The Children's Pilgrimage by L. T. Meade (best sales books of all time txt) 📗

old story. Over and over again she dwelt upon that deathbed scene, upon that poor mother's piteous longing for her child, and Lovedy listened and wept as if her heart would break.

At last this tale, so sad, so bitter for the woman who was now a mother herself, came to an end, and then Lovedy, wiping her eyes, spoke:

"Cecile, I must tell you a little about myself. You know the day my mother married your father, I ran away. I had loved my mother most passionately; but I was jealous. I was exacting. I was proud. I could not bear that my mother should put anyone in my place. I ran away. I went to my Aunt Fanny. She was a vain and silly woman. She praised me for running away. She said I had spirit. She took me to Paris.

"For the first week I got on pretty well. The new life helped to divert my thoughts, and I tried to believe I could do well without my mother. But then the knowledge that I had done wrong, joined to a desperate mother-hunger, I can call it by no other word, took possession of me. I got to hate my aunt, who led a gay life. At last I could bear it no longer. I ran away.

"I had just enough money in my pocket to take me to London; I had not one penny more. But I felt easy enough; I thought, I will go to our old home, and make it up with mother, and then it will be all right. So I spent my last, my very last shilling in a cab fare, and I gave the driver the old address.

"As I got near the house, I began to wish I had not come. I was such an odd mixture; all made up of love and that terrible pride. However, my pride was to get a shock I little expected.

"Strangers were in the old rooms; strangers who knew nothing whatever about my mother. I found that I had so set my heart against this marriage, that I had not even cared to inquire the name of the man my mother had married; so I had no clew to give anyone, no one could help me. I was only a child then, and I wandered away without one farthing, absolutely alone in the great world of London.

"It drove me nearly wild to remember that my mother was really in the very same London, and I could not find her, and when I had got as far as a great bridge—-I knew it was a bridge, for I saw the water running under it—-I could bear my feelings no longer, and I just cried out like any little baby for my Mammie.

"It was then, Cecile, that Mrs. Moseley found me. Oh! how good she was to me! She took me home and she gave me love, and my poor starved heart was a little satisfied.

"Perhaps she and her husband could have helped me to find my mother. But again that demon pride got over me. I would not tell them my tale. I would acknowledge to no one that my mother had put another in my place; so all the time that I was really starving for one kiss from my own mother, I made believe that I did not care.

"I used to go out every day and look for her as well as I could by myself, but of course I never got the slightest clew to where she lived; and I doubt then, that even if I had known, so contrary was I, that I would have gone to her.

"Well, one day, who should come up to me, quite unexpectedly, but Aunt Fanny again. Oh! she was a bad, cruel woman, and she had a strange power over me. She talked very gently, and not a bit crossly, and she soon came around a poor, weak young thing like me; she praised my pretty face, and she roused my vanity and my pride, and at last she so worked on me, that she got me to do a mean and shameful thing—I was to go back to Paris with her, without ever even bidding the Moseleys good-by.

"Well, Cecile, I did go—-I hate myself when I think of it, but I did go back to Paris that very night with Aunt Fanny. I soon found out what she was up to, she wanted to make money by me. She took me to a stage-manager, and he said he would prepare me for the stage—I had a voice, as well as a face and figure, he said. And he prophesied that I should be a great success. Then I began the most dreadful life. I heard horrible things, bad things.

"Perhaps the thought of all the triumphs that were before me might have reconciled me to my fate, but I had always in my heart the knowledge that I had done wrong: however, Aunt Fanny ruled me with a tight hand, and I had no chance of running away. I was so unhappy that I wrote to the Moseleys begging them to forgive and help me, but I think now Aunt Fanny must have stopped the letters, for I never got any answer.

"Well, Cecile, she died rather suddenly, and the manager said I was his property, and I must come and live in his house.

"I could not stand that. I just made up my mind; I ran away again. It was night, and I wandered alone in the Paris streets. I had two francs in my pocket. God only knows what my fate would have been, but He took care of me. As I was walking down a long boulevard I heard a woman say aloud and very bitterly:

"'God above help me; shall I ever see my child again?'

"She spoke in French, but I understood French very well then. Her words arrested me; I turned to look at her.

"'Oh, my dear! you are too young to be out alone at night like this," she said.

"Oh! but she had the kindest heart. Cecile, that woman was Mme. Malet; she had come up to Paris to look for her lost Alphonse; she took me home with her to the South; and a year after, I married my dear, my good Jean. Cecile, I have the best husband, I have the sweetest child; but I have never been quite happy—often I have been miserable; I could not tell about my mother, even to my Jean. He often asked me, but I always said:

"'I hate England; ask me nothing about England if you love me.'"

