Given a woman like Ruth Erskine Burnham, belonging to a family in whom, generations back, there had been martyrs for the truth's sake, trained from her very babyhood to despise every false way, self-trained, through the years, to hold with almost painful insistence to whatever she had seemed to promise, perhaps no other fault would have been harder to condone in others. She was still struggling to try to love her daughter-in-law, but she knew that she had ceased to respect her.
It was this condition of things which had made it possible for her to credit Miss Parker's story. Since Irene's moral twist with regard to truth was most apparent, why should she be expected to spurn the thought of other immoralities?
It was while Ruth Burnham was at this stage of her mental confusion that the temptation of her life came to her, clad in the white robes of truth and honor. It came, of course, by way of Erskine. He must know the whole blighting story and must know it at once. He must be told that the woman whom he had blessed with his love and whom he was tenderly shelteringfrom a rude world was a woman who could trample upon marriage vows, desert her first-born child, and lie about it all in a colossal manner; not only once, at first, but through the years! The whole fearful structure of Erskine's later life, built as it was upon falsehood, must be made to tumble about him in ruins. What a cruel thing! Erskine, the soul of honor, with as keen a love for truth as it was possible for human being to have, must, in spite of himself, be involved in the meshes of this false and cruel life! And yet, underneath the groan which she had for his ruined home and his ruined hopes, was a faint little thrill of exultation.
When Erskine must cease to respect his wife, he could not continue to love her with the kind of love that he was giving to her now. At the best it could be only a pitying, protecting love, and there was a sense in which she, his mother, would have him back again, at least to a degree. No one knew better than herself that there was a sense in which she had lost him.
What would he be likely to do? Irene was his wife, and he would do his duty at whatevercost, but just what was his duty? She tried to settle it for him. There was the child, the young woman rather, Irene's daughter. Would he not insist that the mother should do her tardy duty toward the child? But what was the duty of such a mother toward such a child? And how could anything be arranged for now, under such strange, such startling circumstances? She did not know. She could not plan, could not think; Erskine would have to do the thinking; but in the meantime, where would a boy, trained as he had been, turn naturally for sympathy but to his mother? She would have him again! She exulted in the thought; even then, in her first recoil from sin and its consequences, she exulted.
And then—just in that moment of exultation—she began to realize what she was doing, and a kind of terror of herself came upon her. Was it possible that she was really that despicable thing, a creature so full of self, and selfish loves, as to be able to thrill with joy, in the very midst of a ruin that involved her best and dearest, merely because out of it she was to gain something?
It was a terrible night. Mrs. Burnham kept her door close locked, though Erskine came once, and again, to seek admittance and went away puzzled and pained: locked out from his mother's room for the first time. She called out to him, trying to speak reassuringly, that she was not ill, only unusually tired; she was in bed, and did not feel equal to getting up to let him in.
"But, mommie," he said, "I did not know that you ever locked your door at night—not when we are together. What if you should be ill in the night?"
She would not be ill, she told him, and she really could not get up now and unlock the door.
She knew that he went away with an anxious heart, and that he came on tiptoe several times during the night and listened; and she hated herself for her apparent selfishness. But she could not let him in, she was not ready yet for the questions he would be sure to ask. She had not been able to plan how to make known to him her terrible secret.
JUSTICE OR MERCY?
Itwas just as the silver-tongued clock on her mantel was tolling one, that the suggestion was suddenly made to Ruth Erskine Burnham that she was planning wickedness. Instead of trying to arrange how to break the dreadful news to Erskine, ought she not to be planning how to avoid having him know anything about it? Two very unreconcilable statements were in her mind clamoring to be heard.
"Of course she must tell him!" "No, she mustnottell him!" "He ought to be told!" "He oughtnotto be told!" These in varying forms repeated themselves in her brain until she was bewildered. And the contradictory argument continued:—
"That girl, that forsaken, disowned girl—justice to her demanded the telling." "Justicedid no such thing!" "But Irene was her mother, and had duties toward her that could not be ignored." "Irene was her mother only in name; there was no sense in which she could, even though she wished to do so, take the place of mother to her now." "Do not you know," continued that other voice speaking to the stricken woman, "do not you feel sure that for a young girl to be brought under the direction and daily influence of such a woman as Irene, would be almost the worst fate that could befall her?" "But Erskine has a duty toward her; he ought—" "Erskinecannot! you know he cannot. Have you not daily proof of the limit of his influence over Irene? Do you not know to your grief that in some matters she dominates him?"
"But Erskine ought to know the kind of woman that he is harboring. It is horrible to have him go on loving and trusting her!"
"Such knowledge coming to Erskine now, could work only harm. He has done no wrong; his conscience is clear, his hands are clean. Simply to reveal to him the former sins of the woman he has promised to love and cherish,would be to plunge him into depths of misery, without accomplishing anything for either the girl or his wife."
"But Irene ought to be exposed; she ought to repent, and confess her sin; it is monstrous to go on helping her to cover it!"
"You have nothing to do with Irene's 'oughts.' You cannot make her either confess or repent. To 'cover' her sin, as you call it, will not change the moral conditions for her in any way, it will simply bring unutterable pain and shame upon your son."
"But ought not sin to be exposed?"
"Not always. Sometimes to cover sin is God-like. Think, if you can, of one helpful, hopeful result which might reasonably be expected to follow such an exposure as you contemplate."
