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The Beloved Woman, a novel by Kathleen Thompson Norris |
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Chapter 16 |
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_ CHAPTER XVI In mid-Lent, when an early rush of almost summery warmth suddenly poured over the city, Chris and Norma met on the way home from church. Norma walked every Sunday morning to the big cathedral, but Chris went only once or twice a year to the fashionable Avenue church a few blocks away. This morning he had joined her as she was quietly leaving the house, and instantly it flashed into her mind that he had deliberately planned to do so, knowing that Miss Slater, who usually accompanied her, was away for a week's vacation. Their conversation was impersonal and casual, as always, as they walked along the drying sidewalks, in the pleasant early freshness, but as Chris left her he asked her at about what time she would be returning, and Norma was not surprised, when she came out of the cathedral, a little later than the great first tide of the outpouring congregation, to see him waiting for her. The thought of him had been keeping her heart beating fast, and her mind in confusion, even while she tried to pray. And she had thought that she might leave the church by one of the big side doors, and so at least run a fair risk of missing him. But Norma half feared an act that would define their deepening friendship as dangerous, and half longed for the fifteen minutes of walking and chatting in the sunshine. So she came straight to him, and with no more than a word of greeting they turned north. It was an exquisite morning, and the clean, bare stretches of the Avenue were swimming in an almost summerlike mist of opal and blue. Such persons as were visible in the streets at all were newsboys, idle policemen, or black-clad women hurrying to or from church, and when they reached the Park, it was almost deserted. The trees, gently moving in a warm breeze, were delicately etched with the first green of the year; maples and sycamores were dotted with new, golden foliage, and the grass was deep and sweet. A few riders were ambling along the bridle-path, the horses kicking up clods of the damp, soft earth. Norma and Christopher walked slowly, talking. The girl was hardly conscious of what they said, realizing suddenly, and almost with terror, that just to be here, with Chris, was enough to flood her being with a happiness as new and miraculous as the new and miraculous springtime itself. There was no future and no past to this ecstasy, no Alice, no world; it was enough, in its first bloom, that it existed. "You've had--what is it?--a whole year of us, Norma," Chris said, "and on the whole, it's been happy, hasn't it?" "Fourteen months," she corrected him. "Fourteen months, at least, since Aunt Kate and I called on Aunt Marianna. Yes, it's been like a miracle, Chris. I never will understand it. I never will understand why a friendless girl--unknown and having absolutely no claim--should have been treated so wonderfully!" "And you wouldn't want to go back?" he mused, smiling. "No," she said, quickly. "I am afraid, when I think of ever going back!" "I don't see why you should," Chris said. "You will inherit, through your grandmother's will----" He had been following a train of thought, half to himself. Norma's round eyes, as she stopped short in the path, arrested him. "My _grandmother_!" she exclaimed. "Your Aunt Marianna," he amended, flushing. But their eyes did not move as they stared at each other. A thousand remembered trifles flashed through Norma's whirling brain; a thousand little half-stilled suspicions leaped to new life. She had accepted the suggested kinship in childish acquiescence, but doubt was aflame now, once and for all. The man knew that there was no further evading her. "Chris, do you know anything about me?" she asked, directly. "Yes, I think--I know everything," he answered, after a second's hesitation. Norma looked at him steadily. "Did you know my father and mother?" she demanded, presently, in an odd, tense voice. There was another pause before Chris said, slowly: "I have met your father. But I knew--I know--your mother." "You _know_ her?" The world was whirling about Norma. "Is Aunt Kate my mother?" she asked, breathing hard. "No. I don't know why you should not know. You call her Aunt Annie," Chris said. Norma's hands dropped to her sides. She breathed as if she were suffocating. "_Aunt Annie!_" she whispered, in stupefaction. And she turned and walked a few steps blindly, her eyes wide and vacant, and one hand pressed to her cheek. "My God!--my God!" he heard her say. "Annie eloped when she was a girl," Chris began presently, when she was dazedly walking on again. "She was married, and the man deserted her. She was ill, in Germany----But shall I talk now? Would you rather not?" "Oh, no--no! Go on," Norma said, briefly. "Alice was the first to guess it," Christopher pursued. "Her sister doesn't know it, or dream it!" "Aunt Annie doesn't! She does not know that I'm her own daughter!... But what _does_ she think?" "She supposes that her baby died, dear. I'm sorry to tell you, Norma, but I couldn't lie to you! You'll understand everything, now--why your grandmother wants to make it all up to you----" "Does Leslie know?" Norma demanded, suddenly, from a dark moment of brooding. "Nobody knows! Your Aunt Kate, your grandmother, Alice, and I, are absolutely the only people in the world! And Norma, _nobody else must know_. For the sake of the family, for everyone's sake----" "Oh, I see that!" she answered, quickly and impatiently. And for awhile she walked on in silence, and apparently did not hear his one or two efforts to recommence the conversation. "Aunt Annie!" she said once, half aloud. And later she added, absently: "Yes, I should know!" They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and Norma loosened her light furs. "So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my name?" "Melrose," he answered, flushing. Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face, leaving it very white. "You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully. "Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!" Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly, told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a drawn, set look to her face that he did not like. "Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after so many years?" she asked. "I'm sure I don't know that. Alice and I have fancied that Kate might have kept in touch with your father all this time, and that he might be dead now, and not likely to--make trouble." "That is it," Norma agreed, quickly. "Because not long before she came to see Aunt Marianna she _had_ had some sort of news--from Canada, I think. An old friend was dead; I remember it as if it were yesterday." "Then that fits in," Chris said, glad she could talk. "But I can't believe it!" she cried in bewilderment. And suddenly she burst out angrily: "Oh, Chris, is it fair? Is it fair? That one girl, like Leslie, should have so--so much! The name, the inheritance, the husband and position and the friends--and that another, through no fault of hers, should be just--just--a nobody?" She choked, and Christopher made a little protestant sound. "Oh, yes, I am!" she insisted, bitterly. "Not recognized by my own mother--she's _not_ my mother! No mother could----" "Listen, dear," Chris begged, really alarmed by the storm he had raised. "Your grandmother, for reasons of her own, never told Annie there was a baby. It is obvious why she kept silent; it was only kindness--decency. Annie was young, younger than you are, and poor old Aunt Marianna only knew that her child was ill, and had been ill-treated, and most cruelly used. You were brought up safely and happily, with good and loving people----" "The best in the world!" Norma said, through her teeth, fighting tears. "The best in the world. Why, Norma, what a woman they've made you! You--who stand alone among all the girls I know! And then," Chris continued quickly, seeing her a little quieter, "when you are growing up, your aunt brings you to your grandmother, who immediately turns her whole world topsy-turvy to make you welcome! Is there anything so unfair in that? Annie made a terrible mistake, dear----" "And everyone but Annie pays!" Norma interrupted, bitterly. "Norma, she is your mother!" Chris reminded her, in the tone that, coming from him, always instantly affected her. Her eyes fell, and her tone, when she spoke, was softer. "Just bearing a child isn't all motherhood," she said. "No, my dear; I know. And if Annie were ever to guess this, it isn't like her not to face the music, at any cost. But isn't it better as it is, Norma?" The wonderful tone, the wonderful manner, the kindness and sympathy in his eyes! Norma, with one foot on the lowest step, now raised her eyes to his with a sort of childish penitence. "Oh, yes, Chris! But"--her lips trembled--"but if Aunt Kate had only kept me from knowing for ever!" she faltered. "She wouldn't take that responsibility, dear, and one can't blame her. A comfortable inheritance comes from your grandmother; it isn't the enormous fortune Leslie inherited, of course, but it is all you would have had, even had Annie brought you home openly as her daughter. It is enough to make a very pretty wedding-portion for me to give away with you, my dear, in a few years," Chris added more lightly. The suggestion made her face flame again. "Who would marry me?" she said, under her breath, with a scornful look, under half-lowered lids, into space. For answer he gave her an odd glance--one that lived in her memory for many and many a day. "Ah, Norma--Norma--Norma!" he said--quickly, half laughingly. Then his expression changed, and his smile died away. "I have something to bear," he said, with a glance upward toward Alice's windows. "Life isn't roses, roses, all the way for any one of us, my dear! Now, you've got a bad bit of the road ahead. But let's be good sports, Norma. And come in now, I'm famished; let's have breakfast. My honour is in your hands," he added, more gravely, "perhaps I had no right to tell you all this! You mustn't betray me!" "Chris," she responded, warmly, "as if I could!" He watched her eating her breakfast, and chatting with Alice, a little later, and told himself that some of Annie's splendid courage had certainly descended to this gallant little daughter. Norma was pale, and now and then her eyes would meet his with a certain strained look, or she would lose the thread of the conversation for a few seconds, but that was all. Alice noticed nothing, and in a day or two Chris could easily have convinced himself that the conversation in the spring greenness of the Sunday morning had been a dream. _ |
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