Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale Part 40

So soon! The time had come but how strong she was! Not a tremor shook her frame; not an emotion quickened her pulse! Mr. Bancroft a.s.sisting her to a seat in the carriage, entered and took one beside her.

"We shall not be late? I slept so soundly. Really I forgot to wake this morning, and must thank you for reminding me of it."

Mrs. Hamilton laughed and Mr. Bancroft looked into the beaming eyes and thought "how like Lily g.a.y.l.o.r.d's they are!"

"You spoke last evening of two protegees?"

"Yes, a brother of the young lady--and a cripple."

"A brother, did you say?" and the heart of his listener gave a great bound of pain. The carriage suddenly wheeled up at the station, and "all aboard for the West" was shouted.

"This way Mrs. Hamilton," and her escort handed her into the car, and wishing her success waved his adieus as the train moved on.

"Her brother! Then she is not my child! Have I been led thus far only to find the fruit that allured me with its golden brightness nothing but ashes? Can it be?" With fearful apprehensions the hour flew by; the junction was reached at last.

It was a short ride to the hotel, and as she entered the spruce-looking village inn sensation of suffocation caused her to throw back her veil that she might breathe more freely.

"Is Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d in?" she asked of a sweet-faced little woman who appeared.

"They have gone for their morning ride, but will be back in a half hour at most."

"I will take a room and wait their coming," was Lillian's response, and the hostess was ready to conduct her thither. It was a pleasant chamber overlooking the maple grove where the "lady from the south" had found so many cool breaths, and which now presented its most winning aspect to her who was gazing with anxious agitation into its shades. They had gone! In half an hour! Could she wait? And yet how she dreaded its pa.s.sing! But the wings of time never cease their rapid motion, and before she had bathed her face or removed her bonnet a rap upon the door announced that her hour had come. Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d was ready to receive her visitor.

"Will you ask her to grant me the favor to come to my room?"

This request was made with trembling voice, and the hostess wonderingly went with her message. Then a step was heard along the hall and the door again opened, and the same gentle voice to which she had twice listened announced "Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d."

Lillian arose and the two ladies stood face to face with a world of hidden mysteries between them. Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d extended her hand, and Lillian smiled as the door closed behind the retreating figure of the curious landlady.

"You are surprised at this intrusion from a stranger, but you will neither wonder or blame when you have listened to my story, and as it is a long one let us sit by the window."

Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d affably obeyed.

"Have you a young lady with you; an adopted daughter, I believe?"

"Yes." The lady moved uneasily in her chair.

"Will you tell me what you know about her history?"

"She can do this better than I. Shall I call her?"

"No, no! I want to talk with you; but first answer this one question: Has she a brother?"

"A foster-brother as she calls the n.o.ble cripple, who is now with her in our private parlor."

A gleam of joy darted into her beautiful eyes at this clearing away of the shadows, and she proceeded.

"Another question; by what name was she called before you bestowed your own upon her?"

Her listener laughed. "In her years of babyhood she gloried in the appellation of 'Phebe Blunt,' and in six years or thereabouts this was changed to 'Phebe Evans'; at fourteen it was again changed to 'Lily g.a.y.l.o.r.d,' the one to which she will now answer."

"Why Lily?"

"Because of a little fanciful dream of her early childhood. She was born near the sea, and lived in a fisherman's cabin, but somehow learned that somebody had called her 'Lily Pearl,' and from this she drew the conclusion that a beautiful lady had picked her up off the waves where the pearls had thrown her."

The speaker looked up to behold the face of her listener as ashy pale as though the hand of death had chilled it with its icy touch, while the pallid lips were vainly endeavoring to speak; and, darting from her chair, Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d exclaimed with alarm. "What is the matter with you?

Are you dying?"

"No, no!" she answered feebly, as the reaction came and the blood rushed back to face and brow. "Not dying, but entering a double life. Mrs.

g.a.y.l.o.r.d, your adopted daughter is my child! My Lily Pearl! Oh, how can I explain! How prove to you or her my a.s.sertion! How my heart has hungered and starved for the love my baby awoke in it! Seventeen years have I endured this thirsting which cruel hands imposed upon me. O, for strength to bear the change!" And she raised her clasped hands supplicatingly, while her companion looked on wonderingly.

