CHAPTER XIIOH, WILL I BE WELCOME?
There was a late luncheon and then the Major returned to his wife’s sitting room where Aunt Kate was keeping her company with some exquisite needlework for her darling, Zay, who had insisted upon being left alone.
“I have a curious story to read to you that concerns us all. I am glad to have you here, Kate, as a sort of ballast. It was what excited me so this morning and I was very unreasonable. The doctor threatened to put me in a straight jacket.”
Aunt Kate laughed. Mrs. Crawford studied her husband intently.
“Oh, go on with your work. I shall feel more composed.” He turned his chair a little, ostensibly for the light, but so that his wife might not watch his face.
He began with Mrs. Boyd’s list of misfortunes after her few years of happiness and her resolve to go out to her brother’s. At times he stumbled over the poor penmanship and halted.
“Why, it must have been the train I was on,” interrupted Mrs. Crawford. “I rememberthere was a woman with a delicate looking child. I believe ours were the only two babies. Oh, if I had not taken my little darling! But she was so well and strong, such a fine happy baby, and nurse Jane was so good.”
Mrs. Boyd had hurried briefly over the terrible collision.
“Everett,” interrupted his sister with an indignant emphasis, “why recall that awful happening. It can do us no good now.”
Mrs. Crawford leaned her head on her hand and balanced her elbow on the broad arm of the chair.
The Major’s voice shook slightly. Mrs. Boyd had been quite graphic about her calling for the baby, her care of it from midnight to the next morning and settling her mind to what the woman had said; her resolve to keep the child when she heard the other mother had been killed. She sprang up suddenly.
“Oh, it was nurse Jane who was killed. And she took my baby, my darling. Oh, who was she? Can we ever find her?”
Then she fainted and her husband caught her in his arms.
“Oh, you have killed her!” cried Miss Crawford. “How could you recount that awful time of suffering, and that the womanshould steal the baby! Oh, that was just it, there’s no use mincing matters!”
It was some minutes before Mrs. Crawford regained consciousness, then she gazed imploringly in her husband’s face.
“Oh, tell me—where is my darling? Is she really alive. Can we find her?”
“She has been found. She is well and in good hands. Oh, my dear wife, I felt vengeful at first, but I have come to pity the poor thing. Marguerite pleaded for her. And we must be thankful that she had the courage to confess the matter.”
“Then—you have seen her?”
The voice was shaken with emotion.
“She is at Mrs. Barrington’s.”
“Oh, can’t we go to her? My dear baby, my darling Marguerite! Why, it is almost as if she had been sent from heaven.”
“My dear—” her husband caught her in his arms or she would have fallen in her eagerness. “Oh, it will all come right, but you must be patient and get stronger. There are reasons why she cannot come, or you cannot go, and you must hear the rest of the story.”
“Everett,” began his sister, “how do youknowbut that this is a scheme to extort money. How can you be sure it is your child?There are so many swindlers or blackmailers in the world.”
He was arranging his wife on the couch, thankful she had borne the tidings so well. Then he seated himself beside her, bending over to kiss the pallid lips.
“There can scarcely be any chance for fraud. No one would profit by it, and now, shall I go on with the story?”
They both acquiesced.
There was something so pathetic in the fostermother’s love for the child and her fear of its being cast on the world as no one seemed to know anything about the supposed mother. Then her return to her early home; her struggles against misfortune, poverty and ill health, and after a little, her dismay at finding the child so different from what she had been herself, so ambitious, so longing for refinement and showing such a distaste for common ways. The failure of her own health, the impossibility of keeping the girl at school any longer when Mrs. Barrington’s proffer had seemed a perfect godsend. But it was too late to recover the health that had been so shattered by poverty and hard work.
“Well, if itistrue she was a courageous woman,” declared Miss Crawford. “Onecan’t forgive her for taking the child without making a single inquiry.”
“But everything was in such confusion, and you will remember that Marguerite lay unconscious for a long while, just hovering between life and death. And at that time, in the western countries there were not so many safeguards. When Dr. Kendricks reached the place, Jane and the baby had been temporarily buried. Yes, it was easy for the thing to happen when Mrs. Boyd wanted the baby so much. I can hardly forgive her, but we must admit that the confession showed an earnest desire to repair the wrong.”
“Where is she?”
“At Mrs. Barrington’s. Dr. Kendricks thinks she can last but a few days longer and the child is resolved to stay until the end. I tried to shake her determination but found it useless.”
“I admire her for it,” said Mrs. Crawford.
