WHICH WAS THE DAUGHTER?
Mrs. Lander drew slowly toward the window. Eunice Hurd followed her, and
behind the cold, hard face of the mistress, peered the sharp, anxious
features of the servant.
“There they come, three of ’em,” snarled Eunice, laying her bony hand
heavily on Mrs. Lander’s shoulder. “Who’s the other?”
She turned sharply to address Joshua, but he had left the room. Mrs.
Lander did not move, but spoke to her servant in a forced, husky voice.
“Go down to your place, Eunice.”
“What!”
“Go down stairs and see that the preparations are complete. I shall meet
my child and niece in the hall.”
Eunice hesitated, and stood in the middle of the chamber eyeing her
mistress venomously; one would have supposed that the lady had deprived
her attendant of some great fortune by the anger she betrayed. Mrs.
Lander took no apparent heed of this, but swept slowly across the room,
down the marble stairs, forcing a smile to her white face.
They stood in the hall, forming a little group on the tesselated
floor—Cora, Virginia and the hunchback, whose face alone was bright with
generous exultation. The two girls were pale and troubled; Virginia
trembled visibly, but Cora was firm as granite.
When Mrs. Lander reached the bottom of the staircase, she paused a
moment, reached out her arms, and, looking at Cora, cried out:
“My child! my child!”
Cora Lander drew back of her cousin, meeting that wild, motherly impulse
with icy looks. Virginia cast an astonished glance back on her cousin,
and, filled with pity for the mother, whose arms had dropped like lead,
went up with tears in her eyes and embraced her. Those arms were lifted
heavily and wound over the young girl’s shoulders. Kisses fell on that
white cheek, cold and sharp, like hailstones on snow. Twice the woman
attempted to utter a welcome but the forced voice rattled in her throat,
and at last broke forth in a hoarse cry that made Virginia start from
her arms.
“My child! my daughter!”
The young girl looked into the hardening face turned upon her one
instant in profound astonishment. Then the warm, true heart swelled in
her bosom, and she reached out her hand to Cora.
“Not your daughter. It was kind to mistake me so tenderly, but this is
your child, dear aunt.”
Cora stepped back and waved her hand with a gesture of dissent. Mrs.
Lander looked from one to the other with a searching glance, then threw
her arms around Virginia again, crying out, still hoarsely and in an
unnatural voice:
“No, no; an attempt at deception at this moment is cruel! Do I not know
my own child?”
“But, Aunt, you _are_ mistaken. Cora—Cora, you can satisfy her. A
mother’s heart must leap to the touch of her own child.”
“But this lady is not my mother,” answered Cora Lander in a clear,
ringing voice.
Virginia released herself forcibly from Mrs. Lander’s arms and turned
upon her cousin in dumb amazement. Cora was calm and cold; her lips
parted firmly, her eyes were bright, but all the rest of her face
bespoke simple surprise, merging into displeasure.
“This is a strange time for joking, cousin,” she said.
“I wonder that you can trifle with feelings that should be sacred. You
might have known from the first that she could not be deceived.”
Virginia stood dumb. She could not comprehend the enormous fraud being
practised upon her. Once more Mrs. Lander embraced her. Again those cold
kisses fell on her forehead. She shrunk from them, shuddering.
“Madam! madam! you should feel—you should know that I am not your child!
She stands yonder. I will be no party to a mysticism so cruel. Cora!
Cora, I entreat you, put an end to this!”
“What can I do? How can I act? If you persist in disclaiming your own
mother, I can only denounce it as a great cruelty whether done in jest
or earnest. In my father’s time you would not have ventured on a piece
of pleasantry like this.”
“Cora Lander!” cried Virginia, aroused to indignation by this cool
speech. “Cora Lander! is this a farce, or some horrible fraud?”
“I do not understand you, cousin,” said Cora, with a gentle lift of the
eyebrows. “It seems to me that all this is at least in bad taste—I will
not say unfeeling. Remember you find a mother overjoyed to receive you,
while I have left the kindest and best father that ever lived buried in
the ocean, and return to my own home wholly an orphan. Aunt, forgive me
if this feeling has made me seem less glad to see you than I am. Believe
me, if your child seems unkind, it is not in her nature to be so in
reality. As for me, all the noble generosity which you and my cousin
have received from my father shall be renewed in his child. You shall be
to me as a mother; your child has always been my sister. There need be
no change.”
Virginia Lander drew slowly toward Ellen Nolan, and there she stood,
lofty, pale, statue-like. The audacity of this scene kindled all the
energy of her fine nature into resolute resistance.
“Cora Lander,” she said, “there is either a terrible crime in your
thoughts or this is a joke so coarse and ill-timed that I can never
forgive it.”
Ellen Nolan had been vigilant during this scene; her eyes turned sharply
from Cora to Mrs. Lander, and she observed that these women never once
looked each other in the face. She saw, too, that Mrs. Lander trembled
violently and shrunk away from Virginia even while embracing her.