It was a long-drawn-out controversy; as real to Ruth as though her soul had separated itself from that other mysterious part of her which was yet not her body, and stood confronting her, calm, strong, unyielding. She tossed on her bed from side to side, and turned and re-turned her pillows, and straightenedthe disordered bedclothing, and sought in vain for an hour of rest. At times she resolutely told herself that she would put it all aside until morning, and wait, like a reasonable being, until her brain was clear and she was capable of reaching conclusions; then she would compose herself for sleep, only to find that she was taking up each minute detail of the story that had been told her and living it over again. She could not even interest herself in any of the side issues save for a few minutes at a time. She tried hard to centre her thoughts about the woman, Miss Parker, and contrast her with that crude disappointing girl by the same name that she had met years before; it did not seem to her that they could be one and the same! What a beautiful woman in every sense of the word this Miss Parker was! What if she, Erskine's mother, had been gifted with foresight, in those early years, had been able to conceive of the possibilities hidden in that uncouth, silly country girl, and had encouraged in Erskine the interest which she then awakened? Or, failing in that, what if she had simply kept her hand off and let things taketheir course? Would this woman with her beautiful face and gracious ways and cultivated mind and heart have become Erskine's wife, and her daughter? How extraordinary that it should have been Mamie Parker who had touched her life again, when she had labored so hard to be free from her, and had succeeded! And it was Mamie Parker who had come to the rescue of a desperately friendless girl who ought at this moment to be sheltered in their own home! And then she was back in the meshes of it all again!
She arose at length and began to move softly about her room through the darkness. She must stay in the darkness, otherwise Erskine might discover a light and insist upon being admitted. Very softly she drew back her curtains and looked out upon the moonless night. There were countless stars, but they gleamed from far away and looked even more indifferent than usual to what was going on below them. Softly she drew a chair beside the open casement and sat down to try the effect of the cool night air upon her throbbing head. If she could only get quiet enough tothink! But those two conflicting thoughts were still pounding away in her brain: "Erskine must be told." "Erskine mustnotbe told!"
Yet she made progress, and a discovery. It was beginning to humiliate her to the very dust to discover that there was a sense in which she wanted to tell him! No, not that, either; but she wanted him to know; and she wanted this because she desired to have Irene dethroned!
There were no tears shed during those hours. The victim had gone beyond tears. Her throat felt dry and parched and her eyes burned, as one in a fever. She was beginning to realize that this might be a conflict between right and wrong, and that her own personality was engaged in it. The clock struck two, struck three, and still that mother sat gazing out on the singularly quiet night. Twice during that time she heard Erskine come with soft footsteps, evidently to listen at her door.
"Mamma," he said, speaking low, but so distinctly that she knew he reasoned that if she were awake she would certainly hear him. It seemed to her that he must hear the throbbing of her heart as she waited. A wild desirepossessed her to fling wide the door and bid him come in and listen while she said to him: "The woman you have taken to your heart, to love and cherish forever, is false to the truth, false to every sense of honor, false even to her own child!"
She clutched at the arms of her chair, to keep her, and held her breath that it make no sound.
Erskine went on tiptoe back to his room, and his mother, who had almost spent her physical strength, sank limply back into her chair. But before the clock struck again she had got to her knees. All the while she had been conscious of a strange reluctance about going to God with this trouble. Accustomed as she was, and had been ever since she became a praying woman, to taking all things, small as well as great, to Him, it had seemed strange even to herself that she held back.
Not that she had said that she would not pray, she had simply shrunken back with a half-frightened "Not yet, I am not ready yet; let me think." But she reached the moment when she understood that she must have helpand must have it at once, and that only God could give it.
She knelt long; at first speaking no words, not thinking words. Then she broke into short, half-sobbing ejaculations: "Lord, show me the way. Christ, son of Mary, son of God, help me!" And then the habit of years asserted itself and the sorely shaken woman entered wholly within the refuge and poured out her soul in prayer.
When she arose from her knees, the rosy tints of a new day were beginning to flush the east. She drew her shades and went back to her bed and slept. Some things had been settled for her; she need not think about them any more.
The woman who a few hours later appeared at the breakfast table in a white morning dress and with her hair carefully arranged, showed little trace of her night's vigil, though her son regarded her searchingly.
"I am thankful to see you here," he said. "I was quite worried about you last night. It is so unusual not to meet you at dinner and have a little chat with you. You did not even give a fellow a chance to say good-night! I wassure that something was wrong." His wife laughed.
"Erskine cannot get away from the idea that he is his mother's nursemaid," she said lightly. "And he is a real 'Miss Nancy' for worrying. Such a night as he gave me, merely because you did not choose to come down to dinner! He must have trotted out to your door to listen twenty times, at least."
"Twice, anyway," said Erskine, gayly. "Never mind, though; she is all right this morning, and that is more than I dared to hope." But he watched her closely.
"What tired you so, mamma? Or rather, who did? Irene said you had company all the afternoon."
"Yes, an old acquaintance. I don't think you could guess who it was."
"Not at least without seeing her. Was she also an old acquaintance of mine?"
"I think you will remember her; at least you will, her brother. It was Miss Parker."
"'Miss Parker?' Not Mamie? How interesting! Why didn't you keep her to dinner? I should like to have met her. Is she 'MissParker' still, after all these years? That is rather surprising, isn't it? She must be thirty or more. And what about her brother? I haven't heard anything of him to speak of, since I left college."
"Who are these interesting people who seem to have just sprung into existence again?" Irene asked. "I have never heard of Mamie Parker, have I? Is she an old sweetheart of yours?"
"Hardly!" Erskine laughed carelessly. "There was a time during my college life that her brother and I were rather intimate; then we drifted apart; he was a good fellow, though. What about him, mamma?"
"Something that greatly surprised me. Had you supposed him to be of the material that makes missionaries? That is what he has become: a foreign missionary. He went out to China about seven years ago, purely in a commercial way. He represented a New York business house, but he carried letters of introduction to our missionaries located there, and became intimate with them and so interested in their work that, after a time, he gave up hisbusiness entirely and became a missionary teacher."
