THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of
Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently
waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically
arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger
girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.
“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,”
she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former
occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old
lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost
unconscious antagonism, their glances met.
“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine
Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said
coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I
feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see
the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And
possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now
picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and
Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your
connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as
possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has
ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”
Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about
and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped
into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.
“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed.
“Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the
granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to
explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an
only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had
died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son.
She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and
that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of
the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to
me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while
for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother
and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the
stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and
even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as
your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this
part of the country to the far west and there after several years we
learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after
her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that
they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always
known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that
Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes
it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now
paused for a moment.
Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish
to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my
mother a lady?” she asked quietly.
“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.
“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this
house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really
believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at
the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of
Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that
Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own
I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy
on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked
you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she
questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.
Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to
school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay
here any longer at present.”
* * * * *
In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking
home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of
Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers”
and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and
confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.
“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and
over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the
queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has
always been intended that you should some day know your own people and
for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very
neighborhood.”
After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my
grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one
another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might
have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I
give up them.”
There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
“I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in
the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother
did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at
Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my
pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now
I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me
be her friend.”
“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one
save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of
trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.
In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with
her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing
to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery
of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it
better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the
same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she
set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at
the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed
very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender
certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry
dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an
entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared
for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was
being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of
Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and
learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could
have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really
believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to
Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s
first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at
rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her
mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance
to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon.
Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied
Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she
believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have
had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive
the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?
In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to
Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van
Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant
this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being
brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as
Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of
twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her.
She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as
her heiress and the bearer of her name.
By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their
long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on
a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a
fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they
could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive
believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s
description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and
that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly
brought the lines back to her recollection.
Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and
answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying
with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night.
She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss
Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still
another question she wished to ask.
“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such
a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her
picture in my father’s watch.”
Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and
foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother
could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I
heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own
appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your
grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress,
that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is
that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
mentioned as long as she lived.”
With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s
at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.