_DOROTHY HARCOURT’S SECRET_
Sequel to “A Deed Without a Name”
BY
MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH
AUTHOR OF
“To His Fate,” “The Lost Heir,” “A Noble Lord,” “Sweet Love’s
Atonement,” “Zenobia’s Suitors,” Etc.
[Illustration: Logo]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
POPULAR BOOKS
By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH
In Handsome Cloth Binding
Price per volume, 60 Cents
Beautiful Fiend, A
Brandon Coyle’s Wife
Sequel to A Skeleton in the Closet
Bride’s Fate, The
Sequel to The Changed Brides
Bride’s Ordeal, The
Capitola’s Peril
Sequel to The Hidden Hand
Changed Brides, The
Cruel as the Grave
David Lindsay
Sequel to Gloria
Deed Without a Name, A
Dorothy Harcourt’s Secret
Sequel to A Deed Without a Name
“Em”
Em’s Husband
Sequel to “Em”
Fair Play
For Whose Sake
Sequel to Why Did He Wed Her?
For Woman’s Love
Fulfilling Her Destiny
Sequel to When Love Commands
Gloria
Her Love or Her Life
Sequel to The Bride’s Ordeal
Her Mother’s Secret
Hidden Hand, The
How He Won Her
Sequel to Fair Play
Ishmael
Leap in the Dark, A
Lilith
Sequel to The Unloved Wife
Little Nea’s Engagement
Sequel to Nearest and Dearest
Lost Heir, The
Lost Lady of Lone, The
Love’s Bitterest Cup
Sequel to Her Mother’s Secret
Mysterious Marriage, The
Sequel to A Leap in the Dark
Nearest and Dearest
Noble Lord, A
Sequel to The Lost Heir
Self-Raised
Sequel to Ishmael
Skeleton in the Closet, A
Struggle of a Soul, The
Sequel to The Lost Lady of Lone
Sweet Love’s Atonement
Test of Love, The
Sequel to A Tortured Heart
To His Fate
Sequel to Dorothy Harcourt’s Secret
Tortured Heart, A
Sequel to The Trail of the Serpent
Trail of the Serpent, The
Tried for Her Life
Sequel to Cruel as the Grave
Unloved Wife, The
Unrequited Love, An
Sequel to For Woman’s Love
Victor’s Triumph
Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend
When Love Commands
When Shadows Die
Sequel to Love’s Bitterest Cup
Why Did He Wed Her?
Zenobia’s Suitors
Sequel to Sweet Love’s Atonement
For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of
price.
A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1885, 1886.
BY ROBERT BONNER.
Renewal granted Mrs. Charlotte Southworth Lawrence for 28 years from
Dec. 16, 1913.
DOROTHY HARCOURT’S SECRET.
Dorothy Harcourt’s Secret
CHAPTER I
EARLY IN THE MORNING
It was one o’clock on Christmas morning when the Christmas sleigh
returned to the Wesleyan Flats, bringing Santa Claus and his two aides.
As soon as the three alighted, a man from the livery stable, who had
been engaged to meet them at that hour, mounted the box to take the
conveyance home; but not before he had received a liberal gift.
The house was all ablaze with light.
There had been Christmas Eve festivals in almost every suit of
apartments in it.
Mr. Merritt lifted little Owlet—so tired and so sleepy, yet so divinely
happy—and bore her into the house.
’Pollyon Syphax was on duty in the hall, and stared at the three figures
in the black waterproofs that covered their disguises from head to foot.
They went upon the elevator, reached Roma’s parlor and found her
reclining in her armchair by the center table, reading the “Golden
Legend” by the light of a shaded lamp.
Madame Nouvellini lay fast asleep in her invalid chair, nor did she wake
up on the entrance of the party.
“What sort of a time did you have?” inquired Roma, as the weary Santa
Claus sat down on the sofa with the sleeping child across his knees.
“A very fine time. The ground, or rather the snow, was so hard and
smooth, and the horses so fresh, that I am sure they got over the ground
with more than steam-engine express speed! Guided by our policeman, I
think we visited every poor neighborhood, and even every criminal
locality in the ten miles’ square.”
“That was right; for there are innocent children everywhere, even in the
guiltiest haunts. Ah, poor children! If I have lost Will Harcourt, I
must devote my life and all it holds to them! What am I saying? Whether
I have lost him or not, I will devote all that I may of my life to the
rescue of the lost children?”
“What!” inquired the lawyer. “Is your stout heart failing that you talk
of the possibility of losing Will Harcourt?”
“Oh, no! I do hope—but ‘hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’ No news
comes,” sighed Roma.
“The young man may have been smuggled on board some outbound ship—may be
across the ocean by this time!”
“What makes you think so?”
