Chapter 33 Donald and Dorothy by Mary Mapes Dodge
AN IMPORTANT INTERVIEW
Donald, going to his room, laid the three Ellen-Lee letters upon the table before him and surveyed the situation That only one of them could be from the right Ellen Lee seemed evident; but which one? That was the question.
"This cannot be it," thought Donald, as he took up a badly written and much blotted sheet. "It is English-French, and evidently is in the handwriting of a man. Well, this brilliant person requests me to send one hundred francs to pay her expenses to Aix-la-Chapelle, and she will then prove her identity and receive the grateful reward. Thank you, my good man!—not if the court knows itself. We'll lay you aside for the present."
The next was from a woman—a bonne—who stated that by good nursing she had saved so many babies' lives in her day that she could not be sure which two babies this very kind "D. R." alluded to, but her name was Madame L. N. Lit. A wise friend had told her of this advertisement, and explained that as L. N. Lit in French and Ellen Lee in English had exactly the same sound, the inquirer probably was a native of Great Britain, and had made a very natural mistake in writing her name Ellen Lee. Therefore she had much pleasure in informing the kind advertiser that at present her address was No. — Rue St. Armand, Rouen, where she was well known, and that she would be truly happy to hear of something to her advantage. Donald shook his head very doubtfully, as he laid this letter aside. But the next he read twice, and even then he did not lay it down until he had read it again. It was a neatly written little note, and simply stated, in French, that D. R. could see Ellen Lee by calling at No.—Rue Soudière, Paris, and making inquiry for Madame René.
"An honest little note," was Donald's verdict, after carefully scrutinizing it, "and worth following up. The others can wait. I shall go to Paris and look up this Madame René. Yes, she shall receive a visit from his majesty."
Don was in high spirits, you see,—and no wonder. He already had accomplished a splendid day's work in visiting M. Bajeau, and here was at least a promising result from his advertisement. He longed to rush back at once to the quaint little shop, but he had been asked to come in the evening, and the old gentleman had a certain dignity of manner that Don respected. He felt that he must be patient and await the appointed hour.
It came at last, and by that time Donald had enjoyed a hearty meal, written to Mr. Wogg, and made all needed preparations to take the earliest train for Paris the next day.
M. Bajeau—good old man!—was made happy as a boy by the sight of Ellen Lee's letter.
"It is great good luck, my friend, that it should come to you," he said, in rapid French, his old cheeks faintly flushing with pleasure. "Now, you take my word, if she is tall, dark, fine-looking—this Madame René, eh?—you have found the very bonne who came to my little shop with the widow lady. Ask her about me—if she remember, eh? how I engraved the two letters with my own hand, while she stood by, holding the pink-faced baby—ha! ha!" (Here Monsieur rubbed his hands.) "She will remember! She will prove what I say, without doubt. She will know about the key to the necklace—yes, and the lock that has the air of a clasp. Let me see it again. You have it with you?"
Donald displayed the treasure promptly.
"Stay," said Monsieur. "I will, with your permission, try and open the little lock for you. I shall be very careful."
"No, no—thank you!" said Donald, quickly, as M. Bajeau took up a delicate tool. "I would rather wait till I have tried to find the key, and until my uncle and—and sister have seen it again just as it is. My uncle, I am positive, never discovered that the top of the clasp could be slid around in this way. The key itself may come to light yet—who knows? Now, Monsieur, will you do me a great favor?"
"Name it," replied the old man, eying him not unkindly.
"Will you allow me to cut that page out of your order-book?"
"Certainly, my boy; certainly, and with pleasure," said M. Bajeau.
No sooner said than done. Donald, who had his penknife ready, delighted M. Bajeau with his clever way of cutting out the page close to its inner side, and yet in a zigzag line, so that at any time afterward the paper could be fitted into its place in the book, in case it should be necessary to prove its identity.
Next the story of the chain was retold with great care, and written down by Don as it came from Monsieur's lips, word for word, and signed by M. Bajeau with trembling nicety. "Stay!" he exclaimed, as he laid down the pen. "It will be right for me to certify to this in legal form. Early in the morning, we can go to my good neighbor the notary and sign the paper. In a day or so we shall know whether this Madame René is Ellen Lee. If so, she will remember that hour spent in the shop of the watch-mender Bajeau, ha! ha!"
Monsieur could afford to laugh, for, though he still repaired watches, he had risen somewhat in worldly success and dignity since that day. An American, under the same circumstances, would by this time have had a showy bric-à-brac establishment, with a large sign over the door. But Monsieur Bajeau was content with his old shop, well satisfied to know the value of the treasures of jewelry and rare furniture which he bought and sold.
The visit to the notary over, Donald took his leave, promising the old man to come and bid him good-by before sailing for America, and, if possible, to bring Ellen Lee with him to Monsieur Bajeau's shop.
