 | CHAPTER XXXVII.
TEDDY'S PRIVILEGE. Outpost |  |
37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
TEDDY'S PRIVILEGE.
To Mr. Burroughs, smoking his cigar upon the piazza
of the Neff House, came a white-jacketed waiter with a
card.
“The gentleman is waiting in the reception-room, sir,”
said he.
Mr. Burroughs paused to watch an unusually perfect
ring of smoke lazily floating above his head; then took the
card, and read in pencil, —
“Theodore Ginniss would be glad to see Mr. Burroughs
a moment on important business.”
“Indeed! Well, it is a republic, and this is the West;
but only Jack's bean-stalk parallels such a growth.” So
said, in his own heart, Teddy Ginniss's former master, as
he drew two or three rapid whiffs from the stump of his
cigar, and then, throwing it into the grass, strolled leisurely
into the reception-room.
“Ah, Ginniss! how are you?” inquired he of the pale
extending his hand, but dropping it quickly upon perceiving
that of Mr. Burroughs immovable.
“I am well, sir, thank you.”
“Want to see me on business, do you say?” continued
the lawyer coolly.
“Yes, sir.” And, as his true purpose and position
came back to him, Teddy suddenly straightened himself,
and grew as cool as the stately gentleman waiting with
patient courtesy for his errand.
“I thought, sir, I'd come to you first, as it was to you I
first had occasion to speak of my fault in hiding her. 'Toinette
is found, sir!”
“What! 'Toinette Legrange found! Teddy, your hand,
my boy! Found by you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Teddy, suffering his hand to be shaken.
“But what I wanted most was to ask if you think it safe
to tell Mrs. Legrange.”
“Oh! I'll see to that. Of course, it must be done very
delicately. But where is the child now? and when did you
find her?”
“If you please, Mr. Burroughs, I should like to tell the
story first to Mrs. Legrange, and I should like to tell her
and I'd like to be the one to give her the great joy that's
waiting for her. Besides, sir,” and Teddy's face grew white
again, “though I did what was wrong enough, I never
deny, I have suffered for it more, maybe, than you can
think of; and this is all the amends I could ever want.
Mrs. Legrange has been very good to me, sir, and never
blamed me, or spoke an unkind word, even at the first.”
“And I spoke a good many, you're thinking,” said Mr.
Burroughs keenly. “Well, Teddy, I am a man, and Mrs.
Legrange is a woman; and women look at matters more
leniently and less exactly than we do. But you must not
be satisfied with pity instead of justice; for that will be
to encourage your self-esteem at the expense of your manhood.
I do not deny that I never have recovered from my
surprise at finding you had so long deceived me; but the
news you bring to-day makes amends for much: and, after
I have heard the particulars, I may yet be able to forget
the past, and feel to you as I used.”
But Teddy's bow, though respectful, was not humble;
and he only asked in reply, —
“Where shall I find Mrs. Legrange, sir?”
“She walked down to the glen about half an hour ago.
insist upon it as a right, I will leave you to break the news
to her alone. But you will remember, I hope, that she is
very delicate, — very easily startled. You will have to be
exceedingly cautious.”
“Yes, sir;” and with a ceremonious bow the young
man left the room, and the next minute was seen darting
along the path to the glen.
Mr. Burroughs looked after him appreciatively, and muttered,
—
“A nice-looking fellow, and not without self-respect. I
see no reason why, in half a dozen years, he should not enter
his name at the Suffolk bar itself, and stand as well as any
man on the roll. But my little Sunshine! Confound the
boy! why couldn't he have told me where to find her?”
So Mr. Burroughs went back to the piazza, and tried to
quiet himself with another cigar, but was too nervous to
make any more rings; while Teddy sped away to the glen,
and presently found himself in a cool and cavernous retreat,
which the sunlight only penetrated by dancing down with
the waters that slid laughingly over a rocky ledge above,
and shook themselves into spray before they reached the pool
below, then, after dimpling and sporting there for a moment,
half hid in trailing vines and clinging herbage, shut out the
heat of day; and, through a thousand ever-changing peepholes
among the swaying foliage, the blue sky looked gayly down,
and challenged those who hid in the glen to come forth, and
dare the fervor of the mid-day sun.
