For several days Uncle Mark lay solemnly silent in the front parlour. An inquest was held over him, and a careful inquiry made into the manner of his death, the jury bringing in a verdict to the effect that the people in the tug were in no respect to blame, and that the fatal result was entirely ‘accidental.’
At last, amid general grief, Uncle Mark was carried to his last home.
The Brethren, with solemn faces, bore him to his grave; and when the simple service was over, one of them stood forward, and, with tears in his eyes, chanted forth the words of the simple hymn which he had sung to Brother Mark as he passed away.
Up to this Mrs. Peartree, who stood with the men at the grave, had borne her burthen well, but no sooner did she hear the hymn which had ceased, as it were, with her husband’s dying breath, than she wailed and broke down. For a time all the bitterness of that sudden parting came back upon her; she clasped the hand of little Madeline, who stood by her, and burst into passionate tears.
But she could not indulge her stormy grief for long; troubles and necessities clamoured like wolves around her, and turned her soul sick with a new fear. Now that her strong husband was gone, the whole weight of their little household was upon her; and no sooner was he in his grave than she had to speculate upon the future. The verdict of the jury destroyed all chance of receiving any compensation from the owners of the tug, and indeed Mrs. Peartree never dreamed of putting in any claim. Her husband’s earnings had been small, but she had managed to save a little, enough to keep her for a week or so—‘to turn herself round,’ as she expressed it—while she decided what was best to be done.
That Luke Peartree was thrown upon her hands she knew from the moment of her husband’s death. As we have said, he was generally regarded as a kind of natural; and everybody knew that had it not been for his brother he would never have got work at all. Mark Peartree had been a skilful bargeman, and in order to secure his services the barge-owners had been quite willing that he should sail with his brother as mate. Consequently, Mrs. Pear-tree knew that it was quite useless for him to seek for work alone. For a time she was at her wits’ end to know what to do with him.
Suddenly she remembered that he had a cousin across the river in Kent who might be willing to give him work on a riverside farm.
She wrote, and got for answer that Joss Peartree wanted an odd hand, and would be glad, for kinship’s sake, to take on ‘Cousin Luke.’
Luke cried like a child when the news was told him, and Mrs. Peartree cried a bit too. It was like another death, this thought of parting with simple Luke, but what was she to do? She could not keep him; it was as much as she could do to keep herself—and the only prospect she saw of doing this was to go out as a monthly nurse, a post for which she was specially suited. Meantime her little store of money was rapidly diminishing, and each coin that was taken out warned her that her household must break up soon.
After she had cried silently for a time, she resolutely dried her eyes, and set about comforting Uncle Luke. She promised that if he would only try to be happy she would try to visit him once or twice a year—and after she had earned a little, she would try to rent a small room in Gray-fleet, and make it a home where Luke could come and stop again with her. This assurance comforted Luke a good deal; at the same time it made him more keenly alive to what was taking place, and he asked, suddenly—
‘Be you a-going to give up the house then, mother?’
‘Ay, Luke—where be my means to keep it on?’
‘And to sell the bit o’ furniture?’
‘Yes, mate.’
‘Then what’ll become o’ little Madlin?’
Mrs. Peartree glanced uneasily at the child, who was seated on a footstool by her side; then motioning Luke to be silent, she said hurriedly—
‘Oh, I’ll look after Madlin, never fear.’
But a day or so later, when Madeline was gone to school, Mrs. Peartree went on with the subject as if it had never been stopped.
‘I’ve been thinking about Madlin, Luke, and I’ve decided to send her away too.’
‘What! part wi’ Madlin?’ cried Luke, aghast, and for a moment it seemed to him that Mrs. Peartree was growing very hard-hearted, but when he looked up he saw that her eyes were dim with tears.
‘Ay, mate, part wi’ our Madlin,’ she said, sorrowfully. ‘It a’most broke my heart when I thought on’t first, but I’m past that now. ’Twill be for the child’s good too. If she stopped wi’ us, she’d get but a poor bringing-up at best, bless her; but if she goes to him he’ll make a lady on her.’
‘Him, mother?’
‘Mr. White, that first brought her to us, and pays to this day for her keep. He’s not her father, nor yet much kin of hers at all; but for all that he’s a good gentleman, and will do his duty by her. We’ll try him, anyways. If he takes her it will be a sore day for me, but a lucky chance for little Madlin.’
