EDITH LYLE.
It was a dark, dreary, January afternoon, and the dreariness and
darkness were increased by the dense fog which since noon had settled
like a pall over the great city of London, and by a pitiless rain,
which, mixing with melting snow, ran in muddy puddles down the gutters
and in dirty streams down the windows of the third floor back room of
the lodging in Dorset Street, where a very young girl was lying. Her
face was whiter than the pillow against which it lay, and in the eyes
there was a look of utter helplessness, as if all life, and hope, and
energy had been crushed out, and there was nothing left but apathy and
utter indifference to the future. And yet this was the same face which
Colonel Schuyler had seen framed in a net-work of green, and of whose
bright beauty he had dreamed, with his lady wife beside him: but he
would not have known it now. Months of mental anguish and continual
combat with the mother’s stronger nature, added to days of intense
suffering, and homesickness, and longing for the dead in that far-off
grave in Hampstead, had left their marks on the young girl, until now
that the crisis was past she lay quiet and passive in her mother’s hands
and seemed to assent to whatever the mother proposed.
That estimable woman had chosen lodgings in Dorset Street, knowing she
would be safe there from any one whom her daughter might meet in the
future. The name Heloise had been dropped, and she was Edith Lyle now, a
young widow, whose husband had died soon after her marriage, and so no
suspicions were excited and no comments made by the few who occasionally
saw her stealing up or down the stairs which led to her apartment. Only
the housemaid, Mary Stover, was interested in her, or paid much heed to
her extreme youth and beauty. And even Mary but seldom came in contact
with her, so that Edith hardly knew of her existence, or how much she
was in the serving woman’s thoughts. Since the birth of her baby, a wee
little creature, with masses of golden hair and a look in its blue eyes
of the dead, Edith had scarcely thought of anything, but had lain with
the child held closely to her bosom, as if fearful of losing it. Baby
was now four weeks old, and the impatient Mrs. Fordham could wait no
longer, and on the dreary day of which I write she sat by her daughter’s
side and said to her, in the tone which Edith had never yet had courage
to withstand:
“Edith, you are strong enough now to leave this wretched place. Baby
will be four weeks old to-morrow, and I have everything arranged. I have
made particular inquiries about the —— Street Foundling Hospital, and
learned that in no other place are the children so well cared for. The
matron and nurses are very kind, and the little ones healthy and happy,
and in nine cases out of ten are adopted by good families and grow up
respectable men and women.”
“But, mother,” Edith gasped, while her hold tightened on the little pink
fingers which lay on her neck, “I cannot let her go. She is mine,—truly,
lawfully mine,—and you shall not take her from me.”
“Hush, child, you do not know what you are talking about,” came
impatiently from Mrs. Fordham’s lips. “I tell you we cannot be hampered
with a child, and it shall be as I say. I know it will be well cared
for. I shall keep sight of her, and see that no harm befalls her, and if
you ever should wish to claim it, that mark on its bosom is sufficient
to identify it.”
At the mention of the peculiar birthmark on her child, Edith moaned
faintly, and thought of the white rose with the blood stain in the
centre, and the awful day when it was brought back to her, and she had
laid it next her breaking heart. There was a blood-red spot over baby’s
heart, and Edith knew how it came there, and shuddered and grew sick as
she remembered it, and held tighter to the little one whom her mother
would wrest from her. At last, wearied with the controversy which was
exciting her daughter so much, Mrs. Fordham seemed to give up the
contest, but it was only seeming. She was one who never gave up, and
what she could not accomplish by fair means she was not too scrupulous
to attain by foul. Baby must go. It was something in her way, and must
be sacrificed; so, when the hour came round for her daughter’s medicine,
she mixed with it one of the sedative powders which Edith had taken for
wakefulness when her illness was at the worst. As it had been successful
then so it was now, and she ere long fell into a heavy sleep, which Mrs.
Fordham knew from experience would last for several hours. This was her
time for action, and going to the bed she stooped to take the child from
the arms which held it so fast. Even in her sleep Edith must have had a
dim consciousness of the threatened danger, for she held firmly to the
little one, while her white lips moaned:
“No, she is mine; you cannot have her.”
But for this Mrs. Fordham did not hesitate, and with a firm hand she
carefully unclasped the clinging arms and lifted the child from the bed.
