Wife in Name Only, Charlotte Mary Brame [carter reed txt] 📗

friend in childhood. Now there came to her a terrible doubt. What if she had stood in Madaline's light, instead of being her friend? She had not been informed of the arrangements between the doctor and his patron, but people had said to her, when the doctor died, that the child had better be sent to the work-house--and that had frightened her. Now she wondered whether she had done right or wrong. What if she, who of all the world had been the one to love Madaline best, had been her greatest foe?

Thinking of this, she walked along the soft greensward. She thought of the old life in the pretty cottage at Ashwood, where for so short a time she had been happy with her handsome, ne'er-do-well husband, whom at first she had loved so blindly; she thought of the lovely, golden-haired child which she had loved so wildly, and of the kind, clever doctor, who had been so suddenly called to his account; and then her thoughts wandered to the stranger who had intrusted his child to her care. Had she done wrong in leaving him all these years in such utter ignorance of his child's welfare? Had she wronged him? Ought she to have waited patiently until he had returned or sent? If she were ever to meet him again, would he overwhelm her with reproaches? She thought of his tall, erect figure, of his handsome face, so sorrowful and sad, of his mournful eyes, which always looked as though his heart lay buried with his dead wife.

Suddenly her face grew deathly pale, her lips flew apart with a terrified cry, her whole frame trembled. She raised her hands as one who would fain ward off a blow, for, standing just before her, looking down on her with stern, indignant eyes, was the stranger who had intrusted his child to her.

For some minutes--how many she never knew--they stood looking at each other--he stern, indignant, haughty, she trembling, frightened, cowed.

"I recognize you again," he said, at length, in a harsh voice.

Cowed, subdued, she fell on her knees at his feet.

"Woman," he cried, "where is my child?"

She made him no answer, but covered her face with her hands.

"Where is my child?" he repeated. "I intrusted her to you--where is she?"

The white lips opened, and some feeble answer came which he could not hear.

"Where is my child?" he demanded. "What have you done with her? For Heaven's sake, answer me!" he implored.

Again she murmured something he could not catch, and he bent over her. If ever in his life Lord Mountdean lost his temper, he lost it then. He could almost, in his impatience, have forgotten that it was a woman who was kneeling at his feet, and could have shaken her until she spoke intelligibly. His anger was so great he could have struck her. But he controlled himself.

"I am not the most patient of men, Margaret Dornham," he said; "and you are trying me terribly. In the name of Heaven, I ask you, what have you done with my child?"

"I have not injured her," she sobbed.

"Is she living or dead?" asked the earl, with terrible calmness.

"She is living," replied the weeping woman.

Lord Mountdean raised his face reverently to the summer sky.

"Thank Heaven!" he said, devoutly; and then added, turning to the woman--"Living and well?"

"No, not well; but she will be in time. Oh, sir, forgive me! I did wrong, perhaps, but I thought I was acting for the best."

"It was a strange 'best,'" he said, "to place a child beyond its parent's reach."

"Oh, sir," cried Margaret Dornham, "I never thought of that! She came to me in my dead child's place--it was to me as though my own child had come back again. You could not tell how I loved her. Her little head lay on my breast, her little fingers caressed me, her little voice murmured sweet words to me. She was my own child--I loved her so, sir!" and the poor woman's voice was broken with sobs. "All the world was hard and cruel and cold to me--the child never was; all the world disappointed me--the child never did. My heart soul clung to her. And then, sir, when she was able to run about, a pretty, graceful, loving child, the very joy of my heart and sunshine of my life, the doctor died, and I was left alone with her."

She paused for some few minutes, her whole frame shaken with sobs. The earl, bending down, spoke kindly to her.

"I am quite sure," he said, "that if you erred it has been through love for my child. Tell me all--have no fear."

"I was in the house, sir," she continued, "when the poor doctor was carried home dead--in his sitting-room with my--with little Madaline--and when I saw the confusion that followed upon his death, I thought of the papers in the oaken box; and, without saying a word to any one, I took it and hid it under my shawl."

"But, tell me," said the earl, kindly, "why did you do that?"

"I can hardly remember now," she replied--"it is so long since. I think my chief motive was dread lest my darling should be taken from me. I thought that, if strangers opened the box and found out who she was, they would take her away from me, and I should never see her again. I knew that the box held all the papers relating to her, so I took it deliberately."

"Then, of course," said the earl, "you know her history?"

"No," she replied, quickly; "I have never opened the box."

"Never opened it!" he exclaimed, wonderingly.