"Is it possible!" said Erskine. "I think he is the last one I should have chosen for such a future; from our class, I mean. Though he was a fine fellow with a big unselfish heart. Didn't I always insist upon that, mamma, in the days when you did not like him very well? Weren't there such days? I have almost forgotten."
"I don't think I considered him remarkable," Mrs. Burnham said. "Though I remember that Alice saw possibilities in him. She liked him for being so good to his sister."
"And he is really in China! How does his sister like that?"
"So well that she is going out to be with him for a year, and perhaps longer. She is in daily expectation of receiving a summons from a party of missionaries with whom she is to travel. She is very enthusiastic about it; sees ways in which she can further the work. I should not be at all surprised if she remained there and made it her life work."
Erskine Burnham looked curiously at hismother, as if to determine whether she was really in earnest, then threw back his head and laughed.
"Mamie Parker a missionary in China!" he exploded, "or anywhere else! my imagination isn't equal to such a flight as that."
"She has changed wonderfully, Erskine. At first I could not make myself believe that she was really the Mamie Parker we used to know. Yet as I studied her closely I could see a suggestion of the girlish face. She was pretty, you remember, but I did not think her face gave promise of the beauty it has now. However, she is more than beautiful. She is an educated cultivated woman."
"Educated?" Erskine repeated the word incredulously.
"She went back to school, Erskine, the winter after she visited her brother, and prepared for college. She is a Smith graduate, think of it! As for culture, I don't think I ever met a more perfect-appearing lady than she has become."
"Dear me!" said Irene with a but slightly suppressed yawn, "what a paragon she must be; I'm glad I didn't meet her. I detestparagons. Now, if you, sir, can stop talking about her long enough to consider it, have the goodness to tell me at what time I may expect you in town this afternoon? We are to be at the Durands' at five, remember. Don't you dare to tell me you must be excused, for I have simply set my heart on having you with me."
But Erskine could not so readily be made to forget his anxieties. He put off a direct answer to his wife, and followed his mother to her room to press his inquiries tenderly.
"Are you sure that you are all right this morning, and that it was only weariness which kept you so close a prisoner last night? There is something about you that I don't quite like; there are heavy rings under your eyes, and you are paler than usual. Did you sleep well?"
"Not very," she said after a moment's hesitation. "I was—restless."
He studied her face and spoke with tender reproach.
"Mommie, something troubles you. Am I not to know it?"
She had no recourse but to speak truth.
ALONE
Shelaid a tender motherly hand on his arm as she said:—
"Something has been troubling me, Erskine, something that I cannot explain, because there is a sense in which it is not my trouble at all, but has to do with others. For a time I was very much perplexed, but I have settled it now, what my share in it should be, so that it need not perplex me any more."
She knew that the truth was deceiving him, but it satisfied him. He believed that Mamie Parker's troubles, whatever they were, had been brought for his mother to share. His face cleared a little, but he felt it his duty to administer a loving admonition.
"Remember your one weakness, mamma; there was always in your nature a temptation to 'bear one another's burdens' too literally. If there is any way in which I can help withoutinfringing on confidences, you will let me, of course?"
She was able to smile as she assured him that she would. Despite her night of vigil she felt strong. Her part had been revealed to her. She was to keep Irene's secret, to suffer and to act in her stead; and to shield her son's name and home as much as lay in her power. A miserable travesty of a home it looked to her; still, it was all he had, and for a time at least it could be kept sacred in Erskine's eyes. She had no faith in a perpetual concealment; such skeletons, she believed, were always unearthed sooner or later—often in unexpected and mysterious ways. How remarkable, for instance, it was that, of all the young women in the world who might have discovered and befriended the deserted child it should have been their old acquaintance Mamie Parker! Still, this morning, she could thank God that she need not be the one to unearth this secret.
Of course the child must be planned for—there was no danger that Ruth would forget her—but it had become very clear to her that nothing but disaster could result from an enforcedacknowledgement of her by the mother at this late day. If Irene wanted her—if her heart had turned toward her child in the slightest, or, failing in heart, if her conscience had impelled her to make the least small effort to repair some of the mischief, then, indeed, Ruth would have braved public opinion, gossip, Erskine's pain and shame, everything to help her. And she could do it understandingly. Had not Ruth Erskine, away back in her girlhood, helped her father in his tardy right-doing?
It is true that, even at this late day, her face flushed with pain and shame over the thought of the manner in which she had done this, at first; still, she had done it. And later, had she not herself taken the initiative and opened the way for her husband to do his belated duty? Who could know better than she the cost of such effort? But there was one infinite difference between past experiences and present problems. Both her father and her husband, when the crucial test came, had a foundation of moral strength to build upon; while Irene—
Ruth Burnham knew that she had tried very hard to find some lighting up of the story.She had thoroughly probed Mamie Parker to discover whether or not through the years the mother had made some sign which proved that she at least knew of the continued existence of her daughter; but there had been absolutely no proof that she had ever thought of her six months' old baby again! Ruth had to turn quickly away from that subject as one that would not bear dwelling on. The idea that a mother had actually and deliberately abandoned her baby, roused such a sense of revolt in this woman's heart that there were times when she told herself that she could not breathe in the same house with such a creature.
Miss Parker herself had seemed able to appreciate this feeling. At least she had given no hint that she expected or hoped anything whatever from the mother, and frankly owned that she had avoided meeting her on occasions when there would have been opportunity. She had not felt, she said simply, that anything could be gained by coming in contact with her. And all her plea had been that Erskine's mother should in some way interest herself in the welfare of the lonely girl.
