EDITH AND GERTIE.
When Gertie wound her arms around Miss Rossiter’s neck and kissed her so
lovingly, she touched a chord in the woman’s heart which had never been
touched before,—a chord which, under favorable circumstances, would have
vibrated with a mother’s love, and which now brought to life so strong a
liking for the helpless girl, that had there been no Edith in the way,
Miss Rossiter would have adopted her at once as her own petted daughter.
During the days and nights they had watched together by Godfrey’s side,
Gertie had crept a long way into Miss Rossiter’s heart by her quiet,
gentle manner, and her kind, unselfish thoughtfulness for her
companion’s comfort. More than once, when Miss Rossiter looked tired and
worn, Gertie had made her lie down, and kneeling beside her had bathed
and rubbed her head, and even her feet, and combed and brushed her hair,
and had done it all as if it were a favor to herself rather than to her
companion, whose duty it now was to care for her.
And Miss Rossiter did not shrink from the task imposed upon her. True,
she wore a lump of camphor in her bosom to prevent infection, just as
she had done in Godfrey’s room, and she occasionally swallowed a pill of
morphine, and kept the house full of chloride of lime, and used every
disinfectant of which she had ever heard, and hired a nurse to take care
of Gertie, but stood by her all the same, and saw that the doctor’s
orders were obeyed. The third day Col. Schuyler said to her, when he
came to look at Gertie:
“Christine, you are doing nobly, and I thank you so much, but I must
test you still further. Gertie’s mother ought to be here when her child
is so sick. Are you willing I should send for her?”
“Certainly,” Miss Rossiter replied, with a little darker shade on her
face. “Send for her by all means. I had thought of that myself.”
It was right, Miss Rossiter knew, that Edith should come to her sick
daughter, and she gave her consent graciously, though there was in her
heart a feeling of aversion to the woman who had taken Emily’s place,
and whom she had always disliked. Still in her own house she must be
polite and courteous, and she received Mrs. Schuyler kindly, and made
her rest awhile and take some refreshment before she went to Gertie, who
was sleeping and must not be disturbed.
“She would not know you, though she talks of you sometimes,” Miss
Rossiter said, “and you must be careful not to excite her in the least.”
Edith promised to do whatever Miss Rossiter thought was proper.
“Only let me go to her at once,” she said. “You know I have not seen her
in nineteen years, and _she_ my own child, too.”
“Not seen her? What do you mean?” Miss Rossiter asked, a suspicion of
Edith’s sanity crossing her mind.
“I mean I have not seen her, knowing she was my daughter,” Edith
replied, as she followed to the room where Gertie lay so white and
still, her bright hair tucked away beneath a silken net, a red fever
spot on cheek and lips, and her hands folded upon her bosom just as she
kept them for the most of the time while with Godfrey she went sailing
over the golden sea to the country so far away.
She was on her journey thither when Edith came in, and, parting the
curtains cautiously, stood looking at her, while in fancy she was a
young girl again in the dreary room in Dorset Street, and the rain
plashed against the windows, and ran down the panes in dirty streams,
and the roar of the great city sounded in her ears, and she heard the
lodgers’ steps upon the stairs, and her baby was in her arms, nestled so
close to her that she felt the warm, tender flesh against her own, just
as she felt that of the sick girl, whose face and neck, and hands she
touched so carefully, and yet with such a world of love and tenderness,
as she whispered to herself:
“Little girley, little baby, little Gertie, my very own little one, you
are changed since that dreadful day so many years ago, but I know that
you are mine. They took you from me when I was asleep, and now, when I
see you again, I find you sleeping too. Darling little child, do you
know it is your mother standing here and talking to you thus? Will you
ever know, ever open your eyes on me and call me mother? Oh, Father in
Heaven, spare her to me,—spare my precious child!” This was what the
colonel heard Edith say; for, feeling anxious for her, he stood just
outside the door, and when her voice ceased and he heard a rustling
sound, he went in, and, supporting her with his arm as she sank into a
chair, held her head upon his bosom, and soothed her tenderly.
It was strange the effect Edith’s presence in the sick-room had upon
Miss Rossiter. She had fully indorsed Gertie,—ay, had in some sort
adopted her in her own mind, and could not bear that another should
share her watch and care and anxiety for the only sick person in whom
she had ever been so deeply interested. But as soon as Edith’s tears
were dried, and she was herself again, the calm, quiet dignity of the
mother asserted itself, and Miss Rossiter, who was not the mother, was
compelled to stand aside while another took her place and did the
thousand little things which only a mother could have thought to do.
