Part 30 (2/2)
Justine Delande faced the old miser pedant as she indignantly cried: ”G.o.d protect and keep the poor orphan who has drifted out of one h.e.l.l on earth into another! Your dead brother robbed her of a mother's love, and you--you old vampire--you would bury her alive! She shall know yet her dead mother's love, and--her brutal father's shame!”
Before the excited woman could select another period of flowing invective from her thronging emotions, the gaunt old scholar had pushed her out into the hall and slid a bolt upon his door, with a vicious click. There were certain qualms of fear already unsettling his triumphant calmness.
While Justine Delande, with flaming cheeks, sprang up the stair, and barricaded herself with the sobbing heiress, the old man, his eyes gleaming with all the conscious pride of tyranny, seated himself and indited a note directed to
PROFESSOR ALARIC HOBBS, (of Waukesha University, U. S. A.), ROYAL VICTORIA HOTEL, ST. HELIERS, JERSEY.
He had already dismissed from his mind the sorrows of the orphaned niece--he cared not for the spirited onslaught of the Swiss woman--and he rejoiced in his heart at the fact of Douglas Fraser's departure to gather up the loose ends of his dead brother's great fortune. ”It's a vixenish baggage--this Swiss teacher! Hugh was right to bid me cut those cords at once and forever between them! The girl shall have discipline, and, that baggage, her mother, is well out of the world! I'll work Hugh's will! She shall come under!” With a secret glee he ran over a schedule of chapter headings upon Thibet, Tibet, Tubet--the land of Bod--Bodyul or Ala.s.sa. He was drifting back into the dreamland of the pedant, but a few hours deserted.
”This Yankee fellow has a keen wit! His ideas on the Ten Tribes are wonderful! His life has been a study of the Mongolians, the Tartars, and the history of the American Indians! I will be a bit decent to the fellow, and I'll get at the meat of his knowledge! He's young and a great chatterer, maybe, but a help to me. Body o' me! But to get there myself--to Thibet.
”Ah!” sighed the old misanthrope, ”I'm too old now! And Hugh has failed me! Nothing from him. This sair blow cuts off the last hope! And no educated men of Thibet ever travel! Blindness--blindness everywhere!”
he babbled on, while above him, two women, in an agonized leave-taking, were silently sobbing in each other's arms, while the happy Swiss servant made her boxes. Nadine Johnstone's utter wretchedness gave her no sense of a loss by the hand of Death. For a father's love she had never known, and her mother--a mystery!
The two women cowering together above the old pedant's den with sorrowing hearts communed while Justine Delande directed the packing of her slender belongings. There was a new spirit of revolt stirring in Nadine Johnstone's breast, and her face glowed with the resentment of an outraged heart. When all was ready for Justine's flitting, the heiress of a million pounds finished a little memorandum, which she calmly explained to the Swiss preceptress. The sense of her future rights stirred her like a bugle blast, and with clear eyes, she looked beyond the three years toward Freedom.
”It rests with you, Justine, as to whether I am left friendless for three years of a gloomy captivity. First you are to telegraph to Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi, and if you receive no reply, then telegraph to General Willoughby for the Major's address. When at Granville, and, not before, send this letter to Major Hardwicke at the 'Junior United Service Club, London'.” The beautiful girl was blus.h.i.+ng rosy red as the sympathetic Swiss folded her to her breast. ”Then, when you get to Paris, go to No. 9 Rue Berlioz, and leave this letter there for Madame Berthe Louison. Go yourself. Trust no one. When you have conferred with dear Euphrosyne, you can send all your letters to Madame Louison at Paris under cover. She will find out a safe way to get them to me--even if she has to send her man, Jules, over here. He is quick-witted, and he will find a way to reach me.”
There was a dawning wonder in Justine's eyes.
”Who is this strange Madame Louison? Can you trust her?”
”Ah! Justine!” murmured Nadine, ”She is only one who loves me, for love's own sake, but I know I can trust her. She knows something of my mother's past life--something that I do not know. This old tyrant will now try to cut me off from all the outside world. He has had some strange power given to him by the father who was only my father in name.