“Dear lady,” she said, in a voice so sweet that it sounded strangely in
that atmosphere of discord, “come away—do come away.”
“I will,” answered Virginia, casting a look of affection on her
attendant; “I will. When I am gone, these people may come to their
senses. Eunice Hurd, I am glad to see you—very, very glad to see you. Is
my old room ready?”
“Yes; the room is ready exactly as you left it, Miss Lander. I have kept
it in order, but haven’t changed a thing. Mr. Lander wouldn’t have that
altered.”
Cora Lander turned sharply upon Eunice, and the widow lifted an
imploring look to her face. But Eunice gave her head a fierce, angry
toss, and marched up stairs, muttering defiance as she went. Virginia
followed her, treading the steps firmly as a queen enters her palace.
But for the strange obstacle which she had encountered, this poor girl
would have shrunk from entering the rooms which the presence of her
father had once made so homelike; but now all the energy of her being
was up in arms. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes burned blackly. Never
in her life had such anger filled her heart. She did not yet comprehend
the magnitude of the wrong intended her, but the single fact that some
mysticism had been practised upon her in the sacred moment when she
entered her home, an orphan and a mourner, revolted her whole being. The
tears which she would have shed for her father were turned into angry
fire by this insult offered to his memory.
“Come, Ellen,” she said, “from this hour you are my cousin and friend.”
Eunice turned sharply and looked at Ellen.
“Humph!” she muttered. “Sharp and honest! No place for her!”
A shade of feeling crept over that hard face when Eunice turned the key
in one of the chamber doors and stepped aside that Virginia might pass
her. Ellen lifted her eyes and caught the expression.
“Be good to her,” she said, in her sweet, low voice.
Eunice started and looked down upon that upturned face with the shadow
of a smile on her thin lips.
“Go in, both of you,” she said, “and take the key inside. I say nothing,
because nothing has been said to me; but just now I’d like to wring that
white neck, gold chains and all—not yourn, I don’t mean yourn,” she
added, with a swing of the hand. “Go in; go in, you’ll find your things
right, letters and all. I took care that nobody should get nested here.
There, that’ll do, turn the key. Sure bind, sure find, as the Bible
says.”
Virginia stood in the midst of her own room, half terrified, and feeling
painfully strange, while Ellen softly closed the door and turned the
key. She, poor girl, felt like a deer hunted into its lair by an
unexpected rush of hounds. She looked around—old memories came
back—there was her little writing-desk, ebony, encrusted with gold,
where many a hard lesson had been conned under the loving eyes of her
father. Close by stood a low chair, covered with rich embroidery
entraced by the hands of a mother she had never seen, save as a shadow
hovering over her first idea of life. The colors were faded, the
delicate tints of the blossoms had long since been drawn out by the
light, but it was still the dearest thing in that exquisite little
chamber—that and the desk, which had been one of the last gifts of her
father before he took her and her cousin to Europe.
Everything reminded her of that good man; his taste had selected all the
ornaments of the room. The carpet, composed of a single medallion, in
which masses of blooming flowers seemed to have been cast on newly
fallen snow, framed in with arabesques of dove-color and delicate blue,
knotted together with garlands of roses, had been of his selection. The
walls, so delicately frescoed that the designs seemed like tinted
shadows, were more his idea than the artist’s. The great carved easy
chair in which he had spent so many hours, while she was sitting at his
feet with her little porcelain slate studying out one of the problems he
delighted in teaching her. The very books that lay on that pretty table
of Oriental alabaster, inlaid with golden beetles, spoke so clearly of
him that she gave one broken cry and fell upon her knees by the great
chair, convulsed with a storm of grief which shook her from head to
foot.
“Oh, my father! my father!” she cried, “help me! help me! for it seems
as if I must die!”
A pair of feeble arms were softly flung around her, a little crooked
form crept in by the side of her superb beauty, and a voice that seemed
that of an angel pleaded also.
“Father! my father! help! help! for she is alone, with no one but me—no
one but me!”
For some moments these two voices blended in one prayer, then the sobs
that filled the room grew fainter, and the stillness of an exhausted
tempest fell upon them. Ellen was the first to move. She arose, and
going to a broad window which opened on a balcony, saw two women
standing together and conversing earnestly. They had paused a little way
from the front portico, and by the gestures of the younger person she
judged that some stormy debate was passing between them. As she looked,
Mrs. Lander held out her arms with a gesture of imploring tenderness,
and would have flung herself upon the bosom of the proud girl who stood
before her. But Cora took a swift survey around, caught a glimpse of
Ellen’s face at the window, and pushed the woman away so impetuously
that she reeled back against one of the marble pillars, and thus saved
herself from falling.
Ellen turned away from the window, convinced that some great wrong was
being done to the young creature who lay weeping, half upon the floor,
half on the great easy chair.
“Lady,” said the hunchback, “do stop crying so, and let us think what is
best to be done.”
“What can be done? He is dead—my poor father is dead, and I am so
helpless.”
