Read Ebook: Dawn of the Morning by Hill Grace Livingston

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1771 lines and 100690 words, and 36 pages

Mr. Montgomery went over to the window, merely giving his visitor a grave bow in passing, and pushed up the heavy shades. The sunlight burst joyously in upon the solemnity of the room, unhindered by the sheer muslin curtains, and flung its golden glory about the sweet face in the coffin, making a halo of light above the soft, dark waves of hair.

The younger man's eyes were drawn irresistibly to look at her once more, and the sight startled him more than ever, for now she seemed like a crowned saint, whose irreproachable life was too sacred for him to come near.

The old man came over and stood in the pathway of light from the window, though not so as to hinder its falling on the dead face, and turned toward his former son-in-law.

Then and not till then did the visitor notice that the old man held in his arms a beautiful boy between two and three years old.

Proudly the grandfather stood with the chubby arm around his neck and the dimpled fingers patting his cheek. The sunlight fell in a broad illumination over the head and face of the child, kindling into flame the masses of tumbled curls which showed the same rich mahogany tint that had always made Hamilton Van Rensselaer's head a distinguished mark in any company. The baby's eyes were a wonderful gray, which even now held flashes of steel--albeit flashes of fun and not of passion. As the man looked, they mirrored back his own startlingly. In the round baby cheeks were two dimples strikingly placed, the counterpart of two that daring Nature had triflingly set in the otherwise stern countenance of the man. The likeness was marvellous.

In sheer astonishment the man gazed at the child, and then as he looked the baby frowned, and he saw his own face in miniature, identical even to the sternness which was the prevailing expression of his countenance.

Suddenly the man felt that he stood before God and was being judged and rebuked for his treatment of the dead. The awful remorse that stung his soul burst forth in a single sentence which was wrung from him by an unseen force:

"Why did you never tell me?"

He flashed the rebuke at the old man, but the dark eyes under the heavy white brows only looked at him the more steadily and did not flinch, as if they would tell him to look to himself for an answer to his question.

The steady gaze did its work. It was the Nemesis before which his pride and self-esteem fell. His glance went from the righteous face of the old man to the pure and beautiful eyes of the boy, now frowning with disapproval, and he dropped into a chair with a groan.

"I have been wrong!" he said, and bowed his head, the last atom of his pride rent away from him. There beside the dead, great scorching tears of bitterness found their way to his eyes, washing away the scales of blind conceit, and bringing clearer vision. Mary Montgomery was vindicated in the eyes of the man who had wronged her.

But the baby frowned and cried softly:

"Hush, bad man! You go away! You wake my pitty muvver! She's 's'eep!"

The strong man shrank from the child's words as from a blow, and looked up with almost a pleading on his usually cold face. But the old man watched him sternly.

"Yes, it is enough. You may go. There is nothing more to be said. Now you understand. This is why I sent for you. It was her right."

"You have no right," the old man answered sternly, and the young man turned away with a strange wild feeling tearing his throat like a sob.

"No, I have no right."

Then with a sudden movement he turned toward the child as if he would claim something there, but the baby hid his face and clung to his grandfather's neck.

"I have no right," he said again. One last look he gave the sweet dead face, as though he would ask forgiveness, then turned and went unsteadily from the room.

The old father followed him silently, as though to complete some ceremony, and, closing the door softly behind him, spoke a few words of explanation, facts that had they been brought forth sooner might have made all things different. It was Mary's wish that no word should be spoken in her vindication while she lived. If her husband could not trust what she had told him when he first came home, it mattered not to her what he believed. The hope of her life was crushed. But now that she was beyond further pain, and for the boy's sake, her father had sent for him that he might know these things before the wife he had wronged was laid to rest.

Then Van Rensselaer felt himself dismissed, and with one last look at the huddled figure of his little son, who still kept his face hid, he went down the path again, his pride utterly crushed, his life a broken thing.

After him echoed the sound of a baby's voice, "Go away, bad man!" and then the great oak door closed quickly behind him for the last time.

He trod the streets of the village as in a nightmare, and knew not that there were those in his way who would have tarred and feathered him if it had not been for love of the honored dead and her family. Straight into the country he walked, to the next village, and knew not how far he had come. There he hired a horse and rode to the next stage route, and so, resting not even at night, he came to his home. But ever on the way he had been attended by a vision, on the left a sweet-faced figure in a coffin, with one white rose whose perfume stifled him, and on the right by a bright-haired boy with eyes that pierced his very soul. And whether on horseback or by stage, in the company of others or alone in a dreary woodland road, they were there on either hand, and he knew they would be so while life for him should last.

