MRS. RICHARDS.
It was very late when the stately ship rolled slowly up to her pier, too
late for the customs officers to visit her that night, and the impatient
passengers were forced to wait until morning to appear before them and
undergo that much dreaded ordeal of taking oath upon their possessions,
dutiable or otherwise.
But early the next morning the hurry and bustle began, and there was the
usual rush to claim baggage and get away as soon as possible from the
place where they had spent so many monotonous days.
Star had no baggage to claim, and, not knowing what else to do, she sat
still in the saloon and waited, watching the departing people with
mingled feelings of curiosity and sadness.
Mr. Rosevelt had told her not to be anxious about her own fate, for he
should see that she was kindly cared for, and if her friends did not
come for her, he would provide for her until they could advertise her
arrival in the papers. It was unfortunate, he said, that she lost their
address, since it would be liable to cause something of a delay in
reaching her destination. So, while he went to arrange some little
matter with the captain, she sat and watched the hurrying crowd.
Archibald Sherbrooke came to seek her there, and found her alone.
“I’m off!” he said, with animation. “I’ve got through with the customs,
and have come to wish you good-by. Mr. Rosevelt says he is going to take
care of you. I hope everything will come out right for you, Miss Star,
and that you’ll find a pleasant home with your friends. I’m very sorry
that you’ve lost their address, for I’d call and see you before I go
back to England if I knew where to find you. I trust, however, that we
shall meet again, sometime; and—will you please always consider me your
friend?”
He placed a card in her hand as he spoke, and she saw that his address
was written upon it.
“Thank you,” she said, with a rising flush. “I shall never forget you,
for you have been very kind to me. But wait—I nearly forgot to give you
your pin,” she concluded, suddenly remembering that she still had it,
and she took the beautiful cameo head from her shawl and held it out to
him.
“Please keep it as a souvenir,” he said, gently, adding: “And I wish you
had something to give me in exchange.”
“I’ve lost everything, you know. I could give you naught but a ‘tress of
my yellow hair,’” Star said, with a light laugh, and lifting the heavy
braid which lay over her shoulder with a look of mock dismay.
“Oh, _would_ you?” he asked, eagerly, and taking her literally at her
word.
“It would be but a poor return for this lovely cameo,” she answered,
flushing beneath his eager glance.
“No, indeed, it would not,” he returned, earnestly. “May I have just a
lock of its shining gold, please, Miss Star?” and his fingers touched
the massive braid almost tenderly.
“I have nothing with which to cut it off, and—I’m afraid it would be
very foolish,” she said, with drooping eyes, but a quickly beating
heart.
For answer, he drew a tiny pair of scissors from one of the pockets of
his vest, and held them out to her with a smile.
She took them hesitatingly, her delicate face crimsoning even to the
light locks which lay upon her forehead; then, with a hand that was not
quite steady, she clipped a silken tress from among the curling ends
below the blue ribbon with which the braid was tied, and laid it, with
the scissors, in his extended hand.
“Thank you; I shall always keep it,” he said, with glowing eyes, as he
put it carefully between the leaves of a small notebook which he took
from another pocket.
Then he took her hand in a warm, strong clasp, and, with a reluctantly
spoken farewell, a lingering, wistful look into her lovely blue eyes, he
went away.
As he disappeared through one door-way of the saloon, the figure of a
woman, clad in plain dark robes, entered by the other, and threw a
quick, searching glance around the place.
“I’m in search of a girl named Stella Gladstone,” she said, in sharp,
incisive tones, as her eyes fell upon our lone Star.
The young girl took a step forward, her earnest glance fastened upon
that plain yet not unkind face.
“I am Stella Gladstone,” she said, simply.
The woman looked at her keenly for a moment, and her homely countenance
softened into something like pity as she noticed her delicate beauty.
Then she said, bluntly:
“Well, miss, if I was ever thankful to set eyes on anybody, I am on you,
or I’m much mistaken. I’ve lain awake o’ nights thinking of you, ever
since we heard that the vessel in which you sailed was lost at sea. If I
got asleep at all, I’d wake with a start from horrid dreams, where I
seemed to see you drowning and heard your dreadful cries. Two days ago
another vessel came in, bringing in some of those who had been wrecked.
We got the news in the paper the night before they landed, and
madam—Mrs. Richards, my mistress—sent me down posthaste next morning to
see if you was among them. Of course you wasn’t, so I went home and
dreamed all night again. Last night news came that more had been
rescued, and would land at this pier this morning, so I was posted off
again to find you if possible. Well,” she continued, heaving a deep sigh
of relief, “I’ve got you at last, and I hope I sha’n’t dream about you
to-night. Of course you ain’t overstocked with baggage?” she concluded,
with a grim smile.