She was very lonely, now, more so by far than she used to be, Miss Parker had said in a voice that trembled. Then she had waited a few minutes to regain self-control before she explained that her mother had to a very great extent taken the place of mother to the little one.
"She used to spend her vacations with us," she said, "and mother fell into the habit of looking after her clothes and her comfort in every way, just as though she were a daughter; and the child loved mother with a devotion that is uncommon in one so young. Of course she cannot but miss her sadly."
"Have you lately lost your mother?" Ruth had inquired, and her tone had been so full of tender sympathy that Miss Parker had explained in detail how it was that she had only her brother left. That was why she was going out to him, so that they might be together, at least for a time, since they were all that was left of home.
Jim had not married; his sister sometimes feared that he never would. Didn't Mrs. Burnham think that was a calamity for a man?
"I used to think so," Ruth had replied, asone who did not realize that she was speaking aloud, and then she had started and flushed over the thought of what she might thus be revealing; and the flush had deepened as she remembered what this woman already knew of her son's wife. But Miss Parker had not once glanced in her direction, and made no sign that she had heard. She went on, quietly, talking about her brother. Men, she thought, were different in that respect from women. A woman need never marry in order to be comfortable, or to be cared for; but there were ways in which the average man was helpless and almost homeless without the one woman to care for him, selected from all the world. This was so different from the usual putting of the subject that Mrs. Burnham had felt impelled to smile. Yet as she looked at the beautiful woman opposite her she admitted that her brother's home would certainly be brightened by her presence. Still, it was a long way to go to make a home for a brother.
"Do you have any thought of remaining there," she had asked. "I mean, of making it a permanent home?"
Miss Parker did not know. She had not allowed herself to look ahead very far. There were so many changes in life that it did not seem wise to try to plan. She should like to remain there, like it very much, she believed; that is, if she could help in the work. She was sure that she could help Jim; at least, she could take care of him, and give him more time to do his work; and Jim was a success. Still, there were times when she was sorry that she had planned in this way, on Maybelle's account. Even now, if she could make a change, could delay a little, without incommoding her brother, she would do so; but Jim had made plans in view of her coming that would seriously inconvenience him if she did not go.
Yes, there had been changes, sad changes since her plans were made. Mr. Somerville, who was a frail man and hopelessly careless of himself, had contracted a cold, a few months ago, that had settled on his lungs; and it was now evident to all but that poor little girl that she would, before long, be fatherless.
Oh, she would be cared for, no doubt, so far as her body was concerned. She was at school,and it was a good school, as good, perhaps, as any of them. At least she, and her mother, had been at infinite pains to discover it; still, it was school, and not home, and poor Maybelle had never been quite happy there. The teachers were kind, but cold and unsympathetic. They did not understand the child, and they almost openly disapproved of her father. He went every day to see her, but the time was coming when he would no longer be able to do so, and she dreaded to think what Maybelle would do when this truth dawned upon her.
In these and many other ways had Miss Parker made it apparent to Mrs. Burnham that her hope lay in winning the woman who had been so much to her, to become this deserted and lonely child's friend and guardian.
This was the problem therefore which occupied Ruth Burnham's chief thought for a number of days following Miss Parker's visit. Only one decision with regard to it had been reached: that she would do what she could; but what that would be, she was unable to determine. Her way seemed hedged in with difficulties which had not occurred to her during those firstawful hours. How, for instance, was she, a stranger, with no claim to other than a stranger's interest that she could press, to present herself before a young woman who was under the care of her own father, and beg to be taken as a friend and adviser?
Then, too, she shrank exceedingly from meeting the father; meeting and talking with a man who had been Irene's husband! his very presence on the earth seemed an insult to her son! What explanation could she possibly make to him as to her interest in his daughter? Would her name tell him anything? What did he know of the after history of the mother of his child? If he was acquainted with her present name, might he not look upon the coming of her husband's mother as an added insult? For, after all, he was a decent man, decent enough for a woman like Mamie Parker to acknowledge his acquaintance; and he had done what he could for his deserted child. She could not even find that he had been seriously to blame for the child's desertion; therefore he might well resent this tardy coming to his aid.
Going back step by step over her interview with Miss Parker, Ruth found that there were many questions which she had failed to ask; and among them was this important one as to the father's knowledge of Irene's present name and home. It seemed almost necessary to wait and write to Miss Parker before attempting anything. Yet she shrank morbidly from this; it seemed like opening the whole horror afresh.
If there were actual need on the part of the girl, such as could be met by money, her way would have been clearer. But of this she had thought at once, and Miss Parker had almost dignifiedly declined her help.
"Dear Mrs. Burnham, I consider it my privilege to look after Maybelle in all such ways; we have done it for years, mother and I together, and now it seems almost like her trust to me. It has been a real comfort to see that the child was provided with such little luxuries of the toilet, for instance, as I longed for and could not have. We were much straitened in my girlhood, and I have been living my life over again in this young girl; though she is muchless silly than I was. I must not be deprived of this privilege, Mrs. Burnham; indeed I have her father's permission to do for her whatever I think wise; he trusts me fully; and I have no one else, now, to think about."
So that avenue seemed closed. Ruth, thinking about it almost irritably as the complications grew upon her, told herself that it would have been wiser for Mamie Parker to plan to stay away from China and attend to all the rest of it; she could do it better than any one else.
She wrote to Miss Parker at last, a careful letter, re-written several times lest it tell too much between lines.
