CHAPTER XLVII.
DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS.
Doctor Bayless had predicted aright. Leslie continued to gain slowly, and in the third week of her illness, she could sit erect in her bed for an hour or two each day, listening to Mamma’s congratulations, and recalling, one by one, her woes of the past. Not recalling them poignantly, with the sharp pain that would torture her when she should have gained fuller strength, but vaguely, with a haunting pang, as one remembers an unhappy dream.
Day by day, as strength came back, her listlessness gave place to painful thought. One day, sitting for the first time in a lounging-chair, procured at second-hand for her comfort, she felt that the time had come to break the silence which, since her first full awakening to consciousness, she had imposed upon herself.
Mamma was bustling about the room, inwardly longing to begin the passage-at-arms which she knew must soon ensue, and outwardly seeming solicitous for nothing save the comfort of her “dear girl.” As Leslie’s eyes followed her about, each seemed suddenly to have formed a like resolve.
“How many days have I been ill?” asked Leslie slowly, and languidly resting her head upon her hand.
Mamma turned toward her and seemed to meditate.
“How many days, my child? Ah, let us see. Why, it’s weeks since you came to us—two, yes, three weeks; three weeks and a day.”
Leslie was silent for a moment. Then she asked:
“And you have nursed me through my illness; you alone?”
“Surely; who else would there be?” replied Mamma in an injured tone.
“Who, indeed!” repeated Leslie bitterly. “Sit down, Madam; I want to talk with you.”
Mamma drew forward a chair, and sank upon it with a gratified sigh. It had come at last, the opportunity for which she had planned and waited. She could scarcely conceal her satisfaction.
“You have nursed me,” began Leslie slowly, “through a tedious illness, and I have learned that you do nothing gratuitously. What do you expect of me?”
“Oh, my child—”
“Stop!” lifting her head, and fixing her eyes upon the old woman; “no evasions; I want the plain truth. I have no money. My husband’s fortune I will never claim. I have told you this; I repeat it. So what do you expect of me? Why was I not permitted to die in my delirium?”
Among her other talents, Mamma Francoise numbered that power, as useful off the stage as it is profitable behind the footlights—the power to play a part. And now, bringing this power into active use, she bowed her head upon her breast and sighed heavily.
“Ah, Leschen, you break my heart. We wanted you to live; we thought you had something to live for.”
The acting was excellent, but the words were ill-chosen.
“Something to live for!” Leslie’s hands met in a passionate clasp. “Something to live for! Right, woman; I have. Tell me, since you have brought me back to myself, how, how can I ransom Daisy Warburton?”
Mamma’s time has come. Slowly she wipes away an imaginary tear, softly she draws her chair yet nearer Leslie, gently she begins.
“Leschen, my poor girl, don’t think us guilty of stealing your little one; don’t. When you came here that night, I thought you were wild. But now,—since you have been sick—something has happened.”
She paused to note the effect of her words, but Leslie sat quite still, with her hands tightly locked together.
“Something has happened?” she echoed coldly. “I felt sure it would; go on.”
“It isn’t what you think, my girl. We haven’t found your little dear; but there is a person—”
“Go on,” commanded Leslie: “straight to the point. Go on!”
“A person who might find the child, if—”
“If he or she were sufficiently rewarded,” supplied Leslie. “Quick; tell me, what must Daisy’s ransom be?”
Mamma’s pulse beats high, her breath comes fast and loud. It is not in her nature to trifle with words now. She leans forward and breathes one word into Leslie’s ear.
“Yourself.”
“Myself!” Leslie gasps and her brain reels. “Myself!” she controls her agitation, and asks fiercely: “Woman, what do you dare to say?”
“Only this,” Mamma continues, very firmly and with the tiger look dawning in her eye. “You have no money, but you have beauty, and that is much to a man. Will you marry the man who will find your little girl?”
In spite of her weakness, Leslie springs up and stands above Mamma, a fierce light blazing in her eyes.
“Woman, answer me!” she cries fiercely; “do you know where that child is?”
“I? Oh, no, my dear.”
“Is there another, a man, who knows?”
Slowly Mamma rises, and the two face each other with set features.
“There is a man,” says Mamma, swaying her body slightly as she speaks, and almost intoning her words—“There is a man who swears he can find the child, but he will not make any other terms than these. He will not see you at all until you have agreed to his demands. You will marry him, and sign a paper giving him a right to a portion of your fortune, in case you should make up your mind to claim it. You may leave him after the ceremony, if you will; you need not see him again; but you must swear never to betray him or us, and never to tell how you found the child.”
Into Leslie’s face creeps a look of intense loathing. All her courageous soul seems aroused into fearless action. Her scornful eyes fairly burn into the old woman’s face.
“So,” she says, low and slowly, “I have found you out at last.” And then the weak body refuses to support the dauntless spirit.
She sinks back upon her chair, her form shaking, her face ghastly, her hands falling weakly as they will. But as Mamma comes forward, the strong spirit for a moment masters the weak body.
“Don’t touch me,” she almost hisses, “or, weak as I am, I might murder you! wait.”
And Mamma stands aloof, waiting. Not while Leslie thinks—there is no confusion of mind—only until the bodily tremor ceases, until the nerves grow calmer, until she has herself once more under control. She does not attempt to rise again. She reclines in her easy chair, and looks at her adversary unflinchingly.
“At last,” she says, after favoring Mamma with a long look of scorn; “at last you show yourself in your true character. Your own hand pulls off your hypocrite’s mask. Woman, you were never so acceptable to me as at this moment. It simplifies everything.”
“You must not think—” begins Mamma. But Leslie checks her.
“Stop!” she says imperiously. “Don’t waste words. We have wasted too many, and too much time. I desire you to repeat your proposition, to name your terms again. No more whining, no more lies, if you want me to listen. You are my enemy; speak as my enemy. Once more, your terms for Daisy’s ransom.”
And Mamma, too wise to err in this particular, abandons her role of injured affection. Dropping her mantle of hypocrisy, not without a sense of relief, she repeats her former proposal, clearly, curtly, brutally, leaving no room for doubt as to her precise meaning.
Leslie listens in cold silence and desperate calm. Then, as Mamma ceases, she sits, still calm, cold and silent, looking straight before her. At last she speaks.
“This person,” she says slowly; “this man who can find Daisy if he will—may I not see him?”
“When you have given your promise; not before.”
“He will accept no other terms?”
“Never.”
“And this transaction, this infamy—he leaves all details to you?”
“Just so.”
“Then there is no more to be said. I might hope for mercy from the beasts of the field, but not from you.”
“You consent?”
“If I refuse, what will be the consequences to Daisy?”
“You had better not refuse!” retorts Mamma, with a glare of rage.
Before Leslie’s mind comes the picture of little Daisy, and following it a panorama of horrors. Again she feels her strength deserting her.
“Wait,” she whispers with her last fragment of self-command. “Leave me to myself. Before sunset you shall have my answer.”
Further words are useless. Mamma, seeing this, turns slowly away, saying only, as she pauses at the door:
“Don’t waste your time; delays are dangerous.”