A Changed Heart: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

So, when all returned to the drawing-room, Val Blake told Mr. Darcy how he had been outwitted by a girl. Not that Mr. Blake put it in any such barbarous way, but glossed over ugly facts with a politeness that was quite unusual in straightforward Val. But Mrs. Paul Wyndham herself rose up, very white, with lips that trembled, and was brave enough and strong enough to openly confess her sin and her sister's goodness. She looked up, with pitiful supplication, in the face of her husband, as she finished, with the imploring appeal of a little child for pardon; and he put his protecting arm around her, and smiled tenderly down in the mournful black eyes, once so defiantly bright to him. Mr. Darcy's amazement was beyond everything.

"Bless my soul!" was his cry, "and little Miss Rose is Miss Henderson, after all, and the heiress of Redmon."

Miss Henderson, on whom all eyes were admiringly bent, was painfully confused, and shrank so palpably, that the old lawyer spared her, and no one was sacrilegious enough to tell the little heroine what they thought of her noble conduct. And when Mrs. Marsh burst unexpectedly out in a glowing eulogy on all her goodness, not only to herself and Nathalie, but to all who were poor and friendless in the town, the little heiress broke down and cried. So no more was said in her hearing, and the gentlemen gathered together, and talked the matter over apart from the ladies, and settled how the news was to be taken to Speckport.

It was late when the party broke up, and good-night and good-bye was said to Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham, who were to leave to-morrow at eight. Val and Laura promised to be at the boat to see them off; and they were down true to their word, before the Redmon carriage arrived. Charley was there, too, and so was Cherrie, in crape to the eyes, looking very pretty in her widow's weeds, and all in a flutter at the thought of seeing Charley again. But this bearded and mustached and grave-looking young man was not the hot-headed, thoughtless Charley her pretty face had nearly ruined for life; and as he held out his hand to her, with a grave, almost sad smile, Cherrie suddenly recollected all the evil she had caused him, and had the grace to burst into tears, much to the horror of Mr. Blake, who had a true masculine dread of scenes.

"Don't cry, Cherrie," Charley said, "it's all over now, and it has done me good."

If any lingering hope remained that the old time might be renewed, that question and the smile that accompanied it banished forever from poor Cherrie's foolish heart and her punishment that moment was bitterer than all that had gone before.

Miss Henderson was in the carriage with Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham, and went on board with them, as did the rest of their friends, and lingered until the last bell rang. Then, as Mrs. Wyndham threw back her vail for a parting kiss, they all saw that her eyes were swollen with crying. Paul Wyndham held both the little hands of the heiress in his own, and looked down in the gentle face with tender reverence.

"Good-bye, little sister," he said; "good-bye, and God bless you!"

The others were crowding around, and hasty farewells were spoken; and then the steamer was moving away from the wharf, and Charley led Miss Henderson, who was crying behind her vail, ashore; and they stood on the wharf to watch the steamer out of sight. They saw Paul Wyndham with his wife on his arm, waving a last farewell from the deck; and then the steamer was down the bay, and all the people on the wharf were going home. Charley Marsh assisted Miss Henderson into her carriage, and she was driven away to her new home.

Speckport knew everything—the murder was out, and Speckport, from one end to the other, was agape at the news. There was one thing about the affair they could not understand, and that was, how the rightful heiress, knowing herself to be so, and perfectly able to prove it, could wear out her life as a pitiful governess, and leave a princely fortune in the hands of a usurping stepsister. Speckport could not understand this—never could understand it, and set her down as an insipid little nonentity, with no will of her own, and easily twisted around the finger of that bold, bad, ambitious woman, Mrs. Paul Wyndham. Speckport did not spare its late enchantress, and for all their contempt of that "insipid thing" the present heiress, were very well satisfied to be noticed by her in public, and only too happy to call at Redmon. It was in her favor, they said, that she put on no airs in consequence of her sudden rise in the world, but was as gentle, and humble, and patient, and sweet, as heiress of Redmon as she had been when Mrs. Wheatly's governess. A few there were who understood and appreciated her; and when old Father Lennard laid his hand on her drooping head and fervently exclaimed, "God bless you, my child!" her eyes filled, and she felt more than repaid for any sacrifice she had ever made. Speckport said—but Speckport was always given to say a good deal more than its prayers—Speckport said Mr. Charles Marsh appreciated her, too, and that the estate of Redmon would eventually go, in spite of Mrs. Leroy's unjust will, to the Marsh family. But it was only gossip, this, and nobody knew for certain, and Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose Henderson had always been the best of friends.