"No, sir--I have never even touched it; it is wrapped in my old shawl just as I brought it away."

"But why have you never opened it?" he asked, still wondering.

"Because, sir, I did not wish to know who the little child really was, lest, in discovering that, I should discover something also which would compel me to give her up."

Lord Mountdean looked at her in astonishment. How woman-like she was! How full of contradictions! What strength and weakness, what honor and dishonor, what love and selfishness did not her conduct reveal!

"Then," continued Margaret Dornham, "when the doctor died, people frightened me. They said that the child must go to the work-house. My husband soon afterward got into dreadful trouble, and I determined to leave the village. I tell the truth, sir. I was afraid, too, that you would return and claim the child; so I took her away with me to London. My husband was quite indifferent--I could do as I liked, he said. I took her and left no trace behind. After we reached London, my husband got into trouble again; but I always did my best for the darling child. She was well dressed, well fed, well cared for, well educated--she has had the training of a lady."

"But," put in Lord Mountdean, "did you never read my advertisments?"

"No, sir," she replied; "I have not been in the habit of reading newspapers."

"It was strange that you should remain hidden in London while people were looking for you," he said. "What was your husband's trouble, Mrs. Dornham?"

"He committed a burglary, sir; and, as he had been convicted before, his sentence was a heavy one."

"And my daughter, you say, is living, but not well? Where is she?"

"I will take you to her, sir," was the reply--"at once, if you will go."

"I will not lose a minute," said the earl, hastily. "It is time, Mrs. Dornham, that you knew my name, and my daughter's also. I am the Earl of Mountdean, and she is Lady Madaline Charlewood."

On hearing this, Margaret Dornham was more frightened than ever. She rose from her knees and stood before him.

"If I have done wrong, my lord," she said, "I beg of you to pardon me--it was all, as I thought, for the best. So the child whom I have loved and cherished was a grand lady after all?"

"Do not let us lose a moment," he said. "Where is my daughter?"

"She lives not far from here; but we cannot walk--the distance is too great," replied Margaret.

"Well, we are near to the town of Lynton--it is not twenty minutes walk; we will go to an hotel, and get a carriage. I--I can hardly endure this suspense."

He never thought to ask her how she had come thither; it never occurred to him. His whole soul was wrapped in the one idea--that he was to see his child again--Madaline's child--the little babe he had held in his arms, whose little face he had bedewed with tears--his own child--the daughter he had lost for long years and had tried so hard to find. He never noticed the summer woods through which he was passing; he never heard the wild birds' song; of sunshine or shade he took no note. The heart within him was on fire, for he was going to see his only child--his lost child--the daughter whose voice he had never heard.

"Tell me," he said, stopping abruptly, and looking at Margaret "you saw my poor wife when she lay dead--is my child like her?"

Margaret answered quickly.

"She is like her; but, to my mind, she is a thousand times fairer."

They reached the principal hotel at Lynton, and Lord Mountdean called hastily for a carriage. Not a moment was to be lost--time pressed.

"You know the way," he said to Margaret, "will you direct the driver?"

He did not think to ask where his daughter lived, if she was married or single, what she was doing or anything else; his one thought was that he had found her--found her, never to lose her again.

He sat with his face shaded by his hand during the whole of the drive, thanking Heaven that he had found Madaline's child. He never noticed the woods, the high-road bordered with trees, the carriage-drive with its avenue of chestnuts; he did not even recognize the picturesque, quaint old Dower House that he had admired so greatly some little time before. He saw a large mansion, but it never occurred to him to ask whether his daughter was mistress or servant; he only knew that the carriage had stopped, and that very shortly he should see his child.

Presently he found himself in a large hall gay with flowers and covered with Indian matting, and Margaret Dornham was trembling before him.

"My lord," she said, "your daughter is ill, and I am afraid the agitation may prove too much for her. Tell me, what shall I do?"

He collected his scattered thoughts.

"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that she has been kept In complete ignorance of her history all these years?"

"She has been brought up in the belief that she is my daughter," said Margaret--"she knows nothing else."

A dark frown came over the earl's face.

"It was wickedly unjust," he said--"cruelly unjust. Let me go to her at once,"

Pale, trembling, and frightened, Margaret led the way. It seemed to the earl that his heart had stopped beating, and a thick mist was spread before his eyes, that the surging of a deep sea filled his ears. Oh, Heaven, could it be that after all these years he was really going to see Madaline's child, his own lost daughter? Very soon he found himself looking on a