CHAPTER XXVI
IDA’S WARNING
Botzen proved to be very hot and full of smells, nor did Mrs. Morton care for its quaint old medieval houses, but Ida’s heart had begun to fail her when she came so near the crisis, and on looking over the visitors’ book she gave a cry. ‘Ah, if we had only known! It is all of no use.’
‘How?’ she was asked.
‘That horrid Mrs. Bury!’
‘There?’
‘Of course she is. Only a week ago she was here. If she is at Ratzes, of course we can do nothing.’
‘And the road is affreux, perfectly frightful,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘I have been inquiring about it. No access except upon mules. A whole day’s journey—and the hotel! Bah, it is vilain!’
‘If Ida is bent on going she must go without me,’ said Mrs. Morton. ‘I—I have had enough of those horrid beasts. Ida’s nonsense will be the death of me.’
‘I don’t see much good in going on with that woman there,’ said Ida gloomily. ‘She would be sure to stifle all inquiry.’
‘A good thing too,’ muttered poor, weary Mrs. Morton.
Ida turned the leaves of the visitors’ book till she found the names of Lord and Lady Northmoor, and then, growing more eager as obstructions came in her way, and not liking to turn back as if on a fool’s errand, she suggested to Miss Gattoni that questions might be asked about their visit. The Tyrolean patois was far beyond her, and not too comprehensible to her friend, but there was a waiter who could speak French, and the landlady’s German was tolerable.
The milord and miladi were perfectly remembered, as well as their long detention, but the return had been by way of Italy, so they had not revisited Botzen with their child the next spring.
‘But,’ said the hostess, ‘there is a young woman in the next street who can tell you more than I. She offered herself as a nurse.’
This person was at once sent for. She was the same who had been mentioned by Mrs. Bury, but she had exchanged the peasant costume, which had, perhaps, only been assumed to please the English ladies, for the townswoman’s universal endeavour at French fashion, which by no means enhanced her rather coarse beauty, which was more Italian than Austrian.
Italian was the tongue which chiefly served as a medium between her and Miss Gattoni, though hers was not pure enough to be easily understood. Mrs. Morton and Ida put questions which Miss Gattoni translated as best she could, and made out as much as possible of the answers. It was elicited that she had not been allowed to see the English miladi. All had been settled by the signora who came yearly, and they had rejected her after all her trouble; the doctor had recommended her, and though her creatura would have been just the right age, and that little ipocrila’s child was older, ever so much older—she spread out her hands to indicate infinity.
‘Ah!’ said Ida, ‘I always thought so.’
‘Ask her how much older,’ demanded Mrs. Morton.
The replies varied from nearly un sanestre to tre settimane—and no more could be made of that question.
‘Where was the foster-child?’
Again the woman threw up her hands to indicate that she had no notion—what was it to her? She could not tell if it were alive or dead; but (upon a leading question) it had not been seen since Hedwige’s departure nor after return. Was it boy or girl? and, after some hesitation, it was declared to have been un maschio.
There was more, which nobody quite understood, but which sounded abusive, and they were glad to get rid of her with a couple of thalers.
‘Well?’ said Ida triumphantly.
‘Well?’ echoed her mother in a different tone. ‘I don’t know what you were all saying, but I’m sure of this, that that woman was only looking to see what you wanted her to say. I watched the cunning look of her eyes, and I would not give that for her word,’ with a gesture of her fingers.
‘But, ma, you didn’t understand! Nothing could be plainer. The doctor recommended her, and sent her over in proper time, but she never saw any one but Mrs. Bury, who, no doubt, had made her arrangements. Then this other woman’s child was older—nobody knows how much—but we always agreed that nobody could believe Mite, as they call him, was as young as they said. And then that other child was a boy, and it has vanished.’
‘I don’t believe she knew.’
‘No, I do not think she did,’ chimed in Miss Gattoni. ‘This canaille will say anything!’
‘I believe the woman,’ said Ida obstinately. ‘Her evidence chimes in with all my former conclusions.’
The older ladies both had a strong misgiving that the conclusions had formed the evidence, and Mrs. Morton, though she had listened all along to Ida’s grumbling, was perfectly appalled at the notion of bringing such a ridiculous accusation against the brother-in-law, against whom she might indeed murmur, but whom she knew to be truthful and self-denying. She ventured to represent that it was impossible to go upon this statement without ascertaining whether the Grantzen child was alive, or really dead and buried at Ratzes, and that the hostess of the inn would have been better evidence, but—
He that of purpose looks beside the mark,
Might as well hoodwinked shoot as in the dark,
and Ida was certain that all the people at Ratzes had been bribed, and that no one would dare to speak out while Mrs. Bury kept guard there. Indeed, for that lady to guess at such suspicions and inquiries would have been so dreadful that Ratzes was out of the question, much to the relief of the elders, dragged along by the masterful maiden against their better judgment, though indeed Miss Gattoni gave as much sympathy in her tête-à-têtes with Ida as she did to her mother in their consultations.
They were made to interview the doctor, but he knew as little about the matter as the disappointed balia, and professed to know much less. In point of fact, though he had been called in after the accident, Mrs. Bury had not thought much of his skill, and had not promoted after-visits. There had not been time to summon him when the birth took place, and Mrs. Bury thought her experience more useful afterwards than his treatment was likely to be. So he was a slighted and offended man, whose testimony, given in good German, only declared the secretiveness, self-sufficiency, and hard-neckedness of Englander!
And Ida’s state of mind much resembled that of the public when resolved to believe in the warming-pan.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE YOUNG PRETENDER
The denunciation of the Young Pretender was not an easy matter even in Ida’s eyes. It was one thing to have a pet grievance and see herself as a heroine, righting her dear injured brother’s wrongs, and another to reproach two of the quietest most matter-of-fact people in the world with the atrocious frauds of which only a wicked baronet was capable.
