PAGE 11
My Mother
by
“Quite, sir,” replied the girl, and with a stiff bow she turned and went back to her room.
In the haste of packing up her poor and scanty wardrobe, she heard her sister’s voice saying to the clergyman: “Oh! how could you send her away? You know she has no home, she has nowhere to go. How could you do it?” All Lydia caught of his reply was: “Not another night, not another meal, in this house while I am its master.”
Presently her sister came upstairs carrying a plate of pudding. Her eyes were red with tears, and her hands trembled. “Do eat this, my dear; some tea is coming presently,” she said.
But Lydia only shook her head, strapped her little box, and, putting on her bonnet, she commanded her voice sufficiently to say: “I am going now. I’ll send for this box later.”
“Where are you going to?” her sister’s voice trembled.
“I–don’t know,” said the girl. “But wherever I do go, it will be a kindlier place than this. Good-bye, sister.” She kissed the distressed wife softly on each cheek, then paused at the bedroom door to say, “The man I am to marry loves me, honors me too much to treat me as a mere possession. I know that he will never tell me he is ‘master.’ George Mansion may have savage blood in his veins, but he has grasped the meaning of the word ‘Christianity’ far more fully than your husband has.”
Her sister could not reply, but stood with streaming eyes and watched the girl slip down the back stairs and out of a side door.
For a moment Lydia Bestman stood on the pavement and glanced up and down the street. The city was what was known as a garrison town in the days when the British regular troops were quartered in Canada. Far down the street two gay young officers were walking, their brilliant uniforms making a pleasant splash of color in the sunlight. They seemed to suggest to the girl’s mind a more than welcome thought. She knew the major’s wife well, a gracious, whole-souled English lady whose kindness had oftentimes brightened her otherwise colorless life. Instinctively the girl turned to the quarters of the married officers. She found the major’s wife at home, and, burying her drawn little face in the good lady’s lap, she poured forth her entire story.
“My dear,” blazed out the usually placid lady, “if I were only the major for a few moments, instead of his wife, I should–I should–well, I should just swear! There, now I’ve said it, and I’d do it, too. Why, I never heard of such an outrage! My dear, kiss me, and tell me–when, how, do you expect your young chief to come for you?”
“Next week,” said the girl, from the depths of those sheltering arms.
“Then here you stay, right here with me. The major and I shall go to the church with you, see you safely married, bring you and your Hiawatha home for a cosy little breakfast, put you aboard the boat for Toronto, and give you both our blessing and our love.” And the major’s wife nodded her head with such emphasis that her quaint English curls bobbed about, setting Lydia off into a fit of laughter. “That’s right, my dear. You just begin to laugh now, and keep it up for all the days to come. I’ll warrant you’ve had little of laughter in your young life,” she said knowingly. “From what I’ve known of your father, he never ordered laughter as a daily ingredient in his children’s food. Then that sweet Elizabeth leaving you alone, so terribly alone, must have chased the sunshine far from your little world. But after this,” she added brightly, “it’s just going to be love and laughter. And now, my dear, we must get back the rosy English color in your cheeks, or your young Hiawatha won’t know his little white sweetheart. Run away to my spare room, girlie. The orderly will get a man to fetch your box. Then you can change your frock. Leave yesterday behind you forever. Have a little rest; you look as if you had not slept for a week. Then join the major and me at dinner, and we’ll toast you and your redskin lover in true garrison style.”