Edith Lyle

Five days after the bridal party at Schuyler Hill Edith and Gertie sat together in the boudoir of the latter talking of the Providence which had thrown them so constantly together, and of the way in which they were at last made known to each other.

“I have often thought of the night Mrs. Rogers died,” Edith said, “and I think there must have been something on her mind which she wished to tell me about you. Do you suppose she could have known you were my child?”

“No, she could not have kept it so many years,” Gertie said, “and yet I can remember many things she used to say about my parentage, which I interpret differently now from what I did when my thoughts were all in another channel.”

“One would have supposed that knowing as she must have known her liability to sudden death she would have left some writing which might throw light upon your history. You are sure she did not?” Edith said, and Gertie replied:

“Yes, sure; or at least I think I am. Norah and I looked over everything carefully at the time, and there was nothing but a bundle of old letters and receipts.”

“Did you destroy them?” Edith asked, and Gertie answered her:

“No, I have them still in the box where I keep the souvenirs of my childhood. I’ll bring them, if you like, though I am quite sure that there is nothing in them.”

The box was brought and opened, and Gertie began to examine the papers more carefully than ever before. There were dressmakers’ bills and grocers’ bills and landlords’ bills, and music bills for Gertie and letters to “John Rogers, Birmingham,” and then Gertie came upon a fresher-looking envelope, the seal of which had not been broken, and on which, in Mary Rogers’ hand, was written: “For Mrs. Edith Schuyler, if I die suddenly.”

“Oh-h—yes—here—it must be this?” Gertie gasped, as she passed the package to Edith, whose heart beat with an undefined dread lest after all there might be some mistake and her darling be wrested from her.

“Shall I read it, or you?” she said, and Gertie replied: “You;—but read aloud, if you please. I cannot wait to know.”

Edith could not read it aloud, and Gertie did not wait, but leaning over her mother’s shoulder read the letter with her. It was as follows:

“Mrs. Col. Schuyler—Madame: Warned by a twinge in my heart and about my vitals that I may be taken away suddenly, I am going to commit to paper the true history of Gertrude Westbrooke, the girl known as my adopted child. Mrs. Schuyler, did you ever hear of a young girl,—who came one day with her mother to a dreary lodging in Dorset Street, London? They had the back rooms looking into a dirty court, and the girl had a baby born there, a little girl baby, with eyes like robin’s eggs.

“There was a housemaid, who waited on the ladies in No. ——; her name was Mary Stover, and she admired the young lady so much, and was curious about her, especially after the birth of the baby. That housemaid was me, and the lady was you, whom your mother called Heloise. She was Mrs. Fordham then, and I did not like her much, and after I accidentally heard what she said to you about sending the child away, I kept a watch on her.

“I was going to your room with a jug of water, and heard it all, and saw her the night she went out with a bundle under her arm. I was sure the bundle was the baby, and, when she got back, I let myself out on to that little balcony under your window, and waited till I heard her tell you where she had taken the child. There certainly was a Providence in it that I had a sister nurse in that very hospital, and, to make sure your mother told you true, I got leave to go next day to see my sister.

“By a little management, I found that a girl baby had been left there the night before, with Heloise pinned on its dress, as Mrs. Fordham said, and that it was further marked on the bosom with a drop of blood. I got Anne to show the baby to me and knew it for the same I had seen in your room. You remember I tended it an hour or more once.

“I love children, and this one interested me more than I can tell; and I said to myself I’ll keep watch of it, and the mother, too, and some time maybe I can unravel the mystery and bring them together. From what I overheard, I believed you had been married, and that your husband was dead, and that was all I knew of him. But I pitied you, and loved the child, and without telling Anne why, I made her promise to be very kind to the little one.

“Mother lived in Dorset Street, too, and as she was very lonesome from week’s end to week’s end without us, I took the plan to have her take the baby for ours. It was hard work to bring her to it, and Anne opposed it, too; but something seemed to push me on and say that it must be done, and I got her consent, and she took Heloise to our house in No. ——, where she was just like a little sunbeam, and it was hard to tell which loved her the most, mother, or Anne, or me. I claimed her for mine, and dressed her with my wages, and meant to bring her up above what we were, if I could. When you left Dorset Street I lost track of you for a while, but that only made me love baby more. Soon after you left I got another place, and a better one. I was waiting-maid to a Mrs. Westbrooke, who lived in a very fine place. She, too, had a baby girl named Gertrude, and, when it died suddenly of croup, I thought she would have mourned herself to death for it.