She was not sorry that the return to England was deferred by the tenants of the house at Westhaven wanting to stay on; and when at length a Christmas visit was paid at Northmoor, Mite was an animated little personage of three and a quarter, and, except that he could not accomplish a k, perfect in speaking plainly and indeed with that pretty precision of utterance that children sometimes acquire when baby language has not been foolishly fastened. Indeed, his pet name of Mite was only for strictly private use. Except to his nearest relatives, he was always Michael.
Mrs. Morton was delighted with him, and would have liked to make up for her knowledge of Ida’s suspicions by extra petting, and by discovering resemblances to all the family portraits as well as to his parents, none of which any one else could see. She lived upon thorns lest Ida should burst out with some accusation, but Ida had not the requisite impudence, and indeed, in sight of the boy with his parents, her ‘evidence’ faded into such stuff as dreams are made of.
There was some vexation, indeed, that Louisa the nursery-maid, whom Mrs. Morton had recommended, had had to be dismissed.
‘I am sorry,’ said Mrs. Morton, ‘for, as I told you, her father was the mate aboard the Emma Jane, my poor father’s ship, you know, and went down with poor pa and my poor dear Charlie. And her mother used to char for us, which was but her due.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mary; ‘Frank and I were both very sorry, and we would have found her another place, but she would go home. You see, we could not keep her in the nursery, for we must have a thoroughly trustworthy person to go out with Michael.’
‘What! Can’t your fine nurse?’
‘Eden? It is her one imperfection. It is some weakness of the spine, and neither she nor I can be about with Michael as long as it is good for him. I thought he must be safe in the garden, but it turned out that Louisa had been taking him down to the village, and there meeting a sailor, who I believe came up in a collier to Colbeam.’
‘Oh, an old friend from Westhaven?’
‘Sam Rattler,’ suggested Ida. ‘Don’t you remember, mamma, Mrs. Hall said they were sweethearting, and she wanted to get her out of the way of him.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Lady Northmoor, ‘but I should have forgiven it if she had told me the truth and not tempted Mite. She used to make excuses to Eden for going down to the village, and at last she took Mite there, and they gave him sweets at the shop not to tell!’
‘Did he?’ said Ida, rather hoping the model boy would have failed.
‘Oh yes. The dear little fellow did not understand keeping things back, and when his papa was giving him his nightly sugar-plum, he said, “Blue man gave me a great striped sweet, and it stuck in my little teeth”; and then, when we asked when and where, he said, “Down by Betty’s, when I was out with Cea and Louie”; and so it came out that she had taken him into the village, met this man, brought him into the grounds by the little gate, and tried to bribe Mite to say nothing about it. Cea told us all about it,—the little girl who lives with Miss Morton. Of course we could never let him go out with her again, and you would hardly believe what an amount of falsehoods she managed to tell Eden and me about it.’
‘Ah, if you had lived at Westhaven you would have found out that to be so particular is the way to make those girls fib,’ said Mrs. Morton.
‘I hope not. I think we have a very good girl now, trained up in an orphanage.’
‘Oh, those orphanage girls are the worst of all. I’ve had enough of them. They break everything to pieces, and they run after the lads worst of all, because they have never seen one before!’
To which Mary answered by a quiet ‘I hope it may not turn out so.’
There were more agitating questions to be brought forward. Herbert had behaved very fairly well ever since the escapade of the pied rook; the lad kept his promise as to betting faithfully in his uncle’s absence, and though it had not been renewed, he had learnt enough good sense to keep out of mischief.
Unfortunately, however, he had not the faculty of passing examinations. He was not exactly stupid or idle, but any kind of study was a bore to him, and the knowledge he was forced to ‘get up’ was not an acquisition that gave him the slightest satisfaction for its own sake, or that he desired to increase beyond what would carry him through. Naturally, he had more cleverness than his uncle, and learning was less difficult to him, but he only used his ability to be sooner done with a distasteful task, which never occupied his mind for a moment after it was thrown aside. Thus time after time he had failed in passing for the army, and now only one chance remained before being reduced to attempting to enter the militia. And suppose that there he failed?
He remained in an amiable, passive, good-humoured state, rather amused than otherwise at his mother’s impression that it was somehow all his uncle’s fault, and ready to be disposed of exactly as they pleased provided that he had not the trouble of thinking about it or of working extra hard.
Mrs. Morton was sure that something could be done. Could not his uncle send him to Oxford? Then he could be a clergyman, or a lawyer or anything. Oh dear, were there those horrid examinations there too? And then those gentlemen that belonged to the ambassadors and envoys—she was sure Mr. Rollstone had told her any one who had connection could get that sort of appointment to what they called the Civil Service. What, examinations again? connection no good? Well, it was shame! What would things come to? As Mr Rollstone said, it was mere ruin!
Merchant’s office? Bah! such a gentleman as her Herbert was, so connected! What was his uncle thinking of, taking him up to put him down in that way? It was hard.
And Lord Northmoor was thankful to the tears that as usual choked her, while he begged her at present to trust to that last chance. It would be time to think what was to come next if that failed.
Wherewith the victim passed the window whistling merrily, apparently perfectly regardless of his doom, be it what it might, and with Mite clinging to his hand in ecstatic admiration.
Constance too was in question. Here she was at eighteen, a ladylike, pleasant, good girl, very nice-looking, sweet-faced, and thoughtful, having finished her course at the High School with great credit, but alas! it was not in the family to win scholarships. She did things well, but not so brilliantly as cleverer girls, having something of her uncle’s tardiness of power.
Her determination to be a governess was as decided as ever, and it was first brought before her mother by an offer on Lady Adela’s part to begin with her at once for Amice, who was now eleven years old.
‘Really, now!’ said Mrs. Morton, stopping short to express her offence.
‘That is—’ added Ida, equally at a loss.
‘But what do you mean, mamma?’ said Constance. ‘I always intended to be a teacher; I think it noble, useful work.’
‘Oh, my poor child! what have they brought you to? Pretending such affection, too!’
‘Indeed, mamma, I have meant this always. I could not be dependent all my life, you know. Do listen, mamma; don’t Ida—’
‘That my Lady Adela should insult us that way, when you are as good as she!’
‘Nonsense, Ida! That has nothing to do with it. It is the greatest possible compliment, and I am very much pleased.’
‘Just to live there, at her beck and call, drudging at that child’s lessons!’ sneered Ida.
‘Yes, and when I made sure, at least after all the fuss they have made with you, that your aunt would present you at Court, and make you the young lady of the house, and marry you well, but there’s no trust to be placed in them—none!’
‘Oh, mamma, don’t cry. I should not feel it right, unless Aunt Mary really needed me, and, though she is so kind and dear, she does not really. My only doubt is—’
‘You have a doubt, then?’
‘Yes. I should be so much fitter if I could go to one of the ladies’ colleges, and then come back to dear little Amice, but now I have failed, I don’t like to let Uncle Frank spend all that money on me, when I might be earning eighty pounds for myself.’
‘Well, you are a strange girl, with no proper pride for your family,’ said her mother.
And Ida chimed in: ‘Yes. Do you think any one will be likely to marry you? or if you don’t care about yourself, you might at least think of me!’
Mrs. Morton shed her ready tears when talking it over with Lady Northmoor.
‘You see,’ said Mary gently, ‘I should like nothing better than to have dear little Conny to live with me like a daughter, but, for one thing, it would not be fair towards Ida, and besides, it would not be good for her in case she did not marry to have wasted these years.’
Mrs. Morton by no means appreciated the argument. However, Lord Northmoor put off the matter by deciding to send Constance to St. Hugh’s Hall, thinking she really deserved such a reward to her diligence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TWO BUNDLES OF HAY
Ida was, as all agreed, much improved in looks, style, and manners by her travels. Her illness had begun the work of fining her down from the bouncing heartiness of her girlhood, and she really was a handsome creature, with dark glowing colouring; her figure had improved, whether because or in spite of her efforts in that way might be doubtful; and she had learnt how to dress herself in fairly good taste.
Though neither Mademoiselle Gattoni nor the boarding-house society she had frequented was even second-rate in style, still there was an advance over her former Westhaven circle, with a good deal more restraint, so that she had almost insensibly acquired a much more ladylike air and deportment.
Moreover, the two years’ absence had made some changes. The young men who had been in the habit of exchanging noisy jests with Ida had mostly drifted away in different directions or sobered down; girl companions had married off; and a new terrace had been completed with inhabitants and sojourners of a somewhat higher grade, who accepted Mrs. and Miss Morton as well connected.
Mr. Rollstone’s lodgings were let to Mr. Deyncourt, a young clergyman who had come full of zeal to work up the growing district. He had been for a short time in the Northmoor neighbourhood, and had taken the duty there for a few weeks, so that he heard the name of Morton as prominent in good works, and had often seen Lady Adela and Constance with the Sunday-school. As Mr. Rollstone was not slow to mention the connection, he was not slow to call on Mrs. Morton and Miss Morton, in hopes of their co-operation, and as Mr. Rollstone had informed them that he was of ‘high family’ and of good private means, Mrs. Morton had a much better welcome for him than for his poor little predecessor, who lived over a shoemaker’s shop, and, as she averred, never came except to ask subscriptions for some nonsense or other.
Mr. Deyncourt was a tall fine-looking man, and did not begin by asking subscriptions, but talked about Northmoor, Constance, and Lady Adela, so that Ida found herself affecting much closer knowledge of both than she really had.
‘I found,’ he said, ‘that your sister is most valuable in the Sunday-school. I wonder if you would kindly assist us.’
Mrs. Morton began, ‘My daughter is not strong, Mr. Deyncourt.’
And Ida simpered and said, hesitating, ‘I—I don’t know.’
If poor Mr. Brown had ever been demented enough even to make the same request, he would have met with a very different answer.
‘I do not think it will be very fatiguing,’ said Mr. Deyncourt. ‘Do you know Mrs. Brandon? No! I will ask her to call and explain our plans. She is kind enough to let me meet the other teachers in her dining-room once a week to arrange the lessons for the Sunday. There are Miss Selwood and Mrs. and Miss Hume.’
These were all in the social position in which Ida was trying to establish her footing, and though she only agreed to ‘think about it,’ her mind was pretty well made up that it would be a very different thing from the old parish school where Rose Rollstone used to work among a set of small tradesmen’s daughters.
When she found herself quite the youngest and best-looking of the party, she was entirely won over. There was no necessity for speaking so as to betray one’s ignorance during Mr. Deyncourt’s instructions, and she was a person of sufficient force and spirit to impose good order on her class; and thus she actually obtained the gratitude of the young clergyman as an efficient assistant.
Their domiciles being so near together, there were many encounters in going in and out, nor were these avoided on either side. Ida had a wonderful amount of questions to ask, and used to lie in wait to get them solved. It was very interesting to lay them before a handsome young clergyman with a gentle voice, sweet smile, and ready attention, and religion seemed to have laid aside that element of dulness and moping which had previously repelled her.
She was embroidering a stole for Easter, and wanted a great deal of counsel for it; and she undertook to get a basket of flowers for Easter decorations from Northmoor, where her request caused some surprise and much satisfaction in the simple pair, who never thought of connecting the handsome young mission priest with this sudden interest in the Church.
And Mr. Deyncourt had no objection to drop in for afternoon tea when he was met on the sands and had to be consulted about the stole, or to be asked who was worthy of broth, or as time went on to choose soup and practise a duet for the mission concert that was to keep people out of mischief on the Bank-holiday.
Ida had a voice, and music was the one talent she had cared to cultivate; she had had good lessons during her second winter abroad, and was an acquisition to the amateur company. Besides, what she cared for more, it was a real pleasure and rest to the curate to come in and listen to her or sing with her. She had learnt what kind of things offended good taste, and she set herself to avoid them and to school her mother into doing the same.