Late in the afternoon of the same day, after a dusty seven hours' ride in a railway coach, he found himself in Paris, on the way to the Rue Soudière, in search of Madame René.
It was something beside the effort of mounting five flights of stairs that caused his heart to beat violently when, after inquiring at every landing-place on his way up, he finally knocked at a small door on the very top story.
A short, middle-aged woman, with pale blue eyes and scanty gray hair, opened the door.
"Is this Madame René?" asked Donald, devoutly hoping that she would say "No."
The woman nodded, at the same time regarding him with suspicion, and not opening the door wide enough for him to enter.
"You replied to an advertisement, I believe?" began Donald again, bowing politely; but noting the woman's blank reception of his English, he repeated the inquiry in French. The door opened wide; the woman smiled a smile that might have been agreeable but for the lonely effect of her solitary front tooth, and then courteously invited her visitor to enter and be seated.
Poor Donald, wishing that he were many miles away, and convinced that nothing could come of an interview with this short, stout, pale-eyed "Ellen Lee," took a chair and waited resignedly for Madame to speak.
"I have advertised," she said in French, "and am ready to begin work."
Donald looked at her inquiringly.
"Perhaps Madame, the young gentleman's mother," she suggested, "wishes a fine pastry-cook at once?"
"A pastry-cook!" exclaimed Donald, in despair. "I came to see Ellen Lee, or rather to inquire for Madame René. Is your name René?"
"I am Madame René," a woman answered, in well-spoken English, as she stepped forward from a dark corner of the room, where she had been sitting unobserved by Donald. "Who is it wishes to see Ellen Lee?"
"The boy whose life she saved!" said Donald, rising to his feet and holding out his hand, unable in his excitement to be as guarded as he had intended to be. A glance had convinced him that this was Ellen Lee, indeed. The woman, tall, dark-eyed, stately, very genteel in spite of evident poverty, was about thirty-five years of age. There was no mistaking the sudden joy in her care-worn face. She seized his hand, without a word; then, as if recollecting herself, and feeling that she must be more cautious, she eyed him sharply, saying:
"And the other? the brother? There were two. Is he living?"
For a second Donald's heart sank; but he quickly recovered himself. Perhaps she was trying tricks upon him; if so, he must defend himself as well as he could. So he answered, carelessly, but heartily, "Oh! he's alive and well, thank you, and thanks to you."
This time they looked into each other's eyes—she, with a sudden expression of disappointment, for would-be shrewd people are apt to give little credit to others for equal shrewdness.
"Did you never have a sister?" she asked, with some hesitation.
"Oh, yes!" he replied, "but I must ask you now to tell me something of Ellen Lee, and how she saved us. I can assure you of one thing—I am alive and grateful. Pray tell me your story with perfect frankness. In the first place,—are you and Ellen Lee the same?"
"Yes."
"And do you know my name?"
"Indeed I do," she said, a slow smile coming into her face. "I will be frank with you. If you are the person I believe you to be, your name is Donald Reed."
"Good!" he exclaimed, joyfully; "and the other—what was—"
"His name?" she interrupted, again smiling. "His name was Dorothy Reed, sir! They were twins—a beautiful boy and girl."
To the latest day of his life Donald never will forget that moment; and he never will understand why he did not jump to his feet, grasp her hand, ask her dozens of questions at once, and finally implore her to tell him what he could do to prove his gratitude. He had, in fancy, acted out just such a scene while on his hopeful way to Paris. But, no. In reality, he just drew his chair a little nearer hers,—feeling, as he afterwards told his uncle, thoroughly comfortable,—and in the quietest possible way assured her that she was right as to the boy's name, but, to his mind, it would be very difficult for her to say which little girl she had saved—whether it was the baby-sister or the baby-cousin.
This was a piece of diplomacy on his part that would have delighted Mr. Wogg. True, he would prefer to be entirely frank on all occasions, but, in this instance, he felt that Mr. Wogg would highly disapprove of his "giving the case away" by letting the woman know that he hoped to identify Dorothy as his sister. What if Madame René, in the hope of more surely "hearing of something greatly to her advantage," were to favor his desire that the rescued baby should be Dorothy and not Delia?
"What do you mean?" asked Madame René.
"I mean, that possibly the little girl you saved was my cousin and not my sister," he replied, boldly.
Ellen Lee shrank from him a moment, and then almost angrily said:
"Why not your sister? Ah, I understand!—you would then be sole heir. But I must tell the truth, young gentleman; so much has been on my conscience all these years that I wish to have nothing left to reproach me. There was a time when, to get a reward, I might, perhaps, have been willing to say that the other rescued baby was your cousin, but now my heart is better. Truth is truth. I held little Donald and Dorothy both in these arms that terrible night. If I saved any little girl, it was Dorothy; and Dorothy was Donald Reed's twin sister."
