CHAPTER XXVII.
TEDDY FINDS A NEW PATRON.
TEDDY, dragging his heavy feet up the stairs in the stifling September twilight, paused suddenly to listen to a murmur of voices in his mother's room.
Some one was speaking; and the pure, clear tone sent a thrill through his veins like the shock of an electric battery. No voice but one had ever sounded like that to him; and, springing up the remaining stairs, Teddy threw open the door of the chamber, and looked eagerly about it.
The one for whom he looked was not there; but, instead, a lady, whose fragile loveliness reminded him so strangely of the little sister as she had looked in her long days of convalescence, that he stood still, staring dumbly.
"An' where's yer manners, Teddy Ginniss? Couldn' ye see the lady forenenst ye, widout starin' like a stuck pig?-It's dazed he is, ma'am, wid seein' the likes uv yees in this poor place."
"Come here, Teddy; I am waiting to see you," said the lady. And again the pure, silvery tones tingled along Teddy's nerves with a sharp, sweet thrill.
"O ma'am! are you her mother?" cried he breathlessly.
"Yes, I am her mother, and have come to see you, who loved her so well, and your good mother, who cared for her when she was motherless"—
The sweet voice faltered, and Teddy broke in,—
"And you needn't be afraid to say the worst that can be said, ma'am. I've said it all before; and you can't hate me worse than I hate myself."
"Hate you, my poor boy? I only pity you; for I have heard, and can see, how much you suffer. I cannot wonder that you should love her so well; and, when you knew who she was, I dare say you were meaning to restore her, so soon as you could bring yourself to it."
"Indeed I was, ma'am. I can take God to witness that I was," said Teddy solemnly, his eyes brimming, and his face working with the strong emotion he tried so hard to subdue.
"I am sure of it; and I love you more for the love you bore her than I blame you for the fault that love led you into." She paused a moment; and then the insatiate mother pride and love burst out, demanding sympathy.
"She was a lovely child, wasn't she, Teddy?" asked she with a tremulous smile.
The boy's rough face lighted, as if by reflection from her own, as he replied,—
"O ma'am! it's so good of you to let me talk about her! There was never another like her in all the world, I believe. I used to take her walking Sundays, and look at all the children we met (some of them rich folks' children, and dressed all out in their best); but there was never one could hold a candle to my little sister. Oh! and I hope you'll forgive me that word, ma'am; for I know it's no business I had ever to call her so, or think of her so; but I was so proud of her!"
"I don't need to forgive you, Teddy. It shows how much you loved her; and that is what I like to think best."
"But if you please, ma'am, will you tell me what is doing about looking for her?" asked Teddy eagerly.
"Very little now," answered the lady sadly. "The police traced Giovanni, the Italian organ-grinder, to the station, where he took the cars for the West. At Springfield, a man answering to his description, with a little girl, staid all night; and next day the child danced-in the streets."
The mother's face grew deadly pale as she said the last words, and she paused a moment. Teddy turned away his head, and Mrs. Ginniss groaned aloud. Mrs. Legrange went on hurriedly:—
"Where they went afterwards is not yet discovered; but they are looking everywhere. It seems so strange"—
She fell into a momentary revery, thinking, as she thought so many, many times in every day, how hard and strange it seemed that no clew could be found to her lost darling beyond the terrible day that saw her dancing in the public streets,—an ignominy, that, to the lady's sensitive mind, seemed almost equivalent to death.
Perhaps it would have been kinder had her husband and cousin told her the worst they knew or suspected, and allowed her to mourn her child as dead. The acute detective in whose hands the new clew had been placed had not only traced the fugitives to Springfield, as Mrs. Legrange had said, but had ascertained at what hour they left the hotel for the railway-station. It was impossible, however, to discover for what point the Italian had purchased tickets, as the station-master had no recollection of him, and the baggage-master was sure he had seen "no sich lot" as was described to him.
And, from Springfield, a man may take passage to almost any point in the Union. One startling fact remained, and upon this fact the whole report of the detective turned.
The train leaving Springfield for Albany upon the night when Giovanni left that town, encountered, at a certain point, another train, which, by some incomprehensible stupidity, was supposed to have passed that point half an hour before.
