YoungGordon left the house in Bloomsbury after he had delivered the message which was the object of his visit, but which he had forgotten in the amusement of seeing Dora, and the interest of these new scenes which had so suddenly opened up in his life. His object had been to beg that Miss Bethune would visit the lady for whom it had been his previous object to obtain an entrance into the house in which Dora was. Mrs. Bristow was ill, and could not go again, and she wanted to see Dora’s friend, who could bring Dora herself, accepting the new acquaintance for the sake of the child on whom her heart was set, but whom for some occult reason she would not call to her in the more natural way. Gordon did not believe in occult reasons. He had no mind for mysteries; and was fully convinced that whatever quarrel there might have been, no man would be so ridiculously vindictive as to keep his child apart from a relation, her mother’s sister, who was so anxious to see her.
But he was the kindest-hearted youth in the world, and though he smiled at these mysteries he yet respected them in the woman who had been everything to him in his early life, his guardian’s wife, whom he also called aunt in the absence of any other suitable title. She liked that sort ofthing—to make mountains of molehills, and to get over them with great expenditure of strategy and sentiment, when he was persuaded she might have marched straight forward and found no difficulty. But it was her way, and it had always been his business to see that she had her way and was crossed by nobody. He was so accustomed to her in all her weaknesses that he accepted them simply as the course of nature. Even her illness did not alarm or trouble him. She had been delicate since ever he could remember. From the time when he entered upon those duties of son or nephew which dated so far back in his life, he had always been used to make excuses to her visitors on account of her delicacy, her broken health, her inability to bear the effects of the hot climate. This was her habit, as it was the habit of some women to ride and of some to drive; and as it was the habit of her household to accept whatever she did as the only things for her to do, he had been brought up frankly in that faith.
His own life, too, had always appeared very simple and natural to Harry, though perhaps it scarcely seemed so to the spectator. His childhood had been passed with his father, who was more or less of an adventurer, and who had accustomed his son to ups and downs which he was too young to heed, having always his wants attended to, and somebody to play with, whatever happened. Then he had been transferred to the house of his guardian on a footing which he was too young to inquire into, which was indeed the simple footing of a son, receiving everything fromhis new parents, as he had received everything from his old. To find on his guardian’s death that he had nothing, that no provision was made for him, was something of a shock; as had been the discovery on his twenty-first birthday that his guardian was simply his benefactor, and had no trust in respect to him. It came over Harry like a cloud on both occasions that he had no profession, no way of making his own living; and that a state of dependence like that in which he had been brought up could not continue. But the worst time in the world to break the link which had subsisted so long, or to take from his aunt, as he called her, the companion upon whom she leant for everything, was at the moment when her husband was gone, and there was nobody else except a maid to take care of her helplessness. He could not do this; he was as much bound to her, to provide for all her wants, and see that she missed nothing of her wonted comforts; nay, almost more than if he had been really her son. If it had not been for his easy nature, the light heart which goes with perfect health, great simplicity of mind, and a thoroughly generous disposition, young Gordon had enough of uncertainty in his life to have made him very serious, if not unhappy. But, as a matter of fact, he was neither. He took the days as they came, as only those can do who are to that manner born. When he thought on the subject, he said to himself that should the worst come to the worst, a young fellow of his age, with the use of his hands and a head on his shoulders, could surely find somethingto do, and that he would not mind what it was.
This was very easy to say, and Gordon was not at all aware what the real difficulties are in finding something to do. But had he known better, it would have done him no good; and his ignorance, combined as it was with constant occupations of one kind or another, was a kind of bliss. There was a hope, too, in his mind, that merely being in England would mend matters. It must open some mode of independence for him. Mrs. Bristow would settle somewhere, buy a “place,” an estate, as it had always been the dream of her husband to do, and so give him occupation. Something would come of it that would settle the question for him; the mere certainty in his mind of this cleared away all clouds, and made the natural brightness of his temperature more assured than ever.
This young man had no education to speak of. He had read innumerable books, which do not count for very much in that way. He had, however, been brought up in what was supposed “the best” of society, and he had the advantage of that, which is no small advantage. He was at his ease in consequence, wherever he went, not supposing that any one looked down on him, or that he could be refused admittance anywhere. As he walked back with his heart at ease—full of an amused pleasure in the thought of Dora, whom he had known for years, and who had been, though he had never till to-day seen her, a sort of little playfellow in his life—walking westward from theseriousness of Bloomsbury, through the long line of Oxford Street, and across Hyde Park to the great hotel in which Mrs. Bristow had established herself, the young man, though he had not a penny, and was a mere colonial, to say the best of him, felt himself returning to a more congenial atmosphere, the region of ease and leisure, and beautiful surroundings, to which he had been born. He had not any feature of the man of fashion, yet he belonged instinctively to thejeunesse doréewherever he went. He went along, swinging his cane, with a relief in his mind to be delivered from the narrow and noisy streets. He had been accustomed all his life to luxury, though of a different kind from that of London, and he smiled at the primness and respectability of Bloomsbury by instinct, though he had no right to do so. He recognised the difference of the traffic in Piccadilly, and distinguished between that great thoroughfare and the other with purely intuitive discrimination. Belgravia was narrow and formal to the Southerner, but yet it was different. All these intuitions were in him, he could not tell how.
He went back to his aunt with the pleasure of having something to say which he knew would please her. Dora, as has been said, had been their secret between them for many years. He had helped to think of toys and pretty trifles to send her, and the boxes had been the subject of many a consultation, calling forth tears from Mrs. Bristow, but pure fun to the young man, who thought of the unknown recipient as of a little sister whom he had never seen. He meant toplease the kind woman who had been a mother to him, by telling her about Dora, how pretty she was, how tall, how full of character, delightful and amusing to behold, how she was half angry with him for knowing so much of her, half pleased, how she flashed from fun to seriousness, from kindness to quick indignation, and on the whole disapproved of him, but only in a way that was amusing, that he was not afraid of. Thus he went in cheerful, and intent upon making the invalid cheerful too.
A hotel is a hotel all the world over, a place essentially vulgar, commonplace, venal, the travesty of a human home. This one, however, was as stately as it could be, with a certain size about the building, big stairs, big rooms, at the end of one of which he found his patroness lying, in an elaborate dressing-gown, on a large sofa, with the vague figure of a maid floating about in the semi-darkness. The London sun in April is not generally violent; but all the blinds were down, the curtains half drawn over the windows, and the room so deeply shadowed that even young Gordon’s sharp eyes coming out of the keen daylight did not preserve him from knocking against one piece of furniture after another as he made his way to the patient’s side.
“Well, Harry dear, is she coming?” a faint voice said.
“I hope so, aunt. She was sorry to know you were ill. I told her you were quite used to being ill, and always patient over it. Are things going any better to-day?”
