"Indeed I do," replied Curtis, with increasing emphasis. "Why, what the d.i.c.kens is the matter with you? What does all this mean?"
"Mean! Oh, man! man! Georgia Darrell was my _sister_!"
CHAPTER XXI.
CHARLEY"S CRIME.
"By the strong spirit"s discipline, By the fierce wrong forgiven, By all that wrings the heart of sin, Is woman won to heaven."
With every nerve strained, every feeling wrought to the highest pitch of excitement, Georgia had listened; but at this last moment the overstrung tension gave way, and, for the first time in her life, she fainted.
On the wet gra.s.s where she had fallen she still lay when life and memory came back. She raised herself on her elbow and looked wildly around, pa.s.sed her hand across her forehead, and tried to think. Gradually recollection returned; one by one the broken chains of memory were reunited, and all she had heard came back, flooding her soul with ecstatic joy. Beloved still, no longer a cast-off wife, and her long-lost brother Warren restored!
She remembered him now; she wondered she had not done so at first, for every tone of his voice was familiar. It was the name that had deceived her, and yet he had his mother"s name, too--Warren Randall Darrell. She rose up, to find herself stiff and cold, lying on the wet ground, and her dress soaked with the heavy dew. The garden was deserted, the house all dark, and with an overpowering sense of loneliness she found herself locked out.
It would not do to disturb the family; she must wait till morning where she was, so she resumed her seat and crouched down shivering with cold.
The new-born joy in her heart could not keep her from being chilled through and through; and as the long hours dragged on, it seemed to her that never was night so long as that. Benumbed with cold, sick, and shivering, she sank into an uneasy slumber at last, with her head on the hard, wooden bench.
It was morning when she awoke. With difficulty she arose to her feet, and saw a servant with lazy step and lack l.u.s.ter eyes come out and approach the stables. As she arose, she found herself hardly able to walk from cold and exposure, but she managed to stagger to the door and enter un.o.bserved. It was well for her she met no one, as they might have taken her for one newly risen from the dead--for never did eye rest on such a deathly face as she wore that morning. How she reeled to her room she did not know; how she managed to take off her saturated garments and fling herself on her bed she could not tell; but there she was lying, weak, prostrate, helpless, and chilled to the very heart.
As the morning pa.s.sed and she did not appear, a servant was sent to see what was the matter. Georgia tried to lift her head, but such a feeling of deadly sickness came over her that, weak and blinded, she fell back on her pillow. Every care was taken of her, but before night a raging fever had set in, and with burning brow and parched lips Georgia lay tossing and raving wildly in delirium. Alarmed now, the family physician was sent for, who p.r.o.nounced it a dangerous attack of brain fever, from which he was extremely doubtful she could ever recover.
For days and days after that Georgia lay helpless as a child, with liquid flame burning in every vein. Sometimes she raved and shrieked madly of Freddy Richmond, calling herself a murderess, and trying to spring from those who held her. Sometimes she would plead pitifully with Richmond and implore him to forgive her, and she would never, never offend him again; and now she would forget all the past, and fancy herself talking to the children in the school-room, seemingly with no memory of anything but the present.
It was a golden, sunshiny June morning when consciousness returned, and she opened her eyes to find herself lying in her own room, with a strange woman sitting beside her. Youth, and a naturally strong const.i.tution, had finally triumphed over the disease, but she lay there weak and helpless as an infant. She had a vague, confused memory of the past few weeks, and she turned with a helpless, bewildered look to the nurse.
"What is it? What is the matter? Have I been ill?" she asked, feebly.
"Yes, very ill; but you are better now," said the nurse, coming over and softly adjusting the pillow.
"How--how long have I been sick?" she said, pa.s.sing her wasted hand across her forehead as if to dispel a mist.
"Three weeks," was the reply.
"So long!" said Georgia, drearily, and still struggling to recall something that had escaped her memory. "Who are you? I don"t know you."
"I am your nurse," said the woman, smiling. "Mrs. Leonard hired me to take care of you, and look after things generally until she came back."
"Came back! Has she gone away, then?"
"Oh, dear, yes! the whole family, children and all; they were afraid of the fever, although the doctor said there was no danger."
"Where have they gone?" said Georgia, faintly.
"To New York. It"s my opinion the young ladies were glad of any chance of getting back to town, and it was they, particularly Miss Felice, who insisted on leaving. Don"t disturb yourself about them, my dear; you will soon be as well as any of them."
"Tell me," said Georgia, catching the woman"s wrists in her thin, transparent hands, and looking earnestly in her face with the great black eyes so sunken and melancholy now--"tell me if you know whether a certain Mr. Randall who used to come here went with them? Perhaps you have heard?"
The woman shook her head.
"No, my dear, I have not. I have heard of him, though, often; they say he is very clever and going to be married to Miss Felice, but I don"t know myself. Don"t talk so much, Miss Randall; it is not good for you."
"One thing more," said Georgia. "I--I raved when I was out of my mind; will you tell me what it was I said?"
"That would be pretty hard to do," said the nurse, smiling; but then, seeing the look of desperate earnestness on her patient"s face, she added: "Why, you know, my dear, you talked a great deal of nonsense--fever patients always do--about some one you called Richmond, and Freddy Richmond--some gentlemen, I expect," said the woman, with a meaning glance; "and you called yourself a murderess, and then you kept begging some one not to be angry with you, and you would never do so any more; and sometimes you would talk to the children, and fancy yourself in the school-room with them. In short, you know, you said all sorts of queer things; but that was to be expected."
