Fate helped Mrs. Meade to the accomplishment of her wish.
One day all the negro servants had leave of absence to attend a meeting of some society very popular with all of their race, and there was no one left to answer the doorbell but the housekeeper.
In the afternoon Mrs. Wylde and Rosalind went out to do some shopping, and Mrs. Meade seated herself with Pet in the wide, cool hall, that she might be within hearing of the bell.
“Ain’t you doin’ to take me on the Capitol Square dis even’?” queried Pet.
“No, my precious, I can’t take you out to-day,” answered the kind old woman, putting down her knitting to caress the beautiful boy, whose sunny curls and bright black eyes were so dear to her heart.
“Den I wish dat pretty yady would tum adin,” exclaimed the child, looking longingly at the front door.
At that moment there came a hurried, nervous peal at the doorbell.
Mrs. Falconer had been driving out alone when she saw Mrs. Wylde and her daughter entering a store on Broad Street, and she almost instantly left her carriage and directed the driver to wait for her, as she desired to do some shopping.
Entering the same store, she bought a box of handkerchiefs, then, slipping out quietly, she made her way on foot to Grace Street, scarcely knowing what she meant to do, but thrilled by a wild longing to see once more the lovely child that she believed was her own.
In the absence of the family, she believed that little Pet might perhaps be permitted the freedom of the house. She might make some pretext for entering the house and awaiting Mrs. Wylde’s return. Thus she might catch a glimpse of the little one whose charms had won her heart.
She rang the bell with a trembling hand, and, to her joy and amazement, the first thing she saw when the door opened was little Pet, clinging to the dress of the white-haired, kindly looking old woman who invited her in.
“Pretty yady! pretty yady!” screamed the child, and those words acquainted Mrs. Meade with the fact that Mrs. Falconer stood before her.
“Will you walk in, ma’am? The ladies are out shopping, but they may come in at any minute,” she exclaimed eagerly, anxious that little Pet should have a few minutes at least with the woman he loved so dearly.
Mrs. Falconer trailed her soft summer silk through the doorway, and held out her hands to the eager child.
“Well, I will rest a few minutes, anyhow, as I walked from Broad Street and feel quite tired,” she exclaimed, adding gayly: “Oh, how cool and nice it is here in the hall. I will not go into the parlor, please.”
She sank down upon the broad antique sofa, and little Pet, as clean and sweet as a rosebud, in his little white dress and slippers, climbed into her lap and clasped his chubby arms about her neck. Mrs. Meade closed and locked the door, and began to expostulate with him.
“Oh, please don’t scold him! Let him stay with me. I love children so dearly!” exclaimed Pansy, pressing the child to her heart and kissing him many times.
Then she looked up a little apprehensively at the old woman, asking timidly:
“Are you—his—mother?”
“No, madam; he’s my adopted child. He was left at this door almost three years ago, and I begged the family to let me keep the poor little forsaken baby for my own. I’m only the housekeeper, ma’am, and the child’s company for me,” explained Mrs. Meade, looking curiously into the beautiful, agitated face before her and wondering if Mrs. Falconer could possibly know anything of the child’s parentage, for the tender interest she took in him seemed very strange.
“Can you remember what month it was when the child was left here?” queried Pansy eagerly.
“It was on the night of the twenty-eighth of May, ma’am, and I feel sure it wasn’t more than an hour old—a poor little deserted newborn baby,” said Mrs. Meade, and Pansy sternly repressed a cry of joy as she hid her startled face in the boy’s plump neck, pretending to bite him, that she might hear his vociferous baby laughter.
“He is mine! It is just as I thought. I was deceived by my mother, and my child stolen from me. Oh, what am I to do, for I feel that I cannot live without him?” she thought wildly.
The little one clung to her, showering her face with kisses, and filling Mrs. Meade with wonder, for he was usually very shy of strangers.
“Would you like to see the clothes he wore when he came here?” she asked, and went away, returning presently with a bundle, which she unrolled before Pansy’s eyes.
“See this little linen shirt and gown, so neatly trimmed with crochet edging, and this fine soft flannel petticoat,” she said; and Pansy almost fainted when she saw the selfsame baby garments on which she had worked, in silence and secrecy, so many nights when she was at home, a wretched creature, looking forward with dread to her baby’s coming.
She wound her arms about the child, and said faintly:
“You ought to take good care of these things, for by their aid you might be enabled to trace the child’s mother some time.”
But she flushed deeply when Mrs. Meade answered:
“I mean to take care of them, but I don’t know as I care to trace the mother. She must be a hard-hearted creature, to abandon her baby like she did.”
