Cast Adrift

“Take mother to Loring’s.”

“Stop, Henry!” cried Mrs. Dinneford, and with an alertness that was surprising sprung from the carriage, and was on the steps of their house before Edith’s violent ring had brought a servant to the door. They passed in, Edith holding her place just in advance.

“I will see Mrs. Barker,” said Mrs. Dinneford, trying to keep out of her voice the fear and agitation from which she was suffering. “You can go up to your room.”

“It isn’t Mrs. Barker. You are mistaken.” There was as much of betrayal in the voice of Edith as in that of her mother. Each was trying to hide herself from the other, but the veil in both cases was far too thin for deception.

Mother and daughter entered the parlor together. As they did so a woman of small stature, and wearing a rusty black dress, arose from a seat near the window. The moment she saw Edith she drew a heavy dark veil over her face with a quickness of movement that had in it as much of discomfiture as surprise.

Mrs. Dinneford was equal to the occasion. The imminent peril in which she stood calmed the wild tumult within, as the strong wind calms this turbulent ocean, and gave her thoughts clearness and her mind decision. Edith saw before the veil fell a startled face, and recognized the sallow countenance and black, evil eyes, the woman who had once before called to see her mother.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come here, Mrs. Gray?” cried out Mrs. Dinneford, with an anger that was more real than feigned, advancing quickly upon the woman as she spoke. “Go!” and she pointed to the door, “and don’t you dare to come here again. I told you when you were here last time that I wouldn’t be bothered with you any longer. I’ve done all I ever intend doing. So take yourself away.”

And she pointed again to the door. Mrs. Bray—for it was that personage—comprehended the situation fully. She was as good an actor as Mrs. Dinneford, and quite as equal to the occasion. Lifting her hand in a weak, deprecating way, and then shrinking like one borne down by the shock of a great disappointment, she moved back from the excited woman and made her way to the hall, Mrs. Dinneford following and assailing her in passionate language.

Edith was thrown completely off her guard by this unexpected scene. She did not stir from the spot where she stood on entering the parlor until the visitor was at the street door, whither her mother had followed the retreating figure. She did not hear the woman say in the tone of one who spoke more in command than entreaty,

“To-morrow at one o’clock, or take the consequences.”

“It will be impossible to-morrow,” Mrs. Dinneford whispered back, hurriedly; “I have been very ill, and have only just begun to ride out. It may be a week, but I’ll surely come. I’m watched. Go now! go! go!”

And she pushed Mrs. Bray out into the vestibule and shut the door after her. Mrs. Dinneford did not return to the parlor, but went hastily up to her own room, locking herself in.

She did not come out until dinner-time, when she made an effort to seem composed, but Edith saw her hand tremble every time it was lifted. She drank three glasses of wine during the meal. After dinner she went to her own apartment immediately, and did not come down again that day.

On the next morning Mrs. Dinneford tried to appear cheerful and indifferent. But her almost colorless face, pinched about the lips and nostrils, and the troubled expression that would not go out of her eyes, betrayed to Edith the intense anxiety and dread that lay beneath the surface.

Days went by, but Edith had no more signs. Now that her mother was steadily getting back both bodily strength and mental self-poise, the veil behind which she was hiding herself, and which had been broken into rifts here and there during her sickness, grew thicker and thicker. Mrs. Dinneford had too much at stake not to play her cards with exceeding care. She knew that Edith was watching her with an intentness that let nothing escape. Her first care, as soon as she grew strong enough to have the mastery over herself, was so to control voice, manner and expression of countenance as not to appear aware of this surveillance. Her next was to re-establish the old distance between herself and daughter, which her illness had temporarily bridged over, and her next was to provide against any more visits from Mrs. Bray.

CHAPTER XIII

AS for Edith, all doubts and questionings as to her baby’s fate were merged into a settled conviction that it was alive, and that her mother knew where it was to be found. From her mother’s pity and humanity she had nothing to hope for the child. It had been cruelly cast adrift, pushed out to die; by what means was cared not, so that it died and left no trace.

