Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Yes, Nannette, she has been my wife – my beloved wife – for many years,” he said with emotion, thinking of the shock her sister’s changed appearance would give to the gentle, loving heart.

“Oh, thank God! thank God! Then she has not perished with want! I have not the darling’s blood on my hands!” cried the Madame, sinking back into her chair and weeping as if in bitterest grief.

“No, Nannette, though she was once very near it,” he said, bending over her and speaking in a very low tone.

“Do not reproach me!” she cried. “I too have suffered! God only knows how much!”

He signed to the wondering Mary to leave the room. His look, his gesture, were imperative, and the girl reluctantly obeyed.

“Poor creature!” he said, turning to the Madame again, “I do not reproach you, nor does she. No, her gentle heart is – has ever been – filled with sisterly affection toward you, and she now waits impatiently to be summoned to your presence.”

“Waits, do you say? Is she here? – my sister – my darling! Where? where? Oh, I beseech you not to keep us another moment apart!”

And she started up, wringing her hands and looking imploringly into his face.

“Calm yourself, Nannette; this agitation will hurt you,” he said in a kindly tone, gently forcing her back into her chair. “Your niece – my Ethel’s dear child – has told us of your invalid state, and I see that this excitement has almost deprived you of the power to breathe.”

“Don’t stop to talk now!” she panted, pushing him from her. “I shall go wild! Go, go and bring her! Bring her, or I shall die before your eyes!” And she struggled frantically for breath.

He was frightened lest she should indeed fail to recover it. He glanced hurriedly about the room, sprang to the bell-pull, but as he laid his hand on it, Mary, listening at an inner door, threw it open and rushed in.

“You’d better have let me stay, you see, sir,” she said a little sarcastically. “But don’t be scared. It’s more hysterics than anything else, and they’re not dangerous. I’ll bring her round presently.”

“Oh, will you go?” gasped the Madame, looking at her visitor and drawing a long breath that ended in almost a shriek.

“As soon as you are calm, Nannette,” he answered pityingly; “but till then I dare not bring her.”

“You’d better go out, sir, and I’ll call you the moment she’s fit,” said Mary. And he went. Espy, standing in the open door of an opposite room, beckoned Mr. Heywood in there.

Downstairs mother and daughter waited, in no haste to be called; for what greater joy than to be as they were now for the first time in so many, many years – alone together, and clasped in each other’s arms, cheek to cheek and heart to heart.

They sat in silence, broken only now and then by a sob (for the deepest joy is strangely akin to grief in its outward manifestations) or a whispered word of endearment.

“My precious, precious child! my long-lost darling!”

“Mother, mother! sweetest, dearest, darling mother!”

It was Mr. Heywood who at length broke in upon the glad interview.

“Ethel, love, my dear wife,” and his hand touched her hair gently, caressingly, “she will see you now.”

Mrs. Heywood started, strained her new-found daughter once more to her bosom with a long, silent, most tender caress, and, releasing her, left the room, leaning on her husband’s arm. She needed its strong support, for she was trembling very much.

“Be calm, love,” he whispered, bending over her and just touching his lips to her fair, open brow, as he paused with her at the foot of the stairs. “One moment. I must prepare you to find your sister much changed – greatly broken in health, yet not, I think, with any dangerous disease,” he hastened to add as he saw a look of anguish come into her eyes, the color suddenly fade out of her cheek, leaving it of an almost death-like pallor.

“Thank God for that!” she whispered faintly, “but how? – what? – ”

“She seems to be somewhat asthmatic and very nervous; has grown immensely fat, lost her clear complexion, vivacity of look and manner, and, I think, partially the use of her right hand also. She gave me the left in greeting.”

“Oh, Rolfe! is it so? – all that? My poor, poor dear sister!” she murmured, tears trickling down the pale cheeks.

He soothed her grief as tenderly as she would that of her little Nannette – the namesake of this beloved only sister – and at length, when she had grown calm again, half carried her up the stairs.

