The Girls at Mount Morris Part 23

She would never get quite at ease with these refined friends whose talk was of books and music and the part great men and women were playing in the world.

How many times does one have a foreshadowing of the real things that affect life! One may be heavy hearted for days groping about fearsomely and suddenly the cloud lifts without any misfortune. Then swift in the happiest hour comes the stroke that crushes one. Lilian looked straight ahead in her life. She would serve her time here and repay Mrs.

Barrington for her generous kindness.

In a lovely old town like Mount Morris, the lines of caste get unconsciously drawn. Where people have lived hundreds of years and can trace back to some t.i.tled ancestor perhaps, where they have never known the hard grind of poverty, but have worked on the higher lines. There had been several noted clergymen, two bishops, scholars, senators and even an amba.s.sador abroad. There was no especial pride in this, it was simply what was to be expected of sons growing up in this refined, upright and moral atmosphere. But they sometimes pa.s.sed rather proudly by those of the next lower round who bent their energies to money making.

Lilian had soon come to understand that and her personal pride kept her aloof from any chance of snubs. But she would want a wider world presently that was not bounded by a grandfather or a fortune that had descended through generations.

There were moments when Mrs. Boyd's confession seemed a feverish dream.

She did not dare build anything on it, because she had indulged in some romantic dreams and longings, because there had been wounded vanity almost to a sense of shame, she held herself to a strict account. No matter what she might gain here, she would always be considered Mrs.

Boyd's daughter. She had not expected to be received with the young ladies of the school, and had taken no notice of the little rudenesses that might have had a better excuse if she had been trying to crowd in.

So all the refinements of birth and education did not always conduce to the higher generosity of heart.

Miss Arran came gently in the room with an anxious glance toward the bed.

"Mrs. Barrington wishes to see you in the library, Miss Boyd. I will stay here with your mother."

Lilian laid down her work as she rose and said: "Mother is asleep now."

Then she went slowly down the wide stairway, her eyes lingering on some of the panels that had been painted in by a true artist.

"My dear child," the lady said in a voice that seemed full of emotion, "you must have felt from the beginning that I had taken an unusual interest in you. You suggested some person that I could not quite place, but came to know afterward that it was one of my early scholars, a most charming girl. She married happily and had two sons, but they both longed for a daughter. Providence listened to their prayers and sent them a double portion, two lovely girls. My friend's husband was a soldier stationed on the frontier and in an Indian raid was quite severely wounded. It was not deemed best to risk moving him and she resolved to go out to him. One of the babies, the first born was larger and stronger than the other, and she determined to take this one with a most excellent nurse she had. You heard the story Mrs. Boyd told. My friend was in the same frightful accident--the nurse was killed outright, but the baby by some miracle had not so much as a scratch. The only other baby was crushed beyond recognition."

Lilian sprang up, then the room seemed to swim round. She caught at the chair back to steady herself and gave a great gasp.

"Oh, and my mother, Mrs. Boyd, took the child, but they all thought the nurse the real mother. And, oh--she could not bear to give up the baby.

Oh, you must forgive her."

"In the confusion I can see that it was very easily done. Dr. Kendricks went out at once. He found the mother gravely injured and the word was that the baby was dead. It was beyond recognition. Mrs. Boyd, who had only been stunned, had gone on her way. You have heard her side of the story, knowing the other side when Miss Arran detailed it, we sent for Dr. Kendricks and pieced it all together. You have been so occupied with your supposed mother, and I must say you have been a devoted daughter, that you have hardly noted our excitement and interest. The confession established the facts beyond a doubt in our minds, but we were not sure how the father would take it. And the place has altered immeasurably; there have been so many accidents since, that that has pa.s.sed into oblivion. But no one can dispute the proof. Your mother was a noticeably handsome girl; but there is a curious resemblance, and it grows upon one."

"And I am scarcely handsome at all," the girl said, slowly.

"Have you no curiosity to know whom you belong to?" studying Lilian intently.

"Oh, I dare not ask, I hardly dare believe! It is so mysterious. She, yes, I will call her mother, though there might be a father somewhere.

And was that beautiful woman they believed dying----"

Lilian clasped her hands over her eyes. Like a flash it seemed to pa.s.s before her. Zay Crawford's double, some of the girls had called her.

"Oh," she cried, "can I endure it? What if they do not want me?"

