CHAPTER VI.
L
LIZ FELLOWS went home that day sadder than she had been before. Her lover’s defalcation had been a natural sequence to the misfortune that had overtaken her, compared to this. He had judged her harshly, and without proof, but he at least believed (or she thought he did) that she had been untrue to him, and his anger and contempt were those of a dishonoured man. But Maraquita’s conduct admitted of no such palliation. Sheknewbetter than any one else, that Liz was innocent of the chargelaid against her, and yet she could coolly deny the fact, and appeal to her mother to join her in turning her adopted sister from their doors. She could shield herself behind the humiliation of her friend,—deny her maternity, and delegate her sacred duties—her most holy feelings—to another woman.
‘Feelings! Duties!’ Liz stamped her foot impatiently, as the terms occurred to her mind. Maraquitahadno feelings, and recognised no duty. She was lower than the feeble little animals, who would die sooner than desert their young. She had brought a helpless infant—presumably the infant of her lover—into the world, and would not even acknowledge it was hers.Whowas the father of this child, thought Liz, that he could stand by quietly and see the desertion of his offspring? Hadheno natural instincts, any more than thepartner of his sin? Would theybothleave their infant to the tender mercies of the world, whilst they went their own ways—one, to be married to the Governor of San Diego—the other, Heaven best knew where? Well, she had staked her last chance, and lost it. Henri de Courcelles would never now receive the proof of her innocence. He was lost to her for ever, and she must bear the burden of shame laid upon her guiltless head as best she might. As she re-entered the bungalow, a wail from Quita’s hapless infant smote her with compassion.
‘My poor little orphan!’ she exclaimed, as she took it in her arms. ‘You are an outcast as well as myself. You have no parents worthy of the name, and I shall never know the joy of being a mother. We must comfort each other under this great calamity as best we may.They say you are my little daughter, and since they say so, I almost wish you were. But I will love you like a daughter, and teach you to love me like a mother, and so you shall comfort my bruised heart, and I will try and make your life happy.’
Up to that moment Rosa had fed and washed the baby, and slept with it in her arms, but now Lizzie took all these sweet maternal duties into her own hands. She nursed it all that day, and when night came she laid it in her own bed. When it was fairly asleep, and Rosa had run over to the negroes’ quarters to chat with her friends, Liz sat down to her sewing in the sitting-room, calmer and less perplexed than she had been for days past.
Up to that time she had cherished hope, but now all hope was over. Sheknew the worst. It was bitterly hard to know it, but at all events suspense was at an end, and there was no new trouble to learn. As she sat by the shaded lamplight, wondering if Mr Courtney knew the name of her father’s family, and if the knowledge could be of any use to herself, she heard a light footstep creeping softly along the verandah, a footstep which she recognised at once, and which she had been wont to jump up and welcome. But now Liz sat still, with burning cheeks bent over her needlework. If Maraquita wished to come to any terms with her, she must be the one to propose them. Liz had prayed her last prayer to the companion of her childhood. Presently a very low and fearful voice called her by her name.
‘Lizzie, Lizzie! Are you quite alone?’
But Lizzie refused to answer, andMaraquita was compelled to advance into the room. She looked very white and scared, and the folds of her long mantle fell round a fragile figure.
‘Lizzie! Why will you not speak to me? Papa and mamma have gone to the theatre with Sir Russell Johnstone; but I excused myself on the plea of a headache, so that I might come and see you.’
‘And what do you want with me?’ demanded Lizzie coldly.
‘Cannot you guess? I am so unhappy at what took place this morning. I shall not rest until things are right again between us.’
‘I do not understand you, Quita! I conclude you spoke the truth this morning, or what you believed to be the truth, and I have nothing more to say upon the subject.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, have pity on me! You know it was not the truth; but what can I do? Everything that makes life valuable to me seems slipping through my fingers. I could not make up my mind to confess to my own ruin.’
‘And so you would ruin me instead—I, who have been like a sister to you? You would save your own character at the expense of mine?’
‘But not for always, Lizzie. Only let me get this marriage over, and I shall be better able to see my way before me. And I shall be rich, too, and able to reward you for your kindness. The child shall never be any burden to you, Lizzie. You may depend upon me for that.’