Uncle Luke listened quietly, and soon endorsed Aunt Jane’s opinion, that the very best they could do for Madeline was to take her up to London and hand her over to the care of her natural guardian—the benevolent-looking gentleman who left her at the cottage when an infant, and had contributed to her maintenance ever since.
‘Don’t let her know nothing about it, Luke,’ added Mrs. Peartree, ‘or Lord only knows what she would do. After she’s growed up, bless her, she’d thank us for doin’ it, even if we could help it, which we can’t.’
This piece of logic pleased Uncle Luke unmeasurably, and he went to bed tolerably contented with Aunt Jane’s mode of working, and quite convinced that she was doing everything for the best.
The succeeding days were very sad ones in the cottage, and though Madeline was almost overwhelmed with her grief for Uncle Mark, she could not help wandering at the strange conduct of those whom he had left behind. If she happened to come within arm’s length of Aunt Jane she was certain to be caught up and kissed; if Uncle Luke’s eye fell upon her, he burst into tears; at meal times she had three times too much food crammed upon her plate; if she approached the fire, her chair was drawn so close as to almost scorch her. But the crowning point came when she was told one morning that she was to go to London, for a day’s ‘outing’ with Uncle Luke.
It was decided that Luke should take her. ‘He had seen a good deal of the city,’ Mrs. Peartree said, ‘and would do the errand better than she.’ Luke was quite contented, so it was settled forthwith.
Despite her bereavement, Madeline could not help feeling glad at the thought of realising her dream at last. Childish griefs are not very enduring, and at another time a visit to London would have sent her mad with joy. But her pleasure was considerably damped when she saw Aunt Jane cry so, and Uncle Luke look so very sad.
‘Madlin, darlin’,’ cried Mrs. Peartree, embracing her for the twentieth time, ‘you’re a-going to see kind friends up in London; and maybe, if you’re a good girl, they’ll ask you to stay a bit, and see the wax-work, and all the fine sights. And if you stay, don’t forget your Aunt Jane that brung you up, and loves you so dear—God bless’ee, Madlin! God bless’ee, and make a lady of ye—my own little darling gel!’
Quite bewildered, the child suffered herself to be led away by Uncle Luke.
After ferrying across the river and walking a mile, they reached the railway station.
When she got into the train her contentment in a measure returned. She nestled up to Uncle Luke’s side, stealing her little hand into his, and looked with rapture at the fields gliding past her so rapidly—at the river with its shining bends. As she went on her wonder deepened, and her excitement grew—for she passed little towns, then big stations covered with shining pictures, like palaces—until at length when she felt deep in Dreamland, they glided under a great arch of glass, and Uncle Luke, exclaiming ‘Here we be,’ rose up and prepared to alight from the train.
Still lost in wonder, Madeline alighted from the train, and, clutching Uncle Luke’s hand, moved along with the crowd that was surging out of the station.
Once outside, amidst the din of rattling cabs and excited passengers, Uncle Luke seemed perplexed what to do next. He took off his high hat, and scratched his head; and this appeared to remind him that he had a paper carefully tucked into the hat’s lining. So he searched for and found the paper, on which was written, in a round, clear hand—
Marmaduke White, Esq.,
The Den,
Willowtree Road,
St. John’s Wood.
In his perplexity he turned to a policeman, and, with his usual grin, showed him the paper. The policeman, who happened to be good-natured, informed him that he must walk across London Bridge, and make the best of his way to the Bank, where he would get an omnibus which would take him straight to his destination.
‘When you get to the Bank, look for a “City Hatlas”—you’ll see “City Hatlas” written on the outside. You can’t go wrong.5
Thus instructed, Uncle Luke toddled off as fast as his legs could carry him, and was swept along with the traffic that sets all day from London Bridge Station over the great Bridge. Madeline clung to him in amazement and terror, with her great wistful eyes wide in wonder.
As they passed over the bridge and saw the river gleaming, she uttered a cry, and would have stopped to gaze, but her Uncle pulled her along, being far too excited for explanation or conversation.
In due time they reached the Bank; and now a fresh perplexity occurred, for the little man had quite forgotten the policeman’s directions. Madeline, however, remembered, and spying an omnibus labelled ‘City Atlas’ hurried him towards it.
He showed his paper to the conductor.
‘All right,’ said that worthy; ‘jump in.’
And soon they were well afloat in the great stream of London, with the waters roaring and mingling and crying around them. Madeline gazed out, and her wonder deepened as she saw the great shining shops, and the innumerable horses and vehicles, and the people ever coming and going, like waves of a sea. She thought it beautiful, a kind of terrible Fairyland, and it would have given her perfect pleasure if her heart had not been so full of a great grief. For the time being, indeed, she almost forgot her childish trouble in the strange new sense of a vast and troubled world, of whose mysterious motions she had never dreamed.