Under a tree near the foot of the fall sat Mrs. Legrange,
her head leaning upon her hand, her book idle upon her lap,
watching dreamily the waters that swayed and ebbed, and
paused and coquetted with every flower or leaf that bent
toward them; and yet in the end went on, always on, as the
idlest of us go, until through the merry brook, the heedless
fall, the sparkling stream, and stately river, we reach at last
the ocean, calm, changeless, and eternal in its unmoved
depths.
The lady looked up with a little start as she heard the
approaching footsteps, and then rose with extended hand, —
“Theodore!” said she kindly. “I am very glad to see
you; and so grown! You are much taller than in the
spring.”
“Yes, ma'am: I believe so. I don't think I shall grow
much more,” said Teddy, swallowing a great bunch in his
throat that almost suffocated him.
“No? Why, you are not so very old, are you?” asked
Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little.
“Nearly eighteen, ma'am.”
“Oh, well! time enough for a good deal of growth, bodily
and mental, yet. So you have been at the West?”
“Yes, ma'am, and have heard some curious things there,
— some things that I think will interest you. Have you
ever thought of adopting a little girl, ma'am?”
Mrs. Legrange sadly shook her head.
“No, Theodore: I never wished to do that. She never
could be any thing like her to me, and it would seem like
giving away her place. I had rather wait.”
“I am sorry, ma'am; for I saw a little girl, where I have
been, that I was going to speak of.”
“Was she a pretty child?”
“Very pretty, and looked like” —
“No, Theodore, don't say that, because I shall think
either you have forgotten or never learned her face. No
child ever looked like her,” said the mother positively.
“This little girl was very pretty though,” persisted
Teddy.
“How did she look?”
“She had great blue eyes (if you'll excuse me, ma'am),
of bright hair, not just brown, nor yet just golden, but between
the two; and a little mouth very much curved; and
pretty teeth; and a delicate color; and little hands with
pretty finger-nails.”
“Theodore!”
Teddy, for the first time in his description, dared to raise
his eyes, but dropped them again. He could not meet
the anguish in those other eyes so earnestly fixed upon
him.
“She was the adopted child of the people I visited in
Iowa,” faltered he.
“Theodore!” said Mrs. Legrange again; and then, in a
breathless fluttering voice, —
“Do not trifle with me; do not try to prepare my mind;
and, oh! for God's sake, if it is a false hope, say so this instant!
Is she found?”
“I think it may be so, dear Mrs. Legrange!”
“No, but it is so! you know it! I see it in your eyes, I
hear it in your voice! You cannot hide it, you cannot deceive
me! O my God! my God! — to thee the first praise, the
first thanks!”
She fell upon her knees, her face upraised to heaven; and
And though in after-years Theodore Ginniss may wander
through the galleries where the world conserves her rarest
gems of art, never will he find Madonna or Magdalen or
saint to compare with the one picture his memory treasures
as the perfection of earthly loveliness, made radiant with
the purest heavenly bliss.
“Now come!” exclaimed the mother, springing to her
feet, and rapidly leading the way along the narrow path.
“You shall tell me all as we go.”
And the young man found it hard work to keep pace with
the delicate woman, as she flew rather than walked towards
her child.
“If you will wait here in your own room, I will bring
her to you,” said Teddy, as he and Mrs. Legrange approached
the hotel again.
“Bring her! Where is she now?” asked the mother,
looking at him in dismay.
“I left them at the other hotel, thinking, if I brought
her directly here, we might meet you before you were told,”
explained Teddy.
“Who is with her?”
“Dora Darling, the young lady who adopted her, — the
one I told you of as living in Iowa.”
“Yes, yes; and she has come all the way to bring my
child to me! No, I cannot wait: I will come with you.”
So Mr. Burroughs, still sitting upon the piazza, saw his
cousin hastening by, and came to join her.
“Yes, come, Tom! come to — oh, to see Sunshine
again!” and Mrs. Legrange turned her flushed face away
to hide the hysterical agitation she could not quite suppress.
“Take my arm, Fanny; and do not walk so fast. You
will hurt yourself,” said Mr. Burroughs kindly.
“No, no: nothing can hurt me now. I must go fast:
if I had wings, I should fly!”
