A MERRY CHRISTMAS
It was Christmas evening, and Mrs. Lanier’s beautiful house was bright
with lights and flowers, and merry with music and laughter.
There were, besides the little Laniers and Lady Jane, a dozen children
or more, who had been invited to see the wonderful Christmas-tree,
which Mr. and Mrs. Lanier and Arthur Maynard had spent a good part of
the day in decorating. It stood at one end of the drawing-room, and its
broad branches were fairly bending beneath the treasures heaped upon
them. It glowed and sparkled with the light of a hundred wax candles,
reflected over and over by innumerable brilliant objects until it
seemed like Moses’s burning bush, all fire and flame; and amid this
radiant mass of color and light were the most beautiful gifts for every
member of the family, as well as for the happy little visitors. But
the object which attracted the most curiosity and interest was a large
basket standing at the foot of the tree.
“Whom is that basket for, papa?” asked Ethel Lanier of her father, who
was unfastening and distributing the presents.
“We shall see presently, my dear,” replied Mr. Lanier, glancing at
Lady Jane, who stood, a radiant little figure, beside Arthur Maynard,
watching every movement with sparkling eyes and dimpling smiles.
At last, with a great deal of difficulty, the basket was untied, and
Mr. Lanier read in a loud, distinct voice from a card attached to it,
“For Lady Jane Churchill. With Arthur Maynard’s love and good wishes.”
“There, I thought it was for Lady Jane,” cried Ethel delightedly. “I
know it’s something lovely.”
Mr. Lanier, with no little ceremony, handed the basket to Arthur, who
took it and gave it to Lady Jane with a low bow.
“I hope you will like my present,” he said, smiling brightly, while he
helped the wondering child untie the strings that fastened the cover.
Her little face was a study of mingled curiosity and expectancy, and
her eyes sparkled with eagerness as she bent over the basket.
[Illustration: “OH, OH! IT’S TONY!” CRIED LADY JANE]
“It’s so large. What can it be? Oh, oh! It’s Tony!” she cried, as the
cover was lifted, and the bird hopped gravely out and stood on one
leg, winking and blinking in the dazzling light. “It’s Tony! dear, dear
Tony!” and in an instant she was on her knees hugging and kissing the
bird passionately.
“I told you I would find him for you,” whispered Arthur, bending over
her, almost as happy as she.
“And you knew him by the three little crosses, didn’t you? Oh, you’re
so good, and I thank you so much,” she said, lifting her lovely,
grateful eyes to the boy’s face. She was smiling, but a tear glistened
on her lashes.
“What a darling she is!” said Mrs. Lanier fondly. “Isn’t it pretty to
see her with the bird? Really it is an exquisite picture.”
She was like an anxious mother over a child that had just been restored
to her. “You know me, Tony, don’t you? and you’re glad to see me?” she
asked, over and over, while she stroked his feathers and caressed him
in the tenderest way.
“Do you think he remembers you, Lady Jane?” asked Mr. Lanier, who was
watching her with a smile of amusement.
“Oh yes, I know he does; Tony couldn’t forget me. I’m sure he’ll come
to me if I call him.”
“Please try him. Oh, do try him!” cried Ethel and May.
Mr. Lanier took the bird and placed him behind a chair at the extreme
end of the room, where he stood gravely blinking and nodding, but the
moment he heard Lady Jane’s little chirp, and “Tony, Tony,” he ran
fluttering to her and nestled close against her.
Every one was pleased with this exhibition of the bird’s intelligence,
and the children were quite wild over the new acquisition. The other
presents were forgotten for the moment, and they could do nothing but
watch every movement with admiration and wonder.
To Lady Jane the recovery of her lost treasure was the crowning point
of happiness, and she consented reluctantly to leave him alone in the
conservatory, where he was to spend the night, and where he looked very
comfortable, as well as picturesque, standing on one leg under a large
palm.
“Doesn’t she dance like a little fairy!” said Arthur admiringly to Mrs.
Lanier, as they stood, a little later, watching the children dancing.
“Yes, she is very graceful and altogether charming,” replied Mrs.
Lanier. “It is delightful to see her so happy after all she has
suffered.”
“I don’t imagine she will care half as much for her rich grandfather
as she does for Tony,” returned Arthur. “You see she’s acquainted with
Tony, and she isn’t acquainted with her grandfather. I hope he’ll be
decent to her,” he added anxiously.
