She paused, and her husband drew her to the low chair by the fire, and seated himself beside her, letting her head rest on his shoulder.
‘Go on, love,’ he said gently, ‘but not if these memories agitate you.’
‘No, dear. It is a relief to confide in you. I told him that I did remember the time before I came to the Manor House. Some events I could remember distinctly, others faintly, like the shadows in a dream. I remembered being in France, by the sea, in a place where the fisherwomen wore bright-coloured petticoats and high caps, where I had children of my own age to play with, and where the sun seemed always shining. And then that life had changed to dull gray days in a place near a river, a place where there were narrow lanes, and country roads and fields; and yet there was a town close by with tall chimneys and busy streets. I remembered that here my mother was ill, lying in a darkened room for many weeks; and then one day my father took me to London in the omnibus, and left me in a large, cold-looking house in a great square—a house where all the rooms were big and lofty, and had an awful look after our little parlour at home, and where I used to sit in a drawing-room all day with an old lady in black satin, who let me amuse myself as best I could. My father had told me that the old lady was his aunt, and that I was to call her aunt, but I was too much afraid of her to call her anything. I think I must have stayed there about a week, but it seemed ages, for I was very unhappy, and used to cry myself to sleep every night, when the maid had put me to bed in a large, bleak room at the top of the house; and then my father came and took me home again in the red omnibus. I could see that he was very unhappy, and while we were walking in the lane that led to our house he told me that my dear mamma had gone away, and that I should never see her again in this world. I had loved her passionately, Jack, and the loss almost broke my heart. I am telling you much more than I told the stranger. I only said enough to him to prove that I remembered my old life.’
‘And how did he reply?’
‘He took a morocco case from his pocket and gave it into my hand, telling me to look at the portrait inside it. Oh, how well I remembered that sweet face! The memory of it flashed upon me like a dream one has forgotten and tried vainly to recall, till it comes back suddenly in a breath. Yes, it was my mother’s face. I could remember her looking just like that as she sat at work on the rocks by the sands where I played with the other children, at that happy place in France. I remembered her sitting by my cot every night before I fell asleep. I asked the stranger how he came to possess this picture. “I would give all the money I have in the world for it,” I said. “You shall do nothing of the kind,” he answered. “I give it you as a free gift, but I should not have done that if you had not remembered your mother’s face. And now, Laura, look at me and tell me if you have ever seen me before?”’
‘You looked and could not remember him,’ said John Treverton.
‘No. Yet there was something in the face that seemed familiar to me. When he spoke I knew that I had heard the voice before. It seemed kind and friendly, like the voice of some one I had known long ago. He told me to try and realize what change ten years of evil fortune would make in a man’s looks. It was not time only which had altered him, he told me, but the world’s ill-usage, bad health, hard work, corroding sorrow. “Make allowance for all this,” he said, “and look at me with indulgent eyes, and then try to send your thoughts back to that old life at Chiswick, and say what part I had in it.” I did look at him very earnestly, and the more I looked the more familiar the face grew. “I think you must be a friend of my father’s,” I said at last. “Poverty has no friends,” he answered; “at the time you remember your father was friendless. Oh, child, child, can ten years blot out a father’s image? I am your father.”’
Laura paused, with quickened breathing, recalling the agitation of that moment.
‘I cannot tell you how I felt when he said this,’ she continued, presently. ‘I thought I was going to fall fainting at his feet. My brain clouded over; I could understand nothing; and then, when my senses came slowly back, I asked him how this could be true? Did not my father die a few hours after I was taken away by Jasper Treverton? My benefactor had told me that it was so. Then he—my father—said that he had allowed Jasper Treverton to suppose him dead, for my sake; in order that I might be the adopted child of a rich man, and well placed in life, while he—my real father—was a waif and stray, and a pauper. Mr. Treverton had received a letter announcing his old friend’s death—a letter written in a feigned hand by my father himself and had never taken the trouble to inquire into the particulars of the death and burial. He felt that he had done enough in leaving money for the sick man’s use, and in relieving him of all care about his daughter. This is what my father told me. How could I reproach him, Jack, or despise him for this deception, for a falsehood which so degraded him? It was for my sake he had sinned.’
‘And you had no doubt as to his identity? You were fully assured that he was that very father whom you had supposed dead and buried ten years before?’