“They will never be better, Harry.”
“Don’t say that. They have been worse a great many times, and then things have always come round a little.”
“He doesn’t believe me, Miller. That is what comes of health like mine; nobody will believe that I am worse now than I have ever been before.” Gordon patted the thin hand that lay on the bed. He had heard these wordsmanytimes, and he was not alarmed by them.
“This lady is rather a character,” he said; “she will amuse you. She is Scotch, and she is rather strong-minded, and——”
“I never could bear strong-minded women,” cried the patient with some energy. “But what do I care whether she is Scotch or Spanish, or what she is? Besides that, she has helped me already, and all I want is Dora. Oh, Harry, did you see Dora?—my Dora, my little girl! And so tall, and so well grown, and so sweet! And to think that I cannot have her, cannot see her, now that I am going to die!”
“Why shouldn’t you have her?” he said in his calm voice. “Her father is better; and no man, however unreasonable, would prevent her coming to see her own relation. You don’t understand, dear aunt. You won’t believe that people are all very like each other, not so cruel and hard-hearted as you suppose. You would not be unkind to a sick person, why should he?”
“Oh, it’s different—very different!” the sick woman said.
“Why should it be different? A quarrel thatis a dozen years old could never be so bitter as that.”
“It is you who don’t understand. I did him harm—oh, such harm! Never, never could he forgive me! I never want him to hear my name. And to ask Dora from him—oh no, no! Don’t do it, Harry—not if I was at my last breath!”
“If you ever did him harm as you say—though I don’t believe you ever did any one harm—that is why you cannot forgive him. Aunt, you may be sure he has forgiven you.”
“I—I—forgive? Oh, never, never had I anything to forgive—never! I—oh if you only knew!”
“I wouldn’t say anything to excite her, Mr. Harry,” said the maid. “She isn’t so well, really; she’s very bad, as true as can be. I’ve sent for the doctor.”
“Yes, tell him!” cried the poor lady eagerly; “tell him that you have never seen me so ill. Tell him, Miller, that I’m very bad, and going to die!”
“We’ll wait and hear what the doctor says, ma’am,” said the maid cautiously.
“But Dora, Harry—oh, bring her, bring her! How am I to die without my Dora? Oh, bring her! Ask this lady—I don’t mind her being strong-minded or anything, if she will bring my child. Harry, you must steal her away, if he will not let her come. I have a right to her. It is—it is her duty to come to me when I am going to die!”
“Don’t excite her, sir, for goodness’ sake; promise anything,” whispered the maid.
“I will, aunt. I’ll run away with her. I’ll have a carriage with a couple of ruffians to wait round the corner, and I’ll throw something over her head to stifle her cries, and then we’ll carry her away.”
“It isn’t any laughing matter,” she said, recovering her composure a little. “If you only knew, Harry! But I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell you—or any one. Oh, Harry, my poor boy, you’ll find out a great many things afterwards, and perhaps you’ll blame me. I know you’ll blame me. But remember I was always fond of you, and always kind to you all the same. You won’t forget that, however badly you may think of me. Oh, Harry, my dear, my dear!”
“Dear aunt, as if there could ever be any question of blame from me to you!” he said, kissing her hand.
“But there will be a question. Everybody will blame me, and you will be obliged to do it too, though it goes against your kind heart. I seem to see everything, and feel what’s wrong, and yet not be able to help it. I’ve always been like that,” she said, sobbing. “Whatever I did, I’ve always known it would come to harm; but I’ve never been able to stop it, to do different. I’ve done so many, many things! Oh, if I could go back and begin different from the very first! But I shouldn’t. I am just as helpless now as then. And I know just how you will look, Harry, and try not to believe, and try not to say anything against me——”
“If you don’t keep quiet, ma’am, I’ll have togo and leave you! and a nurse is what you will get—a nurse out of the hospital, as will stand no nonsense.”
“Oh, Miller, just one word! Harry, promise me you’ll think of what I said, and that you will not blame——”
“Never,” he said, rising from her side. “I acquit you from this moment, aunt. You can never do anything that will be evil in my eyes. But is not the room too dark, and don’t you mean to have any lunch? A little light and a little cutlet, don’t you think, Miller? No? Well, I suppose you know best, but you’ll see that is what the doctor will order. I’m going to get mine, anyhow, for I’m as hungry as a hunter. Blame you? Is it likely?” he said, stooping to kiss her.
Notwithstanding his affectionate fidelity, he was glad to be free of the darkened room and oppressive atmosphere and troubled colloquy. To return to ordinary daylight and life was a relief to him. But he had no very serious thoughts, either about the appeal she had made to him or her condition. He had known her as ill and as hysterical before. When she was ill she was often emotional, miserable, fond of referring to mysterious errors in her past. Harry thought he knew very well what these errors were. He knew her like the palm of his hand, as the French say. He knew the sort of things she would be likely to do, foolish things, inconsiderate, done in a hurry—done, very likely, as she said, with a full knowledge that they oughtnot to be done, yet that she could not help it. Poor little aunt! he could well believe in any sort of silly thing, heedless, and yet not altogether heedless either, disapproved of in her mind even while she did it. Our children know us better than any other spectators know us. They know the very moods in which we are likely to do wrong. What a good thing it is that with that they love us all the same, more or less, as the case may be! And that their eyes, though so terribly clear-sighted, are indulgent too; or, if not indulgent, yet are ruled by the use and wont, the habit of us, and of accepting us, whatever we may be. Young Gordon knew exactly, or thought he knew, what sort of foolish things she might have done, or even yet might be going to do. Her conscience was evidently very keen about this Mr. Mannering, this sister’s husband, as he appeared to be; perhaps she had made mischief, not meaning it and yet half meaning it, between him and his wife, and could not forgive herself, or hope to be forgiven. Her own husband had been a grave man, very loving to her, yet very serious with her, and he knew that there had never been mention of Dora between these two. Once, he remembered, his guardian had seen the box ready to be despatched, and had asked no questions, but looked for a moment as if he would have pushed it out of the way with his foot. Perhaps he had disapproved of these feeble attempts to make up to the sister’s child for harm done to her mother. Perhaps he had felt that the wrong was unforgiveable, whatever it was. He had taken itfor granted that after his death his wife would go home; and Harry remembered a wistful strange look which he cast upon her when he was dying. But the young man gave himself a little shake to throw off these indications of a secret which he did not know. His nature, as had been said, was averse to secrets; he refused to have anything to do with a mystery. Everything in which he was concerned was honest and open as the day. He did not dwell on the fact that he had a mystery connected with himself, and was in the curious circumstance of having a mother whom he did not know. It was very odd, he admitted, when he thought of it; but as he spent his life by the side of a woman who was in all respects exactly like his mother to him, perhaps it is not so wonderful that his mind strayed seldom to that thought. He shook everything off as he went downstairs, and sat down to luncheon with the most hearty and healthy appetite in the world.
