STANDING UP TO THE MARK
Lilian Boyd bathed her mother’s face and hands as usual and prepared her breakfast. Her eyes were brighter, her voice stronger, but the girl noticed that her face seemed a little swollen and the lines about her mouth had lost their flexibility.
“You are surely better. You have more appetite,” yet the tone was not hopeful.
“Oh, my dear, it is nearer the end, and it is best. You will do better without me, and what if you should find someone—a father to be proud of you? Such things have happened, and I may have kept you out of something that was your right. Oh, will God forgive me?”
Lilian caught the thin hand and pressed it to her lips.
“Mother, you must not worry about this. Suppose my own mother was a widow like you going to a new home to earn her living. Why, I might have been put in some Children’s Asylum. And I have had many comforts and a love willing to make sacrifices. I have been a dreamy girl building air castles for the future, but I would have worked hard to make them real. I see now how much is needed and I am not afraid——”
“Oh, if I could think you had lost nothing through my selfish love——”
“But it was your friend who sent us here. And you are not sorry we came?”
“Oh, my child, it was truly God’s providence. Mrs. Barrington has been so good. She will help you to attain your best aims. Since we have been here I have realized the difference between us that I only felt vaguely before. You belong to these people. You have their ways and it is not all education, either. This is why I feel your people could not have been in the common walks of life.”
She paused, exhausted.
“Now, you must not talk any more but try to sleep. Shall I read to you?”
“No, not now. Oh, Lilian, you will not tire of me? You will not leave me? It cannot be long——”
“No, no, and this will be my home. Let that comfort you.”
Lilian took up some embroidery. Mrs. Barrington had merely looked in to inquire. How still the house seemed, and she was in a highly nervous mood. What if Major Crawford should not believe the story? Well, Lilian Boyd should never know how near she had come to being a heroine of romance, and she should achieve some of her desires.
Mrs. Boyd drowsed. Yes, it was really the providence of God that she should be removed. She would always have the things she most desired, which she, Mrs. Boyd could not have given her in the pretty home Lilian had been planning. She had been happy with her lover, then her husband. But, Lilian would shrink from the kiss of the grimy man fresh from his hard work, and after his brief ablutions, sitting down to supper in his shirt sleeves and then lighting his pipe and pushing his baby up and down the front walk, jesting and laughing with the neighbors. There were blocks of them, most of them happy women, too, except when the babies came too fast or died out of their arms. And a few games of cards in the evening, a play now and then merry enough to keep one laughing. No, it would never have done for Lilian.
And she would feel out of place in the life to which the girl aspired. She would never get quite at ease with these refined friends whose talk was of books and music and the part great men and women were playing in the world.
How many times does one have a foreshadowing of the real things that affect life! One may be heavy hearted for days groping about fearsomely and suddenly the cloud lifts without any misfortune. Then swift in the happiest hour comes the stroke that crushes one. Lilian looked straight ahead in her life. She would serve her time here and repay Mrs. Barrington for her generous kindness.
In a lovely old town like Mount Morris, the lines of caste get unconsciously drawn. Where people have lived hundreds of years and can trace back to some titled ancestor perhaps, where they have never known the hard grind of poverty, but have worked on the higher lines. There had been several noted clergymen, two bishops, scholars, senators and even an ambassador abroad. There was no especial pride in this, it was simply what was to be expected of sons growing up in this refined, upright and moral atmosphere. But they sometimes passed rather proudly by those of the next lower round who bent their energies to money making.
Lilian had soon come to understand that and her personal pride kept her aloof from any chance of snubs. But she would want a wider world presently that was not bounded by a grandfather or a fortune that had descended through generations.
There were moments when Mrs. Boyd’s confession seemed a feverish dream. She did not dare build anything on it, because she had indulged in some romantic dreams and longings, because there had been wounded vanity almost to a sense of shame, she held herself to a strict account. No matter what she might gain here, she would always be considered Mrs. Boyd’s daughter. She had not expected to be received with the young ladies of the school, and had taken no notice of the little rudenesses that might have had a better excuse if she had been trying to crowd in. So all the refinements of birth and education did not always conduce to the higher generosity of heart.
