Molly’s Treachery

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

HART SERIES NO. 62

COPYRIGHT 1886 BY GEO. MUNRO

Published By THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY Cleveland, O., U. S. A.

[Pg 2]

[Pg 3]

Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER I.

“Ferndale, Greenbrier Co., West Va. June 20, 1878.

“Dear sister and Aunt Lucy, oh, please do let me come home! Ferndale is horrid, the lonesomest old hole I ever saw in my life, and Aunt Thalia is a real old dragoness! And I’m tired of behaving like a grown-up lady, and just dying for some sort of a lark. And although I don’t like her much, I hate to fool her as I’m doing. It makes me feel mean as if I were a regular little fraud. I try to keep it up for your sake, Lou, but it goes hard. Bother the money! It isn’t worth the deceit, or, as our old French governess used to say, ‘Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!’ Can’t you let me off now? I’ve been here two weeks, and I don’t think I can stand it any longer! It’s like a catacomb, so deadly lonesome! Not a caller since I came, and I haven’t seen a man for two weeks except the gardener and the old black coach driver! But that’s all the better, since my clothes are shabby anyhow! I think Aunt Thalia must have noticed that my red cashmere is out at elbows, for this morning she actually gave me forty dollars, and told me to go into town and buy

myself a summer silk and her maid would make it for me this week. But I’m going to post this letter to you instead with the money registered to you (as you told[Pg 4] me to do). I expect she will be fearfully angry when she finds it out. No doubt she will want to drive me away, so you had better send a telegram right off for me to come home. Say that Aunt Lucy’s sick, or somebody’s dying—anything—so that you get me away at once and forever from Ferndale! I shall die of the blues if I stay any longer! With love to you both,

“Molly E. Trueheart.”

“To Miss Louise Barry, “Staunton, Va.”

The Ferndale estate did not deserve the title “horrid old hole,” as applied to it in that gushing, school-girlish letter. On the contrary it was a magnificent place of about a hundred acres—a valley farm, situated a few miles distant from the historic old town of Lewisburg, and less than six miles distant from the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs. The large, old-fashioned red brick mansion was almost hidden by a far-spreading grove of gigantic old forest trees, beneath whose shade, dark and damp and heavy, flourished the splendid ferns that gave the place its distinctive name. But after all, perhaps the dense shade and unavoidable dampness made the old house unwholesome, for old Mrs. Barry, its mistress, was an aged, withered crone, little more than skin and bones, with a temper none of the sweetest, and her servants as a whole were sour-tempered too, as if they did not get enough sunshine on their faces and into their souls. It was this subtle influence perhaps that made Mrs. Barry’s young guest vow to herself that she should go melancholy mad if

she stayed much longer at Ferndale.

So with a heart beating high with hope she entered[Pg 5] the old-fashioned family carriage and was driven into Lewisburg ostensibly to purchase the silk dress, but in reality to secretly register and post the letter of entreaty that was to wring her release from her probation at Ferndale and insure her speedy return to her own home.

She rather enjoyed the ride that sunny June afternoon, up hill and down dale in the jolting carriage over the rough, mountainous road, and her depressed spirits rose until she began to feel mildly jolly and hummed a little tune softly to herself that ended suddenly in an undeniable whistle of surprise as they came around a bend of the road and in sight of a picturesque plateau on which stood a beautiful country residence built of rough gray stone. There were two towers over which the pretty American ivy was picturesquely creeping, and the oriel windows here and there, and jutting verandas, were in a style of architecture quite unusual to the country, and betokening both wealth and taste. Our heroine thought she had never seen anything prettier than the great gray stone house with its creeping ivy, and its windows glistening in the sunlight, which had free play here, for there was a sloping lawn in front of the house with just enough trees grouped here and there to add beauty to the scene without at all obstructing the view.

The girl put her pretty, dark head out of the window and said, eagerly,

“Who lives there, Uncle Abe?”

The old family servant who had spent all his life in West Virginia, and knew every place for many miles around, answered promptly:

“Dat’s de ole Laurens place, honey. Fambly’s all[Pg 6] in Yurrup now eddicating de darters and de sons. Mighty rich and proud, all dem Laurenses, missie. Come uv old English stock and ebry now an’ den some o’ dere kin dies ober de sea and leabes dem anoder fortin.”

“Oh,” said Molly, drawing a long breath, her piquant face glowing with eager interest.

She looked in something like awe at the beautiful home of these favorites of fortune.

“I wish I was one of ‘de darters’!” she said, quaintly.

