CHAPTER LXX.OUR CHILD.
A moment after these words left her lips, Mrs. Lambert started up. The idea that her child lived had seized upon her with force; for the first time, her face, still colorless, was radiant.
“She is alive!—your child and mine! Alive! and you have found her for me! A child given to my bosom—a sin lifted from my soul! Man! Angel! Husband! Let me fall down and worship you!”
“First thank God that an awful sin has been lifted from your conscience.”
“I do! I do! But the child—where is she? Who is she? Will you let me see her—touch her—bless her? Oh, will you?”
“You have seen her.”
“Where? When?”
“At my sister’s house. She is known as Eva Laurence.”
Once more the woman sunk to the sofa mute and pallid.
“Laurence was the policeman you spoke with just beforeyou turned down to the river. He followed you. He saw you leave the infant upon the rock, where you had carried it; watched as you crept away through the woods; reluctantly, he thought, but still you went, leaving the child to its fate.”
“No, no! I did not. In less than an hour, oh! much less, for I was hardly out of the shadow of the trees, I went back, resolved to bear everything, suffer everything, rather than part with it—but the rock was bare; the moonlight lay upon it, cold and white. I searched eagerly, but my child was gone. I sought for it everywhere—in the hollows, among the ferns, in the water. All night I wandered up and down on the shore—but my child was gone. I had left it wrapped up, warm and asleep. No human being was nigh. The rock sloped downward; it had rolled into the water! I thought this—I have always thought it. Oh do not look on me with those searching eyes, Herman. I was mad, wild—driven to desperation—a child-mother fleeing that night from shame and a father’s wrath.
“My father had been absent almost a year. He had placed me in a school in New England, which I left, as if for home, but hid myself in New York. When my baby was but a few weeks old I learned that my father was coming home. If I was not there, he would search for me at the school, and learn how long I had been absent. You had left me; I had not heard from you. Consider, I was so young—all alone, a wife, a mother—but without a husband. All this drove me mad. No doubt I was absolutely insane.”
Here Mrs. Lambert’s passionate excitement began to exhaust itself. She lifted a hand to her forehead and went on.
“I remember, in a vague way, wandering off in search of a river, with the child in my arms, longing to hide myself and it in the water. If I had any purpose, it was togo beyond the reach of my father’s wrath, and take my baby with me.”
Here the woman, seized with infinite self-pity, began to moan and weep.
“I remember nothing, except that the black water frightened me. I think it was not for myself, but the child. I was wondering if it could be kept dry and warm when I was asleep down there. Then I grew afraid for myself, and fled into the woods to escape the dull, heavy lapping of the water, which both lured and repulsed me. I have told you. It was gone when I came back, gone forever and ever; I had come back, clear in my mind, resolved with half insane courage, to take it in my arms, and tell my father the whole truth. But it was gone. It was gone!”
When the woman ceased speaking, Ross knelt by her side, and heavier sobs than hers filled the room.
“My poor girl! My wronged young wife! God forgive me the rashness of my youth—the injustice of my manhood!”
She lifted her face, radiant under the storm of tears that had passed over it.
“You pity me! There is no longer suspicion in your eyes. Sometimes you will perhaps think that I was not all to blame, that in wresting the child from my bosom, God punished me enough. Ah, you did not know how I loved it, how I pined for it! How gladly I would have taken it in my arms and followed you to the ends of the earth!”
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth!”
There was no theatrical outbreak; but those two hearts, that had been separated one-third of a lifetime, seemed breaking with a great fullness of joy.
“Ah, my Elizabeth! There is something in life for us yet.”
She took his hand between hers, and kissed it.
“Oh, Herman! I never, never expected to be so happy again.”
“But there is greater joy than this in store.”
“I know! I know! Our child! That beautiful girl. I was so jealous of her, Herman. Only this very day did I consent that Ivon——Do you know that Ivon loves her dearly? Well, only an hour or two ago I promised to make him my heir if he could persuade her to marry him. That was half because I pitied his disappointment, and half because people said that you loved her,” said the poor woman with a laugh, that reminded Ross of her girlhood.
“And so I did from the very first. Now I understand why. She is very like you. That was what struck me.”
“Was I ever so beautiful, Herman?”
Ross bent down, and kissed her forehead.
“But you have not told me how you found all this out. We must have good proof; a doubt would kill me now. Ah, me! how strange this happiness seems.”
“I did not come to you, Elizabeth, without proof, though the very face of our child is enough. Come here, and see if you remember this!”
Ross took the shawl from a table, where it had been laid and shook out its folds.
Mrs. Lambert uttered an astonished cry and stood gazing on it, shrinking back a little as one retreats from the touch of a shroud.
“It was my mother’s,” she said at last. “I remember wrapping the child in it, praying her to pity me if angels in Heaven could feel pity. Oh I remember it so well.”
“When our Eva—”
“Our Eva,” whispered Mrs. Lambert, clasping her hands so softly that he went on, without heeding the pathetic interruption.
“When our Eva was found on the bank of the river, this shawl was wrapped about her. There was some coral too.”
“Pink coral from Naples; I remember it! But what did they do with my child? How was she made the lovely creature we find her?”
“Laurence was a gentleman in his habits, and educated the girl well. He left me a letter, which you shall read. There can be no doubt that she is our child; Mrs. Laurence admits it, and no girl ever did her parents more honor.”
“And this policeman brought her up?”
“As his own child, with his own child; and no two young ladies could possess more refinement.”
“And I could look down upon them with scorn.”
“You did not know them. But now?”
“Now I have but one wish; for—for you have forgiven me, Herman?”
Mrs. Lambert held out both her hands; the passionate tenderness of girlhood swept over her face, as it fell upon his bosom, drawn there by the strong arms that she knew would enfold her evermore.
“Now let me see my child, and die of happiness,” she said, lifting her radiant face from his bosom.
“In less than an hour Eva shall be with you,” said Ross.
“An hour! how long it will seem, Herman.”
“The happy can afford to wait,” he answered. “Now I will go and tell them everything.”
“Must this be?” asked Mrs. Lambert, with a touch of shrinking pride.
“Five personsmustknow the truth, Elizabeth. Beyond them, our unhappy past need never be known.”
“And those five?”
“My sister, her husband, Ruth Laurence, Ivon, and our child.”
“Be it so. We can trust them; for all have been kinder to her than her own mother.”
“Beyond them we will have no explanations. There must be a public wedding, and that will silence all questions.”
A soft, rosy color came into the woman’s face, and for a moment her eyes sunk.
“When the young people are married, Eva will be your daughter, of course. Chance has arranged everything for us,” Ross went on.
“But she has refused Ivon.”
“I tell you she loves him.”
“I am sure that he loves her.”
“And where love is, what power can keep two souls apart! I tell you, Elizabeth, it will be a double wedding, and after that a double household.”
“Go—go and bring Eva!”