Had it been a gentleman’s offspring, and Edith the mistress of some
luxurious home, she might have felt some love and tenderness for the
little creature, which, roused from its sleep, opened its blue eyes and
looked into her face. But it was lowly born, a descendant of the Lyles,
who lived in obscurity among the heather hills of Alnwick, and she
steeled her heart against it, and never faltered in her purpose, even
when the pretty lips parted and gave forth a sound, which made Edith
start and half turn upon her pillow as if about to waken. But the
sedative was good, and the young girl slept on, while her mother robed
the little one in its best attire, and wrote upon a bit of paper which
she pinned upon its bosom:
“Her name is Heloise, and she is not a child of shame, but of an
imprudent marriage, and inherits from her mother, who is a lady, some of
the best blood in England.”
“That will save her from a life of servitude; the high bloods always
take such children as these,” she said, “and it will be much better so
than a drag on us.”
Ten minutes later and she stole softly down the stairs, bearing under
her cloak a bundle which, when she retraced her steps, was not with her.
But it was safe from the chill air of the night, for she had rung the
bell of —— Street Hospital, and depositing her burden on the steps had
retreated swiftly behind a clump of shrubbery until she saw the door
opened and the child received into the warmth and light within. The rain
had ceased and the fog had cleared away with the going down of the sun,
but no one could have recognized her in the dim starlight, with the hood
of her water-proof drawn closely over her head, and when she reached the
house in Dorset Street she felt as if cut loose from everything which
could in any way interfere with her ambitious projects.
Edith had slept soundly, and when at last her mother came and stood
beside the bed she lay in the same deep slumber, with a bright flush on
her cheeks and her arm still stretched over the spot where but an hour
ago a little pink-and-white baby lay. It was gone now, but she did not
know it, or dream of the anguish in store for her when she should rouse
from the sleep which lasted until near midnight. Then with a sudden
start and sense of danger she woke, and sitting up in bed felt for her
child under the sheet,—on the pillow,—under the pillow,—on the
counterpane,—everywhere, but all in vain. Baby was gone, and in a voice
husky with fright and terror she called to the figure sitting so
motionless by the fire, “Mother, mother, where is baby? Is she in your
lap, mother?” and, alarmed at Mrs. Fordham’s ominous silence, Edith
sprang to her side, and with a sensation as if her heart was bursting
from her throat, gasped out:
“Mother, tell me;—what have you done with my child?”
And Mrs. Fordham did tell her, while Edith listened like one paralyzed
beyond the power to move. Speak she could not at first, for a horrible
suffocating sensation in her throat; but her face was deadly pale and
her lips quivered, while the fury of a tigress when bereft of its young
glared from her eyes. At last she found her voice, and the words rang
through the room with terrible distinctness.
“Mother, may God’s curse fall on you, if a hair of baby’s head is
harmed, and if, when I am strong and well, and able to cope with you, I
fail to find my darling may He turn every happiness I ever hope to know
into sorrow, and blight the dearest earthly wish I may ever have again.”
Then she fell fainting at the feet of her mother, who, if not moved by
the denunciation against herself, was alarmed at the death-like
unconsciousness which lasted so long. But youth and health can endure
much and live, and Edith came back to life and sense again, but lay
utterly prostrate and helpless, with a choking lump in her throat which
prevented her from speaking above the faintest whisper. To move her that
day to other and better quarters was impossible, nor did Mrs. Fordham
care particularly to do it. No one there would know of the child’s
absence, for no one ever came into their room except Mary Stover, who
was always quiet and respectful, and who on this day when she brought up
warm water for the tea, never spoke or seemed to notice anything.
Next morning Edith was better, and when Mary came with the breakfast she
was bidden to tell her mistress that Mrs. Fordham was going away at
once, but would pay the month’s rent just the same.
“Very well, ma’am. I’ll tell her when she comes in. She’s out marketin’
now,” was the girl’s reply as she left the room; and when Mrs. Jones,
the owner of the house, returned, her late lodgers were gone, and Mary
handed her the rent for the whole month, as Mrs. Fordham had bidden her
to do.
Mrs. Jones was surprised at the sudden departure of people of whom she
had been a little proud, inasmuch as they were above the class which
usually stopped with her, but the money for the whole month and the
certainty that she knew of other lodgers to take the rooms, kept her
quiet, and she merely said:
“They were in a mighty hurry to be off. Do you know where they are
gone?”
Mary did not. A handsome carriage had come for them, and madam almost
carried the young lady to it, she said, adding:
“That was a very pretty lass, with the sweetest face I ever saw.”
To this Mrs. Jones assented, and as just then there was a ring, and
people were announced looking for rooms, her late tenants passed as
completely from her mind as they passed from her surroundings to a new
life in a pleasanter part of London.