“Dora,” said Mr. Mannering, half raising his head from the large folio which had come from the old book dealer during his illness, and which, in these days of his slow convalescence, had occupied much of his time. After he had spoken that word he remained silent for some time, his head slightly raised, his shoulders bent over the big book. Then he repeated “Dora” again. “Do you think,” he said, “you could carry one of these volumes as far as Fiddler’s, and ask if he would take it back?”
“Take it back!” Dora cried in surprise.
“You can tell him that I do not find it as interesting as I expected—but no; for that might do it harm, and it is very interesting. You might say our shelves are all filled up with big books, and that I have really no room for it at present, which,” he added, looking anxiously up into her face, “is quite true; for, you remember, when I was so foolish as to order it, we asked ourselves how it would be possible to find a place for it? But no, no,” he said, “these are inventions, and I see your surprise in your face that I should send you with a message that is not genuine. It is true enough, you know, that I am much slackened in the work I wanted this book for. I am slackened in everything. I doubt if I can take up any piece of workagain to do any good. I’m old, you see, to have such a long illness,” he said, looking at her almost apologetically; “and, unless it had been with an idea of work, I never could have had any justification in ordering such an expensive book as this.”
“You never used to think of that, father,” Dora said.
“No, I never used to think of that; but I ought to have done so. I’m afraid I’ve been very extravagant. I could always have got it, and consulted it as much as I pleased at the Museum. It is a ridiculous craze I have had for having the books in my own possession. Many men cannot understand it. Williamson, for instance. He says: ‘In your place I would never buy a book. Why, you have the finest library in the world at your disposal.’ And it’s quite true. There could not be a more ridiculous extravagance on my part, and pride, I suppose to be able to say I had it.”
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” cried Dora. “What do you care for, father, except your library? You never go anywhere, you have no amusements like other people. You don’t go into society, or go abroad, or—anything that the other people do.”
“That is true enough,” he said, with a little gleam of pleasure. Then, suddenly taking her hand as she stood beside him: “My poor child, you say that quite simply, without thinking what a terrible accusation it would be if it went on,—a sacrifice of your young life to my old one, andforgetfulness of all a girl’s tastes and wishes. We’ll try to put that right at least, Dora,” he said, with a slight quiver in his lip, “in the future—if there is any future for me.”
“Father!” she said indignantly, “as if I didn’t like the books, and was not more proud of your work that you are doing——”
“And which never comes to anything,” he interjected, sadly shaking his head.
“—— than of anything else in the world! I am very happy as I am. I have no tastes or pleasures but what are yours. I never have wanted anything that you did not get for me. You should see,” cried Dora, with a laugh, “what Janie and Molly think downstairs. They think me a princess at the least, with nothing to do, and all my fine clothes!”
“Janie and Molly!” he said,—“Janie and Molly! And these are all that my girl has to compare herself with—the landlady’s orphan granddaughters! You children make your arrows very sharp without knowing it. But it shall be so no more. Dora, more than ever I want you to go to Fiddler’s; but you shall tell him what is the simple truth—that I have had a long illness, which has been very expensive, and that I cannot afford any more expensive books. He might even, indeed, be disposed to buy back some that we have. That is one thing,” he added, with more animation, “all the books are really worth their price. I have always thought they would be something for you, whether you sold them or kept them, when I am gone. Do you think youcould carry one of them as far as Fiddler’s, Dora? They are in such excellent condition, and it would show him no harm had come to them. One may carry a book anywhere, even a young lady may. And it is not so very heavy.”
“It is no weight at all,” cried Dora, who never did anything by halves. “A little too big for my pocket, father; but I could carry it anywhere. As if I minded carrying a book, or even a parcel! I like it—it looks as if one had really something to do.”
She went out a few minutes after, lightly with great energy and animation, carrying under one arm the big book as if it had been a feather-weight. It was a fine afternoon, and the big trees in the Square were full of the rustle and breath of life—life as vigorous as if their foliage waved in the heart of the country and not in Bloomsbury. There had been showers in the morning; but now the sun shone warm, and as it edged towards the west sent long rays down the cross streets, making them into openings of pure light, and dazzling the eyes of the passers-by. Dora was caught in this illumination at every street corner, and turned her face to it as she crossed the opening, not afraid, for either eyes or complexion, of that glow “angry and brave". The great folio, with its worn corners and its tarnished gilding, rather added to the effect of her tall, slim, young figure, strong as health and youth could make it, with limbs a little too long, and joints a little too pronounced, as belonged to her age. She carried her head lightly as a flower,her step was free and light; she looked, as she said, “as if she had something to do,” and was wholly capable of doing it, which is a grace the more added, not unusually in these days, to the other graces of early life in the feminine subject. But it is not an easy thing to carry a large folio under your arm. After even a limited stretch of road, the lamb is apt to become a sheep: and to shift such a cumbrous volume from one arm to another is not an easy matter either, especially while walking along the streets. Dora held on her way as long as she could, till her wrist was like to break, and her shoulder to come out of its socket. Neither she nor her father had in the least realised what the burden was. Then she turned it over with difficulty in both arms, and transferred it to the other side, speedily reducing the second arm to a similar condition, while the first had as yet barely recovered.
It is not a very long way from the corner of the Square to those delightful old passages full of old book-shops, which had been the favourite pasturage of Mr. Mannering, and where Dora had so often accompanied her father. On ordinary occasions she thought the distance to Fiddler’s no more than a few steps, but to-day it seemed miles long. And she was too proud to give in, or to go into a shop to rest, while it did not seem safe to trust a precious book, and one that she was going to give back to the dealer, to a passing boy. She toiled on accordingly, making but slow progress, and very much subdued by her task, her cheeks flushed, and the tears in her eyes only keptback by pride, when she suddenly met walking quickly along, skimming the pavement with his light tread, the young man who had so wounded and paralysed her in Miss Bethune’s room, whom she had seen then only for the first time, but who had claimed her so cheerfully by her Christian name as an old friend.
She saw him before he saw her, and her first thought was the quick involuntary one, that here was succour coming towards her; but the second was not so cheerful. The second was, that this stranger would think it his duty to help her; that he would conceive criticisms, even if he did not utter them, as to the mistake of entrusting her with a burden she was not equal to; that he would assume more and more familiarity, perhaps treat her altogether as a little girl—talk again of the toys he had helped to choose, and all those injurious revolting particulars which had filled her with so much indignation on their previous meeting. The sudden rush and encounter of these thoughts distracting her mind when her body had need of all its support, made Dora’s limbs so tremble, and the light so go out of her eyes, that she found herself all at once unable to carry on her straight course, and awoke to the humiliating fact that she had stumbled to the support of the nearest area railing, that the book had slipped from under her tired arm, and that she was standing there, very near crying, holding it up between the rail and her knee.
