 | CHAPTER XLII.
IN CINCINNATI. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
42. CHAPTER XLII.
IN CINCINNATI.
MR. GREY was breakfasting in that leisurely, luxurious
kind of way which he enjoyed so thoroughly. His
morning papers were on the table beside him. He
had glanced them through, and read every word in them about
poor Laura's property, which was now secured to her and her
heirs forever. He had succeeded in making his claim clear,
and Laura and her heirs were richer by some thirty thousand
dollars than they were when last the crazy woman was in the
city. To a man with nearly half a million thirty thousand
dollars were not so very much; but Mr. Grey was glad to get
it, and had decided that it should be invested for Alice, just as
city lots and houses, and the days when he had gone so often
to one of them, now a long time torn down to make room for
a large and handsome block. He had finished his first cup of
coffee, and was waiting for his second, when a hand was laid
familiarly upon his shoulder, and Guy Seymour's handsome face
confronted him.
“Why, Guy, how you frightened me!” he said. “Where
did you come from? Is anything the matter at home? Is it
Alice?”
She was nearest his heart, and he asked for her first, while
his cheek paled for a moment; but Guy quickly reassured him.
There was nothing the matter with Alice; nothing the matter
with any one, he said. He had come on business, and as soon
as Mr. Grey was through with his breakfast he would like to
see him alone. Then Mr. Grey proceeded with his coffee and
mutton chop, and omelette and hot cakes, and Guy grew terribly
impatient and nervous with waiting. Mr. Grey's appetite
was satisfied at last, and he invited Guy to his room and asked
what he could do for him. Guy had the story at his tongue's
end. He had repeated it to himself several times so as to be
sure and make himself understood, and after half an hour or so
he was understood, and Mr. Grey knew why he was there, and
who was with him. To say that he was startled would convey
but a faint idea of the effect Guy's story had upon him.
Laura's ravings about “the one that was dead and the one that
was not,” had come back to him with a new meaning and helped
to prove the twin theory correct, and he was struck dumb with
amazement, and tried in vain to speak as some question he
wished to ask presented itself to his mind. He could not
speak, his tongue was so thick and lay so heavy in his mouth,
while the blood rushed in such torrents to his head and face
that he plucked at his cravat as if to tear it off, so he could breath
more freely, and made a motion toward the window for air.
“Apoplexy, it has almost given me that,” he whispered as
the fresh air blew gratefully upon him, and he drank the water
of his chair, he said: “I am greatly shocked by this story you
have told me. It seems reasonable and may be true, though
I do not deserve it. I've been a villain, a rascal. I abused
and neglected Laura; I ought to have come home when she first
wrote about the baby, and should have done so but for that
devilish trait of mine, to follow a pretty face. I had an Italian
woman in tow and it blunted every other feeling, and when
I heard the child was dead I did not care so very much, though
I wrote to her kindly enough; and now, to have this great good
come so suddenly upon me is too much, — too much,” —
Guy believed in Magdalen, and his belief had so colored his
story that Mr. Grey believed in her, too, at first. Then a doubt
began to creep into his mind, as was very natural, and he
asked, “Where is she, and how does she propose to prove it?”
“She is in No. —. She wishes to see you first. Will you go
to her now?” Guy said; and Mr. Grey arose, and leaning on
Guy started for the room where Magdalen was waiting for him.
When the first great shock came upon her Magdalen had
thought only of Alice, the darling sister it might be, and of the
poor worn out wreck which, though a wreck, might be her
mother still, and her heart had gone out after them both and
enfolded them with all a daughter's and sister's love, but in this
sudden gush of affection Mr. Grey had had little part. So
great had her excitement been, and so rapidly had she acted
upon her convictions, that she had scarcely thought of him in
any other capacity than that of her employer. But as she sat
waiting for him, there suddenly swept over her the consciousness
that if what she hoped was true, then he was her own
father, and for a moment she rebelled against it as against
some impending evil.
“Roger is his sworn enemy,” she whispered faintly, as her
mind went back to the time when Roger had cursed him as his
mother's ruin. “Roger will never forgive my being his daughter,”
she thought, and for an instant she wished she had never
told her suspicions to a human being, but had kept them locked
her, and made her calm and composed when she heard
the knock at her door and saw Guy coming in with Mr. Grey.
He was very pale, and came toward her, with an eager,
questioning look in his eyes, which scanned her curiously.
She had risen, and was standing with her hands locked together,
her head unconsciously poised upon one side, and her
body bent slightly forward. It was Laura's attitude exactly;
Laura had stood just this way that night she met him outside
her mother's house and he persuaded her to the clandestine
marriage. Save that there was about Magdalen more refinement,
more culture, and a softer style of beauty than had ever
belonged to Laura Clayton, he could have sworn it was the
Laura of his mature manhood's love, or passion, who stood
upon the rug by the fire, her dark eyes meeting his with a wistful,
earnest gaze. In an instant the forgot his doubts; —
his faith was strong as Guy's, and he reached his arms toward
her, and his lips quivered as he said:
“You are so much like Laura that you must be my child.”