That young woman had evidently taken it for granted that the Burnham family were supplied with the main facts in this tragedy, and had found it hard to rally from her astonishment at finding the mother in ignorance. Ruth knew that she believed that Erskine was not. She longed to tell her that this was false, yet held her pen. Did not this infringe upon her solemn covenant with God to shield her daughter-in-law as much as right wouldpermit? Yet, was it right to let her son's good name be smirched unnecessarily in the eyes of this woman who had known him in his spotless youth?
At last she wrote this:—
"Since our interview I have been through a bitter experience trying to decide as to my duty in certain directions. I believe now that I have reached a decision, and feel that I am not called upon to tear down with my own hands the fair home which my son believes he has begun to build. He is God's own servant, and God will see to it that he understands all that he must understand. I believe that I may leave it with Him."She waited eagerly for a reply to this letter; it came in the form of a telegram."I am to sail on Saturday. My poor little girl is alone. Father buried yesterday. Have written.
"Since our interview I have been through a bitter experience trying to decide as to my duty in certain directions. I believe now that I have reached a decision, and feel that I am not called upon to tear down with my own hands the fair home which my son believes he has begun to build. He is God's own servant, and God will see to it that he understands all that he must understand. I believe that I may leave it with Him."
She waited eagerly for a reply to this letter; it came in the form of a telegram.
"I am to sail on Saturday. My poor little girl is alone. Father buried yesterday. Have written.
"M. M. Parker."
THEY HATED MYSTERY
Mrs.Ruth Burnham was settled in a drawing-room car, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that money and modern ideas can furnish for a long journey; and her son Erskine stood looking down on her with a face only half satisfied.
It occurred to him as a matter of astonishment that, with the single exception of her one trip homeward, after her ministrations to Alice, and while he was abroad, his mother had not, since he could remember, taken a journey without him. And here she was, starting for New York, and planning for a stay of indefinite length, while he was remaining at home. He did not wholly like it.
"It does not seem quite right, mamma," he said, with a smile that had almost wistfulness in it. "I am not used to seeing you off, youknow. It seems as though I should be going along to look after your comfort."
"You have already done that, Erskine; I am sure a queen could not be more carefully provided for."
"And you have really no idea when you are coming home?"
"I could not plan for it, dear. Your Aunt Flossy is a woman of many schemes, you know, and it is long since I visited her; not since you and I were there together, years ago."
"It was always 'you and I together,'" he said, discontentedly, as though he almost resented this sudden independence of him.
"And this other—person—whoever she is, you will not let her absorb you? I can see how she will wear you out, without me to manage for you. She is imperious and selfish, of course."
His mother smiled on him tenderly, and a little sadly. "How did you learn that, Erskine?"
"Oh, by intuition; or common sense. She would not expect an entire stranger to take a long and tiresome journey in her behalf if she were not."
"I don't think she knows anything about the journey, or the stranger, my son."
"Then it is all Miss Parker's fault?" and he frowned. "She has not grown like her brother; not as he used to be, at least. Why doesn't she stay at home and attend to her own affairs, since they are of so much importance? That sounds ugly, I know, but I don't like to lend you, mommie, indeed I don't. You belong to me; and besides, there seems to be an air of mystery about the whole matter, and I hate mystery; at least between us."
It was at that moment that the call of "all aboard" sounded, and Erskine gave his mother a hasty last kiss and made flying leaps toward the platform.
It was a relief to have him go. His mother also hated mystery; and despite her attempts at frankness, no one was more conscious than she of the part that she had not told.
She had shown Erskine the telegram and made at the time the very brief explanation which it had taken her hours to arrange.
"It is a protégé of Miss Parker's, Erskine, for whom she has bespoken my sympathy andhelp. The girl is quite alone, her father has just died; and since I have been long promising your Aunt Flossy, and they are in the same city, I think I ought to take this time for my visit."
"A protégé," Erskine had repeated with lifted eyebrows. "A relative? Is she responsible for her? How can one shift such responsibilities as that, especially upon a stranger?"
"She is not related to Miss Parker," his mother had replied, and was glad that at the moment she had been bending over a drawer, so that her burning face was partially hidden. If Erskine only knew whose responsibilities had been shifted! It was that thought which burned her face.
"She is not!" he had replied in an exclamatory tone. "Then why in the name of common sense should she,"—and then, his mother had determined what she would say further.
"Erskine,"—her face was still bent over that bureau drawer—"the peculiar circumstances connected with this child were explained to me by Miss Parker in confidence, and of course I cannot speak of them; further than to tell you that she considers the girl as a trust."
"Well," Erskine had said, after waiting a moment for more words that had not come, "I don't half like it, mamma. I am sure of that; and if it were not for your making this long-promised visit to Aunt Flossy, I should not consent to your going. As it is, rushing off at an hour's notice, in response to an ordinary telegram, as though somebody had a right to order you around, seems absurd. I shall write to Aunt Flossy not to let your heart run away with your judgment. I am really afraid you are being imposed upon, mamma. Remember, we know nothing about these Parkers."
After his mother had watched, with the nervous tremors with which one watches when all that one has is jumping from a moving train—until Erskine was lifting his hat to her from safe ground, and her train was gliding away from him, she drew a deep breath of relief; not only from that immediate tension, but all the hours which had preceded it. Every moment since the arrival of that telegram had been a nervous strain to her, because of the things that she must say, and the things that she must not say.
Irene, especially, had taxed her honesty andingenuity to the utmost. From the first moment, the young woman had been curious and painstaking in trying to satisfy herself.
"The idea!" she would exclaim. "It seems to me that is asking a great deal of an old woman; and Erskine says this Miss Parker is only a passing acquaintance. What possible claim can she have on you? Why is she so interested in this girl? Do you understand it? It looks as though there was a love affair, somewhere, doesn't it? She is an old maid, of course. You can depend upon it that she was in love with that girl's father!"