“Why, Miss Dora!” cried that young man. He would have passed, had it not been for thatdeplorable exhibition of weakness. But when his eye caught the half-ridiculous, wholly overwhelming misery of the slipping book, the knee put forth to save it, the slim figure bending over it, he was beside her in a moment. “Give it to me,” he cried, suiting the action to the word, and taking it from her as if it had been a feather. Well, she had herself said it was a feather at first.
Dora, relieved, shook her tired arms, straightened her figure, and raised her head; with all her pride coming back.
“Oh, please never mind. I had only got it out of balance. I am quite, quite able to carry it,” she cried.
“Are you going far? And will you let me walk with you? It was indeed to see you I was going—not without a commission.”
“To see me?”
The drooping head was thrown back with a pride that was haughty and almost scornful. A princess could not have treated a rash intruder more completelyde haut en bas. “To me! what could you have to say to me?” the girl seemed to say, in the tremendous superiority of her sixteen years.
The young man laughed a little—one is not very wise at five and twenty on the subject of girls, yet he had experience enough to be amused by these remnants of the child in this half-developed maiden. “You are going this way?” he said, turning in the direction in which she had been going. “Then let me tell you while we walk. Miss Dora, you must remember this isnot all presumption or intrusion on my side. I come from a lady who has a right to send you a message.”
“I did not say you were intrusive,” cried Dora, blushing for shame.
“You only looked it,” said young Gordon; “but you know that lady is my aunt too—at least, I have always called her aunt, for many, many years.”
“Ought I to call her aunt?” Dora said. “I suppose so indeed, if she is my mother’s sister.”
“Certainly you should, and you have a right; but I only because she allows me, because they wished it, to make me feel no stranger in the house. My poor dear aunt is very ill—worse, they say, than she has ever been before.”
“Ill?” Dora seemed to find no words except these interjections that she could say.
“I hope perhaps they may be deceived. The doctors don’t know her constitution. I think I have seen her just as bad and come quite round again. But even Miller is frightened: she may be worse than I think, and she has the greatest, the most anxious desire to see you, as she says, before she dies.”
“Dies?” cried Dora. “But how can she die when she has only just come home?”
“That is what I feel, too,” cried the young man, with eagerness. “But perhaps,” he added, “it is no real reason; for doesn’t it often happen that people break down just at the moment when they come in sight of what they have wished for for years and years?”
“I don’t know,” said Dora, recovering her courage. “I have not heard of things so dreadful as that. I can’t imagine that it could be permitted to be; for things don’t happen just by chance, do they? They are,” she added quite inconclusively, “as father says, all in the day’s work.”
“I don’t know either,” said young Gordon; “but very cruel things do happen. However, there is nothing in the world she wishes for so much as you. Will you come to her? I am sure that you have never been out of her mind for years. She used to talk to me about you. It was our secret between us two. I think that was the chief thing that made her take to me as she did, that she might have some one to speak to about Dora. I used to wonder what you were at first,—an idol, or a prodigy, or a princess.”
“You must have been rather disgusted when you found I was only a girl,” Dora cried, in spite of herself.
He looked at her with a discriminative gaze, not uncritical, yet full of warm light that seemed to linger and brighten somehow upon her, and which, though Dora was looking straight before her, without a glance to the right or left, or any possibility of catching his eye, she perceived, though without knowing how.
“No,” he said, with a little embarrassed laugh, “quite the reverse, and always hoping that one day we might be friends.”
Dora made no reply. For one thing they had now come (somehow the walk went much faster,much more easily, when there was no big book to carry) to the passage leading to Holborn, a narrow lane paved with big flags, and with dull shops, principally book-shops, on either side, where Fiddler, the eminent old bookseller and collector, lived. Her mind had begun to be occupied by the question how to shake this young man off and discharge her commission, which was not an easy one. She hardly heard what he last said. She said to him hastily, “Please give me back the book, this is where I am going,” holding out her hands for it. She added, “Thank you very much,” with formality, but yet not without warmth.
“Mayn’t I carry it in?” He saw by her face that this request was distasteful, and hastened to add, “I’ll wait for you outside; there are quantities of books to look at in the windows,” giving it back to her without a word.
Dora was scarcely old enough to appreciate the courtesy and good taste of his action altogether, but she was pleased and relieved, though she hardly knew why. She went into the shop, very glad to deposit it upon the counter, but rather troubled in mind as to how she was to accomplish her mission, as she waited till Mr. Fiddler was brought to her from the depths of the cavern of books. He began to turn over the book with mechanical interest, thinking it something brought to him to sell, then woke up, and said sharply: “Why, this is a book I sent to Mr. Mannering of the Museum a month ago".
“Yes,” said Dora, breathless, “and I am Mr.Mannering’s daughter. He has been very ill, and he wishes me to ask if you would be so good as to take it back. It is not likely to be of so much use to him as he thought. It is not quite what he expected it to be.”
“Not what he expected it to be? It is an extremely fine copy, in perfect condition, and I’ve been on the outlook for it to him for the past year.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Dora, speaking like a bookman’s daughter, “even I can see it is a fine example, and my father would like to keep it. But—but—he has had a long illness, and it has been very expensive, and he might not be able to pay for it for a long time. He would be glad if you would be so very obliging as to take it back.”
Then Mr. Fiddler began to look blank. He told Dora that two or three people had been after the book, knowing what a chance it was to get a specimen of that edition in such a perfect state, and how he had shut his ears to all fascinations, and kept it for Mr. Mannering. Mr. Mannering had indeed ordered the book. It was not a book that could be picked up from any ordinary collection. It was one, as a matter of fact, which he himself would not have thought of buying on speculation, had it not been for a customer like Mr. Mannering. Probably it might lie for years on his hands, before he should have another opportunity of disposing of it. These arguments much intimidated Dora, who saw, but had not the courage to call his attention to, the discrepancy between the two or three people who had wantedit, and the unlikelihood of any one wanting it again.
The conclusion was, however, that Mr. Fiddler politely, but firmly, declined to take the book back. He had every confidence in Mr. Mannering of the Museum. He had not the slightest doubt of being paid. The smile, with which he assured her of this, compensated the girl, who was so little more than a child, for the refusal of her request. Of course Mr. Mannering of the Museum would pay, of course everybody had confidence in him. After her father’s own depressed looks and anxiety, it comforted Dora’s heart to make sure in this way that nobody outside shared these fears. She put out her arms, disappointed, yet relieved, to take back the big book again.
“Have you left it behind you?” cried young Gordon, who, lingering at the window outside, without the slightest sense of honour, had listened eagerly and heard a portion of the colloquy within.