What Mr. Deyncourt thought or felt was not known, though thus much was certain, that he showed himself attentive enough to this promising young convert, and made Mrs. Brandon and other prudent, high-bred matrons somewhat uneasy.
And in the midst the Morna put in at Westhaven, and while Ida was walking home from Mrs. Brandon’s, she encountered Mr. Brady, looking extremely well turned-out in yachting costume and smoking a short pipe.
There was something very flattering in the sound of the exclamation with which he greeted her; and then, as they shook hands, ‘I should not have known you, Miss Morton; you are—’ and he hesitated for a compliment—‘such a stunner! What have you been doing to yourself?’
At the gate of the narrow garden, Mr. Deyncourt overtook them, carrying Ida’s bag of books for her. She introduced them, and was convinced that they glared at each other.
And there ensued a time of some perplexity, but much enjoyment, on Ida’s part. Mr. Brady reviled the parson and all connected therewith in not very choice language, and the parson, on his side, though saying nothing, seemed to her to be on the watch, and gratified, if not relieved, when she remained steady to her parochial work.
And what was her mind? Personally, she had come to like and approve Mr. Deyncourt the most, and to have a sense that there was satisfaction in that to which he could lead her, while the better taste that had grown in her was sometimes offended, almost insulted, by Tom Brady’s tendency to coarseness, and to treating her not as a lady, but as the Westhaven belle he had honoured with his attentions two years before. Yet she had an old kindness for him as her first love. And, moreover, he could give her eventually a title and very considerable wealth, a house in London, and all imaginable gaiety. While, as to Mr. Deyncourt, he was not poor and had expectations, but the utmost she could look to for him with confidence was Northmoor Vicarage after Mr. Woodman’s time, and anywhere the dull, sober, hard-working life of a clergyman’s wife!
Which should she choose—that is, if she had her choice, or if either were in earnest? She was not sure of the curate, and therefore perhaps longed most that he should come to the point, feeling that this would anyway increase her self-esteem, and if she hesitated to bind herself to a life too high, and perhaps too dull, there was the dread, on the other hand, that his family, who, she understood, were very grand people, would object to a girl with nothing of her own and a governess sister.
On the other hand, the Bradys were so rich that they had little need to care for fortune—only, the richer people were, the greater their expectations—and she was more at ease with Tom than with Mr. Deyncourt. They would probably condone the want of fortune if she could write ‘Honourable’ before her name, or had any prospect of so doing, and the governess-ship might be a far greater drawback in their eyes than in those of the Deyncourts. ‘However, thank goodness,’ said she to herself, ‘that won’t begin for two or three years, and one or other will be hailed long before that—if— Oh, it is very hard to be kept out of everything by an old stick like Uncle Frank and a little wretch like Mite, who, after all, is a miserable Tyrolese, and not a Morton at all! It really is too bad!’
CHAPTER XXIX
JONES OR RATTLER
When Lord Northmoor had occasion to be in London he usually went alone, for to take the whole party was too expensive, and not good for little Michael. Besides, Bertha Morton had so urgently begged him to regard her house as always ready for him, that the habit had been established of taking up his quarters there.
Some important measures were coming on after Easter, and he had some other business, so that, in the form of words of which she longed to cure him, he told her that he was about to trespass on her hospitality for a week or fortnight.
‘As long as ever you please,’ she said. ‘I am glad to have some one to sit opposite to me and tell me home news,’ and they met at the station, she having been on an expedition on her own account, so that they drove home together.
No sooner were they within the house door than the parlour-maid began, ‘That man has been here again, ma’am.’
‘What, Jones?’ said Bertha, in evident annoyance.
‘Yes, ma’am, and I am sorry to say he saw little Cea. The child had run down after me when I answered the door, and he asked her if she did not know her own father, and if she would come with him. “No,” she says, “I’m Miss Morton’s,” and he broke out with his ugly laugh, and says he, “You be, be you, you unnatural little vagabond?”—those were his very words, ma’am—“but a father is a father, and if he gives up his rights he must know the reason why.” He wanted me, the good-for-nothing, to give him half a sovereign at once, or he would take off the child on the spot, but, by good luck, she had been frightened and run away, the dear, and I had got the door between me and him, so I told him to be off till you came home, or I would call for the police. So he was off for that time.’
‘Quite right, Alice,’ said Miss Morton, and then, leading the way upstairs and throwing herself down on a chair, she exclaimed, ‘There, it ought to be a triumph to you, Northmoor! You told me that I should have trouble about poor little Cea’s father, the brute!’
‘Is he levying blackmail on you?’
‘Yes. It is horribly weak of me, I know, and I can scarcely believe it of myself, but one can’t abandon a child to a wretch like that, and he has the law on his side.’
‘Are you quite sure of that? He deserted her, I think you said. If you could establish that, or prove a conviction against him—’
‘Oh, I know she might be sent to an industrial school if I took it before a magistrate, but if the other alternative would be destruction, that would be misery to her. See—’ and there was a little tap at the door. ‘Come in, Cea. There, make your curtsey to his lordship.’
A pretty little fair-haired pale-cheeked girl, daintily but simply dressed, came in and made her curtsey very prettily, and replied nicely to Lord Northmoor’s good-natured greeting and information that Michael had sent her a basket of primroses and a cowslip ball, which she would find in the hall.
‘What do you say, Cea?’ said Bertha, anxious to demonstrate her manners.
‘Thank you, my lord, and Master Michael,’ she uttered, but she was evidently preoccupied with what she had to tell Miss Morton. ‘Oh’m, there was such a nasty man here! And he wanted me, and said he was my father, but he wasn’t. He was the same man that gave Master Mite and me the bull’s-eyes when we were naughty and Louisa went away.’
‘Are you sure, Cea?’ both exclaimed, but to the child of six the very eagerness of the question brought a certain confusion, and though more gently Lord Northmoor asked her to describe him, she could not do it, and indeed she had been only five when the encounter had taken place. The urgency of the inquiry somehow seemed to dispose her to cry, as if she thought she had been naughty, and she had to be dismissed to the cowslip ball.