Miss Arran came gently in the room with an anxious glance toward the bed.
“Mrs. Barrington wishes to see you in the library, Miss Boyd. I will stay here with your mother.”
Lilian laid down her work as she rose and said: “Mother is asleep now.”
Then she went slowly down the wide stairway, her eyes lingering on some of the panels that had been painted in by a true artist.
“My dear child,” the lady said in a voice that seemed full of emotion, “you must have felt from the beginning that I had taken an unusual interest in you. You suggested some person that I could not quite place, but came to know afterward that it was one of my early scholars, a most charming girl. She married happily and had two sons, but they both longed for a daughter. Providence listened to their prayers and sent them a double portion, two lovely girls. My friend’s husband was a soldier stationed on the frontier and in an Indian raid was quite severely wounded. It was not deemed best to risk moving him and she resolved to go out to him. One of the babies, the first born was larger and stronger than the other, and she determined to take this one with a most excellent nurse she had. You heard the story Mrs. Boyd told. My friend was in the same frightful accident—the nurse was killed outright, but the baby by some miracle had not so much as a scratch. The only other baby was crushed beyond recognition.”
Lilian sprang up, then the room seemed to swim round. She caught at the chair back to steady herself and gave a great gasp.
“Oh, and my mother, Mrs. Boyd, took the child, but they all thought the nurse the real mother. And, oh—she could not bear to give up the baby. Oh, you must forgive her.”
“In the confusion I can see that it was very easily done. Dr. Kendricks went out at once. He found the mother gravely injured and the word was that the baby was dead. It was beyond recognition. Mrs. Boyd, who had only been stunned, had gone on her way. You have heard her side of the story, knowing the other side when Miss Arran detailed it, we sent for Dr. Kendricks and pieced it all together. You have been so occupied with your supposed mother, and I must say you have been a devoted daughter, that you have hardly noted our excitement and interest. The confession established the facts beyond a doubt in our minds, but we were not sure how the father would take it. And the place has altered immeasurably; there have been so many accidents since, that that has passed into oblivion. But no one can dispute the proof. Your mother was a noticeably handsome girl; but there is a curious resemblance, and it grows upon one.”
“And I am scarcely handsome at all,” the girl said, slowly.
“Have you no curiosity to know whom you belong to?” studying Lilian intently.
“Oh, I dare not ask, I hardly dare believe! It is so mysterious. She, yes, I will call her mother, though there might be a father somewhere. And was that beautiful woman they believed dying——”
Lilian clasped her hands over her eyes. Like a flash it seemed to pass before her. Zay Crawford’s double, some of the girls had called her.
“Oh,” she cried, “can I endure it? What if they do not want me?”
“If they had doubted the story it would have been kept from you. Can you guess—”
Lilian flung herself in Mrs. Barrington’s arms, with a long, dry sob.
“Oh, do not give me up,” she cried imploringly. “Let me stay with you. I will serve you faithfully for I love you, and these people are strangers——”
“Think, what it must be after her years of sorrow to clasp her child in her arms; to know that it had been well cared for, tenderly loved. Oh, she is your own mother and you will come to love her dearly. This morning Dr. Kendricks was to tell Major Crawford the story. Fifteen minutes ago word came that they would be here. Lilian, your father feels hard toward Mrs. Boyd. You know Dr. Kendricks would have recognized you if she had not taken you away, and it is only natural that he should feel indignant.”
“Must I see him before she—she cannot last long. Oh, she must not hear this, and I will not leave her until the very last.”
Then the child suggested her father.
“There they come,” exclaimed Mrs. Barrington.
The two men entered the drawing room. Lilian clung to Mrs. Barrington, but that lady impelled her forward.
“This is your daughter, Major Crawford,” she said, “and this, my dear, is your own father.”