“Mr. Fiddler will not take it back. He says papa will pay him sooner or later. He is going to send it. It is no matter,” Dora said, with a little wave of her hand.
“Oh, let me carry it back,” cried the young man, with a sudden dive into his pocket, and evident intention in some rude colonial way of solving the question of the payment there and then.
Dora drew herself up to the height of seven feet at least in her shoes. She waved him back from Mr. Fiddler’s door with a large gesture.
“You may have known me for a long time,”she said, “and you called me Dora, though I think it is a liberty; but I don’t know you, not even your name.”
“My name is Harry Gordon,” he said, with something between amusement and deference, yet a twinkle in his eye.
Dora looked at him very gravely from head to foot, making as it were arésuméof him and the situation. Then she gave forth her judgment reflectively, as of a thing which she had much studied. “It is not an ugly name,” she said, with a partially approving nod of her head.
“No, Mannering,” said Dr. Roland, “I can’t say that you may go back to the Museum in a week. I don’t know when you will be up to going. I should think you had a good right to a long holiday after working there for so many years.”
“Not so many years,” said Mr. Mannering, “since the long break which you know of, Roland.”
“In the interest of science,” cried the doctor.
The patient shook his head with a melancholy smile. “Not in my own at least,” he said.
“Well, it is unnecessary to discuss that question. Back you cannot go, my good fellow, till you have recovered your strength to a very different point from that you are at now. You can’t go till after you’ve had a change. At present you’re nothing but a bundle of tendencies ready to develop into anything bad that’s going. That must be stopped in the first place, and you must have sea air, or mountain air, or country air, whichever you fancy. I won’t be dogmatic about the kind, but the thing you must have.”
“Impossible, impossible, impossible!” Mannering had begun to cry out while the other was speaking. “Why, man, you’re raving,” he said. “I—so accustomed to the air of Bloomsbury, and that especially fine sort which is to be had at theMuseum, that I couldn’t breathe any other—I to have mountain air or sea air or country air! Nonsense! Any of them would stifle me in a couple of days.”
“You will have your say, of course. And you are a great scientific gent, I’m aware; but you know as little about your own health and what it wants as this child with her message. Well, Janie, what is it, you constant bother? Mr. Mannering? Take it to Miss Bethune, or wait till Miss Dora comes back.”
“Please, sir, the gentleman is waiting, and he says he won’t go till he’s pyed.”
“You little ass!” said the doctor. “What do you mean by coming with your ridiculous stories here?”
Mannering stretched out his thin hand and took the paper. “You see,” he said, with a faint laugh, “how right I was when I said I would have nothing to do with your changes of air. It is all that my pay will do to settle my bills, and no overplus for such vanities.”
“Nonsense, Mannering! The money will be forthcoming when it is known to be necessary.”
“From what quarter, I should be glad to hear? Do you think the Museum will grant me a premium for staying away, for being of no use? Not very likely! I shall not be left in the lurch; they will grant me three months’ holiday, or even six months’ holiday, and my salary as usual. But we shall have to reduce our expenses, Dora and I, and to live as quietly as possible, instead of going off like millionaires to revel upon fresh tipples offancy air. No, no, nothing of the kind. And, besides, I don’t believe in them. I have made myself, as the French say, to the air of Bloomsbury, and in that I shall live or die.”
“You don’t speak at all, my dear fellow, like the man of sense you are,” said the doctor. “Fortunately, I can carry things with a high hand. When I open my mouth let no patient venture to contradict. You are going away to the country now. If you don’t conform to my rules, I am not at all sure I may not go further, and ordain that there is to be no work for six months, a winter on the Riviera, and so forth. I have got all these pains and penalties in my hand.”
“Better and better,” said Mannering, “a palace to live in, and achefto cook for us, and our dinner off gold plate every day.”
“There is no telling what I may do if you put me to it,” Dr. Roland said, with a laugh. “But seriously, if it were my last word, you must get out of London. Nothing that you can do or say will save you from that.”
“We shall see,” said Mr. Mannering. “The sovereign power of an empty purse does great wonders. But here is Dora back, and without the big book, I am glad to see. What did Fiddler say?”
“I will tell you afterwards, father,” said Dora, developing suddenly a little proper pride.
“Nonsense! You can tell me now—that he had two or three people in his pocket who would have bought it willingly if he had not reserved it for me, and that it was a book that nobody wanted, and would be a drug on his hands.”
“Oh, father, how clever you are! That was exactly what he said: and I did not point out that he was contradicting himself, for fear it should make him angry. But he did not mind me. He said he could trust Mr. Mannering of the Museum; he was quite sure he should get paid; and he is sending it back by one of the young men, because it was too heavy for me.”
“My poor little girl! I ought to have known it would be too heavy for you.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Dora. “I only carried it half the way. It was getting very heavy indeed, I will not deny, when I met Mr. Gordon, and he carried it for me to Fiddler’s shop.”
“Who is Mr. Gordon?” said Mr. Mannering, raising his head.
“He is a friend of Miss Bethune’s,” said Dora, with something of hesitation in her voice which struck her father’s ear.
Dr. Roland looked very straight before him, taking care to make no comment, and not to meet Dora’s eye. There was a tacit understanding between them now on several subjects, which the invalid felt vaguely, but could not explain to himself. Fortunately, however, it had not even occurred to him that there was anything more remarkable in the fact of a young man, met at hazard, carrying Dora’s book for her, than if the civility had been shown to himself.
“You see,” he said, “it is painful to have to make you aware of all my indiscretions, Roland. What has a man to do with rare editions, who has a small income and an only child like mine?The only thing is,” he added, with a short laugh, “they should bring their price when they come to the hammer,—that has always been my consolation.”
“They are not coming to the hammer just yet,” said the doctor. He possessed himself furtively, but carelessly, of the piece of paper on the table—the bill which, as Janie said, was wanted by a gentleman waiting downstairs. “You just manage to get over this thing, Mannering,” he said, in an ingratiating tone, “and I’ll promise you a long bill of health and plenty of time to make up all your lost way. You don’t live in the same house with a doctor for nothing. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I could have told Vereker exactly what course it would take if he hadn’t been an ass, as all these successful men are. He did take a hint or two in spite of himself; for a profession is too much for a man, it gives a certain fictitious sense in some cases, even when he is an ass. Well, Mannering, of course I couldn’t prophesy what the end would be. You might have succumbed. With your habits, I thought it not unlikely.”
“You cold-blooded practitioner! And what do you mean by my habits? I’m not a toper or a reveller by night.”
“You are almost worse. You are a man of the Museum, drinking in bad air night and day, and never moving from your books when you can help it. It was ten to one against you; but some of you smoke-dried, gas-scented fellows have the devil’s own constitution, and you’ve pulled through.”
