Her anger against her father was only exceeded by one feeling, her intense, fervent love for her mother, whose image now stood out distinctly in her young memory. Isola’s words had brought back a whole world of recollections, the crowns of flowers, the mountain paths, the things which to her had seemed before but floating fancies or childish dreams, now took their right form as distinct vivid realities.
Not knowing anything of the circumstances which had brought about Mr. Warden’s separation from his first wife, to her excited imagination he appeared a perfect monster of wickedness, a cruel, fickle tyrant, who had cast off one who loved him truly, for the sake of another woman—
“He told me a lie,” she kept repeating to herself again and again, “to make me love that other woman, and to steel my heart against my own mother.”
Then the picture of that mother, lying sick unto death, rose before her mind, and one thought swept away every other.
“I will go to her at once,” she said with a wild cry, “at any risk, at any cost. Who knows, I may yet perhaps save her life.”
With Amy, to think was to act; not a moment’s hesitation now. There was another way to Dunwich station, besides the high road—a quiet way, which led through fields and lanes, a little circuitously, perhaps, and for that reason not likely to be traversed on the busy market day by any but gipsies or tramps. This road Amy at once took; she knew there was a train leaving for London about noon, and this she determined if possible to save. What was a five miles walk to a girl at her age, young, active and strong; besides had she not one all-absorbing thought to shorten her road, and lend wings to her feet—
“I am going to the mother I have dreamed of and loved all through my young life.”
Once arrived at Dunwich, she was pretty sure to escape recognition. The station (a junction, with a large amount of traffic) was on market days positively crowded, and Amy, passing rapidly through the throng, took her ticket, and seated herself in the London train without more than a casual glance from the guard, to whom she was personally unknown.
Then she had time for thought. But the more she thought, the more the difficulties of her position grew upon her. How could she act for the best? It was simply an impossibility for her to consult her father on the matter, for would not all his efforts be directed to keep her mother out of her rightful position, and would he who had lived so long in sin (so she thought) with another, be likely to have any sympathy for her in her present undertaking.
“I will wait and consult with Isola,” was the young girl’s thought as the train whirled her on towards London, “she will most likely know what my mother’s wishes are,” and as she thought of that mother, and the years of suffering her father’s cruelty had condemned her to endure, every feeling was absorbed in one indignant resolve to leave no means untried to have that mother righted and restored, if not to happiness, at least to peace and honour.
As the train entered the London Station, she noticed a woman clad in a long brown cloak, with a peasant’s hood drawn over her head, whom she quickly identified as Isola; not from her recollection of her nurse’s face, for here memory failed her, nor yet alone from her dress, which, though strange, seemed familiar to her, but the woman was evidently waiting and watching, and her long earnest gaze into each carriage as the train drew up at the platform, could not fail to strike the most casual observer—
“Ma bonne, ma bonne,” said Amy in a low voice, as she jumped from the train, stretching out both hands towards her nurse—
“Holy mother!” exclaimed the woman, seizing Amy’s hand, and passionately kissing it—
“Which of my two children is it that I see? The eyes, the voice, the hands, the hair are her mother’s own. My child, bless the Saints and Holy Mary whenever you look at your sweet face in the glass, for thou wilt never be without thy mother’s portrait all thy life long.”
Then followed question and answer in rapid succession. Amy ascertained from Isola that her mother had entered the convent of St. Geneviève, some few miles distant from their old home. Isola breathed not a word of her mother’s transgression, nor how she had abandoned husband and child for the caprice of a moment. Isola’s intense love for, and devotion to her mistress, blinded her to all her faults; she could see her in but one light, that of a wronged, suffering woman, and as such she spoke of her. She dwelt long upon Mr. Warden’s harshness and cruelty to his young wife, and told Amy how at length his treatment became insupportable, and they were compelled to seek another home; how that her mother had eventually taken vows in the Convent of St. Geneviève, seeking in religion the happiness she could not find in the world. Isola made no mention of the lie passed off on Mr. Warden respecting his wife’s death. To her mind the one weak point in Aimée’s character was her love for her husband and her real penitence for her fault. This to Isola was simply incomprehensible—
“The man hates you, why should you love him?” was her argument. “He treated you badly, you did well to leave him.”
Nevertheless, whatever order Aimée gave must be carried out to the very letter, and with the blind unreasoning fidelity of a dog, she obeyed her mistress’s slightest wish.
Thus it was, that intentionally or unintentionally,