Lilian stood like a statue. It was as if she was turning to stone. Oh, he could not deny her. The clear cut features, the golden bronze hair, the proud figure that seemed to add dignity to the whole. So, her mother had stood, in girlhood.
“Oh, my child! my child! have you no word of gladness for me after these long years! The baby I never saw—my Marguerite.”
Was her tongue frozen and her lips stiff? Oh, what should she say? How could she welcome this stranger?
“And that cruel woman has stolen your love from us, as she stole your beautiful body. Oh, where is she? Let me see her!”
“You were to keep calm, Major,” exclaimed the doctor. “We have gone over all this, and the poor woman is dying. To upbraid her now would be nothing short of murder.”
The Major glanced wildly around. “Why think of our loss and sorrow. She knew the child was not hers. And she ran off like a thief in the night. Oh, I can’t forgive her.”
“Oh, you must,” cried the girl with the first gleam of emotion she had shown. “For she mistook the nurse for the mother. Everything must have been in confusion. She thought of me as a motherless baby, perhaps to be cast on charity——”
“But all these years! And poverty, when a lovely home awaited you; brothers and a sweet sister and such a mother! Oh, she ought to know and suffer for the crime.”
“She was almost crazy with her own grief. And she was good and tender and devoted to me. She shall not suffer for it in her dying moments.”
She stood there proudly, her face a-light with a sort of heroic devotion. So her mother would have taken up any wrong. Was he unduly bitter?
“Oh, my darling, have you no love for me? No want for your own sweet mother—”
Something in his pleading tone touched her and his face betrayed strong agitation. His arms seemed to hang listlessly by his side. She took a few steps toward him and then they suddenly clasped her in a vehement embrace.
The doctor glanced at Mrs. Barrington and they both left the room.
“It has been a hard fight,” he said. “He was so enraged at first that I was afraid he would come and have it out with the dying woman. The fact that she knew the child was not hers and yet took it away seemed to stir all the blood in his body. Poor thing—one has to feel sorry for her; but he raged over the privations he thought his child had endured, and her being here in an equivocal position. The Crawfords were always very proud. And one could not expect a girl just in the dawn of womanhood to fly to a stranger’s arms.”
“Yet it took her so by surprise, and she has a proud, reticent nature.”
“Let us go and see Mrs. Boyd.”
Major Crawford felt the girl’s heart beating against his own. He raised the face and kissed it, amid tears, deeply touched.
“You must forgive me. You do not know what it is to have some one stand between you and your child all these years. I used to dream how it would have been with twin girls running about, climbing one’s knees, doing a hundred sweet and tender things. Zay has been so lovely, so loving; but all these years we never forgot you. We gave the most fervent thanks for your mother’s recovery, and when you are safe in her arms—oh, it seems almost as if it was too much joy.”
“It is so strange,” and her voice was tremulous. “For I never could have dreamed of anything like this. I did not dream, for it seemed as if a man who had lost wife and child would want to begin over again, and in a good many ways I tried to believe I had been too visionary—longing for things quite beyond my reach. So I have been praying that God would send what was best for me and trying to make myself content. Oh, are you quite sure there is no mistake?” and there was a pitifully beseeching sound in her voice.
“If we can believe that thief of a woman. Oh, to think she should carry away our baby and leave us her little dead child,” and the only half conquered passion flamed up in his face again.
“But, you see, if I had been the nurse’s child as she thought, the poor nurse who was dead, it would be a brave and tender act——”
“I have no pity for her. You must come away. Oh, Marguerite, there is your own sweet mother, who when she hears will want to clasp you to her heart at once. And Zaidee, your twin sister——”
She shrank and stiffened a little. Zaidee Crawford would not be so glad to welcome her. She felt it in her inmost heart. For she had been the pet and darling of the household all these years. All the girls had paid her a curious sort of homage. She had been invested with a halo of romance, and generous as she seemed with her equals, she had established a rigorous distance between them. Lilian fancied she was annoyed by the suggestion of a resemblance between them.
