Cast Adrift. Arthur Timothy Shay
the street, in the arms of a beggar-woman.”
“You are deceiving me!” Mrs. Dinneford spoke with a throb of anger in her voice.
“As I live, no! Poor little thing! half starved and half frozen. It ‘most made me sick.”
“It’s impossible! You could not know that it was Edith’s baby.”
“I do know,” replied Mrs. Bray, in a voice that left no doubt on Mrs. Dinneford’s mind.
“Was the woman the same to whom we gave the baby?”
“No; she got rid of it in less than a month.”
“What did she do with it?”
“Sold it for five dollars, after she had spent all the money she received from you in drink and lottery-policies.”
“Sold it for five dollars!”
“Yes, to two beggar-women, who use it every day, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, and get drunk on the money they receive, lying all night in some miserable den.”
Mrs. Dinneford gave a little shiver.
“What becomes of the baby when they are not using it?” she asked.
“They pay a woman a dollar a week to take care of it at night.”
“Do you know where this woman lives?”
“Yes.”
“Were you ever there?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of a place is it?”
“Worse than a dog-kennel.”
“What does all this mean?” demanded Mrs. Dinneford, with repressed excitement. “Why have you so kept on the track of this baby, when you knew I wished it lost sight of?”
“I had my own reasons,” replied Mrs. Bray. “One doesn’t know what may come of an affair like this, and it’s safe to keep well up with it.”
Mrs. Dinneford bit her lips till the blood almost came through. A faint rustle of garments in the hall caused her to start. An expression of alarm crossed her face.
“Go now,” she said, hurriedly, to her visitor; “I will call and see you this afternoon.”
Mrs. Bray quietly arose, saying, as she did so, “I shall expect you,” and went away.
There was a menace in her tone as she said, “I shall expect you,” that did not escape the ears of Mrs. Dinneford.
Edith was in the hall, at some distance from the parlor door. Mrs. Bray had to pass her as she went out. Edith looked at her intently.
“Who is that woman?” she asked, confronting her mother, after the visitor was gone.
“If you ask the question in a proper manner, I shall have no objection to answer,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with a dignified and slightly offended air; “but my daughter is assuming rather, too much.”
“Mrs. Bray, the servant said.”
“No, Mrs. Gray.”
“I understood her to say Mrs. Bray.”
“I can’t help what you understood.” The mother spoke with some asperity of manner. “She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you please; it won’t change her identity.”
“What did she want?”
“To see me.”
“I know.” Edith was turning away with an expression on her face that Mrs. Dinneford did not like, so she said,
“She is in trouble, and wants me to help her, if you must know. She used to be a dressmaker, and worked for me before you were born; she got married, and then her troubles began. Now she is a widow with a house full of little children, and not half bread enough to feed them. I’ve helped her a number of times already, but I’m getting tired of it; she must look somewhere else, and I told her so.”
Edith turned from her mother with an unsatisfied manner, and went up stairs. Mrs. Dinneford was surprised, not long afterward, to meet her at her chamber door, dressed to go out. This was something unusual.
“Where are you going?” she asked, not concealing her surprise.
“I have a little errand out,” Edith replied.
This was not satisfactory to her mother. She asked other questions, but Edith gave only evasive answers.
On leaving the house, Edith walked quickly, like one in earnest about something; her veil was closely drawn. Only a few blocks from where she lived was the office of Dr. Radcliffe. Hither she directed her steps.
“Why, Edith, child!” exclaimed the doctor, not concealing the surprise he felt at seeing her. “Nobody sick, I hope?”
“No one,” she answered.
There was a momentary pause; then Edith said, abruptly,
“Doctor, what became of my baby?”
“It died,” answered Doctor Radcliffe, but not without betraying some confusion. The question had fallen upon him too suddenly.
“Did you see it after it was dead?” She spoke in a firm voice, looking him steadily in the face.
“No,” he replied, after a slight hesitation.
“Then how do you know that it died?” Edith asked.
“I had your mother’s word for it,” said the doctor.
“What was done with my baby after it was born?”
“It was given out to nurse.”
“With your consent?”
“I did not advise it. Your mother had her own views in the case. It was something over which I had no control.”
“And you never saw it after it was taken away?”
“Never.”
“And do not really know whether it be dead or living?”
“Oh, it’s dead, of course, my child. There is no doubt of that,” said the doctor, with sudden earnestness of manner.
“Have you any evidence of the fact?”
“My dear, dear child,” answered the doctor, with much feeling, “it is all wrong. Why go back over this unhappy ground? why torture yourself for nothing? Your baby died long ago, and is in heaven.”
“Would God I could believe it!” she exclaimed, in strong agitation. “If it were so, why is not the evidence set before me? I question my mother; I ask for the nurse who was with me when my baby was born, and for the nurse to whom it was given afterward, and am told that they are dead or out of the country. I ask for my baby’s grave, but it cannot be found. I have searched for it where my mother told me it was, but the grave is not there. Why all this hiding and mystery? Doctor, you said that my baby was in heaven, and I answered, ‘Would God it were so!’ for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!”
The doctor was scared. He feared that Edith was losing her mind, she looked and spoke so wildly.
“A puny, half-starved, half-frozen little thing, in the arms of a drunken beggar,” she added. “And, doctor, an awful thought has haunted me ever since.”
“Hush, hush!” said the doctor, who saw what was in her mind. “You must not indulge such morbid fancies.”
“It is that I may not indulge them that I have come to you. I want certainty, Dr. Radcliffe. Somebody knows all about my baby. Who was my nurse?”
“I never saw her before the night of your baby’s birth, and have never seen her since. Your mother procured her.”
“Did you hear her name?”
“No.”
“And so you cannot help me at all?” said Edith, in a disappointed voice.
“I