CHAPTER XXI.THE MEETING.
Dark night had closed in upon Beechwood, but in the sick-room a light was dimly burning, showing the white face of the invalid, who was sleeping quietly now. The crisis was passed, and weak as a little child he lay, powerless and helpless beneath the mighty weight of sorrow which had fallen upon him.
Geraldine had been sitting with him, but when she saw that it was nine, she cautiously left the room, and stealing down the stairs, joined the Judge and Mr. Thornton in the parlor. Sinking into a chair and leaning her head upon it, she did not seem to hear the hasty step in the hall; but when Hepsy’s shrill voice said, “Good evenin’, gentle folks,” she looked up, apparently surprised to see the old lady there at that hour of the night.
“Have you heard from Oliver?” she asked; and Hepsy answered:
“Not a word. I’m gettin’ awful consarned; but that ain’t what brung me here. Feelin’ lonesome-like withoutClubs, thinks to me, I’ll look over the chest where I keep Hannah’s things.”
“An all-fired good way to get rid of the blues,” said the Judge, while Hepsy continued:
“Amongst the things was a box, which must have been put away unopened, for I found in it this letter concerning Mildred,” and she held up the bit of paper which, having been nicely rubbed and smoked by Geraldine, looked old and rather soiled.
“Let me see it,” said the Judge, and adjusting his spectacles, he read aloud a letter from Esther Bennett, telling Hannah Hawkins that Mildred was the child of Helen Thornton, and bidding her keep it a secret. “This confirms it,” he said. “There is no need now of your sifting the matter as we intended to do,” and he handed the half sheet to Mr. Thornton just as the sound of many feet was heard in the hall without.
Richard, Oliver, Mildred and Edith had come! The latter being fast asleep, was deposited upon the floor, with Mildred’s satchel for a pillow, and while Mildred stole off upstairs, promising her father only to look into Lawrence’s room, and not to show herself to him, Richard and Oliver advanced into the parlor.
“Clubs! Clubs!” screamed Hepsy, catching him round the neck. “Where have you been?”
Oliver did not answer, but sat watching Richard, who was gazing at his father with an expression upon his facesomething like what it wore when first he recognized his daughter. Every eye in the room was turned toward him, but none scanned his features so curiously as did the old Judge.
“Who is it, Bobum?” he whispered, while his cheek turned pale. “Who is it standing there, and what makes him stare so at me?”
But Bobum could not tell, and he was about to question the stranger, when Richard advanced toward his father, and laying a hand on either shoulder, looked wistfully into the old man’s eyes; then pointing to his own portrait hanging just beyond, he said:
“Have I changed so greatly that there is no resemblance between us?”
“Oh, heaven! it’s Richard!—it’s Richard! Bobum, do you hear? ’Tis my boy! ’Tis Dick come back to me again!”
The Judge could say no more, but sank upon the sofa faint with surprise, and tenderly supported by his son.
Half beside herself with fear, Geraldine came forward, demanding haughtily:
“Who are you, sir, and why are you here!”
“I am Richard Howell, madame, and have come to expose your villanous plot,” was the stranger’s low-spoken answer, and Geraldine cowered back into the farthest corner, while the Judge, rallying a little, said mournfully:
“You told me, Dick, of lonesome years when I shouldwish I hadn’t said those bitter things to you, and after you were gone I was lonesome, oh, so lonesome, till I took little Mildred.Richard,” and the old man sprang to his feet electrified, as it were, with the wild hope which had burst upon him, “Richard,WHO IS MILDRED?”
“My own daughter, father. Mine and Hetty Kirby’s,” was the answer deliberately spoken, while Richard cast a withering glance at the corner, where Geraldine still sat, overwhelmed with guilt and shame, for she knew now that exposure was inevitable.
With a sudden, hateful impulse, she muttered:
“An unlawful child, hey. A fit wife, truly, for Lawrence Thornton.”
The words caught Judge Howell’s ear, and springing like lightning across the floor, he exclaimed:
“Now, by the Lord, Geraldine Veille, if you hint such a thing again, I’ll shake you into shoe-strings,” and, by way of demonstration, he seized the guilty woman’s shoulder and shook her lustily. “Mildred had as good a right to be born as you, for Dick was married to Hetty. I always knew that,” and he tottered back to the sofa, just as Edith, frightened at finding herself in a strange place, began to cry.