“It is almost time for him to be here,” said Mrs. Lanier, glancing
at the clock. “Mr. Lanier will meet him at the station and bring him
here, if he will accept our hospitality. I’ll confess I’m filled with
consternation. He used to be such a stern, cold man; he never even
softened to Jane’s young friends; he was polite and kind, but never
genial, and I dare say he has quite forgotten me. It’s a trial for me
to meet him with this awful mystery hanging over Jane’s last days. Oh,
I hope he will take kindly to the child! He idolized her mother before
she thwarted his plans, and now I should think his remorse would be
terrible, and that he would do everything to atone for his unkindness.”
“I have faith in Lady Jane,” laughed Arthur. “It must be a hard heart
to withstand her winning ways. I’ll wager before a week that the old
millionaire will be her devoted slave.”
Just at that moment a servant entered, and handed Mrs. Lanier a card.
“It is Mr. Chetwynd,” she said to Arthur. “They have come; he is in the
library, and Mr. Lanier asks me to bring the child.”
A few moments later, Mrs. Lanier led Lady Jane into the room where
Richard Chetwynd waited to receive her. He was a tall, pale man, with
deep, piercing eyes, and firmly closed lips, which gave character to
a face that did not lack kindliness of expression. As she advanced a
little constrainedly, holding the child by the hand, he came forward to
meet her with an air of friendly interest.
“Perhaps you have forgotten me, Mrs. Lanier,” he said, cordially
extending his hand, “but I remember you, although it is some time ago
that you used to dine with my daughter in Gramercy Park.”
“Oh, no, I have not forgotten you, Mr. Chetwynd; but I hardly expected
you to recall me among all Jane’s young friends.”
“I do. I do perfectly,” he replied, with his eyes fixed on Lady Jane,
who clung to Mrs. Lanier and looked at the tall, grave stranger with
timid scrutiny.
Then he held out his hand to the child. “And this is Jane Chetwynd’s
daughter. There is no doubt of it. She is the image of her mother,”
he said in a low, restrained voice. “I was not prepared to see such a
living proof. She is my little Jane as she was when a child—my little
Jane—my darling! Mrs. Lanier, will you excuse me!—the sight of her has
quite unnerved me”; and suddenly sinking into a chair he pressed the
child to his heart and hid his face on her bright golden head.
What passed between Lady Jane and her grandfather, Mr. and Mrs. Lanier
never knew, for they slipped quietly out of the room, and left the
cold, stern man alone with the last of his family—the child of that
idolized but disobedient daughter, who had caused him untold sorrow,
and whom he had never forgiven until that moment, when he held in his
arms, close to his heart, the child, her living image.
It was some time before Mr. Chetwynd appeared, and when he did he was
as cold and self-possessed as if he had never felt a throb of emotion,
or shed a tear of sorrow on the pretty head of the child, who held his
hand, and prattled as freely and confidingly as though she had known
him always.
“What will Mother Margaret say,” she exclaimed, looking at Mrs. Lanier
with wide, glistening eyes, “when I tell her that I’ve found Tony and
my grandpapa both in one Christmas? I never saw a grandpapa before.
Pepsie read to me about one in a book, and he was very cross; but this
one isn’t. I think he’s very good, because he says that he will give me
everything I wish, and I know I shall love him a great deal.”
“Now, Lady Jane, confess to me, and I’ll never tell,” whispered Arthur
with an air of great secrecy. “Which do you love best, Tony or your new
grandpapa?”
She raised her clear eyes to the roguish face of the boy with a little
perplexed smile, and then replied unhesitatingly: “Well, I’ve known
Tony longer, but I think I’ll love my grandpapa as well by and by,
because, you know, he’s my grandpapa.”
Arthur laughed heartily at the clever way in which she evaded the
question, and remarked to Mrs. Lanier that Lady Jane would wind her
grandfather around her little finger before a month was over. Which
prediction was likely to prove true, for Mr. Chetwynd did not seem to
have any other interest in life than to gratify every wish the child
expressed.
“She has taken complete possession of me,” he said to Mrs. Lanier,
“and now my greatest happiness will be to make her happy. She is all I
have, and I shall try to find in her the comfort her mother deprived
me of.”
In spite of his affection for the child, his feelings did not soften
toward the mother; he could not forget that she had disappointed him
and preferred a stranger to him; that she had given up wealth and
position to bury herself in obscurity with a man he hated. It was a
bitter thought, yet he would spare no pains to solve the mystery that
hung over her last days.
