The Living Link.
by James De Mille.
CHAPTER I.
A TERRIBLE SECRET.
On a pleasant evening in the month of May, 1840, a group of young ladies might have been seen on the portico of Plympton Terrace, a fashionable boarding-school near Derwent.w.a.ter. They all moved about with those effusive demonstrations so characteristic of young girls; but on this occasion there was a general hush among them, which evidently arose from some unusual cause. As they walked up and down arm in arm, or with arms entwined, or with clasped hands, as young girls will, they talked in low earnest tones over some one engrossing subject, or occasionally gathered in little knots to debate some point, in which, while each offered a differing opinion, all were oppressed by one common sadness.
While they were thus engaged there arose in the distance the sound of a rapidly galloping horse. At once all the murmur of conversation died out, and the company stood in silence awaiting the new-comer. They did not have to wait long. Out from a place where the avenue wound amidst groves and thickets a young girl mounted on a spirited bay came at full speed toward the portico. Arriving there, she stopped abruptly; then leaping lightly down, she flung the reins over the horse"s neck, who forthwith galloped away to his stall.
The rider who thus dismounted was young girl of about eighteen, and of very striking appearance. Her complexion was dark, her hair black, with its rich voluminous folds gathered in great glossy plaits behind. Her eyes were of a deep hazel color, radiant, and full of energetic life. In those eyes there was a certain earnestness of expression, however, deepening down into something that seemed like melancholy, which showed that even in her young life she had experienced sorrow. Her figure was slender and graceful, being well displayed by her close-fitting riding-habit, while a plumed hat completed her equipment, and served to heighten the effect of her beauty.
At her approach a sudden silence had fallen over the company, and they all stood motionless, looking at her as she dismounted.
"Why, what makes you all look at me so strangely?" she asked, in a tone of surprise, throwing a hasty glance over them. "Has any thing happened?"
To this question no answer was given, but each seemed waiting for the other to speak. At length a little thing of about twelve came up, and encircling the new-comer"s waist with her arm, looked up with a sorrowful expression, and whispered,
"Edith dearest, Miss Plympton wants to see you."
The silence and ominous looks of the others, and the whispered words of the little girl, together with her mournful face, increased the surprise and anxiety of Edith. She looked with a strange air of apprehension over the company.
"What is it?" she asked, hurriedly. "Something has happened. Do any of you know? What is it?"
She spoke breathlessly, and her eyes once more wandered with anxious inquiry over all of them. But no one spoke, for, whatever it was, they felt the news to be serious--something, in fact, which could not well be communicated by themselves. Once more Edith repeated her question, and finding that no answer was forth-coming, her impatience allowed her to wait no longer; and so, gathering up her long skirts in one hand and holding her whip in the other, she hurried into the house to see Miss Plympton.
Miss Plympton"s room was on the second floor, and that lady herself was seated by the window as Edith entered. In the young girl"s face there was now a deeper anxiety, and seating herself near the centre-table, she looked inquiringly at Miss Plympton.
The latter regarded her for some moments in silence.
"Did you wish to see me, auntie dear?" said Edith.
Miss Plympton sighed.
"Yes," she said, slowly; "but, my poor darling Edie, I hardly know how to say to you what I have to say. I--I--do you think you can bear to hear it, dear?"
At this Edith looked more disturbed than ever; and placing her elbow on the centre-table, she leaned her cheek upon her hand, and fixed her melancholy eyes upon Miss Plympton. Her heart throbbed painfully, and the hand against which her head leaned trembled visibly. But these signs of agitation did not serve to lessen the emotion of the other; on the contrary, she seemed more distressed, and quite at a loss how to proceed.
"Edith," said she at last, "my child, you know how tenderly I love you.
I have always tried to be a mother to you, and to save you from all sorrow; but now my love and care are all useless, for the sorrow has come, and I do not know any way by which I can break bad news to--to--a--a bereaved heart."
She spoke in a tremulous voice and with frequent pauses.
"Bereaved!" exclaimed Edith, with white lips. "Oh, auntie! Bereaved! Is it that? Oh, tell me all. Don"t keep me in suspense. Let me know the worst."
Miss Plympton looked still more troubled. "I--I--don"t know what to say," she faltered.
"You mean _death_!" cried Edith, in an excited voice; "and oh! I needn"t ask who. There"s only one--only one. I had only one--only one--and now--he is--gone!"
"Gone," repeated Miss Plympton, mechanically, and she said no more; for in the presence of Edith"s grief, and of other facts which had yet to be disclosed--facts which would reveal to this innocent girl something worse than even bereavement--words were useless, and she could find nothing to say. Her hand wandered through the folds of her dress, and at length she drew forth a black-edged letter, at which she gazed in an abstracted way.
"Let me see it," cried Edith, hurriedly and eagerly; and before Miss Plympton could prevent her, or even imagine what she was about, she darted forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from her hand. Then she tore it open and read it breathlessly. The letter was very short, and was written in a stiff, constrained hand. It was as follows:
"DALTON HALL, _May_ 6, 1840.
"Madame,--It is my painful duty to communicate to you the death of Frederick Dalton, Esq., of Dalton Hall, who died at Hobart Town, Van Diemen"s Land, on the 2d of December, 1839. I beg that you will impart this intelligence to Miss Dalton, for as she is now of age, she may wish to return to Dalton Hall.
"I remain, madame, "Your most obedient servant, "JOHN WIGGINS.