She knew he expected her to go to him, but Jessie and Laura,
and the uncertainty as to herself and his right to claim her, rose
up a mighty barrier between them, and she made no movement
towards him; she only said:
“It is not sure that I am your child. We must prove it beyond
a doubt,” and in her voice there was a tone which Mr.
Grey understood.
She knew Laura's story. Penelope had told her, and she resented
the injury done to one who might be her mother. It
was a part of his punishment, and he accepted it, and put down
the tenderness and love which kept growing in his heart for the
beautiful girl before him.
“No, it is not proved,” he said, “though I trust that it may
be. Tell me, please, your own story as you have heard it from
Mr. Irving, and also what you wish me to do.”
He had heard the whole from Guy, but the story gained new
force and reality as told by Magdalen, whose eyes and face and
as she was years ago. Guy had forgotten the locket, but Magdalen
did not, and she showed it to Mr. Grey, who examined it
closely, then staggered a step or two toward her, and steadied
himself against the mantel, as he said:
“It was Laura's. I remember it perfectly and where I bought
it. I gave it to her myself. My likeness was in it then. You
see it has been taken out,” and he pointed to the inside of the
ornament from which a picture had evidently been removed.
“Magdalen, I do not need stronger proof. Will you let me call
you daughter?”
The tears were streaming down his face, and Magdalen felt
herself beginning to relent, but there must be no mistake, — no
shadow on which to build a doubt hereafter. She could not
take her place in the hearts of that family as a rightful daughter
of the house and then suddenly be displaced by some other
claimant. She must know to a certainty that she was Magdalen
Grey, and she replied:
“I am not satisfied; we must investigate farther than we have.
Your wife talked of a Mrs. Storms who was sponsor for her
baby. Did you ever know it was baptized? Did she write
you to that effect?”
“Never. She only said that baby Madeline was dead,” Mr.
Grey replied, and after a moment's hesitation Magdalen continued,
“Tell me, please, if you ever wished to give Alice another
name than the one she bears, and did your wife oppose it?”
Mr. Grey's face was scarlet, but he answered promptly, —
“I did propose calling Alice after a dear friend of mine
whose second name was Magdalen.”
“Then Mrs. Grey was right so far,” Magdalen rejoined, “and
may have been correct in her other statements to me, also.
She told me one was Madeline, and that to please you she
called the other “Magdalen,” after the friend for whom you
wished Alice named, and that a Mr. and Mrs. Storms were
sponsors. Do you know any such people?”
Mr. Grey did not, and Magdalen continued:
“We must find them. Is it of any use to inquire in the vicinity
where Mrs. Grey once lived?”
“None whatever. Every house has been pulled down, and
every family is gone,” was the unpromising answer, but Magdalen
was not disheartened.
“The christening must have been in church. Can you tell
which one it was likely to be?”
Mr. Grey thought it was St. Luke's, as Mrs. Clayton was an
attendant there. They might.—
He did not finish the sentence, for Magdalen started quickly,
exclaiming:
“There must be a Parish Register, and there we shall find it
recorded, and possibly trace Mrs. Storms. Let us go at once
to the Rectory, if there is one.”
Her bonnet and shawl were on in a trice, a carriage was
called, and the three were soon on their way to the house of
the Rev. Henry Fowler, Rector of St. Luke's. He was a young
man, who had only been there for a year or two, but Magdalen's
beauty and excitement enlisted his sympathy at once, and he
went with them to the church and took from a dustry shelf an
old worn-looking volume, wherein, he said was recorded the
births, deaths, and baptisms of twenty and twenty-five years ago.
It was Magdalen who took the book in her own hands, and
sitting down upon the chancel steps with her bonnet falling back
from her flushed face and her white lips compressed together,
turned the pages eagerly, while the three men stood looking at
her. Suddenly she gave a cry, and the three came near her.
“Look,” she said, “it's here. There was a child baptized,”
and she pointed to the record of the baptism of “Magdalen
Laura,” daughter of Arthur and Laura Grey. Sponsors, “Mr.
and Mrs. James Storms, Cynthiana, Kentucky.”
Then suddenly a cloud passed over her face as she said sadly,
“But there is only one. Where is Madeline?”
“Turn to the deaths,” Guy said, and with trembling fingers
Magdalen did as he bade her, but found no trace of Madeline.
Only Mrs. Clayton's death was recorded there, and the tears
she felt that her hopes were being swept away. It was Guy who
comforted and reassured her by suggesting that Madeline might
have died before the christening, and Magdalen caught eagerly
at it, and springing up exclaimed, “Yes, and they neglected to
record her death; that's it, I know; we will find this Mrs. Storms;
we will go at once to Cynthiana. Is it far? Can we reach it
to-day?”
It was not very far, the clergyman said. It was on the railroad
between Cincinnati and Lexington, but he did not believe
she could go that day, as the train was already gone.
It seemed an age to wait until the morrow, but there was no
help for it; and Magdalen passed the day as best she could, and
when the morning came and they started for Cynthiana, she was
almost sick with excitement, which increased more and more the
nearer she drew to Mrs. Storms, who was to confirm her hopes
or destory them forever.
| CHAPTER XLII.
IN CINCINNATI. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |