“There!” exclaimed Florimel involuntarily. “Jane said it was money, but I knew it was the nobility!”
“Lynette Devon, wasn’t it, Mr. Moulton?” said Mary, with a reproving glance at Florimel.
“Lynette Devon was her maiden name,” assented Mr. Moulton, glancing at his wife, who sat nervously on the edge of her chair, as if prepared to render any sort of aid to any one instantly. “You never heard of the manner nor time of her death, did you?” Mr. Moulton went on. “No!” he added as the three girls shook their heads and Mary clasped her hands quickly and gasped: “Oh, Mr. Moulton!”
“No, you never did. The impression that she was dead has been intentionally given you, because it was the kindest thing to do to keep you from worrying and longing to get in touch with her. But, my dears, your mother is not dead.”
The three girls sat in utter silence for a few moments after this announcement. Mary, white to the lips, clasped and unclasped her hands, looking imploringly at Mr. Moulton with her lovely brown eyes as prayerful as a dog’s. Florimel seemed dazed, and Jane, alarmingly white and thin looking—Jane had a trick of looking thin under emotion—suddenly dropped over on the arm of her chair and shook with dry sobs. Win sat silent, looking rather stern.
“We do not understand,” Mary managed to whisper at last.
“Win remembers her; he was eleven years old when she went away.” Mr. Moulton halted again over the beginning of his story.
“He never talked about her to us,” said Mary reproachfully.
“I know,” assented Mr. Moulton, watching his wife as she vainly tried to calm Jane, and finally went quietly to find Anne Kennington and ask for aromatic ammonia. “Win had a boy’s resentment against his sister-in-law for leaving you, and for leaving him, also. He was fond of her and bitterly resented her ‘deserting you,’ as he called it. I used to try to reconcile Win and teach him to judge Mrs. Garden gently, but he was too young to learn charity. He helped me to keep from you younger children the fact that she was alive—which he has not suspected, I know—by believing that she had died, and asking no questions.” Mr. Moulton smiled at the bewildered young man, who was not less stunned than the girls by this information. “Jane, my dear, try to control yourself. There is nothing about finding one’s mother alive to cry over, and I want you to hear what I say,” said Mr. Moulton, with better effect on Jane’s nerves than his wife’s prescription. Jane stood in awe of her guardian.
“Your mother, my dears, was married young. It was not so young that she had not tasted the delight of holding an audience by her charming voice—she sang like the linnet she was called—and by her remarkable talent for mimicry. She was the best mimic I ever heard; she could burlesque anybody, and imitate almost any sound. She was a great pet with audiences over in England, when she married an American, considerably her elder—your father and my friend. He took her away from her audiences and her country and set her down in the old Garden house amid the old Garden garden. Here you, her three babies, were born in four years. I knew Lynette as well as a sober codger like me could know such a radiant creature, but I never knew whether or not she longed for her professional life. Then, your father dead, Florimel a baby of a year, she suddenly announced that she could bear it no longer, but must return to her singing and entertaining. I was your guardian, children; Anne was devotion to you incarnate; your mother knew that she was leaving her babies to absolute safety, better care than most mothered babies get. Of course no one else can understand how the old life could call her with half the force your baby voices would have to hold her. Mrs. Moulton has never understood it.” Mr. Moulton glanced at his wife, who looked grimly at him in return. “I don’t understand it myself, but Lynette Devon loved her old life and she was unable to resist its lure. She went back, and all these past twelve years, while you have thought her dead, she has been entrancing the English public, quite as great a success as before her marriage.”