He patted the small hand that rested on his knee.
“You won’t? Poor little girl, you must believe it! — and more than that, you must be prepared for it. Even a year’s none too much for all that has to be done,— ‘twill almost take me that time to look the thing square in the face and give up the farm for good.” — Here he paused with a kind of horror at his own words— “Give up the farm! — My God! And for ever! How strange it seems!”
The tumult in her mind found sudden speech.
“Dad, dear! Dad! It isn’t true! Don’t think it! Don’t mind what the doctor says. He’s wrong — I’m sure he’s wrong! You’ll live for many and many a happy year yet — oh yes, Dad, you will! I’m sure of it! You won’t die, darling Dad! Why should you?”
She broke off with a half-smothered sob.
“Why should I?” he said, with a perplexed frown; “Ah! — that’s more than I can tell you! There’s neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see. But it’s the rule of life that it should end in death. For some the end is swift — for some it’s slow — some know when it’s coming — some don’t, — the last are the happiest. I’ve been told, you see, — and it’s no use my fighting against the fact, — a year at the most, perhaps less, is the longest term I have of Briar Farm. Your eyes are wet — you promised you wouldn’t cry.”
She furtively dashed away the drops that were shining on her lashes.
Then she forced a faint quivering smile.
“I’m not crying, Dad,” she said. “There’s nothing to cry for,” and she fondled his hand in her own— “The doctors are wrong. You’re only a little weak and run down — you’ll be all right with rest and care — and — and you shan’t die! You shan’t die! I won’t let you.”
He drew a long breath and passed his hand across his forehead as though he were puzzled or in pain.
“That’s foolish talk,” he said, with some harshness; “You’ve got trouble to meet, and you must meet it. I’m bound to show you trouble — but I can show you a way out of it as well.”
He paused a moment, — a light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer.
“The first thing I must tell you,” he went on, “is about yourself. It’s time you should know who you are.”
She looked up at him startled.
“Who I am?” she repeated, — then as she saw the stern expression on his face a sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind and she waited dumbly for his next word. He gripped her hand hard in his own.
“Now hear me out, child!” he said— “Let me speak on without interruption, or I shall never get through the tale. Perhaps I ought to have told you before, but I’ve put it off and put it off, thinking ’twould be time enough when you and Robin were wed. You and Robin — you and Robin! — your marriage bells have rung through my brain many and many a night for the past two years and never a bit nearer are you to the end of your wooing, such fanciful children as you both are! And you’re so long about it and I’ve so short a time before me that I’ve made up my mind it’s best to let you have all the truth about yourself before anything happens to me. All the truth about yourself — as far as I know it.”
He paused again. She was perfectly silent. She trembled a little — wondering what she was going to hear. It must be something dreadful, she thought, — something for which she was unprepared, — something that might, perhaps, like a sudden change in the currents of the air, create darkness where there had been sunshine, storm instead of calm. His grip on her hand was strong enough to hurt her, but she was not conscious of it. She only wished he would tell her the worst at once and quickly. The worst, — for she instinctively felt there was no best.
“It was eighteen years ago this very haymaking time,” he went on, with a dreamy retrospective air as though he were talking to himself,— “The last load had been taken in. Supper was over. The men had gone home, — Priscilla was clearing the great hall, when there came on a sudden storm — just a flash of lightning — I can see it now, striking a blue fork across the windows — a clap of thunder — and then a regular downpour of rain. Heavy rain, too, — buckets-full — for it washed the yard out and almost swamped the garden. I didn’t think much about it, — the hay was hauled in dry, and that was all my concern. I stood under a shed in the yard and watched the rain falling in straight sheets out of a sky black as pitch — I could scarcely see my own hand if I stretched it out before me, the night was so dark. All at once I heard the quick gallop of a horse’s hoofs some way off, — then the sound seemed to die away, — but presently I heard the hoofs coming at a slow steady pace down our muddy old by-road — no one can gallop THAT, in any weather. And almost before I knew how it came there, the horse was standing at the farmyard gate, with a man in the saddle carrying a bundle in front of him. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, and when he dismounted and came towards me, and took off his cap in the pouring rain and smiled at me, I was fairly taken with his looks. I thought he must be something of a king or other great personage by his very manner. ‘Will you do me a kindness?’ he said, as gently as you please. ‘This is a farm, I believe. I want to leave my little child here in safe keeping for a night. She is such a baby, — I cannot carry her any further through this storm.’ And he put aside the wrappings of the bundle he carried and showed me a small pale infant asleep. ‘She’s motherless,’ he added, ‘and I’m taking her to my relatives. But I have to ride some distance from here on very urgent business, and if you will look after her for to-night I’ll call for her to-morrow. Poor little innocent! She’s hungry and fretful. I haven’t anything to give her and the storm looks like continuing. Will you let her stay with you?’ ‘Certainly!’ said I, without thinking a bit further about it. ‘Leave her here by all means. We’ll see she gets all she wants.’ He gave me the child at once and said in a very soft voice: ‘You are most generous!— “verily I have not found so great a faith, no not in Israel!” You’re sure you don’t mind?’ ‘Not at all!’ I answered him,— ‘You’ll come back for her to-morrow, of course.’ He smiled and said— ‘Oh yes, of course! To-morrow! I’m really very much obliged to you!’ Then he seemed to think for a moment and put his hand in his pocket, but I stopped him— ‘No, sir,’ I said, ‘excuse me, but I don’t want any pay for giving a babe a night’s shelter.’ He looked at me very straight with his big clear hazel eyes, and then shook hands with me. ‘You’re an honest fellow,’ he said, — and he stooped and kissed the child he had put into my arms. ‘I’m extremely sorry to trouble you, but the storm is too much for this helpless little creature.’ ‘You yourself are wet through,’ I interrupted. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he answered,— ‘for me nothing matters. Thank you a thousand times! Good-night!’ The rain was coming down faster than ever and I stepped back into the shed, covering the child up so that the drifting wet should not beat upon it. He came after me and kissed it again, saying ‘Good-night, poor little innocent, good-night!’ three or four times. Then he went off quickly and sprang into his saddle and in the blur of rain I saw horse and man turn away. He waved his hand once and his handsome pale face gleamed upon me like that of a ghost in the storm. ‘Till to-morrow!’ he called, and was gone. I took the child into the house and called Priscilla. She was always a rough one as you know, even in her younger days, and she at once laid her tongue to with a will and as far as she dared called me a fool for my pains. And so I was, for when I came to think of it the man was a stranger to me, and I had never asked him his name. It was just his handsome face and the way he had with him that had thrown me off my guard as it were; so I stood and looked silly enough, I suppose, while Priscilla fussed about with the baby, for it had wakened and was crying. Well!” — and Jocelyn heaved a short sigh— “That’s about all! We never saw the man again, and the child was never claimed; but every six months I received a couple of bank-notes in an envelope bearing a different postmark each time, with the words: ‘For Innocen
t’ written inside—”
She uttered a quick, almost terrified exclamation, and drew her hand away from his.
“Every six months for a steady twelve years on end,” he went on,— “then the money suddenly stopped. Now you understand, don’t you? YOU were the babe that was left with me that stormy night; and you’ve been with me ever since. But you’re not MY child. I don’t know whose child you are!”
He stopped, looking at her.
She had risen from her seat beside him and was standing up. She was trembling violently, and her face seemed changed from the round and mobile softness of youth to the worn pallor and thinness of age. Her eyes were luminous with a hard and feverish brilliancy.
“You — you don’t know whose child I am!” she repeated,— “I am not yours — and you don’t know — you don’t know who I belong to! Oh, it hurts me! — it hurts me, Dad! I can’t realise it! I thought you were my own dear father! — and I loved you! — oh, how much I loved you! — yet you have deceived me all along!”
“I haven’t deceived you,” he answered, impatiently. “I’ve done all for the best — I meant to tell you when you married Robin—”
A flush of indignation flew over her cheeks.
“Marry Robin!” she exclaimed— “How could I marry Robin? I’m nothing!
I’m nobody! I have not even a name!”
She covered her face with her hands and an uncontrollable sob broke from her.
“Not even a name!” she murmured— “Not even a name!”
With a sudden impulsive movement she knelt down in front of him like a child about to say its prayers.
“Oh, help me, Dad!” she said, piteously— “Comfort me! Say something — anything! I feel so lost — so astray! All my life seems gone! — I can’t realise it! Yes, I know! You have been very kind, — all kindness, just as if I had been your own little girl. Oh, why did you tell me I was your own? — I was so proud to be your daughter — and now — it’s so hard — so hard! Only a few moments ago I was a happy girl with a loving father as I thought — now I know I’m only a poor nameless creature, — deserted by my parents and left on your hands. Oh, Dad dear! I’ve given you years of trouble! — I hope I’ve been good to you! It’s not my fault that I am what I am!”
He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.
“Dear child, of course it’s not your fault! That’s what I’ve said all along. You’re innocent, like your name, — and you’ve been a blessing to me all your days, — the farm has been brighter for your living on it, — so you’ve no cause to worry me or yourself about what’s past long ago and can’t be helped. No one knows your story but Priscilla, — no one need ever know.”
She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.
“Priscilla!” she echoed— “She knew, and she never said a word!”
“If she had, she’d have got the sack,” answered Jocelyn, bluntly. “You were brought up always as MY child.”
He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.
“I want to know how that was,” she said, slowly. “You told me my mother died when I was born.”
He avoided her eyes.
“Well, that was true, or so I suppose,” he said. “The man who brought you said you were motherless. But I — I have never married.”
“Then how could you tell Robin — and everyone else about here that I was your daughter?”
He grew suddenly angry.
“Child, don’t stare at me like that!” he exclaimed, with all an old man’s petulance. “It doesn’t matter what I said — I had to let the neighbours think you were mine—”
A light flashed in upon her, and she gave vent to a shuddering cry.
“Dad! Oh, Dad!”
Gripping both arms of his chair he raised himself into an upright posture.
“What now?” he demanded, almost fiercely— “What trouble are you going to make of it?”
“Oh, if it were only trouble,” she exclaimed, forlornly. “It’s far worse! You’ve branded me with shame! Oh, I understand now! I understand at last why the girls about here never make friends with me! I understand why Robin seems to pity me so much! Oh, how shall I ever look people in the face again!”
His fuzzy brows met in a heavy frown.
“Little fool!” he said, roughly,— “What shame are you talking of? I see no shame in laying claim to a child of my own, even though the claim has no reality. Look at the thing squarely! Here comes a strange man with a baby and leaves it on my hands. You know what a scandalous, gossiping little place this is, — and it was better to say at once the baby was mine than leave it to the neighbours to say the same thing and that I wouldn’t acknowledge it. Not a soul about here would have believed the true story if I had told it to them. I’ve done everything for the best — I know I have. And there’ll never be a word said if you marry Robin.”
Her face had grown very white. She put up her hand to her head and her fingers touched the faded wreath of wild roses. She drew it off and let it drop to the ground.
“I shall never marry Robin!” she said, with quiet firmness— “And I will not be considered your illegitimate child any longer. It’s cruel of you to have made me live on a lie! — yes, cruel! — though you’ve been so kind in other things. You don’t know who my parents were — you’ve no right to think they were not honest!”
He stared at her amazed. For the first time in eighteen years he began to see the folly of what he had thought his own special wisdom. This girl, with her pale sad face and steadfast eyes, confronted him with the calm reproachful air of an accusing angel.
“What right have you?” she went on. “The man who brought me to you, — poor wretched me! — if he was my father, may have been good and true. He said I was motherless; and he, or someone else, sent you money for me till I was twelve. That did not look as if I was forgotten. Now you say the money has stopped — well! — my father may be dead.” Her lips quivered and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. “But there is nothing in all this that should make you think me basely born, — nothing that should have persuaded you to put shame upon me!”
He was taken aback for a minute by her words and attitude — then he burst out angrily:
“It’s the old story, I see! Do a good action and it turns out a curse! Basely born! Of course you are basely born, if that’s the way you put it! What man alive would leave his own lawful child at a strange farm off the high-road and never claim it again? You’re a fool, I tell you! This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head — to get rid of an encumbrance. And so he got rid of you—”
“Don’t go over the whole thing again!” she interrupted, with weary patience-”-I was an encumbrance to him — I’ve been an encumbrance to you. I’m sorry! But in no case had you the right to set a stigma on me which perhaps does not exist. That was wrong!”
She paused a moment, then went on slowly:
“I’ve been a burden on you for six years now, — it’s six years, you say, since the money stopped. I wish I could do something in return for what I’ve cost you all those six years, — I’ve tried to be useful.”
The pathos in her voice touched him to the quick.
“Innocent!” he exclaimed, and held out his arms.
She looked at him with a very pitiful smile and shook her head.
“No! I can’t do that! Not just yet! You see, it’s all so unexpected — things have changed altogether in a moment. I can’t feel quite the same — my heart seems so sore and cold.”
He leaned back in his chair again.
“Ah, well, it is as I thought!” he said, irritably. “You’re more concerned about yourself than about me. A few minutes ago you only cared to know what the doctors thought of my illness, but now it’s nothing to you that I shall be dead in a year. Your mind is set on your own trouble, or what you choose to consider a trouble.”
She heard him like one in a dream. It seemed v
ery strange to her that he should have dealt her a blow and yet reproach her for feeling the force of it.
“I am sorry!” she said, patiently. “But this is the first time I have known real trouble — you forget that! — and you must forgive me if I am stupid about it. And if the doctors really believe you are to die in a year I wish I could take your place, Dad! — I would rather be dead than live shamed. And there’s nothing left for me now, — not even a name—”
Here she paused and seemed to reflect.
“Why am I called Innocent?”
“Why? Because that’s the name that was written on every slip of paper that came with each six months’ money,” he answered, testily. “That’s the only reason I know.”
“Was I baptised by that name?” she asked.
He moved uneasily.
“You were never baptised.”
“Never baptised!” She echoed the words despairingly, — and then was silent for a minute’s space. “Could you not have done that much for me?” she asked, plaintively, at last— “Would it have been impossible?”
He was vaguely ashamed. Her eyes, pure as a young child’s, were fixed upon him in appealing sorrow. He began to feel that he had done her a grievous wrong, though he had never entirely realised it till now. He answered her with some hesitation and an effort at excuse.
“Not impossible — no, — maybe I could have baptised you myself if I had thought about it. ’Tis but a sprinkle of water and ‘In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’ But somehow I never worried my head — for as long as you were a baby I looked for the man who brought you day after day, and in my own mind left all that sort of business for him to attend to — and when he didn’t come and you grew older, it fairly slipped my remembrance altogether. I’m not fond of the Church or its ways, — and you’ve done as well without baptism as with it, surely. Innocent is a good name for you, and fits your case. For you’re innocent of the faults of your parents whatever they were, and you’re innocent of my blunders. You’re free to make your own life pleasant if you’ll only put a bright face on it and make the best of an awkward business.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 798