‘And do you suppose I would take your money?’ cried the other contemptuously. ‘Do you ask me to sell my honour? You accuse me publicly of beingthe unmarried mother of this child, and then offer to pay me for the disgrace. You are only heaping insult upon insult, Quita. You had better leave me before you make me forget myself.’
‘Oh, no, Lizzie, I cannot leave you,’ exclaimed the unhappy girl, drawing nearer to her, ‘until you have heard all I have to say! You have always been my best friend, Lizzie. As a little child I used to run to you in every trouble, and trust you to get me out of every scrape. You will not do less for me now, Lizzie, will you?’
‘You ask too much, Maraquita. You forget that in helping you out of this danger, I involve myself, in the way which good women dread above everything. I have done it, but it is at the expense of our friendship. I can never be friends with you again.’
‘But you must—youmust!’ cried Quita,falling on her knees, and hiding her face in Lizzie’s lap, ‘for your father’s sake, Lizzie, if not for mine.’
‘I have done it for my father’s sake,’ replied Lizzie, as she moved away from Maraquita’s clasp. ‘Do you suppose I have not been thinking ofhimall to-day, and of the promise I made him? Nothing else would have kept me silent; but it is over now, and we need say no more upon the subject. I beg of you, Quita, to leave me, and go home again, for your presence here is very painful to me.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, don’t be so hard! I am not the unfeeling creature you take me for. It is only fear of my parents that makes me shrink from confessing the truth. They would kill me, Lizzie, if they knew it. They would not let me live to disgrace them.’
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘They would do nothing of the sort. They would reproach you as they have me, and you richly deserve it. But tell the truth whilst you are about it, Maraquita. Say that you have no feeling either for your child or its father (whoever he may be), and I may believe what you say.’
‘But you are wrong,’ interposed Quita eagerly. ‘I love him dearly, and I should have loveditalso, if I had not been afraid. And I can prove it to you, Lizzie, for I have come here to-night to see the baby, and I shall come as often as I can without exciting suspicion. Where is she? Let me see her at once.’
‘What baby?’ demanded Liz, with affected ignorance.
‘Oh, Liz! how can you ask? Why, my own baby, of course! The one you have in charge.’
‘I thought you denied this morning that you were a mother, Quita?’
‘I was obliged to do so. What could I say, with mamma or papa liable to come in at any moment? You might as well have asked me to cut my own throat. But here, alone with you, I can say anything! I confess it is mine, Lizzie, and that I knew all about it from the beginning. I told your dear father everything; and he promised that he and you should stand my friends, and prevent my secret from being published to the world.’
‘I have heard all this before,’ said Lizzie, still engaged upon her sewing.
‘And now you will let me see her, won’t you? You will let me hold her in my arms for a little while? I must not stay long, for fear that meddlesome old Jessica should come after me. Youwill take me to my baby at once, Lizzie?’
‘No,’ replied the Doctor’s daughter firmly.
‘What do you mean? Isn’t she here?’
‘Yes; but you will not see her.’
‘How dare you keep me from her? She is mine, not yours.’
‘You did not say so this morning.’
‘Ah, but then I was mad!’
‘Are you prepared, then, to take your child back to the White House with you? Will you confess the lie of which you have been guilty to your parents, and exonerate me in their eyes of the charge you have brought against me?’
Maraquita shrank backward.
‘Oh, Liz! that is too much. I should destroy all my prospects at a blow by such an admission. Besides, it has nothing to do with the matter. All I wantis to see the child. Surely you will not refuse so trifling a request?’
‘I do refuse it.’
‘But you have no right to do so.’
‘By your own account, Maraquita, I have every right. You declared before your mother that this child was mine. Therefore I will keep it as such, and I refuse to let you see her.’
‘And I am determined not to leave the bungalow till I have done so!’ cried Quita, rushing towards the bedroom door.
But Lizzie had reached it before she did, and stood with her back against the panels.
‘You shall not enter here,’ she said, in a tone of authority.
Then Quita took to beseeching. She fell on her knees again, and held Lizzie tightly clasped about her feet.
‘Oh, my dear sister, let me see mybaby, if only for a minute! I have been thinking of her ever since this morning, Lizzie,—of the dark eyes you spoke of,—the tiny waxen hands and feet, and the rosebud mouth; and I feel as if I should die if I do not have her in my arms, and kiss her, and tell her that I am her mother.’