“About that time mother went off with cholera, and then I told Mrs. Westbrooke about my baby, and asked if I might bring it and show it to her. You don’t know how pretty she was, with her golden-red hair curling all over her head, and her sweet blue eyes. My lady got very fond of her the three days she stayed with me, and, when I spoke of carrying it away, she said:

“‘I do not believe I can let baby go. It seems like my own lost darling. Will you let me have her?’

“‘For your own?’ I said, and she answered:

“‘Yes, for my own.’

“This was just what suited me,—to see my pet grow up a lady,—and I told her yes, and as the master did not oppose it more than to say ‘that he did not care especially for other people’s brats, and this one must be kept out of his way,’ it was settled that baby should stay, and I do believe my mistress came to love it like her own. She gave it her lost baby’s name, and had it christened ‘Gertrude Heloise Westbrooke,’ so it sure would have a name. She was a sweet-tempered lady, but weak and nervous like. I think she had consumption, for nothing in particular appeared to ail her, only she was tired like all the time, and never could sleep nor get rested, and at last she died, and left an annuity of forty pounds a year to little Gertie, and said I was to have the care of her.

“About a year after her death the master married a fashionable, fussy little woman from Glasgow, who disliked children worse than he did, and never noticed Gertie in any way after she found out that she was not Mr. Westbrooke’s own. I was about to be married myself, and asked the master if I might have the child. He was more than willing, and so I took her to my own comfortable home on the second floor of a house in what is now Abingdon Road, but was then Newland Street. All this time I had not been able to track you, though I never went out that I did not look for you; and many’s the time I drew my little girl to the gardens of Kensington and even to Hyde Park, where I sat by the hour watching the people as they went by in hopes of seeing you. But I never did, and I had almost given it up, when one day in October I went into a linendraper’s on High Street to get a new slip for my darling. The girls were all very busy, and I had to wait a bit, and was looking at the dresses in the window when I heard some one say, ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ and looking up I saw you coming in. I knew you in a moment, though you was handsomer than ever, and looking well and strong. In my excitement I forgot what I had come to get, but stood watching you, my heart beating so loud I was afraid you might hear it.

“I do not remember what you bought, but you ordered it sent to ‘Mrs. Dr. Barrett’s, No. —— Caledonia Street,’ and then left the shop, while I followed close behind. You turned into that shady lane or road which leads past the Holland House to Bayswater, and I kept as near you as I could without attracting your attention. Once you sat down under a tree as if you were tired, and going a little further on I sat down too, and watched you when you did not know it. There was a pretty little girl about Gertie’s age playing near, and I remember you called her to you, and smoothed her curls, and caressed her little hands, and asked her for her name, and when she went back to her nurse there was a sad, sorry look in your eyes and, on your face, and I said to myself, ‘Is she thinking of the baby, I wonder?’

“I knew from Anne that a woman in deep black, with her vail drawn closely over her face had been to the hospital to inquire after it, and had seemed relieved when told it had been taken by a woman who was sure to be kind to it. I was certain the lady in black was your mother, but could not tell whether she had ever inquired again for the child. I meant to know for sure where you lived, and if Caledonia Street was your home; so when you got up, which you did after a time, I got up too, and kept close behind till you reached Notting Hill station. I was standing by you when you got your ticket, and took the same carriage you did, and alighting at the same station, followed you to your very door, and saw you go in like one who was at home. There was a baker’s shop near by, and I bought some bread and buns which I did not want, and questioned the girl who waited upon me with regard to the houses in the neighborhood, pretending I was looking for one to rent. In this way I learned that the Mrs. Dr. Barrett who lived at No. —— took lodgers, and had a beautiful daughter, a Miss Lyle, the child of a first marriage, the girl supposed, as old Dr. Barrett, who had owned the place for a long time, had only been married to the present Mrs. Barrett two or three years when he died. So much I learned, and then I left the place for home, determining to keep track of you after that, and not lose sight of you again. I knew when you were governess at Allanbanke, and when you played the organ in —— church, and used sometimes on Sundays to take Gertie there to listen to the music, but never gave her a hint as to who the musician was. There was a kind of pleasant excitement in watching you and feeling that I had your secret, and I enjoyed it to the full.

