Liz Fellows went home that day sadder than she had been before. Her
lover’s defalcation had been a natural sequence to the misfortune
that had overtaken her, compared to this. He had judged her harshly,
and without proof, but he at least believed (or she thought he did)
that she had been untrue to him, and his anger and contempt were
those of a dishonoured man. But Maraquita’s conduct admitted of no
such palliation. She _knew_ better than any one else, that Liz was
innocent of the charge laid against her, and yet she could coolly
deny the fact, and appeal to her mother to join her in turning her
adopted sister from their doors. She could shield herself behind the
humiliation of her friend,--deny her maternity, and delegate her sacred
duties--her most holy feelings--to another woman.
‘Feelings! Duties!’ Liz stamped her foot impatiently, as the terms
occurred to her mind. Maraquita _had_ no feelings, and recognised
no duty. She was lower than the feeble little animals, who would
die sooner than desert their young. She had brought a helpless
infant--presumably the infant of her lover--into the world, and would
not even acknowledge it was hers. _Who_ was the father of this child,
thought Liz, that he could stand by quietly and see the desertion
of his offspring? Had _he_ no natural instincts, any more than the
partner of his sin? Would they _both_ leave their infant to the tender
mercies of the world, whilst they went their own ways--one, to be
married to the Governor of San Diego--the other, Heaven best knew
where? Well, she had staked her last chance, and lost it. Henri de
Courcelles would never now receive the proof of her innocence. He was
lost to her for ever, and she must bear the burden of shame laid upon
her guiltless head as best she might. As she re-entered the bungalow, a
wail from Quita’s hapless infant smote her with compassion.
‘My poor little orphan!’ she exclaimed, as she took it in her arms.
‘You are an outcast as well as myself. You have no parents worthy of
the name, and I shall never know the joy of being a mother. We must
comfort each other under this great calamity as best we may. They say
you are my little daughter, and since they say so, I almost wish you
were. But I will love you like a daughter, and teach you to love me
like a mother, and so you shall comfort my bruised heart, and I will
try and make your life happy.’
Up to that moment Rosa had fed and washed the baby, and slept with it
in her arms, but now Lizzie took all these sweet maternal duties into
her own hands. She nursed it all that day, and when night came she laid
it in her own bed. When it was fairly asleep, and Rosa had run over to
the negroes’ quarters to chat with her friends, Liz sat down to her
sewing in the sitting-room, calmer and less perplexed than she had been
for days past.
Up to that time she had cherished hope, but now all hope was over. She
knew the worst. It was bitterly hard to know it, but at all events
suspense was at an end, and there was no new trouble to learn. As she
sat by the shaded lamplight, wondering if Mr Courtney knew the name
of her father’s family, and if the knowledge could be of any use to
herself, she heard a light footstep creeping softly along the verandah,
a footstep which she recognised at once, and which she had been wont to
jump up and welcome. But now Liz sat still, with burning cheeks bent
over her needlework. If Maraquita wished to come to any terms with her,
she must be the one to propose them. Liz had prayed her last prayer to
the companion of her childhood. Presently a very low and fearful voice
called her by her name.
‘Lizzie, Lizzie! Are you quite alone?’
But Lizzie refused to answer, and Maraquita was compelled to advance
into the room. She looked very white and scared, and the folds of her
long mantle fell round a fragile figure.
‘Lizzie! Why will you not speak to me? Papa and mamma have gone to the
theatre with Sir Russell Johnstone; but I excused myself on the plea of
a headache, so that I might come and see you.’
‘And what do you want with me?’ demanded Lizzie coldly.
‘Cannot you guess? I am so unhappy at what took place this morning. I
shall not rest until things are right again between us.’
‘I do not understand you, Quita! I conclude you spoke the truth this
morning, or what you believed to be the truth, and I have nothing more
to say upon the subject.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, have pity on me! You know it was not the truth; but what
can I do? Everything that makes life valuable to me seems slipping
through my fingers. I could not make up my mind to confess to my own
ruin.’
‘And so you would ruin me instead--I, who have been like a sister to
you? You would save your own character at the expense of mine?’
‘But not for always, Lizzie. Only let me get this marriage over, and I
shall be better able to see my way before me. And I shall be rich, too,
and able to reward you for your kindness. The child shall never be any
burden to you, Lizzie. You may depend upon me for that.’
