"THAT MAN MY FATHER!"
Isabel Stewart was the first to recover herself, when, gently linking
her arm within Edith's, she whispered, softly:
"Come with me, dear; I would like to see you alone for a few minutes."
She led her unresistingly from the room, across the hall, to a small
reception-room, when, closing the door to keep out intruders, she
turned and laid both her trembling hands upon the girl's shoulders.
"Tell me," she said, looking wistfully into her wondering eyes, "are
you the daughter of Albert and Edith Allandale?"
"Yes."
It was all the answer that Edith, in her excitement, could make.
The beautiful woman caught her breath graspingly, and every particle
of color faded from her face.
"Tell me, also," she went on, hurriedly, "did you ever hear your--your
mother speak of a friend by the name of Belle Haven?"
Edith's heart leaped into her throat at this question, and she, too,
began to tremble, as a suspicion of the truth flashed through her
mind.
"No," she said, with quivering lips, "I never heard her mention such a
person; but--"
"Yes--'but'--" eagerly repeated her companion.
"But," the fair girl continued, gravely, while she searched with a
look of pain the eyes looking so eagerly into hers, "the evening after
mamma was buried, I found some letters which had been written to her
from Rome, and which were all signed 'Belle.'"
"Oh!--"
It was a sharp cry of agony that burst from Isabel Stewart's lips.
"Oh, why did she keep them?" she went on, wildly; "how could she have
been so unwise? Why--why did she not destroy them?"
At these words a light so eager, so beautiful, so tender that it
seemed to transfigure her, suddenly illumined Edith's face, for they
confirmed, beyond a doubt, the suspicion and hope that had been
creeping into her heart.
"Tell me--are you that 'Belle'?" she whispered, bending nearer to her
with gleaming eyes.
"Oh, do not ask me!" cried the unhappy woman, a bitter sob escaping
her.
She had never dreamed of anything so dreadful as that those fatal
letters would fall into the hands of her child, to prejudice her and
make her shrink from her with aversion.
She had planned, if she was ever so fortunate as to find her, and had
to reveal her history to her, to smooth over all that would be likely
to shock her--that she would never confess to her how despair had
driven her to the verge of that one crime upon which she now looked
back with unspeakable horror.
The thought that this beautiful girl knew all, and believed the
worst--as she could not fail to do, she reasoned, after reading the
crude facts mentioned in those letters--filled her with shame and
grief: for how could she ever eradicate those first impressions, and
win the love she so craved?
Thus she was wholly unprepared for what followed immediately upon her
indirect acknowledgment of her identity.
The gentle girl, her expressive face radiant with mingled joy, love,
sympathy, slipped both arms around her companion's waist, and dropping
her head upon her shoulder, murmured, fondly:
"Ah, I am sure you are!--I am sure that I have found my mother, and--I
am almost too happy to live."
"Child! my own darling! Is it possible that you can thus open your
heart of hearts to me?" sobbed the astonished woman, as she clasped
the slight form to her in a convulsive embrace.
"Oh, yes--yes; I have longed for you, with longing unspeakable, ever
since I knew," Edith murmured, tremulously.
"Longed for me? Ah, I never dared to hope that Heaven could be so
kind. I feared, love, that you would despise me, as a weak and willful
woman, even after I should tell you all my story, with its extenuating
circumstances; but now, while knowing and believing only the worst,
you take me into the arms of your love, and own me--your mother!"
She broke down utterly at this point, and both, clasped in each
other's embrace, sobbed in silent sympathy for a few moments.
"Well, dearest, this will never do," Mrs. Stewart at last exclaimed,
as she lifted her face and smiled tenderly upon Edith; "we must at
least compose ourselves long enough to make our adieus to our hostess;
then I am going to take you home with me, to have all the story of our
tangled past unraveled and explained. Come, let us sit down for a few
moments, until we get rid of the traces of our tears, and you shall
tell me how you happened to be in Boston under the name of Edith
Allen."
She drew her toward a couch as she spoke, and there Edith related how
she had happened to meet the Goddard's on the train, between New York
and Boston, and was engaged to act as madam's companion, and how also
the mistake regarding her name had occurred.
"And were you happy with them, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Stewart,
regarding her curiously.
The fair girl flushed.
"Indeed I was not," she replied, "I think they were the strangest
people I ever met."
