FOOD AT LAST.
Fair had fallen into kind hands, for Mrs. Howard had a good, motherly
heart, and, although in such poignant distress over the loss of her
beautiful daughter, she could not fail to see the misery that was
stamped on the sad young face of the working girl, and her sympathies
were enlisted at once.
With her own hands, she led her from the room whose banks of white,
odorous flowers had turned her sick and faint, and made her lie down
on a sofa in a small anteroom while she rang the bell for wine and
refreshments.
“Oh, how kind you are, madam,” Fair faltered gratefully, and then she
allowed her head to fall on the silken pillow and the lids to droop
over her weary eyes, while a sensation of ecstasy went through her
famished frame at the thought that she would soon have food again.
“Wine! I do not even know the taste of it,” she thought, but in the
next moment Mrs. Howard was holding a glass to her lips, and saying
kindly:
“Drink this, my dear. It will revive you.”
Fair drank, and the rich fluid ran warmly through her veins. Strength
began to return to her famished frame, and her eyes grew bright as
she saw the silver tray piled with delicate food, rich cake, sliced
pineapples, peaches, and grapes, and some delicate sandwiches--a simple
feast enough, yet appetizing enough for a king.
“Perhaps you can eat something?” Mrs. Howard said kindly, and Fair
accepted the invitation modestly, yet with such thankfulness that the
lady could not help but see that she was very hungry.
She took first a sandwich, then some cake, then a little of the fruit;
and when she stopped, having made a very good meal, Mrs. Howard pressed
her to take more.
Fair looked with dark, grateful eyes at the aristocratic yet gentle
woman sitting opposite, and somehow before that gentle, motherly face
some of her innate pride, that had made her conceal her hunger all
along, melted into air, and she answered, in a low, half-appealing
voice:
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to take any more, because--because--I’ve heard that
when one has been without food--some time--it isn’t safe to eat much
at first.”
Mrs. Howard looked startled. She half rose from her chair as she
exclaimed:
“You poor child, you don’t mean to say----”
Fair answered, with a sob in her voice, brought there by the lady’s
sympathy:
“I have had no food for three days--not even a crust of bread.”
The rich woman was appalled. Her eyes filled with moisture, and she
could not speak for a moment, so intense was her pity for the lovely,
child-like girl sitting before her, with those wide, pathetic eyes
telling more than her words had revealed of misery and suffering.
Seeing that she could not speak, Fair continued sadly:
“I am an orphan, madam, and I have only one friend, and she is far
away; so, as I had no money, I could get no food.”
Something whispered to her that perhaps this rich woman, who seemed so
kind, would take pity on her, and help her in some way, and she went
on, in her pathetic young voice:
“I am all alone in the world, madam. My mother died several weeks
ago, and I sold all our room furniture and my clothes to bury her.
All I have earned since then I have spent in food and a mourning
dress. This morning I asked at the factory where I work for a small
advance on my wages, but was refused. Perhaps--if I had--told them I
was--was--starving--they would have given it to me, but--I could not.”
Mrs. Howard began to find out that she could shed tears over something
else than her own grief. The bright drops rained down her cheeks as
Fair added, in the intensity of her emotion:
“Oh, madam, would that I could change places with your daughter, and
restore her to you! I would gladly die and rest my weary head in the
grave, for this morning I was turned out of doors by my landlady, and I
have no home and nowhere to go.”
Mrs. Howard recovered her voice, and by a few questions elicited from
Fair her whole life story, with the exception of her marriage to Carl
Bernicci. An instinctive feeling that the lady would disapprove of it,
and a fear lest she should refuse to help her on that account, kept her
perfectly silent as to that fact.
Mrs. Howard saw the beautiful brown eyes turned to her pleadingly,
and she knew that the unhappy creature was mutely pleading for her
protection. The thought touched her deeply, although she did not know
what deep cause Fair had for wishing her regard. The thought came to
her mind that there was a strange irony in the fate that had removed
from earth her beautiful Azalia, who had so much to live for, and left
this orphan girl, who was so wretched and desolate that she would have
been glad to die.
Something, too, in Fair’s haunting likeness to the dead girl touched
the mother’s heart with subtle tenderness, and, yielding to the impulse
that swelled her bosom with emotion, she took Fair’s cold little hand
in hers, and said:
“Be of good cheer, little one. I will let you remain here for the
present, and when a little time has elapsed I will interest myself in
your future.”
Fair flung herself on her knees before her gentle benefactress, and,
catching her delicate hand, covered it with tears and kisses.
“Heaven bless you for your kindness!” she sobbed.
A little later she was led to a beautiful sleeping apartment, and told
that it was to be her own while she remained in the house. To her maid,
Mrs. Howard said simply:
“This young girl will be my guest some time, and as you are the only
one in the house that knows of her being only a working girl, I desire
that you will not communicate that fact to the servants. She is to be
treated with every attention and respect.”