‘And do you suppose I would take your money?’ cried the other
contemptuously. ‘Do you ask me to sell my honour? You accuse me
publicly of being the unmarried mother of this child, and then offer
to pay me for the disgrace. You are only heaping insult upon insult,
Quita. You had better leave me before you make me forget myself.’
‘Oh, no, Lizzie, I cannot leave you,’ exclaimed the unhappy girl,
drawing nearer to her, ‘until you have heard all I have to say! You
have always been my best friend, Lizzie. As a little child I used to
run to you in every trouble, and trust you to get me out of every
scrape. You will not do less for me now, Lizzie, will you?’
‘You ask too much, Maraquita. You forget that in helping you out of
this danger, I involve myself, in the way which good women dread above
everything. I have done it, but it is at the expense of our friendship.
I can never be friends with you again.’
‘But you must--you _must_!’ cried Quita, falling on her knees, and
hiding her face in Lizzie’s lap, ‘for your father’s sake, Lizzie, if
not for mine.’
‘I have done it for my father’s sake,’ replied Lizzie, as she moved
away from Maraquita’s clasp. ‘Do you suppose I have not been thinking
of _him_ all to-day, and of the promise I made him? Nothing else would
have kept me silent; but it is over now, and we need say no more upon
the subject. I beg of you, Quita, to leave me, and go home again, for
your presence here is very painful to me.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, don’t be so hard! I am not the unfeeling creature you
take me for. It is only fear of my parents that makes me shrink from
confessing the truth. They would kill me, Lizzie, if they knew it. They
would not let me live to disgrace them.’
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘They would do nothing of the sort. They
would reproach you as they have me, and you richly deserve it. But tell
the truth whilst you are about it, Maraquita. Say that you have no
feeling either for your child or its father (whoever he may be), and I
may believe what you say.’
‘But you are wrong,’ interposed Quita eagerly. ‘I love him dearly, and
I should have loved _it_ also, if I had not been afraid. And I can
prove it to you, Lizzie, for I have come here to-night to see the baby,
and I shall come as often as I can without exciting suspicion. Where is
she? Let me see her at once.’
‘What baby?’ demanded Liz, with affected ignorance.
‘Oh, Liz! how can you ask? Why, my own baby, of course! The one you
have in charge.’
‘I thought you denied this morning that you were a mother, Quita?’
‘I was obliged to do so. What could I say, with mamma or papa liable to
come in at any moment? You might as well have asked me to cut my own
throat. But here, alone with you, I can say anything! I confess it is
mine, Lizzie, and that I knew all about it from the beginning. I told
your dear father everything; and he promised that he and you should
stand my friends, and prevent my secret from being published to the
world.’
‘I have heard all this before,’ said Lizzie, still engaged upon her
sewing.
‘And now you will let me see her, won’t you? You will let me hold her
in my arms for a little while? I must not stay long, for fear that
meddlesome old Jessica should come after me. You will take me to my
baby at once, Lizzie?’
‘No,’ replied the Doctor’s daughter firmly.
‘What do you mean? Isn’t she here?’
‘Yes; but you will not see her.’
‘How dare you keep me from her? She is mine, not yours.’
‘You did not say so this morning.’
‘Ah, but then I was mad!’
‘Are you prepared, then, to take your child back to the White House
with you? Will you confess the lie of which you have been guilty to
your parents, and exonerate me in their eyes of the charge you have
brought against me?’
Maraquita shrank backward.
‘Oh, Liz! that is too much. I should destroy all my prospects at a blow
by such an admission. Besides, it has nothing to do with the matter.
All I want is to see the child. Surely you will not refuse so trifling
a request?’
‘I do refuse it.’
‘But you have no right to do so.’
‘By your own account, Maraquita, I have every right. You declared
before your mother that this child was mine. Therefore I will keep it
as such, and I refuse to let you see her.’
‘And I am determined not to leave the bungalow till I have done so!’
cried Quita, rushing towards the bedroom door.
But Lizzie had reached it before she did, and stood with her back
against the panels.
‘You shall not enter here,’ she said, in a tone of authority.
Then Quita took to beseeching. She fell on her knees again, and held
Lizzie tightly clasped about her feet.
‘Oh, my dear sister, let me see my baby, if only for a minute! I have
been thinking of her ever since this morning, Lizzie,--of the dark eyes
you spoke of,--the tiny waxen hands and feet, and the rosebud mouth;
and I feel as if I should die if I do not have her in my arms, and kiss
her, and tell her that I am her mother.’
