IN CINCINNATI.
Mr. Grey was breakfasting in that leisurely, luxurious kind of way which
he enjoyed so thoroughly. His morning papers were on the table beside
him. He had glanced them through, and read every word in them about poor
Laura’s property, which was now secured to her and her heirs forever. He
had succeeded in making his claim clear, and Laura and her heirs were
richer by some thirty thousand dollars than they were when last the
crazy woman was in the city. To a man with nearly half a million thirty
thousand dollars were not so very much; but Mr. Grey was glad to get it,
and had decided that it should be invested for Alice, just as his
breakfast appeared, and in dispatching that, he forgot the city lots and
houses, and the days when he had gone so often to one of them, now a
long time torn down to make room for a large and handsome block. He had
finished his first cup of coffee, and was waiting for his second, when a
hand was laid familiarly upon his shoulder, and Guy Seymour’s handsome
face confronted him.
“Why, Guy, how you frightened me!” he said. “Where did you come from? Is
anything the matter at home? Is it Alice?”
She was nearest his heart, and he asked for her first, while his cheek
paled for a moment; but Guy quickly reassured him.
There was nothing the matter with Alice; nothing the matter with any
one, he said. He had come on business, and as soon as Mr. Grey was
through with his breakfast he would like to see him alone. Then Mr. Grey
proceeded with his coffee and mutton chop, and omelette and hot cakes,
and Guy grew terribly impatient and nervous with waiting. Mr. Grey’s
appetite was satisfied at last, and he invited Guy to his room and asked
what he could do for him. Guy had the story at his tongue’s end. He had
repeated it to himself several times so as to be sure and make himself
understood, and after half an hour or so he _was_ understood, and Mr.
Grey knew why he was there, and who was with him. To say that he was
startled would convey but a faint idea of the effect Guy’s story had
upon him. Laura’s ravings about “the one that was dead and the one that
was not,” had come back to him with a new meaning and helped to prove
the _twin_ theory correct, and he was struck dumb with amazement, and
tried in vain to speak as some question he wished to ask presented
itself to his mind. He could not speak, his tongue was so thick and lay
so heavy in his mouth, while the blood rushed in such torrents to his
head and face that he plucked at his cravat as if to tear it off, so he
could breath more freely, and made a motion toward the window for air.
“Apoplexy, it has almost given me that,” he whispered as the fresh air
blew gratefully upon him, and he drank the water Guy brought to him.
Then leaning his head against the back of his chair, he said: “I am
greatly shocked by this story you have told me. It seems reasonable and
may be true, though I do not deserve it. I’ve been a villain, a rascal.
I abused and neglected Laura; I ought to have come home when she first
wrote about the baby, and should have done so but for that devilish
trait of mine, to follow a pretty face. I had an Italian woman in tow
and it blunted every other feeling, and when I heard the child was dead
I did not care so very much, though I wrote to her kindly enough; and
now, to have this great good come so suddenly upon me is too much,—too
much,”—
_Guy_ believed in Magdalen, and his belief had so colored his story that
Mr. Grey believed in her, too, at first. Then a doubt began to creep
into his mind, as was very natural, and he asked, “Where is she, and how
does she propose to prove it?”
“She is in No.——. She wishes to see you first. Will you go to her now?”
Guy said; and Mr. Grey arose, and leaning on Guy started for the room
where Magdalen was waiting for him.
When the first great shock came upon her Magdalen had thought only of
Alice, the darling sister it might be, and of the poor worn-out wreck
which, though a wreck, might be her mother still, and her heart had gone
out after them both and enfolded them with all a daughter’s and sister’s
love, but in this sudden gush of affection Mr. Grey had had little part.
So great had her excitement been, and so rapidly had she acted upon her
convictions, that she had scarcely thought of him in any other capacity
than that of her employer. But as she sat waiting for him, there
suddenly swept over her the consciousness that if what she hoped was
true, then he was her own father, and for a moment she rebelled against
it as against some impending evil.
“Roger is his sworn enemy,” she whispered faintly, as her mind went back
to the time when Roger had cursed him as his mother’s ruin. “Roger will
never forgive my being _his_ daughter,” she thought, and for an instant
she wished she had never told her suspicions to a human being, but had
kept them locked in her own bosom. Then she thought of Alice, and that
comforted her, and made her calm and composed when she heard the knock
at her door and saw Guy coming in with Mr. Grey.
He was very pale, and came toward her, with an eager, questioning look
in his eyes, which scanned her curiously. She had risen, and was
standing with her hands locked together, her head unconsciously poised
upon one side, and her body bent slightly forward. It was Laura’s
attitude exactly. Laura had stood just this way that night she met him
outside her mother’s house and he persuaded her to the clandestine
marriage. Save that there was about Magdalen more refinement, more
culture, and a softer style of beauty than had ever belonged to Laura
Clayton, he could have sworn it was the Laura of his mature manhood’s
love, or passion, who stood upon the rug by the fire, her dark eyes
meeting his with a wistful, earnest gaze. In an instant the forgot his
doubts;—his faith was strong as Guy’s, and he reached his arms toward
her, and his lips quivered as he said:
“You are so much like Laura that you _must_ be my child.”