“Yes,” said Mannering, holding up his thin hand to the light, and thrusting forth a long spindle-shank of a leg, “I’ve pulled through—as much as is left of me. It isn’t a great deal to brag of.”
“Having done that, with proper care I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a long spell of health before you—as much health as a man can expect who despises all the laws of nature—and attain a very respectable age before you die.”
“Here’s promises!” said Mannering. He paused and laughed, and then added in a lower tone: “Do you think that’s so very desirable, after all?”
“Most men like it,” said the doctor; “or, at least, think they do. And for you, who have Dora to think of——”
“Yes, there’s Dora,” the patient said as if to himself.
“That being the case, you are not your own property, don’t you see? You have got to take care of yourself, whether you will or not. You have got to make life livable, now that it’s handed back to you. It’s a responsibility, like another. Having had it handed back to you, as I say, and being comparatively a young man—what are you, fifty?”
“Thereabout; not what you would call the flower of youth.”
“But a very practical, not disagreeable age—good for a great deal yet, if you treat it fairly; but, mind you, capable of giving you a great deal of annoyance, a great deal of trouble, if you don’t.”
“No more before the child,” said Mannering hastily. “We must cut our coat according to our cloth, but she need not be in all our secrets. What! turtle-soup again? Am I to be made an alderman of in spite of myself? No more of this, Hal, if you love me,” he said, shaking his gaunt head at the doctor, who was already disappearing downstairs.
Dr. Roland turned back to nod encouragingly to Dora, and to say: “All right, my dear; keep it up!” But his countenance changed as he turned away again, and when he had knocked and been admitted at Miss Bethune’s door, it was with a melancholy face, and a look of the greatest despondency, that he flung himself into the nearest chair.
“It will be all of no use,” he cried,—“of no use, if we can’t manage means and possibilities to pack them off somewhere. He will not hear of it! Wants to go back to the Museum next week—in July!—and to go on in Bloomsbury all the year, as if he had not been within a straw’s breadth of his life.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Miss Bethune, shaking her head.
“He ought to go to the country now,” said the doctor, “then to the sea, and before the coming on of winter go abroad. That’s the only programme for him. He ought to be a year away. Then he might come back to the Museum like a giant refreshed, and probably write some book, or make some discovery, or do some scientific business, that would crown him with glory,and cover all the expenses; but the obstinate beast will not see it. Upon my word!” cried Dr. Roland, “I wish there could be made a decree that only women should have the big illnesses; they have such faith in a doctor’s word, and such a scorn of possibilities: it always does them good to order them something that can’t be done, and then do it in face of everything—that’s what I should like for the good of the race.”
“I can’t say much for the good of the race,” said Miss Bethune; “but you’d easily find some poor wretch of a woman that would do it for the sake of some ungrateful brute of a man.”
“Ah, we haven’t come to that yet,” said the doctor regretfully; “the vicarious principle has not gone so far. If it had I daresay there would be plenty of poor wretches ready to bear their neighbours’ woes for a consideration. The simple rules of supply and demand would be enough to provide us proxies without any stronger sentiment: but philosophising won’t do us any good; it won’t coin money, or if it could, would not drop it into his pocket, which after all is the chief difficulty. He is not to be taken in any longer by your fictions about friendly offerings and cheap purchases. Here is a bill which that little anæmic nuisance Janie brought in, with word that a gentleman was ‘wyaiting’ for the payment.”
“We’ll send for the gentleman, and settle it,” said Miss Bethune quietly, “and then it can’t come up to shame us again.”
The gentleman sent for turned up slowly, andcame in with reluctance, keeping his face as much as possible averted. He was, however, too easily recognisable to make this contrivance available.
“Why, Hesketh, have you taken service with Fortnum and Mason?” the doctor cried.
“I’m in a trade protection office, sir,” said Hesketh. “I collect bills for parties.” He spoke with his eyes fixed on a distant corner, avoiding as much as possible every glance.
“In a trade protection office? And you mean to tell me that Fortnum and Mason, before even the season is over, collect their bills in this way?”
“They don’t have not to say so many customers in Bloomsbury, sir,” said the young man, with that quickly-conceived impudence which is so powerful a weapon, and so congenial to his race.
“Confound their insolence! I have a good mind to go myself and give them a bit of my mind,” cried Dr. Roland. “Bloomsbury has more sense, it seems, than I gave it credit for, and your pampered tradesman more impudence.”
“I would just do that,” said Miss Bethune. “And will it be long since you took to this trade protection, young man?—for Gilchrist brought me word you were ill in your bed not a week ago.”
“A man can’t stay in bed, when ’e has a wife to support, and with no ’ealth to speak of,” Hesketh replied, with a little bravado; but he was very pale, and wiped the unwholesome dews from his forehead.
“Anæmia, body and soul,” said the doctor to the lady, in an undertone.
“You’ll come to his grandfather again in a moment,” said the lady to the doctor. “Now, my lad, you shall just listen to me. Put down this moment your trade protections, and all your devices. Did you not hear, by Gilchrist, that we were meaning to give you a new chance? Not for your sake, but for your wife’s, though she probably is just tarred with the same stick. We were meaning to set you up in a little shop in a quiet suburb.”
Here the young fellow made a grimace, but recollected himself, and said no word.
“Eh!” cried Miss Bethune, “that wouldn’t serve your purposes, my fine gentleman?”
“I never said so,” said the young man. “It’s awfully kind of you. Still, as I’ve got a place on my own hook, as it were—not that we mightn’t combine the two, my wife and I. She ain’t a bad saleswoman,” he added, with condescension. “We was in the same house of business before we was married—not that beastly old shop where they do nothing but take away the young gentlemen’s and young ladies’ characters. It’s as true as life what I say. Ask any one that has ever been there.”
“Anæmia,” said Miss Bethune, to the doctor, aside, “would not be proof enough, if there were facts on the other hand.”
“I always mistrust facts,” the doctor replied.
“Here is your money,” she resumed. “Write me out the receipt, or rather, put your name to it.Now mind this, I will help you if you’re meaning to do well; but if I find out anything wrong in this, or hear that you’re in bed again to-morrow, and not fit to lift your head——”
“No man can answer for his health,” said young Hesketh solemnly. “I may be bad, I may be dead to-morrow, for anything I can tell.”
“That is true.”
“And my poor wife a widder, and the poor baby not born.”
“In these circumstances,” said Dr. Roland, “we’ll forgive her for what wasn’t her fault, and look after her. But that’s not likely, unless you are fool enough to let yourself be run over, or something of that sort, going out from here.”
“Which I won’t, sir, if I can help it.”
“And no great loss, either,” the doctor said in his undertone. He watched the payment grimly, and noticed that the young man’s hand shook in signing the receipt. What was the meaning of it? He sat for a moment in silence, while Hesketh’s steps, quickening as he went farther off, were heard going downstairs and towards the door. “I wish I were as sure that money would find its way to the pockets of Fortnum and Mason, as I am that yonder down-looking hound had a criminal grandfather,” he said.
