GERTIE.
NO. 30 30TH STREET, NEW YORK, _February 18, 18—_.
TO COLONEL SCHUYLER: Your son Godfrey is very dangerously ill with
typhoid fever. Come at once.
MRS. SOPHIA WILSON.
This was the telegram received at Schuyler Hill one morning in February,
and read by Gertie with a heart throbbing with fear and anxiety for the
young man dangerously ill with typhoid fever, and only strangers to care
for him. But what could she do? The colonel was in Europe, Julia was in
Florida, while she had little Arthur to care for, and even if she had
not she could not go herself. It would not be proper under any
circumstances, and the colonel would not like it. Something, however,
must be done, and calling Mrs. Tiffe she read the telegram and said to
her:
“You must go.”
So it was arranged that Mrs. Tiffe should take the next train for New
York, which passed in about an hour, and she departed to make the
necessary arrangements for her journey, just as the postman came
bringing a letter for Gertie. It was from Colonel Schuyler, and Gertie
tore it open and read what it contained with emotions which it is
impossible to describe. At first she was stunned and bewildered, and
thought it must be somebody else, some other Gertie he meant.
“It is not I, surely; it cannot be I, who am _his daughter_,” she
whispered to herself, and then she read again:
“Beyond the shadow of a doubt you are _our own_ daughter.”
It was there in black and white, and it was Colonel Schuyler’s
signature, and he signed himself _her_ father. Then the room turned dark
to Gertie; there was a humming in her ears, and for a moment she half
lost her consciousness, but soon recovering she read the letter for the
third time, whispering to herself:
“My father,—his child,—who then was my mother?” and as she said it her
face flushed with shame as she thought what _she_ must be if this tale
were true and Colonel Schuyler her sire. She never dreamed of
associating Edith with the matter in any way. Only Colonel Schuyler had
an interest in her, and that of such a nature that the knowledge of it
brought far more pain than pleasure to one as pure and good as she.
If Colonel Schuyler were her father, then the man whom she vaguely
remembered in the home near London could have been nothing to her, and
for this she was not especially sorry. But to lose the gentlewoman whom
she had been taught to think her mother, was terrible, and Gertie
rebelled against it. She would cling to the memory of _that_ woman, even
if she had sinned, as the story of her birth would imply. And this was
why Mary Rogers had always been so reticent with regard to her
antecedents, why she had spoken with so much certainty of her mother as
a lady, and said so little of her father. Possibly Mary had not known
_who_ her father was, and possibly the man whom she remembered was only
the brother or father of the pale woman who died, and that would account
for his dislike of her. These and similar fancies flitted rapidly
through Gertie’s mind, until she settled it beyond a doubt that the man
she called father, and who she thought was buried in Italy, had been her
mother’s near relation, and not her father, that no marriage rite could
have hallowed her birth, and as she thought it her face and neck and
hands were crimson, and she longed for some place in which to hide her
dishonored head. Then, swift as lightning, another thought flashed into
her mind, cutting like a knife and making her cringe with pain. If she
was Colonel Schuyler’s daughter, even in an unlawful way, then Godfrey
was her brother, and alas, she did not want him that. She could never be
his wife, she knew; but it was sweet to know he loved her as he would
never love another, and she could _not_ be his sister.
“Oh, Godfrey, Godfrey!” she moaned; “this is the hardest part of all. I
can forgive my mother, feeling sure that she was more sinned against
than sinning, and I may in time forgive your father and mine; but I do
not want you for my brother. Godfrey, Godfrey, I never loved you before
as I do now, when this has risen up to separate us forever.”
Then she remembered the telegram, and starting up exclaimed:
“If I am his sister I may surely go to him. I have a right, and no one
can gainsay it.”
She was in Mrs. Tiffe’s room in an instant, and greatly astonished that
good woman by declaring her intention of going herself to New York to
take care of Godfrey.
“You, _you_ go to nurse a young man! Are you crazy, child?” Mrs. Tiffe
exclaimed.
Gertie did not know whether she was crazy or not; she half believed she
was, but on one point she was decided. She should go to New York, and
she put on her cloak and furs and hat, and bidding Mrs. Tiffe take good
care of Arthur, and send her a few articles of wearing apparel by the
next day’s express, went out of the house and started for the station on
foot before Mrs. Tiffe had time to realize fully what it meant, and that
after all the trouble of packing her trunk and ordering the servants
what to do in her absence, she must stay at home and let Gertie go in
her place.
“It will be the ruination of her,” she said, “for folks will talk,” and
nothing but the fact that the whistle of the train was just then heard
in the distance, prevented her from starting in hot pursuit. “I can’t
get there now with the swiftest horse in the stable,” she reflected, and
she did not believe Gertie would be in time either.
But she was, for when she too heard the train she ran like a frightened
deer, and half-stumbled, half-fell upon the platform of the rear car
just as it was beginning to move from the station.