GERTIE AND THE STORY.
Gertie did not go into Godfrey’s room again, nor was it necessary, as he
was very quiet and seemed to be sleeping, while his father sat by him
with his head bowed down, and such marks of age upon him that Miss
Rossiter asked him if he were sick. He did not hear her at first, and
she said, again:
“Howard, are you sick? Have you any trouble on your mind?”
Then he looked up, with a faint smile, and answered her:
“Trouble? sick? No, not sick, and no trouble now; that is past. I say,
Christine, have I grown very old? isn’t my hair turning gray? I did not
like to ask Edith, because, you see, the—the trouble concerned her the
most.”
Miss Rossiter was sure of it. That woman, whom she never liked, had
shown her colors at last, and here was the result in the colonel’s bowed
form and fast-turning hair. He _had_ grown old and his hair _was_ gray,
and she told him so, and added:
“Poor Howard, tell me about it. I knew it must come to this when you
married her.”
“Did _you_ know anything about it?” the colonel asked, in some surprise;
and Miss Rossiter replied:
“Know about what? I knew it was a _mésalliance_, and they always prove
unhappy.”
“Hush, Christine, it is not that,” and the colonel spoke sternly, “Edith
is a noble woman. She has been so tempted and tried, and is so broken
now. Christine, I wish you were her friend, my friend. I want so much to
unburden myself to some one. It would be such a relief. Christine, try
and like my wife, and let me tell you the strangest tale you ever heard,
and let me feel that we have your sympathy and support in the storm
which will blow so hard.”
He looked at her so pleadingly that Miss Rossiter’s heart was moved, and
she said:
“I like _you_, Howard, and know nothing against Edith as a woman. She is
beautiful and you love her, and I daresay she is good, and I will be
your friend: tell me the story, please; is it about Gertie? She showed
me your letter in which you called her your daughter. What does it
mean?”
Colonel Schuyler glanced at his son, who was still sleeping quietly,
then drawing his chair closer to Miss Rossiter and speaking in the
lowest possible whisper for her to hear, he told her the story from
beginning to end. And Miss Rossiter neither fainted nor went into
hysterics, but for her behaved remarkably well, and with the exception
of a few ejaculations of amazement when the story was at the most
exciting point, never spoke a word until the colonel had told her
everything there was to tell. Then her first remark was:
“I am so glad it is Gertie. You need not be ashamed of _her_.”
“Thank you, Christine,” the colonel said; “and now who will tell her,
you or I, and when?”
“_You_, and as soon as she can bear it. I think she is too tired now,
too much fatigued; she ought to have perfect rest. If I knew Godfrey was
out of danger I should take her home with me. Perhaps I had better do it
anyway,” Miss Rossiter replied, wondering at herself and her interest in
Gertie Westbrooke, and why she could not feel more indignant at _that
woman_, who really had been in a way an impostor after all.
Miss Rossiter was peculiar, and often did things and took fancies which
astonished those who knew her best. And this was one of her fancies.
Colonel Schuyler had confided in her first, had told her everything, and
asked her to stand by him, and she was going to, and would begin by
being very kind to Gertie, toward whom she had been greatly drawn during
the days and nights they had watched together by Godfrey’s bedside.
After her conference with the colonel was finished, and the doctor had
been in and declared the danger past for Godfrey, she went to Gertie and
Alice in the adjoining room and telling them the good news, said to the
former:
“Colonel Schuyler and myself both think it better for you to go where
you can have perfect rest and quiet for a few days, lest you take the
fever also. My carriage will be here in an hour or so; you know it comes
every day, and as I am not needed at present, I shall go home and take
you with me.”
Gertie was lying on the couch, with her hands pressed to her head, which
was aching terribly. But she put them away, and lifting her heavy eyes
wonderingly to Miss Rossiter’s face said:
“Go home with _you_! Do _you_ wish it?”
“Certainly; I should not suggest it if I did not,” Miss Rossiter
answered, a little stiffly.
And Gertie continued:
“But my,—Colonel Schuyler,—he has not told me yet. I must know about
that before I can rest anywhere.”
“Yes; but you must rest a little first, he says. You will need strength
and courage both to hear what he has just told me,” Miss Rossiter
replied; and then, as Gertie was about to speak again, she added: “Not a
word more at present. This afternoon, if he can leave Godfrey, the
colonel will come and tell you all.”
And with this Gertie was obliged to be satisfied; and an hour later she
was driven with Miss Rossiter to the handsome house far up town, which
she had never thought it possible for her to enter as she was entering
it now.
Alice had decided to go to her own home proper at Uncle Calvert’s, and
Gertie was alone with Miss Rossiter, who gave her the room near hers,
where Alice slept when she was there.
And here, late in the day, Colonel Schuyler came, and was brought up by
Miss Rossiter, who withdrew and left him alone with Gertie.
She was pale as marble, save where two bright red spots burned on her
cheeks, and her eyes were heavy as lead, but they brightened with
eagerness and excitement when the colonel came in and drew his chair
beside her as she lay upon the couch.
“Don’t try to rise,” he said, as she made an effort to sit up. “You are
too tired and worn; keep as you are while I am talking to you. Gertie,
it is a very strange story I am about to tell you, and that it may come
to you by degrees, I will tell you first why we went to England so
suddenly, and that when we went we had no thought of you, or that we
should discover who you were. We were hunting for another child.”
Gertie was looking steadily at him, and her eyes never left his face
while he told her the story, beginning with the time when he first asked
Edith to be his wife, and she hinted at a page of her life of which she
wished to tell him, and which after so many years, had come to him by
accident.
“I have the letter with me,” he said; “I brought it on purpose to read
to you, as it will tell the story so much better than I can.”