“Here is the house. Will you wait in the parlor till I
bring her down?” asked Teddy, leading the way up the
steps of the principal hotel at Yellow Springs.
“No: take me to the room where they are waiting. I
want to see her without preparation,” said Mrs. Legrange.
So the whole party followed Teddy up the stairs to a
door, where he paused and knocked. A low voice said, —
“Come in!” and the opening door showed Dora seated
upon a low chair, with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and
visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting her finger as imploring
silence, softly advanced, and bent with clasped hands and
eager eyes over the sleeping child. Then, with the graceful
instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in
the heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about
Dora and the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips
lightly upon Dora's cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine's
lips.
Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden
tremor crossed the rigid calm of her demeanor. She had
schooled herself to indifference, to neglect, or to civil thanks
worse than either: but this unexpected tenderness, this
sisterly recognition, went straight through all its defences
to her quivering heart; and she looked up piteously into the
lovely face bent over her, whispering, —
“I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing
left half so dear.”
There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or
movement, suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon
her mother's face, while deep in their blue depths grew a
glad smile, breaking at last, like a veritable sungleam, all
over her face, as, holding out her arms, she eagerly said, —
“I've come to heaven while I was asleep; and you're
the angel that loves me so dearly well. I know you by
your eyes.”
The mother clasped her own, — as who shall blame her?
— and Dora's arms and Dora's heart were empty, robbed
of the nestling they had cherished, — empty, as she said to
herself, turning from the sight of that maternal bliss, of the
best love she had ever known, or could ever hope.
Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched
her narrowly; and when, presently, the whole party returned
to Mrs. Legrange's hotel, he quietly walked beside
Dora, lingering a little, and detaining her out of hearing of
Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked on with Sunshine
between them.
“Is virtue its own reward, Miss Dora?” asked he abruptly,
when almost half the distance between the two
hotels was passed.
Dora looked at him a little puzzled; and then, as she
read the half-sympathizing, half-mocking expression of his
face, answered, —
“You mean I am not happy in bringing Sunshine back
to her mother; don't you?”
“Exactly; and you told me once that no one ought to
enough to know that we are doing right.”
“And so it is. I don't want any reward,” said Dora
rather hastily.
“No: but, if young Ginniss had not discovered the identity
of the child, my cousin would not have been unhappier
than she has been for two years; and you — would you
not be at this moment better content with life?”
Dora's clear eyes looked straight into his as she wonderingly
asked, —
“Do you want me to say I am sorry Mrs. Legrange has
found her child?”
“If it is true, yes; and I know you will,” replied Mr.
Burroughs quietly.
“And so I would,” said Dora in the same tone; “but
it is not true. I am glad, not happy, but very glad, that
Sunshine has come to her mother at last, — her heaven, as
she calls it. I do not deny that my own heart is very sore,
and that I cannot yet think of her not being my child any
more, without” —
She turned away her head, and Mr. Burroughs looked at
her yet more attentively than he had been looking.
“But, if you could, you would not go back, and arrange
honor now, Dora.”
“Word and honor, Mr. Burroughs, I surely would not.
Can you doubt me?”
“No, Dora, I do not; but, in your place, I should doubt
myself.”
Dora looked at him with a frank smile.
“I would trust you in this place, or any other,” said she
simply.
“Would you, would you really, Dora?” asked Tom Burroughs
eagerly, while a slight color flashed into his handsome
face. “Why would you?”
“Because I feel sure you could never do any thing
mean or ungenerous, or feel any way but nobly” —
She paused suddenly, and a tide of crimson suffused
her face and neck. Mr. Burroughs, with the heroism of
perfect breeding, turned away his eyes, and suppressed the
enthusiastic answer that had risen to his lips. He would
not add to her confusion by accepting as extraordinary the
impulsive expression of her feelings. So he simply said,
after a moment of silence, —
“Thank you, Dora. I hope you may never have occasion
to regret your noble confidence.”
Dora did not answer, but hastened her steps, until she
walked close behind Mrs. Legrange; nor did her companion
speak again, although, could Dora have read his
thoughts, she might have found in them matter of more
interest than any words he had ever spoken to her.
| CHAPTER XXXVII.
TEDDY'S PRIVILEGE. Outpost | |