Family Pride Or Purified by Suffering Part 25

"Wait till the madam comes and then we'll see," she thought, referring to Mrs. Cameron, and feeling delighted when that very day she heard that lady's voice in the parlor.

But Mrs. Cameron, though a little anxious with regard to both Mrs.

Hubbell's and Marian's antecedents, and a little doubtful as to the effect a common dressmaker's nursing might have upon the child, saw at once that Wilford was in favor of New London and so voted accordingly, only asking that she might see and talk with Marian Hazelton herself.

"One can judge so much better from hearing one converse. If her manner should be very bad and her grammar execrable, I should consider it my duty to withdraw my consent," she said, with as much deliberation as if the matter were wholly at her disposal. "Would Katy drive around with her to Marian Hazelton's to-morrow?"

Katy would be delighted; and so next day Mrs. Cameron, the elder, was holding high her aristocratic skirts and glancing ruefully around as she followed Mrs. Cameron, the younger, up the three flights of stairs to Marian's door, which did not open to the a.s.sured knock, nor yet yield to the gentle pressure. Marian was out, and there was no alternative but for Katy to scribble a few lines upon the card she left upon the k.n.o.b, telling Marian who had been there, and requesting her to call that evening at No. ---- Fifth Avenue, as the elder Mrs. Cameron was particularly anxious to see her before committing her grandchild to her care. "Please go, Marian, for my sake," Katy added, but in reading to Wilford's mother what she had written, she omitted that, and so escaped a lecture from that lady upon undue familiarity with inferiors.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW IT ENDED.

"Will Marian go to No. ---- Fifth Avenue?" Marian asked herself that question many times, as with Katy's card in her hand she stood pondering the subject and feeling glad of the good fortune which had sent her from home when Wilford's mother called.

Yes, Marian would; and at the hour between the daylight and the dark, just as the lamps are lighted in the street, and before they are usually lighted in the parlors there was a ring at the door, whose ma.s.sive plate bore the name of Cameron, and the colored man who answered that ring stared at the figure he ushered in, seating it in the dim hall and asking for the name.

"Miss Hazelton wishes to see Mrs. Cameron," was the reply, and at the sound of that musical, well-bred voice, the servant half opened the parlor door, but closed it again as he went for his mistress, who expressed her surprise that Marian Hazelton should presume to enter where she did.

"Maybe she is a lady, mother; Katy raves about her continually," Bell said; but with an air of incredulity at the lady part, Mrs. Cameron swept haughtily down the broad staircase, the rustle of her heavy silk sending a chill of fear through Marian's frame, but not affecting her so much as did the voice; the cold, proud, metallic voice, which said to her as she half arose to her feet, "Miss Hazelton, I believe?"

At that sound there crept over her the same sensation she had felt years ago, whenever the tones of that voice fell on her ear, for this was not the first meeting of Mrs. Cameron and Marian Hazelton. But for all the former guessed or knew, it was the first, and she looked curiously at the graceful figure, but dimly seen in the shadowy twilight, noticing the thick green veil which so nearly concealed the face, and wondering why it was worn, or being worn, why it was kept so nearly down.

"Miss Hazelton, I believe?" was all that had pa.s.sed between them as yet, for at these words a great fear had come upon Marian lest her own voice should seem as natural as did the one which had just spoken to her.

But she could not stand there long without answering, and so she ventured at last to say:

"Yes, I found Mrs. Wilford Cameron's note, and came around as she requested."

There was nothing objectionable in that remark, while the voice was very, very sweet and musical, so musical, indeed, so like a voice heard before, that Mrs. Cameron involuntarily went a step nearer to the stranger, and even thought of calling up a servant to light the gas. But that would perhaps be too great a civility, or at least betoken too great a curiosity, and so she forebore, while she began to question Marian of her own and Mrs. Hubbell's antecedents. Both were English, both had worked upon the Isle of Wight, and later in New York, at Madam ----'s; one had married, living now in New London, and the other Stood there as Marian Hazelton, puzzling and bewildering Mrs. Cameron, who tried to recall the person of whom she was reminded by that voice and that manner, so wholly ladylike and refined.

Marian Hazelton pleased her, as was apparent from her expressing a wish that "as far as practicable Miss Hazelton should take charge of the child. We cannot tell how early life-long impression may be made, and it is desirable that they be of the right nature, and wholly in accordance with refinement and good-breeding."

There was a curl on Marian's lip as she remembered another meeting with the proud lady whose words were not as complimentary as now, but she merely bent her head in supposed acquiescence to the belief that Baby Cameron was, or soon would be, capable of discriminating between a nurse refined and one the opposite. There was a moment's silence and then Marian asked if baby had been christened?