“I do not exactly think so. I only throw out the idea on speculation, as
a possible explanation of the failure of all our plans to discover him!
Well, my dear, I must be going now! It is twenty minutes past one. I
suppose the people in this house mean to keep it up all night. To-morrow
I shall come and give you a report of to-night’s work—‘To-morrow?’ It is
to-morrow now!—Christmas is more than an hour old!” said the lawyer, as
he arose and carefully laid the sleeping child on the sofa.
“We made a great many people happy to-night, but the happiest of all was
little Owlet! There are children’s parties in the mansions of the rich
everywhere, but I doubt if any among them enjoyed themselves as little
Owlet did to-night. She has gone to sleep, tired out with a surfeit of
happiness. Good-evening, my dear,” he said, warmly pressing Roma’s hand.
“Come, boy!” he added, shaking up the dozing Tom, who, Virginia negro
fashion, had dropped himself down on the floor and gone to sleep.
When the two had left the room, Roma knelt down by the sofa, and began
to undress the child softly and deftly, so as not to awaken her if it
were possible to avoid doing so.
Mr. Merritt had already taken off her mask, and the removal of her other
disguises was comparatively easy.
But as Roma rolled her gently over, stealing, as it were, her clothing
off her, the child partly awoke, and murmured in her sleep:
“Oh, you dear little baby—here’s—a dolly for you, and—candy and——” She
dropped into deeper sleep with the words on her lips.
Roma put the child in her own bed. Then she looked at Marguerite, and
saw that she was sleeping well, with ice water, milk and all else within
reach that she might want during the remainder of the night.
Then at length Roma herself went to bed and to sleep, and slept soundly,
notwithstanding the loud revelry that was going on over her head and
under her feet, and on the opposite side of the hall.
Late as was the hour when she retired, she awoke quite refreshed at her
usual time—seven o’clock in the morning. Her little bedfellow was still
sound asleep, living over in dreams the happiest ride and night she had
ever had in her little life.
Roma covered the sleeping face with a thin handkerchief, and then opened
the windows to air the room and passed into the parlor.
Her protégée, Marguerite Nouvellini, was not only awake, but sitting up
in her adjustable chair, with a breakfast tray before her.
“I was so hungry when I woke up that I wheeled myself in reach of the
bell, and rang and ordered breakfast. Did you care?” she inquired,
seeing Roma’s surprised look.
“Oh, no, my dear,” Roma hastened to say; “though if you had touched the
timbre on your stand, you would have waked me, and I could have done it
all for you and saved you the fatigue of pushing yourself about the
room.”
“Oh, it did not tire me—not at all. Oh, this chair! I don’t believe that
even you, who bought it for me, know half its merits. I said it was bed
and chair and carriage to me. It is more than that. It is legs! I can go
where I please about the room with just the lightest little push on this
little knob. See!”
And the invalid wheeled herself around the room and back again to her
stand.
“I see,” said Roma; “it works easily, and you are so much stronger.”
“Oh, ever so much stronger and better. I shall soon get well now. Thanks
to you, dear friend. But I should never have got better if you had not
brought me out of that miserable room, where the only choice I had was
between sitting in the bitter cold or having a smoking fire in the
wretched little iron stove, and I think the smoke was worse than the
cold. And then that straight-backed little chair! And the diet of bread
and tea, that was always cold before it reached me! Ah, I was dying of
discomfort more than of a cough when you found and rescued me. And now,
in this lovely room, in this lovely chair, and with the clean, soft
steam heat, and all the good things you give me to eat day and night,
and, above all, you yourself! You are always breathing the breath of
life over me—if it is not a sin to say it. And I shall soon be well and
strong. And, oh! may the Lord open some way for me to show my love and
gratitude to you! I have not talked so much as this since the day I was
taken down sick,” she concluded, with a smile.
“No, dear, you have not, nor do I think it wise in you to tax your
strength in doing so now,” said Roma.
But the invalid was in a talking mood.
“When I woke up this morning, the first thing I saw was Owlet’s mask and
dress, and I knew she had got home safe,” she said.
“Oh, yes! and she was in bed long before several other children of the
house who were dancing; and Mr. Merritt thinks she was happier than them
all,” said Roma.
While they talked together, little Owlet suddenly appeared before them,
ready dressed for breakfast. She had risen in her quiet way and made her
simple toilet silently.
Then Roma produced her Christmas presents, a lovely wadded silk dressing
gown for Madame Marguerite, and a workbox, completely fitted, for Owlet.
Both were delighted, and declared—what all people declare to the giver
of Christmas gifts—that the present was just exactly what the receiver
most wanted.
“I am glad you didn’t give me a doll,” said Owlet.
“Why?” inquired Roma, with a smile.
“I don’t like dolls.”
“But why?”
“Because they are not alive.”
“Oh! But neither are workboxes alive,” said Roma, smiling.
“But workboxes don’t look as if they are alive, and dolls do. Besides,
workboxes are so useful, and dolls are of no use on the face of the
earth.”
“Not to play with?”
“No. Who wants to play with a thing that looks like it ought to be
alive, and ain’t?” inquired this solemn little monster.
“Why, all the little girls I ever saw loved to play with dolls,” said
Roma, much amused by the oddity of the “type” before her.
“Then if they do, I think they are not possessed of common sense.”
“You are certainly a fairy changeling. You can’t be a human child,” said
Roma.
“I don’t know about that. I don’t remember what I was at first. I only
remember being Madame Marguerite’s little girl. And now I am going
upstairs to go to the bottom of mamma’s big trunk and get my Christmas
present for you,” said Owlet; and away she sped.
Her mother called her back, and said:
“Bring the little red morocco case down with you, too.”
“With papa’s picture?”
“Yes, with papa’s picture.”
The child flew away, and after a little space returned with the
miniature case in one hand and a small casket in the other. She thrust
the case into her mother’s hand and then ran eagerly to Roma, opened the
little casket, and displayed a simple little necklace of turquoise
beads.
“This is for you. Oh! try it around your throat. Please do. It will look
so lovely on your white throat.”
Roma kissed the child, took the necklace, and clasped it around her
neck.
“There! It just suits you! Don’t it? It is blue, like your eyes. But
your eyes are darker. Mamma said I might give you this,” said Owlet in
delight.
Meanwhile, Madame Marguerite was opening the little case.
“Here,” she said, “I want you to look at the picture of my husband. See
how handsome he was!”
Roma took the miniature, which was in the form of a locket, and set
around with a circle of pearls of the purest quality.
But as soon as her eyes fell upon the pictured face it took all her
great self-control to keep still.
“Is he not handsome?” inquired Madame Marguerite.
“Many people might think so,” answered Roma.
“Don’t you think so?” asked the widow, with a little tone of
disappointment.
“I am a blonde, which is, perhaps, the reason why I do not much admire
fair men.”
“Oh! I see.”
“This was your husband, you say?”
“Yes, of course.”
“What was his name?”
“Guilliaume Nouvellini.”
“A Frenchman?”
“Yes. There’s where I got my French name, for I am not a French woman,
though I did dance at the Theatre Française and the Gaieté.”
“How long ago did he marry you?” inquired Roma, with consummate
self-command.
“Six years ago this New Year. And we were very happy for about another
year. Then he died, when little Owlet was but three months old. Well,
all that is past and gone these five years ago. One must not dwell on
one’s past sorrows if one means to live and work in this world.”
“Pardon me for asking so many questions, but I feel very deeply
interested in this matter,” said Roma, as she gazed on the miniature.
“But—was your husband with you when he died?”
“Ah, me! No. I was in Paris with my young babe. He had to go to San
Francisco on some very pressing business, I know not what, and there he
was taken ill of some fatal fever. He wrote me several letters while he
was on his sick bed. Then at last came a letter from his physician,
announcing his death, and a newspaper with his obituary in it. Ah, me!
It was a great sorrow, but one must not dwell on their own sorrows if
they want to be of any use in this world. I did not have that locket
brought down here merely to show you my poor husband’s handsome face,
but to do this. Please let me have the locket again.”
Roma put it in her hand.
She touched a little spring, took the miniature out of the jeweled
locket, and put the latter in Roma’s hand, saying:
“I want you to have these pearls, dear. You see, they are very fine,
else I would not offer them. Do take them, dear. They are all I have to
give you. Get them reset in a brooch, and wear it sometimes for my
sake.”
Roma took the pearls, and kissed the forehead of the donor with tears in
her own eyes.
But Madame Marguerite was pressing the dis-set picture to her lips and
to her heart.
“Are we going to have any breakfast to-day, ma’am? You and I, I mean. My
stomach has gone to my backbone,” said Owlet.
“Come, my dear; we will go down,” replied Roma, who, since she had had
an invalid domiciled in her parlor, and a little companion to accompany
her to the restaurant, always went there for meals.
“Now we will see what they will give us for a Christmas breakfast,” said
Owlet as she entered the elevator.
“What would you like?” inquired Roma.
“Milk, real milk, not milk and water; cake and preserved strawberries.”
“A rather bilious bill of fare, Owlet.”
“Well, then, I won’t eat it; and mind you don’t, either! A person ought
not to eat anything to make them sick; any person who does that is not
possessed of common sense,” said Owlet authoritatively.
“I think you are quite right, ma’am,” said Roma, smiling.
“What makes you always call me ma’am? I’m not a married woman.”
