Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

Young Storrs had not yet heard the name of the young woman who had been rescued from the river; no one seemed to know where she was, and the report was current that she had since died. He had a vague dread that the victim would turn out to be one he well knew, and his conscience was troubling him sorely. The doctor commenced by making inquiries about the Gilder family in ——. The replies of the young man satisfied the doctor that old Gilder was just such a man as he had inferred from Annie’s statements; that she had been badly treated, and had good cause to be dissatisfied with her hard life at home. Then the doctor told George that this unhappy girl, still bearing on her flesh the marks of her father’s cruelty, driven to seek refuge among strangers, and finding the only friend she had in the world, him whom she had loved with all her heart, turning from her in her homeless, penniless condition—that this girl was the one who had tried to end her miseries by drowning herself.

George, on hearing the doctor’s words, turned away his face, overcome by his feelings. As soon as he could command his voice, he expressed deep sorrow for the unkindness he had shown to Annie, and declared he would marry her at once, and atone for his conduct, notwithstanding that her reputation was tarnished by the fact of being at such a place as old Mother Torbit’s.

“Hold! young man,” said the doctor, who, knowing the habits of men, was always impatient and disgusted at their complaining, in any way, of woman’s frailty. “You cannot look me in the face, and tell me she is not as chaste as you are, even if she has helped to build up Mother Torbit’s business by the same acts that you have; but you have not heard all. She was there only one night and the next day, and took no stock in the business; but even if she had, do you not see that her soul is as white as snow compared to yours? She was found destitute, homeless, abandoned, weeping, on the Common. A girl spoke pityingly to her, and took her home, out of charity. Annie Gilder, a mere child in years, was ignorant of the nature of the house, and begged the old woman to give her work, whereby she might earn her bread. That is why she was there in that house. Now what were you there for? Were you ignorant of the nature of the house also? Had you been turned out of doors on a cold winter’s night because you had no money and nowhere to lay your head? Ah, Christ! the inhumanity of men to women is enough to make fiends hide their heads in shame. If the whole sex should go mad with vengeance, and murder us all in our sleep, it would scarcely be an injustice to us. Your tears do you credit, young man. I am glad to see them. This pretty, innocent young girl, has won my heart. I have placed her with the two women in this world whom I most honor, and hereafter her life, I trust, will be happy.”

George begged the doctor to let him see her. He wished to go to her at once and ask her forgiveness; and then he confessed to the doctor that he had been ashamed of her poor attire; and carrying her awkward bundle for her across the Common, he had met several of his friends, who afterward quizzed and mortified him. The doctor saw how natural this was in a handsome young fellow, just beginning an independent career for himself, dressing like a swell, and feeling immensely important; but he had not done with him yet. “You think, of course, that this poor child is as ready as ever to fall into your arms; but perhaps you are mistaken. She is among those who will teach her the worth of her beauty and goodness, and open to her the way to earning an honest livelihood. She is already deeply attached to her new friends, and has learned the difference between the love that depends upon outside appearances, and that which looks deeper. I trust that terrible struggle between life and death in the icy river, has frozen out of her heart its old warmth for one who could treat her as you have done; but I don’t like preaching, young man. I’m no saint myself, and I see clearly that you were controlled by motives which you did not create. You are young, and, with your fine constitution, ought to live to old age. It remains to be seen what you will do with the forces at your command.”