Almost as she spoke the door of the reception-room opened, and Gerald
Goddard himself appeared upon the threshold.
He was pale to ghastliness, and looked years older than when Edith had
seen him in the drawing-room a few minutes previous.
"Pardon me this intrusion, Miss--Edith," he began, shrinkingly, while
he searched both faces before him with despairing eyes; "but I am
about to leave, and I wished to give you this note before I went. If,
after reading it, you should care to communicate with me, you can
address me at the Murry Hill Hotel."
He laid the missive upon a table near the door, then, with a bow,
withdrew, leaving the mother and daughter alone again.
"That was Mr. Goddard," Edith explained to her companion, as she arose
to take the letter; but without a suspicion that the two had ever met
before, or that the man was her own father--the "monster" who had so
wronged her beautiful mother.
Mrs. Stewart made no reply to the remark; and Edith, breaking the seal
of the envelope in her hands, drew forth several closely-written
pages.
"Why!" she exclaimed, in a startled tone, "this is Mrs. Goddard's
handwriting!"
She hastily unfolded the sheets and ran her eye rapidly down the first
page, when a low cry broke from her lips, and, throwing herself upon
her knees before her mother, she buried her face in her lap,
murmuring joyfully:
"Saved! saved!"
"Darling, tell me!--what is this that excites you so?" Mrs. Stewart
pleaded, as she bent over her and softly kissed her flushed cheek.
Edith put the letter into her hands, saying, eagerly:
"Read it--read it!--it will tell its own story."
Her companion obeyed her, and, as she read, her face grew stern and
white--her eyes glittered with a fiery light which told of an outraged
spirit aroused to a point where it would have been dangerous for the
woman who once had deeply wronged her, had she been living, to have
crossed her path again.
"If I had known!--if I had known--" she began, when she reached the
end. Then, suddenly checking herself, she added, tenderly, to Edith:
"My love, it seems so wonderful--all this that has happened to you and
to me! We must take time to talk it all over by ourselves. You can
excuse yourself to your friend, can you not, and come with me to the
Waldorf? Say that I wish to keep you for the remainder of the day and
night, but will return you to her in the morning."
Edith's face beamed with delight at this proposal.
"Yes, indeed," she said, rising to comply at once with the request. "I
am sure Nellie will willingly give me up, when I whisper the truth in
her ear. My dear--dear mother!" she added, tremulously, as she bent
forward and kissed the beautiful face with quivering lips, "this
wonderful revelation seems too joyful to be true!"
"Edith, my child," gravely said Isabel Stewart, as she held the girl a
little away from her and searched her face with anxious eyes, "after
learning what you did of me, from those horrible letters, is there no
shrinking in your heart--is there no feeling of--of shame or of
pitiful contempt for me?"
"Not an atom, dear," whispered the trustful maiden, whose keen
intuitions had long since fathomed the character of the woman before
her; "to me you are as pure and dear as if that man--whoever he may
have been--had never cast a shadow upon your life by the shameful
deception which he practiced upon you."
"My blessed little comforter! you shall be rewarded for your faith in
me," returned Mrs. Stewart, her lips wreathed in fondest smiles, her
eyes glowing with happiness. "But go excuse yourself to Mrs. Morrell,
then we will take leave of our hostess, and go home."
Ten minutes later they were on their way to the Waldorf.
It was rather a silent drive, for both were still too deeply moved
over their recent reunion to care to enter into details just then. It
was happiness enough to sit side by side, hand clasped in hand,
knowing that they were mother and daughter, and in tenderest sympathy
with each other.
Upon arriving at her hotel Mrs. Stewart led the way directly to her
delightful suite of rooms, where, the moment the door was closed, she
turned and once more gathered Edith into her arms.
"I must hold you--I must feel you, else I shall not be quite sure that
I am not dreaming," she exclaimed. "I find it difficult to realize my
great happiness. Can it be possible that I have my own again, after so
many years! that you were once the tiny baby that I held in my arms in
Rome, and loved better than any other earthly object? It is wonderful!
wonderful! and strangest of all is the fact that your heart turns so
fondly to me! Are you sure, dear, that you can unreservedly accept and
love your mother, in spite of those letters, and what they revealed
regarding my past life?"
And again she searched Edith's face and eyes as if she would read her
inmost thoughts.