“At last you were lost to me for a while,—I nursed my husband in his last sickness, but greatly to my delight you unexpectedly turned up again at the very house where my cousin Norah was living as lady’s maid,—at Oakwood, you know. I saw you there one evening when I was calling on Norah, and learned that you were Mrs. Sinclair’s companion, and was going abroad with her. As Norah, too, was to go with her mistress, I was certain to know when you returned, and I did, and saw you dressed for dinner one day, and thought you the most beautiful woman I ever saw. I was a widow then. My husband had been dead some time, but he had left me quite comfortable for a woman of my class, while Gertie’s annuity was sufficient for her. I was anxious that she should have a good education, and I tried to bring her up a lady so far as I knew myself. Just what I intended to do, or whether I should ever let you know of her existence, had now become a matter of some doubt, for I loved the girl too well to part with her willingly. She was the very apple of my eye, and I said unless something happens to me, or her mother marries rich, I will keep the secret all my life. Still I liked to be near you,—to know just what you were doing, and so I applied to your mother for apartments, with what success you know. Then Colonel Schuyler came, and Norah told me of your probable marriage with him, and I had a great battle with duty and my love for little Gertie. The first told me that when you was in a position to do for the child what I never could, I ought to give her up, while the last said I never could; she was all the world to me, and I decided to keep her a spell at least, especially as through Norah it was so arranged that I was to go to America when you did. In any event I should have followed you after a while, and I thought it a special Providence which made my going with you so easy. You can imagine the interest I have felt in you and everything belonging to you, and how at times, when I saw my darling snubbed by the young ladies at the Hill, I have been tempted to claim her right to be there as their equal and companion.

“I never could tell whether Colonel Schuyler knew that such a child ever had existence. If he did not, and your passing for Miss Lyle instead of Mrs. made me suspect that he did not, I thought it would be a cruel thing for me to tell it to him, and that of itself might have kept me from it, even if I had loved Gertie less. If it was not for this frequent pain which warns me of sudden death, I should perhaps keep the secret forever; but I must not leave my little girl alone if anything happens to me, and so I write it down, begging you to take her and do justice to her, for I swear to Heaven she is the child born in Dorset Street, Jan. ——, 18—, of the young woman Heloise or Edith Lyle, whose mother called herself Mrs. Fordham, and left the baby on the steps of the —— Street Hospital.

“Perhaps you need not confess the truth to your husband, if he does not already know it, but you can at least adopt Gertie, and treat her as your own, and this I beg of you to do.

“And now I have told you all I know. Who Gertie’s father was, or where he died, is a secret to me; only this is sure, the girl known as Gertie Westbrooke is your own daughter, and may God deal with you and prosper you according as you deal with her when I am gone.

“Written this day at Hampstead, and sworn to solemnly by me before the Eye which sees me, and which knows what I say is true.

Had Edith needed proof of Gertie’s identity, she had it in this letter, but she did not, and clasping the beautiful girl in her arms, she burst into a paroxysm of tears, moaning softly, “My darling, my baby; it seems like a dream, and God has been so good to keep you all the time and bring you at last to me. Oh, if mother could have known! She loved you from the time you went to lodge with her in London.”

“Mamma,” Gertie said suddenly, “she did know! I am sure of it, or she must have guessed. It was the night she died, when I was sitting with her, and accidentally mentioned my birthmark,—that drop of blood. I remember how excited she grew, and how hard she tried to tell me something, but could not. It must have been her suspicion of the truth.”

“Perhaps so. I would like to believe she knew it,” Edith answered, and then she told her daughter of the Lyles across the sea in Alnwick; the sweet-faced old lady, and the barearmed Jenny, who had so shocked and disgusted her. Gertie was interested in the grandmother at once, and proposed writing to her immediately, and telling her that the son whom she had mourned so long had left a child who would some day find her in her humble home, and call her grandmamma.

This plan Edith did not oppose, but before Gertie could write there came a letter from Robert Macpherson, saying that Mrs. Lyle was dead and the cottage vacant, for Mr. Nesbit had taken his wife and children to the north of Scotland, where his boyhood was passed. As Gertie had no particular interest in Jenny, her letter was not written, but through her influence provision was made for the education of Jennie’s children, especially the boy, who bore Godfrey’s name.