“I should doubt her fervent love if it could be transferred so easily from poverty to wealth. Yes, I am proud of my dear daughter whom I have not seen in fifteen years. But the whole story is marvellous.”
“And yet there is nothing impossible aboutit. We can see how simply it all happened.”
“What is she like?”
“Mrs. Barrington was quite puzzled about a resemblance to some one, and she thinks it you. She has not the radiant beauty of your girlhood, neither has she the dazzling charm of Zay. Oh, I think she is the most like Willard; rather too grand for a girl of sixteen, with a great deal of dignity. Oh, you should hear Mrs. Barrington talk about her. And how do you suppose she and the doctor kept the secret yesterday! They knew it would disturb our happy Christmas. Andshewas nursing the sick woman.”
“Oh, did she know?”
“Not that she was our daughter until this morning. I felt bewildered over it all,” and Major Crawford gave a deep drawn sigh.
His wife pressed his hand. Her tears were flowing silently.
“Well—it will be very strange to have her here,” remarked Miss Crawford. “But I warn you, Zay will always be the dearest to me.”
Twilight was falling around them. Mrs. Crawford would never have her own lights early. This was her favorite hour with her husband. Aunt Kate stole softly to Zay’sroom and found her sleeping tranquilly, the fever mostly gone.
“Oh, I wonder how you will take it,” she mused. “You have been the darling of the household so long.”
For somehow, she was not in a mood to welcome this newcomer. True, there must be the strongest proof or Major Crawford would not have been convinced or allowed himself to get in such a passion with this Mrs. Boyd. But a girl reared amid the commonest surroundings, enduring the straits of poverty, lack of education, no accomplishments, how could she take her place in the front rank of Mount Morris society? And the boys—how would they accept this rusticity and probably self conceit?
Major Crawford and his wife often fell into tender and mysterious confidences at this hour, that were never shared with others. They were very happy in her recovery though the last two years she had suffered very little. But she did not want to depute the care of her daughter growing into womanhood entirely to Aunt Kate who had many worldly aims and prejudices, and who was very proud of her niece’s beauty. And now such a load was lifted from her soul that hadnever quite forgiven itself for taking her finest baby on the unfortunate journey.
“Oh, I must see her,” she cried in a whisper.
“But she will not come here until all is over with that poor woman. I do not see how she can care so much for her.”
“My dear, it shows a true and strong regard. Remember it is the only mother she has ever known. To turn at once would show a volatile disposition. I have been afraid of that in Zaidee, who is easily taken with new friends, though I will admit that she does not discard the old ones. But I wish sometimes other people were not so easily attracted by her.”
“But she is charming,” said the admiring father.
“I hope they will love each other. We must expect a little jealousy at first. And you think she is not—that her narrow life has not dwarfed her.”
“Oh, you should listen to Mrs. Barrington’s enthusiasm. You see, it was not an easy place to fill, after all. She was in some of the classes, but she held herself aloof. Then she taught a little among the younger day scholars, and kept a certain supervision in the evening study hour. Her mother’s position was a sort of handicap, she was so very meek andretiring. All women cannot add dignity to an inferior position, and young people are very apt to take them according to the position. Mrs. Barrington was planning some changes for the new term that would be brought about by the passing away of the poor woman. I think she meant, in a way, to adopt her.”
“Oh, she must be worthy, to have made such a friend.”
And the mother was wondering, but dared not ask what Marguerite had grown into. She was not like Zay, all the coloring was darker. Willard was fine looking for a young man, but would it not be rather masculine for a girl? She had a fancy for the soft attractiveness in a woman.
Then the light came and dinner. Mrs. Crawford went to Zay’s room afterward and found her comfortable and better, with no recurrence of fever, and they had a pleasant little chat.
The next morning a letter came from Phillipa, full of merry nonsense about gifts and gayety and lovers. She was very well, with the very underscored, and two engagements for every evening. She had not heard from Louie, “but I should have if her littlefinger had ached; she would have been afraid of some distemper. And I hope you are all having a splendid time.”
Afterward Dr. Kendricks came in. Yes, she was better, the throat was all right; there was a slight remnant of the cold, and it would be best to be careful for a few days. Oh, yes, she could dress herself and go about the house, but not out driving.
“You danced a little too much Christmas night, though for the life of me I don’t see what you were so nervous about.”
She flushed and laughed and felt that she had escaped a great danger.
Then he and the Major set out together, meeting Mr. Ledwith at the school. The doctor went upstairs. Lilian met him with anxious eyes.
