EDITH AND HER MOTHER.
“_And you refused him?_”
“Yes, mother, I refused him.”
“Are you crazy, child?”
“Not as crazy as I should be to accept him.”
Edith was sitting with her mother in the little house in Caledonia
Street, when the above conversation took place. It was the day of Col.
Schuyler’s departure for Paris, and she had driven into town, with
permission to stay to tea if she liked. She had not intended to tell her
mother what had been said to her by the colonel, but when questioned of
him something in her manner excited Mrs. Barrett’s suspicion, and in her
usual forcible way she wrung from her daughter the fact that Schuyler
Hill had been offered to her and refused. To say that Mrs. Barrett was
angry would feebly express her emotions. In all her dreams for Edith she
had never hoped for anything quite equal to an alliance with Col.
Schuyler, and now that she had wilfully thrown the chance away she was
exceedingly indignant, and expressed her disapprobation in terms so
harsh and bitter that Edith, who seldom felt equal to a contest with her
mother’s fierce, strong will, roused herself at last and answered back:
“Mother, you have said enough, and you must stop now and listen to me.
You upbraid me for having thrown away the chance for which you have
waited so long, and to which you say you have shaped every act of your
life since I was born, and you accuse me of ingratitude when you have
done so much for me. Mother, for all the real good you have done me I am
grateful, and you know how gladly I will work for you so long as I have
health and strength to do so, but for the secrecy you have imposed upon
me with regard to my past life I do not thank you, and could I go
backward a few years, or had my baby lived, I would have no concealments
from the world. To me it is no shame that I was once the wife of Abelard
Lyle; the shame is that I try to hide it, and when Colonel Schuyler
asked me to be his, the truth sprang to my lips at once, and but for
that terrible choking sensation which came upon me when you took baby
away, I should have told him all.”
“And ruined your prospects forever,” Mrs. Barrett said, angrily.
“Yes, ruined them forever so far as Col. Schuyler is concerned, but that
would have mattered little,” Edith answered, proudly. “I have no love
for him; he has none for me. I asked him the question, and he could not
tell me yes. His fancy was caught, and he talked of my beauty, and
grace, and voice, and culture, and hinted that I was a fitting picture
for his handsome home in Hampstead. You saw Lady Emily once. You
remember how pale, and sallow, and thin she was. Neither gems nor rich
gay clothing could make her fair to look upon, and I have no doubt her
husband would be prouder of _me_ than he ever was of her, with all her
money and Rossiter blood, that is, if he took me as Edith Lyle, the
daughter of an English curate, and nothing more; but once let him know
the truth, as he assuredly must have known it if I had for a moment
considered his proposition,—and think you he would not have spurned with
contempt the widow of a carpenter, and that carpenter his own hired
workman?”
“Not if he truly loved you,” Mrs. Barrett interposed; and Edith answered
impetuously:
“But I tell you he does _not_ love me. He only cares for my personal
attractions,—he would like to show me off as his young English bride,
whose family must be ignored, for, mother, he told me that distinctly;
he said he knew nothing of my friends, and did not care to know, as he
wished for me alone; that if I married him, you must stay behind,—a
mother-in-law always made more or less trouble, and he preferred to have
you remain where you are, and if money was needed for your support, it
should always be forthcoming in sufficient amount for every comfort.”
“And yet he knows nothing of me to dislike,” Mrs. Barrett faltered, her
countenance falling, and her eyes having in them a look of
disappointment.
That she was to be set aside and have no part in Edith’s grandeur, had
never occurred to her, and in fancy she had already crossed the sea and
was luxuriously domesticated at Schuyler Hill, as the mother of the
mistress and general superintendent of everything, with plenty of money
at her command, and herself looked up to and envied by the very people
who had once treated her slightingly, and who would never suspect of
having known her as Mrs. Fordham. She looked much older now than she had
eleven years ago, and her hair was white as snow, while the deep black
she wore constantly was a still more complete disguise. So there was no
danger of detection,—no link to connect her with the cottage by the
bridge where she once lived, or that grave under the evergreen. But all
this was of no avail. Col. Schuyler would not have her on any terms, and
knowing this she was the more easily reconciled to Edith’s decision,
until by dint of questioning she learned that the colonel did not
consider the matter settled, but would urge his suit again on his return
to England. Then her old ambition revived, and with a mother’s
forgetfulness of self, she thought, “She shall accept him then. I will
see her a lady even if I starve in a garret.”
But she wisely resolved to say no more upon the subject at present, and
Edith had arisen to go, when down the stairs came the patter of little
feet, and a sweet, childish voice was heard warbling a simple Scottish
ballad, and Edith caught a gleam of bright auburn hair falling under a
white cape bonnet, as a young girl went past the window and out upon the
walk.
“Whose child is that? Has Mrs. Rogers come?” she asked, and Mrs. Barrett
answered:
“She has been here nearly two weeks, and that is little Gertie
Westbrooke.”