Donald gave an exclamation of delight, but he checked himself as he glanced toward the short, light-haired Madame, whose peculiar appearance had at first threatened to blight his expectations. She was now seated by the small window, industriously mending a coarse woollen stocking, and evidently caring very little for the visitor, as he was not in search of a pastry-cook.
"We need not mind her," Madam René explained. "Marie Dubois is a good, dull-witted soul, who stays here with me when she is out of a situation. She cannot understand a word of English. We have decided to separate soon, and to leave these lodgings. I cannot make enough money with my needle to live here; and so we must both go out and work—I as a sewing-woman, and she as a cook. Ah me! In the years gone by I hoped to go to America and live with that lovely lady, your poor mother."
"Do you remember her well?" asked Donald, hesitating as to which one of a crowd of questions he should ask first.
"Perfectly, sir. She was very handsome. Ah me! and so good, so grand! The other lady—her husband's sister, I think, was very pretty, very sweet and gentle; but my lady was like a queen. I can see a trace of her features—just a little—in yours, Mr.—Mr. Reed. I did not at first; but the likeness grows on me."
"And this?" asked Donald, taking a photograph from his pocket. "Do you see any resemblance here to my mother?"
She held it up to the light, and looked at it long and wistfully. "Poor lady!" she said at last.
"Poor lady?" echoed Donald, rather amused at hearing his bright little Dorry spoken of in that way; "she is barely sixteen."
"Ah, no! It is the mother I am thinking of. How proud and happy she would be now with this beautiful daughter! For surely this is your sister's likeness, sir?"
Ellen Lee looked up quickly, but, reassured by Donald's prompt "Yes, indeed," she again studied the picture.
It was one that he had carried about with him ever since he left home—putting it upon the wall[1] or the bureau of his room, wherever he had chanced to lodge; and it showed Dorothy just as she looked the day before he sailed. He had gone with her to the photographer's to have it taken, and for his sake she had tried to forget that they were so suddenly to say "good-by."
"Ah, what a bright, happy face! A blessed day indeed it would be to me if I could see you two, grown to a beautiful young lady and gentleman, standing together—"
"That you shall see," responded Donald, heartily, not because he accepted the title of beautiful young gentleman, but because his heart was full of joy to think of the happy days to come, when the shadow of doubt and mystery would be forever lifted from the home at Lakewood.
"Is she coming? Is she here?" cried Madame René, who, misinterpreting Donald's words, had risen to her feet, half expecting to see the young girl enter the room.
"No. But depend upon it, you will go there," said Don. "You must carry out the dream of your youth, and begin life in America. My uncle surely will send for you. You know, I promised that you should hear of something greatly to your advantage."
"But the ocean," she began, with a show of dread, in spite of the pleasure that shone in her eyes. "I could never venture upon the great, black ocean again!"
"It will not be the black ocean this time. It will be the blue ocean, full of light and promise," said Donald, growing poetic, "and it will bear you to comfort and prosperity. Dorothy and I will—"
"Dorothy!" cried Ellen Lee. "Yes, I feel as if I could cross two oceans to see you both together, alive and well, so I could."
At this point Madame Dubois, rousing herself, said, rather querulously, in her native tongue: "Elise, are you to talk all night? Have you forgotten that you are to take me to see the lady on the Rue St. Honoré at six?"
"Ah, I did forget," was the reply. "I will go at once, if the young gentleman will excuse me."
"Certainly," said Donald, rising; "and I shall call again to-morrow, as I have many things yet to ask you. I'll go now and cable home."
Ellen Lee looked puzzled.
"Can I be forgetting my own language?" she thought to herself. But she had resolved to be frank with Donald. Had not he and Dorothy already opened a new life to her? "Cable home?" she repeated. "I do not understand."
"Why, send a cable message, you know—a message by the ocean telegraph."
"Oh, yes. Bless me! It will be on the other side, too, before one can wink. It is wonderful; and Mr. Donald,—if I may call you so,—while you're writing it, would you please, if you wouldn't mind it, send my love to Miss Dorothy?"
"Good!" cried Donald. "I'll do exactly that. Nothing could be better. It will tell the story perfectly."
Donald, going down the steep flights of stairs soon afterwards, intending to return later, longed to send a fine supper to Ellen Lee and her companion; also beautiful new gowns, furniture, pictures, and flowers. He felt like a fairy prince, ready to shower benefits upon her, but he knew that he must be judicious in his kindness, and considerate of Ellen Lee's feelings. Poor, as she evidently was, she had a proud spirit, and must not be carelessly rewarded.
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Before another night had passed, Uncle George and the anxious-hearted girl at Lakewood received this message:
Ellen Lee Sends Love to Dorothy.