“Yes, there has been a great change. She has gone more rapidly than I thought. Can she speak?”
“Hardly. Now and then a word. Yet she understands all that I say to her,” Lilian returned, gravely. “But she was quite restless during the night.”
He nodded. “You see, my dear Miss Boyd—you will be that until you take your new name, the confession has no signature. It mightnever be called in question but sometimes, years afterward, in the various changes of property, it might be necessary to establish a legal identity. Can you make her understand this? And you can attest most of her story. I will call up Mr. Ledwith. And your father is most desirous of being present. He will make no trouble.”
She went out in the hall to meet him.
“My dear,” he said, “I am more reasonable than I was yesterday. Your lovely mother has placed some views in a different light, and she is most glad that you have never lacked for a fervent love and care. And we both forgive her.”
“Oh, thank you for that. Though Mrs. Barrington advises that she had better not be told of the discovery. You see she is so tranquil now, knowing that I am provided for.”
Then they entered the room. Mrs. Boyd scarcely noticed them, but her eyes questioned Lilian, who began to explain, holding the poor hand in hers. Mrs. Boyd seemed confused at first, then she said with some difficulty—“Yes, yes.”
Lilian and Miss Arran pillowed her up in a sitting posture and placed the material on a portable desk.
“It is just to sign your name.”
She seemed to listen as Mr. Ledwith read the affadavit, and nodded, with her eyes on Lilian, who put the pen in her hand, but she could not clasp it.
“I think you will have to guide it. She does not understand.”
Lilian took the poor shaking hand in hers, and the sick woman looked up into her face and smiled.
It was written, but even Lilian’s hand shook a little. “Emma Eliza Boyd.”
“That is all, dear,” said the girl.
She made a great effort to articulate, and her eyes had a frightened look in them. “You—will not—go?”
“Oh, no, no,” returned Lilian, with a kiss.
“Tired—tired,” she gasped.
They laid her down and gave her a spoonful of stimulant but she only swallowed a little of it.
The others left the room. Dr. Kendricks shook his head slowly. Mr. Ledwith gave the last page of the confession to Major Crawford. Lilian sat on the side of the bed, chafing the cool hands that had grown more helpless since yesterday, and presently Mrs. Boyd slept, but one could hardly note the breathing.
Mrs. Barrington looked in and beckoned to Lilian.
“Your own mother is here,” she said softly. “And I feel like putting in another claim, but I cannot displace the rightful one. You will find her in the library.”
Lilian went slowly down. The beautiful woman she had seen in church, the woman who had lain like dead when Mrs. Boyd glanced upon her, the mother who had missed her all these years! The tall figure rose with the softness of a cloud longing to embrace the moon, with arms outstretched, and the child went to them in the caress of divine satisfaction. For this was the mother of her dreams and ideals, and their souls were as one.
They kissed away each other’s tears.
“I felt that Imustcome, that Imustsee you. But I am not going to take you away, much as I long for you, since you have a sacred duty here. When that is finished we will begin our lives together. At first, your father was mad with jealousy thatsheshould have dared to love you so much, but now he is glad as I am that you did not suffer from coldness or indifference. That would have broken my heart.”
“And I am afraid I did not always return love for love. I was always dreaming, desiring something I had not. She worked for me allthose early years. I had resolved as soon as was possible to be her caretaker, to put in her life the things she desired, whether they pleased me or not. It did not take much to make her happy.”
“And no man can understand the longing of a woman’s soul when her child has been torn from her arms. Poor empty arms, that no prayer can fill. And this was why she snatched at the baby, believing it was motherless. Yes, I forgave her and so did he when he came to look at it in the true light. Some women, when times pressed hard in work and poverty, would have placed you in an institution——”
“Oh, I think she would have starved first!” interrupted the girl, vehemently.
“And now, if God grants it, we may have a long, satisfying life together. For He has given me back my health like a miracle, as we had thought it could never be, and were quite resigned. And now He has restored all that we missed, given us the oil of joy for mourning. Oh, child, let me look at you. As a baby you were so different from Zaidee, it hardly seemed as if you could be twins; and you are taller, yes, you are more like Willard. But you have my eyes, and I never was fairy-like.Oh, I hope you girls will love each other, and I want you to love me with all your heart to make up for those years that have fallen out of our lives.”
The exquisitely soft, silvery laugh was music to the girl’s heart. Yes, this was the ideal mother. Was there some secret quality in heredity, after all?