He reached home in the gray of a morning that was to become a gray day, and sent up word that his little daughter should come down to his study when her early tasks were finished.

He had not said a word to his wife as yet, though she had suspected where he was going when he told her that Mary Montgomery was dead. It lifted a great load from her shoulders to know that the other wife was no longer living. She had been going about these three days with almost a smile upon her hard countenance, and the little girl had had no easy time of it with her father away.

It was very still in the study after Dawn sat down in the straight-backed chair opposite her father. She could hear the old clock tick solemnly, slowly. It said, "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!" until the tears began to smart in her eyes.

Her father sat with his elbow on the desk, and his handsome head bowed upon his hand. He did not raise his head when she entered. She began to wonder if he was asleep, and her heart beat with awe and dread. Nothing good had ever come to her out of these interviews in the study. Perhaps he was going to send her away, too, as he had sent her mother. Her little face hardened. Well, she would be glad to go. What if he should send her to her mother! Oh, that would be joy!--but he never would.

She was a beautiful child as she sat there palpitating with fear and hope. Her face was like her mother's, fair, with wild-rose color, and eyes that were dark and dreamy, always looking out with longing and appeal. Her hair, like her father's only in its tendency to curl, was fine and dark, and fell about the little troubled face. It had been the cause of many a contention between her and her step-mother, who wished to plait it smoothly into braids, which she considered the only neat way for a child's hair to be arranged. Failing in that, she had tried to cut it off, but the child had defended her curls so fiercely that they had finally let her alone. It was wonderful what care the little girl took of them herself, for it was no small task to keep such a head of hair well brushed. But Dawn could remember how her mother loved her curls, and she clung to them. When she lifted the dark lashes there was a light in her eyes that made one think of the dawn of day. Such eyes had her mother.

At last Dawn looked up tremulously to her father, and he spoke. He did not look toward her, however, and his voice was cold and reserved.

"I have sent for you, my daughter--"

Dawn was glad he did not use the hateful name "Jemima."

"--to tell you that your mother was a good woman."

"Of course," said the child, with rising color. "I knew that all the time. Why did you ever say she wasn't?"

"There was a terrible mistake made." The father's voice was shaken. It gave Dawn a curious feeling.

"Who made the mistake?" she asked gravely.

The room was very still while this arrow found its way into the father's heart.

"I did." His voice sounded hoarse. The little girl felt almost sorry for him.

"Oh! Then you will bring her right back to us again and send this other woman away, won't you?"

"Child, your mother is dead!"

Dawn's face went as white as death, and she sprang to her feet, clasping her hands in horror.

"Then you have killed her!" she screamed. "You have killed her! My beautiful mother!" and with a wild cry she flung herself upon the floor and broke into a passion of tears.

The strong man writhed in anguish as his little child set the mark of Cain upon his forehead.

The outcry brought the step-mother, but neither noticed her as she entered and demanded the reason for this scene. She tried to pick the child up from the floor, but Dawn only beat her off with kicks and screams, and they finally went away and left her weeping there upon the floor. Her father took his hat and walked out into the woods. There he stayed for hours, while the wife went about with set lips and a glint in her eye that boded no good for the child.

Finally the sobs grew less and less frequent, and the old clock in the hall could again be heard in her ears, as she sobbed herself slowly to sleep: "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!"

It was after this that they sent her away to school.

Her father placed her on a Hudson River steamer in charge of the captain, whom he knew, and in company with two other little girls, who were returning to the school of Friend Isaac and Friend Ruth after a short vacation.

Dawn, attired in the grave Quaker garb of the school, leaned over the rail of the deck, inconsequently swinging by its ribbons her long gray pocket containing a hundred dollars wherewith to pay her entrance fee and provide necessities, and watched her unloved father walk away from the landing.

"Thee and thou and thy long pocket!" called out a saucy deck-hand to the three little girls, and Dawn turned with an angry flash in her eyes to take up the work of facing the world single-handed.

She did not drop the pocket into the water, nor fall overboard, but bore herself discreetly all through the journey, and made her entrance into the new life demurely, save for the independent stand she took upon her arrival:

"My name is Dawn Van Rensselaer, and my mother wishes me to wear my curls just as they are."

Her two fellow-travellers had given her cause to believe that there would be an immediate raid made upon her precious curls, and her determined spirit decided to make a stand at the start, and not to give in for anything. The quiet remark created almost a panic for a brief moment, coming thus unexpectedly into the decorous order of the place. Friend Ruth caught her breath, and two faint pink spots appeared in her smooth cheeks.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet