THE WASHERWOMAN’S INTRUSION.
A light knock came to the door, which softly opened, and a woman
appeared bearing a long basket full of clean linen on her arm.
“I hope I’m not too late for yer honor,” she said, placing her basket on
a chair, and wiping the perspiration from her face. “It’s a long walk
from yon, and, do what I would, the time went by quicker ’an I ever seed
it.”
“But you were to have brought the clothes home yesterday,” said George,
annoyed by this intrusion upon the precious moments which remained
before his brother’s departure. “Usually you are more punctual, Mrs.
Dillon.”
“True for ye there,” answered our old friend, Mary Margaret, while a
crimson blush reddened her good-natured face.
“But do ye see, gintlemen, I’ve been away for a bit, looking after a
darlint of a little boy as is precious to me as my own flesh and blood,
though he is a gintleman now entirely—for all he was born side by side
wid Terry in the hospital—more blame to them as sent his poor mother
there!”
There was something in this speech that made the brothers start. Their
own minds had been so occupied by recollections of the hospital, that
the subject, brought upon them so suddenly, and from this unexpected
source, seemed like a revelation.
“Of what child do you speak, Mrs. Dillon?” inquired George, while Louis
stood with his wild eyes fixed upon her.
“Why, of me own little nursling, to be sure, as was born the week after
little Terry, and took the bit and sup wid him, side by side, after his
poor dead mother was took out of the ward in her pine coffin.”
“And how old is little Terry?” asked Louis, abruptly.
“How old is little Terry? Faix, and I can tell ye to a day, yer honors,”
said the washerwoman, counting the plump fingers of one hand, which she
held up with the thumb protruding. “D’ ye see these? Just add two months
an’ ten days to that same, and ye have little Terry, the spalpeen, all
to nothing, yer honors!”
The young men turned their eyes from the plump hand and gazed with a
sort of awe upon each other. A rapid calculation ran through the mind of
each. Mary Margaret had pointed out the day upon which Louisa’s last
letter was dated.
“And what became of the mother, that her little boy should have been
given to you?” inquired George, almost holding his breath with anxiety.
“She died, poor crather. I see her draw the last gasp myself, and helped
to straighten out her poor limbs. A naiter corpse I never saw. She was
more natural than any wax image in a museum.”
“And what was her name?” asked Louis, turning pale as the question left
his lips.
“I don’t well know, yer honor. They goes by numbers, not by names, in
the hospital; and sometimes she muttered over one name, sometimes
another, till it was hard to get the rights of it. Besides, she never
said nothin’ about herself, only when she was out ov her head, as ye may
say, wid the pain and trouble.”
“But you heard her mention some name, surely?” said Louis.
“Yes, and more ’an once, yer honor. First it was Mrs. Judson; then
Barton; then Oakley; and then it was De Marke—that was the last word as
ever left her poor lips.”
The brothers looked at each other again, and both grew pale as death.
“I thought it strange more ’an once, for there was two on ’em, and ye
may well say they was both beauties, a-laying side by side—and when the
fever was on ’em, this De Marke was on the tongue of one as well as
t’other. You’d a thought they both knowed something about the man as
bore that name.”
Louis De Marke went close to George, and leaned on his shoulder. George
felt that he was trembling from head to foot, and drew him toward the
sofa. “Let me question her,” he said, in a low voice, “the thing
involves us both!”
Mary Margaret, who had been sorting the linen from her basket while she
was speaking, now turned, and her eyes fell on the young men. She saw
how pale they were, and stopped in some bewilderment.
“I will go,” she said, taking up her basket. “The old man is right; my
tongue is always too fast for my teeth; what had I to do talking of sich
to young gentlemen as knows nothing about ’em?”
“Stay, Mrs. Dillon!” said George, “we are both interested, deeply
interested; tell us more about these young persons; we were taken by
surprise and did not hear distinctly. Did one or both of these poor
ladies recover?”
Mary Margaret sat down with the basket upon her knees.
“Was it one, or both, ye asked? Arrah, but I wish it was both, that I
could tell ye of; but I saw one poor crathur carried out in a wooden
coffin, wid two breadths of factory cotton on her for a shroud, and for
all that she looked like a marble image, wid the raven black hair parted
on her white for’ed, and the lids folded so could-like over her eyes,
that had been black as stars and as bright as dimints.”
“Black eyes? Did you say that the poor girl who died had black eyes and
hair?” exclaimed Louis.