"If they had doubted the story it would have been kept from you. Can you guess--"

Lilian flung herself in Mrs. Barrington's arms, with a long, dry sob.

"Oh, do not give me up," she cried imploringly. "Let me stay with you. I will serve you faithfully for I love you, and these people are strangers----"

"Think, what it must be after her years of sorrow to clasp her child in her arms; to know that it had been well cared for, tenderly loved. Oh, she is your own mother and you will come to love her dearly. This morning Dr. Kendricks was to tell Major Crawford the story. Fifteen minutes ago word came that they would be here. Lilian, your father feels hard toward Mrs. Boyd. You know Dr. Kendricks would have recognized you if she had not taken you away, and it is only natural that he should feel indignant."

"Must I see him before she--she cannot last long. Oh, she must not hear this, and I will not leave her until the very last."

Then the child suggested her father.

"There they come," exclaimed Mrs. Barrington.

The two men entered the drawing room. Lilian clung to Mrs. Barrington, but that lady impelled her forward.

"This is your daughter, Major Crawford," she said, "and this, my dear, is your own father."

Lilian stood like a statue. It was as if she was turning to stone. Oh, he could not deny her. The clear cut features, the golden bronze hair, the proud figure that seemed to add dignity to the whole. So, her mother had stood, in girlhood.

"Oh, my child! my child! have you no word of gladness for me after these long years! The baby I never saw--my Marguerite."

Was her tongue frozen and her lips stiff? Oh, what should she say? How could she welcome this stranger?

"And that cruel woman has stolen your love from us, as she stole your beautiful body. Oh, where is she? Let me see her!"

"You were to keep calm, Major," exclaimed the doctor. "We have gone over all this, and the poor woman is dying. To upbraid her now would be nothing short of murder."

The Major glanced wildly around. "Why think of _our_ loss and sorrow.

She _knew_ the child was not hers. And she ran off like a thief in the night. Oh, I can't forgive her."

"Oh, you must," cried the girl with the first gleam of emotion she had shown. "For she mistook the nurse for the mother. Everything must have been in confusion. She thought of me as a motherless baby, perhaps to be cast on charity----"

"But all these years! And poverty, when a lovely home awaited you; brothers and a sweet sister and such a mother! Oh, she ought to know and suffer for the crime."

"She was almost crazy with her own grief. And she was good and tender and devoted to me. She shall not suffer for it in her dying moments."

She stood there proudly, her face a-light with a sort of heroic devotion. So her mother would have taken up any wrong. Was he unduly bitter?

"Oh, my darling, have you no love for me? No want for your own sweet mother--"

Something in his pleading tone touched her and his face betrayed strong agitation. His arms seemed to hang listlessly by his side. She took a few steps toward him and then they suddenly clasped her in a vehement embrace.

The doctor glanced at Mrs. Barrington and they both left the room.

"It has been a hard fight," he said. "He was so enraged at first that I was afraid he would come and have it out with the dying woman. The fact that she knew the child was not hers and yet took it away seemed to stir all the blood in his body. Poor thing--one has to feel sorry for her; but he raged over the privations he thought his child had endured, and her being here in an equivocal position. The Crawfords were always very proud. And one could not expect a girl just in the dawn of womanhood to fly to a stranger's arms."

"Yet it took her so by surprise, and she has a proud, reticent nature."

"Let us go and see Mrs. Boyd."

Major Crawford felt the girl's heart beating against his own. He raised the face and kissed it, amid tears, deeply touched.

"You must forgive me. You do not know what it is to have some one stand between you and your child all these years. I used to dream how it would have been with twin girls running about, climbing one's knees, doing a hundred sweet and tender things. Zay has been so lovely, so loving; but all these years we never forgot you. We gave the most fervent thanks for your mother's recovery, and when you are safe in her arms--oh, it seems almost as if it was too much joy."

"It is so strange," and her voice was tremulous. "For I never could have dreamed of anything like this. I did not dream, for it seemed as if a man who had lost wife and child would want to begin over again, and in a good many ways I tried to believe I had been too visionary--longing for things quite beyond my reach. So I have been praying that G.o.d would send what was best for me and trying to make myself content. Oh, are you quite sure there is no mistake?" and there was a pitifully beseeching sound in her voice.

"If we can believe that thief of a woman. Oh, to think she should carry away our baby and leave us her little dead child," and the only half conquered pa.s.sion flamed up in his face again.