Stepping into the hall for a moment, Richard soon returned, bringing her in his arms, and advancing toward the Judge, he said:
“I’ve brought you another grandchild, father,—one born of an English mother. Is there room in your heart for little Edith?”
The eyes, which looked wonderingly at the Judge, were very much like Mildred’s, and they touched a chord at once.
“Yes, Dick, there’s room for Edith,” returned the Judge; “not because of that English mother, for I don’t believe in marrying twice, but because she’s like Gipsy,” and he offered to take the little girl, who, not quite certain whether she liked her new grandpa or not, clung closer to her father, and began to cry for “Sister Milly.”
“Here, Edith, come to me,” said Oliver, and taking her back into the hall, he whispered: “Mildred is upstairs; go and find her.”
The upper hall was lighted, and following Oliver’s directions, Edith ascended the stairs, while her father, thus relieved of her, began to make some explanations, having first greeted Mr. Thornton, whom he remembered well.
“Where have you been, Dick? Where have you been all these years?” asked the Judge, in a hoarse voice; and holding his father’s trembling hands in his, Richard repeated, in substance, what the reader has already heard, asking if neither of his letters were received.
“Yes, one; telling me you were going to India,” returned the Judge; “but I hadn’t forgiven you then formarrying Hetty Kirby, and I would not answer it; but I’ve forgiven you now, boy,—I’ve forgiven you now, for that marriage has been the means of the greatest happiness I ever experienced. It gave Gipsy to me. Where is Mildred, Richard? Why don’t she come to see hergranddad?”
“She’s upstairs, tissin’ a man,” interposed little Edith, who had just entered the room, her brown eyes protruding like marbles, as if utterly confounded with what they had beheld. “She is,” she continued, as Oliver tried to hush her: “I seen her, and he tissed her back just as loud asTHAT!” and by way of illustration she smacked her own fat hand.
“Come here, you mischief!” and catching her before she was aware of his intention, the delighted Judge threw her higher than his head, asking her to tell him again “how Mildredtissed the man.”
But Edith was not yet inclined to talk with him, and so we will explain how it happened that Mildred was with Lawrence. After leaving her father, her first visit was to her own room, which she found occupied by Lilian, who, having a slight headache, had retired early, and was fast asleep. Not caring to awaken her, Mildred turned back, and seeing the door of Lawrence’s chamber ajar, could not forbear stealing on tiptoe toward it, thinking that the sound of his breathing would be better than nothing. While she stood there listening she heard him whisper,“Mildred,” for he was thinking of her, and unconsciously he repeated the dear name. In an instant she forgot everything, and springing to his side, wound her arms around his neck, sobbing in his ear:
“Dear, dear Lawrence, I’ve come back to you, and we shall not be parted again. It is all a fraud,—a wicked lie. I am not Mildred Hawley,—I am Mildred Howell,—Richard’s child. He’s down-stairs, Lawrence. My own father is in the house. Do you hear?”
He did hear, and comprehended it too, but for some moments he could only weep over her and call her his “darling Milly.” Then, when more composed, he listened while she told him what she knew, interspersing her narrative with the kisses which had so astonished Edith and sent her with the wondrous tale to the drawing-room, from which she soon returned, and marching this time boldly up to Mildred, said:
“That big man says you mustn’t tiss him any more,” and she looked askance at Lawrence, who laughed aloud at the little creature’s attitude and manner.
“This is to be your brother,” said Mildred, and lifting Edith up, she placed her on the bed with Lawrence, who kissed her chubby cheeks and called her “little sister.”
“You’ve growed awfully up in heaven,” said Edith, mistaking him for the boy-baby who had died with her mother, for in no other way could she reconcile the idea of a brother.
“What does she mean?” asked Lawrence, and with a merry laugh Mildred explained to him how Edith, who had been taught that she had a brother and sister in heaven, had mistaken her for an angel, asking to see her wings, and had now confounded him with the baby buried in her mother’s coffin.
