Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale

"It is terribly dreary here," Ellen wrote one day while the September rains were falling; "and I have petitioned for a removal to other quarters, and next week George is to be taken to Washington, where I shall be permitted to follow. He has fully recanted his Southern faith, and very marked honors are being showered on him. It is somewhat grateful to my feelings to be the sister of so noted a personage at this time. Can you realize it? I have stood in the presence of the chief magistrate himself. Yes, it is true. In one of his visits at the hospitals yesterday he was officially escorted to our rooms by a little negro about two feet high, and I – well, I did almost fall in love with him. No one must ever call him ugly in my presence. I think him decidedly good-looking. When he said at parting, 'Miss St. Clair, take extra good care of your brother – and yourself,' the work was done; I am his friend for ever more!"

George St. Clair bore his short transfer remarkably well, and upon arriving in the city was placed in the ward of convalescents, where his spirits soon revived, notwithstanding the hard shots that were so often thrown with unerring aim at his well-established prejudices. Here were a few highly educated and popular men, some of high rank in the army, and our soldier found himself in very congenial society.

Then there came another letter to the widow's cottage, saying: "I am most ignobly discharged. 'Do not need a nurse any more,' etc., etc. So you will greet your disconsolate daughter immediately after a little sight-seeing."

It was true. All that was now required was patience while the old strength slowly returned, and Toby was fully capable of attending to his master's necessities. The second morning after the new arrival dawned cold and rainy. The poor torn back fretted in such an atmosphere and was very painful. Not feeling able to join the others in the morning meal, George St. Clair returned to his bed, and was lying moodily watching his companions, when a lady entered, and walked directly up to a noble-looking officer with whom he had been much pleased the day before, but whose name he had not learned, as all addressed him as "Colonel." There was something strangely familiar about that walk and movement of the head and shoulders, and, as he had nothing better to do, gazed at her, wishing all the time that she would turn a little, that he might have a view of her face, but she was busily engaged, and seemed in no hurry to gratify our hero. All apparently had met her before, for each received a word of greeting, as he judged, although too far away to hear more than the murmuring of voices. Then the Colonel monopolized her attention, and after a moments talk both turned abruptly in the direction where he was reclining.

"Then he has been telling her of me!"

They moved forward. "Coming to see the 'Rebel,' no doubt. Who can she be?" That walk! That form! They neared him. A veil had partially covered her face, but now it was thrown back as she sprang forward with a cry of surprise and joy. "George St. Clair! My brother!"

With an impulse unusual to the young lady of Rosedale, she clasped her arms about his neck and kissed his forehead with a sisterly demonstration.

"I did not know, – I had not heard that you were here! How glad I am to meet you."

"Lillian! I never was so astonished! You in such a place as this! The delicate, frail, 'Lily Bell?' Let me take your hand; It cannot be!"

She had stepped back from him as he spoke, and now a low rippling laugh floated away from her parted lips.

"Well, well! am I of no account?" exclaimed her companion, joining in the laugh. "This may be very interesting to the parties immediately concerned, but to look mutely on is another thing."

Lillian shook her finger at him menacingly.

"Yes, George, you remember I told you of my husband. I have found him; Colonel Hamilton! Two brave soldiers who have bled for their country's weal. You will be brothers? Let me perform the ceremony of uniting hands, – the hearts will be sure to come together."

"Surprises thicken! Why did you not tell me during our long chat last evening, that you were the thief who robbed me of my coveted 'Lily Bell?' All this, and yet the world moves on! The war is developing and unraveling! What will come next?"

"Not to be known as there are no headings to the chapters!" Then there was a long talk, and many little items of news imparted that brought the deepening color to more than one cheek.

"It would, without doubt, be a little unpleasant for me to return to my Southern home just at present," said St. Clair, when the conversation lagged. "And I am told from headquarters that I shall not be able for active service for months yet; so I propose to go farther north where my parents are, and, perhaps, burrow for the winter. It will be pretty cold for Confederate blood, but it is about the best I can do."

"A capital idea! Get acquainted with us low fellows, – I think you will like us when you know us better."

"Have you seen Ellen?" He had turned to Lillian now.

"Ellen? Is she here?"

"Out sight-seeing somewhere. She is to return to her temporary home in a day or two."

All this time, Mrs. Hamilton had not spoken of her mother, – not inquired for her. She had met and recognized her; but where was she now? For weeks she had watched for the familiar face; had looked everywhere for the flutter of the gray silk; and thus far it had been in vain. "Where was she? Would she come no more?" A great disappointment had found its way into the happy heart, where love had for so many years been weeping, but where all tears were now wiped away in a blissful reunion. Lillian loved her mother. She had been petted and fondled by her through all her childhood's days; but the memory of the bitter curse would creep in among her joys, dragging after it the cold, dark shadows that for a time would exclude the warmth.

Mrs. Hamilton called upon Ellen St. Clair at her lodgings, where new interests were brought out, and many little feminine secrets unveiled, which tangled themselves together in a very perplexing sort of way. The story of Lily Gaylord's disappearance, and her father's "unjust censure of Mrs. Belmont" was duly discussed and commented upon.

"An adopted daughter, you said, of the lady?" queried Lillian.

