CHAPTER XVIII

THE LADY OF EDENGARDEN

And scenes long past of joy and pain Come wildering through her wondering brain. SCOTT.

Yes! There, holding the girl’s eyes spellbound by her mesmeric gaze, stood the Wonder of the Wilderness, the mysterious being known as the “White Spirit,” yet not in the traditional white robe and veil.

No! The Lady of Edengarden was attired as any other conventional gentlewoman of the period with artistic tastes might have been.

She wore a long flowing soft gray silk dress, with fine white lace about the throat and wrists, and with a knot of light-blue ribbon mixed with lace on her bosom, and another of the same materials among the braids of her sunny golden-brown hair.

But the face, with its delicate patrician features, its fair transparent complexion, and its soft, dreamy, dark-blue eyes, was the very same.

“I—I beg your pardon, madam,” stammered Em. with an effort to recover herself.

“My child!—_Who are you?_” interrupted the lady, taking her hand and turning her around to face the full light of the window.

“I am the daughter of John Palmer, the overseer at the Wilderness Manor, madam, Emolyn Palmer, and I thought——”

“Em—olyn—Palm—er,” slowly repeated the lady, again interrupting the girl and gazing steadily on her face.

To escape this searching gaze into her soul Em. first lowered her eyes and then raised them.

Between the two front windows near which they stood hung a long pier glass. Em. caught a full view of the lady and herself as they stood together, reflected in the mirror, and started at the marvelous likeness revealed—in all except dress the two seemed almost duplicates. In the two faces there was scarcely even the perceptible difference that age should have made.

“Emolyn Palmer!” slowly repeated the lady. “Yes, yes, to be sure, I know! Emolyn Palmer. Come here, my dear, and sit down.”

And the lady led Em. to a _tête-à-tête_ sofa, placed her in one corner, and took the other herself.

“I wish to beg your pardon, madam. I am very sorry—I did not know you were here—or I should not have presumed to intrude,” faltered Em. in painful embarrassment.

The lady did not answer, only continued to look at her thoughtfully, kindly.

“I—I had understood that you were so good as to let the neighbors come in and look at your beautiful pictures and statues when you were away from home, and so I used to come very often last summer, though I was always in a dread for fear I should happen to come while you were here.”

The lady smiled on the young speaker, but made no answer.

“And now I have done what I had feared to do, and intruded on your privacy, madam. I am sorry, and I hope you will forgive me,” continued Em., half ashamed of having to say so much before receiving an answer, yet reassured by the lady’s sweet, silent smile.

“You have done nothing that requires excuse, my child. You could have had no reason to suspect that I was present. I have never been here in the autumn before. I always came the first of May and went the last of September. Only this summer I went to Canada instead, and then came here on the first of October to spend the autumn. So you see you are blameless. Besides, Edengarden, with its house and grounds, is open to the neighbors at all seasons. Even when I am here only my private suite of rooms is reserved. They are at the top of the building; so you might have roamed all over the house if you had wished to do so without the fear of intrusion. And now let us talk of yourself, little one. Your name is Emolyn Palmer,” said the lady, taking the girl’s slender white hand in her own.

“Yes, madam; but everybody calls me Em.,” shyly answered the girl.

“Do not be afraid of me, my child! This is not the first time we have met.”

Em. started and gazed at the speaker in surprise.

“No, my child, not the first time we have met. I held you in my arms and blessed you when you were a babe of only a few weeks old,” continued the Lady of Edengarden.

Em.’s startled gaze of surprise softened as she lowered her eyes and reflected that this might easily have been the case, as her mother had many customers among fine ladies, whose little girls used to notice her babies.

“Do you know for whom you were named, Emolyn?” gently inquired the lady.

“Oh, yes, madam. I was named for Miss Emolyn Wyndeworth, a saint, an angel; but she has been in heaven these many years.”

“How do you know that?”

“My mother has told me so all my life.”

“Your mother cherishes her memory, then?”

“Oh, yes, yes, and speaks of her as pious Catholics speak of their patron saints.”

“Tell me of your mother, my child. I used to know her very long ago, when I lived in the world. Does she enjoy good health, and is she much more prosperous and much happier now at the Wilderness manor-house than she used to be in Laundry Lane?”

“To think you should know anything about Laundry Lane, dear lady! Why, even to me it seems like a place in a past existence, that I had died in and risen out of,” murmured Em.

“And yet it is scarcely six months since you left it, while it has been over sixteen years since I saw it. But about your mother, Emolyn.”

