A GLIMMER OF LIGHT.
All that day Magdalen stayed with Mrs. Grey, who clung to her as a child
clings to its mother, and who was more quiet and manageable than she had
been in many weeks. Magdalen could soothe and control her as no one else
had done since she left the private asylum where her husband had kept
her so long, and this she did by the touch of her hand, the sound of her
voice, and the glance of her eye, which fascinated and subdued her
patient at once.
That night Mrs. Seymour and Alice came home, accompanied by Guy. They
had not been expected quite so soon, and Magdalen knew nothing of their
arrival until Alice, who had heard from Honora what had transpired
during her absence, entered the room. Mrs. Grey was sitting up in her
large arm-chair, her dressing-gown and shawl carefully arranged, her
hair nicely combed, and a look of content upon her face which Alice had
rarely seen. She was rocking still, with one foot on the crib and her
eyes fixed on Magdalen, who was repeating to her the Culprit Fay, which
she knew by heart, and to which the childish woman listened with all the
absorbing interest of a little girl of ten. At sight of Alice there came
a sudden gleam of joy over her face, succeeded by a look of fear as she
wound both arms tightly around Magdalen’s neck, exclaiming:
“Oh, Allie, I’m glad you’ve come, but you must not take _her_ away. She
does me good. I’m better with her. Say that she may stay.”
There was a momentary look of pain in Alice’s eyes at seeing a stranger
thus preferred to herself; but that quickly passed, and stooping over
her mother, she kissed her tenderly, and said:
“Magdalen shall stay with you as long as she will. I am glad you like
her so well. We all love Magdalen.”
“Yes, and it’s coming back to me. That was baby’s name,—the one I gave
her to please your father, and by and by I’ll think just where it is.”
Alice shot a quick, inquiring glance at Magdalen, as if to ask how much
of their family history her mother had revealed, but Magdalen merely
said:
“She seems to think there is a baby in the cradle,—a baby whom she says
she lost or mislaid. It died, I suppose.”
“Poor mother, she has suffered so much for that dead child,” was Alice’s
only reply, as she stood caressing her mother’s hair.
Then she tried to tell her something of her visit to New York and the
rare music she had heard; but Mrs. Grey did not care for that, and said
a little impatiently, “Don’t bother me now; I’m listening to the story.
Go on, Magdalen. He was just going to relight his lamp, and I want it
over with, for I know how he felt. My lamp has gone out, and all the
falling stars in heaven can’t light it.”
“I see you are preferred to me,” Alice said to Magdalen; “but if you do
her good, and I can see that you have already, I bless you for it. Poor,
dear mother, who has never known a rational moment since I can
remember.”
She kissed her mother again, and then left the room, while Magdalen went
on with her fairy tale, parts of which she repeated twice, and even
thrice, before her auditor was satisfied.
After that Magdalen spent most of her time with the poor lunatic, who,
if she attempted to leave her, would say so pleadingly, “Stay with me,
Magda; don’t go. It’s beginning to come back.”
She called her _Magda_ altogether, and though that name was sacred to
Roger’s memory, Magdalen felt as if there was a blessing in the way the
poor invalid spoke it, and her heart throbbed with a strange kind of
feeling every time she heard the “Ma-ag-da,” as Mrs. Grey pronounced it,
dwelling upon the first syllable, and shortening up the last.
Mr. Grey was still absent, glad, it would seem, of an excuse to stay
away from the tiresome burden at home. He had gone to Cincinnati, to
look after some property which belonged to his wife, and as there was
some difficulty in proving his claim to a portion of it, which had more
than quadrupled in value and was now in great demand, it was desirable
that all doubts should be forever settled; so he wrote to Alice, that he
should stay until matters were satisfactorily adjusted. He had heard of
Magdalen’s kind offices in the sick-room, and he sent a note to her,
adjuring her to stay with Mrs. Grey so long as her influence over her
was what Alice had reported it to be.