“Oh, you are not!”
“Why, of course not. I’m not even engaged. You know I’m not. So what
makes you call me ma’am?” demanded Owlet.
“Well,” said Roma, slowly and thoughtfully, “in high courtesy, ladies of
distinction, married or unmarried, are, or used to be, always addressed
as ‘madam’ or ‘ma’am.’ Now I think a young personage like yourself, who
is too wise to hear a fairy tale because you say it is not true—though
it may be, for aught you know—or to play with a doll because it is not
alive—though they may also be in some sense—ought certainly to be
honored with the title of madam.”
Owlet gazed at the lady in solemn and sorrowful wonder and
disapprobation, and then she gave utterance to her feelings:
“If anybody else in this world but you was to talk like that I know what
I should think.”
“Well, what?” inquired the amused lady.
“They were not possessed of common sense,” said Owlet gloomily.
“Very few people are so happily endowed according to your standard.”
The elevator came down, with a little jar, to the basement floor, and
Roma led her small friend out into the hall and through to the
restaurant.
“We are not mad with each other, are we?” inquired Owlet as they seated
themselves at one of the remote corner tables.
“Why, certainly not! We are the best of friends always.”
“I’m glad of that, because I only told the truth, and it was for your
good, too; because I do love you, really.”
The breakfast bill of fare laid before them by the obsequious waiter
arrested attention and stopped the conversation; and after the meal was
served Owlet was too much engaged with her milk, bread and eggs to favor
Roma with any more “wisdom in solid chunks.”
When they returned to the parlor upstairs they found Mr. Merritt there,
waiting for Roma.
“Any news of Will Harcourt?” she inquired as she shook hands with him.
“None whatever. We must do now what we should have done in the
beginning—advertise for him,” replied the lawyer.
“You mean in the personal columns of the daily papers and by initials
and guarded hints?”
“No. I mean by a straightforward advertisement in the advertising
columns for information respecting the whereabouts of William Everard
Harcourt, late of Lone Lodge, West Virginia, who left his home on the
Isle of Storms, coast of Maryland, on the fifteenth of last November,
and has not been heard from since, and offering a large reward for
intelligence that shall lead to the discovery of his fate.”
“That will be making his mysterious disappearance very public.”
“Yes; but it is absolutely the only hope left of finding him.”
“But if this advertisement should come to the knowledge of his poor
mother?”
“My dear lady, Dorothy Harcourt, by all accounts, is not in a mental
condition to appreciate it. She thinks her son is at his college. She
has forgotten all recent events—that is, if we may credit the report of
Miss Wynthrop.”
“Yes, I know. Well, since it is so absolutely necessary you may insert
the advertisement in all the papers.”
“Now, my dear child, there is another matter on which I wish to speak to
you. You, who were a very queen of society, why do you seclude yourself
from the world here in the midst of Washington City in the height of the
fashionable season? Why do you not send your cards to your friends who
are present here, and would be so glad to invite you to their parties.”
“Oh, Mr. Merritt, how can I, under present circumstances? I have no wish
to go out. Although I have done no wrong, I feel as if I were a social
pariah.”
“That is morbid—very morbid! The story of your wrongs is not known at
all beyond the precincts of the judicial chambers; and even if it were
known, it would only invest you with a deeper interest, that would hold
much admiration and no censure whatever.”
“I could not tolerate such a personal interest, Mr. Merritt,” replied
Roma.
“Then, my dear, if you will make a hermit of yourself, would not your
country house be a more attractive abode than a suit of apartments in a
crowded flat?”
“Ah! you are anxious to get rid of me, Mr. Merritt,” said Roma archly.
“You know better than that; but the truth is, I am off for San
Francisco, on sudden and imperative business, and must go by the early
train to-morrow morning, and I hate to leave you here alone. If you will
not go out I would much rather know that you were with your old
neighbors at Goblin Hall.”
Roma glanced at Madame Marguerite, whose chair had been wheeled to one
of the back windows, through which she was looking out upon the little
piece of woods left standing at some little distance from the house. She
seemed absorbed in thought, and gazing rather on vacancy than on the
limited landscape before her.
“Ah! I see—I see,” sighed the lawyer. “You are making yourself a martyr
to that poor little soul! Why not send her to the Providence Hospital?”
he inquired, lowering his voice to a tone inaudible to any ears beyond
Roma’s.
“Because it would break her heart. Besides, when I ‘introspect’—to use
your own words, Mr. Merritt—I find that it gives me so much happiness to
make her comfortable that there is no merit at all in my serving her;
and, of course, not the least suggestion of self-sacrifice,” replied
Roma in the same low key.
“Well, well, my dear, as you will. I am going to church at St. John’s
for the Christmas service. You, I suppose, cannot leave your invalid.