“Oh, mother, too, is just as if she had died in Laundry Lane and risen to Paradise! She is just as healthy and hearty and happy as any human being can be. And she looks younger now than I ever saw her look. And so does father. Did you ever know father, madam?” cheerfully inquired Em., who was growing more and more at ease in the presence of the lady.

“Yes, I knew your father, too, my child,” breathed the latter in a low tone.

“Well, father looks younger, too. He is not sallow now, and he doesn’t stoop. He’s ruddy as a red apple and straight as an arrow. And they are all as well and as happy as they can be at the Wilderness Manor. They have everything that heart can wish. Without being wealthy, they have all the enjoyments of wealth. And it is like Paradise after the purgatory of Laundry Lane.”

“I thank the Lord that one family, at least, is made happy,” breathed the lady in low and earnest tones.

“And we owe all that happiness to you, dear madam; for although they have never seen you, yet of course we know that you are our Lady of the Manor, Mrs. Lindsay,” said Em.

“‘Lindsay?’ ‘Mrs. Lindsay!’” repeated the lady in a tone of surprise.

“Yes, Lindsay—is not that your name?”

“No; but it does not matter. Tell me more of your mother. Has she any other children, younger than yourself, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, as many younger as there are older. The four elder ones are all married and settled in the city where we came from, and we hear from them about once a month. They are all doing well. And the four younger ones are—in Paradise with us. And now, dear lady, may I ask you a question?”

“Yes, certainly. Have I not asked you many?”

“Well, then, was it because you knew my dear father and mother that you caused your agent to engage them to take charge of the old manor?”

The lady hesitated for a moment, and then replied:

“Yes, though at the time I did not care to be known in the transaction, and so acted only through my agent, Carmichael, and my friend Mrs. Willet.”

“Oh! you knew Mrs. Willet, too! How many people and places you knew that we knew!” exclaimed Em. in glad surprise, losing all the shyness she had first felt in the presence of the strange lady.

“Yes, a good many. And in this very transaction I found a coadjutor in a friend of yours, whom, however, I did not know.”

“A friend of ours?” said Em. thoughtfully.

“Yes; Lieutenant Ronald—Bruce,” said the lady, hesitating and then pronouncing the last word in a low tone and with a falling inflection.

“Oh!” breathed Em.

“It appears that he had some time before appealed to the Willets to throw anything they could find to suit him in the way of John Palmer and his family. So, when the proposal came from my agent, John Palmer and his wife would have got the first offer upon Mr. Bruce’s standing recommendation, even if his name had not been mentioned in my private instructions.”

“Then it is to you that we owe all our happiness! Oh! how grateful we should be, and _are_, madam, for we know that we enjoy many privileges not usually accorded to overseers and their families,” said Em., raising the lady’s hand to her lips.

“It was my happiness to make you happy,” replied the latter in a low tone.

“Oh! how glad my mother will be to know that it is to a former friend she owes her present prosperity. But, dear lady, you say your name is not that which the country people have given you. Will you tell me what it is, so that I may rejoice my mother’s heart with the knowledge, that we may know whom to name when we invoke blessings on our benefactress?”

“Perhaps, my child. My name has never transpired in this neighborhood. None know it but the people of the legal profession who are my agents. The country folks here have given me more than one name—Lynn, Lindsay, and so forth—all being somewhat akin to my own name, to which they may have got some slight clew. But never mind about my name for the present; I wish to speak of yours. Have you any middle name?”

“Oh, yes, madam. I am Emolyn Wyndeworth Palmer. That is a very fine name for a poor girl; but mother wished to give me the whole of her _angel’s_ name, she said, and so she had me baptized Emolyn Wyndeworth.”

“And you say that she for whom you were named died many years ago?”

“Yes, madam, so many years ago that it was before my recollection. Oh, I often wish that I could have seen her once, only once, to have her image in my mind.”

“How came she to die so young, my child?” inquired the lady in a low tone.

“I do not know, madam; but mother says she was a martyr; that she had suffered a grevious wrong that broke her heart; but who had wronged her, or how she was wronged, mother never would tell—only she said there were some wrongs too great, and some sorrows too deep to be spoken of in this world.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” murmured the Lady of Edengarden in a low voice.

And then silence fell upon the two and lasted some minutes.

Finally Em. rose to take leave.

“You are going?” said the lady.