They talked on and on. She wanted to hear more particulars of her daughter’s life, but Lilian softened some of the roughest places, the fights she had had with herself, when she felt she must give up her cherished school, the pleasure of coming to an atmosphere like this, the warm interest of Mrs. Barrington.
“And now I must leave you,” said the mother, “but I take with me a delightful hope. When your duty is done here, and I appreciate your doing it, you will find your true home in my heart and my home. Oh, I think you will never be able to understand all my joy.”
She rose and wiped away her tears. Yes, she was beautiful enough to adore. Her own mother! It thrilled every pulse.
“Oh, my dear, let us both thank God for this restoration. It is like a heavenly dream. I must have time to get used to it.”
Lilian watched her as she stepped into the phæton, with its handsome bays and the silver mountings. And Zaidee could have every wish gratified; friends, music, travel. It was there for her, also. She had never dreamed of that.
CHAPTER XIIIA MOTHER’S LOVE
Mrs. Boyd had not stirred. Lilian bent over her and found the breathing very faint. Miss Arran sat by the window and merely glanced up. The girl buried her face in the pillow and heard again the soft, finely modulated voice, the clasp of the hand that meant so much, the promise for tomorrow.
“If they were not so rich,” her musings ran, “If I could do something for her. Oh, it seems too much. If we could go away—but to face all the girls, to hear the comments.”
“Miss Boyd, can you spare me a few moments,” said Mrs. Dane. “Mrs. Arran will watch.”
Lilian followed to Mrs. Dane’s room.
“Miss Boyd, I have an apology to make to you, and I am honest enough to confess it. I can’t just tell why, but I did take a dislike to you and your mother. She seemed very weak and as if she was afraid a baleful secret might come to light, and you were the master mind holding some curious power over her.”
“Oh, it was not that,” cried Lilian, eagerly. “It was because in her simple life she had not been accustomed to the usages that obtained in the larger world. Often I did guide her a little. She was very timid.”
“And it seemed to me—of course I understand it now, that you held your head quite too high for your mother’s daughter. I was brought up to do my duty in that station of life to which it should please God to call me, and not try to get out of it. You seemed above it—somehow——”
“Oh, did I act that way? I was only trying to domyduty to the classes and to Mrs. Barrington. I did not mean to seem above my station,” and there was sob in her voice.
“My dear, don’t cry. My apology would not be worth half so much if I held back part of the price. I think I was a little jealous of Mrs. Barrington’s favor for you, as I had a curious suspicion that something not quite orthodox might come out about you, that you really were not her child. You see I was not so far out of the way after all, and that evening I accused you of having gone to the Clairvoyants—we had just heard the death was from malignant scarlet fever. It would have ruined the school for a long while to haveit break out here, you know. If the person had come out in the open so that I could have seen, but her darting back, and I think there was more than one. It seems even now as if it did look like you, but it might have been because it was like the Tam you wore. And you appeared so embarrassed over it.”
“Oh, could you believe that I would have told such a falsehood?” she cried, hurt to the very quick.
“We thought it best to take precautions. Then Mrs. Boyd had her stroke and then came her confession and all that has happened since. Your devotion to that poor woman was enough to stamp the nobleness of your character, and it is not because you are Major Crawford’s daughter that I say this—that I am ashamed of my prejudices and beg you to forgive me. Mrs. Barrington was right from the beginning and you are worthy of the best of fortune.”
“Oh, Mrs. Dane—” and her voice broke.
“I should have felt myself contemptible if I had not made this amends, and now if you will shake hands with me——”
“Gladly. And I thank you for the kindliness towards my—yes, shewasmy mother all these years and the sympathy you showedme even before it was proved who my real father was.”
“And I wish you much joy and happiness, which you will surely have. And you will be fitted to grace any position. You will have one of the loveliest of women for a mother, and two brothers who, so far, have been most exemplary. And that darling, Zay—the whole town loves her.”
Lilian wiped her eyes, and pressed Mrs. Dane’s hand fervently. Would Zay proffer her a sister’s love?
She went back to Mrs. Boyd, who suddenly opened her eyes and smiled, then the thin lids fell. How she had wasted away! She tried to recount to herself all the kindnesses, the sacrifices Mrs. Boyd had made. And though the boarding house had been of the commonest sort there had never seemed any real pinches. She had even saved up money. It was the long illness and the changes incident to it that had not only reduced their little store, but broken her health and made her fearful of the future. She had taken up the sewing then. Four years there had been of that. Lilian remembered how proud she had been to enter the High School among the best scholars.