“Well, there is the receipt, anyhow. Will you go and inquire?”
“To what good? There would be a great fuss, and the young fool would get into prison probably; whereas we may still hope that it is all right, and that he has turned over a new leaf.”
“I should not be content without being at the bottom of it,” said Miss Bethune; and then, after a pause: “There is another thing. The lady from South America that was here has been taken ill, Dr. Roland.”
“Ah, so!” cried the doctor. “I should like to go and see her.”
“You are not wanted to go and see her. It is I—which you will be surprised at—that is wanted, or, rather, Dora with me. I have had an anxious pleader here, imploring me by all that I hold dear. You will say that is not much, doctor.”
“I will say nothing of the kind. But I have little confidence in that lady from South America, or her young man.”
“The young man is just as fine a young fellow! Doubt as you like, there is no deceit about him; a countenance like the day, and eyes that meet you fair, look at him as you please. Doctor,” said Miss Bethune, faltering a little, “I have taken a great notion into my head that he may turn out to be a near relation of my own.”
“A relation of yours?” cried Dr. Roland, suppressing a whistle of astonishment. “My thoughts were going a very different way.”
“I know, and your thoughts are justified. The lady did not conceal that she was Mrs. Mannering’s sister: but the one thing does not hinder the other.”
“It would be a very curious coincidence—stranger, even, than usual.”
“Everything that’s strange is usual,” criedMiss Bethune vehemently. “It is we that have no eyes to see.”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, who loved a paradox. “I tell you what,” he added briskly, “let me go and see this lady. I am very suspicious about her. I should like to make her out a little before risking it for Dora, even with you.”
“You think, perhaps, you would make it out better than I should,” said Miss Bethune, with some scorn. “Well, there is no saying. You would, no doubt, make out what is the matter with her, which is always the first thing that interests you.”
“It explains most things, when you know how to read it,” the doctor said; but in this point his opponent did not give in to him, it is hardly necessary to say. She was very much interested about Dora, but she was still more interested in the question which moved her own heart so deeply. The lady from South America might be in command of many facts on that point; and prudence seemed to argue that it was best to see and understand a little more about her first, before taking Dora, without her father’s knowledge, to a stranger who made such a claim upon her.
“Though if it is her mother’s sister, I don’t know who could have a stronger claim upon her,” said Miss Bethune.
“Provided her mother had a sister,” the doctor said.
Miss Bethuneset out accordingly, without saying anything further, to see the invalid. She took nobody into her confidence, not even Gilchrist, who had much offended her mistress by her scepticism. Much as she was interested in every unusual chain of circumstances, and much more still in anything happening to Dora Mannering, there was a still stronger impulse of personal feeling in her present expedition. It had gone to her head like wine; her eyes shone, and there was a nervous energy in every line of her tall figure in its middle-aged boniness and hardness. She walked quickly, pushing her way forward when there was any crowd with an unconscious movement, as of a strong swimmer dividing the waves. Her mind was tracing out every line of the supposed process of events known to herself alone. It was her own story, and such a strange one as occurs seldom in the almost endless variety of strange stories that are about the world—a story of secret marriage, secret birth, and sudden overwhelming calamity. She had as a young woman given herself foolishly and hastily to an adventurer: for she was an heiress, if she continued to please an old uncle who had her fate in his hands. The news of the unexpected approach of this old man brought the sudden crisis. The husband, who had been nearher in the profound quiet of the country, fled, taking with him the child, and after that no more. The marriage was altogether unknown, except to Gilchrist, and a couple of old servants in the small secluded country-house where the strange little tragedy had taken place; and the young wife, who had never borne her husband’s name, came to life again after a long illness, to find every trace of her piteous story, and of the fate of the man for whom she had risked so much, and the child whom she had scarcely seen, obliterated. The agony through which she had lived in that first period of dismay and despair, the wild secret inquiries set on foot with so little knowledge of how to do anything of the kind, chiefly by means of the good and devoted Gilchrist, who, however, knew still less even than her mistress the way to do it—the long, monotonous years of living with the old uncle to whom that forlorn young woman in her secret anguish had to be nurse and companion; the dreadful freedom afterwards, when the fortune was hers, and the liberty so long desired—but still no clue, no knowledge whether the child on whom she had set her passionate heart existed or not. The hero, the husband, existed no longer in her imagination. That first year of furtive fatal intercourse had revealed him in his true colours as an adventurer, whose aim had been her fortune. But why had he not revealed himself when that fortune was secure? Why had he not brought back the child who would have secured his hold over her whatever had happened? These questions had been discussedbetween Miss Bethune and her maid, till there was no longer any contingency, any combination of things or theories possible, which had not been torn to pieces between them, with reasonings sometimes as acute as mother’s wit could make them, sometimes as foolish as ignorance and inexperience suggested.
They had roamed all over the world in an anxious quest after the fugitives who had disappeared so completely into the darkness. What wind drifted them to Bloomsbury it would be too long to inquire. The wife of one furtive and troubled year, the mother of one anxious but heavenly week, had long, long ago settled into the angular, middle-aged unmarried lady of Mrs. Simcox’s first floor. She had dropped all her former friends, all the people who knew about her. And those people who once knew her by her Christian name, and as they thought every incident in her life, in reality knew nothing, not a syllable of the brief romance and tragedy which formed its centre. She had developed, they all thought, into one of those eccentrics who are so often to be found in the loneliness of solitary life, odd as were all the Bethunes, with something added that was especially her own. By intervals an old friend would appear to visit her, marvelling much at the London lodging in which the mistress of more than one old comfortable house had chosen to bury herself. But the Bethunes were all queer, these visitors said; there was a bee in their bonnet, there was a screw loose somewhere. It is astonishing the number of Scotch families ofwhom this is said to account for everything their descendants may think or do.
This was the woman who marched along the hot July streets with the same vibration of impulse and energy which had on several occasions led her half over the world. She had been disappointed a thousand times, but never given up hope; and each new will-o’-the-wisp which had led her astray had been welcomed with the same strong confidence, the same ever-living hope. Few of them, she acknowledged to herself now, had possessed half the likelihood of this; and every new point of certitude grew and expanded within her as she proceeded on her way. The same age, the same name (more or less), a likeness which Gilchrist, fool that she was, would not see; and then the story, proving everything of the mother who was alive but unknown.
Could anything be more certain? Miss Bethune’s progress through the streets was more like that of a bird on the wing, with that floating movement which is so full at once of strength and of repose, and wings ever ready for a swiftcoupto increase the impulse and clear the way, than of a pedestrian walking along a hot pavement. A strange coincidence! Yes, it would be a very strange coincidence if her own very unusual story and that of the poor Mannerings should thus be twined together. But why should it not be so? Truth is stranger than fiction. The most marvellous combinations happen every day. The stranger things are, the more likely they are to happen. This was what she kept saying to herself as she hurried upon her way.