"MISS PLYMPTON, _Plympton Terrace_."
Of this letter Edith took in the meaning of the first three lines only.
Then it dropped from her trembling hands, and sinking into a chair, she burst into a torrent of tears. Miss Plympton regarded her with a face full of anxiety, and for some moments Edith wept without restraint; but at length, when the first outburst of grief was past, she picked up the letter once more and read it over and over.
Deep as Edith"s grief evidently was, this bereavement was not, after all, so sore a blow as it might have been under other circ.u.mstances.
For this father whom she had lost was virtually a stranger. Losing her mother at the age of eight, she had lived ever since with Miss Plympton, and during this time her father had never seen her, nor even written to her. Once or twice she had written to him a pretty childish letter, but he had never deigned any reply. If in that unknown nature there had been any thing of a father"s love, no possible hint had ever been given of it. Of her strange isolation she was never forgetful, and she felt it most keenly during the summer holidays, when all her companions had gone to their homes. At such times she brooded much over her loneliness, and out of this feeling there arose a hope, which she never ceased to cherish, that the time would come when she might join her father, and live with him wherever he might be, and set herself to the task of winning his affections.
She had always understood that her father had been living in the East since her mother"s death. The only communication which she had with him was indirect, and consisted of business letters which his English agent wrote to Miss Plympton. These were never any thing more than short, formal notes. Such neglect was keenly felt, and Edith, unwilling to blame her father altogether, tried to make some one else responsible for it. As she knew of no other human being who had any connection with her father except this agent, she brought herself gradually to look upon him as the cause of her father"s coldness, and so at length came to regard him with a hatred that was unreasoning and intense. She considered him her father"s evil genius, and believed him to be somehow at the bottom of the troubles of her life. Thus every year this man, John Wiggins, grew more hateful, and she accustomed herself to think of him as an evil fiend, a Mephistopheles, by whose crafty wiles her father"s heart had been estranged from her. Such, then, was the nature of Edith"s bereavement; and as she mourned over it she did not mourn so much over the reality as over her vanished hope. He was gone, and with him was gone the expectation of meeting him and winning his affection. She would never see him--never be able to tell how she loved him, and hear him say with a father"s voice that he loved his child!
These thoughts and feelings overwhelmed Edith even as she held the letter in her hand for a new perusal, and she read it over and over without attaching any meaning to the words. At length her attention was arrested by one statement in that short letter which had hitherto escaped her notice. This was the name of the place where her father"s death had occurred--Van Diemen"s Land.
"I don"t understand this," said she. "What is the meaning of this--Van Diemen"s Land? I did not know that poor papa had ever left India."
Miss Plympton made no reply to this for some time, but looked more troubled than ever.
"What does it mean," asked Edith again--"this Hobart Town, Van Diemen"s Land? What does it mean?"
"Well, dear," said Miss Plympton, in strangely gentle and mournful voice, "you have never known much about your poor father, and you have never known exactly where he has been living. He did not live in India, dear; he never lived in India. He lived in--in--Van Diemen"s Land."
Miss Plympton"s tone and look affected Edith very unpleasantly. The mystery about her father seemed to grow darker, and to a.s.sume something of an ill-omened character. The name also--Van Diemen"s Land--served to heighten her dark apprehensions; and this discovery that she had known even less than she supposed about her father made it seem as though the knowledge that had thus been hidden could not but be painful.
"What do you mean?" she asked again; and her voice died down to a whisper through the vague fears that had been awakened. "I thought that poor papa lived in India--that he held some office under government."
"I know that you believed so," said Miss Plympton, regarding Edith with a look that was full of pity and mournful sympathy. "That was what I gave out. None of the girls have ever suspected the truth. No one knows whose daughter you really are. They do not suspect that your father was Dalton of Dalton Hall. They think that he was an Indian resident in the Company"s service. Yes, I have kept the secret well, dear--the secret that I promised your dear mother on her death-bed to keep from all the world, and from you, darling, till the time should come for you to know.
And often and often, dear, have I thought of this moment, and tried to prepare for it; but now, since it has come, I am worse than unprepared.
But preparations are of no use, for oh, my darling, my own Edith, I must speak, if I speak at all, from my heart."
These words were spoken by Miss Plympton in a broken, disconnected, and almost incoherent manner. She stopped abruptly, and seemed overcome by strong agitation. Edith, on her part, looked at her in equal agitation, wondering at her display of emotion, and terrified at the dark significance of her words. For from those words she learned this much already--that her father had been living in Van Diemen"s Land, a penal colony; that around him had been a dark secret which had been kept from her most carefully; that her parentage had been concealed most scrupulously from the knowledge of her school-mates; and that this secret which had been so guarded was even now overwhelming Miss Plympton so that she shrunk from communicating it. All this served to fill the mind of Edith with terrible presentiments, and the mystery which had hitherto surrounded her father seemed now about to result in a revelation more terrible than the mystery itself.
After some time Miss Plympton rose, and drawing her chair nearer, sat down in front of Edith, and took both her hands.
"My poor darling Edith," said she, in pitying tones, "I am anxious for you. You are not strong enough for this. Your hands are damp and cold.
You are trembling. I would not have brought up this subject now, but I have been thinking that the time has come for telling you all. But I"m afraid it will be too much for you. You have already enough to bear without having this in addition. You are too weak."
Edith shook her head.
"Can you bear it?" asked Miss Plympton, anxiously, "this that I wish to tell you? Perhaps I had better defer it."