Good-morning. Shall see you again before I leave.”
Roma’s dream for her protégée was to take her to Goblin Hall as soon as
the spring should open, if the invalid should be well enough to bear the
journey.
The daily improvement warranted the hope. So did the words and manners
of the attending physician. It is the religion of the medical doctor to
inspire hope in his patient and his patient’s friends, whether there be
any reasonable grounds for it or not. It is one of his methods of cure.
Marguerite grew so much better that she could walk from room to room.
This improvement continued for weeks, and the invalid, who never had
lost her spirits, even in her worst days, grew buoyant with anticipation
of her summer holiday in the country.
“I shall like your Goblin Hall,” she said; “and I know it must be
haunted. I dote on a haunted house, though I never was in one in my
life. I do believe in ghosts, and I don’t believe one word about the
name being rightly Goeberlin Hall. I believe it is really and truly
Goblin Hall, so called on account of its ghost.”
“Oh, it has a ghost and a haunted room,” said Roma very gravely.
“There, I said so!” exclaimed Marguerite.
“And you shall occupy it, if you wish to do so,” added Roma.
“Oh, no, thank you. I don’t want to do that. I only want to feel that
there is such a room in the old colonial house, and, when other people
are with me in the evening, to hear the ghostly footsteps and voices in
the distance. But I don’t want to be near them and away from everybody
else. Oh, no,” said Marguerite, laughing and shaking her head.
Owlet looked and listened in solemn disapproval.
“What do you think about it, ma’am?” inquired Roma, to draw the child
out.
“I don’t like to say,” she answered.
“Oh, but I insist.”
“Well, then, if Tom had talked that way I should think Tom was not
possessed of common sense.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Roma.
“Don’t mind her,” pleaded Marguerite. “She don’t know any better. She is
such a strange child. Her mind is not right. I do think she is half an
idiot.”
“Oh, no, indeed, she is not. But where did she pick up that phrase she
is so often repeating?”
“The Lord knows. I don’t. She has had such a strange life for a child.
She has never had any other children to play with—never! nor any
permanent nurse; but has been changed from hand to hand as I have
traveled from country to country. Don’t mind the poor little devil—I beg
pardon. But she is half an idiot.”
Owlet fixed the speaker with her large, solemn brown eyes, but made no
remark, nor did Roma; for at that instant Mr. Merritt was announced. He
had just returned from his Californian trip, and his first call was upon
Roma.
“Well, my dear, have you had any news?” he inquired after he had shaken
hands with all in the room and had taken a seat, and Marguerite had been
wheeled into the adjoining chamber.
“Not one word. I begin to credit a suggestion that you once made me—that
Will Harcourt has crossed the ocean,” Roma replied.
“Then I will cause advertisements to be inserted in all the leading
papers in the capital cities of Europe.”
“I have already done so, and am waiting results. I have another source
of anxiety. I have not heard from Mrs. Harcourt since you left, and you
know the reason why I cannot write to inquire.”
“Yes; I will do so to-day. Hanson has not shown up in any way, I
suppose?”
“No. I have seen no notice of him or his yacht since that one we both
read late in November. Pray, dear friend, never mention the creature’s
name in my presence again. I wish to forget his existence.”
“His sister, your old schoolmate and bosom friend. She was a fine girl.
What of her?”
“She was not his sister, nor even his half-sister, thank heaven! He was
only the stepson of her stepfather by a former marriage. Reba is
traveling in Europe, and our correspondence happily suspended without
any painful explanations.”
“That is well. And now, my dear, I must leave you, as I have a very busy
day before me,” said the lawyer as he shook hands with her and withdrew.
Four days later he brought a letter from Miss Wynthrop, saying that Mrs.
Harcourt’s condition was unchanged, and that her mind was principally
occupied with anticipations of seeing her dear son, who, as she told
everybody, was pursuing his law studies in the University of Virginia,
but would come and spend his Easter holidays with her.
“Evidently she has forgotten all about the marriage at which she was
present, and apparently all about my existence. That may be well. But if
she had only forgotten the marriage, and not forgotten me, I might still
write to her, still comfort her, as the betrothed of her son,” said Roma
with a sigh.
“I wrote another letter by the same mail by which I wrote to Miss
Wynthrop. The second letter was to Dr. Wall, the Logwood practitioner,
who is attending Mrs. Harcourt, to inquire into her condition. In reply,
he informs me that she is affected with softening of the brain, that
there is no hope of her recovery, though she may live for many years. It
is very sad! Sadder than death!”
“Yes,” sighed Roma. “Oh, if I could only go to her, or have her with me!
Ah! Where is her son?”
The lawyer sighed, and shook his head in hopeless helplessness, and soon
after rose and took leave.