“I don’t wonder she thinks I’ve grown,” said he; “but she’s right, Milly, with regard to you. You are an angel.”
Before Mildred could reply, Richard called to her, bidding her come down, and leaving Edith with Lawrence, she hastened to the parlor, where the Judge was waiting to receive her. With heaving chest and quivering lip, he held her to himself, and she could feel the hot tears dropping on her hair, as he whispered:
“My Gipsy, my Spitfire, my diamond, my precious, precious child. If I hadn’t been a big old fool, I should have known you were a Howell, and that madame couldn’t have imposed that stuff on me. Hanged if I ever believed it! Didn’t I swear all the time ’twas a lie? Say grandpa once, little vixen. Say it once, and let me hear how it sounds!”
“Dear, dear grandpa,” she answered, kissing him quite as she had kissed Lawrence Thornton.
“And Clubs went for you,” he continued. “Heaven bless old Clubs, but how did he find it out? Hanged if I understand it yet.”
Then as his eye fell on Geraldine, who still sat in the corner, stupefied and bewildered, he shook his fist at her threateningly, bidding her tell in a minute what she knew of Esther Bennett and the confounded plot.
“Yes, Geraldine,” said Mr. Thornton, advancing toward her, “you may as well confess the part you had in this affair. It is useless longer to try to conceal it. Oliver heard enough to implicate you deeply, and Mrs. Thompson,” turning to Hepsy, whom greatly against her will Oliver had managed to keep there, “Mrs. Thompson will, of course, tell what she knows, and so save herself from——”
“Utter disgrace,” he was going to add, when poor, ignorant Hepsy, thinking he meant “jail,” screamed out:
“I’ll tell all I know, indeed I will, only don’t send me to prison,” and with the most astonishing rapidity, she repeated all the particulars of her interview with Geraldine, whose face grew purple with anger and mortification.
“She brung me that half sheet to-night,” said Hepsy, in conclusion, “and told me what to do, and said how all she wanted was for Mr. Lawrence to marry Lilian. There, dear sir, that’s all I know, as true as I live and draw the breath of life. Now, please let me go home, I’ll give up the fifty dollars and the silk gown,” and without waiting for permission, she seized her green calash, and darting from the room went tearing down the walk at a rate highlyinjurious to hercorns, and the “spine in her back,” of which she had recently been complaining.
Thus forsaken by Hepsy, Geraldine bowed her head upon the table, but refused to speak, until Richard said to her:
“Madame, silence will avail you nothing, for unless you confess the whole, I shall to-morrow morning start in quest of Esther Bennett, who will be compelled to tell the truth.”
There was something in Richard’s manner which made Geraldine quail. She was afraid of him, and knowing well that Esther would be frightened into betraying her, she felt that she would rather the story should come from herself. So, after a few hysterical sobs and spasmodic attempts to speak, she began to tell how she first overheard Mr. Thornton talking to his son of Esther Bennett, and how the idea was then conceived of using that information for her own purposes if it should be necessary. Once started, it seemed as if she could not stop until her mind was fully unburdened, and almost as rapidly as Hepsy herself she told how she had gone to New York, ostensibly to buy the wedding dress, but really in quest of Esther Bennett, who was easily found, and for a certain sum enlisted in her service.
“I was well acquainted with the particulars of Cousin Helen’s marriage,” she said, “well acquainted with Mildred’s being left at Beechwood, and this made the mattereasy, for I knew just what to say. I had also in my possession one of Helen’s letters; her handwriting was much like my own, and by a little practice I produced that letter which deceived even Uncle Thornton. I told Esther what to say and what to do, when to come to Mayfield and how to act.”
“The Old Nick himself never contrived a neater trick,” chimed in the Judge; “but what in Cain did you do it for?”
“For Lilian,—for Lilian,” answered Geraldine. “She is all I have to love in the wide world, and when I saw how her heart was set on Lawrence Thornton, I determined that she should have him if money and fraud could accomplish it!”
“Yes, my fine madame,” whispered the Judge again, “but what reason had you to think Lawrence would marry Lilian, even if he were Milly’s uncle?”
“I thought,” answered Geraldine, “that when recovered from his disappointment he would turn back to her, for he loved her once, I know.”