And some day she would teach. It was sucha delightful vision. She studied other things beside the ordinary lessons. She loved to play and at times when she had turned her brain almost upside down she ran out and had a game of tag with the girls.
There were other evenings when she overcast long seams and pulled bastings, and the last year she had learned to sew on the machine. With scanty living and steady work, her mother had dropped down and down. But she was glad she had offered to go in the shop. When matters were a little easier she might try night school she had thought.
And this beautiful school was like an entrance into a land of romance. The luxurious living, at least it seemed so to her, would soon restore her mother’s health. The duties were light. She had time for reading and oh, the lovely things! She did at times wish there had been some other position for her mother, like that of Miss Arran’s. But she understood that Mrs. Boyd could not fill that. She lacked something, she had no real dignity, no self-assertion. She allowed the girls to order her, and Lilian wondered how these rich girls, who in some respects had polished manners, could be so ill bred. For somehow she understood the difference.
There were several with whom she might have been good friends, but she was too proud to step outside of what she considered her real station.
And now this wonderful event had come to her and she seemed to understand the thoughts and feelings that had been such a mystery. When she had been clasped to her true mother’s heart, it appeared to her as if a veil had been drawn aside, and she had stepped into a larger room, replete with all she had vaguely dreamed about. That Crawford House was one of the fine old places, she knew, but she never thought of that luxurious living where all the tomorrows had been provided for. She would have gone to the simplest cottage for that mother’s love.
Would Zaidee Crawford give her a sister’s warm welcome? She would never grudge her anything money could buy; but she, Lilian, must seem like an interloper to them. And to share her mother’s love with a stranger!
Miss Arran entered the room.
“You ought to go to bed, Miss Boyd. I will sit here and watch. Your mother seems asleep.”
Lilian changed her dress for a comfortable wrapper, kissed her mother’s forehead andpressed the cold hands. She did not stir; but then she had lain this way for hours at a time. The girl drew up her cot to the side of her mother’s bed and laid down. The clocks all about were striking midnight.
It had not been so tranquil at Crawford House. Dinner had been rather quiet; no one seemingly to want to talk at any length. Afterward, Major Crawford had said—
“Let us all go up to mother’s room. I have a singular explanation to make to you two children. Aunt Kate has known it these two days.”
“There has seemed something mysterious in the air,” exclaimed Willard, “only I am sure nothing worse has happened to mother. She looks so extraordinarily happy, and Zay is about again.”
“We must go back to the time of the accident,” began the Major. “We thought we had overlived the sorrow and we had never expected any joy for the outcome.”
He paused to steady his voice, then began the story of the other woman, the only passenger who carried an infant, her hours of unconsciousness, her hearing the cry of the child and claiming it and then learning that the woman she believed its mother had beenkilled and full of pity for it, since her own had been mangled and carried away, resolved to take it and care for it. She left the next day—
“Oh, you don’t mean she took our baby,” cried Willard passionately, his eyes aflame.
“She took our baby. She has cared for it all these years through poverty and failing health and now that she is dying, she thought the child ought to know. They have been at Mrs. Barrington’s since some time in August.”
Zaidee sprang up, but her face was ghostly pale and there was a tremulous protest in her voice.
“Oh, it is that Mrs. Boyd, the caretaker and her daughter!” she exclaimed, drawing a long strangling breath full of protest.
“Our daughter,” said her father with emphasis. Then he went on to relate how the matter had been brought to his notice and his unreasonable anger at first as he could not doubt the story vouched for by Doctor Kendricks, his interview with the child and Mrs. Barrington, Mrs. Crawford’s visit to her yesterday.
“What a wonderful story!” Willard sprangup and began to pace the floor. “I suppose itistrue. That baby couldn’t have died and she adopted another one.”
“How do we know that she did not?” said Miss Crawford, protestingly.
“She was anxious that the girl in some manner might find her father’s people. You see, she was sure the mother was dead. Oh, there is enough to convince you all. Dr. Kendricks and Mr. Ledwith have no doubt of the truth of her story. There is no scheme in it. And it was thought best, in her weakened state, not to try any explanations.”
“It was nurse Jane who died, and the dead baby was buried with her. Ah, one glance at the girl would convince you,” said the mother in the tenderest voice.
“But—why didn’t she come here at once?”
“She was very noble about it. And this is another factor in the story. She would not leave the mother who had worked and toiled for her; so you see she was not tempted by the thought of advancement. She was afraid to believe the outcome of the story at first. Oh, I am proud of her, though at first I was really cruel. I wanted the woman punished.”