”I will obey you. I swear it!” cried Justine. ”And old Simpson will probably be coming on soon. He loves you. He will serve you.”
”Yes,” joyously exclaimed Nadine, with a glowing face. ”And he adores Major Hardwicke, whose father saved his life at Lucknow. There is one dawning hope. You are not to write one word till you hear from me. I know that Madame Louison will manage to send Jules to me in some safe disguise,” she proudly cried, ”and remember--I shall not be always a poor prisoner with her hands tied. The day of my deliverance comes. When I am twenty-one, I can reward both you and Euphrosyne. She shall have a home to live in ease. And you,--you shall go out into the world with me, and aid me to find my mother. Even in the tomb I shall find her. I shall know of her love. For I shall see her loving face, even only in a picture. The face that has blessed me in my dreams.”
Justine Delande saw a future reward awaiting the two faithful guardians of the childhood of Miss Million. With a sudden impulse, she cried: ”There is one to aid even nearer to us now than Major Hardwicke. For I have a telegram from Euphrosyne, that Major Haivke is at Geneva.”
Nadine Johnstone rose and seized both of Justine's hands: ”Promise me now, by my dead mother's grave, that you will never tell that man anything of our secret compact of to-day! I fear him! I disliked him from the first! He had strange dealings with the dead.” The girl's face was stern. ”If I am approached by him in any way, I will cease every communication with you forever! I will have no aid of Alan Hawke.”
And when the parting hour came, Justine Delande was amazed at the cold dignity with which Nadine Johnstone faced the grim old uncle. It was only at the gate of the ”Banker's Folly,” that the heiress for the last time kissed her friend in adieu. ”Fear not for me. I have learned the lesson of Life. Remember!” she whispered. ”Keep the faith! Guard my trusts!” and then, Justine sobbed: ”Loyal a la, mort!”
The evening shades were darkening the sculptured sh.o.r.es of Rozel Bay, where clumsy luggers lay far below, high and dry on the beach, behind the great masonry pier. Skiffs and fis.h.i.+ng-boats lined the sh.o.r.es, and the soft breeze moved the foliage of the luxuriant garden. The white stars were peeping out and twinkling in the gray and lonely sea, as Nadine s.h.i.+vered and walked firmly back to the portico, where the old recluse awaited her.
With a stiff motion of perfunctory courtesy, he motioned the heiress into the frosty-looking drawing-room, now lit up with spectral gleams of wax candles. For he would treat his ward with a frozen dignity.
Andrew Fraser coughed in a hollow warning and wasted no words in his first bulletin of ”General Orders.” ”I have here a certified copy of your late father's will,” he said, ”for your perusal. You will see all the conditions of life which he has wisely laid down for you. I have telegraphed on to London for his solicitor to send a representative here, and the original testament will be duly filed at Doctors' Commons, at once. I shall at once provide you with suitable women attendants.
I have already engaged a proper housekeeper, to whom you can state all your wishes. With regard to money matters and your correspondence, you must consult me! For the present, you will readily see that I deem it imprudent for you to leave these s.p.a.cious and splendid grounds! But, ye'll find ways to busy yourself. Women always do!”
The old pedant marveled at the young woman's composure, for she simply bowed and awaited a termination of the interview. Slightly disconcerted, he abruptly demanded: ”Have you anything to say?”
”Only this, Andrew Fraser,” coldly replied the heiress. ”Your sending away the only woman whom I know in the world has marked you as a tyrant and a jailer.” Her spirit was as unyielding as his own, and he winced.
”Ye'll find I had your father's warrant. I'll go on to the end and obey him! There are to be no old a.s.sociations kept up, and when ye come to your own ye can do all ye will! I'll go my way in my duty and do it as it seems right!” When he finished he was alone, for the daughter of Valerie Delavigne had pa.s.sed him with a glance of unutterable contempt.
There was fire in the eye of the rebellious girl, and the elastic firmness of youth in her tread, but above stairs, in her own lonely rooms, her courage faded away quickly. But she wrapped her sorrows in her own proud young heart and turned her eyes to the far East. ”Will he come?” she murmured.
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