There was a side to this woman which Ruth in her secret soul called coarse. So far as she knew, it was a phase of her character that was never exhibited to Erskine.
With her fine regard for truth, and her contempt of anything like subterfuge, Mrs. Burnham found it hard to satisfy the curious questioner, and yet keep back that part of the truth which she must not tell. She could not but be glad when the strain was over.
Not once had she mentioned the name of the girl. It had been a continual terror to her lestshe should be asked it; but though Irene asked every possible question that might throw light on the mystery, she had been mercifully preserved from thinking of names. Mrs. Burnham had learned from Miss Parker that the first name, Maybelle, would reveal nothing; it had been chosen by the father for his still nameless child, months after the mother's desertion; and chosen for no better reason than that Baby had come in the month of May, and was a "little beauty." But the name of Somerville might at least have startled Irene, had she heard it; and her mother-in-law determined that she should not. Having resolved upon silence as the right course, the more absolute it could be, the better for all concerned.
So it was not until the train was fairly under way, speeding eastward at thirty miles an hour, that Ruth felt free to draw a long breath and rest her overstrained nerves. Her mind wandered back through the years, lured there by the thought of Flossy. It was years since they two had been alone together, but just at this time Flossy's husband had taken a hurried business trip abroad.
"It is really providential that I am at home," Flossy had written, in response to her old friend's letter, telling that she might soon visit her. "Evan wanted me to go with him, brief as his stay is to be; and I should have done so, but for the illness of a very dear friend who seemed to need me; to think that if I had gone, I might have missed you!"
Dear Flossy! what a rarely wise little woman she had become! astonishing them all, not by her sweetness,—they had always been sure of that,—but by her strength and skill as a Christian worker. No young woman left to herself in a dangerous world could have a safer, more helpful friend than Flossy Shipley Roberts. Yet Ruth, even as she thought this comforting thought, remembered that the duty thrust upon her of guarding the hateful secrets of others must prevent her from speaking plainly even to Flossy.
However, she found reticence with Flossy easier than it had been with Irene. Joyfully glad to get possession of her old friend was Mrs. Roberts, and athrob with eagerness to hear all that she had to tell her, and sympathetic aboutthe minutest details; yet in nothing did she show her perfect breeding and rare tact more distinctly than in the questions that she did not ask, concerning things that Ruth did not choose to tell.
She told very little.
"You know, Flossy, I have been planning to come to you for a long, long time."
"I certainly do!" interrupted Flossy, with an air that obliged Ruth to stop and laugh.
"But the reason I am here just at this time is because a protégé of my friend—the young woman who sailed last week for China—has just lost her father and is alone in this great city, so far as relatives or very close friends are concerned, and I am commissioned to try to comfort her."
"And I know, dear Ruth, how certainly you will succeed," was Mrs. Roberts's comment and her only one.
A little later she asked: "Where do you find your charge, Ruth? Is she a young girl, did you say? Delightful! I hope you will let me help? Oh, no, I must not go with you on your first visit, of course. One new face at a time is enough for the poor child to meet."
Ruth blessed her in her heart for the delicate reserve which would not let her question even about the woman who had gone to China. After Irene's baldly put inference she shrank from trying to explain Miss Parker's interest in the girl.
It was on the morning after her arrival in town that Mrs. Burnham sat waiting in the reception room of a dignified, many-storied house, which, she told herself, had everywhere about it the unmistakable boarding-school air.
She had sent up her card, but was uncertain how much it would tell, or whether she should be allowed to see the person on whom she had called. As matters had turned out it seemed unfortunate that she had so long delayed her visit to Mrs. Roberts. If she could have been introduced here by Miss Parker in person, it might have been better for all concerned. As it was, she felt strangely out of place and embarrassed. She had not been able to decide just how she would account for her extreme interest in this stranger. It was especially embarrassing to remember that she must account for it even to the girl herself. While she waited, she wentback in memory to that other waiting, in a boarding-house parlor, when she had called to see Mamie Parker. What eventful years had intervened, and what changes they had wrought! How mistaken she, Ruth Burnham, had been about many things, notably her estimate of Mamie Parker. Had she been able with prophetic insight to get a vision of the woman Mamie was to be, would it have made a difference, a radical difference with all their lives? Then she flushed to her temples as she remembered that such thoughts were almost an insult to her son.
Just then the door opened and there entered Madame Sternheim, the head of the "Young Ladies' Fashionable School."
Madame Sternheim was dignified and correct in every movement and word, and was as cold as ice.
Yes, Miss Somerville was with them, of course. Her poor father had left her in their charge, and a serious responsibility she found it. Oh, yes, Miss Parker, before she left, had spoken of some one by the name of—of Burnham—she referred to the card which she held in herhand—who might write, or be heard from in some way. She seemed not to be at all sure that any one would call.
Yes, certainly, the circumstances were peculiar and had been all the time. The poor father—it was by no means a pleasant thing to have to speak plainly of the dead, but it was sometimes necessary, and perhaps Mrs.—yes, thank you, Mrs. Burnham, knew that he was not in every respect the fit guardian for a young woman?
Oh, yes, Miss Parker had been most kind, most attentive; Miss Somerville owed her a deep debt of gratitude, certainly.
It seemed a strange—"Providence—shall we call it?" that took Miss Parker away to China at just the time when it would appear that her self-assumed charge needed her the most. She, Madame Sternheim, had never professed to understand the situation. Miss Parker, she believed, was not even remotely related to the girl, not even a relative of the relatives—was she? Yet her interest in the child and her father had been unaccountably deep. There had always seemed to her to be an air of mystery about the whole matter. Madame Sternheimdid not like mystery; in fact she might say that she shrank from it. Did Mrs. Burnham understand that Miss Parker knew personally any of the family connection?