‘Will you tell the world so, Maraquita?’
‘You know that I cannot.’
‘Then you will not see your child until you do,’ replied Lizzie, as she locked the bedroom door, and put the key into her pocket. ‘You have openly disgraced me by palming on me the consequences of your own sin. You have denied your motherhood, and given up your most sacred rights and duties. Well, for your sake, and to conceal your shame, I accept them; and the first act which I exercise is to keep the child to myself.’
‘You actually refuse?’ cried Quita, starting to her feet, crimson with indignation.
‘Emphatically. There is only one way you can secure the privilege, and that is by an open confession of the truth.’
‘Then I shall never do it! And you may carry the burden to your life’s end!’ exclaimed Maraquita furiously. ‘And another with it, for you do not know all. You have never asked me the name of the father of this child! You came crying to me this morning about Henri de Courcelles, and how much you loved him, and how anxious he was to discover the parentage of my baby. He has lied to you! He has made use of this dilemma to get rid of you; for he knows whose baby this is as well as I do. He knows the mother and the father of it—for the father ishimself!’
She watched the light fade out of Lizzie’s eyes as the cruel truth smote upon her heart, and she grasped at the back of a chair to save herself from falling. But when the first shock was over, she refused to believe the story.
‘Henri!’ she exclaimed, in a faint voice. ‘But it isimpossible! Henri is—is—mine!’
‘He pretended to be!’ cried Quita maliciously, ‘because it was a good blind for them up at the White House, I suppose, but he has been mine and mine only for the last twelve months, and he is nearly mad at the idea of losing me now.’
‘And why must he lose you?’ said Lizzie quickly, forgetting her own pain in her lover’s wrongs. ‘If what you say is true, why do you not marry him, and take care of your little child between you?’
Maraquita shrugged her shoulders.
‘Because my people will not hear of such a marriage for me, and think I should lower myself by becoming the wife of an overseer.’
‘Not so much as you have lowered yourself already, Quita.’
‘Perhaps not, but nobody knows that! And then I am already engaged, so it is of no use talking about anything else.’
‘Poor Henri,’ sighed Lizzie.
‘I can’t see why he is to be pitied! He knew from the beginning that it must all end some day. But I little dreamt it would end like this.Iam the one who has suffered all the risk and the blame, and yet no one seems to pityme.’
Lizzie was silent. Her heart was burning within her, and yet pride prevented her speech. It was cruelly humiliatingto find that all the time she had been engaged to be married to De Courcelles, he had been carrying on with another girl, and had even had the audacity to make his own fault the putative cause for breaking off his engagement to her. She could not decide at the moment whether she loved or hated him the most, his conduct appeared in so mean and despicable a light.
‘You are right, Maraquita,’ she continued, after a pause. ‘He is not worthy of your pity or mine. He has cruelly deceived us both—and you perhaps the most, since even, if he loved you best, he has served you worst! Even now—in the first pitiless agony of hearing your news—I can thank God I do not stand in your position. And if you should ever think better of your decision regarding him, remember I shall not stand in yourlight, for from this day Henri de Courcelles will be less than nothing to me.’
‘But the child!—you will not desert the child?’ exclaimed Quita, with something like maternal anxiety in her voice.
Liz shuddered.
‘It will be a double burthen to me now,’ she answered; ‘but I have already resolved to do as my father would have wished me, and I will not shirk my self-imposed duty. I will do my utmost for the child.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, you are very good! You make me feel so ashamed of myself,’ said Quita, attempting to kiss her adopted sister.
But Lizzie sprung aside from her.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried. ‘Don’t stay near me any longer, or I shall be unable to conceal the loathing I feel for your conduct! False lover—false mother—falsefriend! Oh, Maraquita, Maraquita! it would have been better if God had called you to Himself when you were as innocent as your unfortunate baby! You and he, between you, have destroyed all my faith in human nature.’
And Liz, throwing herself into a chair, and laying down her head upon the table, sobbed so bitterly and unrestrainedly, that Quita, terrified at the sound, which might attract spectators to spread abroad the news of her being in the bungalow, fled out into the darkness again, and made her way back to the White House.