Innocent"s eyes were indeed full of something like positive terror. Her heart beat violently--she felt a strange dread, and a foreboding that chilled her very blood.
"People often do that kind of thing--fall in love and run away,"
continued Lady Blythe, placidly--"when they are young and silly. It is quite a delightful sensation, of course, but it doesn"t last. They don"t know the world--and they never calculate results. However, we had quite a good time together. We went to Devon and Cornwall, and he painted pictures and made love to me--and it was all very nice and pretty. Then, of course, trouble came, and we had to get out of it as best we could--we were both tired of each other and quarrelled dreadfully, so we decided to give each other up. Only you were in the way!"
Innocent rose, steadying herself with one hand against the table.
"I!" she exclaimed, with a kind of sob in her throat.
"Yes--you! Dear me,--how you stare! Don"t you understand? I suppose you"ve lived such a strange sort of hermit life down here that you know nothing. You were in the way--you, the baby!"
"Do you mean--?"
"Yes--I mean what you ought to have guessed at once--if you were not as stupid as an owl! I"ve told you I ran away with a man--I wouldn"t marry him, though he asked me to--I should have been tied up for life, and I didn"t want that--so we decided to separate. And he undertook to get rid of the baby--"
"Me!" cried Innocent, wildly--"oh, dear G.o.d! It was me!"
"Yes--it was you--but you needn"t be tragic about it!" said Lady Blythe, calmly--"I think, on the whole, you were fortunately placed--and I was told where you were--"
"You were told?--oh, you were told!--and you never came! And you--you are--my MOTHER!"--and overpowered by the shock of emotion, the girl sank back on her chair, and burying her head in her hands, sobbed bitterly. Lady Blythe looked at her in meditative silence.
"What a tiresome creature!" she murmured, under her breath--"Quite undisciplined! No repose of manner--no style whatever! And apparently very little sense! I think it"s a pity I came,--a mistaken sense of duty!"
Aloud she said--
"I hope you"re not going to cry very long! Won"t you get it over? I thought you would be glad to know me--and I"ve come out of pure kindness to you, simply because I heard your old farmer was dead. Why Pierce Armitage should have brought you to him I never could imagine--except that once he was painting a picture in the neighbourhood and was rather taken with the history of this place--Briar Farm isn"t it called? You"ll make your eyes quite sore if you go on crying like that! Yes--I am your mother--most unfortunately!--I hoped you would never know it!--but now--as you are left quite alone in the world, I have come to see what I can do for you."
Innocent checked her sobs, and lifting her head looked straight into the rather shallow bright eyes that regarded her with such cold and easy scrutiny.
"You can do nothing for me," she answered, in a low voice--"You never have done anything for me. If you are my mother, you are an unnatural one!" And moved by a sudden, swift emotion, she stood up with indignation and scorn lighting every feature of her face. "I was in your way at my birth--and you were glad to be rid of me. Why should you seek me now?"
Lady Blythe glanced her over amusedly.
"Really, you would do well on the stage!" she said--"If you were taller, you would make your fortune with that tragic manner! It is quite wasted on me, I a.s.sure you! I"ve told you a very simple commonplace truth--a thing that happens every day--a silly couple run away together, madly in love, and deluded by the idea that love will last--they get into trouble and have a child--naturally, as they are not married, the child is in the way, and they get rid of it--some people would have killed it, you know! Your father was quite a kind-hearted person--and his one idea was to place you where there were no other children, and where you would have a chance of being taken care of. So he brought you to Briar Farm--and he told me where he had left you before he went away and died."
"Died!" echoed the girl--"My father is dead?"
"So I believe,"--and Lady Blythe stifled a slight yawn--"He was always a rather reckless person--went out to paint pictures in all weathers, or to "study effects" as he called it--how I hated his "art" talk!--and I heard he died in Paris of influenza or pneumonia or something or other. But as I was married then, it didn"t matter."
Innocent"s deep-set, sad eyes studied her "mother" with strange wistfulness.
"Did you not love him?" she asked, pitifully.
Lady Blythe laughed, lightly.
"You odd girl! Of course I was quite crazy about him!--he was so handsome--and very fascinating in his way--but he could be a terrible bore, and he had a very bad temper. I was thankful when we separated.
But I have made my own private enquiries about you, from time to time--I always had rather a curiosity about you, as I have had no other children. Won"t you come and kiss me?"
Innocent stood rigid.
"I cannot!" she said.
Lady Blythe flushed and bit her lips.
