Edith Lyle

by Mary Jane Holmes

But Gertie did not come, and the next day we read the words: “Gertie is very sick. Come immediately.”

Then Edith frightened me, she turned so white and stood so still, while the iron fingers clutched her throat for the last time, and strangled her until her face was purple. I rang for help, but before it came the fingers relaxed their grasp, the natural color came back to the face, and Edith was herself again. Fortunately it was her maid who answered the ring, and telling her of the dispatch, and that she was going to New York, Edith bade her pack her travelling valise, and order the carriage for the next train, due in half an hour.

“Oh, Ettie,” she cried, when we were alone, “God will not take her from me now. Pray that He will spare Gertie.”

I think she prayed constantly, while getting herself ready, for her lips moved continually, and I caught the whispered words: “Don’t,—don’t,” and knew she was pleading for Gertie’s life. I went with her to the station and saw her on the train, and then returned to the Hill, charged with the responsibility of acquainting the household, and as many others as I saw fit with the story which it was better to have known while the family was absent.

I found Mrs. Tiffe in her own room, and with her a Mrs. Noall, a great gossip but a thoroughly good-natured and well-meaning woman, and though she told all she knew, never told any more, and always told it as she heard it. Here was a good opportunity for the news to be thoroughly disseminated without much help from me, further than the telling it first to my auditors. And this it was easy to do, for they were talking of Mrs. Schuyler when I went in, and Mrs. Noall was wondering why they came home from Europe so suddenly, and why they both seemed so broken and worn. She surmised that the colonel’s finances were in a very precarious condition; she knew he had suffered some heavy losses recently and perhaps he was going to fail.

“It is not that,” I said. “It is something entirely different which has troubled Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler, and I have come in on purpose to tell you, as Mrs. Schuyler wishes the people to know it before her return.”

Then, taking a chair between the two dames I told the story of Edith’s life, interrupted frequently by questions and ejaculations from my auditors, both of whom were more amazed than they had ever been before in their lives. Mrs. Tiffe was the first to recover herself. She had the family dignity to maintain, and she was going to do it, and while she condemned the Fordham woman out and out, she stood firmly by Edith as more sinned against than sinning, and said that she for one thought more of her than ever, and that every right-minded person would agree with her, of course. Mrs. Noall, who was usually chary of offending Mrs. Tiffe, fully agreed with her, and both expressed unbounded delight that the lost child had proved to be Gertie Westbrooke, whom everybody loved.

“And that’s what makes her sick, and why Mrs. Schuyler has gone to her. I see,—yes, I understand,” Mrs. Noall said, and though she had intended stopping to dinner with Mrs. Tiffe, she declared that she must go at once, and she went, and to my certain knowledge made twenty calls before ten o’clock at night, and told the story twenty times without varying it in the least.

Of course there was nothing more for me to do except to answer the questions of those who came on purpose to inquire if what they had heard was true. Never before had I received so many calls within a given time as I did during the few days of excitement when Hampstead was alive with the story, and reminiscences of the Fordhams were brought up and comments of various kinds were made, according to the nature of those who made them. I think Mrs. Barton from the Ridge was the most disturbed; she had spent the winter in Hampstead, and she came to see me early, and stayed three hours, and talked the matter over, and wished that it had not been made public.

Mrs. Barton was a kind, good woman at heart, but very proud and particular about family and blood, and I knew she was thinking of Tom, who still avowed his intention to marry Gertie or nobody, and so I flamed up in Edith’s defence, and said she was resolved to have no more concealments, that I had suggested to her the propriety of not telling who her first husband was, as that was sure to increase the talk and wonder.