Ruth was angry with herself that she must blush and almost stammer over so simple a question.
No, that was what Madame Sternheim had been led to infer. The relatives were all in England, were they not? It seemed strange that the girl was not to go out to them; but then, her poor father—Had Mrs. Burnham been personally acquainted with the father? Well, she knew of him probably? which was perhaps quite enough. Miss Parker's unaccountable interest in him was beyond understanding, until one remembered that no one could tell on what the human heart would anchor, especially a woman's heart. She had never thought that Mr. Somerville was especially—but then he, poor man, was gone; they need not speak of such things now. And Miss Parker, too, was gone—to China! That was unaccountable. If love for the girl had been what had prompted her attentions all these years,why, the poor child was doubly in need of it now. She had been deeply attached to her father despite the fact that—
"Ah," Madame Sternheim broke off quickly, as the door slowly opened, to say:—
"Here she is, Mrs. Burnham, to speak for herself."
"A STUDY"
Atall, pale girl with delicate features and great brown eyes and a wealth of gold-brown hair.
"A study in black and white," was the phrase that floated through Ruth's mind as she looked at her. The girl was in deep mourning unrelieved even by a touch of white, and her face was intensely pale. Yet there was something about her, a nameless something, that claimed instant interest, and Mrs. Burnham, who, ever since she had heard of the girl's existence, had been struggling with an unreasonable desire to hate her, felt instantly drawn toward her. She felt rather than realized that, whatever might have been Irene's appearance in girlhood, the two had nothing in common now, for her eyes.
"I have heard your name," the pale girl said, much as she might have addressed a book agent,"but I did not know that you were coming to New York."
"My dear," broke in Madame Sternheim, reproof in her tone, "I am sure it is very kind in Mrs.—yes, Mrs. Burnham to take all this trouble for your sake. She tells me that she is not related to you in any way, and it is certainly quite unusual for strangers to be so kind."
"It is very kind," the girl said coldly, and stood irresolute apparently as to what she should do or say next; while Ruth, sorry for her and for herself and unreasonably annoyed with Madame Sternheim, was at a loss how to proceed.
The Madame came to her aid, addressing the young girl.
"Do be seated, my dear, and make yourself at least look comfortable." There was a strong emphasis laid upon the word "look" and the reproof in the tone was still marked, as she continued:—
"Mrs. Burnham will naturally want to have a talk with you, and learn what little you may be able to explain to her about this sad matter, although I am too fully aware that it will bevery unsatisfactory." Then she turned to Ruth.
"With your permission, dear madam, I will retire and leave my charge in your care for the present. I assure you it is a great relief to me to find that there is some one willing to share with me this heavy responsibility."
The girl turned at this, and with slow, languid steps preceded the Madame to the door, which she held open for her to pass, and bowed respectfully as she did so. Then, waiting until a turn in the hall hid the lady from sight she carefully closed the door.
Ruth, meantime, was watching her with a half-terrified fascination. She was so calm, so self-possessed, so utterly without feeling of any sort, apparently. What was to be said to her? and what good could come in any way from that which now began to look like interference? She was not in the least prepared for the sudden change which the closing of that door seemed to make.
The girl turned with an impetuous movement and seemed to fly, rather than walk, over the space between them, and, flinging herself in acrushed little heap in front of her guest, hid her face on Mrs. Burnham's lap and burst into a passion of weeping.
"Poor little girl!" Ruth said softly, and laid her hand tenderly on the bowed head. There seemed no other word that could be spoken until the storm of weeping had in a degree subsided.
"Oh, do forgive me!" the child said, after a minute, but without raising her head. "I did not mean to cry, I meant to control myself; I thought I could, through it all, but I am so wretched! and she—she freezes me! she wants me to be resigned, and to remember how much better off I am than some other girls who have no one to look after them, and it doesn't help me one bit. I am so glad that you have come! You are Aunt Mamie's friend, so you can't be like Madame Sternheim; and you won't tell me that Aunt Mamie isn't related to me in the most distant degree and in the nature of things cannot be, will you? I can see that you are not like the Madame the least bit in the world, and I am glad,glad! Oh! I am a very wicked girl! I ought not to have said that; she is good, she isverygood; and she is patientwith my faults and follies; and yet—there are times when I almost hate her! Oh, dear! what will you think of me? I don't act like this very often; I don't cry often—I don't cry at all! but now I must, or I shall die!"
Then followed another outburst of passionate weeping.
"Cry as much as you want to, dear child," Ruth said. "It is only natural, and will do you good."
All the time her hand was moving over the tumbled masses of hair, making quiet, soothing passes.
After a little the girl sat up and brushed away the tears. "I can't think what made me," she said. "Only you reminded me of Aunt Mamie, and then—it all came back. I don't know what I am to do; it seems to me that I cannot live without her, but I have got to; and without—everybody. It does seem sometimes as though there was never another girl in the world so utterly alone; but Madame Sternheim says there are, hundreds of them, even in this city! I am so sorry for them all! I wish they could die and go to heaven. I wish I could, withpapa. But Madame Sternheim says—" she stopped abruptly and struggled for self-control, and spoke almost fiercely.
"I won't tell you what she says about my father, nor think about it. It isn't true, and if it were, she—"
Ruth felt a curious feeling of indignation rising against Mamie Parker. How could she have deserted this child? so soon, at least, after her bereavement? Surely she needed her more than the brother did, who had been alone for years! Then came a great gust of shame and shook her heart. Why should Mamie Parker, a stranger, be expected to show compassion for this lonely girl when her own family, her own mother—But that would not bear thinking about.