The early days of the New Year were very fine, but toward the middle of
January the weather changed. A cold wave swept over the city, bringing
fierce snowstorms.
Madame Marguerite felt the change, and began to cough, and complain of
oppression on her chest, with fever. Her attendant physician treated her
for these symptoms, and Roma nursed her tenderly.
But, as if the severe weather was not sufficiently injurious, something
went wrong with the great furnace, or the pipes, it was difficult to
tell which, and the rooms were imperfectly heated.
Marguerite shivered and flushed or broke into heavy perspirations.
She was too ill to be removed from the house, but Roma did all that was
possible to make her comfortable. She wheeled her reclining chair up
against the steam pipes on the wall and stretched a screen around it.
One morning a crisis came. Marguerite was seized with a severe fit of
coughing, which resulted in hemorrhage.
Roma held the bowl and supported the fragile form until the flow ceased.
Then she laid the sufferer back on the reclining chair.
“Oh—that—was—good,” murmured Marguerite, very faintly;
“that—was—relief.”
And though she was very weak, weak almost unto death, she seemed to
suffer less from oppression and difficulty of breathing.
Roma administered a restorative, and told her not to speak or move again
for some time.
Then Roma looked at Owlet, who was sitting very still on the other side
of the chair, holding her mother’s hand and looking up into Roma’s face
with large, solemn eyes.
“Do not be distressed, my dear. It is over now,” the lady said.
“Oh, I’m not. It does her good. She says it does. She had it once
before, and it did her good. She said it did. Only she is so weak after
it,” the child replied.
It required all Roma’s self-command to keep up a cheerful countenance.
She knew better than the child, of course, and even better than the
child’s mother, what these hemorrhages meant, and what the relief they
brought suggested.
From this time forward she was, if possible, even more careful, more
attentive and more tender to the sufferer than ever before.
Marguerite was extremely weak in body, but not the least depressed in
mind. She talked only of recovery and of going to the country.
“I feel so light,” she said, “since I got relieved of all that bad blood
that oppressed my chest. I shall get well now. This is only the last of
January, and I shall have plenty of time to get well and strong before
the first of April. And, oh, my little idiot will see the flowers burst
into bloom! Do you know she was never in the country in her life, and
never saw a growing rosebush, except in a pot?” So she would talk.
And as a season of mild weather ensued, she grew better, and under
skillful medical treatment and tender nursing and good feeding continued
to improve every day until the severe cold and high winds of early March
came. Then she took cold again, no one knew how; began to cough and
complain of oppression, suffocation and fever. Yet her spirits never
flagged, nor did she once think of death.
“It is only another cold,” she said to Roma, “but when this month is
past then will come the lovely spring, and I shall be well, and go to
the country. You are going on the first of April, are you not?”
“Yes, dear, if you should be well enough.”
“Oh, I shall be well enough, never fear.”
One day, when the doctor had made his usual morning visit, he made a
slight sign to Roma that he wished to speak to her alone.
So when he had taken leave of his patient Roma followed him into the
hall.
“It is my duty to tell you,” he said, “that our poor young patient will
not probably live out this month. If she has any friends or relatives,
they should be informed of her condition. Try to ascertain the facts
without alarming her.”
“Yes, I will,” replied Roma.
And after the doctor had left her she stood revolving in her mind how
she should proceed. She soon made up her mind, and re-entered the room.
Marguerite herself led the way up to the subject.
“It is a lovely day for the middle of March,” she said faintly, as she
usually now spoke.
“Yes, a very lovely day.”
“If the weather keeps on like this we might soon go to Goblin Hall.”
“Yes, dear. And the Hall is such a great, roomy house that I wish I
could fill it up with visitors.”
“Oh, no; only you and me and my poor little fool.”
“I did not mean strangers, dear, but friends. Now, have you no friends
or relations that you would like to have with you? I could easily invite
them to come and visit you there; and it would be so pleasant, not only
for you and for them, but, most of all, for me.”
“How good you are! Oh! you are an angel! But, no, I have no one in the
whole world belonging to me, that I know of, except my grandmother, old
Madam Arbuthnot, of Arbuthnot, in Scotland; and she never saw me, nor I
her. She must be over seventy years old now.”
“How is it that you never saw her?”
“Oh, she cast my mother off for marrying an actor. My mother was her
only child, and she cast her off for marrying my father, who was a play
actor, because, you see, she was not only of a very high family, and
very proud of her descent, but she was a member of the Church of
Scotland, and very strict in her religion.”
“Ah!” said Roma, revolving some curious questions in her own mind, but
giving them no utterance.
“My father and mother both fell into poverty, somehow or other, I never
knew how, and from the time I was seven years old, and learned to dance
on the stage, supported them until they died, when I was sixteen; then I
went to Paris, and danced for myself until I married.”
