Cast Adrift

Mr. Dinneford started at so unexpected a question, surprised and disturbed. He did not reply, and Edith put the question again.

“No, my dear,” he answered, with a hesitation of manner that was almost painful.

After looking into his face steadily for some moments, Edith dropped her eyes to the floor, and there was a constrained silence between them for a good while.

“You never saw it?” she queried, again lifting her eyes to her father’s face. Her own was much paler than when she first put the question.

“Never.”

“Why?” asked Edith.

She waited for a little while, and then said,

“Why don’t you answer me, father?”

“It was never brought to me.”

“Oh, father!”

“You were very ill, and a nurse was procured immediately.”

“I was not too sick to see my baby,” said Edith, with white, quivering lips. “If they had laid it in my bosom as soon as it was born, I would never have been so ill, and the baby would not have died. If—if—”

She held back what she was about saying, shutting her lips tightly. Her face remained very pale and strangely agitated. Nothing more was then said.

A day or two afterward, Edith asked her mother, with an abruptness that sent the color to her face, “Where was my baby buried?”

“In our lot at Fairview,” was replied, after a moment’s pause.

Edith said no more, but on that very day, regardless of a heavy rain that was falling, went out to the cemetery alone and searched in the family lot for the little mound that covered her baby—searched, but did not find it. She came back so changed in appearance that when her mother saw her she exclaimed,

“Why, Edith! Are you sick?”

“I have been looking for my baby’s grave and cannot find it,” she answered. “There is something wrong, mother. What was done with my baby? I must know.” And she caught her mother’s wrists with both of her hands in a tight grip, and sent searching glances down through her eyes.

“Your baby is dead,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, speaking slowly and with a hard deliberation. “As for its grave—well, if you will drag up the miserable past, know that in my anger at your wretched mesalliance I rejected even the dead body of your miserable husband’s child, and would not even suffer it to lie in our family ground. You know how bitterly I was disappointed, and I am not one of the kind that forgets or forgives easily. I may have been wrong, but it is too late now, and the past may as well be covered out of sight.”

“Where, then, was my baby buried?” asked Edith, with a calm resolution of manner that was not to be denied.

“I do not know. I did not care at the time, and never asked.”

“Who can tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who took my baby to nurse?”

“I have forgotten the woman’s name. All I know is that she is dead. When the child died, I sent her money, and told her to bury it decently.”

“Where did she live?”

“I never knew precisely. Somewhere down town.”

“Who brought her here? who recommended her?” said Edith, pushing her inquiries rapidly.

“I have forgotten that also,” replied Mrs. Dinneford, maintaining her coldness of manner.

“My nurse, I presume,” said Edith. “I have a faint recollection of her—a dark little woman with black eyes whom I had never seen before. What was her name?”

“Bodine,” answered Mrs. Dinneford, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Where does she live?”

“She went to Havana with a Cuban lady several months ago.”

“Do you know the lady’s name?”

“It was Casteline, I think.”

Edith questioned no further. The mother and daughter were still sitting together, both deeply absorbed in thought, when a servant opened the door and said to Mrs. Dinneford,

“A lady wishes to see you.”

“Didn’t she give you her card?”

“No ma’am.”

“Nor send up her name?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Go down and ask her name.”

The servant left the room. On returning, she said,

“Her name is Mrs. Bray.”

Mrs. Dinneford turned her face quickly, but not in time to prevent Edith from seeing by its expression that she knew her visitor, and that her call was felt to be an unwelcome one. She went from the room without speaking. On entering the parlor, Mrs. Dinneford said, in a low, hurried voice,

“I don’t want you to come here, Mrs. Bray. If you wish to see me send me word, and I will call on you, but you must on no account come here.”

“Why? Is anything wrong?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Edith isn’t satisfied about the baby, has been out to Fairview looking for its grave, wants to know who her nurse was.”