The face of Mrs. Bray had, in the single glance Edith obtained of it, become photographed in her mind. If she had been an artist, she could have drawn it from memory so accurately that no one who knew the woman could have failed to recognize her likeness. Always when in the street her eyes searched for this face; she never passed a woman of small stature and poor dark clothing without turning to look at her. Every day she went out, walking the streets sometimes for hours looking for this face, but not finding it. Every day she passed certain corners and localities where she had seen women begging, and whenever she found one with a baby in her arms would stop to look at the poor starved thing, and question her about it.

Gradually all her thoughts became absorbed in the condition of poor, neglected and suffering children. Her attendance at the St. John’s mission sewing-school, which was located in the neighborhood of one of the worst places in the city, brought her in contact with little children in such a wretched state of ignorance, destitution and vice that her heart was moved to deepest pity, intensified by the thought that ever and anon flashed across her mind: “And my baby may become like one of these!”

Sometimes this thought would drive her almost to madness. Often she would become so wild in her suspense as to be on the verge of openly accusing her mother with having knowledge of her baby’s existence and demanding of her its restoration. But she was held back by the fear that such an accusation would only shut the door of hope for ever. She had come to believe her mother capable of almost any wickedness. Pressed to the wall she would never be if there was any way of escape, and to prevent such at thing there was nothing so desperate that she would not do it; and so Edith hesitated and feared to take the doubtful issue.

Week after week and month after month now went on without a single, occurrence that gave to Edith any new light. Mrs. Dinneford wrought with her accomplice so effectually that she kept her wholly out of the way. Often, in going and returning from the mission-school, Edith would linger about the neighborhood where she had once met her mother, hoping to see her come out of some one of the houses there, for she had got it into her mind that the woman called Mrs. Gray lived somewhere in this locality.

One day, in questioning a child who had come to the sewing-school as to her home and how she lived, the little girl said something about a baby that her mother said she knew must have been stolen.

“How old is the baby?” asked Edith, hardly able to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“It’s a little thing,” answered the child. “I don’t know how old it is; maybe it’s six months old, or maybe it’s a year. It can sit upon the floor.”

“Why does your mother think it has been stolen?”

“Because two bad girls have got it, and they pay a woman to take care of it. It doesn’t belong to them, she knows. Mother says it would be a good thing if it died.”

“Why does she say that?”

“Oh she always talks that way about babies—says she’s glad when they die.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy baby,” answered the child.

“Does the woman take good care of it?”

“Oh dear, no! She lets it sit on the floor ‘most all the time, and it cries so that I often go up and nurse it. The woman lives in the room over ours.”

“Where do you live?”

“In Grubb’s court.”

“Will you show me the way there after school is over?”

The child looked up into Edith’s face with an expression of surprise and doubt. Edith repeated her question.

“I guess you’d better not go,” was answered, in a voice that meant all the words expressed.

“Why not?”

“It isn’t a good place.”

“But you live there?”

“Yes, but nobody’s going to trouble me.”

“Nor me,” said Edith.

“Oh, but you don’t know what kind of a place it is, nor what dreadful people live there.”

“I could get a policeman to go with me, couldn’t I?”

“Yes, maybe you could, or Mr. Paulding, the missionary. He goes about everywhere.”

“Where can I find Mr. Paulding?”

“At the mission in Briar street.”

“You’ll show me the way there after school?”

“Oh yes; it isn’t a nice place for you to go, but I guess nobody’ll trouble you.”

After the school closed, Edith, guided by the child, made her way to the Briar st. mission-house. As she entered the narrow street in which it was situated, the aspect of things was so strange and shocking to her eyes that she felt a chill creep to her heart. She had never imagined anything so forlorn and squalid, so wretched and comfortless. Miserable little hovels, many of them no better than pig-styes, and hardly cleaner within, were crowded together in all stages of dilapidation. Windows with scarcely a pane of glass, the chilly air kept out by old hats, bits of carpet or wads of newspaper, could be seen on all sides, with here and there, showing some remains of an orderly habit, a broken pane closed with a smooth piece of paper pasted to the sash. Instinctively she paused, oppressed by a sense of fear.