“After all,” said Willard, “if the baby had been friendless and an orphan it would have been very noble in her.”
“You shall read her confession some day. It is pathetic. She thought she had lost her all and clung to the baby. Oh, we must all forgive her.”
“And what do you mean to do?” asked Miss Crawford. “It is going to make a great stir for it cannot be kept a secret, and I hate gossip about families.”
“Yes, the thing must be explained. I have given what of the story I want known to a reporter this afternoon. After the poor woman has gone, Marguerite will come here to her true home and life.”
“Why, Zay, you must have known her at the school,” said Willard. “It seems she was studying——”
“Oh, they are all on the other side away from the boarders. She was in the study room an hour in the evening, with the smaller girls. We were all at a different table that we had to ourselves. And—somehow, I never saw much of her. I didn’t have to go to Mrs. Boyd for my mending.”
Aunt Kate had put her arm about Zay at the beginning of the story. The mother noted with a pang that there was no real welcome in this daughter’s face. Was it jealousy?
Willard stood between his parents and laid a hand on the shoulder of each.
“Oh,” in a voice freighted with emotion. “I can’t tell you how glad and thankful I am that this sorrow of years is to be turned into such a great all-pervading joy. We will be a perfect family again. Why, it will be the romance of our lives! It almost makes me wish I were not going away. And since you have seen her and are satisfied—mother——”
He stooped to kiss her.
“Oh,” she returned, brokenly, “I want you all to love her, and be patient with Zay. She has always been first so long.”
“I think if I was a girl I’d be wild to have a sister to tell things to—the little things a fellow tells his sweetheart, I suppose, when he has one,” laughing. “Vin and I discuss our gettings along and our hopes and some funny scrapes that boys get into. But girls look at the romantic side. And you can’t think—butI’mproud of this romance. Why, it will be something to tell over to our children, and father’s been a trump, but I think it’s a good deal owing to you. Oh, I hopesheis like you.”
The mother smiled as she kissed him.
Zay came to say good-night. Her face had grave lines that were not wont to be there.
“Oh, my darling,” the mother said, “this is one of the things that cannot make anydifference in our love for you. And if you could only understand the burthen it had lifted off my soul. A hundred times I have said: ‘Oh, why did I take baby Marguerite on that journey?’ She was so strong and well and I was so proud of her, I wanted your father to see her.”
“And you will be proud of her again. She is going to be a fine scholar, and I’m just pretty to look at, that’s all! I can’t make myself love anyone all in a moment,” and she gave a little sob.
“My child, the love will come if you do not steel your heart against it. Think, Zay, a twin sister——”
“But she is larger, different and a sort of story heroine. Everyone will be interested in her and I shall be pushed quite to the wall.”
“Oh, Zay, you are a foolish little girl. But you have had all the admiration and love, and we must wait patiently until you understand that love can never be impoverished by giving. Think of this, pray for a generous heart, and let her love you.”
Aunt Kate was waiting in her room. And Zay’s overcharged heart gave way to a passion of weeping on the friendly bosom.
“Dear, I know how hard it is to be crowdedout. Of course everyone will flock around her for a while and never having had much admiration she will be the more eager for it. And as will be perfectly natural when the first interest is worn off, the real grain will be apparent and I dare say she will show her common breeding. Why, this Mrs. Boyd had next to no education. I shouldn’t want anyone to see that so-called confession, but I dare say your father will keep it close enough, for he would be ashamed to have any one see it. I’m sorry the story had to get abroad, but your father thought there would be so many surmises, and perhaps, exaggerations. It’s a horrid thing to live through, but your mother is so much happier. Why, she seemed ten years younger. And you will always have a staunch friend in me. No one can oust you from my heart if she had all the gifts of the nine graces. Oh, you will come back to your rightful place, never fear.”
But Zay wept herself to sleep with an ache in her heart that crowded out all tender feelings.
After a long while Lilian Boyd fell asleep and there came no disturbance. Just at daylight Miss Arran leaned over the bed and touched the cold face, felt for the heart.There was not the faintest motion. There had not been a sound or a sigh, she had just lapsed into her dreamless sleep. She summoned Mrs. Dane.
“It is much better so. There will be nothing painful to remember,” said that lady.
“Mother, mother!” and Lilian roused suddenly.
“My dear,” said Miss Arran, “she has gone to her rest in the most peaceful manner. The doctor said it might be so, and you have done your full duty. My dear, you can go to your own mother’s arms with the clearest conscience. I am glad, we are all glad that you elected to stay, though your father, in his first indignation, would have swept you away. I hardly see how you won your way. Come to Mrs. Dane’s room and have a cup of coffee.”