"As you like!" she said, airily--"I don"t mind!"
The girl clasped her hands tightly together.
"How can you ask me!" she said, in low, thrilling tones--"You who have let me grow up without any knowledge of you!--you who had no shame in leaving me here to live on the charity of a stranger!--you who never cared at all for the child you brought into the world!--can you imagine that I could care--now?"
"Well, really," smiled Lady Blythe--"I"m not sure that I have asked you to care! I have simply come here to tell you that you are not entirely alone in the world, and that I, knowing myself to be your mother--(although it happened so long ago I can hardly believe I was ever such a fool!)--am willing to do something for you--especially as I have no children by my second marriage. I will, in fact, "adopt" you!"
and she laughed--a pretty, musical laugh like a chime of little silver bells. "Lord Blythe will be delighted--he"s a kind old person!"
Innocent looked at her gravely and steadily.
"Do you mean to say that you will own me?--name me?--acknowledge me as your daughter--"
"Why, certainly not!" and Lady Blythe"s eyes flashed over her in cold disdain--"What are you thinking of? You are not legitimate--and you really have no lawful name--besides, I"m not bound to do anything at all for you now you are old enough to earn your own living. But I"m quite a good-natured woman,--and as I have said already I have no other children--and I"m willing to "adopt" you, bring you out in society, give you pretty clothes, and marry you well if I can. But to own that I ever made such an idiot of myself as to have you at all is a little too much to ask!--Lord Blythe would never forgive me!"
"So you would make me live a life of deception with you!" said Innocent--"You would make me pretend to be what I am not--just as you pretend to be what you are not!--and yet you say I am your child! Oh G.o.d, save me from such a mother! Madam"--and she spoke in cold, deliberate accents--"you have lived all these years without children, save me whom you have ignored--and I, though nameless and illegitimate, now ignore you! I have no mother! I would not own you any more than you would own me;--my shame in saying that such a woman is my mother would be greater than yours in saying that I am your child! For the stigma of my birth is not my fault, but yours!--I am, as my father called me--"innocent"!"
Her breath came and went quickly--a crimson flush was on her cheeks--she looked transfigured--beautiful. Lady Blythe stared at her in wide-eyed disdain.
"You are exceedingly rude and stupid," she said--"You talk like a badly-trained actress! And you are quite blind to your own interests.
Now please remember that if you refuse the offer I make you, I shall never trouble about you again--you will have to sink or swim--and you can do nothing for yourself--without even a name--"
"Have you never heard," interrupted Innocent, suddenly, "that it is quite possible to MAKE a name?"
Her "mother" was for the moment startled--she looked so intellectually strong and inspired.
"Have you never thought," she went on--"even you, in your strange life of hypocrisy--"
"Hypocrisy!" exclaimed Lady Blythe--"How dare you say such a thing!"
"Of course it is hypocrisy," said the girl, resolutely--"You are married to a man who knows nothing of your past life--is not that hypocrisy? You are a great lady, no doubt--you have everything you want in this world, except children--one child you had in me, and you let me be taken from you--yet you would pretend to "adopt" me though you know I am your own! Is not that hypocrisy?"
Lady Blythe for a moment tightened her lips in a line of decided temper--then she smiled ironically.
"It is tact," she said--"and good manners. Society lives by certain conventions, and we must be careful not to outrage them. In your own interests you should be glad to learn how to live suitably without offence to others around you."
Innocent looked at her with straight and relentless scorn.
"I have done that," she answered--"so far. I shall continue to do it. I do not want any help from you! I would rather die than owe you anything! Please understand this! You say I am your daughter, and I suppose I must believe it--but the knowledge brings me sorrow and shame. And I must work my way out of this sorrow and shame,--somehow! I will do all I can to retrieve the damaged life you have given me. I never knew my mother was alive--and now--I wish to forget it! If my father lived, I would go to him--"
"Would you indeed!" and Lady Blythe rose, shaking her elegant skirts, and preening herself like a bird preparing for flight--"I"m afraid you would hardly receive a parental welcome! Fortunately for himself and for me, he is dead,--so you are quite untrammelled by any latent notions of filial duty. And you will never see me again after to-day!"
"No?"--and the interrogation was put with the slightest inflection of satire--so fine as to be scarcely perceptible--but Lady Blythe caught it, and flushed angrily.
"Of course not!" she said--"Do you think you, in your position of a mere farmer"s girl, are likely to meet me in the greater world? You, without even a name--"