‘Will you tell the world so, Maraquita?’
‘You know that I cannot.’
‘Then you will not see your child until you do,’ replied Lizzie, as
she locked the bedroom door, and put the key into her pocket. ‘You
have openly disgraced me by palming on me the consequences of your own
sin. You have denied your motherhood, and given up your most sacred
rights and duties. Well, for your sake, and to conceal your shame, I
accept them; and the first act which I exercise is to keep the child to
myself.’
‘You actually refuse?’ cried Quita, starting to her feet, crimson with
indignation.
‘Emphatically. There is only one way you can secure the privilege, and
that is by an open confession of the truth.’
‘Then I shall never do it! And you may carry the burden to your life’s
end!’ exclaimed Maraquita furiously. ‘And another with it, for you do
not know all. You have never asked me the name of the father of this
child! You came crying to me this morning about Henri de Courcelles,
and how much you loved him, and how anxious he was to discover the
parentage of my baby. He has lied to you! He has made use of this
dilemma to get rid of you; for he knows whose baby this is as well
as I do. He knows the mother and the father of it--for the father is
_himself_!’
She watched the light fade out of Lizzie’s eyes as the cruel truth
smote upon her heart, and she grasped at the back of a chair to save
herself from falling. But when the first shock was over, she refused to
believe the story.
‘_Henri!_’ she exclaimed, in a faint voice. ‘But it is _impossible_!
Henri is--is--_mine_!’
‘He pretended to be!’ cried Quita maliciously, ‘because it was a good
blind for them up at the White House, I suppose, but he has been mine
and mine only for the last twelve months, and he is nearly mad at the
idea of losing me now.’
‘And why must he lose you?’ said Lizzie quickly, forgetting her own
pain in her lover’s wrongs. ‘If what you say is true, why do you not
marry him, and take care of your little child between you?’
Maraquita shrugged her shoulders.
‘Because my people will not hear of such a marriage for me, and think I
should lower myself by becoming the wife of an overseer.’
‘Not so much as you have lowered yourself already, Quita.’
‘Perhaps not, but nobody knows that! And then I am already engaged, so
it is of no use talking about anything else.’
‘Poor Henri,’ sighed Lizzie.
‘I can’t see why he is to be pitied! He knew from the beginning that it
must all end some day. But I little dreamt it would end like this. _I_
am the one who has suffered all the risk and the blame, and yet no one
seems to pity _me_.’
Lizzie was silent. Her heart was burning within her, and yet pride
prevented her speech. It was cruelly humiliating to find that all the
time she had been engaged to be married to De Courcelles, he had been
carrying on with another girl, and had even had the audacity to make
his own fault the putative cause for breaking off his engagement to
her. She could not decide at the moment whether she loved or hated him
the most, his conduct appeared in so mean and despicable a light.
‘You are right, Maraquita,’ she continued, after a pause. ‘He is not
worthy of your pity or mine. He has cruelly deceived us both--and you
perhaps the most, since even, if he loved you best, he has served you
worst! Even now--in the first pitiless agony of hearing your news--I
can thank God I do not stand in your position. And if you should ever
think better of your decision regarding him, remember I shall not stand
in your light, for from this day Henri de Courcelles will be less than
nothing to me.’
‘But the child!--you will not desert the child?’ exclaimed Quita, with
something like maternal anxiety in her voice.
Liz shuddered.
‘It will be a double burthen to me now,’ she answered; ‘but I have
already resolved to do as my father would have wished me, and I will
not shirk my self-imposed duty. I will do my utmost for the child.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, you are very good! You make me feel so ashamed of myself,’
said Quita, attempting to kiss her adopted sister.
But Lizzie sprung aside from her.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried. ‘Don’t stay near me any longer, or I
shall be unable to conceal the loathing I feel for your conduct! False
lover--false mother--false friend! Oh, Maraquita, Maraquita! it
would have been better if God had called you to Himself when you were
as innocent as your unfortunate baby! You and he, between you, have
destroyed all my faith in human nature.’
And Liz, throwing herself into a chair, and laying down her head upon
the table, sobbed so bitterly and unrestrainedly, that Quita, terrified
at the sound, which might attract spectators to spread abroad the news
of her being in the bungalow, fled out into the darkness again, and
made her way back to the White House.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]