“Yes, madam. I have only time to get home before dark. If I should be out later my mother would fear something ill would happen to me. I am very grateful, dear lady, for your kindness to me to-day, as well as for your great goodness to our whole family. I wish you good-evening,” said Em., lifting the lady’s hand to her lips and then turning to depart.

“Stop,” said the Lady of Edengarden.

Em. obeyed, and stood waiting.

“You wish to tell your mother the name of her unknown friend?”

“Oh, yes, madam—if you please,” eagerly exclaimed Em.

“Tell her, then, that I am one whom she used to know and love as Emolyn Wyndeworth.”

Em. uttered a half-suppressed cry, reeled, and might have fallen, but that the lady sprang and caught her, supported her to the sofa, and sat her down in the corner, where she leaned back deathly pale and faint.

“My child, I am very sorry for this; but I could not have supposed that my announcement would have startled you so much,” said the lady as she applied a small vinaigrette to the nose of the girl.

“Oh, is it possible—can it be possible?” murmured Em. to herself. Then with an effort she sat up and said: “Forgive me, madam; but it is indeed as if one had returned from heaven to earth. It is not a dream? You are——”

“I am Emolyn Wyndeworth, my dear, and more convinced than ever of the fond and faithful remembrance in which I have been held since the mere announcement of my name and presence has produced such a effect upon you, who had no personal recollection of me,” said the lady in a soothing tone as she passed her hand caressingly over the girl’s bright ringlets.

“Ah, how happy I shall be when—when I can realize all this; but now—now I am afraid of waking! Oh, I am, indeed, madam!” added Em. with a nervous little laugh.

The lady dropped her hand and left the room for a few moments, and then returned, bringing a glass of wine which she made Em. drink.

“You are almost hysterical over this surprise, my dear,” she said as she placed the empty glass on the table.

“I was never so before. I should not have been so under any other surprise—but—to see one whom I had always been taught to reverence as a patron saint, or a guardian angel, standing bodily before me—oh! you know, madam, it seemed as if—_almost_ as if a seraph had descended from heaven! Oh, how delighted, how past all delight my dear mother will be! And father, too! And Mrs. Whitlock! And Aunt Monica! Poor old Aunt Monica! Oh, I know, you used to know her! And, oh! _how_ dearly she loved you! How fondly she talks of you to this day! Oh! what a jubilee there’ll be when I go home with my news—if I don’t wake up first and find it all a wild dream!” exclaimed Em., much revived by the wine she had tasted.

“My impetuous child, how you run on! Uttering names that seemed to have been once as familiar as ‘household words’ to me, in that long past existence out of which I have died and risen! ‘Whitlock!’ ‘Monica!’ One was my dear old guardian’s housekeeper, and the other his nurse in his last fatal illness! But what can you know of them?”

“Why, they _live_ with us—Mrs. Whitlock ever since I can remember, and old Aunt Monica ever since we moved out here. Father takes care of them both. And they both love you and mourn you, dear lady! And, _oh!_ how enraptured they will be, past all expression, when they find out that—that—you still live in this world and they may look on your face again!”

“Is it possible they are so near me? Old Aunt Monica, I shall be happy to see again. But for Mrs. Whitlock, I scarcely remember her, except as my guardian’s attendant. It seems strange that she should remember me at all. She saw so little of me.”

“Oh, dear lady, you were so good, believe me, many, many poor people remember you whom you most likely have forgotten.”

“Now may Heaven forbid!” breathed the Lady of Edengarden in a low, earnest tone. Then, speaking to Em., she said: “My child, you must not flatter _any_ one, and least of all _me_.”

“But, dearest madam, I do not know _how_ to flatter! I speak only the very truth,” said Em. with a certain childish dignity.

“Truth sometimes flatters. Do not praise me, little girl. I do not deserve it, and—I cannot bear it. I wish to be _forgiven_, not praised. To be _forgotten_, not remembered—except by the very few who love me. I have talked to _you_, young namesake, longer than I have talked with any one these fifteen years past. My heart seems strangely and tenderly drawn towards you, little girl. Perhaps it is because you are the child of one who was my most steadfast friend in a time of terrible trial. Perhaps, also, it is because you were named for me, and I held you in my arms and blessed you, when I myself had ‘most need of blessing.’ But all that would hardly explain the yearning of my soul towards you, my child! my child!” said the lady as she took the hand of the young girl and drew her to her bosom.

“Oh! May I tell you something? May I tell you something?” muttered Em. in tones half smothered with emotion as she leaned on the bosom of the lady, held there in a close embrace.

“Tell me anything you please, my child.”