“Black as midnight, yer honor, eyes and hair—more, by the token, I
closed them two eyes mysel’, and the color sunk into my heart!”
The young men looked at each other almost wildly.
“This is very strange!” said George.
The lips of the younger brother were white as marble, and when he tried
to answer, they gave forth no sound.
“And the one who lived?” said George, with increasing agitation,—“was
she dark like the other?”
“Dark, did ye say? Why, her hair was like burning gold, and her eyes—the
bluest bit of sky ye ever saw was nothing to ’em. Thin her face, it was
white as a lily wid a taste of red just in the mouth and cheeks. She
looked like a born beauty in spite of the narrow bed and checkered
covering, the day I went out of the hospital, and followed me with her
great lovin’ eyes all the way down the ward, as if she knew I was the
friend to stand by her.”
“But you left her alive?” said George, growing more and more excited.
“In course I did!”
“And had no proofs of her death after?”
“Proofs, yer honor? What proofs could I have of her death, when she came
her own self to my home, after that, and slept in the same bed wid the
childer for a whole month, to say nothing of the strange baby, as the
other poor crathur left ahint her.”
“Stop!” said George, starting up with a flush upon his forehead, while
his whole frame quivered with excitement. “Be careful what you say. A
mistake in this matter would be madness to us both. Are you sure, my
good woman, quite sure, that the fair girl came forth alive from that
hospital, and that the other died there?”
“Quite sure? Faix and I am, if one’s own blessed eyes are to be trusted.
Didn’t I straighten one out for her coffin, and nurse the other into
life when she lay at death’s door—to say nothin’ of the bit of a baby!”
“One word more, Mrs. Dillon. Do try and remember. Did either of these
young creatures ever call each other by name in your hearing?”
“Faix, and they mentioned a good many names, I’m thinking, especially
the fair one; but they seemed to mane nothing.”
“But among those names was that of George or Louis ever mentioned?”
“Agin and agin, yer honors; but it was in the fever, not atween
themselves.”
Louis De Marke buried his face in his hands, and George walked hurriedly
back and forth in the room. The latter made one or two efforts to speak,
but broke off as if the questions at his heart were too momentous. At
last he drew close to Mary Margaret:—
“Where did she go from your house? Where is she now?”
His eyes were fixed almost wildly upon her; he trembled from head to
foot.
“I don’t know, yer honor. An old lady, wid the queerest bonnet on ye
ever seed, took her away somewhere into the country, or foreign parts
maybe; and the baby was carried off by a gintleman as wanted a son, and
so took the darlint to make an heir of him, and maybe a king one of
these days—the Lord be praised, for he was a beauty all over.”
George walked unsteadily to his seat, and sat down with a low groan. Her
words had wrung his heart with the most bitter disappointment.
“And this is all you know?” he said, faintly.
Margaret looked at him with her kind eyes, and answered that she could
remember nothing more.
“And this young person, the fair one, I mean, did she never mention her
name to you in all that time?” inquired Louis.
“I disremember, yer honor. We called her the darlint at home: but it
seems to me that she once told the old man that her name was Catharine,
or the like of that!”
“Catharine!” broke from the lips of both the young men, and actuated by
one impulse, each grasped the hand of the other.
Mary Margaret arose to go. That moment a servant knocked at the door.
All was ready for the journey, which Louis had forgotten.
The brothers looked at each other in surprise, as if the idea of
separation had just arisen.
“No, I will not leave my native land till this mystery is explained,”
said Louis, in answer to his brother’s anxious look.
The servant went out, Mary Margaret gathered up her basket and
disappeared with him, leaving the brothers alone.
“She lives, I am certain that Catharine lives,” exclaimed George,
sinking down upon the sofa, and gazing at the pale face of his brother
through a mist of joyful tears.
Louis could not answer, for in his heart there was a wild struggle.
Self-reproach, regret, and a thousand tender memories of his wife,
struggled hard with another image that rose, spite of himself, amid
these sad memories, leaving him in a state of strange excitement.
At last George became more composed.
“Now,” he said, “we have the world before us. Let there be no rest till
all this strange story is put into proof.”
Louis arose.
“I am ready, brother.” Then, with a burst of natural sorrow, which was
not in the least incompatible with the feelings we have just described,
his eyes filled with tears, and he exclaimed, with a world of regret in
his voice,—
“My poor, poor wife!”