‘If the child is right, that man cannot be her father at all,’ said Lord Northmoor. ‘That man’s name is Rattler, and he is well known at Westhaven.’
‘Should you know him?’
‘I never saw him, but I could soon find those who have done so.’
‘If we could only prove it! Oh, what a relief it would be! I dare not even send the child to school—as I meant to do, Northmoor, for indeed we don’t spoil her—for fear she should be kidnapped; and I don’t know if the school-board officer won’t be after her, and I can’t give as a reason “for fear she should be stolen by her father.”‘
‘Not exactly. It ought to be settled once for all. Perhaps the child will tell more when you have her alone.’
‘Is not Rattler only too like a nickname, or is he a native of Westhaven?’
This Lord Northmoor thought he could find out, but the dinner was hardly over before a message came that the man Jones had called again.
‘Perhaps I had better see him alone,’ said the guest, and Bertha was only too glad to accept the offer, so he proceeded to the little room opening into the hall, where interviews with tradesfolk or petitioners were held.
The man had a blue jersey, a cap, and an evidently sailor air, or rather that of the coasting, lower stamp of seaman; but he was tall, rather handsome, and younger-looking than would have been expected of Cea’s father. He looked somewhat taken aback by the appearance of a gentleman, but he stood his ground.
‘So I understand that you have been making demands upon Miss Morton,’ Lord Northmoor began.
‘Well, sir, my lord, a father has his feelings. There is a situation offered me in Canada, and I intend to take the little girl with me.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ And there was a pause.
‘Or if the lady has taken a fancy to her, I’d not baulk her for a sum down of twenty or five-and-twenty, once for all.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ again; then ‘What do you say is the child’s name?’
‘Jones, my lord.’
‘Her Christian name, I mean?’
He scratched his head. ‘Cissy, my lord—Celia—Cecilia. Blest if I’m sure!’ as he watched the expression of the questioner. ‘You see, the women has such fine names, and she was always called Baby when her poor mother was alive.’
‘Where was she baptized?’
‘Well, you see, my lord, the women-folk does all that, and I was at sea; and by and by I comes home to find my poor wife dead, and the little one gone.’
‘I suppose you are aware that you can have no legal claim to the child without full proof of her belonging to you—the certificate of your marriage and a copy of the register of her birth?’
The man was scarcely withheld from imprecations upon the work that was made about it, when Miss Morton had been quite satisfied on a poor fellow’s word.
‘Yes, ladies may be satisfied for a time, but legally more than your word is required, and you will remember that unless you can bring full proof that this is your child, there is such a thing as prosecution for obtaining money on false pretences.’
‘And how is a poor fellow to get the fees for them register clerks and that?’ said the man, in a tone waxing insolent.
‘I will be answerable for the fees, if you will tell me where the certificates are to be applied for.’
‘Well, how is a cove to know what the women did when he was at sea? She died at Rotherhithe, anyway, so the child will be registered there.’
‘And the marriage? You were not at sea then, I suppose?’
But the man averred that there were so many churches that there was no telling one from another, and with a knowing look declared that the gals were so keen after a man that they put up the banns and hauled him where they would.
He was at last got rid of, undertaking to bring the proofs of his paternity, without which Lord Northmoor made it clear to him that he was to expect neither child nor money.
‘I greatly doubt whether you will see any more of him,’ said Lord Northmoor when describing the interview.
‘Oh, Frank,’ cried Bertha, calling him thus for the first time, ‘I do not know how to thank you enough. You have done me an infinite kindness.’
‘Do not thank me yet,’ he answered, ‘for though I do not in the least believe that this fellow is the child’s father, he may find his way to the certificates or get them forged; and it would be well to trace what has become of the real Jones, as well as to make out about this Rattler. Is it true that the wife died at Rotherhithe?’
‘Quite true, poor thing. I believe they had lived there since the marriage.’
‘I will run down there if you can give me the address, and see if I can make out anything about her husband, and see whether any one can speak to his identity with this man.’
‘You are a man of gold! To think of your taking all this trouble!’
‘I only hope I may succeed. It is a return to old habits of hunting up evidence.’
Bertha was able to give the address of the lodging-house where poor Mrs. Jones had died, and the next morning produced another document, which had been shut up in the Bible that had been rescued for the child, namely the marriage lines of David Jones and Lucy Smith at the parish church of the last Lord Northmoor’s residence in town.
To expect a clergyman or clerk to remember the appearance of a bridegroom eight years ago was too much, even if they were the same who had officiated; but Bertha undertook to try, and likewise to consult a former fellow-servant of poor Lucy, who was supposed to have abetted her unfortunate courtship. Frank, after despatching a letter of inquiry to his sister-in-law about ‘Sam Rattler,’ set forth by train and river steamer for Rotherhithe.
When they met again in the evening, Bertha had only made out from the fellow-servant that the stoker was rather small, and had a reddish beard and hair, wherewith Cea’s complexion corresponded.
The Rotherhithe discoveries had gone farther. Lord Northmoor had penetrated to the doleful den where the poor woman had died, and no wonder! for it seemed, as Bertha had warned him, a nest of fever and horrible smells. The landlady remembered her death, which had been made memorable by Miss Morton’s visits; but knew not whence she had come, though, stimulated by half-a-crown, she mentioned a small grocery shop where more might be learnt. There the woman did recollect Mrs. Jones as a very decent lady, and likewise her being in better lodgings until deserted by her husband, the scamp, who had gone off in an Australian steamer.
At these lodgings the inquiry resulted in the discovery of the name of the steamer; and there was still time to look up the agent and the date approximately enough to obtain the list of the crew, with David Jones among them. It further appeared that this same David Jones had fallen overboard and been drowned, but as he had not entered himself as a married man, his wife had remained in ignorance of his fate. It was, however, perfectly clear that the little girl was an orphan, and that Bertha might be quite undisturbed in the possession of her.
