Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would
not analyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter
reproach to her father's shade; and she reassured herself by frankly
admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of
Senator North.
She bathed her eyes and went to her mother's room. The sooner that
ordeal was over, she reflected, the better. Mrs. Madison was reading an
amusing novel and looked up with a smile, then pushed the book aside.
"Have you been crying, darling?" she asked. "What can be the matter?"
Betty told her story without preamble. Her mother's nerves could stand
a shock, but not three minutes of uncertainty. Mrs. Madison listened
with more equanimity than Betty anticipated.
"I suppose I may consider myself fortunate that I have not had one of
his brats thrust on me before," she remarked philosophically. "What are
we to do about this creature?"
"There is only one human thing to do. It is not her fault, and she is
very wretched at present. And now that I know the truth I suppose I am
as responsible as my father would be if he were alive. I shall go to
see her to-morrow, and if she is presentable and seems good I shall
bring her to Washington. Of course I shall not bring her here without
your permission--it is your house. Let me read you his letter."
"Do you feel very strongly on the subject?" Mrs. Madison asked when
Betty had finished.
"Oh, I do! I do! I will promise not to bring her to Washington at all
if she is impossible, but if she is all I feel sure she must be, let me
bring her here for a few weeks, until we have decided what to do for
her. I know it is a great deal to ask--her presence cannot fail to be
hateful to you--"
"My dear, I have outlived any feeling of that sort, and I have not put
everything on your shoulders all these years to thwart you now, when
you feel so deeply. Moreover, an old memory came to me while you were
reading that letter. When I was a little girl, about eight or ten, I
spent an entire summer with Aunt Mary Eager at her home in Virginia.
She had a house full, and there were five other little girls beside
myself. A brook ran across the foot of the plantation, and we were very
fond of playing there. Directly across was the hut of a freed slave who
had a little girl about our own age. The child was a beautiful
octaroon. I can see her plainly, with her honey-coloured skin, her
immense black eyes, her long straight black hair, and her stiff little
white frock tucked to the waist. Her mother took the greatest pride in
her, and was always changing her clothes.
"Every day she used to come to the edge of her side of the brook and
watch us. We never noticed her, for although we often played with the
little black piccaninnies, the yellow child of a freed slave was
another matter. One day--I think she had watched us for about a
week--she came half-way across the bridge. We stared at each other, but
took no notice of her. The next day she walked straight across and up
to us, and asked us very nicely if she might play with us. We turned
upon her six scarlet scandalized faces, and what we said, in what
brutal child language, I do not care to repeat. The child stared at us
for a moment as if she were looking into the Inferno itself, and I
expect she was, poor little soul! Then she gave a cry, and tore across
the bridge and up the 'pike as hard as she could run. As long as we
could see her she was running, and as I never saw her again--we avoided
the brook after that--it seemed to me for years as if she must be
running still. And for years those flying feet haunted me, and I used
to long as I grew older to do penance in some way. I befriended many a
poor yellow girl, hoping she might be that child. Then life grew too
sad for me to remember the sins of my childhood. But I like the idea of
making penance at this late day and receiving this girl for a few weeks
into my house: it will be a penance, for I do not fancy sitting at the
table with a woman with negro blood in her veins, I can assure you. But
I shall do it. I believe if I did not I should be haunted again by
those little flying feet. There is no chance of this being her
daughter, for she would have been too old to attract your father's
fancy. But that is not the point. I make one condition. No one must
know the truth, not even Sally or Jack. She must pass for a distant
relative, left suddenly destitute." "She would probably be the last to
wish the truth known. But you have taken a weight off my mind, Molly
dear, and I am deeply grateful to you."