The Madame, listening to their approach, was threatened with a renewal of her hysterics, but Mary was equal to the emergency.

“Madame, Madame,” she said hastily, “calm yourself, or I shall have to call to them not to come in.”

“No, no, you shall do no such thing!” cried her mistress, controlling her nerves by a mighty effort; then, as at that instant the slender, graceful figure of Mrs. Heywood appeared in the doorway, she sprang up with a cry, extending both arms, while her huge frame trembled from head to foot.

Mrs. Heywood flew to meet the offered embrace. “Nannette, Nannette!” and tears fell fast as lip met lip in a long, clinging kiss.

“Pansy, Pansy! oh, my little Pansy! my darling! my wronged, long-suffering, abused little sister!” sobbed the Madame, holding her close, “can you, will you, forgive me, dear?”

“With all my heart, my own Nannette,” returned Ethel, weeping on her neck. Then, lifting her head and gazing tenderly into the agitated face so painfully changed to her, and noting the tumultuous heaving of the broad chest, “Oh, my poor, poor dear sister, how changed you are! how ill! You seem hardly able to breathe!”

“Yes, I have suffered,” panted the Madame. “I have mourned and wept over your loss, Pansy, and for many years have been constantly searching for you. Heaven be praised, darling, that I have found you at last!”

The last words were spoken gaspingly, and Ethel felt the stout arms relaxing their hold on her. Mr. Heywood sprang forward just in time to save his sister-in-law from falling, and with Mary’s assistance got her into her chair again, where she lay back on her cushions wheezing and panting in a way that greatly alarmed her sister.

Mary reassured her:

“It is nothing, ma’am. You’d know that if you’d been with her as long as I have. She’ll get over it in a few minutes. You see she gets kind of upset with anything that excites her.”

Mrs. Heywood knelt by the side of the chair, and, with tears streaming over her cheeks, took the Madame’s hand in hers, stroked it, and talked to her in soothing tones with loving, tender, pitying words, while Mr. Heywood stood by plying a fan and the maid administered remedies.

CHAPTER XL

THE CUP OVERFLOWS

“Swell, swell my joys; and faint not to declare
Yourselves as ample as your causes are.” —

    Jonson.
Our heroine, left alone in the parlor below, paced excitedly to and fro for several minutes; then dropping into a chair, rested her elbows on a table and covered her face with her hands.

Her heart was swelling with joy unutterable and thankfulness to that heavenly Friend who had been her ever-present help in time of trouble, her comfort and support in the dark days of adversity, and had at length brought her quest to this happy ending, and she was sending up to Him her silent but most fervent thanksgivings.

In an adjoining room three young people had been sitting for the last half-hour or more, very quiet and still, yet full of an eager expectancy that made the waiting time seem very long and tedious. They exchanged glances, and drew nearer together as Mr. and Mrs. Heywood mounted the stairway.

“What shall we do, Ellis?” whispered one. “She’s in there all alone, and must we wait till some one comes to take us in and introduce us in due form?”

“No, Dora, I should say not. Why should we? Come, both of you. I’ll be spokesman.”

Ethel heard the approaching footsteps, quiet, almost stealthy as they were, and taking her hands from her face, turned it toward them.

A lad with a noble face and gentlemanly manner, a fair young girl whom to look upon was like seeing her own reflection in the glass, except that this face was somewhat more youthful, lacking the maturity, sorrow, and care far more than years had brought to hers, and a little girl with a sweet, winsome face, blue eyes, and soft, flaxen curls, stood before her.

“Excuse us if we seem intruders,” said the lad, with a courtly bow and offering his hand, “but we don’t know how to wait till some older person shall find time to introduce us, for we know we have a right in you, if you will pardon me for saying it; but these are your sisters and mine, and I am your brother. Their names are Dora and Nannette Heywood, and mine is Ellis.”