It was a long ride, but it seemed only to occupy a few minutes. Uncle Luke was silent, crushed by his sorrow and by the situation; he held her hand tight, and fixed his poor sad eyes on vacancy, seeing and hearing nothing, only conscious that he had a task to perform, and determined, though his heart should break, that he would perform it to the end.
At last they left the long thoroughfares behind and came out into a region comparatively green and countrified, with villas of all tastes and sizes ranged on either side of the road. Here the omnibus stopped, and the conductor told Uncle Luke to alight, announcing that they were at the corner of Willowtree Road, and that the address written on the paper must be close by. So Uncle Luke alighted with Madeline, paid their fare, and stood hesitating, while the omnibus rolled away.
Willowtree Road consisted, from end to end, of detached and semi-detached villas, only variegated at two of the corners by public-houses. It was very quiet and suburban, and as all the trees in the gardens were already green, and many of them in flower, it looked quite rural and bright.
Paper in hand Uncle Luke trotted up and down for some time, in a vain search for the house he sought. The road was quite deserted, and there was no one whom he could consult. At last he came against a telegraph boy, sauntering along and whistling in the leisurely manner of those swift Mercuries of the period.
‘I’ve just come from there,’ said Mercury, after inspecting the paper. ‘You see that house with the verander? Well, you don’t go up the front steps, but walk round to the side, and you’ll see a bell marked “Stoodio”; ring that, and ask for Mr. White.’
Thus directed, Uncle Luke approached the house, a small, semi-detached villa, and passing round, as directed, to the side, discovered with some little difficulty the bell in question. Without any hesitation, he rang. Scarcely had he done so, when the door opened as it were of its own accord, and he found himself in a dilapidated garden, face to face with a small building which looked like a diminutive Methodist chapel. Approaching the door of this edifice, he was about to knock, when his eyes fell upon a paper pasted upon it. On this paper was printed rather than written these words—
Mr. White out of town. Back this day week.
With Madeline’s aid Uncle Luke spelt out the inscription, and it filled him with complete consternation. There being no date to the announcement, ‘this day week’ was curiously indefinite, particularly as the paper showed signs of having been there for a considerable time already. While he stood gaping and scratching his head the studio door suddenly opened, and a very small boy with a very old face, clad in a very dirty page’s uniform, made his appearance.
‘Well, what is it’ cried this worthy, snappishly.
‘Who do you want?’
Uncle Luke took off his hat respectfully, and handed over the paper. Strange to say, the boy would not deign to inspect it.
‘If it’s the milk bill, you’re to call again next week. If it’s a summons, nobody ain’t at home. Which of the gents is it for?’
‘I’m a-looking for Master White,’ said Uncle Luke, timidly, ‘and if you please——’
‘But he don’t please,’ answered the boy, with a fierce sense of grievance. ‘He ain’t at home. Didn’t you see the paper on that there door?’
At this juncture another head appeared in the background, and a pair of human eyes seemed rapidly to inspect the intruders. Then a voice said—
‘It’s all right, Judas. Let ’em come in.’
Thus instructed, the page threw open the door, and Uncle Luke entered, with Madeline clinging to him. Their astonishment was considerable when they found themselves in a large apartment, lighted by glass windows from above, and full of all the paraphernalia of an artist’s workshop—several easels, two or three lay figures, paintings in various states of completion. In one corner stood a stove, on the top of which was a loaf of brown bread and a tin coffee pot, and close to the stove was a perfect hecatomb of egg-shells. Indeed, what with general dust and debris of all kinds, the entire ‘studio’ seemed sadly in need of cleaning out.
Fronting them as they entered was the only tenant of the apartment—a young man with a very light moustache, a watery blue eye, and a large amount of unkempt flaxen hair. He grasped a palette in one hand, a paint brush in the other, and in his mouth he held a black meerschaum pipe.
‘Is it anything I can do for you?’ he said, with a rather vacant smile. ‘I’m Mr. Cheveley.’
‘I want to see Master White,’ said Uncle Luke in a faltering voice. ‘I’ve come all the way from the country, all along o’ Madlin, here. Haven’t I, Madlin? If so be he’s away, can’t some one fetch him, and tell him Luke Peartree wants him, and that Uncle Mark’s dead, and that poor Aunt Jane’s a widder, and that things has all gone contrary, and all our hearts is broke?’
