AMY’S story took long to tell. Not in one continuous narrative, but at long intervals, and in answer to many questions did she give her father the history of the days she had spent away from home.
And this is the substance of her narrative.
On that bright August morning, the day after her first ball, she went out of the house with a light step and a gay young heart. No thought of care or sorrow in her mind, on the verge of womanhood, with a life full of promise and brightness stretching out before her, the world, as it were, at her feet, and the crown of her youth and beauty on her head, suddenly a dark cloud fell over it all, shutting out the brilliant landscape and sunlight, and enveloping youth, beauty, hope and promise, the whole of the glory of the summer’s day, in the mist and darkness of the valley of the shadow of death.
Amy Warden, thinking only of her last night’s scene of triumph (for such it had been to her) walked gaily through her father’s grounds till she came almost to the verge of the park lands. Here she met the postman, “My letters, if you please,” she said, exchanging a kind “good morning” with the man. He handed two to her in feminine handwriting, and passed on. The first she quickly disposed of, it was from a young girl friend, declining an invitation of Amy’s for the following day. The second, in a strange foreign hand, although bearing the London post mark, she opened as she quitted the park for the Dunwich high road. It was (as has already been stated) market day at Dunwich, and two or three villagers from Harleyford passed at this moment with whom she exchanged greetings, and who, for the time, drew her attention from the letter.
Once more turning her eye upon the page, she read words which made park, woodland and road alike swim before her eyes, and which sent her young blood rushing to her face and back again with a chill to her heart. Recovering herself partially, she turned back into the park lands, and there, under the shadow of the great trees, read through her letter.
It was written partly in Cevenol patois, partly in good French, and thus it ran:—
“MA MIGNONNE,—
“Hast thou forgotten Isola, thy nurse? Hast thou forgotten the one who rocked thee in her arms to sleep, and led thee over the mountain to gather wild campions to weave garlands and crowns for thy beautiful mother? Dost thou know thou hast a mother living now among those mountains? Has he who shadowed and cursed her young life told thee the story of her suffering and wrong? For twelve long years, ma cherie, has she lived a life of loneliness and sorrow, and now she lies on a bed of sickness and pain with the hand of death upon her. She is wearying for thee, my Aimée, wilt thou not go to her? I am in London, and I wait all day long at your great Midland Station, for I know thou wilt come. I shall know your sweet face among a thousand, for have I not seen it night after night in my dreams? And thou! thou wilt know Isola, thy old nurse, by her brown hood and cloak of the mountains.”
In utter bewilderment and amazement, with every nerve in her body jarring and trembling, Amy read and re-read her letter, and as she did so the conviction of its genuineness and truth forced itself upon her. Two thoughts only remained on her mind, the first, “my father told me a bitter cruel lie when he denied my mother to my face, and placed another in her stead;” the second, “my mother still lives! If I hasten I may yet see her before she dies. My darling, beautiful mother, whom unknowingly I have loved all through my life.”
Her anger against her father was only exceeded by one feeling, her intense, fervent love for her mother, whose image now stood out distinctly in her young memory. Isola’s words had brought back a whole world of recollections, the crowns of flowers, the mountain paths, the things which to her had seemed before but floating fancies or childish dreams, now took their right form as distinct vivid realities.
Not knowing anything of the circumstances which had brought about Mr. Warden’s separation from his first wife, to her excited imagination he appeared a perfect monster of wickedness, a cruel, fickle tyrant, who had cast off one who loved him truly, for the sake of another woman—
“He told me a lie,” she kept repeating to herself again and again, “to make me love that other woman, and to steel my heart against my own mother.”
Then the picture of that mother, lying sick unto death, rose before her mind, and one thought swept away every other.
“I will go to her at once,” she said with a wild cry, “at any risk, at any cost. Who knows, I may yet perhaps save her life.”
With Amy, to think was to act; not a moment’s hesitation now. There was another way to Dunwich station, besides the high road—a quiet way, which led through fields and lanes, a little circuitously, perhaps, and for that reason not likely to be traversed on the busy market day by any but gipsies or tramps. This road Amy at once took; she knew there was a train leaving for London about noon, and this she determined if possible to save. What was a five miles walk to a girl at her age, young, active and strong; besides had she not one all-absorbing thought to shorten her road, and lend wings to her feet—
“I am going to the mother I have dreamed of and loved all through my young life.”
Once arrived at Dunwich, she was pretty sure to escape recognition. The station (a junction, with a large amount of traffic) was on market days positively crowded, and Amy, passing rapidly through the throng, took her ticket, and seated herself in the London train without more than a casual glance from the guard, to whom she was personally unknown.
Then she had time for thought. But the more she thought, the more the difficulties of her position grew upon her. How could she act for the best? It was simply an impossibility for her to consult her father on the matter, for would not all his efforts be directed to keep her mother out of her rightful position, and would he who had lived so long in sin (so she thought) with another, be likely to have any sympathy for her in her present undertaking.
