CHAPTER XXXI.
ALTHEA'S ABDUCTION
Arrived in New York, John Hartley lost no time in ascertaining where Dan and his mother lived. In order the better to watch without incurring suspicion, he engaged by the week a room in a house opposite, which, luckily for his purpose, happened to be for rent. It was a front window, and furnished him with a post of observation from which he could see who went in and out of the house opposite.
Hartley soon learned that it would not be so easy as he had anticipated to gain possession of the little girl. She never went out alone, but always accompanied either by Dan or his mother.
Hartley was disappointed. If, now, Althea were attending school, there would be an opportunity to kidnap her. As it was, he was at his wits' end.
At last, however, opportunity favored him.
On the evening of the party Mrs. Mordaunt chanced to need some small article necessary to the work upon which she was engaged. She might indeed wait until the next day, but she was repairing a vest of Dan's, which he would need to wear in the morning, and she did not like to disappoint him.
"My child," she said, "I find I must go out a little while."
"What for, mamma?"
"I want to buy some braid to bind Dan's vest. He will want to wear it in the morning."
"May I go with you, mamma?"
"No, my child. You can be reading your picture-book till I come back. I won't be long."
So Mrs. Mordaunt put on her street dress, and left the house in the direction of Eighth avenue, where there was a cheap store at which she often traded.
No sooner did Hartley see her leave the house, as he could readily do, for the night was light, than he hurried to Union Square, scarcely five minutes distant, and hailed a cab-driver.
"Do you want a job, my man?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Can you hold your tongue?"
"Yes, sir, if necessary."
"It is necessary."
"There is nothing wrong, sir, I hope."
"Certainly not. My child has been kidnapped during my absence in Europe. With your help I mean to recover her."
"All right, sir."
"She is in the custody of some designing persons, who keep possession of her on account of a fortune which she is to inherit. She does not know me to be her father, we have been so long separated; but I feel anxious to take her away from her treacherous guardians."
"You are right, sir. I've got a little girl of my own, and I understand your feelings. Where shall we go?"
Hartley gave the proper address. Fifteen minutes afterward the cab drew up before Mrs. Brown's door, and Hartley, springing from it, rang the bell. It so happened that Mrs. Brown was out, and a servant answered the bell. She looked inquiringly at the visitor.
"A lady lives here with a little girl," he said, quickly.
"Yes, sir; Mrs. Mordaunt."
"Precisely; and the little girl is named Althea."
"You are right, sir."
"Mrs. Mordaunt has been run over by a street-car, and been carried into my house. She wishes the little girl to come at once to her."
"Is she much hurt?" asked Nancy, anxiously.
"I am afraid her leg is broken; but I can't wait. Will you bring the little girl down at once?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I'll lose no time."
Nancy went up stairs two steps at a time, and broke into Mrs. Mordaunt's room breathless.
"Put on your hat at once, Miss Althea," she said.
"What for?" asked the child, in surprise.
"Your ma has sent for you."
"But she said she was coming right back."
"She's hurt, and she can't come, and she has sent for you. Don't cry, my dear."
"But how shall I know where to go, Nancy?"
"There's a kind gentleman at the door with a carriage. Your ma has been taken to his home."
The little girl began to cry once more.
"Oh! I'm afraid mamma's been killed," she said.
"No, she hasn't, or how could she send for you?"
This argument tended to reassure Althea, and she put on her little shawl and hat, and hurried down stairs.
Hartley was waiting for her impatiently, fearing that Mrs. Mordaunt would come back sooner than was anticipated, and so interfere with the fulfillment of his plans.
"Is mamma very much hurt?" asked Althea, anxiously.
"So she calls this woman mamma," said Hartley to himself.
"Not very badly, but she cannot come home to-night. Get into the carriage, and I will tell you about it as we are riding to her."
He hurried the little girl into the carriage, and taking a seat beside her, ordered the cabman to drive on.
He had before directed him to drive to the South Ferry.
"How did mamma get hurt?" asked the child.