Taking out Edith’s letter he read it aloud, while Gertie’s eyes deepened
their gaze upon his face, and the red all died from her cheeks, which
were of an ashen hue, as when the letter was finished, he went on to
tell how the child was not dead, as Edith had supposed, and of their
search in London, which they gave at last into the hands of the police.
“Then, while we were waiting,” he said, “I thought to make some
inquiries about you at the office where your annuity is paid. There I
heard of a Mrs. Westbrooke, recently from Florence, and to her we went,
hoping she might know something of you, and she did. She was the second
wife of the man who was not your father, but whose first wife adopted
you when her own baby died. Her maid, Mary Stover, afterward Mrs.
Rogers, told her of you, and brought you to her from her mother, who had
taken you from the —— Street Foundling Hospital, where you had been left
on the steps, and where Mary Stover’s sister Anne was at that time
nurse.
“Gertie, are you going to faint? Do you hear me? Do you understand?” the
colonel asked, alarmed at the expression of the face still confronting
him so steadily, and never moving a muscle any more than if the features
had been chiselled in stone.
“Yes, I think—I understand,” came huskily from the livid lips, “that
baby, born in Dorset Street, and left on the hospital steps, and hunted
for by you—and—and—her—was—was—_I_, and she—your—Mrs. Schuyler—is—my
mother—and that—that grave I’ve tended always—is—is my father’s!”
She understood it perfectly, but the colonel thought to make it clearer
by saying:
“Yes, Gertie, you are the child of my wife, Mrs. Schuyler, born in
lawful wedlock, and Abelard Lyle was your father!”
He opened the window and carried Gertie to it, and let the cool air blow
on her, and dashed water on her face, and only that he had seen Edith
thus more than once, would have thought her dead, when he laid her back
upon the couch and went to summon help. Miss Rossiter watched with
Gertie that night and many other nights, while the fever contracted at
Godfrey’s bedside, and brought to a crisis by the terrible shock which
she had sustained, ran its course. There were a few moments of
consciousness that first night, when Gertie’s eyes opened and looked up
at Miss Rossiter, who was bending over her.
“Am I very sick?” she asked faintly, and Miss Rossiter replied:
“Pretty sick, yes; but we hope to have you well soon if you are quiet.”
“Am I going to have the fever like Godfrey?”
“Yes, we think you are, though not so hard.”
“Miss Rossiter, if I am very sick, _very_,—I want _her_ to
come,—_mother_,—Mrs. Schuyler,—you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And if I don’t know her, if I _never_ know her, tell her please, that I
have loved her since I first saw her a bride in England, and gave the
flowers to her; and tell her, too, I’ve loved that Heloise Fordham ever
since Miss Armstrong told me about her and the lover who died, and my
name is Heloise, too,—Gertrude Heloise,—and there’s a spot of blood
right over my heart; she will find it there if I die.”
“Yes, I will tell her.”
“And tell Godfrey,—oh, what message shall I leave for Godfrey? Tell him
I loved him,—more than he ever knew; but he must marry Alice for my
sake. Tell him it was my wish.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“And Miss Rossiter, let me kiss you once, please, because you are so
kind. I used to think you proud, and guess I did not like you, but I do
now. I like everybody.”
The kiss was given, and, strangest part of all, returned, for Miss
Rossiter’s heart was very soft toward the young girl, who, having said
all she had to say, folded her hands upon her bosom, and whispering the
little prayer, “Now I lay me,” learned when she was a child, sank into
unconsciousness, from which she did not awake until the first April
rains were falling, and there was a breath of coming summer in the soft
spring air. If that sickness can be called pleasant when the fever runs
so high that the pulse cannot be counted, and the breath of life almost
fleets away, then Gertie’s sickness was a pleasant one, and never sure
before or since was there a patient so docile, and quiet, and manageable
as she, taking always what they bade her take, lying just where they put
her, and seldom moving hand or foot save as they moved them for her.
Like Godfrey, she was out on the broad sea, sailing away to parts
unknown, but with her there were no storms, no sudden lurches, no
rollings, no pitchings, no swelling waves threatening to engulf her. All
was smooth and quiet and calm, as a river of glass, and the sun by day
shone upon the water, flecking it with spots of gold, while the moon and
stars at night looked down on the blue expanse, and lit it up with
sheets of silvery light, into which Gertie went gliding, with Godfrey at
her side. Always Godfrey, who stood at the helm and managed the oars,
and managed the sails, and talked to her of love, which it was right for
her now to accept. In that pleasant dream there was no Alice in the way,
no father to dissent, but all was bright and clear, and the boat went
drifting on and on, always in moonlight or sunlight, always on a smooth,
still sea, till they came in sight of a far-off country, where golden
streets and gates of pearl gleamed in the setting sun, and the boat
paused mid stream, and waited whether the soul would cross to the
beautiful city, or turning, take the homeward route and come back to
life again. It chose the latter, and came slowly back, with sails all
drooping and torn, and more ripples on the waves than had been in the
journey out. Godfrey was no longer in the boat, Gertie had lost him
somewhere, and was hunting sadly for him until a voice, which sounded
much like his, said to her: “Gertie, I am here, and shall never leave
you again.”
Then her little plaintive moan, “Godfrey, oh, where is Godfrey?” ceased,
and when she spoke again, it was to a beautiful woman, who, she thought,
was standing by her, and calling her “my daughter.” Oh, how that
mother-love brooded over the sick girl, soothing and quieting and
comforting her, and with its pleading prayers bringing at last the
healing power which unlocked the sleeping senses, and made Gertie whole
again. For Edith was there with her, and had been since the third day of
her illness, when the colonel’s telegram went up the river, saying:
“Gertie is very sick. Come immediately.”