"Not yet, we cannot decide upon a name," was the reply, while Marian continued:

"I understood your daughter that it was to be Genevra."

Marian Hazelton was growing too familiar, and so the lady deigned no answer, but stepped a little to one side, as if she would thus indicate that the conference was ended.

Dropping her veil entirely over her face, for the servant was now lighting the parlor lamps, Marian turned toward the door which Mrs.

Cameron opened, and she pa.s.sed out just as up the steps came Wilford, Marian's skirts brushing him as she pa.s.sed, and her heart beating painfully as she thought of her escape and began to realize the danger she incurred when she accepted the office of partial nurse to his child.

"Dark, mother? How is that? Why is the hall not lighted?" she heard him say, and the old, familiar tones, so little changed, vibrated sadly in her ear, as she dashed away a tear, and then hurried on through the darkened streets toward her humble home, so different from the Cameron's.

"Who was that, mother?" Wilford said, expressing regret that he had not happened in a little earlier, so as to have seen her himself, and asking what his mother thought of her.

"I liked her. She seemed a well-bred person, and her voice is much like Genevra's."

Wilford turned his eyes quickly upon his mother, who continued:

"I did not think of her, it is true, until Miss Hazelton inquired about baby's name, and said she understood from Katy that it was to be Genevra. Then it came to me whose her voice was like. Genevra's, you know, was very musical."

"Yes," Wilford answered, and in his eyes there was a look of pain, such as thoughts of Genevra always brought.

She was in his mind when he ran up his father's steps, not Genevra living, but Genevra dead--she who slept in that lone corner of the churchyard across the sea. "Genevra Lambert, aged twenty-two," and not Genevra, aged nearly thirty-two, if she had been still living. Kindly, regretfully, he always spoke of her now, separating her entirely from the little fairy who was mistress of his house and love--Katy, who was preferred before Genevra, and to whom no wrong was done, he thought, by his sad memories of the beautiful English girl, whose grave was at St.

Mary's, and whose picture was so securely hidden from every eye save his own. He never liked to talk of her now, and he changed the subject at once, asking when it would be best to send his child away.

"Miss Hazelton is ready any time, and so I decided upon the day after to-morrow--that will be Sat.u.r.day--thus giving Katy the benefit of Sunday in which to get over it and recover her usual spirits."

"You are sure it is right?" Wilford asked, for now that the time drew near when the little crib at home would be empty, the nursery desolate, with no fretful, plaintive wail to annoy and worry him, he began to feel that after all that cry was not so very vexing as he had imagined it to be; that he might miss it when it was gone, and wish back the little creature which had been so greatly in his way.

Besides this, there was a sense of injustice to Katy. Perhaps he had not been considerate enough of her feelings; at all events, his mother's arranging the time of baby's departure looked like ignoring Katy altogether, and he ventured a remonstrance. But his mother soon convinced him of her infallible judgment; not only in that matter, but in all others pertaining to his household; and so with his good opinion of himself restored, he went home to where Katy waited for him, with her baby in her lap, both tastefully attired, and making a most lovely picture. Wilford kissed them both, and took his daughter in his arms, an act he had not often been guilty of, for baby tending was not altogether to his taste.

In the dark hours of agony which came to him afterward, he remembered that night, feeling again the touch of the velvet cheek and the warmth of the faint breath which floated across his face as he held his little girl for a moment to it, laughing at Katy's distress because "his whiskers scratched it."

It was strange how much confidence Katy had in Marian Hazelton, and how the fact that she was going to New London reconciled her to the plan, making her even cheerful during the last day of baby's stay at home. But as the daylight waned and the night came on, a shadow began to steal across her sunny face, and her step was slower as it went up the stairs to the nursery, while only herself that night could disrobe the little creature and hush it into sleep.

"'Tis the last time, you know," she said to Kirby, who readily yielded her post and went out, leaving the young mother and child alone.

Mournfully sad and sweet was the lullaby Katy sang, and Helen, in the hall, listening to the low, sad moaning, half prayer, half benediction, likened it to a farewell between the living and the dead. Half an hour later, when she glanced into the room, lighted only by the moonbeams, baby was sleeping in her crib, which Katy knelt beside, her face buried in her hands, and her form quivering with the sobs she tried to smother as she softly prayed that her darling might come back again; that G.o.d would keep the little child and forgive the erring mother who had sinned so deeply since the time she used to pray in the home among the hills of Ma.s.sachusetts. She was very white next morning, and to Helen she seemed to be expanding into something more womanly, more mature, as she disciplined herself to bear the pain welling up so constantly from her heart, and at last overflowing in a flood of tears when Marian was announced as in the parlor below waiting for her charge. Fortunately there was but little time for parting kisses and fond good-byes, for Marian had purposely waited as long as possible ere coming, and expedition was necessary if she reached the train.