"But you will tell him to-night; you will tell him all to-night?" asked Cecile.

"Yes, dear little one, I am going to him; there shall never be a secret between us again; and now God reward, God bless thee, dear little sister."

CHAPTER XXX. THE END CROWNS ALL.

Summer! summer, not in the lovely country, but in the scorching East End. Such heated air! such scorching pavements! Oh! how the poor were suffering! How pale the little children looked, as too tired, and perhaps too weak to play, they crept about the baking streets. Benevolent people did all they could for these poor babies. Hard-working East End clergymen got subscriptions on foot, and planned days in the country, and, where it was possible, sent some away for longer periods. But try as they would, the lives of the children had to be spent with their parents in this region, which truly seems to know the two extremes, both the winter's cold and the summer's heat. It was the first week in August, and the Moseleys' little room, still as neat as possible, felt very hot and close. It was in vain to open their dormer windows. The air outside seemed hotter than that within. The pair were having some bread and butter and cold tea, but both looked flushed and tired. They had, in truth, just returned from a long pleasure excursion under their good clergyman, Mr. Danvers, into the country. Mrs. Moseley had entire charge of about twenty children, her husband of as many more; so no wonder they looked fagged. But no amount of either heat or fatigue could take the loving sparkle out of Mammie Moseley's eyes, and she was now expatiating on the delights of the little ones in the grass and flowers.

"There was one dear little toddle, John," she said; "she seemed fairly to lose her head with delight; to see that child rolling over in the grass and clutching at the daisies would do any heart good. Eh! but they all did have a blessed day. The sin and shame of it is to bring them back to their stifling homes to-night."

"I tell you what, wife," said John Moseley, "the sight of the country fairly made a kitten of yerself. I haven't seen yer so young and so sprightly since we lost our bit of a Charlie. And I ha' made up my mind, and this is wot I'll do: We has two or three pounds put by, and I'll spend enough of it to give thee a real holiday, old girl. You shall go into Kent for a fortnight. There!"

"No, no, John, nothink of the kind; I'm as strong and hearty as possible. I feels the 'eat, no doubt; but Lor'! I ha' strength to bear it. No, John, my man, ef we can spare a couple o' pounds, let's give it to Mr. Danvers' fund for the poor little orphans and other children as he wants to send into the country for three weeks each."

"But that'll do thee no good," expostulated John Moseley, in a discontented voice.

"Oh! yes, but it will, John, dear; and ef you don't like to do it for me, you do it for Charlie. Whenever I exercises a bit of self-denial, I thinks: well, I'll do it for the dear dead lamb. I thinks o' him in the arms of Jesus, and nothink seems too hard to give up for the sake of the blessed One as takes such care of my darling."

"I guess as that's why you're so good to 'strays,'" said John Moseley. "Eh! but, Moll, wot 'as come o' yer word, as you'd take no more notice o' them, since them two little orphans runned away last winter?"

"There's no manner o' use in twitting at me, John. A stray child allers reminds me so desp'rate hard o' Charlie, and then I'm jest done for. 'Twill be so to the end. Hany stray 'ud do wot it liked wid Mammie Moseley. But eh! I do wonder wot has come to my poor little orphans, them and Susie! I lies awake at night often and often and thinks it all hover. How they all vanished from us seems past belief."

"Well, there seems a power o' 'strays' coming hup the stairs now," said John Moseley, "to judge by the noise as they makes. Sakes alive! wife, they're coming hup yere. Maybe 'tis Mr. Danvers and his good lady. They said they might call round. Jest set the table tidy."

But before Mrs. Moseley could do anything of the kind, the rope which lifted the boards was pulled by a hand which knew its tricks well, and the next instant bounded into the room a shabby-looking dog with a knowing face. He sprang upon John Moseley with a bark of delight; licked Mammie Moseley's hands; then, seeing the cat in her accustomed corner, he ran and lay down by her side. The moment Toby saw the cat it occurred to him that a life of ease was returning to him, and he was not slow to avail himself of it. But there was no time to notice Toby, nor to think of Toby, for instantly he was followed by Maurice and Cecile and, immediately after them, a dark-eyed boy, and then a great big man, and last, but not least, a fair-haired and beautiful young woman.

It was at this young woman Mammie Moseley stared even more intently than at Cecile. But the young woman, taking Cecile's hand, came over and knelt on the ground, and, raising eyes brimful of tears, said:

"Mammie, mammie, I am Susie! and Cecile has brought me back to you!"

* * * * *

Over the confusion that ensued—the perfect Babel of voices—the endless exclamation—the laughter and the tears—it might be best to draw a veil.

Suffice it to say, that this story of a brave endeavor, of a long pilgrimage, of a constant purpose, is nearly ended. Lovedy and her party spent