Tears rose in Uncle Luke’s eyes, and he stood choking, while Madeline clung to him and began crying too. The young man looked at them in astonishment for some minutes; then, struck by an idea, he walked rapidly to an inner door and cried loudly—
‘Here, White.’
A sleepy voice answered from within—
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Some one to see you—come, get up!’
The answer seemed a combination of strong expressions, combined with inarticulate groans. After listening for a moment, Cheveley turned to Uncle Luke—
‘Here, I say!’ he said, with the vacant helpless manner peculiar to him. ‘He’s writing in bed, and he won’t rise. You’d better go in and explain your own business. The little girl can wait here.’
Not without some little fear and trembling, Uncle Luke released Madeline’s hand, and moved with timid steps into the inner room. It was a very small chamber, furnished as a bedroom; that is to say, it contained an iron bedstead, a washstand, a table, and other conveniences. A chest of drawers gaping open was covered with articles of attire in most admired disorder, and other articles were hung on the walls or scattered about the room.
Perched up on the bed, with an embroidered smoking-cap on his head, was a gentleman in gold spectacles. He was writing rapidly with a pencil in a large manuscript book, and he scarcely looked up as Uncle Luke entered. But when Uncle Luke, whose heart was full and overflowed at the sight of one whom he believed to be a friend of the family, trotted over to the bedside and took his hand, crying like a child, he dropped his notebook and seemed aghast. Then, recognising his visitor, he questioned him, and soon knew the whole sad story—of Uncle Mark’s accidental death, of the break-up of the little home, of the despair of the family, and their conviction that they could no longer do their duty by Madeline.
‘And Madlin’s here,’ cried Uncle Luke. ‘I brung her, but, Lord, she don’t guess why I brung her; she thinks she’s a-going back. Oh, Mr. White, be a father to her! She ain’t got ne’er another, now her Uncle Mark’s dead.’ Mr. White wiped his spectacles, and seemed utterly stupefied; at last he nodded, as if he had made up his mind.
‘Give me those trousers,’ he said, ‘I’ll get up.’
In another minute he had slipped into an old pair of tweed trousers, a pair of very dirty fancy slippers, and an old dressing-gown. Thus attired he even looked less engaging than when composing in bed. His hands were greatly in need of soap, his whiskers were ragged and ornamented with fragments of yolk of egg, and his face, which was otherwise kindly and good-humoured, looked parboiled. Seizing a brush, he went through the formality of brushing the very minute bunches of hair which ornamented his bald head, and then, after a momentary struggle with his whiskers, led the way into the ‘studio.’ Here they found Madeline in high delight, for Cheveley, seizing a piece of charcoal, had dashed off a rough likeness of her on a canvas which stood vacant. The wild locks, the great wistful eyes, the delicate mouth, were happily caught, and for the moment the child forgot all her troubles.
‘Look, Uncle Luke,’ she cried, running to him and pointing out the likeness. ‘It’s me.’
Uncle Luke, still pale and trembling with his great grief, grinned from ear to ear, and gazed upon the artist in pathetic admiration. Meantime White stood blinking benignly through his spectacles; at last Madeline caught his look, and returned it with no little astonishment.
‘This is Madlin,’ said Uncle Luke, gently.
Thus introduced, Madeline dropped her eyes timidly, and gave a country curtsey, as she had been accustomed to do to the magnates of the village.
It appeared on explanation that the notice on the outside door of the ‘studio’ was a common ruse of Mr. Marmaduke White whenever he desired perfect solitude, and when the visits of even friends and acquaintances, not to speak of ambassadors from certain adamantine creditors, would be considered irksome.
Although White dwelt in a studio, he was not an artist—not, that is to say, an artist by profession, though he could paint a little, and had a very pretty feeling for colour. By profession he was a man of letters; by special taste and habit, a writer for the theatre. Some of his less ambitious plays had been acted with no little éclat, and everybody had thriven through them except the author. Others had failed, and these failures constituted his glory. They were really productions of considerable literary merit. In literary circles White was spoken of as a man of genius whose mission it was to revive ‘the poetical drama,’ but who had fallen on dark days, when the Muses, having discarded classic drapery altogether, had taken to fleshings and the can-can.
