CHAPTER XLVI.THE MANIAC AND THE CHILD.
Meantime the mother and Catharine had exhausted themselves in searching for the child. Mutual anxiety had drawn them together, as months of common acquaintancecould not have done. When they returned to the house after midnight, in order to send the servants out to continue the search, they found the old people up, and in a state of painful excitement. Elsie, who had left them as they supposed, to go to her room, had mysteriously disappeared.
Here was a new source of alarm. Never before had Elsie been known to leave the house after dark. What could have led her forth? And where had she fled to?
Again they all sallied out, the old people and the two young women, followed by the servants; but all in vain. At daylight they returned home, weary and sorrowful, filled with dread that something fatal had happened to these helpless creatures, so loved and so strangely lost.
At daylight a new thought stole upon Catharine. The library! Elsie might have concealed herself there, or might even be crouching near the door in the passage. She started up, ran along the passage, and flung open the library-door.
There was Elsie, in the gray light of the morning, with one arm over the child, watching the pictures with her black, wakeful eyes, and with that triumphant smile still upon her lips. The red drapery, the beautiful head of the boy resting upon the cushions, and Elsie with those bright eyes and the iron-gray hair sweeping around her, formed a group that was more than picturesque.
Catharine uttered a joyful cry, that brought the stranger and the two old people into the passage. The venerable parents ceased to weep as they approached the room, but a pallor came upon their faces, and they drew close together, as persons oppressed with a cold atmosphere strive to impart warmth each to the other.
Elsie half arose, supporting herself with one hand pressed against the floor.
“See, father—see, mother, I have got him. The night-angellet him loose upon the moonbeams, then came to my room, whispering that he was alone searching for his mother and fleeing from one who was not his mother, but who had stolen the name and kept it, while we, who had his blood in our veins, were pining.
“I listened to the night-angel, for he is grand and true, though since I came here he has almost forsaken me. I listened to the night-angel, when he told me that a child of my blood was uttering cries for help in the open fields; that the forest-birds were scaring him with their hooting cries; and the woman who isnothis mother was searching for him.
“The window was open, the grass underneath soft and silvered with moonshine. I flung out the folds of my shawl and stepped forth upon the air, sinking downward, but holding out the red wings of my drapery as the angels do when they descend from heaven—but they would not hold me up, and I fell upon the grass, which bathed my face and hands with its silver dew. Still I heard the cry of my child afar off, and mocked by a miserable whippoorwill, that taunted his agonies of fear with long, mournful wails, that pained me to the soul. I have heard that whining bird before; he loves to mock at me and mine. Years ago he began it, years from now he will keep it up.
“My poor baby was there alone on the hillside, shrieking for me to come; I knew that the woman who is not his mother was after him heart and soul, as I was, the woman that is not his mother, who stands there!”
Here Elsie half started from the floor, and pointed her finger at the poor young widow, who began to tremble and turned white beneath the gleam of those wild black eyes.
“Go home!” continued Elsie, with a look of sudden affright; “he is mine, God gave him to me first, and when he was lost the night-angel brought him back to me. You are not his mother! It is my blood that reddens his cheek, my breath that heaves his bosom, my soul that looks throughhis eyes. Go home, the boy is mine,—mine, I tell you, mine!”
Elsie almost shrieked these words out, in her eagerness to drive the pale young widow away; and she bent over the child fiercely as an eagle broods over its young.
The widow drew timidly forward, with her eyes, full of crushed tears, bent upon the child.
“Go home!” commanded Elsie, in wrath. “Go home! You arenothis mother!”
“But I love him. He is mine. He never knew any mother but me,” pleaded the young woman, while the tears started in large drops from her eyes, and her hands clasped themselves as if eager to implore silence and mercy from the maniac.
“No,” answered Elsie, and her black eyes kindled with fiery light to their depths; “no, he is mine. When the blood reaches his heart, mine beats quicker; when it stops, I shall perish; he is my soul, lost years and years ago, which the night-angel has brought back. Go away, go away!”
The poor young woman looked around for some one to aid or comfort her. Catharine came forward.
“Yes,” she said, gently, “the night-angel knows that Elsie is the child’s mother; but he is so young and must be cared for. This is his nurse, who has taken charge of him for you. It is she who told the night-angel when he was ready to come back.”
“Oh! are you sure?” questioned Elsie. “She does not claim to be his mother?”
“No, only his mamma. You don’t mind what he calls her, if it is not mother.”
“You are sure, quite sure?”
“Quite sure. Wake him and see if he calls her anything but mamma.”
Elsie smiled. “Wake him, oh, yes, I know how!” She bent her pale lips down to the rosy mouth of the child, leaving a timid kiss upon it.
“It makes my heart beat,” she said, drawing a deep breath, and glancing furtively up at the portraits. “They are jealous. Yes, they know what it is to be jealous now.”