“No, I have nothing; everything was lost,” Star replied, while her
large, earnest eyes studied her companion’s face, and she wondered what
relation she bore to her, and who “Mrs. Richards,” “madam,” and “my
mistress” were.
“More’s the pity for _you_, then, or I’m much mistaken,” the woman said,
with a peculiar compression of her thin lips.
Then she added, with more of animation than she had yet displayed:
“But, bless me! I suppose you’d like to know who I am, and won’t be much
surprised when I tell you my name is Blunt; my name is like my nature,
and I’m madam’s—Mrs. Richards’ housekeeper. A pretty time of it I have,
too, or I’m much mistaken; though one can put up with considerable where
their bread and butter and ‘fixin’s’ are concerned. But come, it’s time
we were off. Have you had your breakfast?” she concluded, seeing that
Star had grown rather pale, and thinking she might be faint and hungry.
“Yes’m,” she answered, while a wistful expression stole into her eyes,
and she stepped back and looked over the railing into the dining-room
below, hoping to see Mr. Rosevelt. She felt as if she _could not_ go
away without saying farewell to her kind fellow-traveler.
But he was nowhere to be seen, and she saw that Mrs. Blunt was
impatient.
“If you please,” she said, timidly, “might I just wait a few minutes to
say good-by to a gentleman who has been very kind to me?”
“Lor’, child! it’ll be no use; you’ll never find him, and almost
everybody has gone already. Probably he’s in the hands of the customs,
having his trunks overhauled, and won’t want to be bothered,” Mrs. Blunt
returned, good-naturedly, but really very anxious to get back to her
interrupted duties.
“But he has no trunks; he was on the wreck with me, and he told me to
wait here for him,” Star persisted, almost ready to weep at the thought
of going without seeing him.
“I’m sorry, miss, but madam will be having one of her tantrums if I am
not back shortly, as there’s company to dinner to-day, and it’s nearly
ten o’clock now,” Mrs. Blunt, returned, a trifle indifferently.
She turned as she spoke and led the way from the place, and Star was
forced to follow her, striving hard to repress the sobs that were
struggling in her bosom over her disappointment; and when, half an hour
later, Mr. Rosevelt came to seek her, he was as much disturbed to find
her gone as she had been to go.
He made inquiries regarding her, and was told that some one had come for
her and taken her away, but no one knew whither she had gone.
This relieved his mind somewhat as to her safety, but did not lessen his
disappointment at thus losing sight of her and not knowing where to seek
for her; but he was forced to go his way and bear it as he could.
Mrs. Blunt and her sad-hearted charge walked quickly from the steamer,
and having no baggage, she immediately called a carriage, and hurrying
Star into it, gave her order to be driven to a Brooklyn ferry.
Crossing the river, they took another carriage, and a half hour’s drive
brought them to a stately dwelling in a fashionable portion of the city.
“There, child!” Mrs. Blunt ejaculated, as the carriage stopped; “we’re
home, and I’m glad of it, for you’ve caused me a heap of anxiety first
and last, or I’m much mistaken; but you’re safe and sound, thank Heaven,
though you’re rather delicate-looking for what I imagine is before you;”
this “much mistaken” individual prepared to alight, casting a look of
honest pity into the face of the fair girl as she did so.
Star looked surprised at this somewhat ambiguous speech, and would have
liked to ask what it meant, but the woman gave her no opportunity,
paying for and dismissing the carriage in her quick, energetic way, and
then led her around to a side door and entered the mansion.
Beckoning Star to follow her, she passed through a lofty hall and up a
wide, thickly carpeted staircase, where on every hand there were
evidences of wealth and luxury.
Rapping upon a door at the front end of the upper hall, a voice bade her
enter, and the woman opened it and passed in, and Star following, saw a
handsome woman of perhaps forty years, dressed with great elegance and
taste, sitting in a low rocker by a window.
She turned an inquiring glance upon Mrs. Blunt as she advanced. She
could not see Star, as she was directly behind her and hidden by her
tall figure.
“Well, madam, I’ve found her at last, and here she is,” she said, in a
satisfied tone, and stepped one side to present the young girl.
Madam heaved a sigh—it might have been of relief, it might have been the
reverse; no one could have told which from the expression of her face—as
she bent a critical glance upon the young stranger who had come to find
a home in her house.
