Do you hear me, I say?”
“Who are you?” questioned the woman, in the same low, guarded voice.
The child threw her head back proudly, her voice rising shrilly above the wild warring of the elements, as she answered:
“Know, then, I am Pluma, the heiress of Whitestone Hall.”
The child formed a strange picture–her dark, wild face, so strangely like the mysterious woman’s own, standing vividly out against the crimson lightning flashes, her dark curls blown about the gypsy-like face, the red lips curling scornfully, her dark eyes gleaming.
“Pluma,” called the woman, softly, “come here.”
“How dare you, a beggar-woman, call me!” cried the child, furiously.
“Pluma–come–here–instantly!”
There was a subtle something in the stranger’s voice that throbbed through the child’s pulses like leaping fire–a strange, mysterious influence that bound her, heart and soul, like the mesmeric influence a serpent exerts over a fascinated dove. Slowly, hesitatingly, this child, whose fiery will had never bowed before human power, came timidly forward, step by step, close to the iron gate against which the woman’s face was pressed. She stretched out her hand, and