“Perhaps I can think a little for you,” said Ellen, with tender
meekness. “You, sweet lady, were strong enough to carry me safely
through the deep ocean. Now let me help you.”
“But how, Ellen? What help is there for me?” cried Virginia, lifting her
beautiful face, wet with a rain of tears, to meet the kind eyes of her
attendant. “Astonishment and grief bewilders me so! What can they want?
What do they mean? They cannot be in earnest, Ellen!”
“Yes, lady, I am sure they are in earnest.”
“But he was my own father. They know it—that woman was present when I
was born.”
“Still they mean what they say, I am sure of that.”
“But it is impossible. They cannot carry it out.”
“No, no; there must be plenty of people who know you.”
“Plenty who know me—yes, yes; but we are so alike. We have been away
eight years. If her mother does not recognize the difference, who will?”
“But her mother does recognize the difference,” said Ellen, quietly.
“Then I have nothing but trouble before me!” said Virginia, sitting down
in her father’s chair and dropping both hands into her lap in an
abandonment of sorrow.
“What _can_ I do?”
“Wait, and God will show us the way.”
“But I am so helpless—more helpless than you were when I found you in
the water, poor little friend! Until my father was taken from me, I
never knew what trouble meant. Oh, Ellen! _can_ my cousin be so wicked?”
“I think she is a very wicked person, hard as rock. But God is above
all. Let me take off your bonnet, sweet lady, and smooth your hair.
Don’t, don’t shiver so—poor little hands, how the cold strikes through
your gloves! Let me kiss them warm. That’s right, lay your head on my
shoulder, it’s broad enough.”
Here the kind hunchback gave a short, sobbing laugh, and searched for an
answering smile in the beautiful face of her mistress. But Virginia
shook her head, and replied tenderly:
“Oh, Ellen! you should not do that. This honest face and true heart is
worth a thousand straight forms. How miserable I should be without you!”
“Then there is Brian, my brother, who has such a grand heart; besides he
is sharp and bright as a lawyer. Think how many friends you have close
by.”
“I will—I will.”
“That’s kind—that’s nice! Look out and see how brightly the sun shines.
That is the way God smiles when he wishes to cheer us in the midst of a
great trouble.”
“It does not seem bright to me. This is a sad return home—if it is my
home!”
Virginia fell into despondency again. She really was very helpless, but
Ellen brightened up and prepared herself for usefulness.
“This is your own room, so here we stay; but the closets are locked.
Must I ask them for the keys before I can put away your bonnet and
shawl?”
Virginia started from her seat. “No, no,” she said, taking a gold chain
from her neck, to which was attached a small master key. “My father told
me to lock everything up, and promised that nothing should be touched
till I came home again. The keys are in that Malachite box on the table.
He gave it to me just before I went away.”
Ellen unlocked the box with the tiny key, half gold, half steel, which
Virginia had worn suspended from her neck many a year.
“Here is a bunch of keys, a package of letters, and some jewelry,” she
said.
“They are my father’s letters and birthday keepsakes,” answered
Virginia, turning pale with a sudden rush of memory. “My poor mother’s
jewels, too, should be there.”
Ellen closed the box and stood with her hand on the lid, quietly
thoughtful.
“These things belong to you, sweet mistress. There may be proofs here of
the truth. Let us make sure of them.”
“What, child! do you think they would rob me of them?”
“They are robbing you already. Please open this desk and see if anything
is here.”
Virginia unlocked the desk and Ellen swept out its contents into a
corner of her shawl, which she gathered up in one hand for the purpose.
There was a quantity of papers, jewel cases and one or two books. One of
these cases fell out of her dress and broke open on the floor, revealing
a necklace and bracelets of large pearls, rolling away from their purple
satin cushion.
“They belonged to my mother. She wore them on her wedding day—that once,
but never again,” said Virginia, with tears in her eyes.
Ellen snatched up the case, huddled the pearls into their purple bed and
thrust them back among the papers.
“Where can we put them? I forgot to think of that,” she said, appealing
to her mistress.
“Wait a moment—I know of a place,” answered Virginia, drawing back the
drapery from an arched recess, fluted from roof to floor with light blue
satin. Under this was a pretty, snow-white bed, clouded in from the
chamber by curtains of lace delicate as the frost-work on a window, and
so voluminous that it seemed like sweeping back a summer cloud from the
blue of Heaven when they were thrown aside. Close by the bed stood an
exquisite little toilet table surmounted by an oval glass, in a frame
that seemed woven from the most delicate golden spray, over which a
dove, cut from mother of pearl was flying with a mass of filmy lace
drapery in its bill. An ottoman of amber colored damask stood before the
toilet.
“Here, here,” said Virginia, dropping on her knees by the ottoman and
flinging the top back, which opened on hinges.
A moment after, a peremptory knock was heard at the door. The two girls
held their breath an instant, then Ellen ran to the desk, threw the
bunch of keys into the Malachite box, and locking that, flung the chain
and key over the neck of her mistress exactly as she had been in the
habit of wearing it.