"Poor little girl!" she said again, with infinite tenderness. "Will you take me for a friend? I will do the best I can to be a true one."
"Oh, thank you," the child said impulsively. "I am so glad,so gladfor you! and only last night I thought I could never be glad about anything again! Aunt Mamie had to go, of course,at the time appointed. It isn't like other journeys, you know; they have to sail when they are told; missionaries do, I mean. That is,—oh, you understand. But Aunt Mamie felt very badly about leaving me; and she said she thought you would love me; but of course I couldn't see why you should. It isn't that I am not cared for, Mrs. Burnham. I have been with Madame Sternheim for six years and I am sure that I have every care and attention that a girl possibly could; she has always made that plain to me; but—She did not like papa, Mrs. Burnham. She never did; and she—almost spoke against him, even to me! Could a girl ever care very much for one who talked and felt as she did about the dearest, kindest, most loving papa that ever lived? oh!"
She clenched her hands, and the tears threatened to choke her; but she put them back with a strong will, and even faintly smiled.
"I shall not cry again," she said. "Madame thinks it is wicked. Mrs. Burnham, I wish you could have known my papa. He was—I mean he was not—oh, I don't know how to say it; and I am not sure that I want to say it, ever.He was good to me always; a girl like me couldn't have had a better father; and I don't know how to live in this world without him. It kills me to have to stay all the time among people who say always; 'Your poor father!' and shake their heads and look as though they could say volumes of ugly things about him if they chose. They shall not! I will not have people talking about my father! the dearest, the best! a great deal better than the self-righteous creatures made of icicles that they admire!"
Ruth was amazed at the suppressed fury of her tones, and at her eyes which, but a moment before dim with weeping, now blazed with indignation. Evidently the child had passed through a severe mental strain.
"Don't, dear," she said gently. "No one could be so cruel as to want to speak against your father. I am glad you love him so dearly; he can always help you. You will not want to disappoint him in any way, you know."
The girl looked at her searchingly as one startled. This was evidently a new thought; it took hold of her heart. A softened light came into her unusually expressive eyes and after a moment she said very gently:—
"No one ever said anything to me like that, before. It helps."
They made great strides toward intimacy even in that first morning. So great that when Ruth, pitying the girl's loneliness and evident dread of the people by whom she was surrounded, proposed that she send for her to come and take dinner with Mrs. Roberts and herself, she caught at the suggestion with an eagerness which showed what a relief it was to her; and then almost immediately demurred.
"But I ought not to presume in that way. I am certain the Madame will think so. Will not your friend think it very strange in me, a stranger, to intrude upon her home?"
"Wait until you see her," Ruth said, smiling. "Mrs. Roberts and I are very old friends, and I am almost as much at home in her house as I am in my own."
As she spoke, she felt a sudden stricture at her heart over those commonplace words. Was she not in these later days almost more at home in Flossy's house than in her own?
But Maybelle's face had gloomed over.
"I think I must not go, Mrs. Burnham,"she said. "I suppose I ought not to wish, or even be willing to go; I am sure Madame Sternheim will be shocked at the idea. I am in deep mourning, you know, and my loss is so recent."
Unconsciously the child had imitated the prim decorum of her Mentor, and it had changed her entire face.
Ruth leaned forward impulsively and kissed her, while she spoke with a smile:—
"Dear child, be yourself, and not Madame Sternheim. Adopt me, will you, and let me attend to the decorum part, and all the rest. Mrs. Roberts is quite alone, save for me; her husband is away on a business trip, and her children have scattered for the vacation; so we shall be very quiet, we three; and there is no reason in the world why you should not come to us. I want you to know Mrs. Roberts; she is anxious to see you, and would have come with me this morning, if she had not thought it better that you and I should make each other's acquaintance first. As for you, you will love her the first time you look at her. Shall I speak to Madame Sternheim myself about it?"
When this was done, Madame Sternheim wasdiscovered to be graciousness itself. She might be doubtful as to Mrs. Burnham's place in the world, her knowledge of people being limited and very local, but the name of Mrs. Evan Roberts called for instant approval, and to know that Mrs. Burnham was her friend and guest was sufficient passport for her. It was very kind and thoughtful in dear Mrs. Roberts, she was sure, to send for the poor child; and very like her too, if all that the Madame had heard concerning her was true. Did Mrs. Burnham know that her friend had the name of always doing the most delicate kindnesses that no one else would have thought of? She was really a wonderful woman? Madame Sternheim had long wanted to know her. They need not trouble to send the dear child home, she herself was going out this evening, and would have pleasure in calling for Miss Somerville at ten o'clock.
"Isn't it beautiful here?" Maybelle said, a few hours later, as she sank among the cushions of a "Sleepy Hollow" and feasted her beauty-loving eyes on the harmonies of Mrs. Roberts's living-room. "It is like a poem, or no, a picture; that is what it is like, Mrs. Burnham; oneof papa's pictures. How he would have loved this room! He was always making sketches of sweet, dear, home rooms, and there was always a beautiful mother in them with a baby in her arms. I think my mother must have been very beautiful, for it was always the same face, and I know it was intended for mamma, though he never told me so; I could not talk with papa about her, ever, it made him cry. Don't you think it is dreadful to see a man cry? When I started the tears in his dear blue eyes, I always felt like a wretch! and for that reason I gave up trying to say anything about mamma, though I should so love to have heard every little thing about her. Papa must simply have adored her, but I have had to dream her out for myself. I have spent hours and hours over it, studying papa's sketches, you know, and trying to clothe them with flesh. I believe I know just how she looked. Sometimes she would grow so real to me that I almost expected her to hold out her arms and clasp me to them. I was a wee baby, you know, when mamma went away."