Gladys, the Reaper Part 78

'That is what I don't know, sir.'

'Who did she marry? For G.o.d's sake tell me all, Gladys.'

'She ran away with my father, sir, an Irish soldier, a corporal named O'Grady. She went abroad with him, and did not come back to Ireland for two years.'

'And then--and her father--and--and her brother?'

'Her father was dead, sir, and n.o.body knew where her brother was.'

'Where did her father live?'

'Alas! sir, I cannot tell that either. We never talked to my poor mother about him, because it made her so unhappy, and as he was dead, I had no interest in asking for the address. All I know was, that she was Welsh; and when she was dying, she told me to go into Wales and find my uncle.

I don't think she quite knew what she was saying, but I came.'

The tears gathered in Gladys' eyes, and hearing a strange heavy sigh from Mr Jones, she looked up at him through their mist, and saw that he was struggling to speak through some great emotion.

'Oh, sir! what is the matter?' said Gladys, rising and going towards him as he stood, trembling, on the other side of her work-table.

He could not speak, but opening his arms as she approached him, folded her in them, and kissed her, as she had not been kissed before, since her poor mother died.

Gladys could only yield to the embrace, she knew not wherefore. She loved Mr Jones as if he were her own father, he had been almost like a father to her ever since she had been in his house; she felt as if she were once more in a father's arms.

We will leave them thus for one moment, to return to the drawing-room.

Mrs Jones, in her turn, kissed Minette, and praised her for repeating her hymn so well.

'But where is Mr Jones?' asked the child. 'Will he take me to see the little boys and girls?'

'I think he must be gone to find a book for you, dear,' was the reply.

But as neither Mr Jones nor the book came, Mrs Jones got rather fidgety, and fancying her husband might be ill, left the room to see what had become of him. She went to the dining-room, study, and bedroom, and, not finding him, went to ask Gladys whether she knew where he was. She was not a little astonished at finding him with Gladys in his arms, and the door half open at his back.

Mrs Jones was not a jealous wife, but Gladys was a very pretty girl, Mr Jones was avowedly very fond of her, and Mr Jones was mortal.

She felt a strange pain at her heart, turned pale, and stood for a moment un.o.bserved by either, on the threshold, irresolute, when she heard these words from her husband,--

'It must be so. Gladys--you are--you must be--my poor, dear, lost sister's child!'

Gladys and Mrs Jones uttered a simultaneous cry, and the latter entered the room.

'My dear William, what does this mean?' she said, approaching her husband and putting her hand on his shoulder.

'Serena!' (he, too called that gentle woman Serena) 'my love. For my sake! This is my sister's child--my niece--my--our Gladys!'

Mr Jones released the bewildered Gladys from his embrace, and almost placed her in the arms of his wife, who, scarcely comprehending what was pa.s.sing, kissed her tenderly.

Then Gladys sat down, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed convulsively. It was all a dream to her, from which she must awake. It could not be true. Mr and Mrs Jones soothed her. The former, restraining his own emotion, endeavoured to calm hers, by telling her that it was he who had written the names in that fortunate hymn book; he who was the brother of her mother; he who was her uncle, and who would be, not only an uncle, but a father to her henceforth.

At last, the agitated girl looked up at the kind and loving faces that were bending over her, and murmured,--

'It cannot be--it is--too good--too great--too happy.'

'It is true, Gladys, my niece, my child,' said Mr Jones, stooping to kiss her forehead.

Mrs Jones sat down by her, and taking one of her hands in hers, said,--

'It all seems a dream, Gladys. But if it be true, remember, you are now my niece, my child as well; and, G.o.d knows, I love you, and value you dearly.'

Once more the lonely Gladys felt that she had kindred. Yielding to the feeling, she threw her arms round Mrs Jones' neck, and gave vent to the emotion she had been striving to suppress.

At this juncture, Miss Gwynne appeared, who, wondering in her turn what could detain Mr and Mrs Jones so long from their guests, came to look for them.

Of course, she wondered still more when she found them both with their arms round one another and Gladys.

She was going away; but Mrs Jones, perceiving her, said,--

'Come in, dear Freda, Minette's hymn has led to a wonderful discovery--has given us a niece--a child--in--in--our dear friend Gladys.'