“Hi, honey!” exclaimed old Uncle Abe, quite reproachfully. “Ole Mis’ Barry’s niece just as good as dem proud Laurenses.”

“Yes, Uncle Abe,” answered Molly, demurely, the mischievous golden brown lights dancing in her big, dark eyes, and her red lips dimpling with mirth at the old negro’s family pride.

Then she said, half-questioningly:

“But of course the Laurens family are too proud to notice any of their neighbors?”

Uncle Abe was too busy with his horses to reply for a moment or two, but presently he looked around quite crossly at his interlocutor, and said, severely:

“Miss Looisy Barry, I t’ink you mus’ be c’azy. Don’t you know dere ain’t nobody better den de Barrys? I been livin’ long o’ dem as slave and freedman all my life, me an’ my ole ’oman, and de Barrys is always de top o’ de pot, or, as ole missus say, cweam delly cweam. Dat’s F’ench for top o’ de pot, you mus’ know, chile. As fo’ de Laurenses, dey hab always been hand and glove wif de Barrys! Umph, chile, you don’t seem to know nuffin’ ’tall ’bout de[Pg 7] ’portance of your own fambly,” concluded old Abe, shaking his gray head disgustedly, and turning his attention wholly to his horses for they had left the gray stone house out of sight, and were descending a steep hill now.

Molly Trueheart sat quite still with a distinctly wistful expression on her lovely girlish face.

“What do I care about the importance of the Barrys? I know that one of them at least can stoop to selfish scheming!” she muttered, impatiently. “Oh, I wish I was well out of this scrape. It is not so funny masquerading as I thought it would be! I nearly exploded into a confession when the poor old soul gave me that money, little fraud that I am!”

[Pg 8]

CHAPTER II.

If she was a little fraud, as she declared herself to be, she had the frankest, honestest, prettiest face in the world, and many curious and admiring eyes turned on her as she alighted from the carriage on reaching Lewisburg and tripped lightly across the narrow pavement into the post-office.

After she had duly registered the letter containing the forty dollars she went into a few stores, where she looked at summer silks; shook her dark, curly head in pretended disapproval of the prices, bought a paper of pins and a neck ribbon, then returned to the carriage before Uncle Abe, who was exchanging the compliments of the day with some gossips of his own color, was half ready to leave.

“Lor’, Miss Looisy, you aine a-gwine yit?”

“Yes, Uncle Abe.”

“Dem hosses aine got rested yit, dat’s a fac’. Doane you want stay awhile, honey, and call on sum o’ de fust famblies o’ de town?” wheedlingly.

The girl laughed merrily.

“I don’t know a person in Lewisburg from Adam,” she said. “Come on, Uncle Abe; you’ve gossiped enough this time,” and with a resigned sigh the old darky climbed to his seat again, whipped up the horses, and set off on the return journey to Ferndale.

Molly Trueheart leaned back in the carriage and gave herself up to the enjoyment of her own thoughts[Pg 9] until they again came in sight of the Laurens estate when she called out to the old driver:

“Uncle Abe, who stays over there when the family goes abroad?”

Uncle Abe, out of humor at being separated so soon from his gossip, grunted out crossly:

“Nobody but dem sassy Laurens niggers.”

Molly felt herself snubbed and drew back her curly head, relapsing into a silence that lasted until she again crossed the threshold of Ferndale.

Mrs. Thalia Barry was sitting in the wide hall taking snuff out of a golden snuff-box.

She was a tall, spare woman with a frame that had originally been strong and stout, although now dwindled by the encroachments of age and the horrors of a chronic dyspepsia. She had thin, masculine-looking features, a false front of waved, white hair, false teeth, and her small, twinkling, greenish-gray eyes were partially hidden by gold-rimmed spectacles. She dressed habitually in soft, thick, gray silk, and pinned her collar of the yellowest old real lace with a magnificent diamond brooch. Ill-health had magnified an already imperious temper; and Molly was not far wrong when she complained that the aristocratic old lady was a perfect old dragoness, for she was the terror of her servants when in one of her “spells,” as they called them, and even her young visitor had more than once smarted under the lash of her displeasure.

But she looked up now with some eagerness, and said in her shrill, curt tone:

“Back so soon? I hope that old rascal, Abe, did not drive my horses too fast! Well, Louise, come and show me your silk.”

The pretty, dark eyed girl, in her cheap white dress[Pg 10] and rustic straw hat, halted in the door-way with a frightened expression and gazed half appealingly into Mrs. Barry’s stern, ugly face.