From that day Georgia rapidly recovered, and in less than a fortnight was able to get up and sit for a few hours each day in an easy chair by the window, inhaling the fragrant summer air. Her first request was to call for the latest papers; but for some time the doctor said she was not equal to the exertion of reading them, and, in spite of her pa.s.sionate eagerness, she had to wait.
To ask about Richmond she did not dare; but how eagerly she scanned the first paper she got, in search of his name! And there she learned that he had gone South on a summer ramble, wandering about from place to place with the strange restlessness that characterized him.
It was a blow to her at first, but when she came to think it over, she was almost glad of it. Somehow, she scarcely could tell why she did not wish to meet him yet; if ever she returned to him, it must be in a way different from what she had left. She wanted to find her brother first; she had a vehement desire to win wealth and fame, and return to Richmond Wildair as his equal in every way. During the long weary hours of her convalescence she had made up her mind to go to the city.
The monotonous life of the last six months here grew unendurable to her now; she would not have taken uncounted wealth and consented to spend six more like them. Life at least was not stagnant in the uproar and turmoil of the city, and solitude is not always a panacea for all sorts of people in trouble.
She had money--her half-year"s salary had been untouched, and it was no inconsiderable sum, for Mr. Leonard had been as generous as he was rich.
She had a vague idea of winning fame as an artist. She felt an inward conviction that her "Hagar in the Wilderness" would create a sensation if seen. She took it out from its canvas screen, and gazed long and earnestly upon it.
It was a wild, weird, unearthly thing, but strangely beautiful withal, and possessing a sort of fascination that would have chained you before it for hours. Never did eye look on a more gloriously beautiful face than that of the pictured Egyptian in its dark splendor and unutterable anguish. The posture, as she half-lay, half-writhed in her inward torture, spoke of the darkest depth of anguish and despair; the long, wild, purplish black tresses streamed unbound in the breeze, and the face that startled you from the canvas was white with woman"s utmost woe. And the eyes that caught and transfixed yours, sending a thrill of awe and terror to most stoical heart--those unfathomable eyes of midnight blackness, where despairing love, fiercest anguish, and maddest desperation seem struggling for mastery. Oh! never could any, but one in the utmost depths of despair herself, have painted eyes like these.
Lucifer hurled from heaven might have cast back one last look like that, so full of conflicting pa.s.sion, but the superhuman agony shining and surmounting them all--eyes that would have haunted you like a frightful nightmare, long after you had first beheld them, eyes that would have made you shudder, and yet held you spell-bound, breathless, riveted to the spot.
All unknown to herself she had painted her own portrait; those flowing, l.u.s.trous tresses, that dark, oriental face, those appalling eyes, that posture of utter woe and unspeakable desolation, all were hers. The face was almost the fac-simile of the one that had once so startled Richmond Wildair that morning on the sea-sh.o.r.e, only the pa.s.sionate, tortured form was wanting.
At a little distance lay the boy Ishmael, with all his mother"s dark beauty in his face, but so serenely calm and childishly peaceful that the contrast was all the more startling.
It was a wonderful picture, and no wonder that Georgia"s eyes fired up, and her color came and went and her countenance glowed with power, and triumph and inspiration as she gazed.
"It must succeed--it will succeed--it _shall_ succeed," she vehemently exclaimed. "There has been a prize offered by the Academy of Art for the best painting from a native artist, and mine shall go with the rest. And if it succeeds--"
She caught her breath, and her whole face for an instant grew radiant with the picture she conjured up of the glory and fame that would be hers.
"Mr. Leonard shall take it for me; he has always been my friend, and the artist"s name shall be unknown until the decision is announced. Yes, it shall be so; the paper says that all pictures for the prize must be delivered in three days from this, as the decision shall be given and the prize awarded in a fortnight. Yes, I will go at once."
And with her characteristic impulsive rapidity, Georgia made her preparations, and that very afternoon bade farewell to the house where the last six wretched months had been spent, and took the cars for New York.
Arrived there, her first destination was the widow"s, where she had stopped before, and early next morning she set out for the hotel where the Leonards were stopping.
Mr. Leonard and his family were still there, and seemed quite overjoyed to see her. It was fortunate, Mrs. Leonard said, she had come when she did, for early in the next month she, and Mr. Leonard, and the girls were off for Cape May for a little tossing about in the surf, and would not return until quite late in the season, as, having been cooped up so long, they were determined to make the most of their holiday now. The children were to go back, and she, Miss Randall, was expected to go back with them, and oversee the household generally in their absence.
Great was the worthy lady"s surprise when Georgia quietly and firmly declined. At first she was disposed to stand upon her dignity and be offended, but when Mr. Leonard declared emphatically Miss Randall was right, that she was by no means strong enough to resume the labor of teaching, that she needed rest and relaxation and amus.e.m.e.nt, and that the city, among her friends, was for the present decidedly the best place for her, she cooled down, and consented to listen to reason.
"And now, how are all your friends, Miss Leonard?" said Georgia, with a smile, yet with a sudden throbbing at her heart at the hope of hearing something of her brother.
"All well enough when we saw them last," said Miss Felice, in a dreary tone; "everybody"s going away out of the city, but papa will insist on staying after every one else."