"She was crossing the street," said Hartley, "when she got in the way of a carriage and was thrown down and run over."
The child began to cry.
"Oh, she will die!" she exclaimed, sobbing.
"No, she will not die. The carriage was not a heavy one, luckily, and she is only badly bruised. She will be all right in a few days."
John Hartley was a trifle inconsistent in his stories, having told the servant that Mrs. Mordaunt had been run over by a street-car; but in truth he had forgotten the details of his first narrative, and had modified it in the second telling. However, Nancy had failed to tell the child precisely how Mrs. Mordaunt had been hurt, and she was not old enough to be suspicious.
"Where is mamma?" was the little girl's next question.
"She is at my house."
"Where is your house?"
"Not far from here," answered Hartley, evasively.
"Then I shall soon see mamma."
"Is she your mamma?" asked Hartley.
"No, not my own mamma, but I call her so. I love her dearly."
"Where is your own mamma?"
"She is dead."
"Do you remember her?"
"A little."
"Have you a papa?"
"My papa is a very bad man. He treated poor mamma very badly."
"Who told you this?" demanded Hartley, frowning. "Was it Mrs. Mordaunt?"
"No; it was auntie."
"I thought this was some of Harriet Vernon's work," said Hartley to himself. "It seems like my amiable sister-in-law. She might have been in better business than poisoning my child's mind against me."
"Who else lives with you?" he asked, partly out of curiosity, but mainly to occupy the child's mind, so that she might not be fully conscious of the lapse of time.
"My brother Dan."
"How old is Dan?"
"I don't know. He is a good deal bigger than me."
"Do you like Dan?"
"Oh, yes; Dan is a nice boy. He buys me candy. He has gone to a party to-night."
"Has he?"
"And he won't be home till late. He told mamma so."
"I am glad of that," thought Hartley. "It is the better for my purpose."
"Dan is a smart boy. He earns lots of money."
"What does he do?"
"I don't know. He goes down town every morning, and he doesn't come home till supper time."
Hartley managed to continue his inquiries about Dan, but at last Althea became restless.
"Are we most there?" she asked.
"Yes, we are almost there."
"I don't see how mamma could have gone so far."
John Hartley looked out.
"I see how it is," he said. "The cab-driver lost the way, and that has delayed us."
This satisfied the child for a time. Meanwhile they reached the South Ferry, and Hartley began to consider in what way he could explain their crossing the water.
CHAPTER XXXII.
DONOVAN'S
After a moment's thought Hartley took a flask from his pocket, into which he had dropped a sleeping potion, and offered it to the child.
"Drink, my dear," he said; "it will do you good."
It was a sweet wine and pleasant to the taste. Althea drank considerable.
"What is it? It tastes good," she said.
"It is a cordial," answered Hartley.
"I like it. I will ask mamma to get some. How long is it? Are we most there?"
"Almost."
"I feel very sleepy," said Althea, drowsily, the potion having already begun to attack her.
"Lean back and shut your eyes. I will tell you when we have arrived."
The innocent and unsuspecting child did as she was directed. Her little head nodded. She struggled against the increasing drowsiness, but in vain. In five minutes she was fast asleep.
"There will be no further trouble," thought Hartley. "When she wakes up it will be morning. My plan has been a complete success."
It might have been supposed that some instinct of parental affection would have made it disagreeable to this man to kidnap his own child by such means, but John Hartley had never been troubled with a heart or natural affections. He was supremely selfish, and surveyed the sleeping child as coolly and indifferently as if he had never before set eyes upon her.
Two miles and a half beyond the South Ferry, in a thinly settled outlying district of Brooklyn, stood a three-story brick house, shabby and neglected in appearance, bearing upon a sign over the door the name
DONOVAN'S
Wines and Liquors
It was the nightly resort of a set of rough and lawless men, many of them thieves and social outlaws, who drank and smoked as they sat at small tables in the sand-strewn bar-room.
Hugh Donovan himself had served a term at Sing Sing for burglary, and was suspected to be indirectly interested in the ventures of others engaged in similar offenses, though he managed to avoid arrest.