“There, do not talk any more just at present. You are tired,” said Roma;
and she went and brought the invalid a glass of milk punch, which the
latter drank with the avidity with which she took all nourishment.
A few days later Roma obtained from her protégée the full address of
Madam Arbuthnot, to be used in case of necessity.
It was:
“Madame Griselda Margaret Arbuthnot, Arbuthnot Castle, Killharrt,
Caithness, Scotland.”
Another severely cold spell, with high winds and driving snow.
Marguerite grew much worse. She could no longer lie down, or even
recline, but sat straight up in her chair, propped and supported on all
sides.
She suffered extremely from oppression, fever and suffocation, but still
her spirits never fell. She never thought of death. She spoke, when she
was able to speak, only of getting well and of going to the country.
One bright morning, near the end of March, she had her chair wheeled to
the windows, where she could look out and see the piece of woods behind
the house, and watch the first softening and swelling of the twigs of
the trees before they began to burst into leaflets.
“Oh, how I shall enjoy the country!” she said, and then a terrible fit
of coughing seized her. Roma hurried to her side, and not a minute too
soon. The red stream of blood burst from her lips and poured into the
bowl that the lady held, until the pale sufferer sank back again on her
chair, murmuring faintly:
“Oh!—that—was—such—relief. I am—ever—so much—better now”—and died.
It was so sudden at the last—so awfully sudden—that even strong Roma was
stupefied by the event, and could not realize it. She set the sanguine
bowl on the table and gazed at the dead form. She was aroused by the low
voice of Owlet, saying:
“Mamma is better now. She is always better after one of these. It is bad
to look at, but it makes her better; she always says so. She is better,
really, now, is she not?” pleaded the child, looking in doubt at the
changed features of her mother.
“Yes, my darling, she is better now,” said Roma in a broken voice as she
took the hand of Owlet to lead her away.
But the child was now gazing in terror at the face of death. She
snatched her hand from Roma’s clasp and flung herself upon the dead
bosom, crying:
“Mamma! mamma! Oh, mamma! What is the matter now? What makes you look
so? Oh, ma’am, what is the matter with my mamma? Why don’t she speak to
me?”
Roma lifted the child in her arms, sat down on the sofa, held her to her
heart, and said:
“Your mamma is better, my darling—better than she ever was in all her
life before. God has taken her now, and made her well.”
“No, He hasn’t! There she is, and something awful is the matter with
her! Oh! let me go to my poor mamma!” sobbed the child, struggling to
get out of the arms of her friend.
Roma would not coerce her; she let her go. And Owlet rushed back to the
side of the dead, and began to kiss and hug and cry and call, without
meeting any response.
“Oh! why don’t she answer? Oh! why don’t my own mamma speak to me?”
wailed the child, looking up to her friend for an explanation.
“She does not answer you, my child, because she is not here.”
“Why, there she is!” cried Owlet, pointing with tearful persistence to
the lifeless form in the chair.
“No, darling, that is not your mamma. If it were, she would answer and
caress you; but it is only the body she lived in when she was with us.
But the body was poor and weak and sick and suffering, and the Lord drew
her out of it and took her to a better place. Listen, darling. Your
mamma is alive and well now. She is not sick any more. If my body was to
be weak and sick, and more torment to me than use to anybody, the Lord
would take me out of it to a better place, and make me well. Our bodies
are not ourselves—they are only the things we live in; they are no more
ourselves than our gloves are our hands, or our shoes are our feet. Do
you understand, dear? Your mamma is not here in that body; she is well
and happy in a better place. You understand?”
“Oh, yes, but I want my mamma. Oh, I want my own mamma!” the child
wailed, and would not be comforted.
Roma held her again in her arms, and kissed and embraced her, and wished
with all her heart that some one would come into the room. Some one
presently came.
It was the doctor, on his daily visit.
“It is all over,” she said in a low tone as she pointed to the dead.
“As I have been expecting to find it daily for the last week,” the
physician replied. Then:
“How long since?” he inquired.
“About half an hour, doctor. I am here alone with this child, and cannot
leave her. Will you kindly see the proper people and send them here for
the last offices? Some woman, of course, must be on hand. Please, also,
see Mrs. Brown, our janitress. I must engage a large room on this flat.
There are plenty of vacant rooms in the house now, since the exodus of
the fourth of March. Will you kindly attend to these matters?”
“Willingly, my dear child,” said Roma’s old friend, who then took a
clean towel from a rack, spread it over the dead face, and left the
room.
Owlet sobbed herself to sleep on Roma’s bosom, and then the lady
tenderly lifted her, bore her into the adjoining chamber, and laid her
on the bed.
