by John Harwood
"Yes; but she would have to accept that instead of the kind and gentle man she remembers as her father, she is the daughter of a monster, who delighted in cruelty, murdered we do not know how many people, and never cared a jot for her. Would you really wish that upon her?"
"No, but—there is a way," I said tentatively. "If you would let me be Clara; you could say that you gave me up—exactly as you did give Clara to Ada—to protect me, and now we have found each other again. Laura could go on being Ada's daughter, and ... I would dearly love to have you for my mother; I would never tell a soul, I promise, and then Laura could be my sister ..." My voice broke at the last phrase, and tears welled over again. She drew me into her arms and stroked my hair and murmured the small wordless comforting sounds I had longed to hear from my own mother, and I found myself quite unable to stop until I had drenched her shoulder with my tears and lay quiet in her embrace, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back and wishing the moment would last forever.
But I knew what her answer would be as soon as I looked up.
"It is a dream of happiness, Constance, but it could never be. The secret would divide us; we should all be whispering in corners, and sooner or later, Laura would guess what we had done. I had no choice when I gave her to Ada; it would be unforgivable to deceive her a second time.
"No; Eleanor Wraxford vanished twenty years ago, and will not return. I am, and will remain, Helen Northcote, and the secret I beg you to keep—if you will—is that you and I met—here—this morning."
She rose, and drew me to my feet, and we stood for a long moment gazing at one another.
"Shall I never see you again?" I said.
"I will always think of you," she replied, and held me in a last embrace before she turned and walked away down the hill toward the sea of rooftops below, with the dome of St. Paul's rising above the haze of numberless chimneys. My fancy of the Underworld beneath the kitchen floor, with its endless tunnels stretching away into the dark, came back to me as I watched her, remembering how often, and how sombrely, I had gazed at that dome as a child. My thoughts turned to Edwin, perhaps already waiting in the gardens by the church, but I remained on the hillside, gazing after Nell's diminishing figure, long after she had vanished from sight.
Table of Contents
Front
Part One
Constance Langton's Narrative
Part Two
John Montague's Narrative
Part Three
Eleanor Unwin's Narrative
Part Four
Nell Wraxford's Journal
Part Five
John Montague's Narrative
Part Six
Constance Langton's Narrative