She met her glance clearly, unshrinkingly.
"I am sure that you never committed a willful wrong in your life," she
gravely replied. "It was a sad mistake to go away from your home and
parents, as you did; but there is no intent to sin to be laid to your
charge--your soul shines, like a beacon light, through these dear
eyes, and I am sure it is as pure and lovely as your face is
beautiful."
"May He who always judges with divine mercy bless you for your sweet
charity and faith," murmured Isabel Stewart, in tremulous tones, as
she passionately kissed the lips which had just voiced such a blessed
assurance of trust and love.
"Now come," she went on, a moment later, while, with her own hands,
she tenderly removed Edith's hat and wrap, "we will make ourselves
comfortable, then I will tell you all the sad story of my misguided
youth."
Twining her arms about the girl's waist, she led her to a seat, and
sitting beside her, she circumstantially related all that we already
know of her history.
But not once did she mention the name of the man who had so deeply
wronged her; for she had resolved, if it were possible, to keep from
Edith the fact that Gerald Goddard, under whose roof she had lived,
was her father.
The young girl, however, was not satisfied, was not content to be thus
kept in the dark; and, when her mother's story was ended, she
inquired, with grave face and clouded eyes:
"Who was this man?--why have you so persistently retrained from
identifying him? What was the name of that coward to whom--with shame
I say it--I am indebted for my being?"
"My love, cannot you restrain your curiosity upon that point? Will you
not let the dead past bury its dead, without erecting a tablet to its
memory?" her companion pleaded, gently. "It can do you no possible
good--it might cause you infinite pain to know."
"Is the man living?" Edith sternly demanded.
Mrs. Stewart flushed.
"Yes," she replied, after a moment of hesitation.
"Then I must know--you must tell me, so that I may shun him as I would
shun a deadly serpent," the young girl exclaimed, with compressed lips
and flashing eyes.
Mrs. Stewart looked both pained and troubled.
"My love, I wish you would not press this point," she remarked,
nervously.
"Edith turned and gazed searchingly into her eyes.
"Do you still cherish an atom of affection for him?" she inquired.
"No! a thousand times no!" was the emphatic response, accompanied by a
gesture of abhorrence.
"Then you can have no personal motive or sensitiveness concerning the
matter."
"No, my child--my desire is simply to save you pain--to spare you a
shock, perchance."
"Do I know him already?--have I ever seen him?" cried Edith, in a
startled tone.
"Yes, dear."
"Then tell me! tell me!" panted the girl. "Oh! if I have spoken with
him, it is a wonder that my tongue was not paralyzed in the act--that
my very soul did not shrink and recoil with aversion from him!" she
exclaimed, trembling from head to foot with excitement.
Her mother saw that it would be useless to attempt to keep the truth
from her; that it would be better to tell her, or she might brood over
the matter and make herself unhappy by vainly trying to solve the
riddle in her own mind.
"Edith," she said, with gentle gravity, "the man is--Gerald Goddard!"
The girl sprang to her feet, electrified by the startling revelation,
a low cry of dismay escaping her.
"He! that man my--father!" she breathed, hoarsely, with dilating
nostrils and horrified eyes.
"It is true," was the sad response. "I would have saved you the pain
of knowing this if I could."
"Oh! and I have lived day after day in his presence! I have talked and
jested with him! I have eaten of his bread, and his roof has sheltered
me!" cried Edith, shivering with aversion. "Why, oh, why did not some
instinct warn me of the wretched truth, and enable me to repudiate him
and then fly from him as from some monster of evil? Ah, I was warned,
if I had but heeded the signs," she continued, with flushed cheeks and
flaming eyes. "There were many times when some word or look would
make me shrink from him with a strange repugnance, and that last night
in Wyoming--oh, he revealed his evil nature to me in a way that made
me loathe him!"
"My child, pray calm yourself," pleaded her mother, regarding her with
astonishment, for she never could have believed, but for this
manifestation, that the usually gentle girl could have displayed so
much spirit under any circumstances. "Come," she added, "sit down
again, and explain what you meant by your reference to that last night
at Wyoming."
And Edith, obeying her, related the conversation that had occurred
between Mr. Goddard and herself, on the night of the ball, when the
man had come to the dressing-room and asked her to button his gloves.