CHAPTER XX

THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE

In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.

“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,” she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost unconscious antagonism, their glances met.

“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”

Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.

“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed. “Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son. She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well, by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this part of the country to the far west and there after several years we learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now paused for a moment.

Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my mother a lady?” she asked quietly.

“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.

“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.

Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay here any longer at present.”

* * * * *

In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers” and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.

“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has always been intended that you should some day know your own people and for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very neighborhood.”

After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I give up them.”

There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again: “I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me be her friend.”

“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.

In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women. However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon. Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?

In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her. She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as her heiress and the bearer of her name.

By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly brought the lines back to her recollection.

Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night. She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still another question she wished to ask.

“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her picture in my father’s watch.”

Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress, that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name mentioned as long as she lived.”

With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.