“Well?” said the lady, impatiently. “Do you want some one to bring your bundle in from the carriage? Here, Ginny Ann,” to an old negro woman hovering about the back door, “go out to the carriage and get Miss Barry’s bundle!”

Molly sprang forward, her frightened expression changing to one of defiant bravery.

“Oh, aunt, she needn’t go! There’s—there’s no bundle there! I didn’t buy the dress!” she cried out, desperately.

“But why?” cried Mrs. Barry in amazement.

And the girl faltered, with hot blushes.

“I didn’t need it, you know.”

Mrs. Barry flew suddenly into a fury.

“Not need the dress, you silly girl, when you have not a decent rag to your back! What do you mean?” she stormed, in loud, angry tones.

Molly’s blushes grew hotter still, but they were those of anger now, and her black eyes blazed as she retorted:

“Well, if I have nothing but rags, what more do I need in this old tomb of a place where no one ever comes from week’s end to week’s end? I know you’ll be mad, Aunt Thalia, but if you kill me for it, I’ll tell the truth at once! I sent that money to my sister!”

Mrs. Barry’s face grew purple with wrath. She stamped furiously upon the carpeted floor.

“Never say that word again!” she burst out fiercely. “You have no sister.”

“My step-sister, then, Aunt Thalia,” amended Molly.

[Pg 11]

A glance of concentrated scorn and anger shone on her through the glasses of Mrs. Barry.

“Louise Barry, I thought you had more pride than to claim that girl—the daughter of the low-lived actress, who wheedled your father into marrying her, his second wife—your sister! The connection is a disgrace to you.”

“Hush, Aunt Thalia. You must not talk so to me!” said the girl, sharply. She had grown quite pale, and her slender little hands were clinched tightly together. She bit her red lips fiercely, to keep back burning words that had rushed to their portals.

Mrs. Barry snorted scornfully.

“You take her part, eh? that low-born brat that her dying mother saddled on your aunt Lucy. Louise Barry, I’m ashamed of you, disappointed in you. I wish now that I had taken you here to live when your father died, then Lucy Everett would have had to send Molly Trueheart to the poor-house instead of supporting her on the money I have sent every year to you.”

The girl stood looking at her with a heaving breast and eyes dilated with anger. When her aunt paused the girlish head was lifted proudly, and the young voice trembling with passion, answered sharply:

“Molly Trueheart’s mother, the low-lived actress, as you call her, left her daughter a legacy, small, but sufficient to pay for her board and clothing. She would not have to go to the poor-house, even if Aunt Lucy turned her out-of-doors.”

“Oh, indeed; I did not know she was an heiress. I thought she was a pauper. Why did you send her the money then, since she did not need it?” sharply.

[Pg 12]

“I—I owed it to her, Aunt Thalia,” said the girl with a defiant air.

“So then the allowance I have made you every year was not sufficient, and you had to borrow from that creature?”

“Ye-es, madame,” in a stifled tone.

“Very well, you shall never have that humiliation henceforth. It is not for Philip Barry’s daughter and my heiress to undergo such straits. Henceforth your home will be at Ferndale, and I’ll try to cure you of all fancy for your low-born connection. I’ll write to your aunt Lucy tonight and tell her so.”

“I—I won’t stay!” stormed the girl, in sudden passionate defiance and terror commingled. Her black eyes blazed as she fixed them on Mrs. Barry’s face.

The old lady gazed at her silently a moment as if almost paralyzed by astonishment.

“Why, you pert little baggage!” she muttered, then she made a dart toward the girl and clutched her arm with fingers that seemed strong as iron. Molly struggled wildly to get away, but Mrs. Barry held her tightly.

“Come here, Ginny Ann, and help me!” she called to the gaping old negress, and between them they dragged the girl upstairs, where Mrs. Barry deliberately pushed her into the big garret and locked the door.

“Stay there, miss, until you come to your senses and ask my pardon for your impertinence!” she screamed through the key-hole.

Then Molly heard the departing footsteps of the grim old lady and her satellite, and realized that she was locked up like a naughty child in punishment for her misdemeanor.

[Pg 13]

She was in doubt whether to laugh or cry at the preposterousness of the whole thing.

At first she indulged in a burst of defiant laughter which soon changed to hysterical sobbing. Sinking down on an old moth-eaten sofa she covered her face with her hands, and tears rained through her fingers.

“Oh, mamma, my true, gifted, beautiful mamma, it was bitter to hear you maligned so, and you in your tragic grave!” she murmured sadly. “And I, your own daughter, I could not take your part because of the promise that bound me to keep Louise’s secret. How can I ever like that proud old woman again?”