He was a gentle creature, with as soft a heart as ever throbbed in human bosom, and as little power of managing his worldly affairs as of creating a profitable taste for dramas in ‘five acts and in blank verse.’ He lived in a studio, with one artist or another for a companion, not because the place was necessary for his vocation, but because he was naturally a Bohemian, and a studio was a thoroughly Bohemian sort of abode. He was forty years of age, unmarried, and unlikely to marry. The number of his follies could only have been measured by the number of his good deeds, and those were legion. To see him was to like him; to know him was to love him well.
For years past he had paid a small stipend—not much, but a sharp pinch sometimes to him—for the maintenance of Madeline. The way in which he had contracted this responsibility was characteristic, and may at once be explained. A friend of his who was a ‘genius’—that is to say, an individual who promised prodigies, and on the strength of his promises, which were never fulfilled, discarded all conventional morality and lived the life of a shabby Don Juan—had become entangled with a country girl. Dying penitent, as well as penniless, he confided to White, who watched by his sick bed like a woman, that he had betrayed the girl, and that she had given birth to a child, then about one year old. White promised that he would seek both mother and child, and help them if possible. So after putting his poor friend into the ground, and moving heaven and earth to get a few tender things about him inserted in the newspapers, White betook himself to the lonely seaside village where the widow dwelt. He found a comely but ignorant girl in a state of comparative destitution, and, to make matters worse, in the last stage of consumption, brought on by exposure and neglect, In the course of the interviews which ensued, he learned such things of his dead friend’s treacherous and selfish conduct as would have shaken his faith in genius altogether had he been less simple-hearted. A little later the girl died in his arms, giving him her last blessing and consigning her little daughter to his care.
After considerable reflection, he decided that the best course he could adopt with the little one was to find some good motherly soul, in the mother’s sphere of life, who would rear her kindly. During an artistic excursion to Grayfleet he discovered Mrs. Peartree, and, after certain pecuniary preliminaries were arranged, committed the child to her care. What had been originally only a temporary arrangement presently became fixed and habitual. Years passed away. Madeline remained with the Peartrees, who were childless. White, in a very irregular manner, sent them small sums from time to time; but it had never occurred to him to take any more serious responsibility in the matter. He meant the girl to grow up happy in the sphere to which her mother belonged. Though he had beheld her once or twice in infancy, he had for years afterwards seen nothing of her, only hearing of her existence through correspondence from time to time.
When, therefore, Uncle Luke turned up in St. John’s Wood, with Madeline under his charge, and explained that sad events had broken up the little home and left Madeline helpless on their hands, White was staggered. It was clear that the Peartrees thought him her natural guardian, and could not comprehend that he stood in no closer relationship to her than they did themselves.
He looked at Madeline, and was astonished to see her so fair and elf-like, with a touch in her eyes of his poor dead friend, the literary Bohemian. Somehow or other he had always pictured her as a fat little country cherub, with very hard cheeks, a pug nose, and ugly feet. As she gazed at him with her great blue eyes, he felt troubled more and more.
‘You don’t remember poor Fred Hazelmere?’ he said to Cheveley. ‘No, he was gone before your time. But you’ve read his “Ballads of Bohemia”—by Jove, sir, some of them are worthy of the “Buch der Lieder.”’ And he added in a whisper, ‘That’s his child.’
He had led Cheveley aside, and was conversing with him apart, while Madeline and Uncle Luke sat waiting in the centre of the studio. ‘Look at her face,’ he proceeded. ‘Never saw such a likeness in my life—it quite turns me over. She looks a wild little thing, don’t she? The man with her is a sort of natural. It was absurd to think of sending her to me, for what on earth can I do with her? I’m not her father, after all. Upon my soul, I’m in a dilemma. I must persuade him to take her back.’
But when White took Uncle Luke aside and tried to explain matters to him, the little man only began to cry. The home was broken up, he said; Aunt Jane’s only means of subsistence was to go out as a monthly nurse; and he himself was going to join a distant relation on the coast of Kent.
‘It ain’t that we want to lose her,’ he asseverated; ‘but oh, Master White, there be no home for Madlin now. Our hearts be broke, sir, to part wi’ her; but we know you’re next door to her father, and a gentleman born.
She’ll be a heap better off here than ever she was along of us.’
‘Here?’ gasped the dramatist.
‘She’s your’n, sir, more than our’n, bless her heart. We couldn’t feed her no more, let alone clothe her, now Mark’s gone to glory; but you’re a gentleman born, and can bring her up well-nigh like a lady. I brung her, Master White,’ he continued, reverting to his first fear; ‘but I dustn’t let her know I’m a-going to leave her—I dustn’t, indeed. She thinks she’s a-going back with me.’