Her father was momentarily piqued by the unyielding lines of her figure and the hesitancy.
“Oh, my child you must take in the strength, the absolute reality of our claim, unless you cannot believe this woman—”
“I would stake my very life on her truth, and I can recall so many things that seemed strange to me then, especially these last two years. She so dreaded leaving me alone in the world, and I am not willing to embitter her last moments. You see she never thought of my parents being in a much higher walk in life, and the knowledge that she had kept me out of so much would be a cruel stab. No, let me wait until it is all over, and you have accepted the strange story truly. There are others beside yourself——”
Her eyes were full of tears as she raised them. It was noble to take this view, though he really grudged it.
“You mean then to stay here until—”
“I have promised sacredly, solemnly. There may be some things to certify. Mrs. Barrington spoke of one, that the confession, ought to be signed before witnesses.”
“Yes, though we should never doubt. And if there was any question there might be a legal adoption;” then he paused. His wife had not heard the story yet. Yes, his anger had hurried him along with scarcely a thought of all that needed to be done. He had dreamed of the joy of bringing the mother and daughter together. Yes, she must be prepared.
“Perhaps you are right,” he admitted, reluctantly. “Yet—oh, how can I leave you. It seems as if the joy would vanish.”
“I do not think I shall vanish,” and she half smiled through her tears.
The doctor came downstairs with a grave face.
“There has been a sudden change. The paralysis has crept upward. She is moaning for you. Go to her.”
Lilian flashed out of the room.
“Are you convinced?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, positively. And what a noble girl! I hate to have her love that woman so, and yet it shows a true and generous nature. Why, I think some girls would have gone wild over the prospect.”
“Mrs. Barrington is enthusiastic about her and she has had a wide experience with girls. But my dear Major, there is a good deal to be done. Your wife must hear the story, and we must consider her health, her nervous system must not have too severe a shock. And this Mrs. Boyd must attest her confession in some way. She can hardly speak intelligibly. With your permission, I’ll hunt up Ledwith. It’s best to have everything secure.”
“Yes, yes. And, doctor, I want to apologize for my anger and unreason this morning. Why, we are half brutes after all. I believe I could have almost murdered that woman for stealing my darling baby and sneaking off without a word of inquiry. I do not yet see how Marguerite can forgive her for keeping her out off her birthright all these years; for dragging her through poverty and all kinds of menial labor; and here she was the caretaker’s daughter! Think of it—my child, Zay’s sister! Even now when the child pleads for her so earnestly I cannot really forgive her. Will you pardon me for my outbreak? My child is tenderer and more generous than I.”
“The poor woman has come to the last stages. It is a matter of only a few days. It would be cruel to part them now.”
“You are all against me,” with a sad smile.
“You must go home and explain this matter to Mrs. Crawford, and to your sister. Then send the confession to Ledwith. I will see him. And, oh, I promised to drop in and see Zay. She has some nervous crochet in her head.”
“Is she really ill?” the father asked in alarm.
“She has some cold and a little fever. Don’t excite her.”
They walked away together. The doctor found Zay’s fever much higher and she was in a state of great excitement.
“Oh, what has happened,” she cried. “What was papa so angry about? And you took him away——”
“A matter of business that he could not look at reasonably at first. And it may be a delightful surprise for you, so you must do your utmost to get well. Men have many bothers, my dear.”
“It was not about Vincent?”
“Oh, dear, no. There was a telegram from him. He reached West Point all right, and all is going well. Now, I shall give you a composing draught and order you to sleep all the afternoon.”
“And the fever?” tremulously.
“That’s simply cold and nervousness. You will be about well tomorrow,” and he laughed.
“Mrs. Barrington was—oh, I suppose the girls who stayed had a dull time.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints. I guess they are all right. Don’t you worry about them or anybody.”
If she could hear that Louie Howe was well; maybe Phil would write tomorrow. Oh, she couldn’t be seriously ill or the doctor wouldn’t be so indifferent about it. If she only could go to sleep and forget about the Clairvoyant’s awful den!