Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Will he know me?” was her first thought when he was presented to her.

But there was no fear of that, for Mildred Leach had passed as wholly out of his mind as if he had never seen her, and if she had not there was no danger of his recognizing the girl who had been his daughter’s companion in this lovely woman whose voice and manner and appearance were indicative of the refinement and cultivation to which for years she had been accustomed. To him she was Miss Gardner, an English girl, and during the half hour he walked by her chair in the gardens, he felt his heart throb as it had never throbbed since he buried his wife. He had loved her devotedly and had never thought to fill her place until now when love did its work at first sight, and when two weeks later the Harwoods left Florence for Venice and Switzerland, he was with them, to all intents and purposes Mildred’s lover, although he had not openly announced himself as such.

To Mrs. Harwood Mildred had said, “Don’t tell him who I am. I prefer to do that when the time comes. I am going to punish him for calling my father a peasant when you inquired about him. I heard him. I have not forgotten.”

And so Mr. Thornton went blindly to his fate, which came one day in Ouchy in the grounds of the Beau-Rivage, where Mildred was sitting alone, with her eyes fixed upon the lake and the mountains beyond, and her thoughts back in the old farm house, with her mother and Bessie and Tom and Hugh, of whom she had not heard a word for months.

“He has forgotten me,” she said to herself, “and why shouldn’t he? I was never much to him, and yet”——

She did not get any farther, for there was a footstep near; some one was coming, and in a moment Mr. Thornton said to her, “Alone, Miss Gardner, and dreaming? May I dispel the dream and sit beside you a moment?”

Mildred knew then what was before her, as well as she did half an hour later, during which time Giles Thornton had laid himself and his fortune at her feet, and what was harder than all to meet, had made her believe that he loved her. She knew that he admired her, but she had not counted upon his love, which moved her a little, for Mr. Thornton was not a man to whom one could listen quietly when he was in earnest and resolved to carry his point, and for an instant Mildred wavered. It was something to be Mrs. Giles Thornton, of Thornton Park, and ought to satisfy her ambition. With all her beauty and social advantages, she as yet had received no eligible offer. It was known that she had no money, and only an Italian count and the youngest son of an English earl had asked her hand in marriage. But both were poor, and one almost an imbecile, from whom she shrank in disgust. Mr. Thornton was different; he was a gentleman of wealth and position, and as his wife she would for a part of the year live near her family. But with the thought of them there came the memory of an overgrown, awkward boy, whose feet and hands were so big that he never knew what to do with them, but whose heart was so much bigger than his feet and hands, that it bore down the scale and Mr. Thornton’s chance was lost for the time being.

“Hugh may never be anything to me,” she thought, “but I must see him before I give myself to any one.”

Then turning to Mr. Thornton, she said, “I thank you for your offer, which I believe is sincere, and that makes it harder for me to tell you what I must. Do you remember a girl, Mildred Leach, who was your daughter’s little friend, as she called herself, for she was as proud as you, and would not be a maid?”

“Ye-es,” Mr. Thornton stammered, as he looked wistfully into the beautiful face confronting him so steadily. “I had forgotten her entirely, but I remember now. She left us to go with an English lady, a Mrs. Gardner. Why, that is Mrs. Harwood,—and,—and,—oh, you are not she!”