"Yes, and George said from the first that she resembled you in many ways. Her eyes certainly were as large and dreamy. 'Beautiful,' as Grace would say, 'as those of my Lily Bell.' It was a stormy night on the sea, and, as every one declared, no small boat could keep up any length of time, and as nothing could be heard from her, it was concluded she must be lost," Ellen went on to say.

"Dreadful! A young girl of – ?"

"Of sixteen, I believe."

Lillian started. "Sixteen! How strange! – and my mother was with her – and unattended!"

"You seem excited; well we all were shocked! It was so inexplicable. Such a mystery! But it was soon forgotten in the greater interests of the war. You know one is not missed when so many are being lost."

It was Ellen who had said this, but her visitor sat motionless, her large eyes dilated as though striving to penetrate some dark uncertainty.

"I cannot but think how strange it is for you to be here – and with a husband! Why did you never tell us?"

"It was only one of my secrets, dear Ellen," was the hesitating reply. "But I am detaining you. We are a very busy people in Washington, and you are to leave here soon?"

"In three days."

Ellen went as she intended. It was a long, tiresome journey to take alone, but her heart had become brave. There was a pleasant reunion at the widow's home on the evening of her arrival. George was better, and the hearts of the parents beat with a steady pulsation once more. Bertha and the children were well, as late letters from the dear old home had assured them, and now Ellen had safely returned.

"George will write a few words every day and mail it once a week," was the glad response to the inquiry as to how they were to hear from him. "And in a month, the physician says, he will probably be able to travel a short distance each day, and will get to his chair at our table before it is very cold. He has ordered me to engage rooms for us all at the hotel for the winter, but I hate hotels, and it is so cozy here!"

"Anna and I would be very lonely without you now," interposed the widow, calmly. "Our rooms are small, but we have a goodly number of them."

"And I will call it 'Maple Grove Inn' and write that I have secured a suite of rooms ample for us all! Bravo! And I want to learn to make pies and cakes and put my own hands into the biscuits, for I am a Yankee girl from henceforth! No more black fingers in my bread. Dear old Katy," she said, after a moment's pause. "How good everything tasted that her poor old ebony hands made! If I could find such a noble looking northerner as Lillian has for her husband he wouldn't have to ask me more than once to be his wife!"

"Lillian's husband, my child?" interrogated both father and mother in a breath.

"Certainly; but I have not told you. One cannot say everything in an hour!" And then the story was reproduced with the details George had added, having known it for months, yes almost a year and never told it, not forgetting her abstracted manner as the disappearance of Lily Gaylord was rehearsed. "One might have imagined to look at her that the girl was a near kin. She asked me about her general appearance, and when I said that some thought there was a very striking resemblance between her and Mrs. Gaylord's adopted daughter you ought to have seen the look!"

"You are quite imaginative, my dear," remarked Mrs. St. Clair warmly. "It was the shock, her mother being with Lily at the time that gave her the look you speak of. I do not wonder, for there was room at least for censure!"

"That's a fact, wife! I should like to know where the mistress of Rosedale is keeping herself? Bertha writes that she disappeared soon after leaving the city, and Charles has never heard from her since. Didn't meet her in Washington I suppose?"

"No, Father," and a hearty laugh followed. When quiet was restored Ellen asked: "Where is Charles, Father?"

"Skulking around without doubt for fear of being drafted, and the negroes have it all their own way at Rosedale now, I believe."

That night as the mother and daughter were left alone, the former interrupted a prolonged silence by the abrupt question: "Anna, my child, what about this George St. Clair? Has a secret crept into your confiding heart that you would keep hidden from the careful, watchful eye of your parent? Tell me, what about this rebel colonel?"

A long silence followed. At last, "I was waiting, Mother," she said, "for my heart to be sure of its first great lesson before imparting it to you. But first let me tell you he is true, loyal, to the old flag under which my brother fought and died. It was the circumstances of his life that has placed him where he was, and not the convictions of his better judgment."

The mother watched the beaming face. "And you can excuse him?"

"Yes, Mother, my heart pleads for him! I cannot deny it; I do love George St. Clair! My brother has been slain upon the altar of sacrifice, but his hand has not the stain of his blood upon it!" There were tears in the mild blue eyes and the mother saw them.

"Does he know all this?"

"All, Mother! This was the storm that rolled about me when in Alexandria. The waves dashed high, but it cannot be wrong; I do love George St. Clair!"

"Do you realize the great difference in your social positions? You the daughter of a poor widow – he the heir of large possessions and a devotee to aristocracy. O my daughter, I fear for your future happiness!" The dear face showed the inward struggle of the mother's heart, and the hand upon which her head was languidly resting trembled.

"Wait until you see him," pleaded the daughter; "he is good and noble!"

"My basket is getting full of bitter fruit in the commencement of this terrible war; what will it be when the harvest is wholly gathered?"

"Mother, have you forgotten that 'all things shall work together for good to those who trust God?' Can you not trust now as surely as when you laid your two sons where the fire might consume them?" She was standing by the side of that mother now, and an arm had stolen softly about her neck.

"I will trust Him!" came from the compressed lips, and drawing her daughter upon her knee as in the years gone by she looked into her flushed face. "Whatever God wills my selfish heart will not pronounce unkind!"