“They gave me no peace day or night. They took Allie away. They turned Arthur against me; they said I was low and ignorant and poor, and finally they hinted that I was crazy,—made so by temper,—and that I would not stand, so I went away; and Arthur went East and I West to mother, and the baby was born, which Arthur knew nothing about, and mother died, and the other baby died, and I was alone, and went awhile to Mrs. Storms; and then I drifted back here. I don’t know how, nor when, nor where, nor what happened after I left Mrs. Storms only I lost baby, but I didn’t kill it, Heaven knows I didn’t. I lost it, but Providence sent it back, so I can see it, though nobody else does, and it’s there in the cradle, and I’ve rocked it ever since, and worn the carpet through. Don’t you see the white spots? Those are baby’s footprints.”
She leaned over the side of the bed and pointed to the breadth of carpet which was worn white and threadbare with the constant motion of the crib. It was not the first carpet she had worn out, nor the second, for “she had to rock to keep the baby quiet, even if it did annoy Arthur so,” she said; and Magdalen’s heart ached for the poor, demented creature, while in spite of all his faults she pitied the man who was designated as Arthur, and who must suffer fearfully with such a wife. Laura’s story, so long as it pertained to her girlhood and early married life, had been quite connected and reasonable, and Magdalen gained a tolerably clear understanding of the matter. Arthur Grey had accidentally found this woman, who when young must have been as beautiful as she was poor and lowly born. The obstacles thrown in his way had only increased his passion, which finally outweighed every other consideration, and led to a clandestine marriage, wholly distasteful to the proud mother and sisters, who had so violently opposed poor Jessie Morton. That they had made Laura’s life very unhappy; that the fickle husband, grown weary of his unsophisticated wife, had cruelly neglected her, until at last in desperation she had gone away, Magdalen gathered from the story told so rapidly; but after that she failed to comprehend what she heard. The baby which Laura said had died, and the one which she did not kill and which she had christened Magdalen, with Mrs. Storms as sponsor, were enigmas which she could not solve. It struck her as a strange coincidence that she herself and the lost baby of the Greys should have borne the same name, and for the same woman; and she wondered what it was about that child which had affected the mother so strangely and put such wild fancies into her head. Her hand had dropped from the cradle now, the rocking had ceased, and the tired, worn-out woman, who had tossed and shrieked and struggled the livelong night, was falling asleep. Once, as her heavy lids began to droop, she started up, and reaching for Magdalen’s hand, said to her, “Don’t leave me! I am better with you here. Stay and sing more songs to me about the troubled soul. It makes me feel as if I was in Heaven.”
She held Magdalen’s hand in her own, and Magdalen sang to her again, while the tears rained from Laura’s eyes, and rolled down her faded cheeks.
“Let me cry; it does me good,” she said, when Magdalen tried to soothe her. “It cools me, and my head seems to grow clearer about the baby. It will come to me by and by, what I did with her. Oh, my child, my darling, God has surely kept her safe somewhere.”
She was talking very low and slowly, and Magdalen watched her until the lips ceased to move, and the long eyelashes still wet with tears rested upon the flushed cheeks. She was asleep at last, and Magdalen, looking at her, knew that she must have been beautiful in her early girlhood when Arthur Grey had won her for his bride. Traces of beauty she had yet, in the regularity of her features, her well-shaped head, her abundant hair, with just a little ripple in it, her white forehead, and even teeth which showed no signs of decay. She was not old either, and Magdalen thought how young she must have been when she became a wife.
“Poor woman! her life has been a failure,” she said, as she drew the covering around the shoulders and over the hands, on one of which the wedding ring and a superb diamond were still shining.
Mrs. Jenks seemed in no hurry to resume her post, and weary from her wakefulness of the previous night, Magdalen settled herself in the large easy chair by the bed, and was soon so fast asleep, that until twice repeated she did not hear Honora, who came to tell her that breakfast was waiting for her.
CHAPTER XL.
A GLIMMER OF LIGHT.
All that day Magdalen stayed with Mrs. Grey, who clung to her as a child clings to its mother, and who was more quiet and manageable than she had been in many weeks. Magdalen could soothe and control her as no one else had done since she left the private asylum where her husband had kept her so long, and this she did by the touch of her hand, the sound of her voice, and the glance of her eye, which fascinated and subdued her patient at once.