An hour later an undertaker and his assistants came to the room,
introduced by Mrs. Brown herself, who was really full of sympathy and
helpfulness.
A large front room, on the same floor, was prepared, and there the body
of Margaret Nouvellini was laid out to await the day of the funeral,
which was set for the following Friday.
Late in the afternoon, Roma, leaving the child asleep on her bed, and
leaving her hired assistants to air her rooms and set them in order,
went down to the restaurant to get the cup of tea she so much needed.
When she returned to the upper floor she thought she would look into the
chamber of death to see that all was done decently and in order.
It was a large front corner room, with high windows, whose sashes were
up and Venetian blinds closed. The heat had been turned off, and the
room was intensely cold, as well as half dark.
She discerned the white-sheeted form on the table, in the middle of the
floor, and there also, to her surprise and sorrow, she saw little Owlet,
who had drawn a chair to the side of the bier, and climbed upon it, and
was resting head and arms upon her mother’s cold body.
“Catherine, darling! darling! don’t stay here in the cold. It is not
right, dear. Let me take you away and get you something to eat,” said
Roma, gently taking hold of the child.
“Oh, no! Please don’t touch me! I don’t mind the cold. I don’t want
anything to eat! I want to stay here with my mamma—my own mamma!” Owlet
pleaded, struggling to retain her place.
Under any other circumstances but that of the intense cold of the room,
Roma would have let the child have her way; but now she gently
expostulated with her.
“It has turned bitterly cold within the last few hours, darling, and the
heat is turned off the room, and all the windows are open, and you will
be sick if you stay here.”
“I don’t mind being cold or sick! I want to stay here with mamma, poor
mamma—my own dear mamma!”
“But, love, your mamma is not here; she is well and happy in a better
place. But you will make her unhappy if you stay here in the cold by the
body that she has left, and make yourself ill. Cannot you understand
that, Catherine?”
“Oh, yes, I know! I know!” gasped and sobbed the child. “I know, but I
can’t help it! I can’t help it! I am not possessed of common sense
myself now! But I can’t help it! You may take me!” she cried, holding
out her arms to the lady, who lifted her, pressed her to her bosom, and
bore her away.
Three days later, on Friday afternoon, the mortal remains of Marguerite
Nouvellini, followed only by the officiating clergyman, the Rev. Mr.
Martin; Roma, little Catherine, the lawyer and the physician, were borne
to their last resting place at Oak Hill Cemetery, where, in the little
Gothic chapel, the religious services were held, and Roma took the
orphan home to her own heart.
As soon as the party returned to the house Roma requested her two old
friends, Lawyer Merritt and Dr. Mix, to enter with her, as she wished to
consult them.
They accompanied her to the parlor of her flat, where she sat down, with
little Catherine on her lap, and begged them to be seated.
Then she said:
“I wish to adopt this child as my own, unless some one who has a better
right should claim her.”
“Oh, no!” here broke in little Catherine, clinging closely to her
protectress. “No! no! no! No one but you! you! you!”
Roma pressed the child to her bosom and continued:
“At least, I shall keep her for the present, and until some one with a
better right shall claim her.”
“No! no! no!” again protested the child. “No one but you shall have me!”
Again Roma soothed her, and then resumed:
“What I wished to consult you about is this: There is a large, packed
Saratoga trunk upstairs that belonged to this child’s mother. Should I
go through that trunk to obtain from it any papers that may be
there—information concerning the child’s relatives—or should I put a
seal upon the trunk and leave it intact until it is claimed?”
“I should say,” said the lawyer, “that you had better search first, and
seal it afterward, if necessary. If the little one had any inheritance
the Orphans’ Court might appoint you her guardian and trustee; but as
she seems to have nothing—but the trunk—I do not think it would be worth
while to go through the formality. Since you are determined to adopt the
little one, just act by her and her small effects as if she were your
own.”
“I agree with you,” said the doctor.
“Oh, yes! I give myself to you! you! you! and to no one else!”
passionately exclaimed little Catherine, clinging to her protectress.
“Very well, then, darling; I will keep you. Do not be afraid,” said
Roma.
Then turning to the lawyer, she added:
“I ought to tell you, perhaps, that the child has, or had, a
great-grandmother, a Madam Arbuthnot, of Arbuthnot, in the Highlands of
Scotland—a woman of rank, who discarded this child’s grandmother more
than thirty years ago, since when there seems to have been no
communication at all. The old lady, if living, must be nearly eighty, I
should think. Under the circumstances, ought I to write to her?”
“Yes,” answered the two gentlemen simultaneously.
Then the doctor arose and took leave.
But the lawyer lingered.
“I have something to tell you,” he said. “I could not tell before. It is
good news, my dear Roma. William Harcourt is found.”