John Hartley ordered the hackman to stop. He sprang from the carriage, and unceremoniously entered the bar-room. Donovan, a short, thickset man with reddish whiskers, a beard of a week's growth, and but one serviceable eye, sat in a wooden arm-chair, smoking a clay pipe. There were two other men in the room, and a newsboy sat dozing on a settee.
Donovan looked up, and his face assumed a look of surprise as he met the glance of the visitor, whom he appeared to know.
"Where did you come from, Mr. Hartley?" he asked, taking the pipe from his mouth.
"Hist! Come out here," said Hartley.
Donovan obeyed directions.
"Is your wife at home, Hugh?" asked Hartley.
"Yes, Mr. Hartley. She's up stairs."
"I have a job for her and for you."
"What is it now?"
"I have a child in that carriage. I want her taken care of for a few days or weeks."
"Shure, the old woman isn't a very good protector for a gal. She's drunk half the time."
"I can't help it. There are reasons—imperative reasons—why the girl should be concealed for a time, and I can think of no other place than this."
"Who is the girl?"
"It is my own child."
Donovan whistled.
"I see you are surprised. I have little time for explanation, but I may tell you that she has been kept from me by my enemies, who wanted to get hold of her money."
"Has she got money?" asked Donovan, with curiosity.
"She will have, sometime. She is her mother's heiress."
"Did the old lady leave it all away from you, then? Shure, it's hard."
"Of course it is. The least I can expect is to be made guardian of my own child. But we are wasting time. Is there no way of getting up stairs except by passing through the bar-room?"
"Yes, Mr. Hartley, we can go up the back way. Just take the child and follow me."
Hartley did so. At the rear of the house was a stair-way, up which he clambered, bearing the sleeping child in his arms.
Donovan pushed the door open, and disclosed a dirty room, with his better-half—a tall, gaunt woman—reclining in a rocking-chair, evidently partially under the influence of liquor, as might be guessed from a black bottle on a wooden table near by.
She stared in astonishment at her husband's companions.
"Shure, Hugh, who is it you're bringin' here?"
"It's a child, old woman, that you're to have the care of."
"Divil a bit do I want a child to worrit me."
"You'll be well paid, Mrs. Donovan," said John Hartley.
"Will I get the money, or Hugh?" asked the Celtic lady.
"You shall have half, Bridget," said her husband.
"Will you shwar it?" asked the lady, cautiously.
"Yes, I'll swear it."
"And how much will it be?"
"I will pay ten dollars a week—half to you, and half to your husband," said Hartley. "Here's a week's pay in advance," and he took out two five-dollar bills, one of which was eagerly clutched by Mrs. Donovan.
"I'll take care of her," said she, readily. "What's her name?"
"Althea."
"Shure that's a quare name. I niver heard the like."
"You needn't call her that. You can call her any name you like," said Hartley, indifferently. "Perhaps you had better call her Katy, as there may be a hue and cry after her, and that may divert suspicion."
"How old is the crathur?"
"Five or six—I forget which. Where shall I put her?"
"Put her in here," said Mrs. Donovan, and she opened the door of a small room, in which was a single untidy bed.
"She won't wake up till morning. I gave her a sleeping potion—otherwise she might have made a fuss, for she doesn't know me to be her father."
"Shure ye knew what to do."
"Now, Mrs. Donovan, I depend upon your keeping her safe. It will not do to let her escape, for she might find her way back to the people from whom I have taken her."
"I'll see to that, Mr. Hartley," said Donovan.
"Say nothing about me in connection with the matter, Donovan. I will communicate with you from time to time. If the police are put on the track, I depend on your sending her away to some other place of security."
"All right, sir."
"And now good-night. I shall go back to New York at once. I must leave you to pacify her as well as you can when she awakes. She is sure to make a fuss."
"I'll trate her like my own child," said Mrs. Donovan.
Had Hartley been a devoted father, this assurance from the coarse, red-faced woman would have been satisfactory, but he cared only for the child as a means of replenishing his pockets, and gave himself no trouble.