Like a grieved child she sobbed herself to sleep in the musty, close-smelling garret, where quiet reigned supreme save for the patter of startled mice across the bare, dusty floor.

Two hours passed, and Ginny Ann, the black woman, was sent up to inquire regarding the state of mind of the imprisoned culprit.

“Ole missis wants to know is you sorry fo’ youse sassiness yet?” she bawled through the key-hole.

There was no reply, and she went down and reported that Miss Louise was sulking yet, and wouldn’t answer a word.

“Let her stay until night, then. I guess the darkness will cure her of her stubbornness,” chuckled Mrs. Barry, evilly.

But all the same she had sent Agnes Walker, her maid, back to Lewisburg with old Abe, with instructions to buy the summer silk and a white muslin besides. The old lady had very particular reasons for wanting her niece to have this finery.

And while the prisoner sobbed herself to sleep in the garret, and Agnes Walker tumbled over silks and[Pg 14] muslins in Lewisburg, Mrs. Barry had Ginny Ann unpacking trunks in the dressing-room and hauling out finery that had not seen the light for years, but which in the revolutions of fashion’s wheel was as fashionable now as in the long ago years when Mrs. Barry had bedecked her form in the costliest fabrics and richest laces to grace the grand society in which she moved before she had settled down, a childless widow, at lonely Ferndale, her dower house, to nurse her grief for her lost partner and her chronic dyspepsia together and to make herself a terror to any one who dared dispute her despotic will.

“Lor’, ole mis, dere’s dat white satting dress you wore when you went to see de queen ober de water,” exclaimed old Ginny Ann, as she lifted out a tray and disclosed beneath a lustrous heap of yellow satin and flounces of fine point lace. “But, Lor’ A’mighty, it’s all yallered er layin’. I ’speck I kin bleach de lace all right by layin’ it out in de dew at night, but dat satting won’t wash, and it’s jes’ ruinated,” sighing heavily and rolling up the whites of her eyes.

“There, don’t touch it, you old simpleton!” cried Mrs. Barry, hastily. “That dress has sacred memories. I wore it at a Drawing-room in London when I was presented to Queen Victoria on my wedding-tour, and on my return home at an Inauguration Ball in Washington, when our good President, Mr. Fillmore, took his seat. Shut up the trunk, Ginny Ann. I cannot cut up that dress even for my niece.”

“Dat’s so, dat’s so, ole mis. De impertent chile don’t deserbe it!” mumbled Ginny Ann.

“Hold your tongue, sauce-box!” cried her mistress, irately.

[Pg 15]

CHAPTER III.

But Molly Trueheart was not sulking in the garret as Ginny Ann had reported to her “ole miss.”

She had slept but a little while when she was awakened by a sound that made her spring to her feet with a shriek of alarm—the hurrying and scurrying of immense rats across the attic floor. Her black eyes opened wide in terror, and she sprang upon the sofa, and stood watching the loathsome animals as, startled by her scream, they scampered to their holes.

“Good gracious! There must have been a hundred of the nasty little vermin!” ejaculated Molly. In reality there had not been more than a dozen, but her terrors had magnified their numbers. “Ugh! ugh! ugh! how they make my flesh creep!” she continued, shuddering nervously and drawing her skirts close around her dainty little feet. “And to think that they might have bitten me in my sleep, the monsters! I wonder, I do wonder if Aunt Thalia intends for me to stay here all night! I sha’n’t do it! so there, no, not if Louise loses every cent of the fortune,” her eyes sparkling resentfully. “I don’t want my hair to turn white in one night from terror.”

Stillness reigned again, for the rodents, as much alarmed by her presence as she was by theirs, were trembling in their hiding-places. Molly sprang down and ran over to the window, which, without much difficulty, she flung open, letting in a flood of fresh air.

At the same moment she clapped her pretty dimpled[Pg 16] hands together and uttered a cry of mischievous pleasure.

“Molly Trueheart, you limb of mischief, I knew you would be sure to have a lark if you stayed any longer at Ferndale!”

Close to that side of the house grew a stately oak tree that flung out its long, strong arms close to the window-sill. The large, laughing dark eyes were fixed on the tree while she spoke, and in another moment she climbed up into the window, twined her round white arms about a stout branch, and swung herself forward with kitten-like agility into the big tree, sliding from limb to limb until she was securely seated on a stout branch with her back against the body of the oak.