MRS. DOCTOR BARRETT.
The guest was Mrs. Dr. Barrett, and she came one dreary day in November,
unannounced and unexpected, her white puffs of hair just as smooth as
ever, her mourning just as deep and her black eyes just as restless and
eager as she walked up the avenue and looked curiously about her. She
had accidentally stumbled upon Godfrey in New York while walking down
Broadway, and recognizing him at once had seized him by the arm, and to
his utter amazement, claimed him as her grandson by marriage. It was not
in Godfrey’s nature to be other than polite to any woman, and so
adroitly did Mrs. Barrett manage, that when at last he left her seated
in the car which was to take her to Hampstead, he found himself out of
pocket just ten dollars, which had gone for carriage hire, and lunch and
stage fare, and ticket to Hampstead.
“But then a fellow must do something for his _step-grandmother-in-law_,”
he said to Tom Barton, who chanced to be in the city, and to whom he
related his experience, adding that he hardly thought the worthy woman
was expected at Schuyler Hill.
Nor was she. But Mrs. Barrett was not one who cared particularly for the
feelings of others. Regularly twice a year since her daughter’s marriage
she had received money from Colonel Schuyler, and never in her life had
she been more comfortable and free; but this did not satisfy her so long
as she knew that across the sea was a luxurious home, which she felt she
had a right to enjoy. It was more than six years now since her
daughter’s marriage, and in all that time there had been no wish
expressed to see her, no invitation for her to come, and she was tired
of waiting and weary of her present idle life, while to do her justice
there was in her heart a genuine desire to see her child’s face once
more, and hear the sound of her voice. So, when her money came as usual
in October, with a letter from Edith, who told of Emma’s marriage, and
said that Julia was also gone, and she was alone with her husband,
Arthur and Gertie, Mrs. Barrett’s decision was made, and giving up her
pleasant rooms which she had occupied so long, she started for America,
and arrived at Hampstead on a November day when the wind sighed drearily
through the trees and rustled the dead leaves at her feet as she passed
slowly up the avenue leading to Schuyler Hill. She had walked from the
station, and taking the road which led past her old home, had paused a
moment by the gate, looking at the pretty cottage and thinking of all
that had happened since the day Abelard was carried through the gate up
to the little cemetery she could see in the distance.
Edith was out that afternoon, and only Gertie was at home when Mrs.
Barrett rang and asked first for Mrs. Schuyler and then for Miss
Westbrooke.
“An old lady in black, with puffs of white hair,” the servant said to
Gertie, who, without a thought as to who it could be, went down to meet
the stranger.
“Oh, Mrs. Barrett,” she cried, when she caught sight of the
well-remembered features. “I did not dream of seeing you. When did you
come? Oh, I _am_ so glad, and so will Mrs. Schuyler be. I wish she were
here.”
There was no question as to Gertie’s joy, and Mrs. Barrett wished she
was as sure of as hearty a welcome from her own daughter as she received
from this stranger, who was removing her bonnet and shawl and talking to
her so fast.
“You must be very tired, and I’d take you to your room at once, only I
hardly know which Mrs. Schuyler would wish you to have. The best,
though, of course, as you are her mother. Yes, I think I’ll venture
that. Come with me, please;” and Gertie led the way up the broad, long
stairs to the guest chamber of the house, the one reserved for people
like Mrs. Gen. Morton and Mrs. Gov. Strong, who sometimes visited at
Schuyler Hill.
But Mrs. Barrett knew better than to take it. _She_ was not so sure of
Edith’s delight, while the colonel, she felt, would never forgive her if
he found her in his best room. So she said to Gertie:
“I do not believe I had better take this, as I shall probably remain a
long time, and a smaller, plainer chamber will do for me,—one near you,
if I can have it,” she added, with an instinctive feeling that in Gertie
she should find her strongest ally and friend.
“Come to my room, then, and wait. Mrs. Schuyler will soon be here,”
Gertie said, and while she spoke, there was the sound of wheels, and
looking through the blinds, Mrs. Barrett saw her daughter in her
carriage coming up the avenue, and scanned her curiously.
“What a great lady she is, though,” she said, aloud, “and what a
handsome house. I wonder if she blames me now?”
From having lived alone so much, Mrs. Barrett had acquired the habit of
talking to herself, and she was startled when she met Gertie’s eyes
fixed wonderingly upon her, and became aware that she was speaking her
thoughts aloud.