She gave one long look at the still face. Oh, how thin and worn it was, yet there was a certain peacefulness that comforted the girl. Mrs. Harrington came in and kissed her tenderly. “It is all as we would have it,” she said. “And whatever mistake Mrs. Boyd might have made must be balanced by the thought that if there had been no one, as she believed, she would have taken you to her heart just as gladly, done for you with the same cheerfulness.This is what she did; you must always keep it in mind. And now—can you help make some arrangements? Whatever money is needed——”
“Oh, Mrs. Barrington, I think there will be enough. She still had some of her insurance money that she had used only in emergencies. And we have needed so little here. Oh, you have all been so kind,” in her grateful, broken voice.
Then Dr. Kendricks was announced.
“I supposed it would be that way,” he said.
“Shall I make arrangements for the funeral. There is no one, I suppose——”
“It is too far away from her old friends for any of them to come, and I am sure Lilian would like it as simple and quiet as possible. I should say tomorrow morning. No one will go out of curiosity.”
“Then I will see about it at once. The Major is all impatience to have his daughter.”
“You must come and share my room,” Mrs. Barrington said to Lilian.
“Oh, she really doesn’t seem any different to me,” the girl returned. “She has slept so much the last few days, and it is what we have expected. God has taken her in His keeping and she will have those belonging to her. It is a blessed thought.”
She sat reading by the window when the Crawford phæton drove up. Her first feeling was that she could not meet her father. But a young man sprang out and the coachman took charge of the horses.
“It is your brother,” announced Mrs. Barrington. “Oh, do try and see him. Your mother wishes it so much.”
Lilian went down and was clasped to her mother’s heart and held there many seconds.
“This is your brother Willard, who is soon to leave for Washington and he begged so much to see a little of you. His will be a three years’ cruise, and I am doubly glad to have found another child in view of his long absence.”
Lilian glanced up. It was such a frank, kindly face, too young yet for any of his father’s sternness.
“Oh, my dear, I wonder if you will ever understand how precious you are going to be to us all. It is like one raised from the dead. I shall go away with a lighter heart, seeing that mother and father have you. We boys have been so much to the house with our stirring interests; now it will be you and Zaidee. I shall think of you so often. Why, I can readily believe any fairy story, and it almost breaksfather’s heart that you have been so near all these months and none of us known it. You will not feel hurt if he sometimes should show a little—” he paused with a flush. “For after all it might have been her child who was saved——” and she felt the shiver go over him.
“And to know that you were loved all these years,” said the mother holding out her arms, and both children went to them. “And that you never really suffered for anything. Sometimes I hardly dare believe in and accept this great blessing.”
“Oh, I hope I will prove a blessing,” Lilian said, with a great tremble in her voice. “You are so good to take me in, to love and trust me, knowing so little about me.”
For of late she had been learning how much children could be to parents.
“But I think Mrs. Barrington had opportunities of knowing,” returned her mother with a warm pressure, and fond smile.
Willard had been studying her. “There’s something about her like you, mother, and something that recalls Vincent. Oh, won’t he be surprised! He will want to fly home again. Oh, you will not mind if Zaidee carries off the family beauty. She is such a dear!And we ought to have one star of the goodly Crawford family.”
“I am glad, and I thought her lovely at the first glance. Why, the girls are quite wild about her. I shall not mind anything so long as you all love me. Oh, I will try to deserve it.”
There were tears in her eyes and her mother kissed her tenderly. Then they talked about her coming home which could not be until her whole duty was performed and there was no omission to think of.
Yet they went lingeringly, loth to leave her.
“She has a great deal of character;” said Willard. “She seems more mature than Zay. I am glad they are not alike, though it seems rather out of the order for twins. Oh, mother, I can foresee that she will be a great deal toyouin a womanly way. We can never thank God enough for her.”
“And all these years, amid the suffering, I have always thought if I had left my darling at home. I was so proud of her I wanted your father to see her. Zaidee was not such a fine looking baby. We had both so ardently desired a daughter; indeed we had often said two boys and two girls was an ideal family.”
“And I wouldn’t give up Vin—boys have adelightful interest in each others’ lives and doings. I suppose sisters feel the same way. That is—well, it will be a little strange at first. Zay has been our queen so long, and it can’t be quite like living together from infancy.”
“No. So we must make allowance for both of them until they reach the true level of birthright. Marguerite is very proud and has unusually well defined ideas of duty, while we have never put anything but love before Zay. I expect we have spoiled her.”