‘But I can’t take her!’ exclaimed White. ‘This is no place for a child, and even if it were she needs a woman’s care. I really can’t think of it; the very idea’s absurd.’
Uncle Luke looked astonished. In his simple judgment, the power of a ‘gentleman born,’ like Mr. White, was unlimited, and he could not fathom the significance of his refusal.
‘She’s that good,’ he explained gently, ‘that she’d be no manner o’ trouble to any, ’cept when she’s in her tantrums, and they’re gone as soon as come. And she’s clever, Master White. I’ve heerd schoolmaster say that she can spell like a good ’un, and her writin’s as clear as print. I see her write out the Lord’s Prayer on a piece of paper, and she guv it to her Uncle Mark, and if he’d ha’ lived, he was a-going to get it framed like a pictur’ and hung up on the cabin of the barge.’
This special pleading had little or no effect on White. He was puzzling his brain what to do. Once or twice he thought of repudiating the responsibility altogether, but he was far too good-natured for that. Then he suggested that Luke should take the child back and leave him to think it over, but he soon discovered that such a delay was impracticable.
‘Mother said,’ explained Uncle Luke, firmly (his sister-in-law, it will be remembered, had always been addressed as ‘mother’ by her husband, and by all the house)—‘mother said I was to leave her along o’ you, cause you was her best friend; and mother said you’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you were a gentleman born. Them were her own words. You’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you was a gentleman born.’
‘How old is she?’ asked White, desperately, not that he had any special reason for asking, but because, in his perplexity, he hardly knew what to say.
Uncle Luke cocked his eye, calculating, and after due deliberation replied—
‘Mother says it be just eight year come Whit-Monday since you brung her to us. She remembers the year well, mother does, ’cause ’twas the year when her cousin Jim he was drowned off Woolwich Pier, after he had deserted and was running away for his precious life; and they held a ’quest upon him, and said he was drownded accidental, and had hisself to blame.’
‘Between eight and nine years old,’ muttered White, pursuing his own feeble reflections. ‘Is there no place where she could be put? No person who, for a small consideration, would take her in?’
Uncle Luke shook his head dolefully. He had never questioned for a moment but that White would give the child a welcome, and he was quite incapable of conceiving the manifold objections there might be to her immediate adoption.
Things were at this juncture when Madame de Bemy, who occupied the adjoining house, and from whom White rented the studio, came in smiling. She was a stout little old lady, with a very profound respect for her tenant, who had been useful to her in many ways, as indeed he was almost invariably to everybody with whom he came in close contact. To his surprise she cut the Gordian knot by offering to take care of the child on White’s behalf.
All this time Madeline had been listening with growing suspicion. At last the whole truth dawned upon her, and she burst into lamentation. Clinging to Uncle Luke, she cried that she would never leave him, and that she would return to Grayfleet in his company.
It was an exciting scene, over which we have no intention to linger.
Uncle Luke did not depart that night. They made him up a bed in the corner of the studio, where he lay awake till morning, weeping and wondering, but still firm in his desire to see Madeline made into a little lady. The child herself was taken care of by Madame de Berny. But she would not depart from the studio until Uncle Luke had avowed positively that he would be there, waiting for her, in the morning. His simple promise satisfied her, for never in all her life had she known him to break his word.
The next day Uncle Luke went away.
Words would fail us to describe the parting. The little man wept like a child, and Madeline threw herself, again and again, into his arms, in a perfect frenzy of passion. It was terrible to see so fierce a storm shaking the fragile form of so young a child. Madame de Berny led her, sobbing, into the house, and tried in vain to give her consolation; but for hours upon hours she wept wildly, and her little heart seemed broken.
Poor Marmaduke White was utterly at a loss how to act; but he had resolved, come what might, to accept his burthen and bear it as well as he could. Every look, every gesture of the child, especially during her fierce access of sorrow, reminded him more and more of his dead friend. Her weird and elf-like beauty, moreover, appealed to his strong artistic sense. Yes, he would do what he could for her, and trust to that Providence which feeds the literary raven to find him ways and means.
During his perplexity he found an excellent adviser in Madame de Berny. The good woman, who had a large heart for children, entered cordially into his wishes, and at the end of a long consultation readily undertook the charge of Madeline for the time being. She had plenty of leisure on her hands, the Chevalier de Berny, her husband, a professor of music, being from home, teaching, all day, while her only daughter, an actress at the Pall Mall Theatre, was engaged every evening, and nearly every day, in the pursuit of the business and the pleasures of her profession.