She arose, came forward, and studied the fair, downcast face; for Star,
after the first glance, knew she would receive no tender welcome from
that cold, proud woman, and her heart sank like a dead weight in her
bosom.
Something like a frown gathered on the woman’s brow as she marked her
exceeding loveliness.
“Well, Stella, you have had a hard voyage,” she began, in smooth, cool
tones, which made Star shrink from her and shiver slightly, they were so
distant and devoid of feeling. “I am glad, however,” she went on, “that
you are safe, and I hope, now that you are here and I am to give you a
home, you will do your best to please me. You look very much like your
mother as I remember her, although I trust your face will not prove as
great a misfortune to you as hers did to her.”
This last statement was made with some severity. Evidently Mrs. Richards
was not pleased to find the new arrival so beautiful in face and figure.
“Mamma unfortunate! How?” Star asked, surprise loosening her tongue.
“Is it possible that you do not know how she disgraced herself and
family?” madam demanded, sternly, as if in some way Star was to blame
for said disgrace. “Have you never been told how a poor clergyman once
preached in the church where your mother attended worship, fell in love
with her pretty face, and finally persuaded her to marry him, to the
utter disregard of her whole family, who were highly respectable
people.”
Star’s cheeks glowed hotly beneath this tirade, and her blue eyes flamed
at this slur upon her idolized parents.
“I do not consider mamma’s marriage anything of a ‘misfortune’ or a
‘disgrace,’” she answered, with something of hauteur, and speaking very
distinctly. “She was very happy all her life, and papa was a splendid
man—a superior man.”
Mrs. Richards smiled in a lofty kind of way, as she returned: “It is
very natural, I suppose, that you should be your father’s champion;
nevertheless he was not, socially, your mother’s equal, and she degraded
herself in the eyes of all her family by marrying a penniless preacher,
and a dissenter, too.”
Star’s lips parted again, as if about to utter an indignant protest to
this statement; but, with a wave of her white hand, Mrs. Richards coolly
dismissed the subject and turned again to Mrs. Blunt.
“I suppose everything belonging to her was lost,” she said.
“Yes, madam; the poor child has nothing in the world save what she has
on,” that woman answered, with a compassionate glance at Star.
“That is awkward; but you can take her to the sewing-room and tell Miss
Baker to measure her for a couple of dresses; tell her to make them from
that piece of print that I purchased yesterday. Can you sew, Stella?”
she asked, turning again to the young girl, whom she had not even
invited to be seated.
“Yes’m; mamma taught me to sew when I was quite young, and I have
attended to my own wardrobe, with the aid of a seamstress, ever since
she died.”
“That is well. You can then assist Miss Baker about your dresses, and
when they are completed I will arrange about your other duties. You can
go now. Mrs. Blunt will show you the way to your room, where you can lay
aside your shawl and hat and then go to the sewing-room.”
Star gave the woman a stare of blank astonishment.
She had been most delicately and tenderly reared; her education had been
carefully superintended by her father, and the constant companionship of
her refined and intellectual mother had made her a little lady in every
sense of the word. She had been taught to be kind and courteous to every
one; to sympathize with people in trouble; to rejoice with them in
prosperity; and now this woman—this cousin to her mother—this human
being, whom she knew her mother once saved from a dreadful death—had
received her, after her long and perilous voyage, her suffering and
hardships, in this unfeeling, indifferent way.
She had not even taken her hand at greeting; she had looked her over and
inspected her with a critical stare, as if she were some beast of burden
that she was buying to toil for her. She had not offered her the
commonest hospitalities of her house, or given her one kind word or
look.
She had instead simply, and in the coolest manner possible, commented on
her marvelous escape from death, and then _insulted_ her by speaking
disparagingly of her parents; and now she had dismissed her from her
presence as if she had been a menial, ordered _two print dresses_ made
for her, without a thought apparently of other clothing so necessary to
her after being so long without a change of any kind.
She took a step forward, her slight form drawn proudly erect, the hot,
indignant blood surging over neck, face, and brow, and was about to
demand the meaning of this strange treatment, when Mrs. Richards, seeing
her intentions, said, haughtily, and in a tone not to be mistaken:
“I told you that you could go, Stella. Did you understand me?”
With a heaving bosom and flashing eyes, Star bowed with a sort of
stately grace, turned and followed Mrs. Blunt from the room with the
step of a queen; but when the door was shut behind them, she stopped and
confronted that good though eccentric woman with an aspect which, to say
the least, astonished her.