She was received in the darkened room, in the hot atmosphere perfumed and damped by the spray of some essence, where at first Miss Bethune felt she could scarcely breathe. When she was brought in, in the gleam of light made by the opened door, there was a little scream of eagerness from the bed at the other end of the long room, and then a cry: “But Dora? Where is Dora? It is Dora, Dora, I want!” in a voice of disappointment and irritation close to tears.
“You must not be vexed that I came first by myself,” Miss Bethune said. “To bring Dora without her father’s knowledge is a strong step.”
“But I have a right—I have a right!” cried the sick woman. “Nobody—not even he—could deny me a sight of her. I’ve hungered for years for a sight of her, and now that I am free I am going to die.”
“No, no! don’t say that,” said Miss Bethune, with the natural instinct of denying that conclusion. “You must not let your heart go down, for that is the worst of all.”
“It is perhaps the best, too,” said the patient. “What could I have done? Always longing for her, never able to have her except by stealth, frightened always that she would find out, or that he should find out. Oh, no, it’s better as it is. Now I can provide for my dear, and nobody to say a word. Now I can show her how I love her. And she will not judge me. A child like that doesn’t judge. She will learn to pity her poor, poor —— Oh, why didn’t you bring me my Dora? I may not live another day.”
In the darkness, to which her eyes gradually became accustomed, Miss Bethune consulted silently with a look the attendant by the bed; and receiving from her the slight, scarcely distinguishable, answer of a shake of the head, took the sufferer’s hand, and pressed it in her own.
“I will bring her,” she said, “to-night, if you wish it, or to-morrow. I give you my word. If you think of yourself like that, whether you are right or not, I am not the one to disappoint you. To-night, if you wish it.”
“Oh, to-night, to-night! I’ll surely live till to-night,” the poor woman cried.
“And many nights more, if you will only keep quite quiet, ma’am. It depends upon yourself,” said the maid.
“They always tell you,” said Mrs. Bristow, “to keep quiet, as if that was the easiest thing to do. I might get up and walk all the long way to see my child; but to be quiet without her—that is what is impossible—and knowing that perhaps I may never see her again!”
“You shall—you shall,” said Miss Bethune soothingly. “But you have a child, and a good child—a son, or as like a son as possible.”
“I a son? Oh, no, no—none but Dora! No one I love but Dora.” The poor lady paused then with a sob, and said in a changed voice: “You mean Harry Gordon? Oh, it is easy to see you are not a mother. He is very good—oh, very good. He was adopted by Mr. Bristow. Oh,” she cried, with a long crying breath, “Mr. Bristow ought to have done something for Harry.He ought to—I always said so. I did not want to have everything left to me.”
She wrung her thin hands, and a convulsive sob came out of the darkness.
“Ma’am,” said the maid, “I must send this lady away, and put a stop to everything, if you get agitated like this.”
“I’ll be quite calm, Miller—quite calm,” the patient cried, putting out her hand and clutching Miss Bethune’s dress.
“To keep her calm I will talk to her of this other subject,” said Miss Bethune, with an injured tone in her voice. She held her head high, elevating her spare figure, as if in disdain. “Let us forget Dora for the moment,” she said, “and speak of this young man that has only been a son to you for the most of his life, only given you his affection and his services and everything a child could do—but is nothing, of course, in comparison with a little girl you know nothing about, who is your niece in blood.”
“Oh, my niece, my niece!” the poor lady murmured under her breath.
“Tell me something about this Harry Gordon; it will let your mind down from the more exciting subject,” said Miss Bethune, still with great dignity, as if of an offended person. “He has lived with you for years. He has shared your secrets.”
“I have talked to him about Dora,” she faltered.
“But yet,” said the stern questioner, more and more severely, “it does not seem you have cared anything about him all these years?”
“Oh, don’t say that! I have always been fond of him, always—always! He will never say I have not been kind to him,” the invalid cried.
“Kind?” cried Miss Bethune, with an indignation and scorn which nothing could exceed. Then she added more gently, but with still the injured tone in her voice: “Will you tell me something about him? It will calm you down. I take an interest in the young man. He is like somebody I once knew, and his name recalls——”
“Perhaps you knew his father?” said Mrs. Bristow.
“Perhaps. I would like to hear more particulars. He tells me his mother is living.”
“The father was very foolish to tell him. Mr. Bristow always said so. It was on his deathbed. I suppose,” cried the poor lady, with a deep sigh, “that on your deathbed you feel that you must tell everything. Oh, I’ve been silent, silent, so long! I feel that too. She is not a mother that it would ever be good for him to find. Mr. Bristow wished him never to come back to England, only for that. He said better be ignorant—better know nothing.”
“And why was the poor mother so easily condemned?”
“You would be shocked—you an unmarried lady—if I told you the story. She left him just after the boy was born. She fell from one degradation to another. He sent her money as long as he could keep any trace of her. Poor, poor man!”
“And his friends took everything for gospel that this man said?”
“He was an honest man. Why should he tell Mr. Bristow a lie? I said it was to be kept from poor Harry. It would only make him miserable. But there was no doubt about the truth of it—oh, none.”
“I tell you,” cried Miss Bethune, “that there is every doubt of it. His mother was a poor deceived girl, that was abandoned, deserted, left to bear her misery as she could.”
“Did you know his mother?” said the patient, showing out of the darkness the gleam of eyes widened by astonishment.
“It does not matter,” cried Miss Bethune. “I know this, that the marriage was in secret, and the boy was born in secret; and while she was ill and weak there came the news of some one coming that might leave her penniless; and for the sake of the money, the wretched money, this man took the child up in his arms out of her very bed, and carried it away.”
The sick woman clutched the arm of the other, who sat by her side, tragic and passionate, the words coming from her lips like sobs. “Oh, my poor lady,” she said, “if that is your story! But it was not that. My husband, Mr. Bristow, knew. He knew all about Gordon from the beginning. It was no secret to him. He did not take the child away till the mother had gone, till he had tried every way to find her, even to bring her back. He was a merciful man. I knew him too. Oh, poor woman, poor woman, my heart breaks for that other you knew. She is like me, she is worse off than me: but the one you know wasnot Harry’s mother—oh, no, no—Harry’s mother! If she is living it is—it is—in misery, and worse than misery.”
“He said,” uttered a hoarse voice, breathless, out of the dimness, which nobody could have recognised for Miss Bethune’s, “that you said there was no such woman.”
“I did—to comfort him, to make him believe that it was not true.”
“By a lie! And such a lie—a shameful lie, when you knew so different! And how should any one believe now a word you say?”