CHAPTER V.EDITH LYLE.
It was a dark, dreary, January afternoon, and the dreariness and darkness were increased by the dense fog which since noon had settled like a pall over the great city of London, and by a pitiless rain, which, mixing with melting snow, ran in muddy puddles down the gutters and in dirty streams down the windows of the third floor back room of the lodging in Dorset Street, where a very young girl was lying. Her face was whiter than the pillow against which it lay, and in the eyes there was a look of utter helplessness, as if all life, and hope, and energy had been crushed out, and there was nothing left but apathy and utter indifference to the future. And yet this was the same face which Colonel Schuyler had seen framed in a net-work of green, and of whose bright beauty he had dreamed, with his lady wife beside him:but he would not have known it now. Months of mental anguish and continual combat with the mother’s stronger nature, added to days of intense suffering, and homesickness, and longing for the dead in that far-off grave in Hampstead, had left their marks on the young girl, until now that the crisis was past she lay quiet and passive in her mother’s hands and seemed to assent to whatever the mother proposed.
That estimable woman had chosen lodgings in Dorset Street, knowing she would be safe there from any one whom her daughter might meet in the future. The name Heloise had been dropped, and she was Edith Lyle now, a young widow, whose husband had died soon after her marriage, and so no suspicions were excited and no comments made by the few who occasionally saw her stealing up or down the stairs which led to her apartment. Only the housemaid, Mary Stover, was interested in her, or paid much heed to her extreme youth and beauty. And even Mary but seldom came in contact with her, so that Edith hardly knew of her existence, or how much she was in the serving woman’s thoughts. Since the birth of her baby, a wee little creature, with masses of golden hair and a look in its blue eyes of the dead, Edith had scarcely thought of anything, but had lain with the child held closely to her bosom, as if fearful of losing it. Baby was now four weeks old, and the impatient Mrs. Fordham could wait no longer, and on the dreary day of which I write she sat by her daughter’s side and said to her, in the tone which Edith had never yet had courage to withstand:
“Edith, you are strong enough now to leave this wretched place. Baby will be four weeks old to-morrow, and I have everything arranged. I have made particular inquiries about the —— Street Foundling Hospital, and learned that in no other place are the children so well cared for. The matron and nurses are very kind, and the little ones healthy and happy, and in nine cases out of ten are adopted by good families and grow up respectable men and women.”
“But, mother,” Edith gasped, while her hold tightened on the little pink fingers which lay on her neck, “I cannot let hergo. She is mine,—truly, lawfully mine,—and you shall not take her from me.”
“Hush, child, you do not know what you are talking about,” came impatiently from Mrs. Fordham’s lips. “I tell you we cannot be hampered with a child, and it shall be as I say. I know it will be well cared for. I shall keep sight of her, and see that no harm befalls her, and if you ever should wish to claim it, that mark on its bosom is sufficient to identify it.”
At the mention of the peculiar birthmark on her child, Edith moaned faintly, and thought of the white rose with the blood stain in the centre, and the awful day when it was brought back to her, and she had laid it next her breaking heart. There was a blood-red spot over baby’s heart, and Edith knew how it came there, and shuddered and grew sick as she remembered it, and held tighter to the little one whom her mother would wrest from her. At last, wearied with the controversy which was exciting her daughter so much, Mrs. Fordham seemed to give up the contest, but it was only seeming. She was one who never gave up, and what she could not accomplish by fair means she was not too scrupulous to attain by foul. Baby must go. It was something in her way, and must be sacrificed; so, when the hour came round for her daughter’s medicine, she mixed with it one of the sedative powders which Edith had taken for wakefulness when her illness was at the worst. As it had been successful then so it was now, and she ere long fell into a heavy sleep, which Mrs. Fordham knew from experience would last for several hours. This was her time for action, and going to the bed she stooped to take the child from the arms which held it so fast. Even in her sleep Edith must have had a dim consciousness of the threatened danger, for she held firmly to the little one, while her white lips moaned:
“No, she is mine; you cannot have her.”
But for this Mrs. Fordham did not hesitate, and with a firm hand she carefully unclasped the clinging arms and lifted the child from the bed.
