Maggie Miller: The Story of Old Hagar's Secret

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Yes, 'tis true," she groaned; and then, powerless to speak another word, she laid her head upon a chair, while Mr. Carrollton, preferring to be alone, sought the solitude of his own room, where unobserved he could wrestle with his sorrow and conquer his inborn pride, which whispered to him that a Carrollton must not wed a bride so far beneath him.

Only a moment, though, and then the love he bore for Maggie Miller rolled back upon him with an overwhelming power, while his better judgment, with that love, came hand in hand, pleading for the fair young girl, who, now that he had lost her, seemed a thousandfold dearer than before. But he had not lost her; he would find her. She was Maggie Miller still to him, and though old Hagar's blood were in her veins he would not give her up. This resolution once made, it could not be shaken, and when half an hour or more was passed he walked with firm, unfaltering footsteps back to the apartment where Madam Conway still sat upon the floor, her head resting upon the chair, and her frame convulsed with grief.

Her struggle had been a terrible one, and it was not over yet, for with her it was more than a matter of pride and love. Her daughter's rights had been set at naught; a wrong had been done to the dead; the child who slept beneath the pine had been neglected; nay, in life, had been, perhaps, despised for an intruder, for one who had no right to call her grandmother; and shudderingly she cried, "Why was it suffered thus to be?" Then as she thought of white-haired Hagar Warren, she raised her hand to curse her, but the words died on her lips, for Hagar's deed had brought to her much joy; and now, as she remembered the bounding step, the merry laugh, the sunny face, and loving words which had made her later years so happy, she involuntarily stretched out her arms in empty air, moaning sadly: "I want her here. I want her now, just as she used to be." Then, over the grave of her buried daughter, over the grave of the sickly child, whose thin, blue face came up before her just as it lay in its humble coffin, over the deception of eighteen years, her heart bounded with one wild, yearning throb, for every bleeding fiber clung with a deathlike grasp to her who had been so suddenly taken from her. "I love her still!" she cried; "but can I take her back?" And then commenced the fiercest struggle of all, the battling of love and pride, the one rebelling against the child of Hagar Warren, and the other clamoring loudly that without that child the world to her was nothing. It was the hour of Madam Conway's humiliation, and in bitterness of spirit she groaned: "That I should come to this! Theo first, and Margaret, my bright, my beautiful Margaret, next! Oh, how can I give her up when I loved her best of all—best of all!"

This was true, for all the deeper, stronger love of Madam Conway's nature had gone forth to the merry, gleeful girl whose graceful, independent bearing she had so often likened to herself and the haughty race with which she claimed relationship. How was this illusion dispelled! Margaret was not a Conway, nor yet a Davenport. A servant-girl had been her mother, and of her father there was nothing known. Madam Conway was one who seldom wept for grief. She had stood calmly at the bedside of her dying husband, had buried her only daughter from her sight, had met with many reverses, and shed for all no tears, but now they fell like rain upon her face, burning, blistering as they fell, but bringing no relief.

"I shall miss her in the morning," she cried, "miss her at noon, miss her in the lonesome nights, miss her everywhere—oh, Margaret, Margaret, 'tis more than I can bear! Come back to me now, just as you are. I want you here—here where the pain is hardest," and she clasped her arms tightly over her heaving bosom. Then her pride returned again, and with it came thoughts of Arthur Carrollton. He would scoff at her as weak and sentimental; he would never take beyond the sea a bride of "Hagarish" birth; and duty demanded that she too should be firm, and sanction his decision. "But when he's gone," she whispered, "when he has left America behind, I'll find her, if my life is spared. I'll find poor Margaret, and see that she does not want, though I must not take her back."

This resolution, however, did not bring her comfort, and the hands pressed so convulsively upon her side could not ease her pain. Surely never before had so dark an hour infolded that haughty woman, and a prayer that she might die was trembling on her lips when a footfall echoed along the hall, and Arthur Carrollton stood before her. His face was very pale, bearing marks of the storm he had passed through; but he was calm, and his voice was natural as he said: "Possibly what we have heard is false. It may be a vagary of Hagar's half-crazed brain."

For an instant Madam Conway had hoped so too; but when she reflected, she knew that it was true. Old Hagar had been very minute in her explanations to Margaret, who in turn had written exactly what she had heard, and Madam Conway, when she recalled the past, could have no doubt that it was true. She remembered everything, but more distinctly the change of dress at the time of the baptism. There could be no mistake. Margaret was not hers, and so she said to Arthur Carrollton, turning her head away as if she too were in some way answerable for the disgrace.

"It matters not," he replied, "whose she has been. She is mine now, and if you feel able we will consult together as to the surest method of finding her." A sudden faintness came over Madam Conway, and, while the expression of her face changed to one of joyful surprise, she stammered out: "Can it be I hear aright? Do I understand you? Are you willing to take poor Maggie back?"

"I certainly have no other intention," he answered. "There was a moment, the memory of which makes me ashamed, when my pride rebelled; but it is over now, and though Maggie cannot in reality be again your child, she can be my wife, and I must find her."

"You make me so happy—oh, so happy!" said Madam Conway. "I feared you would cast her off, and in that case it would have been my duty to do so too, though I never loved a human being as at this moment I love her."