It was Katy who made her baby ready, trusting her to no one else, and repelling with a kind of fierce decision all offers of a.s.sistance made either by Helen, Mrs. Cameron, Bell, or the nurse, who were present.

While Katy's hands drew on the little bright, soft socks of wool, tied the hood of satin and lace, and fastened the scarlet cloak, her tears falling like rain as she met the loving, knowing look the baby was just learning to give her, half smiling, half cooing, as she bent her face down to it.

"Please all of you go out," she said, when baby was ready--"Wilford and all. I had rather be alone."

They granted her request, but Wilford stood beside the open door, listening while the mother bade farewell to her baby.

"Darling," she murmured, "what will poor Katy do when you are gone, or what will comfort her as you have done? Precious baby, my heart is breaking to give you up; but will the Father in Heaven who knows how much you are to me, keep you from harm and bring you back again? Some time I'd give the world to keep you, but I cannot do it, for Wilford says that you must go, and Wilford is your father."

At that moment Wilford Cameron would have given half his fortune to have kept his child for Katy's sake, but it was now too late; the carriage was at the door, and Marian, whom no one had seen but Helen, was waiting in the hall, her thick green veil dropped before her face, and a m.u.f.fler about her mouth as if suffering from the toothache. Helen had asked if it were so, but Marian's answer was prevented by the little procession filing down the stairs--Mrs. Cameron and Bell, Wilford and Katy, who carried the baby herself, her face bent over it and her tears still dropping like rain. But it was Wilford who put his child into Marian's extended arms, forgetting in his excitement to notice aught in the new nurse except the long, green veil which was not raised at all, even when Katy said, pleadingly, "You will care for her, Marian, as if she were your own."

"Yes, I will, I will," was the response, spoken huskily and having in it no tone like Genevra's. "I will as if it were my own," were the last words Marian said as she went down the steps, followed by Wilford, to whom the thought had just occurred that he ought to see her off.

Marian had not expected this, and the tension of her nerves was hardly equal to the task of sitting there with Wilford Cameron opposite, his baby in her lap, his voice in her ear, and his eyes turned upon her as if curious to know what manner of woman she was. But the thick veil did its duty well, while the m.u.f.fler answered the purpose intended; it changed the voice which was only natural once, and that when it addressed the baby, which began to grow restless as they drew near the depot. Then Wilford was reminded of Genevra, and the thought carried him across the sea, so that he forgot all else until the station was reached and he was busy, procuring checks and ticket. He saw her into the car, procuring for her a double seat, and speaking a word for her to the conductor, whom he knew. And this he did partly for Katy's sake, and partly because in spite of the plain attire he recognized the lady and felt that Marian Hazelton was no ordinary person. He offered her his hand, wondering why hers trembled so in his grasp, wondering why it was so cold, and wondering, too, why, if she had never been a wife, she wore that plain gold circlet which glittered upon her third finger.

"They certainly call her Miss Hazelton," he thought, as he bade her good-by and then left her alone, going back to the house which even to him seemed lonely, with all the paraphernalia of babyhood removed.

Still, now that the worst was over, he rather enjoyed it, for Katy was free from care; there was nothing to hinder her gratifying his every wish, and with his spirits greatly enlivened as he reflected how satisfactory everything had been managed at the last, he proposed taking both Helen and Katy to the theatre that night. But Katy answered: "No, Wilford, not to-night; it seems too much like baby's funeral. I'll go next week, but not to-night."

So Katy had her way, but among the worshipers who next day knelt in Grace Church with words of prayer upon their lips, there was not one more in earnest than she whose only theme was, "My child, my darling child."

She did not get over it by Monday, as Mrs. Cameron had predicted. She did not get over it at all, though she went without a word where Wilford willed that she should go, and even Helen, with her sounder health and stronger const.i.tution, grew tired of that endless round, which gave her scarcely a quiet hour at home. And Katy was a belle again, her name on every lip, her praise in every heart, for none could feel jealous, she bore her honors so meekly, wondering why people liked her so much and loving them because they did. And none admired her more than Helen, who, scarcely less a belle herself, yielded everything to her young sister whom she pitied while she admired, for nothing had power to draw one look from her blue eyes, the look which many observed, and which Helen knew sprang from the mother love, hungering for its child. Only once before had Helen seen a look like this, and that came to Morris' face on the sad night when she said to him, "It might have been." It had been there ever since, and Helen, though revering him before, felt that by the pangs with which that look was born he was a better man, just as Katy was growing better for that hunger in her heart. G.o.d was taking his own way to purify them both, but the process was going on and Helen watched it intently, wondering what the end would be.