“That’s she; that’s Edith; I hear her voice,” she said, beginning to
tremble with excitement, and anticipation, and dread. “Would you mind
telling her I’m here?” she added, feeling intuitively that if she was to
have a shock Gertie would stand between her and the battery, and thus
make it easier to bear.
“Certainly, I’ll tell her,” Gertie replied, while there began to dawn
upon her a faint suspicion that possibly Mrs. Barrett might not be
altogether welcome.
Edith had never voluntarily mentioned her mother in Gertie’s hearing,
and when the latter spoke of her, as she sometimes did, she turned the
conversation at once into another channel. This Gertie now remembered,
and when she added to it the few words Mrs. Barrett had inadvertently
let fall about her daughter’s blaming her, she felt sure there was some
misunderstanding between mother and daughter; and while she stood firmly
by Edith, as the one probably least in fault, she felt a great pity for
the tired, worn woman, whose face was so much paler and thinner than
when she last saw it, and she resolved to do the best for her she could.
“Oh, Mrs. Schuyler,” she said, meeting the lady at the foot of the
stairs, and detaining her there while she spoke. “Wait a moment, please,
before you go up. I have some good news for you, real good, too. And you
will be so glad. I was, and she is nothing to me either. Guess who has
come?”
Edith could not guess, though a thrill ran through her nerves, and
without the slightest reason for it she felt the touch of the iron
fingers at her throat, and her voice was a whisper as she asked:
“Who is it, Gertie?”
“_Your mother_, and she is so tired and pale, and is trembling all over
to see you,” Gertie replied, surer than ever, from the expression of
Edith’s face, that there was something unpleasant between them.
“My mother! My mother here, in this house,” Edith said, and her voice,
which she had recovered, reached to the upper hall where her mother
stood, hearing the words and feeling them like so many stabs, for she
knew now she was not welcome.
Edith was not glad, though her feelings were less for herself than for
her husband. Try as she might she had never been able quite to forgive
her mother for the false position in which her falsehood had placed her,
and she felt she could never trust her again. Still she was her mother,
and nothing could undo that, and she was there in her house, unasked, it
is true, but as a mother, she had, perhaps, a right to come; or would
have had, if the husband had not expressed himself so decidedly against
it; and that was where Edith felt most keenly. What would Col. Schuyler
say? Would he blame her? And would the result be estrangement and
coldness between them? That something would come of it she was sure, and
as if she already felt the shadow of the _something_ which would result
from that visit of her mother’s, and threaten both her life and reason,
she stood a moment unable to move while Gertie stared at her amazed, and
the mother still stood waiting in the hall above. Recovering herself at
last she went slowly up the stairs, and on toward her own room, where
she naturally expected to find her visitor. But Mrs. Barrett was at the
other end of the hall, and called to her: “Here, Edith; here I am;
here’s your poor old mother.”
Then Edith turned and went swiftly to the spot, and, touched by the
trembling voice and the tired, white face, which had grown so old,
forgot everything for a moment, and winding her arms around her mother’s
neck, kissed her lovingly, and then leading her to her own room, shut
the door and sat down to look at her.
“You didn’t expect me, I know,” Mrs. Barrett began, in a half defiant,
half apologetic tone; “and perhaps I did wrong to come; but I was so
tired of living alone, with nothing to do but think from one day to
another; and then I wanted so much to see you, in the handsome home I
got for you. A mother has a right to visit her child, you know.”
This she said because of the expression on Edith’s face, which she could
not understand any more than she could realize that the refined, elegant
woman clad in velvet and ermine was her daughter,—her own flesh and
blood. Edith had grown far away from her mother, and there was scarcely
a sentiment in common between them. Still she wished to do right, and
when her mother said what she did, she replied:
“Yes, certainly, you have a right; and I am——”
She did not get any further, for the voice which made her start as it
said:
“Edith, my dear, whose is all that remarkable-looking baggage down in
the hall which I stumbled over just now?”