“Don’t catch me swallowing that,” muttered the Judge; “he love that putty head!”
“Hush, father,” interposed Richard, and turning to Geraldine, he asked, “Did you suppose Esther and Hepsy would keep your secret always?”
“I did not much care,” returned Geraldine. “If Lilian secured Lawrence, I knew the marriage could notbe undone, and besides, I did not believe the old women would dare to tell, for I made them both think it was a crime punishable with imprisonment.”
“And so it should be,” returned the Judge. “Every one of you ought to be hung as high as Haman. What’s that you are saying of Lilian?” he continued, as he caught a faint sound.
Geraldine’s strength was leaving her fast, but she managed to whisper:
“You must not blame Lilian. She is weak in intellect and believed all that I told her; of the fraud she knew nothing,—nothing. I went to a fortune-teller in Boston, and bade her say to the young lady I would bring her that though the man she loved was engaged to another, something wonderful, the nature of which she could not exactly foretell, would occur to prevent the marriage, and she would have him yet. I also gave her a few hints as to Lawrence’s personal appearance, taking care, of course, that she should not know who we were. Then I suggested to Lilian that we consult Mrs. Blank, who, receiving us both as strangers, imposed upon her credulous nature the story I had prepared. This is why Lilian became so quiet, for, placing implicit faith in the woman, she believed all would yet end well.”
“You are one of the devil’s unaccountables,” exclaimed the Judge, and grasping her arm, he shook her again, but Geraldine did not heed it.
The confession she had made exhausted her strength, and laying her head again upon the table, she fainted. Mr. Howell and her uncle carried her to her room, but it was Mildred’s hand which had bathed her head and spoke to her kindly when she came back to consciousness. Mildred, too, broke the news to the awakened Lilian, who would not believe the story until confirmed by Geraldine; then she wept bitterly, and upbraided her sister for her perfidy until the wretched woman refused to listen longer, and covering her head with the bedclothes, wished that she could die. She felt that she was everlastingly disgraced, for she knew no power on earth could keep the Judge from telling the shameful story to her Boston friends, who would thenceforth despise and shun her just as she deserved. Her humiliation seemed complete, and it was not strange that the lapse of two days found her in a raging fever, far exceeding in violence the one from which Lawrence was rapidly recovering.
“I hope the Lord,” growled the Judge, “that the jade will get well pretty quick, or——”
He did not say “or what,” for Edith, who was in his lap, laid her soft hand on his mouth, and looking mournfully in his face said:
“You’ll never see my mamma and the baby.”
“Why not?” he asked.
And Edith answered: “Yousweared, you did, and such naughty folks can’t go to heaven.”
It was a childish rebuke, but it had an effect, causing the Judge to measure his words, particularly in her presence; but it did not change his feelings toward Geraldine; and as the days went on and she still grew worse, scolded and fretted, wishing her in Guinea, in Halifax, in Tophet, in short anywhere but at Beechwood.
Owing to Mildred’s interference, his manner changed somewhat toward Lilian. She was not to blame, she said, for knowing as little as she did, and when he saw how really anxious she was to atone for all she had made Mildred suffer he forgave her in a measure, and took her into favor just as Lawrence had done before him. It took but a week or so to restore the brightness to her face and the lightness to her step, for hers was not a mind to dwell long on anything, and when at last Geraldine was able to be moved, and she went with her to Boston, she bade both Lawrence and Mildred good-by as naturally as if nothing had ever happened. Geraldine, on the contrary, shrank from their pleasant words, and without even thanking Mildred for her many friendly offices in the sick-room left a house which had been too long troubled with her presence, and which the moment she was gone assumed a more cheery aspect. Even little Edith noticed the difference, and frisking around her grandfather, with whom she was on the best of terms, she said:
“You won’t swear any more, now that woman with the black eyes has gone?”
“No, Beauty, no,” he answered; “I’ll never swear again, if I think in time,”—a resolution to which, as far as possible, he adhered, and thus was little Edith the source of good to him, inasmuch as she helped to cure him of a habit which was increasing with his years, and was a mar to his many admirable traits of character.
Fleuron