Part 41 (1/2)
”I know. I was wondering if you knew her story; if she left any papers with you?”
”Who are you?” the woman asked suddenly, bending forward. ”If I knew Vi's story, would I repay her for all her kindness by telling it to a stranger? Why should I show you her papers if she did leave any with me, when that lawyer could get nothing out of me two years ago, for all his bl.u.s.tering?”
”Would you do it if you could help her baby to claim what is her own?”
Willa asked earnestly. ”My name is Abercrombie, but I happen to know that the girl your friend left behind her is trying to prove her ident.i.ty. I thought that you would want to help.”
”Oh, if I could!” Klondike Kate clasped her toil-worn hands. ”Vi told me about the rich father-in-law who hadn't ever forgiven her. Where is Billie, Miss Abercrombie? Is she well and happy? She was such a pretty thing!”
”She is well,” Willa responded slowly. ”She never knew that it was you who saved her from the fire.”
The scarred face flushed.
”I forgot her first, that was the awful part. She'd been ailing and her mother couldn't leave her home, so while she did her turn I sat in her dressing-room, mending my skirt and talking to the kid. When I heard the shots and the lamp exploded and the blaze flared up, I just made a jump for the door. Then I remembered Billie and went back, and the flames caught us both.”
”But--but she isn't scarred!” Willa cried.
”No. I--I tore off my skirt and wrapped her in it. Only her little bare feet stuck out and one of them got burned real bad.”
”One--of--her--feet!” repeated Willa breathlessly. ”Did it leave a scar? Oh, think--think!”
”Why, I guess it must have, Miss Abercrombie.” The woman stared at her. ”The right foot it was, and there was a bad burn on the inside of the ankle right up from the heel, like a tongue of flame had licked it.
It wasn't hardly well when Gentleman Geoff took her away.”
For a moment Willa sat as if stunned, then she bent swiftly, and, whipping off her shoe and stocking, thrust out a slender pink foot.
The inner side was seared with a tiny forked red line, slight but unmistakable.
”You!” Klondike Kate rose slowly. ”You are Billie!”
With a little sob Willa went to meet her, and in an instant the two were crying in each other's arms.
The older woman was the first to recover herself.
”Oh, my dear, to think that I didn't know you! I ought to have seen from the first--your mother's hair and eyes----”
”But you know me now!” Willa smiled through her tears. ”You could swear to me by that scar, couldn't you? You see, there is someone trying to claim I'm not the girl you knew as Billie, and I have no other proof. I never fancied that little scar meant anything; I haven't thought of it in years. You saved my life once, at the risk of your own--will you help me now?”
”Will I?” Klondike Kate wiped her eyes. ”I'll go to the last ditch for you! I've lived right for fifteen years, and I guess my word is as good as the next one's. You just take me to whoever says you're not little Billie and I'll prove their lie before any court on earth.--That reminds me; I have something for you. It won't help make good your claim, for they might say an impostor got it from me, but it's yours and you ought to have it.”
She mounted the rickety stairs to the loft, and in her absence Willa slowly put on her stocking and shoe once more. Her own inner conviction had been justified and an elation almost solemn in its intensity filled her heart. She was Willa Murdaugh! She could prove her right to the name which had been wrested from her!
When Klondike Kate descended she bore in her hands a folded paper, yellowed and worn, and a tarnished locket on a bit of faded, scorched blue ribbon.
”I was sick when Gentleman Geoff left town with you or I'd have tied the locket on you myself,” she said. ”It's got both their pictures in it, mother and father. See!”
She opened the case, and Willa gazed through renewed tears at the two young faces vibrant with life which smiled back at her: the man's thin and intellectual with the eyes of a dreamer and the chiseled lips of a poet; the woman's stronger and more practical, her gaze sweet and level, her dark hair in a soft cloud about her low, broad forehead.
Willa pressed the locket convulsively to her breast in the first overwhelming tide of possession which had ever swept over her. These were her own people, flesh of her fles.h.!.+ They had dared to love against insuperable odds, and, succ.u.mbing at last, had left her as the pledge of that love! She would prove worthy of them!
”It was taken from her neck when they found her after the fire,”