George saw that the interview was drawing to a close. Never in his life had he so desired to stand well in the opinion of any one, as in that of this frank, out-spoken, humane old man. Since he had been in Oakdale he had heard innumerable anecdotes of the doctor, all showing the deep admiration with which the populace regarded him; so in a moment of enthusiasm, possible rarely except in youth, George laid his heart open to the doctor; confessed his faults, his desire to follow the promptings of his higher nature, and to do some good in the world. The doctor, always sensitive to such moods, laid his hand kindly on the young man’s shoulder, and asked him if he really wanted a field for heroic work, and if he was equal to bearing the persecution of the world to-day for the sake of helping on a noble cause. George was eager to prove himself capable of any effort toward a noble end. “Then,” said the doctor, “make yourself the champion of woman’s rights—woman’s social and political emancipation. There are few young men in that field, and not one, sir, who does not stand, morally and intellectually, head and shoulders above the average young man of the period. You may think you cannot do much, but you know the ocean is made up of drops of water. Advocate the equal rights of human beings whenever you hear opposition. Go and hear speakers on the subject; study it up well. My library is at your disposal, and I will direct your reading.” George’s assent was earnest and prompt. He showed, indeed, that he had given some little attention to the subject, which pleased the doctor greatly, and he talked to him then, more as an equal, and thus flattered the ambitious young fellow, who went away carrying two of the doctor’s books under his arm, one of which was Mills’ work on Liberty. “Read this first,” said the doctor. “You can finish it this week. Bring it back next Sunday, and stay to dinner with us.” When the doctor gave him his hand at parting, he told him he might perhaps as well call on Annie that evening. “No doubt she’ll be ready to forgive you,” said the wily doctor. “Women are more merciful than men, and too good for us by half.” George thanked him with emotion when he told him where Annie was, and went away in a much happier mood than he had expected during one part of the doctor’s sermon. As for the doctor, he was well satisfied with his Sunday morning’s work. “It is with the young,” he said to himself, “that reformers must work. New transit lines of thought in their brains are easily established; while the brain in the old is like a dense forest of fossil California cedars.” And so thinking, the doctor walked rapidly to the home of his “girls,” as he called Clara and Susie. They listened to the account of the interview with George Storrs with great delight, and when they found he was coming that evening to see Annie, Clara clapped her hands with joy. “Susie, dear,” she said, “we’ll wrap her in my white cashmere dressing-gown, relic of former splendors,” she added, laughing. “You shall do up her fine hair, and Master George shall see a creature very different from that poor, forlorn girl who cried to him in vain for help.”

“Was there ever a woman in this world,” said the doctor, laughing, “who was not a match-maker at heart?”

“He don’t deserve her,” said Susie, warmly. “While I am arranging her hair, I’ll give her a lesson in the art of receiving penitent lovers.”

“Well, Min,” said the doctor to the “long-haired angel,” as he sometimes called her, “between these two match-makers, I shouldn’t wonder if we had a wedding. What do you think?” Min climbed up on the doctor’s knees while giving unqualified assent to the proposition of a wedding; her idea of it, as further conversation with her showed, being a “frosted cake with two birds on it.” This information Min had some way gathered from her observations at the baker’s.

Whether Susie gave the lesson she proposed on the art of receiving penitent lovers or not, it is certain that, after the meeting of Annie and George, the course of love “ran smooth,” and the reappearance of George thereafter on Sunday nights, was characterized by a very exemplary regularity. Annie recovered safely from the shock to her system, and proved a “blessing in disguise,” as Clara predicted. It was in the busiest part of the season of winter flowers, and as Annie was quick to learn, she proved a great help. As the poor girl’s wardrobe, when she arrived, was of the paradisaic order, everything had to be supplied mostly from Clara’s, as Susie was much shorter of stature than Annie; and as Clara was rather of the heroic type of woman, there was some merriment over the fit of her old dresses on the thin form of Annie. Annie, however, was pleased with everything. To be among the refined, cultivated, gentle people, that heretofore she had met only in books, to be respected and loved by them, to be able to please those about her, and have no fault ever found with her efforts to do so, and then to be able to see George, to love him without shame or concealment—all this was so different from the life she had known, that at times she feared it could not be real; that it was a heavenly dream, out of which sometime she might wake to the cold, hard world, in which she had struggled and suffered. No wonder the poor girl’s heart went out to her new friends, in a kind of affection bordering upon worship. One fear alone remained, and this she mentioned to her friends: that her father might find out where she was and force her to return, as she was under age. To avoid this, the doctor had prevented her real name from getting into the local papers, in the items about the attempted suicide; and as Annie was anxious to let her mother know that she was well, and above all things to return the two dollars she had purloined, she gave her letter to Clara, who enclosed the money, and had the letter posted in Boston.

Only one annoyance resulted from befriending Annie, and this was the disaffection of the Irish servant, Ellen, who had heard outside, of the “abandoned woman who had lived at old mother Torbit’s,” every item of truth going hand in hand with a dozen falsehoods and exaggerations, as is usual in such cases. Ellen declared very insolently to Clara, that it was more than her char-ac-ter was worth to stay in the same house with such a girl. Clara graciously condescended to explain that these stories were false; and though disgusted, endeavored to awaken some better feelings in Ellen, but without success. “Let her go, Mrs. Delano,” Annie said, when she heard of it. “There is nothing she does that I cannot do. I have stood at the wash-tub, at home, from sunrise till afternoon, and then helped do the ironing the same day. If you can spare me from the flowers, I will take Ellen’s place. It is not hard. Why, I have not worked at all here. I have been playing the idle lady.”