And thus Lord Northmoor came home a good deal fagged, and shocked by the interior he had seen at Rotherhithe, but quite triumphant.
Bertha was delighted, and declared herself eternally grateful to him; and she could not but entertain the hope that the soi-disant parent would make another application, in which case she was quite prepared to give him into custody; and she proceeded to reckon up the number of times that he had applied to her, and the amount that he had extracted, wondering at herself for not having asked for proofs, but owning that she had been afraid of being thus compelled to give up the child to perdition.
The applications had all been within the last year, so that the man had probably learnt from Louisa Hall, the nursery-maid, that Cea was the child of a deserted wife.
A letter from Mrs. Morton gave some of the antecedents of Sam Rattler, as learnt from Mrs. Hall, the charwoman, whose great dread he was. His real surname was Jones, and he was probably a Samuel Jones whose name Lord Northmoor had noted as a boy on board David’s ship. He belonged to a decent family in a country village, but had run away to sea, and was known at Westhaven by this nickname. He had a brother settled in Canada, who had lately written to propose to him a berth on one of the Ontario steamers, and it was poor Mrs. Hall’s dread that her daughter should accompany him, though happily want of money prevented it. As to his appearance, as to which there had been special inquiries, he was a tall fine-looking man, with a black beard, and half the girls at Westhaven were fools enough to be after him.
All this tallied with what had been gathered from the child, and this last had probably been a bold attempt to procure the passage-money for his sweetheart.
He never did call again, having probably been convinced of the failure of his scheme, and scenting danger, so that every day for a fortnight Bertha met her cousin with a disappointed ‘No Rattler!’
CHAPTER XXX
SCARLET FEVER
There was a meeting of one of the many charitable societies to which Bertha had made Lord Northmoor give his name, and she persuaded him to stay on another day for it, though he came down in the morning with a sore throat and heavy eyes, and, contrary to his usual habits, lay about in an easy-chair, and dozed over the newspaper all the morning.
When he found himself unable to eat at luncheon, she allowed that he was not fit for the meeting, but demurred when he declared that he should go home at once that afternoon to let Mary nurse his cold. The instinct of getting back to wife and home were too strong for Bertha to contend with, and he started, telegraphing to Northmoor to be met at the station.
Perhaps there were delays, as in his oppressed and dazed state he had mistaken the trains, for he did not arrive at home till nine o’clock instead of seven, and then he looked so ill as he stumbled into the hall, dazzled by the lights, that Mary looked at him in much alarm.
‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I have a bad cold and sore throat, and I thought I had better come home at once.’
‘Indeed you had! If only you have not made it worse by the journey!’
Which apparently he had done, for he could scarcely swallow the warm drinks brought to him, and had such a night, that when steps were heard in the house, he said—
‘Mary, dear, don’t let Mite come in. I am afraid it is too late to keep you away, but if I had felt like this yesterday, I would have gone straight to the fever hospital.’
‘Oh no, no, what should you do but come home to me? Was it that horrible place at Rotherhithe?’
‘Perhaps. It is just a fortnight since, and I felt a strange shudder and chill as I was talking. But it may be nothing; only keep Mite away till I have seen Trotman. My Mary, don’t look like that! It may be nothing, and we have been very happy—thank God.’
Poor Mary, in a choking state, hurried away to send for the doctor, and to despatch orders to Nurse Eden to confine Master Michael to the nursery and garden for the present, her sinking and foreboding heart forbidding her to approach the child herself.
The verdict of the doctor confirmed these alarms, for all the symptoms of scarlet fever had by that time manifested themselves. Mary had gone through the disease long before, and had nursed through more than one outbreak at Miss Lang’s, so her husband might take the comfort of knowing that there was little anxiety on her account, though the doctor, evidently expecting a severe attack, insisted on sending in a trained nurse to assist her.
As the little boy had fortunately been in bed and asleep long before his father came home, there was as yet no danger of infection for him, though he must be sent out of the house at once.
Lady Adela was not at home, and Mary would have doubted about sending him to the Cottage, even if she had been there; so she quickly made up her mind that Eden and the young nursery-maid should take him at once to Westhaven, to be either in the hotel or at Northmoor Cottage, according as his aunt should decide.
How little she had thought, when she heard him say his prayers, and exchanged kisses with him at the side of his little bed, that it was the last time for many a long day; and that her hungry spirit would have to feed itself on that last smile and kiss of the fat hand, as she looked out of her husband’s window as the carriage drove away.
Lady Adela knew too well what it was to be desolate not to come home so as to be at hand, though she left her little daughter at her uncle’s. Bertha came on the following day.
‘I feel as if it were all my doing,’ she said. ‘I could not bear it, if it does not go well with him, after being the saving of poor little Cea.’
‘There is nothing to reproach yourself with,’ said sober-minded Lady Adela. ‘Neither you nor he could guess that he was running into infection.’
‘No,’ said Bertha; ‘of course, one never thinks of such things with grown-up people, especially one whom one has always thought of as a stick, and to whom perhaps ascribed some of its toughness,’ she added, smiling; ‘but he did come home looking very white and worn-out, and complained of horrible smells. No, dear man, he was far too punctilious to use the word, he only said that he should like to send the Sanitary Commission down the alley. I ought to have dosed him with brandy on the spot, for of course he was too polite to ask for it, so I only gave him a cup of tea,’ said Bertha, with an infinite tone of scorn in the name of the beverage.
‘Will it be any comfort to tell you that most likely it would have been too late even if he would have accepted it? Come, Bertha, how often are we told that we are not to think so much of consequences as of actions, and there was nothing blameworthy in the whole business.’
‘Except that I was such a donkey as not to have begun by asking for the man’s proofs, but I was so much afraid that he would pounce on the child that I only thought of buying him off from time to time. I did not know I was so weak. Well, at any rate, with little Mite to the fore, the place will be left in good hands. I like Herbert on the whole, but to have that woman reigning as Madame Mère would be awful.’
