The girl from nowhere

by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

He found himself continually lost in speculation as to who the girl was. He wrote to the Mother Superior of the Convent, and her reply disturbed him greatly. She asked him, if he could possibly arrange it, to come and visit her personally. She had very little to tell him, but should be most grateful to hear good news of the girl, over whose fate she had grieved many times since she left the Convent.

Glad of any pretext to be upon the move, Denzil did as she asked him. He pleaded sudden and very important business connected with his ward, Miss Leigh, and left his visitors for a couple of days to the care of Aunt Bee and Rona.

But he wished afterwards that he had not gone, since all that the Reverend Mother could tell him went to confirm the suspicion which had lain at the bottom of his mind ever since he first saw the girl—namely, that Rona had no legal father.

A firm of solicitors, said the good lady, had written to her, asking her to receive a girl child, of the age of six months. It was said that she was doubly an orphan, and that it was believed that she had been duly baptized, but, as her mother was suddenly dead, nobody knew by what name. A sum for her maintenance was guaranteed. When the baby arrived at the Convent, the good nuns thought it best to be upon the safe side, and re-baptized her, under the name of Veronica; the record of this provisional baptism was shown to him in the register of their private chapel. They were told that the child's parents both belonged to the Roman Catholic faith. The sum promised them was duly paid, every quarter, through the same firm, until Rona was sixteen. The lawyers then wrote to the Convent, saying that their client, who had paid the money, was dead. He had left no instructions in his will as to the continuance of the payments, and they found no member of his family willing to sanction such a course. Nobody knew who the child was, and, so far as was known, she had no claim upon the man who had hitherto supported her. As she had attained the age of sixteen, the legatees thought she should now support herself. In these circumstances, the firm had communicated with Mr. Rankin Leigh, who was, they were informed, uncle to the child, upon her mother's side; and he had replied to the effect that he would travel down to the school and see his niece, with a view to making some provision for her future.

This Mr. Leigh had, after some weeks, presented himself. He was a seedy-looking individual. He declared, in conversation with the Reverend Mother, that he was wholly unable to support Veronica, who must earn her own living, but that, if she were a well-grown, nice-looking girl, he thought he might put her into a very good situation. Having seen his niece, he was evidently much struck by her beauty. "She is beautiful, do you not think?" asked the Mother, eagerly, of Denzil. "We all thought she promised to be lovely; though at that time, she was in the awkward stage. I have often wondered whether she has grown up as beautiful as we thought she would."

Denzil was able to produce a good photo of Veronica, taken within the last few weeks, and was touched at seeing the joy of the kind woman at her grace, and her happy look.

Denzil then, as well as he could, confided to her the terrible experience through which Rona had passed. He told of her rescue, and of their taking her into the Cottage Hospital. "Of course," he said, "we could see at once that she was no common girl."

The Mother agreed. She expatiated on the subject of Veronica. She had been an exquisitely pretty baby, and the joy of the nuns' hearts. Her clothes had been good and carefully made. She had evidently been the child of someone who cherished her tenderly.

But there was the significant fact that she seemed to be called by her mother's surname. It all contributed to the idea that Rona was nobody's child. And, deeply in love though Denzil was, he did not like the notion at all.

Rankin Leigh, it appeared, was an elderly man, and he had owned to the Mother that he was not the child's own uncle, but her great-uncle—her mother had been his niece. He had pumped hard to find out whether anything was known of the child's father, but, of course, had ascertained nothing.