“Oh, don’t judge her so hardly, please. Perhaps—perhaps—it was not her fault. They might have taken it from her,” exclaimed Pansy pleadingly, then paused in dismay, for, by the sudden lighting up of Mrs. Meade’s face, she saw that she had made a mistake in speaking so impulsively. Anxious to remove any suspicion from the woman’s mind, she went on apologetically: “Of course, the mother might have been hard-hearted. There are plenty such women, but it does seem strange that any one could desert such a beautiful child as this one.”
“He is beautiful, and as good and sweet as he is pretty,” said Mrs. Meade warmly, and Pansy exclaimed, almost passionately:
“I wish he had been left at my door! I would certainly have adopted him for my own. I love him dearly.”
“I ’ove oo!” cried little Pet, gazing into her beautiful face with shining eyes, and she strained him close to her heart again, exclaiming:
“Oh, you sweet little darling!”
Mrs. Meade gazed on the pretty scene with wonder and suspicion, asking herself why Mrs. Falconer and the child were so strongly attached to each other. She knew that Norman Wylde had been in trouble several years before on account of a pretty factory girl, who was reported to have drowned herself, but she had never heard that there was a child in the case. She wondered now if that unfortunate girl had looked like Mrs. Falconer.
“I mean to find out,” she resolved, just as Pansy looked up and asked pleadingly:
“Won’t you give me this child if my husband will allow me to adopt him? I will be like a mother to him, educate him, bring him up to a noble manhood, if he lives.”
“Would you like to go with the lady, and leave your poor old Meade, my pet?” exclaimed the housekeeper, and the little one murmured a delighted affirmative.
“You see!” cried Pansy triumphantly. “Now, may I have him?”
Mrs. Meade shook her head.
“Colonel Falconer would never permit you to have him,” she said.
“My husband has never refused a request of mine in our whole acquaintance,” cried Pansy impatiently.
“But he would refuse this,” said Mrs. Meade. “You will have some children of your own some time, Mrs. Falconer, then this poor little one would be thrust aside. No, no—I could not part with him, even to one who likes him as much as you do, dear lady.”
Pansy gazed at her with a grieved and baffled air. Her red under lip quivered and tears started to her beautiful eyes. For a moment she could not speak, so bitter was her disappointment; and Mrs. Meade folded up the tiny garments in an embarrassed fashion, ashamed of refusing the lady’s request, but feeling that she was acting for the best.
Suddenly a bright thought came to Pansy.
“Mrs. Meade, I see that you love Pet too well to give him up,” she said gently. “I don’t blame you, for I love him dearly myself. But couldn’t you come and be my housekeeper? Then I could see him every day.”
Mrs. Meade threw up her hands in dismay.
“Leave the Wyldes!” she cried. “Oh, my dear young lady, I’ve kept house for them these twenty-five years, and to leave them now would be like pulling up an old tree by the roots. I’m too old to be transplanted. I should die.”
Pansy clasped the child close to her aching heart with a cry of despair that she could not repress.
“Oh, my little darling, my little darling, I shall see you no more, then! Fate is too strong for us,” she cried.
Mrs. Meade took off her spectacles and wiped the moisture of tears from them. She was deeply touched by Pansy’s affection for Pet, and, after a moment, she said significantly:
“Mrs. Falconer, I’m sorry to seem harsh and unkind, refusing to give you the child, but I know you will forget it directly. While, as for me, my heart is bound up in him, and I’ve always said that I’d never give up my claim, except to some one who had a better right to him than I have.”
Pansy glanced up, startled, and met the significant gaze of the kind old eyes. She understood.
With a burning blush, she put the little one out of her arms and rose to go.
“Then, of course, I can urge you no longer. Your claim is too strong,” she said, trying to speak coldly, as a mask for her bitter disappointment.
“As for not seeing Pet any more, Mrs. Falconer, if you care about it I can make it easy enough for you to see him. I take him to the Capitol Square every pleasant afternoon,” said Mrs. Meade; and then she asked eagerly; “Won’t you come in the parlor and play the piano for Pet? He loves music so dearly.”
“I ought to go this minute,” she said, but yielded to the tiny, persuasive little fingers that clasped hers, and stayed almost an hour longer, playing and singing for the delighted little one.
When she took leave she slipped a golden coin in the baby fingers.
“To buy candy,” she said, kissing him fondly, and promising to come to the Capitol Square the next afternoon to see him. Then she tore herself away, and Mrs. Meade had hard work to console Pet, who wept bitterly at the parting.