"Let me explain," she added, and went on to tell as well as she could, without reflecting blame on the weak, helpless one far away, the story of her wrongs and years of suspicion.

"Is Mrs. Belmont, of Rosedale, your mother?" was the abrupt question that startled the narrator, and caused her folded hands to tremble under the soft pressure those of her interrogator placed on them.

"Yes; she is my mother, and is now in Philadelphia, a wreck of what she was when with you in Savannah."

"The mystery is explained, the problem solved! Lily, my Lily, is your child! I might have known such a blessing could not be retained by me. I am selfish, and, although I pity you, would rejoice at your continued thirst if the sweetest luxury my heart has ever known could have been spared to me. You have a husband to adore, a mother to forgive, a G.o.d your soul worships, while I am starving, with none of these things to satisfy my undying cravings. Is there no pity in your woman's heart for such as I?"

"Certainly. You have a husband, wealth and position. More than this, G.o.d waits for you. How then can you be so desolate?"

"Ask your daughter by and by why she never ceased to pine for the 'beautiful lady' that picked her up from off the sea where the pearls had thrown her? Did the bright picture that cast its glittering rays only on the surface of her unsatisfied heart feed or nourish the cravings of her growing love? Can such cold star-beams warm the frozen fountain? Do the fleshly ties of life unite the aspiring soul with its higher destinies? Love is the strong cord that draws us heavenward. Can woman with her immortality be happy when its drawings are all earthward?

But I am troubling you with my individual perplexities when I ought to be lifting yours. I cannot, however, tell you how much anguish and desolation your story has thrown into my prospective future. I was lonely and sad, and she came to fill the void. I am childless, and her presence has satisfied my heart's longings. But it is over now. Come with me while with my own hand I tear the brightness out of my life.

Come!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE GOLDEN CLASP RELINKED.

Lillian Hamilton followed her guide with unsteady step along the hall toward the little front parlor where her heart was to take up the broken link which had been for so many years severed in the chain of her eventful life; and her thoughts stood still with a mingled sensation of awe and fear, as her shrinking feet bore her forward to the relinking.

The door opened, and opposite on a sofa sat two young people, evidently in close conversation. Lillian stepped back.

"'Make omens, go make omens,' Crazy Dimis once said, you remember." It was Willie who was speaking, but Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d interrupted him.

"Omens will make themselves sometimes without our help, my boy. Lily, dear Lily, the hour has come for you to gather them." Mrs. Hamilton stepped forward into the room. "Here is a lady, my child, who wants to see you," and she motioned Willie to come to her as she darted back into the hall. Without a moment's hesitation, the boy dropped from his seat and sped across the floor after his usual manner, for the old timidity had left him during his years in Boston; but the tearful eyes of the visitor were upon him.

When the door closed Lily said, "Did I understand that you wanted to see me?" She had risen from the sofa, and now stood before the new-comer, her large, dreamy eyes full of wonder and amazement.

"Lily Pearl!" fell from the quivering lips in a low minor strain, as the mother bird cries for its lost. "Lily Pearl! My Lily! My baby!" and the pleading arms were outstretched. With a shriek of excitement and joy the young girl sprang forward, and the head was once more pillowed on on the breast where so many years ago in infancy it had rested for a few short moments.

"My mother! It is, it must be, my mother!" Tears such as seldom moisten woman's eyes fell in a baptismal shower on the beautiful face that lay so lovingly over the wildly throbbing heart, where the sweet flowers of G.o.d's purest affections had blossomed, faded, died. The minutes flew past on airy wings, and still the mother and daughter remained clasped in each other's arms, and heart pulsated against heart, and life mingled itself with life, until parent and child were bound together, never to be rudely torn asunder until the icy hand of death should break the welded link. Raising the head tenderly, she looked into the lovely face long and lovingly. "Pearl's n.o.ble brow and expressive mouth," she said at last. "But they were right; you have your mother's eyes, my darling.

May they never weep such hopeless tears as have mine."