Colonel Schuyler had ridden round to the stable, and giving his horse to
the care of the groom, had entered the house through the side hall,
where Mrs. Barrett’s numerous boxes and bundles had been deposited by
the express man, who, as the lady was not in sight, made a little charge
against the colonel for bringing it from the station. Mrs. Barrett
believed in having things secure, and in addition to locks and hasps had
tied her boxes with cords and ropes, which, with the marks of age and
travel, gave them a “remarkable appearance” indeed, and the colonel
stumbled over them and struck his ankle against the sharp corner of one
of them, and he was suffering from the pain when he put the question to
his wife, without a thought that the obnoxious baggage was part and
parcel of his mother-in-law, who sat a little in the shadow, and whom he
did not see till Edith said to him:
“Why, it must be _mother’s_ baggage. I did not know it was here. Howard,
see! here’s mother!—come all the way from England!”
Edith was as near hysterical as she well could be and not break down
entirely, while the colonel was Confounded, and amazed, and indignant,
altogether. When he knocked his ankle against the box and saw the bits
of rope, he had thought of the Lyles, and wondered if it could be they
were claiming relationship so soon; and now it was even worse than the
Lyles,—it was a mother-in-law whom he did not like, and to whom he had
sent larger sums of money every year for the sake of keeping her where
he wished her to remain. But she was here in his house, and had
evidently come to stay, and he must not be rude to her for Edith’s sake;
so he made a great effort to be civil, and said:
“Ah, yes,—your mother! Mrs. Barrett, how do you do? I am,—yes, I am sure
I am very much,—yes,—taken by surprise. When did you come? You must be
very tired. Edith, my dear, hadn’t you better show her to her room?”
He had made his speech, and, anxious to be rid of her, asked Edith to
take her away; and Edith, who breathed more freely now that the worst
was over, arose, and bidding her mother follow her, conducted her to the
small but pleasant room adjoining Gertie’s and communicating with it by
means of a door. To Edith it seemed that her mother was safer near to
Gertie, while Mrs. Barrett was delighted with the arrangement,
especially as Gertie signified her willingness to have the door kept
open when Mrs. Barrett liked.
It was known in the kitchen by this time that the soiled, jaded little
woman with the queer-looking baggage was Mrs. Schuyler’s mother, and
among the servants there was much talk and speculation concerning her.
Had she come to stay? was she expected? was the colonel glad to see her?
and what was she, anyway? Mrs. Tiffe knew all about the lodgers and the
plain sewing, while the lower grade of servants knew a great deal more,
and had among them a tradition that Mrs. Schuyler’s mother once sat
under an umbrella in the streets of London, and sold gingerbread, and
apples, and peanuts, and boot-lacings. And now she was here to be
treated like Mrs. Schuyler herself, and John sniffed a little
contemptuously when he went in to wait upon the family at dinner.
But there was nothing to sniff at in the highly respectable-looking
woman, whom Gertie had helped to dress in her best black silk, with the
widow’s cap set jauntily above the snow-white puffs of hair, and the air
of quiet dignity which Mrs. Barrett knew so well how to assume, even
when unusually embarrassed as she was now, with so much grandeur and
display around her, and Edith mistress of it all. Truly, she did a good
thing when she withheld the letter which would so surely have changed
her daughter’s life, she thought, when she was alone in her room that
night, and free to recall the chain of events which had resulted in her
being there.
Edith, too, was thinking, and her thoughts kept her awake until long
after midnight, when, as she was about falling away to sleep, she was
startled by the sound of a groan, which seemed to come from her mother’s
room, and a moment after Gertie knocked at her door, saying:
“Please, Mrs. Schuyler, I think Mrs. Barrett is very sick.”
In a moment Edith was out of bed and knotting the cord of her
dressing-gown with trembling hands, while the colonel, also roused from
his first deep sleep, and remembering Mrs. Rogers, who had gotten Edith
up at midnight, wondered to himself “why these people would always
persist in being sick at such inopportune times, and send for Edith to
help them.”
The colonel was very sleepy and a little inclined to be unreasonable,
and, after Edith had gone to her mother, he lay awake for a long time
listening to the sound of voices in Mrs. Barrett’s room, the shutting of
doors, the footsteps in the hall, and the general commotion, until he
began to wonder if for Edith’s sake he ought not to get up and see what
was the matter.
Ere long, however, he heard Mrs. Tiffe say to one of the maids, as she
passed his door, that it was nothing but _cramps_ and a good deal of
_hypo_; and thus reassured he composed himself to sleep, and did not
waken, when, in the gray of the early morning, Edith crept shivering to
his side.