"It's plain enough, I should think," said Dovie with a pitying smile. Since she had been FORCED to tell this she was going to make it worth the telling. "You and her were born the same night.
It was when the Thomases lived in the Glen. The nurse took Di's twin down to Thomas's and put her in the cradle and took you back to Di's mother. She didn't dare take Di, too, or she would have.
She hated your mother and she took that way of getting even. And that is why you are really Cassie Thomas and you ought to be living down there at the Harbour Mouth and poor Cass ought to be up at Ingleside instead of being banged about by that old stepmother of hers. I feel so sorry for her many's the time.”
Nan believed every word of this preposterous yarn. She had never been lied to in her life and not for one moment did she doubt the truth of Dovie's tale. It never occurred to her that anyone, much less her beloved Dovie, would or could make up such a story. She gazed at Dovie with anguished, disillusioned eyes.
"How ... how did your Aunt Kate find it out?" she gasped through dry lips.
"The nurse told her on her death-bed," said Dovie solemnly. "I s'pose her conscience troubled her. Aunt Kate never told anyone but me. When I came to the Glen and saw Cassie Thomas ... Nan Blythe, I mean ... I took a good look at her. She's got red hair and eyes the same colour as your mother's. You've got brown eyes and brown hair. That's why you don't look like Di ... twins ALWAYS look exactly alike. And Cass has just the same kind of ears as your father ... lying so nice and flat against her head. I don't s'pose anything can be done about it now. But I've often thought it wasn't fair, you having such an easy time and being kept like a doll and poor Cass--Nan--in rags, and not even getting enough to eat, many's the time. And old Six-toed beating her when he comes home drunk! ... Why, what are you looking at me like that for?”
Nan's pain was greater than she could bear. All was horribly clear to her now. Folks had always thought it funny she and Di didn't look one bit alike. THIS was why.
"I HATE you for telling me this, Dovie Johnson!”
Dovie shrugged her fat shoulders.
"I didn't tell you you'd like it, did I? You MADE me tell. Where are you going?”
For Nan, white and dizzy, had risen to her feet.
"Home ... to tell Mother," she said miserably.
"You mustn't ... you dassn't! Remember you swore you wouldn't tell!" cried Dovie.
Nan stared at her. It was true she had promised not to tell. And Mother always said you mustn't break a promise.
"I guess I'll be getting home myself," said Dovie, not altogether liking the look of Nan.
She snatched up the parasol and ran off, her plump bare legs twinkling along the old wharf. Behind her she left a broken- hearted child, sitting amid the ruins of her small universe. Dovie didn't care. Soft was no name for Nan. It really wasn't much fun to fool her. Of course she would tell her mother as soon as she got home and find out she had been hoaxed.
"Just as well I'm going home Sunday," reflected Dovie.
Nan sat on the wharf for what seemed hours ... blind, crushed, despairing. She wasn't Mother's child! She was Six-toed Jimmy's child ... Six-toed Jimmy of whom she had always had a secret dread simply because of his six toes. She had no business to be living at Ingleside, loved by Mother and Dad. "Oh!" Nan gave a piteous little moan. Mother and Dad wouldn't love her any more if they knew. All their love would go to Cassie Thomas.
Nan put her hand to her head. "It makes me dizzy," she said.
Chapter 31
"What is the reason you are not eating anything, pet?" asked Susan at the supper table.
"Were you out in the sun too long, dear?" asked Mother anxiously.
"Does your head ache?”
"Ye-e-s," said Nan. But it wasn't her head that ached. Was she telling a lie to Mother? And if so, how many more would she have to tell? For Nan knew she would never be able to eat again ... never so long as this horrible knowledge was hers. And she knew she could never tell Mother. Not so much because of the promise ... hadn't Susan said once that a bad promise was better broken than kept? ... but because it would hurt Mother. Somehow, Nan knew beyond any doubt that it would hurt Mother horribly. And Mother mustn't ... shouldn't ... be hurt. Nor Dad.
And yet ... there was Cassie Thomas. She WOULDN'T call her Nan Blythe. It made Nan feel awful beyond description to think of Cassie Thomas as being Nan Blythe. She felt as if it blotted HER out altogether. If she wasn't Nan Blythe she wasn't anybody! She would NOT be Cassie Thomas.
But Cassie Thomas haunted her. For a week Nan was beset by her ... a wretched week during which Anne and Susan were really worried over the child, who wouldn't eat and wouldn't play and, as Susan said, "just moped around." Was it because Dovie Johnson had gone home? Nan said it wasn't. Nan said it wasn't ANYTHING. She just felt tired. Dad looked her over and prescribed a dose which Nan took meekly. It was not so bad as castor-oil but even castor-oil meant nothing now. Nothing meant anything except Cassie Thomas ... and the awful question which had emerged from her confusion of mind and taken possession of her.
Shouldn't Cassie Thomas have her rights?
Was it fair that she, Nan Blythe ... Nan clung to her identity frantically ... should have all the things Cassie Thomas was denied and which were hers by rights? No, it wasn't fair. Nan was despairingly sure it wasn't fair. Somewhere in Nan there was a very strong sense of justice and fair play. And it became increasingly borne in upon her that it was only fair that Cassie Thomas should be told.
After all, perhaps nobody would care very much. Mother and Dad would be a little upset at first, of course, but as soon as they knew that Cassie Thomas was their own child all their love would go to Cassie and, she, Nan, would be of no account to them. Mother would kiss Cassie Thomas and sing to her in the summer twilights ... sing the song Nan liked best...
"I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea, "And oh, it was all laden with pretty things for me.”
Nan and Di had often talked about the day their ship would come in.
But now the pretty things ... her share of them anyhow ... would belong to Cassie Thomas. Cassie Thomas would take her part as fairy queen in the forthcoming Sunday School concert and wear HER dazzling band of tinsel. How Nan had looked forward to that!
Susan would make fruit puffs for Cassie Thomas and Pussywillow would purr for her. She would play with Nan's dolls in Nan's moss- carpeted play-house in the maple grove, and sleep in her bed.
Would Di like that? Would Di like Casssie Thomas for a sister?
There came a day when Nan knew she could bear it no longer. She must do what was fair. She would go down to the Harbour Mouth and tell the Thomases the truth. THEY could tell Mother and Dad. Nan felt that she simply could not do THAT.
Nan felt a little better when she had come to this decision, but very, very sad. She tried to eat a little supper because it would be the last meal she would ever eat at Ingleside.
"I'll always call Mother 'Mother,'" thought Nan desperately. "And I WON'T call Six-toed Jimmy 'Father.' I'll just say 'Mr. Thomas' very respectfully. Surely he won't mind THAT.”
But something choked her. Looking up she read castor-oil in Susan's eye. Little Susan thought she wouldn't be here at bedtime to take it. Cassie Thomas would have to swallow it. That was the one thing Nan didn't envy Cassie Thomas.
Nan went off immediately after supper. She must go before it was dark or her courage would fail her. She went in her checked gingham play-dress, not daring to change it, lest Susan or Mother ask why. Besides, all her nice dresses really belonged to Cassie Thomas. But she did put on the new apron Susan had made for her ... such a smart little scalloped apron, the scallops bound in turkey red. Nan loved that apron. Surely Cassie Thomas wouldn't grudge her that much.