She knew he expected her to go to him, but Jessie and Laura, and the
uncertainty as to herself and his right to claim her, rose up a mighty
barrier between them, and she made no movement towards him; she only
said:
“It is not sure that I am your child. We must prove it beyond a doubt,”
and in her voice there was a tone which Mr. Grey understood.
She knew Laura’s story. Penelope had told her, and she resented the
injury done to one who might be her mother. It was a part of his
punishment, and he accepted it, and put down the tenderness and love
which kept growing in his heart for the beautiful girl before him.
“No, it is not proved,” he said, “though I trust that it may be. Tell
me, please, your own story as you have heard it from Mr. Irving, and
also what you wish me to do.”
He had heard the whole from Guy, but the story gained new force and
reality as told by Magdalen, whose eyes and face and gestures grew each
moment more and more like Laura Clayton as she was years ago. Guy had
forgotten the locket, but Magdalen did not, and she showed it to Mr.
Grey, who examined it closely, then staggered a step or two toward her,
and steadied himself against the mantel, as he said:
“It _was_ Laura’s. I remember it perfectly and where I bought it, I gave
it to her myself. My likeness was in it then. You see it has been taken
out,” and he pointed to the inside of the ornament from which a picture
had evidently been removed. “Magdalen, I do not need stronger proof.
Will you let me call you daughter?”
The tears were streaming down his face, and Magdalen felt herself
beginning to relent, but there must be no mistake,—no shadow on which to
build a doubt hereafter. She could not take her place in the hearts of
that family as a rightful daughter of the house and then suddenly be
displaced by some other claimant. She must know to a certainty that she
was Magdalen Grey, and she replied:
“I am not satisfied; we must investigate farther than we have. Your wife
talked of a Mrs. Storms who was sponsor for her baby. Did you ever know
it was baptized? Did she write you to that effect?”
“Never. She only said that baby Madeline was dead,” Mr. Grey replied,
and after a moment’s hesitation Magdalen continued, “Tell me, please, if
you ever wished to give Alice another name than the one she bears, and
did your wife oppose it?”
Mr. Grey’s face was scarlet, but he answered promptly,—
“I _did_ propose calling Alice after a dear friend of mine whose second
name was Magdalen.”
“Then Mrs. Grey was right so far,” Magdalen rejoined, “and may have been
correct in her other statements to me, also. She told me one was
Madeline, and that to please you she called the other “Magdalen,” after
the friend for whom you wished Alice named, and that a Mr. and Mrs.
Storms were sponsors. Do you know any such people?”
Mr. Grey did not, and Magdalen continued:
“We must find them. Is it of any use to inquire in the vicinity where
Mrs. Grey once lived?”
“None whatever. Every house has been pulled down, and every family is
gone,” was the unpromising answer, but Magdalen was not disheartened.
“The christening must have been in church. Can you tell which one it was
likely to be?”
Mr. Grey thought it was St. Luke’s, as Mrs. Clayton was an attendant
there. They might——
He did not finish the sentence, for Magdalen started quickly,
exclaiming:
“There must be a Parish Register, and there we shall find it recorded,
and possibly trace Mrs. Storms. Let us go at once to the Rectory, if
there is one.”
Her bonnet and shawl were on in a trice, a carriage was called, and the
three were soon on their way to the house of the Rev. Henry Fowler,
Rector of St. Luke’s. He was a young man, who had only been there for a
year or two, but Magdalen’s beauty and excitement enlisted his sympathy
at once, and he went with them to the church and took from a dusty shelf
an old worn-looking volume, wherein he said was recorded the births,
deaths, and baptisms of twenty and twenty-five years ago. It was
Magdalen who took the book in her own hands, and sitting down upon the
chancel steps with her bonnet falling back from her flushed face and her
white lips compressed together, turned the pages eagerly, while the
three men stood looking at her. Suddenly she gave a cry, and the three
came near her.
“Look,” she said, “it’s here. There was a child baptized,” and she
pointed to the record of the baptism of “Magdalen Laura,” daughter of
Arthur and Laura Grey. Sponsors, “Mr. and Mrs. James Storms, Cynthiana,
Kentucky.”
Then suddenly a cloud passed over her face as she said sadly, “But there
is only _one_. Where is _Madeline_?”
“Turn to the deaths,” Guy said, and with trembling fingers Magdalen did
as he bade her, but found no trace of Madeline.
Only Mrs. Clayton’s death was recorded there, and the tears gathered in
Magdalen’s eyes and dropped upon the register as she felt that her hopes
were being swept away. It was Guy who comforted and reassured her by
suggesting that Madeline might have died before the christening, and
Magdalen caught eagerly at it, and springing up exclaimed, “Yes, and
they neglected to record her death; that’s it, I know; we will find this
Mrs. Storms; we will go at once to Cynthiana. Is it far? Can we reach it
to-day?”
It was not very far, the clergyman said. It was on the railroad between
Cincinnati and Lexington, but he did not believe she could go that day,
as the train was already gone.
It seemed an age to wait until the morrow, but there was no help for it;
and Magdalen passed the day as best she could, and when the morning came
and they started for Cynthiana, she was almost sick with excitement,
which increased more and more the nearer she drew to Mrs. Storms, who
was to confirm her hopes or destroy them forever.