Mount Morris was startled in the midst of its Christmas festivities by the remarkable announcement that Marguerite, the twin baby of Major and Mrs. Crawford, had been miraculously saved from the wreck, where the nurse and several others had perished. Another passenger whose baby had been killed, thinking the nurse was the true mother of the child, had taken it to her heart out of pity for the helpless little creature, and gone farther westward before real inquiries could be made as to whether there were any relatives living.
Mrs. Crawford had insisted upon softening what her husband had considered a crime on the part of Mrs. Boyd.
“Think how she must have loved the little creature she thought friendless, to burden herself with it. And I am so thankfulmybaby found loving care. Why, she might have perished with neglect through that dreadful time. We can do nothing for her and we will not, must not, traduce her motives, when they were prompted by an overwhelming love.”
So it was represented that Mrs. Boyd had taken the position at Mrs. Barrington’s that her adopted child might be better educated as her own health was failing, which after all was the truth, though Lilian’s pleading had been a special factor.
The poor woman’s burial had been quiet, in the early morning. Mrs. Barrington and Miss Arran had gone with Lilian whose great regret had been that there was not sufficient money to send her to Laconia to sleep beside her husband and her little son, but she gave thanks that there was no need of benevolence though Mrs. Barrington had insisted she should supply any need.
She had begged that she might be left at the school over Sunday, and Mrs. Crawford found herself so shaken by all the excitement that she assented the more readily. Zaideewas quite well again and laughed at herself for having been so easily alarmed. There had been no cases of illness in the town and the clairvoyant had taken her family to a city at some distance.
“It really would be the part of wisdom to go to the city if you felt well enough,” Aunt Kate said to her sister-in-law. “Of course there will be a good deal of talk, and it is but natural that our friends should desire to see the new daughter of the house. It is a most excellent thing that Dr. Kendricks has been mixed up with it all and can vouch for the truth. And the child might get some training to fit her for her new position.”
“Mrs. Barrington has had her in training for some time, and from the very first was attracted by her natural grace and dignity; and her strength of character,” was the reply, “and her father found resemblances to me in the first interview!”
“But the years before would naturally leave some impress. Mrs. Boyd, it seems, had not much education, and they must have lived in the commoner streets with all kinds of people. I feel something as brother does, that I can hardly forgive her for robbing thechild of her natural birthright and subjecting her to plebian surroundings.”
Mrs. Crawford winced and flushed a little. Her last remembrance of the smiling, cooing baby, bright eyed and full of health and sweetness, never faded from her mind, and she fancied now she should have the same instinctive impressions that had puzzled Mrs. Barrington. Aunt Kate might be rather captious at first, but she could pardon it and understand it as well, for she had been a most devoted mother to Zaidee.
Then, too, school would begin so soon and all these little breaks would bring about the finer claims of relationship.
No one went to church on Sunday. Mrs. Crawford was not quite up to the mark, and Aunt Kate declared she could not face the curious eyes or answer a question. The Major longed to go over to Mrs. Barrington’s but some feeling of delicacy restrained him.
Lilian had come home from the lonely burial like one in a strange dream. The brief illness, the excitement of the confession, the quiet passing out of existence had transpired so rapidly that she could hardly make it real. She almost expected to find Mrs.Boyd lying there on the bed when she entered the room. She felt that Mrs. Boyd had never taken root at Mount Morris; she smiled sadly thinking of Mrs. Dane’s suspicions that there was some secret between them, that she, Lilian, was afraid would come to light. But she had never in her wildest moments dreamed of the truth. Mrs. Boyd had all the limitation of a commonplace nature, sweet, devoted, with no lofty aspirations. The refinements of Barrington House wore upon her. She did try, for Lilian’s sake, to adapt herself to some of them but the effort was plainly visible to practiced eyes. If she had lived—but then the confession would hardly have been made. For, with all the unlikeness, Lilian had never suspected the truth.
Oh, why had not God given this poor starved life its rightful surroundings? If Mrs. Boyd had lived! If there had been a number of merry, satisfied children going cheerfully to work in shops and factories when school days were over, having lovers, marrying and repeating their mother’s life! For the world was full of ordinary happy people with no high ideals. Was there something in heredity?
No, she could not have been content with that destiny. She must have worked and striven for a higher round, for some intellectual advancement. Yet, how many of these girls at school really cared for it with all their advantages? It was not mere money that inspired one, and she almost wished she were not going in that upper atmosphere.