“I will wait and consult with Isola,” was the young girl’s thought as the train whirled her on towards London, “she will most likely know what my mother’s wishes are,” and as she thought of that mother, and the years of suffering her father’s cruelty had condemned her to endure, every feeling was absorbed in one indignant resolve to leave no means untried to have that mother righted and restored, if not to happiness, at least to peace and honour.
As the train entered the London Station, she noticed a woman clad in a long brown cloak, with a peasant’s hood drawn over her head, whom she quickly identified as Isola; not from her recollection of her nurse’s face, for here memory failed her, nor yet alone from her dress, which, though strange, seemed familiar to her, but the woman was evidently waiting and watching, and her long earnest gaze into each carriage as the train drew up at the platform, could not fail to strike the most casual observer—
“Ma bonne, ma bonne,” said Amy in a low voice, as she jumped from the train, stretching out both hands towards her nurse—
“Holy mother!” exclaimed the woman, seizing Amy’s hand, and passionately kissing it—
“Which of my two children is it that I see? The eyes, the voice, the hands, the hair are her mother’s own. My child, bless the Saints and Holy Mary whenever you look at your sweet face in the glass, for thou wilt never be without thy mother’s portrait all thy life long.”
Then followed question and answer in rapid succession. Amy ascertained from Isola that her mother had entered the convent of St. Geneviève, some few miles distant from their old home. Isola breathed not a word of her mother’s transgression, nor how she had abandoned husband and child for the caprice of a moment. Isola’s intense love for, and devotion to her mistress, blinded her to all her faults; she could see her in but one light, that of a wronged, suffering woman, and as such she spoke of her. She dwelt long upon Mr. Warden’s harshness and cruelty to his young wife, and told Amy how at length his treatment became insupportable, and they were compelled to seek another home; how that her mother had eventually taken vows in the Convent of St. Geneviève, seeking in religion the happiness she could not find in the world. Isola made no mention of the lie passed off on Mr. Warden respecting his wife’s death. To her mind the one weak point in Aimée’s character was her love for her husband and her real penitence for her fault. This to Isola was simply incomprehensible—
“The man hates you, why should you love him?” was her argument. “He treated you badly, you did well to leave him.”
Nevertheless, whatever order Aimée gave must be carried out to the very letter, and with the blind unreasoning fidelity of a dog, she obeyed her mistress’s slightest wish.
Thus it was, that intentionally or unintentionally, Isola’s narrative conveyed a very wrong impression to Amy’s mind. The young girl scarcely realized her own feelings towards her father, so completely had they been reversed—
“I could not have believed all this Isola, even from your lips,” she said passionately, “if he had not himself told me a lie, and denied my own mother to my face.”
So they journeyed on. Miss Warden had only a few sovereigns in her purse, but Isola seemed to be well supplied with money—
“Where does all your money come from?” asked Amy wonderingly, as she noticed Isola’s well-filled purse. Isola pointed to her ears, despoiled of ornaments—
“You sold them!” exclaimed Amy, “why, they must have represented the savings of at least twenty years,” she added, recollecting the practice of the French peasantry to invest their earnings in jewellery, and especially in earrings, which they exchange for others more valuable as they rise and prosper in the world. Isola bowed her head—
“Could they be yielded to one more worthy, or to one who had a greater right?” she enquired earnestly.
Tears filled Amy’s eyes at the proof of such devotion, and she said no more.
By the time they arrived at Folkestone, Amy had become more calm and collected. She endeavoured to mark out for herself some plan of action—
“I think Isola,” she suggested, “we will telegraph to my father from here that I am safe and well, and that he will hear from me again.”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Isola, “and be stopped by the police on landing at Boulogne! No, no, my child, wait till thou hast safely reached thy mother, then telegraph, write, or do what thou wilt.”
Amy saw the force of the argument, and contended no more, but it was difficult, nay impossible for a girl who had loved her father so passionately as she had, to shut out altogether from her imagination the agony of mind he must be suffering at her unaccountable absence. But what could she do? The difficulties of her position seemed insuperable, and her mind had become so bewildered, she felt she could scarcely now distinguish between right and wrong. Besides, the one all-absorbing intense desire to see her mother had taken such possession of her, that every other feeling was comparatively deadened.
They crossed by the night mail to Boulogne, and thence without delay continued the route to Le Puy. A wearisome journey, and which, to Amy, seemed endless, so long and dreary seemed the hours which kept her apart from her idolised mother. At length it was accomplished, and at the time that the whole country round Harleyford had risen to join in the fruitless search, and Frank Varley and Lord Hardcastle had clasped hands in a solemn vow to rest not day nor night till the wanderer was brought home, Amy was lying in her mother’s arms at the Convent of St. Geneviève, or kneeling by her side kissing her hands, feet, or dress, in a perfect ecstasy and bewilderment of joy that her wildest imaginings were at last realized, and that she had found a mother indeed.
“Ah,” said Amy, here breaking off her narrative and drawing a long breath. “No one could have painted my mother to me as she really was and as I found her. It would have needed a special inspiration to have done so. To describe material beauty, the beauty of form, colour, and outline—yes, it can be done; but to paint the many transparent tints of a sunbeam, or the light and shadow of a handful of the sparkling, rippling stream! It is impossible. When one can be found to do this then may he begin to paint my mother in all her changeful, wondrous beauty. As a very empress, as a star in a dark sky she shone out among the little brown nuns at St. Geneviève. They were all so little, so brown, so old, not a young face among them. Not one of them had been the other side of the mountains for more than thirty years. They were all most kind and courteous, and so indulgent to my mother in all her caprices, treating her almost as a wayward, spoilt child, and only insisting on such matters as were absolutely necessary to keep up the discipline of the convent. In her tiny bare little room, in her coarse brown-grey dress, my mother had passed ten of the best years of her life. It is marvellous to me, knowing her as I now do, that the routine and confinement of a convent life had not broken her spirit and quite worn her out. Oh, papa, I hate routine, I hate discipline, I detest a quiet, orderly life, and yet I feel as if, should I live to be withered, and brown, and old, I should like to come here to these kind little nuns and end my days in peace with them.”
Amy sighed wearily; she often sighed now. The strange events through which she had lately passed had tried her beyond measure, but the bitterest trial of all had been the choice she had been compelled to make between her father and her mother. To believe in the truth of the one was to acknowledge the falsehood of the other, and it was hard indeed for her young, loving heart to choose between the two.
Mr. Warden looked at his daughter anxiously. She was greatly changed, and he could not but feel that his bright, light-hearted Amy would never come back again. Now and then flashes of her old self would shine out, and she would look up in his face with her own laughing eyes, but it was only now and then, and the Amy of to-day was a sadder, paler, more thoughtful being than the Amy of six months ago.
“Amy, dear,” said Mr. Warden, tenderly, “tell me one thing and I will ask no more questions to-night. Did your mother ever allude in any way to the wrong she once did me, or did you learn this story from some one else?”
“From Lord Hardcastle,” replied Amy. “When I first saw my mother, as she clasped me in her arms, she said, ‘my darling, do you know the whole truth, and can you love me still?’ I, imagining she referred to your neglect and cruelty, and her impatience and flight as described by Isola, replied that I did know the whole truth, and I loved her better than ever. After this nothing more was said by either of us on the matter. It was not until Lord Hardcastle stood before me on the rocks and insisted, with his thin pale face and solemn manner, that I should hear the whole truth and then judge between my parents, that I knew what had really occurred. Papa, papa, I felt then I should hate him for ever and ever for having cast down my idol from its pedestal. Yet,” she added, tearfully, “I ought to be grateful to him, too, for has he not given back to me my own dear father, and cleared away the cloud that had risen up between us?”
“Thank God for that, indeed, my child, and had it not been for him, Amy, your father would not be here talking to you now. A few more such days of grief and anxiety would have worn out the last remains of my strength. I owe Lord Hardcastle a debt I can never repay, and it pained me beyond measure the other day to hear your abrupt question as to his right to wear your ring. You must have wounded him deeply.”
“But, papa, dear, that was because he was not equal to the occasion. Some gentlemen I know, such as Mr. Varley for instance, would have said ‘if I had but the right to wear it,’ or some such polite speech. Of course I should have thought it very impertinent and great nonsense. But no one will ever accuse Lord Hardcastle of talking nonsense! He mounts his high horse immediately, gives me back my ring with scarcely a word, and with the air of an emperor walks out of the room!”
“Amy,” said Mr. Warden, after a moment’s pause, “you spoke of Frank Varley just now; do you care to know what has become of him?”
“Yes,” said Amy, looking up eagerly, “where is he, papa? What did he do when he heard I was lost? Tell me, don’t keep me waiting an instant,” she added in her old tone and manner.
“For one whole month, my child,” said Mr. Warden, carefully watching his daughter’s face, “he was broken-hearted, inconsolable, in fact all but a madman. The next,” he said this very slowly, for he was loth to strike the blow, “he was engaged to Mary Burton, and married ten days afterwards.”
A start, a shiver, a very flushed and then a very pale face, that was all, and then Amy repeated in a strangely quiet tone, “Married to Mary Burton! I remember her well, that large, fair, good-looking girl, who didn’t know how to make men look at her! We won’t talk any more to-day, papa. The little doctor will scold me if I keep you up late and tire you. Ah!” she said with a sigh and a look towards the mountains, “I think those little brown nuns at St. Geneviève have a far better time of it than we who stand out here in the cold and storm to fight our life’s battle!”