‘Nay, I trust we are not coming to that! Trotman says it is a thoroughly severe attack, but not abnormally malignant, as he calls it. It is a matter of nursing, he tells me, and that he has of the best—a matter of nursing and of prayer, and that,’ added Adela, her eyes filling with tears, ‘I am sure he has.’
‘And yet—and yet,’ Bertha broke off.
‘Ah, you are thinking how we prayed before! And yet, Birdie, after these six years of seeing his rule and recognising what mine would have been, I see it was for the best that my own little Michael was taken to his happy home.’
‘You’ll call it for the best now,’ said Bertha grimly.
‘If it be so, it will prove itself; but I really do not see any special cause for extra fear.’
Lady Adela and Bertha both thought themselves as far safe as any one can be with scarlet fever, and would gladly have taken a share in the nursing. Bertha, however, had far too much of the whirlwind in her to be desirable in a sick house, and on the principle that needless risk was wrong, was never admitted within the house doors, but Lady Adela insisted on seeing Mary every day, and was assured that she should be a welcome assistant in case of need; but at present there was no necessity of calling in other help, the form of fever being lethargic with much torpidity, but no violence of delirium, and requiring no more watching than the wife and nurse could give.
Frank never failed to know his Mary, and to respond when she addressed him; but she was told never to attempt more than rousing him when it was needful to make him take food. He had long ago, with the precaution of his legal training, made every needful arrangement for her and for his son; and even on the first day, he had not seemed to trouble himself on these points, being too heavy and oppressed for the power of looking forward. So the days rolled on in one continual watch on Mary’s part, during which she seemed only to live in the present, and, secure that her boy was safe, would not risk direct communication with him or with his nurse.
Lady Adela had undertaken to keep Constance, the person who really loved her uncle best, daily informed, and she also wrote at intervals to Mrs. Morton, by special desire of Lady Northmoor, and likewise to her own old servant, Eden, the nurse. She wrote cheerfully, but Eden had other correspondents in the servants’ hall, who dwelt sensationally on the danger, as towards Whitsun week the fever began to run higher towards the crisis, the strength was reduced, the torpor became heavier; and anxiety increased as to whether there would be power of rally in a man who, though healthy, had never been strong.
The anxiety manifested by the entire neighbourhood was a notable proof of the estimation in which the patient was held, and was very far from springing only from pity or humanity. Half the people who came to Lady Adela for further information had some cause going on in which ‘That Stick’ was one of the most efficient of props.
CHAPTER XXXI
MITE
Little Michael Morton was in the meantime installed in his aunt’s house. For him to be anywhere else was not to be thought of, and Mrs. Morton was soft-hearted enough to be very fond of such a bright little boy, so much in her own hands, and very amusing with the old-fashioned formal ways derived from chiefly consorting with older people.
Besides, the pretty little fellow was an object of great interest to all her acquaintances, especially as it was understood at Westhaven that it was only too possible that he might any day become Lord Northmoor; and never had Mrs. Morton’s drawing-room been so much resorted to by visitors anxious for bulletins, or perhaps more truly for excitement. Mite was a young gentleman of some dignity. He sat elevated on a hassock upon a chair to dine at luncheon-time, comporting himself most correctly; but his aunt was sorely chafed at Eden’s standing behind his chair, like Sancho’s physician, to regulate his diet, and placing her veto upon lobsters, cucumbers, pastry, and glasses of wine with lumps of sugar in them.
It amounted to a trial of strength between aunt and nurse. Michael submitted once or twice, when told that his mamma would not approve, but the lobster struck him with extreme amazement and admiration, and he could not believe but that the red, long-whiskered monster was not as good as he was beautiful.
‘He has got a glove like what Peter wears to cut the holly hedge,’ exclaimed the boy, to the general amusement. ‘Where’s his hand?’
‘My Mite shall have a bit of his funny hand,’ said Mrs. Morton, and Ida was dealing with the claw, when Eden interposed and said she did not think her ladyship would wish Master Michael to have any.
‘Just a taste, nurse, with some of the cream,’ said Mrs. Morton. ‘Here, Mitey dear.’
‘No, Master Michael, mamma would say no,’ said Eden.
‘Really, Eden, you might let Mrs. Morton judge in her own house,’ said Ida.
‘Master Morton is under my charge, ma’am, and I am responsible for him,’ said Eden, respectfully but firmly. But Ida held out the claw, and Michael made a dart at it.
Eden again said ‘No,’ but he looked up at her with an exulting roguish grin, and clasped it, whereupon she laid hold of him by the waist, and bore him off, kicking and roaring, amid the pitiful and indignant exclamations of his aunt and cousin.
It may be that the faithful Eden was somewhat wanting in tact, by her determined attention to the routine that chafed her hosts; but she had been forced to come away without directions, and could only hold fast to the discipline of her well-ordered nursery under all obstacles.
Master Michael was to have his cup of milk and run on the beach with the nursery-maid long before the usual awakening of the easy-going household, which regarded late hours as belonging to gentility; then, after the general breakfast, his small lessons, over which there often was a battle, first, because he felt injured by not doing them with his mother, and next, because his hostesses regarded them as a hardship, and taught him to cry over ‘Reading without tears,’ besides detaining him as late as they could over the breakfast, or proposing to take him out at once, without waiting for that quarter of an hour’s work. Or when out-of-doors, they would not bring him home for the siesta, on which his nurse insisted, though it was often only lying down in the dark; nor had Mrs. Morton any scruple in breaking it, if she wanted to exhibit him to her friends, though if it were interrupted or omitted, the child’s temper was the worse all the afternoon.
‘That nurse is a thorough tyrant over the poor little darling, and a very impertinent woman besides,’ said Mrs. Morton.
‘A regular little spoiled brat,’ Ida declared him.
While certainly the worse his father was said to be, the more his aunt tried to spoil and indulge him, as a relief to her pity and grief.
