OUR CHILD.
A moment after these words left her lips, Mrs. Lambert started up. The
idea that her child lived had seized upon her with force; for the first
time, her face, still colorless, was radiant.
“She is alive!—your child and mine! Alive! and you have found her for
me! A child given to my bosom—a sin lifted from my soul! Man! Angel!
Husband! Let me fall down and worship you!”
“First thank God that an awful sin has been lifted from your
conscience.”
“I do! I do! But the child—where is she? Who is she? Will you let me see
her—touch her—bless her? Oh, will you?”
“You have seen her.”
“Where? When?”
“At my sister’s house. She is known as Eva Laurence.”
Once more the woman sunk to the sofa mute and pallid.
“Laurence was the policeman you spoke with just before you turned down
to the river. He followed you. He saw you leave the infant upon the
rock, where you had carried it; watched as you crept away through the
woods; reluctantly, he thought, but still you went, leaving the child to
its fate.”
“No, no! I did not. In less than an hour, oh! much less, for I was
hardly out of the shadow of the trees, I went back, resolved to bear
everything, suffer everything, rather than part with it—but the rock was
bare; the moonlight lay upon it, cold and white. I searched eagerly, but
my child was gone. I sought for it everywhere—in the hollows, among the
ferns, in the water. All night I wandered up and down on the shore—but
my child was gone. I had left it wrapped up, warm and asleep. No human
being was nigh. The rock sloped downward; it had rolled into the water!
I thought this—I have always thought it. Oh do not look on me with those
searching eyes, Herman. I was mad, wild—driven to desperation—a
child-mother fleeing that night from shame and a father’s wrath.
“My father had been absent almost a year. He had placed me in a school
in New England, which I left, as if for home, but hid myself in New
York. When my baby was but a few weeks old I learned that my father was
coming home. If I was not there, he would search for me at the school,
and learn how long I had been absent. You had left me; I had not heard
from you. Consider, I was so young—all alone, a wife, a mother—but
without a husband. All this drove me mad. No doubt I was absolutely
insane.”
Here Mrs. Lambert’s passionate excitement began to exhaust itself. She
lifted a hand to her forehead and went on.
“I remember, in a vague way, wandering off in search of a river, with
the child in my arms, longing to hide myself and it in the water. If I
had any purpose, it was to go beyond the reach of my father’s wrath, and
take my baby with me.”
Here the woman, seized with infinite self-pity, began to moan and weep.
“I remember nothing, except that the black water frightened me. I think
it was not for myself, but the child. I was wondering if it could be
kept dry and warm when I was asleep down there. Then I grew afraid for
myself, and fled into the woods to escape the dull, heavy lapping of the
water, which both lured and repulsed me. I have told you. It was gone
when I came back, gone forever and ever; I had come back, clear in my
mind, resolved with half insane courage, to take it in my arms, and tell
my father the whole truth. But it was gone. It was gone!”
When the woman ceased speaking, Ross knelt by her side, and heavier sobs
than hers filled the room.
“My poor girl! My wronged young wife! God forgive me the rashness of my
youth—the injustice of my manhood!”
She lifted her face, radiant under the storm of tears that had passed
over it.
“You pity me! There is no longer suspicion in your eyes. Sometimes you
will perhaps think that I was not all to blame, that in wresting the
child from my bosom, God punished me enough. Ah, you did not know how I
loved it, how I pined for it! How gladly I would have taken it in my
arms and followed you to the ends of the earth!”
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth!”
There was no theatrical outbreak; but those two hearts, that had been
separated one-third of a lifetime, seemed breaking with a great fullness
of joy.
“Ah, my Elizabeth! There is something in life for us yet.”
She took his hand between hers, and kissed it.
“Oh, Herman! I never, never expected to be so happy again.”
“But there is greater joy than this in store.”
“I know! I know! Our child! That beautiful girl. I was so jealous of
her, Herman. Only this very day did I consent that Ivon——Do you know
that Ivon loves her dearly? Well, only an hour or two ago I promised to
make him my heir if he could persuade her to marry him. That was half
because I pitied his disappointment, and half because people said that
you loved her,” said the poor woman with a laugh, that reminded Ross of
her girlhood.
“And so I did from the very first. Now I understand why. She is very
like you. That was what struck me.”
“Was I ever so beautiful, Herman?”
Ross bent down, and kissed her forehead.
“But you have not told me how you found all this out. We must have good
proof; a doubt would kill me now. Ah, me! how strange this happiness
seems.”
“I did not come to you, Elizabeth, without proof, though the very face
of our child is enough. Come here, and see if you remember this!”
Ross took the shawl from a table, where it had been laid and shook out
its folds.
Mrs. Lambert uttered an astonished cry and stood gazing on it, shrinking
back a little as one retreats from the touch of a shroud.
“It was my mother’s,” she said at last. “I remember wrapping the child
in it, praying her to pity me if angels in Heaven could feel pity. Oh I
remember it so well.”
“When our Eva—”
“Our Eva,” whispered Mrs. Lambert, clasping her hands so softly that he
went on, without heeding the pathetic interruption.
“When our Eva was found on the bank of the river, this shawl was wrapped
about her. There was some coral too.”
“Pink coral from Naples; I remember it! But what did they do with my
child? How was she made the lovely creature we find her?”
“Laurence was a gentleman in his habits, and educated the girl well. He
left me a letter, which you shall read. There can be no doubt that she
is our child; Mrs. Laurence admits it, and no girl ever did her parents
more honor.”
“And this policeman brought her up?”
“As his own child, with his own child; and no two young ladies could
possess more refinement.”
“And I could look down upon them with scorn.”
“You did not know them. But now?”
“Now I have but one wish; for—for you have forgiven me, Herman?”
Mrs. Lambert held out both her hands; the passionate tenderness of
girlhood swept over her face, as it fell upon his bosom, drawn there by
the strong arms that she knew would enfold her evermore.
“Now let me see my child, and die of happiness,” she said, lifting her
radiant face from his bosom.
“In less than an hour Eva shall be with you,” said Ross.
“An hour! how long it will seem, Herman.”
“The happy can afford to wait,” he answered. “Now I will go and tell
them everything.”
“Must this be?” asked Mrs. Lambert, with a touch of shrinking pride.
“Five persons _must_ know the truth, Elizabeth. Beyond them, our unhappy
past need never be known.”
“And those five?”
“My sister, her husband, Ruth Laurence, Ivon, and our child.”
“Be it so. We can trust them; for all have been kinder to her than her
own mother.”
“Beyond them we will have no explanations. There must be a public
wedding, and that will silence all questions.”
A soft, rosy color came into the woman’s face, and for a moment her eyes
sunk.
“When the young people are married, Eva will be your daughter, of
course. Chance has arranged everything for us,” Ross went on.
“But she has refused Ivon.”
“I tell you she loves him.”
“I am sure that he loves her.”
“And where love is, what power can keep two souls apart! I tell you,
Elizabeth, it will be a double wedding, and after that a double
household.”
“Go—go and bring Eva!”