Miss Gwynne knelt down at the feet of the sobbing Gladys, and taking one of her hands, said,--

'Gladys, if this be true, we cannot love you better than we do now, or esteem you more; but you now _feel_ one of us, instead of the isolated Gladys of this little room, which you have resolutely been hitherto.'

As may be imagined, Gladys was a long time realising the fact, that she was suddenly, and in the most extraordinary manner, raised from the Irish beggar, lady's maid, or whatever she had hitherto chosen to consider herself--for every one about her had long looked upon her as a friend--to the niece of the good and kind Mr Jones. When she was able to speak, her first words were,--

'I do not understand it--I cannot believe it. It is too good--too happy.'

'I can scarcely believe it either,' said Mr Jones, taking up the hymn book, and turning to his wife and Miss Gwynne, who had, thus far, taken the strange news upon Mr Jones' word, which they never ventured to dispute.

'This is my writing. Margaret Jones was my sister, and Gladys' mother. I gave her this book when we were both young, and the date, also in my handwriting, marks the time, some two or three years after the gift, when I was at college, and she must have been about eighteen; she ran away with an Irish soldier, whose real name, even, we never learnt. My poor father doated on my sister, and spoilt her. She was high-spirited and wilful, but very loving, and very handsome. Not at all like Gladys.

My sister's was the Welsh, Gladys' the Irish cast of countenance; yet I have seen an expression in Gladys' face that has reminded me of her mother.'

'We discovered, after my sister ran away, that she had met the man she married when going to visit the landlady of a small inn, in my father's parish, who was ill. It seems that this woman connived at their meeting; and when strictly questioned, said, that she had believed he was a gentleman, and that he had called himself Captain O'Brien.'

'My poor father!' here broke in Gladys. 'He bitterly repented this, his only deception. He was of a good family, and his mother was an O'Brien; but no one belonging to him could afford to purchase him a commission, and so he went into the ranks. He once told me, that he persuaded my mother to marry him first, and then promised to let her write to his father. But I only know sc.r.a.ps of the story. I fancy my father was on his way home on leave, when he saw my mother and fell in love with her.

He loved her very dearly, and as long as he lived she wanted nothing that he could get her. The regiment was suddenly ordered abroad, and my mother could not write to her father, or did not, before they sailed.

And so she delayed, and delayed; but she wrote at last, and received no answer at all. I fancy she wrote several times from foreign parts, but never heard from any one. I know she wrote again from Ireland; but the letter was returned, with a note from some one, saying that her father had been dead some years, and no one knew anything of her brother.'

'Too true! too true!' said Mr Jones. 'My poor father, never very strong, was in his grave in less than six months after my sister left him. I returned from college to nurse, and bury him. I have told you all this, my dear Serena, little thinking that the young girl I first saw, after visiting his grave some twenty years after I had seen him laid in it, should be the child of the beloved daughter who had helped to hasten him thither.'

'My poor, dear mother!' said Gladys, sobbing as if her heart would break.

'Still less that you, my dear niece, would be five or six years in my house; I loving you as a daughter, and yet not knowing the relationship existing between us. But how could it have been discovered but for this book? I only knew of you, that you were an Irish girl escaping from poverty in Ireland, to find some Welsh friends, whose address even you did not know. But for your evident truthfulness, the very story must have been doubted. When I saw you at Mr Prothero's, I took you for his daughter; since I have looked upon you as one of our family, an orphan to be pitied and loved. Let us thank G.o.d and kind Christian people, that you have been so pitied and loved.'

Mr Jones' mild grey eyes, full of tears, turned upon Miss Gwynne, who said, hastily,--

'Ought not we to tell her first and best friends of this strange discovery?--Rowland, Mr Prothero, and Netta. What must they think of our long absence?'

'Not for worlds, Miss Gwynne, if you please!' cried Gladys, 'I could never be what I would like to be to Mrs Jenkins and her dear mother, if I were anything but the Gladys they have always known. They would be treating me as--as--they would not let me work and wait upon Mrs Jenkins. Until she is at home, at least, let me be as I am, as I was; it is all so strange. Until I have offered to remain and nurse her, and been refused--until, in short--'