So it was speedily settled, and Madeline was soon installed, as an informal boarder, in the De Berny household, having a little room upstairs next to the gorgeous chamber occupied by Mademoiselle Mathilde.
The grief of childhood heals quickly, and with childhood’s inquisitiveness Madeline was soon busy observing the manners and customs of her new friends. Though her heart was still wild and weary, and though every night she sobbed as she thought of her happy home at Grayfleet, hers was too quick and keen a nature to be quite deadened by its sorrow.
And Madame de Berny was very kind; even Aunt Jane could not have been kinder. As to the Chevalier, who came in late at night and departed very early in the morning, she found him a fat, fretful, overworked, but naturally good-hearted little Frenchman, who spent the whole of his one leisure day, Sunday, in smoking a big pipe and reading the French journals. But the queen of the dwelling was Mathilde, a tall, thin blonde, with golden hair, very fine eyes, and a very hard mouth. She dressed very loudly and used a great deal of paint and powder; her whole style, indeed, was ‘fast,’ and, though she was a Frenchman’s daughter, her conversation and all her ideas were vulgarly suggestive of Cockaigne.
Her character, however, was unimpeachable; she was far too calculating and worldly wise to commit herself in any way. Her parents adored her. She had the best room in the house, a little study also where she conned her parts, and these were as the sanctuary of a saint. The Chevalier was firmly convinced that she was only prevented by the malice and wickedness of the world from becoming recognised as a great actress.
‘My daughter is too good,’ he would say to his friends; ‘it is her virtue which keeps her back. If she vere like de rest of de vomen on your stage, it would be different—ah ciel, yes I De managers are in a conspiracy to give her bad parts and to break her leetel heart.’
And Mathilde herself was of the same opinion. Her face was quite worn and haggard with brooding over her professional wrongs, her heart torn daily by the success of her rivals and the real or fancied neglect of the public. Once or twice a week she had violent fits of hysteria, during which she would think and talk of suicide. Recovering from these, she would eat a hearty dinner and drink large quantities of bottled stout—to which she was very partial, chiefly because it was said to be fattening, and her enemies in the stalls considered her too lean.
In the eyes of Madeline, who had hitherto only known the coarse beauties of Grayfleet, Mathilde was a vision of loveliness. The child loved colour and splendour and beauty, and Mathilde seemed to represent all these. The actress’s bedroom, too, was like a palace of enchantment, with its delicate rose-coloured curtains, its white French bed and bedding, its bright carpet, and its delicious perfumes.
Mathilde was not particularly fond of children, but homage from any one pleased her, and thus it happened that Madeline became a constant visitor in the sanctuary. When, one day, Mathilde opened her wardrobe and showed all her magnificent costumes, both those she used in private life and those she reserved for the theatre, the bliss of the sight was almost too much to bear. It was like a glimpse of heaven itself!
So the weeks passed away, and the new strange life was growing gradually familiar. The thought of the little Grayfleet home was still bright in the child’s mind, and every night she said a prayer that Uncle Luke had taught her, and every night she cried when she went over the beloved names, but her spirit was kindled into a new kind of feverish activity, such as she had never been conscious of before.
In the course of her daily visits to the studio, where even the misanthropic Judas, as he had been profanely christened on account of his forbidding aspect, now gave her a welcome, she saw many things which awakened her wonder. Her previous ideas of Art had been chiefly connected with house-decoration and sign-painting, and she marvelled much at the creations on canvas of young Mr. Cheveley. For White she soon contracted a passionate affection, which deepened into idolatry when the good-natured Bohemian began, in his idle moments, to teach her to draw.
The quickness with which she learned the rudiments of this accomplishment reminded White that her general education was being neglected altogether.
‘My dear,’ he said to her one afternoon, 41 think I shall have to send you to school.’
She was standing at his side, looking over his shoulder, as he ‘touched up’ for her a picture of a house which reeled to one side like the leaning tower at Pisa, a tree or two like inverted mops, and a very shabby-looking bridge.
She looked at him right in the eyes, which was her custom.
‘I hate school,’ she said emphatically.
‘So did I at your age, and the child who doesn’t always comes to be hung. But I really think you’d pay for a little schooling. You write a shocking hand, to begin with.’
‘Uncle Luke said it was beautiful writing, and as clear as print.’
