CHAPTER IX.

MONA RECEIVES A SHOCK.

When Mona arrived at the office of the employment bureau, at the hour appointed, she found awaiting her the carriage belonging to the woman who had engaged her services.

A pretty serving girl admitted her when she arrived at the elegant brown stone mansion, and remarked, as she showed her up to the room she was to occupy, that "the mistress had been called out of town for the day, and would not be at home until dinner time."

The girl seemed kindly disposed, and chatted socially about the family, which consisted only of "the mistress and her nephew, Master Louis." The mistress was a widow, but very gay--very much of a society lady, and "handsome as a picture," She was upward of forty, but didn't look a day over thirty. She was very proud and high spirited, but treated her help kindly if they didn't cross her.

Somehow Mona did not get a very favorable impression of her employer from this gossipy information; but her fate was fixed for the present, and she resolved to do the best that she could, and not worry regarding the result.

As the girl was about to leave the room to go about her duties, she remarked that dinner would be served at six o'clock, and that Mona was to come down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to eat with the other servants.

Mona flushed hotly at this information. Must she, who all her life had been the petted child of fortune, go among menials to eat with she knew not whom?

But she soon conquered her momentary indignation, for she realized that she was nothing more than a servant herself now, and could not expect to be treated as an equal by her fashionable employer.

"Will you tell me your name, please?" she asked of the girl, and trying not to betray any of her sensitiveness.

"Mary, miss," was the respectful reply, for the girl recognized that the new seamstress was a lady, in spite of the fact that she was obliged to work for her living.

"Thank you; and--will you please tell me the name of your mistress, also; the card which she left at the office was lost, and I have not learned it," Mona said as she arose to hang her wraps in the closet.

"Lor', miss! that is queer," said the girl in a tone of surprise, "that you should engage yourself and not know who to."

"It didn't really make much difference what the name was--it was the situation that I wanted," Mona remarked, smiling.

"True enough, but my lady's name's a high-sounding one, and she's not at all backward about airing it; it rolls off her sweet tongue as easy as water off a duck's back--Mrs. Richmond Montague," and the girl tossed her head and drew herself up in imitation of her mistress's haughty air in a way that would have done credit to a professional actress, "But there,"

she cried, with a start, as a shrill voice sounded from below, "cook is calling me, and I must run."

She tripped away, humming a gay tune, while Mona sank, white and trembling, upon the nearest chair.

"Mrs. Richmond Montague!" she repeated, in a scarcely audible voice.

"Can it be possible that she--this woman, to whom I have come as a seamstress--is my father's second wife--or was, since she is a widow! How strange! how very strange that I, of all persons, should have been fated to come here! It is very unfortunate that I could not have known her name, for, of course, I should never have come if I had. It may be," she went on, musingly, "that she is some other Mrs. Montague; but no--it could hardly be possible that there are two persons with that peculiar combination of names. This, then, is the woman for whom my father deserted my mother in order to secure the fortune left by his aunt! How unworthy!--how contemptible! I am glad that I fell to Uncle Walter's care; I am glad that I never knew him--this unnatural father who never betrayed the slightest interest in his own child. But--can I stay here with her?" she asked, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes. "Can I--his daughter--remain to serve the woman who usurped my mother's place, who is living in affluence upon money which rightly belongs to me?"

The young girl was trembling with nervous excitement, and a feeling of hot anger, a sense of deep injustice burned within her.

This startling discovery--for she was convinced that there could be but one Mrs. Richmond Montague--stirred her soul to its lowest depths. She felt a strange dread of this woman; a feeling almost of horror and aversion made her sink from contact with her; and yet, at the same time, she experienced an unaccountable curiosity to see and know something of her. There was a spice of romance about the situation which prompted her, in spite of her first impulse to flee from the house--to stay and study this gay woman of the world, who was so strangely connected with her own life.

She could leave at any time, she told herself, should the position prove to be an uncongenial one; but since she had chosen the vocation of a seamstress, she might as well sew for Mrs. Richmond Montague as any one else; while possibly she might be able to learn something more regarding her mother's history than she already knew. She felt sure that her uncle had kept something back from her, and she so longed to have the mystery fully explained.

But, of course, if she remained, it would never do for her to give her own name, for this woman would suspect her ident.i.ty at once, and probably drive her out into the world again. It was not probable that she would knowingly tolerate the child of a rival in her home.

Mona was glad now that she had not told Mary her name, as she had once been on the point of doing.

