In mid-Lent, when an early rush of almost summery warmth suddenly poured
over the city, Chris and Norma met on the way home from church. Norma
walked every Sunday morning to the big cathedral, but Chris went only
once or twice a year to the fashionable Avenue church a few blocks away.
This morning he had joined her as she was quietly leaving the house, and
instantly it flashed into her mind that he had deliberately planned to
do so, knowing that Miss Slater, who usually accompanied her, was away
for a week's vacation.
Their conversation was impersonal and casual, as always, as they walked
along the drying sidewalks, in the pleasant early freshness, but as
Chris left her he asked her at about what time she would be returning,
and Norma was not surprised, when she came out of the cathedral, a
little later than the great first tide of the outpouring congregation,
to see him waiting for her.
The thought of him had been keeping her heart beating fast, and her mind
in confusion, even while she tried to pray. And she had thought that she
might leave the church by one of the big side doors, and so at least run
a fair risk of missing him. But Norma half feared an act that would
define their deepening friendship as dangerous, and half longed for the
fifteen minutes of walking and chatting in the sunshine. So she came
straight to him, and with no more than a word of greeting they turned
north.
It was an exquisite morning, and the clean, bare stretches of the Avenue
were swimming in an almost summerlike mist of opal and blue. Such
persons as were visible in the streets at all were newsboys, idle
policemen, or black-clad women hurrying to or from church, and when they
reached the Park, it was almost deserted. The trees, gently moving in a
warm breeze, were delicately etched with the first green of the year;
maples and sycamores were dotted with new, golden foliage, and the grass
was deep and sweet. A few riders were ambling along the bridle-path, the
horses kicking up clods of the damp, soft earth.
Norma and Christopher walked slowly, talking. The girl was hardly
conscious of what they said, realizing suddenly, and almost with terror,
that just to be here, with Chris, was enough to flood her being with a
happiness as new and miraculous as the new and miraculous springtime
itself. There was no future and no past to this ecstasy, no Alice, no
world; it was enough, in its first bloom, that it existed.
"You've had--what is it?--a whole year of us, Norma," Chris said, "and
on the whole, it's been happy, hasn't it?"
"Fourteen months," she corrected him. "Fourteen months, at least, since
Aunt Kate and I called on Aunt Marianna. Yes, it's been like a miracle,
Chris. I never will understand it. I never will understand why a
friendless girl--unknown and having absolutely no claim--should have
been treated so wonderfully!"
"And you wouldn't want to go back?" he mused, smiling.
"No," she said, quickly. "I am afraid, when I think of ever going back!"
"I don't see why you should," Chris said. "You will inherit, through
your grandmother's will----"
He had been following a train of thought, half to himself. Norma's round
eyes, as she stopped short in the path, arrested him.
"My _grandmother_!" she exclaimed.
"Your Aunt Marianna," he amended, flushing. But their eyes did not move
as they stared at each other.
A thousand remembered trifles flashed through Norma's whirling brain; a
thousand little half-stilled suspicions leaped to new life. She had
accepted the suggested kinship in childish acquiescence, but doubt was
aflame now, once and for all. The man knew that there was no further
evading her.
"Chris, do you know anything about me?" she asked, directly.
"Yes, I think--I know everything," he answered, after a second's
hesitation.
Norma looked at him steadily. "Did you know my father and mother?" she
demanded, presently, in an odd, tense voice.
There was another pause before Chris said, slowly:
"I have met your father. But I knew--I know--your mother."
"You _know_ her?" The world was whirling about Norma. "Is Aunt Kate my
mother?" she asked, breathing hard.
"No. I don't know why you should not know. You call her Aunt Annie,"
Chris said.
Norma's hands dropped to her sides. She breathed as if she were
suffocating.
"_Aunt Annie!_" she whispered, in stupefaction.
And she turned and walked a few steps blindly, her eyes wide and vacant,
and one hand pressed to her cheek. "My God!--my God!" he heard her say.
"Annie eloped when she was a girl," Chris began presently, when she was
dazedly walking on again. "She was married, and the man deserted her.
She was ill, in Germany----But shall I talk now? Would you rather not?"
"Oh, no--no! Go on," Norma said, briefly.
"Alice was the first to guess it," Christopher pursued. "Her sister
doesn't know it, or dream it!"
"Aunt Annie doesn't! She does not know that I'm her own daughter!... But
what _does_ she think?"
"She supposes that her baby died, dear. I'm sorry to tell you, Norma,
but I couldn't lie to you! You'll understand everything, now--why your
grandmother wants to make it all up to you----"
"Does Leslie know?" Norma demanded, suddenly, from a dark moment of
brooding.