The hackman was still waiting at the door.
"It's a queer place to leave a child," thought he, as his experienced eye took in the features of the place. "It appears to be a liquor saloon. The gentleman can't be very particular. However, it is none of my business. I suppose it is all right."
"Driver, I am ready," said Hartley. "I'll go back with you."
"All right, sir."
"Go over Fulton Ferry, and leave me at your stand in Union Square."
The ride was a long one. Hartley threw himself back on the seat, and gave himself up to pleasant self-congratulation.
"I think this will bring Harriet Vernon to terms," he said. "She will find that she can't stand between me and my child. If she will make it worth my while, she shall have the child back, but I propose to see that my interests are secured."
The next morning Hartley stepped into an up-town hotel, and wrote a letter to his sister-in-law in London, demanding that four thousand dollars be sent him yearly, in quarterly payments, in consideration of which he agreed to give up the child, and abstain from further molestation.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ALTHEA BECOMES KATY DONOVAN
The sleeping potion which had been administered to Althea kept her in sound sleep till eight o'clock the next morning. When her eyes opened, and she became conscious of her surroundings, she looked about her in surprise. Then she sat up in bed and gazed wildly at the torn wall paper and dirty and shabby furniture.
"Where am I?" she asked herself, in alarm. "Mamma, mamma!"
The door opened, and the red and inflamed face of Mrs. Hugh Donovan peered in.
"What is it yer want?" she asked.
"I want mamma," answered the child, still more frightened.
"Shure I'm your ma, child."
"No, you are not," said Althea. "I never saw you before."
"Didn't you, now? Maybe you've forgotten. I sent you away to board, but you've come home to live with your ma."
"You are telling stories. You are a bad woman," returned the child, ready to cry.
"It's a purty thing for a child to tell her ma she's lyin'."
"You're not my ma. You're an ugly woman. My ma hasn't got a red face."
"Hear till her now!" exclaimed Mrs. Donovan, indignantly. "Don't you go on talkin' that way, but get right up, or you sha'n't have any breakfast."
"Oh, send me back to my mother and Dan!" implored Althea.
"Dress yourself, and I'll see about it," said Mrs. Donovan.
Althea looked for her clothes, but could not find them. In their place she found a faded calico dress and some ragged undergarments, which had once belonged to a daughter of Mrs. Donovan, now at service.
"Those clothes are not mine," said Althea.
"Shure they are. What are yer talkin' about?"
"I had a pretty pink dress and a nice new skirt. Oh, where are they?"
"Shure you're dramin'. These was the clothes you took off last night," said Mrs. Donovan, with unblushing falsehood.
"I won't put this dress on," said the child, indignantly.
"Then you'll have to lay abed all day, and won't get nothing to eat," said the woman. "Maybe you'll like that now."
"What is your name?" asked Althea.
"Shure you're a quare child to ask your own mother's name. I'm Mrs. Donovan, and you're my Katy."
"I am not Katy. My name is Althea."
"That's a quare name intirely. Who put it into your head. I'm afraid you're gone crazy, Katy."
Althea was bewildered. Was it possible that she could be Katy Donovan, and that this red-faced woman was her mother? She began to doubt her own identity. She could not remember this woman, but was it possible that there was any connection between them?
"Are we in New York?" she asked, timidly.
"No, we are in Brooklyn."
"I used to live in New York with Mamma Mordaunt."
"Well, you're livin' in Brooklyn now with Mamma Donovan."
"I never saw you before."
"Shure I shouldn't have sent you away from me to have you come home and deny your own mother."
"Will you let me go to New York and see Mamma Mordaunt?" asked Althea, after a pause.
"If you're a good girl, perhaps I will. Now get up, and I'll give you some breakfast."
With a shudder of dislike Althea arrayed herself in the dirty garments of the real Katy Donovan, and looked at her image in the cracked mirror with a disgust which she could not repress.
Hartley had suggested that her own garments should be taken away in order to make her escape less feasible.