“Money can never pay you,” he said, “if you succeed in doing her good,
or even in keeping her quiet for any length of time; but to show you
that I appreciate your services, I will from this time forward make your
salary one thousand dollars per annum as Mrs. Grey’s attendant. It is
strange the influence which some people have over her, and strange that
you, a girl, can control her, as Alice says you do. Perhaps she
recognizes in you something that exists in herself, and so, on the
principle that like subdues like, she is subdued by you. The very first
time I saw you, there was something in your eyes and the toss of your
head which reminded me of her as she was when I first knew her, but of
course the resemblance goes no further. I would weep tears of blood
sooner than have your young life and bright beauty darkened as Laura’s
has been.”
When Magdalen received this note she was in a state of wild excitement,
and hardly realized what Mr. Grey had written, until she reached the
part where he spoke of her resemblance to his wife.
“Something in your eyes and the toss of your head.”
She read that sentence twice, and her eyes grew larger and darker than
their wont as she too saw _herself_ in the motions, and gestures, and
even looks of the maniac, whose talk that very day, whether true or
false, had sent through her veins a thrill of conjecture so sudden and
wonderful, that for an instant she had felt as if she were fainting.
Alice had talked but little of her mother’s insanity. It was a great
grief to them all, she had said, and she had wished to keep it from
Magdalen as long as possible, fearing lest the fact of there being a
lunatic in the house might trouble her, as it had done others who came
to Beechwood. Of the fancy about the baby she had never offered any
explanation, and Magdalen had ceased to think much of it, except as the
vagary of a lunatic, until the day when she received the note from Mr.
Grey. That afternoon Laura had talked a great deal, fancying herself to
be in the cars, and sometimes baby was with her and sometimes it was
not.
“That is the very last I remember,” she said, apparently talking to
herself. “I took the train at Cincinnati, and baby was with me; I left
the train, and baby was not with me. I’ve never seen her since, but I
think I gave her to a boy. It was ever so long before I got home, and
everything was gone, baggage, baby and all. I can’t think any more.”
Her voice ceased at this point, and Magdalen knew she was asleep; but
for herself she felt that she too was going mad with the suspicion which
kept growing in intensity, as she recalled other things she had heard
from Mrs. Grey, and to which she had paid no attention at the time. Once
she arose and going to the glass studied her own face intently. Then she
stole to the bedside of the sleeping woman and examined her features one
by one, while all the time the faintness was increasing at her heart,
and the blood seemed congealing in her veins. There was no trace of
color in her face that night when she met the family at dinner, and
Alice half shrunk from the eyes which fastened so greedily upon her and
scarcely left her face a moment.
“What is it, Magdalen?” she asked after dinner, when they were standing
alone before the parlor fire, and she felt the burning eyes still on
her. “What is it, Magdalen? Is anything the matter?”
Then Magdalen’s arms twined themselves around the young girl’s neck in
an embrace which had something almost fierce in its fervor.
“Oh, Alice, my darling; if it could be, if it could be!”
That was the answer Magdalen made, and her voice was choked with tears,
which fell in torrents upon Alice’s upturned face.
“Excuse me, do!” she added, releasing the young girl, and recovering her
composure. “I am nervous to-night. I can’t go back to your mother. I
shall be as mad as she is in a little while. Will you take my place in
her room just for this evening?”
Alice assented readily, and after a few moments she left the parlor, and
Magdalen was alone. But she could not keep quiet with that great doubt
hanging over her and that wild hope tugging at her heart. Rapidly she
walked up and down the long parlors, while the perspiration started
about her forehead and lips, which were so ashy pale that they attracted
the attention of Mrs. Seymour, when she at last came in, bringing her
crocheting with her.
“Are you sick, Miss Lennox?” she asked in some alarm; and then
Magdalen’s resolution was taken, and turning to the lady, whose shoulder
she grasped, she said, “Please come with me to my room, where we can be
alone and free from interruption. There is something I wish you to tell
me.” And without waiting for an answer she led the astonished woman into
the hall and up the stairs in the direction of her own room.