Money and influence together soon put the machinery of the law in
motion; therefore it was not a month after Mr. Chetwynd’s arrival in
New Orleans before everything was as clear as day. The young widow was
traced to Madame Jozain’s; there were many who remembered her death
and funeral. The physician’s certificate at the Board of Health bore
the name of Dr. Debrot, who was found, and interviewed during one of
his lucid moments; he described the young mother and child, and even
remembered the blue heron; and his testimony, sad though it was, was
still a comfort to Jane Chetwynd’s friends. She had died of the same
fever that killed her husband, and she had been carefully nursed and
decently buried. Afterward, the Bergeron tomb was opened, the remains
identified, and then sent to New York to rest with her mother, in the
stately Chetwynd tomb, in Greenwood cemetery.
Then a careful search was made for her personal effects, but nothing
was recovered except the watch that Paichoux was fortunate enough to
secure. Mr. Chetwynd handed Paichoux a large check in exchange for it,
but the honest man refused to take any more than he had paid Raste
Jozain in order to get possession of it. However, the millionaire
proved that he was not ungrateful nor lacking in appreciation, when he
presented him with a rich, plain watch suitably inscribed, from the
donor to a most worthy friend. And when the pretty Marie was married,
she received from the same jeweler who made the watch an exquisite
silver tea-service, which was the pride of her life, and which was
cherished not only for its value, but because it was a gift from Lady
Jane’s grandpapa.
Mr. Chetwynd made a number of visits to Good Children Street in
company with Mrs. Lanier and Lady Jane, and there were a great many
long conversations between Mam’selle Diane, the millionaire, and
the banker’s wife, while Lady Jane played with her jolly little
friend, the canary, among the branches of the rose-bush. During
these conversations there was a great deal of argument and anxious
urging on the part of the visitors, and a great many excuses and much
self-depreciation on the part of the gentle, faded lady.
“I have been buried so long,” she would say pathetically, “that the
great world will appal and confuse me. I shall be like a blind person
suddenly made sensible of the light.”
“But you will soon become accustomed to the light,” urged Mrs. Lanier.
“And I might long for seclusion again; at my age one cannot easily
change one’s habits.”
“You shall have all the seclusion you wish for,” said Mr. Chetwynd
kindly.
“Besides I am so old-fashioned,” murmured Mam’selle Diane, blushing
deeply.
“A quality which I greatly admire,” returned Mr. Chetwynd, with a
courtly bow.
“And think how Lady Jane loves you,” said Mrs. Lanier, as if to clinch
the argument.
“Yes; my love for her and hers for me are the strongest points in the
situation,” replied Mam’selle Diane reflectively; “when I think of that
I can hardly refuse to comply with your wishes.”
At that time it seem as if Lady Jane acted the part of fairy godmother
to those who had been her friends in her days of adversity; for each
one had only to express a wish and it was gratified.
Pepsie’s cottage in the country was about to become a reality. In
one of the charming shady lanes of Carrollton they found just such a
bowery little spot as the girl wished for, with a fine strip of land
for a garden. One day Mr. Chetwynd and Lady Jane went down to Good
Children Street and gave the deed of it to Mademoiselle Madelon Modeste
Ferri, which was Pepsie’s baptismal name, although she had never been
called by it in all her life. The little cripple was so astonished
and delighted that she could find no words of thanks; but after a few
moments of very expressive silence she exclaimed: “After all, my cards
were right, for they told me over and over that I should go to live in
the country; and now I’m going, thanks to Lady Jane.”
When little Gex was asked what he most wished for in the world, he
hesitated for a long time, and finally confessed that the desire of his
life was to go back to Paris.
“Well, you shall go, Mr. Gex,” said Lady Jane confidently, “and I shall
see you there, because I’m going to Paris with grandpapa very soon.”
It is needless to say that Gex went, and the little shop in Good
Children Street saw him no more forever.
And Margaret—the good Margaret. What could Lady Jane do for her? Only
the noble woman and the destitute orphans could testify to the generous
aid that came yearly in the shape of a check for a large amount from
Lady Jane for dear Mother Margaret’s home.
“And Mam’selle Diane,—dear Mam’selle! what can I give her?” asked Lady
Jane eagerly.
“We have our plans for Mam’selle Diane, my dear,” said Mrs. Lanier.
“There is only one thing to do for her, and that is to take her with
you. Your grandpapa has begged her to take charge of your education.
Poor, lonely woman; she loves you dearly, and in spite of her
reluctance to leave her seclusion, I think she would go to the world’s
end with you.”
And so it was arranged that when Mr. Chetwynd and Lady Jane left New
Orleans, Mam’selle Diane d’Hautreve went with them, and the little
house and tiny garden were left to solitude, while the jolly canary was
sent to keep Tony company in Mrs. Lanier’s conservatory.