"Nobody knows! Your Aunt Kate, your grandmother, Alice, and I, are
absolutely the only people in the world! And Norma, _nobody else must
know_. For the sake of the family, for everyone's sake----"
"Oh, I see that!" she answered, quickly and impatiently. And for awhile
she walked on in silence, and apparently did not hear his one or two
efforts to recommence the conversation. "Aunt Annie!" she said once,
half aloud. And later she added, absently: "Yes, I should know!"
They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was
getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and
Norma loosened her light furs.
"So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my
name?"
"Melrose," he answered, flushing.
Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer
from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face,
leaving it very white.
"You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully.
"Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!"
Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went
on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly,
told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had
been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the
whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a
drawn, set look to her face that he did not like.
"Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after
so many years?" she asked.
"I'm sure I don't know that. Alice and I have fancied that Kate might
have kept in touch with your father all this time, and that he might be
dead now, and not likely to--make trouble."
"That is it," Norma agreed, quickly. "Because not long before she came
to see Aunt Marianna she _had_ had some sort of news--from Canada, I
think. An old friend was dead; I remember it as if it were yesterday."
"Then that fits in," Chris said, glad she could talk.
"But I can't believe it!" she cried in bewilderment. And suddenly she
burst out angrily: "Oh, Chris, is it fair? Is it fair? That one girl,
like Leslie, should have so--so much! The name, the inheritance, the
husband and position and the friends--and that another, through no fault
of hers, should be just--just--a nobody?"
She choked, and Christopher made a little protestant sound.
"Oh, yes, I am!" she insisted, bitterly. "Not recognized by my own
mother--she's _not_ my mother! No mother could----"
"Listen, dear," Chris begged, really alarmed by the storm he had raised.
"Your grandmother, for reasons of her own, never told Annie there was a
baby. It is obvious why she kept silent; it was only kindness--decency.
Annie was young, younger than you are, and poor old Aunt Marianna only
knew that her child was ill, and had been ill-treated, and most cruelly
used. You were brought up safely and happily, with good and loving
people----"
"The best in the world!" Norma said, through her teeth, fighting tears.
"The best in the world. Why, Norma, what a woman they've made you!
You--who stand alone among all the girls I know! And then," Chris
continued quickly, seeing her a little quieter, "when you are growing
up, your aunt brings you to your grandmother, who immediately turns her
whole world topsy-turvy to make you welcome! Is there anything so unfair
in that? Annie made a terrible mistake, dear----"
"And everyone but Annie pays!" Norma interrupted, bitterly.
"Norma, she is your mother!" Chris reminded her, in the tone that,
coming from him, always instantly affected her. Her eyes fell, and her
tone, when she spoke, was softer.
"Just bearing a child isn't all motherhood," she said.
"No, my dear; I know. And if Annie were ever to guess this, it isn't
like her not to face the music, at any cost. But isn't it better as it
is, Norma?"
The wonderful tone, the wonderful manner, the kindness and sympathy in
his eyes! Norma, with one foot on the lowest step, now raised her eyes
to his with a sort of childish penitence.
"Oh, yes, Chris! But"--her lips trembled--"but if Aunt Kate had only
kept me from knowing for ever!" she faltered.
"She wouldn't take that responsibility, dear, and one can't blame her. A
comfortable inheritance comes from your grandmother; it isn't the
enormous fortune Leslie inherited, of course, but it is all you would
have had, even had Annie brought you home openly as her daughter. It is
enough to make a very pretty wedding-portion for me to give away with
you, my dear, in a few years," Chris added more lightly. The suggestion
made her face flame again.
"Who would marry me?" she said, under her breath, with a scornful look,
under half-lowered lids, into space.
For answer he gave her an odd glance--one that lived in her memory for
many and many a day.
"Ah, Norma--Norma--Norma!" he said--quickly, half laughingly. Then his
expression changed, and his smile died away. "I have something to bear,"
he said, with a glance upward toward Alice's windows. "Life isn't roses,
roses, all the way for any one of us, my dear! Now, you've got a bad bit
of the road ahead. But let's be good sports, Norma. And come in now,
I'm famished; let's have breakfast. My honour is in your hands," he
added, more gravely, "perhaps I had no right to tell you all this! You
mustn't betray me!"
"Chris," she responded, warmly, "as if I could!"
He watched her eating her breakfast, and chatting with Alice, a little
later, and told himself that some of Annie's splendid courage had
certainly descended to this gallant little daughter. Norma was pale, and
now and then her eyes would meet his with a certain strained look, or
she would lose the thread of the conversation for a few seconds, but
that was all. Alice noticed nothing, and in a day or two Chris could
easily have convinced himself that the conversation in the spring
greenness of the Sunday morning had been a dream.