She opened the door, and entered the room in which Mrs. Donovan had set the table for breakfast.
As she came in at one door, Hugh Donovan entered at another.
"Come here, little gal," he said, with a grin.
Althea looked at him with real terror. Certainly Hugh Donovan was not a man to attract a child.
Althea at once thought of an ogre whom Dan had described to her in a fairy story, and half fancied that she was in the power of such a creature.
"I don't want to," said the child, trembling.
"Go to your father, Katy," said Mrs. Donovan. "He won't hurt you."
This her father! Althea shuddered at the idea, and she gazed as if fascinated at his one eye.
"Yes, come to your pa," said Donovan, jeeringly. "I like little gals—'specially when they're my own."
"I am not your child!" said Althea, alarmed.
"Yes, you be, and don't you deny it. Come and give your father a kiss."
The little girl began to cry in nervous terror, and Donovan laughed, thinking it a good joke.
"Well, it'll do after breakfast," he said. "Sit up, child, and we'll see what the ould woman has got for us."
Mrs. Donovan did not excel as a cook, but Althea managed to eat a little bread and butter, for neither of which articles the lady of the house was responsible. When the meal was over she said:
"Now, will you take me back to New York?"
"You are not going back at all," said Hugh. "You are our little girl, and you are going to live with us."
Althea looked from one to the other in terror. Was it possible they could be in earnest? She was forced to believe it, and was overwhelmed at the prospect. She burst into a tempest of sobs.
Men are less tolerant of tears than women.
Hugh Donovan's face darkened, and his anger was kindled.
"Stop that howlin' now!" he said.
Althea continued to cry hysterically.
"Stop it now, if you know what's best for yourself!"
Althea was terrified, but she could not at once control her emotion.
"Old woman, get the whip!" said Hugh, hoarsely.
From a drawer Mrs. Donovan drew out a riding whip. Her husband took it, and brandished it menacingly.
"Do you see that, now?" he said.
"Yes," said Althea, trembling, stopping short, as if fascinated.
"Then you'll feel it if you don't stop your howlin'."
Althea gazed at him horror-stricken.
"I thought you'd come to your senses," he said, in a tone of satisfaction. "Kape her safe, old woman, till she knows how to behave."
In silent misery the little girl sat down and watched Mrs. Donovan as she cleared away the table, and washed the dishes. It was dull and hopeless work for her. She thought sorrowfully of Mrs. Mordaunt and Dan, and wished she could be with them again. Should she never, never see them? The thought so saddened her that she burst into a low moan, which at once drew the attention of Mrs. Donovan.
"Are you at it again?" she said.
"I can't help it," moaned Althea.
"Ye can't, can't ye? See here, now," and the woman displayed the whip with which her husband had threatened the child. "I'll give ye something to cry for."
"Oh, don't—don't beat me!" entreated Althea.
"Then kape quiet!"
"May I go out into the street?" asked the little girl.
"Ye want to run away," said Mrs. Donovan, suspiciously.
"No, I don't. I mean I won't unless you let me."
"I won't trust ye."
"Must I stay here all the time?" asked Althea, with her little heart sinking at the thought.
"No, Katy, you may go wid me when I go to the market," answered Mrs. Donovan. "Shure, if you'll be a good gal, I'll give you all the pleasure I can."
Althea waited half an hour, and then was provided with a ragged sun-bonnet, with which, concealing her sad face, she emerged from the house, and walked to a small market, where Mrs. Donovan obtained her supplies for dinner.
Troubled as she was, Althea looked about her with a child's curiosity on her way through the strange streets. It served to divert her from her sorrow.
"Who's that little girl, Mrs. Donovan?" asked an acquaintance.
"Shure it's my little Katy," said the woman, with a significant wink which prevented further questioning.
Althea wished to deny this, but she did not dare to. She had become afraid of her new guardians. Oh, if she could only see Dan! She felt sure that he would take her away from these wicked people, but how was Dan to know where she was. The poor child's lips quivered, and she could hardly refrain from crying.