Consequences as usual,—frightful loss of life; a game of give and take in the newspapers, as to who should bear the blame, finally resulting in a service of plate to one party, and a donation in money to the other; several lawsuits brought by enterprising widowers who demand consolation for the loss of their wives; by other men, who, having skulked the draft, now found themselves minus both legs and glory; by spinsters whose bandboxes had been crushed, and by young ladies whose beauty had suffered damage from broken noses and scattered teeth.
But, among all these sufferers, not one remembered seeing an Italian organ-grinder with a little girl until, at the very last, a small boy was found, who averred, that, on the morning after the disaster, he had seen a sort of box, with a little creature chained to the top of it, floating down the river; and that the little creature had seemed very much scared, and kept laughing, and showing all his teeth; and that they had gone on and out of sight. And that was all he knew about it.
The river!-what use to question those dark and swollen waters? what use to demand of them the bright form, that, it might be, slept beneath them?-it might be, had been washed piecemeal to the ocean?
At the brink of that river, mournful and terrible as Styx, river of the dead, ended, that night, the story of many a life; and why not that of the child so strangely lost, so nearly recovered, and now, perhaps, lost again forever?
"We have found her, I am afraid, Tom," said Mr. Legrange to his cousin, as the detective closed his report, and his two hearers looked at each other. "But," added the father, "keep on; keep every engine at work; search everywhere; spend any amount of money that is needful; leave no chance untried. Remember, the reward is always ready." And, when they were alone, he added,—
"But, Tom, don't tell her. She can't bear it as we can. Poor little Sunshine!" And, to show how well he bore it, the father hid his face, and sobbed like a woman.
"No, I won't say any thing," said Tom Burroughs in a strange, choked voice. And so we come back to Mrs. Legrange wistfully saying, "It seems so strange"—
And then, with the patience of a woman, she put aside her own great grief, and added,—
"But, Teddy, I am going to do something for you; and what shall it be? You wish to be educated; do you not?"
"O ma'am! but I've give it up now."
Mrs. Legrange smiled at the sudden enthusiasm and the sudden blank upon the boy's face, and answered, almost gayly,—
"But I have not given it up for you, Teddy.-By the way, Mrs.
Ginniss, is that your son's real name?-his whole name, I mean?"
"It's short for Taodoor, I'm thinkin', ma'am; but joost Teddy we alluz calls it."
"Ah, yes! Theodore. That is a very nice name, and will sound better, when he comes to be a lawyer or doctor or minister, than Teddy. Don't you think so?"
"Ye're right, ma'am: it's a dale the dacenter name uv the two; an' Taodoor I'll call him iver an' always," said Mrs. Ginniss complacently.
"I was thinking more of what other people would call him," said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. "Some friends of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,—somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school and the West is the place for a young man who means to rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate, and to help you about settling in a profession, or in trade, as you like."
Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven, called down such a shower of blessings from so many and varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed to comprehend more than the half of it.
"I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much as it can you," said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence of the other's manner and language.
"I can't say what I want to, ma'am," spoke a low voice beside her; "but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait till some time when I can show it better than I can now-that time will come, if we both live. And when I'm a man, if she isn't found first, I'll go the world round but I'll find her, and Jovarny too: I'll promise that."
A wan smile played over the lovely face, as Mrs. Legrange, laying her hand upon the boy's, said kindly,—
"If she is not found before then, Teddy, I shall not be here to know it."
Then going to the drawer, still standing open, she said,—
"May I have some of these little things, Mrs. Ginniss; not all,—for
I know that you love them too,—but some of them?"
So Mrs. Ginniss made a package of the relics; and Teddy asked and obtained the privilege of carrying it home for his new friend, while James stalked discontentedly behind.
Upon the way, Mrs. Legrange said quietly, "I left a little money in the drawer, Theodore. It is to buy you some new clothes, and whatever else you and your mother need most. And I have just thought of something else. How would your mother like living in the country?"
"Very much, ma'am, I think. Her father had a farm in Ireland, and she is mighty fond of telling about it."
"Well, Mr. Legrange has recently made me a present of a nice old farmhouse somewhere in the western part of the State, thinking I might like to go there for a few weeks in the summer. It is a lovely place, they say; and, if your mother would like it, she might go there and keep the house for me. A man is going to take care of the farm, and he could board with her."
"That would be first-rate, ma'am," said Teddy enthusiastically. "But you're doing too much for us entirely."
"You were kind to her, Teddy; and I cannot do too much for you," said Mrs. Legrange, lowering her veil.