He had missed his home and parents a good deal at first, had cried at his lessons, and cried more at not having father to carry him to the nursery, nor mother to hear him say his prayers and kiss him at night; but time wore off the association, and he was full of delight at the sea, the ships, the little crabs, and all the other charms of the shore.
Above all, he was excited about the little boys. His own kind had never come in his way before, his chief playfellow being Amice, who was so much older as to play with him condescendingly and always give way to him. There was a large family in a neighbouring lodging containing what he respectfully called ‘big knicker-bocker boys,’ who excited his intense admiration, and drew him like a magnet.
For once Mrs. Morton and Eden were agreed as to the propriety of the companionship, since Rollstone had pronounced them of ‘high family,’ and the governess who was in charge of them was quite ready to be interested in the solitary little stranger, even if he had not been the Honourable Michael. So was the elder girl of the party, but, unluckily, Michael was just of the age to be a great nuisance to children who played combined and imaginative games which he could not yet understand.
When they were making elaborate approaches to a sand fortification, erected with great care and pains, he would dash on it with a coup de main, break it down at once with his spade, and stand proudly laughing and mixing up the ruins together, heedless of the howls of anger of the besiegers, and believing that he had done the right thing.
And once, when a wrathful boy of eight had shaken the troublesome urchin as he would have done his own junior, had this last presumed to stir up his clear pool of curiosities, most of the female portion of the family had taken the part of the intruder, and cried shame on any one who could hurt or molest a poor dear little boy away from a father who was so ill!
Thus the Lincoln family, for the sake of peace and self-defence, used sedulously to flee at the approach of Mite, and seek for secluded coves to which he was not likely to penetrate.
Mr. Rollstone was Eden’s great solace. They discovered that they had once been staying in the same country-house, and had a great number of common acquaintances in the upper-servant world, and they entirely agreed in their estimate of Mrs. Morton and Ida, whom Mr. Rollstone pronounced to be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, though as for Miss Constance, she was a lady all over, and always had been, and there might have been hopes for Mr. Herbert, if only he could have got into the army.
To sit with Mr. Rollstone, whom the last winter’s rheumatics had left very infirm, was Eden’s chief afternoon employment, as she could not follow her charge’s wanderings on the beach, but had to leave him to the nursery-maid, Ellen. The old butler wanted much to show ‘Miss Eden’ his daughter, who took advantage of Whit-Sunday and the Bank-holiday to run down and see her parents, though at the next quarter she was coming home for good, extremely sorry to leave her advantages in London, and the friends she had made there, but feeling that her parents needed her so much that she must pursue her employment at home.
They were all very anxious on that Whit-Sunday, and Rose carried with her something of Constance’s feeling, as with tears in her eyes she looked at the little fellow at the children’s service, standing by his nurse, with wide open, inquiring eyes, chiefly fixed upon Willie Lincoln in satisfaction whenever an answer proceeded from that object of his unrequited attachment. With the young maiden’s love of revelling in supposed grief, Rose already pitied the fair-faced, unconscious child as fatherless, and weighted with heavy responsibilities.
Another pair of eyes looked at the boy, not with pity, but indignant impatience.
Perhaps even already that little pretender was the only obstacle between Herbert and the coronet that was his by right, between Ida herself and—
Ida had walked from the school to the church with Mr. Deyncourt, and he had talked so gently and pitifully of the family distress, and assumed so much grief on her part, that his sympathy made her heart throb; above all, when he told her that his two sisters were coming to stay with him, Mrs. Rollstone had contrived to make room for them, and they would show her, better than he could, some of the plans he wished to have carried out with the little children.
So he wished to introduce her to his sisters! What did that mean? If the Deyncourts were ever so high they could not sneer at Lord Northmoor’s sisters.
Then she thought of many a novel, and in real life, of what she believed respecting that lost lover of Miss Morton’s. And later in the day Tom Brady lounged up to Northmoor Cottage, and leaning with one elbow on the window-sill, while the other arm held away the pipe he had just taken from his lips, he asked if they would give him a cup of tea, the whole harbour was so full of such beastly, staring cads that there was no peace there. One ought to give such places a wide berth at Whitsuntide.
‘I wonder you did not,’ said Ida, as she hastened to compound the tea.
‘Forgot it,’ he lazily droned, ‘forgot it. Attractions, you know,’ and, as she brought the cup to the window, with a lump of sugar in the tongs, ‘when sugar fingers are—’ and the speech ended in a demonstration at the fingers that made Ida laugh, blush, and say, ‘Oh, for shame, Mr. Brady!’
‘You had better come in, Mr. Brady,’ called Mrs. Morton. ‘You can’t drink it comfortably there, and you’ll be upsetting it. We are down in the dining-room to-day, because—’
The cause, necessary to her gentility, was lost, as Ida proceeded to let him in at the front door, and he presently deposited himself on the sofa, grumbling complacently at the bore of holidays, especially bank holidays. His crew would have been ready to strike, he declared, if he had taken them out of harbour, or he would have asked the ladies to come on a cruise out of the way of it all.
‘Why, thank you very much, Mr. Brady, but, really in my poor brother, Lord Northmoor’s state, I don’t know that it would be etiquette.’
‘Ah, yes. By the bye, how’s the governor?’
‘Very sad, strength failing. I hardly expect to hear he is alive to-morrow,’ and Mrs. Morton’s handkerchief was raised.
‘Oh ay, sad enough, you know! I say, will it make any difference to you?’
‘My poor, dear brother! Well, it ought, you know. Indeed it would if it had not been for that dear little boy. My poor Herbert!’
‘It must have been an awful sell for him.’
‘Yes,’ said Ida, ‘and some people think there was something very odd about it all—the child being born out in the Dolomites, with nobody there!’
‘Don’t, Ida, I can’t have you talk so,’ protested her mother.
‘Supposititious, by all that’s lucky! I should strangle him!’ and Mr. Brady put back his head and laughed a loud and hearty laugh, by no means elegant, but without much sound of truculent intentions.