And Edith did not grow tired with constant watching. On the contrary,
both strength and flesh came back to her, and, when at last the fever
turned, and she knew her child would live, she gained faster than
Gertie, and it seemed to the colonel that she grew young and fair and
smooth each day until it was very hard to believe her the mother of the
sick girl, who, with the marks of disease upon her face, looked her
nineteen years.
The sea was not so placid now, the boat was tossing on the waves, and
Gertie sat alone on deck, and called in vain for Godfrey, who had
deserted his post and was nowhere to be found, until one morning, when
he came bodily, the wreck of his former self, and climbing the stairs to
Gertie’s room, bent over her with words of love which penetrated to her
dull ear, and must in part have been comprehended.
After that Godfrey stayed in Miss Rossiter’s house, which seemed a sort
of hospital, and was so distasteful to Miss Julia, when at last she came
from Florida, that she accepted her Uncle Calvert’s invitation, and went
to the _poky_ house on Washington Square, where the Sixth Avenue cars on
one side, and the University on the other, nearly drove her wild with
the never-ending tinkle of their bells.
Julia had heard every particular of the story before she came home, for
her father had written it to her, and had told her of Gertie’s illness,
and Edith’s presence in Miss Rossiter’s house. Thus her first surprise
and indignation had had time to abate, and now she was in a kind of
bewildered state, incapable of realizing anything to the full, except
the fact that in some sort her aunt had gone over to the enemy, leaving
her alone on the old vantage ground of dislike and opposition to _that
woman_ through whom all this had come upon them. Fortunately, however,
for Julia, her mind was just then occupied with thoughts of a Southern
bachelor, who had offered himself and his reputed half million for her
acceptance. This offer she was duly considering when she came home, and
after seeing how matters were at her Aunt Christine’s, and staying a day
or two in the dark old house in Washington Square, she nearly made up
her mind to accept it, though the man was forty and bored her nearly to
death with his twaddling talk about his horses and dogs. She had not
seen Edith during the one day and night spent at Miss Rossiter’s,
neither had she mentioned her name or inquired for Gertie, except to ask
if the fever was considered catching, and how her aunt liked having her
house turned into a hospital! Of this indifference Edith knew nothing,
and would not have cared if she had. All her thoughts were centred in
that little, white-faced girl slowly groping her way back to life and
reason, and talking now far more than she had done at first when the
water was so still and the boat sailed so steadily. She was saved; she
would live; there was no question about that, and Edith had only to wait
patiently for the day when the blue eyes would first look at her with
recognition in their glance, and the dear voice call her mother.
Miss Rossiter had given her Gertie’s message, and she knew the words by
heart, and repeated them to herself as she watched for the first faint
sign of reason. It was on a pleasant April day, and the windows of the
room were open, and the sun shone softly upon the plants which Miss
Rossiter had placed outside the windows, where they made quite a little
garden.
Edith had been up all night, and was still sitting across the room,
leaning her tired head upon her hand, when a sound caught her ear and
brought her to her feet, where she stood listening intently, wondering
if she could be mistaken, or had she heard the blessed name _mother_,
and was she the mother meant and Gertie’s the voice which called her.
“Mother, my mother,” it came again, and then Edith glided across the
floor, and parting the silken hangings to the bed looked eagerly in.
Gertie was awake, and sane, and thinking herself alone had tried to put
things together and remember where she was, and what it was she heard
_long ago_, which made her so glad.
“Oh, I know I have a mother,” she said to herself, and it was this word
Edith caught.
“Mother, my mother,” Gertie said again, delighted to repeat the dear
name, and then it was that Edith parted the curtains and looked in upon
her.
Oh, the rapturous joy of that first long gaze when eye met eye, and told
without the aid of words the mighty love there was between the mother
and the child meeting as such for the first time in the full sense of
the relation. My pen cannot describe it, neither should it if it could,
for there are some scenes over which a vail must be thrown, and this is
one of them. Suffice it to say that Edith was perfectly satisfied with
Gertie’s reception of her, and when, an hour later, Colonel Schuyler
looked into the room he found them fast asleep, both heads on the same
pillow, Edith’s arms around Gertie’s neck, and one of Gertie’s pale, wan
hands resting on Edith’s face. This picture touched the colonel, and he
cried softly to himself as he stood gazing at the two, so like each
other in their sleep that he wondered he had never seen the resemblance
before. Then he called Miss Rossiter, who came and looked, and cried a
little too; but neither spoke a word, and after a moment’s silence went
out together, and closing the door left them alone together, the mother
and her child.