Had it been a gentleman’s offspring, and Edith the mistressof some luxurious home, she might have felt some love and tenderness for the little creature, which, roused from its sleep, opened its blue eyes and looked into her face. But it was lowly born, a descendant of the Lyles, who lived in obscurity among the heather hills of Alnwick, and she steeled her heart against it, and never faltered in her purpose, even when the pretty lips parted and gave forth a sound, which made Edith start and half turn upon her pillow as if about to waken. But the sedative was good, and the young girl slept on, while her mother robed the little one in its best attire, and wrote upon a bit of paper which she pinned upon its bosom:
“Her name is Heloise, and she is not a child of shame, but of an imprudent marriage, and inherits from her mother, who is a lady, some of the best blood in England.”
“That will save her from a life of servitude; the high bloods always take such children as these,” she said, “and it will be much better so than a drag on us.”
Ten minutes later and she stole softly down the stairs, bearing under her cloak a bundle which, when she retraced her steps, was not with her. But it was safe from the chill air of the night, for she had rung the bell of —— Street Hospital, and depositing her burden on the steps had retreated swiftly behind a clump of shrubbery until she saw the door opened and the child received into the warmth and light within. The rain had ceased and the fog had cleared away with the going down of the sun, but no one could have recognized her in the dim starlight, with the hood of her water-proof drawn closely over her head, and when she reached the house in Dorset Street she felt as if cut loose from everything which could in any way interfere with her ambitious projects.
Edith had slept soundly, and when at last her mother came and stood beside the bed she lay in the same deep slumber, with a bright flush on her cheeks and her arm still stretched over the spot where but an hour ago a little pink-and-white baby lay. It was gone now, but she did not know it, or dream of the anguish in store for her when she should rouse from the sleep which lasted until near midnight. Then with a suddenstart and sense of danger she woke, and sitting up in bed felt for her child under the sheet,—on the pillow,—under the pillow,—on the counterpane,—everywhere, but all in vain. Baby was gone, and in a voice husky with fright and terror she called to the figure sitting so motionless by the fire, “Mother, mother, where is baby? Is she in your lap, mother?” and, alarmed at Mrs. Fordham’s ominous silence, Edith sprang to her side, and with a sensation as if her heart was bursting from her throat, gasped out:
“Mother, tell me;—what have you done with my child?”
And Mrs. Fordham did tell her, while Edith listened like one paralyzed beyond the power to move. Speak she could not at first, for a horrible suffocating sensation in her throat; but her face was deadly pale and her lips quivered, while the fury of a tigress when bereft of its young glared from her eyes. At last she found her voice, and the words rang through the room with terrible distinctness.
“Mother, may God’s curse fall on you, if a hair of baby’s head is harmed, and if, when I am strong and well, and able to cope with you, I fail to find my darling may He turn every happiness I ever hope to know into sorrow, and blight the dearest earthly wish I may ever have again.”
Then she fell fainting at the feet of her mother, who, if not moved by the denunciation against herself, was alarmed at the death-like unconsciousness which lasted so long. But youth and health can endure much and live, and Edith came back to life and sense again, but lay utterly prostrate and helpless, with a choking lump in her throat which prevented her from speaking above the faintest whisper. To move her that day to other and better quarters was impossible, nor did Mrs. Fordham care particularly to do it. No one there would know of the child’s absence, for no one ever came into their room except Mary Stover, who was always quiet and respectful, and who on this day when she brought up warm water for the tea, never spoke or seemed to notice anything.
Next morning Edith was better, and when Mary came with the breakfast she was bidden to tell her mistress that Mrs.Fordham was going away at once, but would pay the month’s rent just the same.
“Very well, ma’am. I’ll tell her when she comes in. She’s out marketin’ now,” was the girl’s reply as she left the room; and when Mrs. Jones, the owner of the house, returned, her late lodgers were gone, and Mary handed her the rent for the whole month, as Mrs. Fordham had bidden her to do.
Mrs. Jones was surprised at the sudden departure of people of whom she had been a little proud, inasmuch as they were above the class which usually stopped with her, but the money for the whole month and the certainty that she knew of other lodgers to take the rooms, kept her quiet, and she merely said:
“They were in a mighty hurry to be off. Do you know where they are gone?”
Mary did not. A handsome carriage had come for them, and madam almost carried the young lady to it, she said, adding:
“That was a very pretty lass, with the sweetest face I ever saw.”
To this Mrs. Jones assented, and as just then there was a ring, and people were announced looking for rooms, her late tenants passed as completely from her mind as they passed from her surroundings to a new life in a pleasanter part of London.