‘Humph! well, you see, he looked at it from a different point of view. I don’t question its legibility, which after all is the first thing to be aimed at, but it wants style. Then, your grammar is more shady than befits the protégée of a master-stylist, like myself.’
‘What’s grammar?’ asked Madeline, swinging her right foot irritably. ‘Nouns, verbs, “I am,” “thou art,” and all that? I hate ’em all.’
White laid down the drawing on which he had been busy, and took her by the two hands.
‘You hate a good many things,’ he said mildly. ‘Pray, what do you particularly like?’
‘I like drawing. I like to hear Mamzelle singing the pretty songs, and trying on her new dresses. I like dancing, too, and music, and all that. And I like to be here with you. I like you better than Mr. Cheveley. If I was big enough I’d marry you, and then you could take me to the theayter, where Mamzelle goes.’
‘Pronounce it theatre,’ said White, while his eyes opened in amused wonder. ‘So you are beginning to think of marrying already, are you? Precocious child! And you’d marry me, would you? Why, I’m old enough to be your father, and by the time you are a young woman I shall be quite on the shelf.’
Madeline surveyed him for some moments critically; then she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him impulsively.
‘When I marry you, Mr. White,’ she said, ‘I’ll buy you a nice wig, and then, you see, no one will know!’
‘A wig—the gods forbid!’
‘A beautiful black, like the Chevalier wears. I know it’s a wig, because he takes it off and puts on a nightcap when he goes to bed.’
White threw back his head and laughed heartily; then forcing a serious look into his face, he said—
‘Don’t let us wander from the subject; I began by saying that you must go to school.’
Madeline’s face darkened, and her lips pouted.
‘I shan’t,’ she said.
‘Come, come, Madeline! Don’t you care to learn?’
‘No.’
‘Nevertheless, learning is a physic which you will be compelled to take. You mustn’t grow up a little ignoramus. English grammar, geography, and—yes, by Jove—you shall learn French and music.’
‘French!’ she cried, with a sudden sparkle in her eyes. ‘Like Mamzelle talks sometimes to her pa?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And music! I love music! And then I shall understand every word they say, and play like Mamzelle on the piano. Oh, Mr. White, do let me go to school and learn French and music!’
All. opposition being thus speedily withdrawn, White determined that Madeline should go to school forthwith. In his customary fashion, therefore, he dismissed the subject from his mind; and it is a question how soon he would have practically carried out the scheme if Madeline herself had not worried him every day with the question, ‘Oh, Mr. White, when am I to go to school and learn French and music?’ But after a consultation with the Chevalier, a school was found in the neighbourhood—which he himself attended two or three times a week—and after a slight discussion over terms, which were specially reduced in her case, Madeline was sent there as a day scholar.
Once or twice since her translation to London, Madeline had heard from her foster-mother, who was then going from house to house as a monthly nurse. Mrs. Peartree could not write herself, but she sent by deputy many fond and loving messages, which Madeline answered with letters a thousand times more passionate. Since the day of their parting, however, she had heard nothing from Uncle Luke.
But some few weeks after she went to school there arrived a letter for her bearing the post-mark of a small town in Essex. Opening it eagerly, she read as follows:—
Mi dere Madlin,—This comes from uncle Luke, hopping you are quite wel and a good gel which it leaves me at present. I be ni art-broke far away from you and mother working on the river down alonger mi cussin Joss don’t kry cos I brung you to London but be a good gel and give my umble respecs to Mister wite mi dere Madlin mi dere Madlin there be no bargis in thes parts and neer a brethren but aples be pourful big and I wish you see the aple-tree in cussin Joss his garding with luv & kisses & hopping you are a good gel & my humble respecks to mister wito good bi at present I am ever fecksonit uncle luke peartree.
P.S. Be a good gel & don’t kri cos I brung you.
Many and many a burning kiss did Madeline press on this simple epistle. She wetted it with her most tender tears, and placed it beneath her pillow at night, and carried it about all day in her bosom, to be kissed and kissed yet again. With a certain intuitive shame, she did not show it to any member of the De Berny family, whose fault was a snobbishness characteristic of shabby gentility, but she fearlessly confided in Mr. White and let him read it through. He was touched by its simple affection, penetrating through the rude orthography to the staunch and loving soul of the writer; and he encouraged the girl to talk to him of Uncle Luke and all her lowly friends.
‘Those who did not know him,’ he thought, as he listened to her eager words and watched her flushed face, ‘called poor Fred callous. It’s a lie! He had a noble heart, and so, thank God, has his little child!’