"What shall I call myself?" she mused. "I do not dare to use Uncle Walter's name, for that would betray me as readily as my own; even Mona, being such an uncommon name, would also make her suspect me. There is my middle name, Ruth, and my father was called Richmond--suppose I call myself Ruth Richards?"

This rather pleased her, and she decided to use it. But she was strangely nervous about meeting Mrs. Montague, and several times she was tempted to send Mary for a carriage and flee to Mr. Graves's hospitable home, and start out from there to seek some other position.

Once she did rise to call her. "I cannot stay," she said. "I must go."

But just then she heard voices in the hall below, and, believing that Mrs. Montague had returned, she turned back and sat down again with a sinking heart, a.s.sured that her resolve had come too late.

At six o'clock she went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, where she had been told dinner would be served, and where she found no one save Mary and Sarah, the cook, who proved to be a good-natured woman of about thirty-five years, and who at once manifested a motherly interest in the pretty and youthful seamstress.

Mary informed her, during the meal, that Mrs. Montague was going out that evening to a grand reception, and had sent word that she could not see her until the next morning; but that she would find some sheets and pillow slips in the sewing room, which she could begin to work upon after breakfast, and she would lay out other work for her later.

Mona uttered a sigh of relief over the knowledge that the meeting, which she so much dreaded, was to be postponed a little, and after dinner she returned to her room, and sat down quite composedly to read the morning paper, which she had purchased on her way to Mrs. Montague's.

While thus engaged, her eye fell upon the following paragraph:

"No clew has as yet been obtained to the mysterious Palmer affair, although both the police and detectives are doing their utmost to trace the clever thief. It is most earnestly hoped that they will succeed in their efforts, as such successful knavery is an incentive to even greater crimes."

"What can it mean?" Mona said to herself; "and what a blind paragraph! Of course, it refers to something that has been previously published, and which might explain it. Can it be that Mr. Palmer's jewelry store has been robbed?"

This, of course, led her thoughts to Ray Palmer, and she fell into troubled musings regarding his apparent neglect of her, and in the midst of this there came a rap upon her door.

She arose to open it, and found Mary standing outside.

"Please, Miss Richards, will you come down to Mrs. Montague's room?" she asked. "She has ripped the lace flounce from her reception dress while putting it on, and wants you to repair it for her."

Mona was somewhat excited by this summons; but, unlocking her trunk, she found her thimble, needles, and scissors, and followed Mary down stairs to the second floor and into a large room over the drawing-room.

It was a beautiful room, most luxuriously and tastefully fitted up as a lady's boudoir, and was all ablaze with light from a dozen gas jets.

In the center of the floor there stood a magnificently beautiful woman.

She was a blonde of the purest type, and Mona thought that Mary had made a true statement when she had said that, though she was upward of forty, she did not look a day over thirty, for she certainly was a very youthful person in appearance.

Her skin was almost as fair as marble, with a flush on her round, velvet-like cheeks that came and went as in the face of a young girl.

Her features were of Grecian type, her hair was a pale gold and arranged in a way to give her a regal air; her eyes were a beautiful blue, her lips a vivid scarlet, while her form was tall and slender, with perfect ease and grace in every movement.

"How lovely she is!" thought Mona. "It does not seem possible that she could have even an unkind thought in her heart. I can hardly believe that she ever knew anything of my poor mother's wrongs."

Mrs. Montague was exquisitely dressed in a heavy silk of a delicate peach ground, brocaded richly with flowers of a deeper shade. This was draped over a plain peach-colored satin petticoat, and trimmed with a deep flounce of finest point lace. The corsage was cut low, thus revealing her beautiful neck, around which there was clasped a necklace of blazing diamonds.

Her arms were bare to the shoulder, the dress having no sleeves save a strap about two inches wide, into which a frill of costly point was gathered. Long gloves of a delicate peach tint came above her elbow, and between the top of each of these and the frill of lace there was a diamond armlet to match the necklace.

Magnificent solitaires gleamed in her ears, and there was a star composed of the same precious stones among the ma.s.sive braids of her golden hair.

She was certainly a radiant vision, and Mona's quick glance took in every detail of her dress while she was crossing the room to her side.

Mrs. Montague bent a keen look upon her as she approached, and she gave a slight start as her eyes swept the delicately chiseled face of the girl.

"You are the new seamstress, Mary tells me. What is your name--what shall I call you?" she questioned, abruptly.

"M--" Mona had almost betrayed herself before she remembered the need of concealing her ident.i.ty.

But quickly checking herself, she cried: