Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his armMrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm
Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his armMrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm
Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm
Mrs. Gray rose and went close to him, laying her hand upon his arm
“Oh, please don’t, Mrs. Gray,” Bootles stammered. “Really I’d rather you’d chaff me.”
Mrs. Gray laughed outright. “Well, you know what my sentiments are, so for the future I will chaff you unmercifully.—Come in,” she added, in a louder tone, as a “tap-tap” sounded on the door.
The permission was followed by the entrance of Lacy, who came in with a pleasant “Good—er—morning,” and a soft laugh at the sight of the baby on the sofa.
“I—er—thought old Bootles would be here,” he explained. “And besides—I—er—wanted to see the babay. Seems to me, Bootles,” he added, staring with an absurd air of reflective wisdom at the infant, “as if the face is somehow familiar to me. Oh, I don’t mean you. It isn’t a bit like you. But there is a likeness, though I don’t know where to plant it.”
“Perhaps it will grow,” suggested Bootles.
“Ah! pewraps it will, and pewraps it won’t. The worst of the affair is that it is cwreating a pwrecedent”—not for worlds would he have admitted to his friend that he thought him the fine fellow he had declared him in the mess-room that morning—“and if we areallinundated withbabays I wreally don’t know” (plaintively) “what the wregiment will come to.”
“Gar—ah—gar—ah!” chuckled the subject of this speech over the gold knob at the top of Lacy’s whip. “Cluck—cluck—cluck!”
“Little beggah seems to find it a good joke, any way,” Lacy cried. “I’m a gwreat hand at nursing. Our adjutant’s wife in the White Dwragoons had thwree—all at once. I say, Mrs. Gwray, stick something on it, and I’ll take it out and show it wround.”
“Dare you?” she asked.
“Dawre I? Just twry. By-the-bye, it’s cold this morning—vewry cold.”
Mrs. Gray therefore fetched the child’s white coat and cap and those other white woollen articles, which Bootles now discovered to be leggings, and quickly transformed the little woman into a sort of snowball. The two men watched the operation with intense interest.
“La figlia del wreggimento,” laughed Lacy. “I declare, Bootles, she’s quite a credit to us. I never saw such apetite mademoiselle.”
Bootles started. It reminded him who had been jilted by his friend and died for love. He had always called her Mademoiselle Mignon.
“Mademoiselle Mignon,” he said, carelessly; “not a bad name for her.”
“Vewry good,” returned Lacy, preparing to present arms.
He proved himself a much better nurse than Bootles. He gathered the child on his left arm and marched off to the anteroom, in front of which the officers were standing about, waiting for church. They set up a shout at the sight of him, and crowded round to inspect the new importation. Mademoiselle Mignon bore the inspection calmly, conscious perhaps—as she was such a knowing little person—of the effect of her big, blue, star-like eyes under the white fur of her cap.
“What a pity she ain’t twenty years older!” was the first comment, and it was said in such a tone of genuine regret that all the fellows laughed again. Miss Mignon gobbled with satisfaction.
“Seems a jolly little beggar,” said another.
“Chut—chut—chut!” remarked Miss Mignon.
“Never saw such a jolly little beggar in all my life,” asserted another voice.
“Pretty work she’ll make in the regiment sixteen or seventeen years hence,” grumbled old Garnet.
“Ah, well, nevah mind, Garnet—nevah youmind, Major Garnet, sir,” cried Hartog, “we shall all be dead by then;” but this being an exceedingly old and threadbare regimental joke was instantly snubbed in the face of the new and substantial one.
“Has it any teeth?” demanded Miles, the orderly officer for the day.
“Don’t know. Open your mouth, little one,” said Lacy, gravely.
At this point Miss Mignon made a delighted lunge in the direction of the belt across Miles’s breast. Lacy shouted, “Whoa, whoa,” and Miles immediately backed out of reach. Miss Mignon’s mouth went dismally down, until Lacy remembered the knob of his whip, and held it up for delectation.
“Boo—boo!” she crowed.
“By Jove! She can half say Bootles already,” ejaculated Hartog. “And here he comes.”
“Now, then,” Bootles called out, “have any of you fellows made up your mind to own this little baggage?”
“No; none of us,” they laughed; but one man, Gilchrist by name, said, with a sneer, he should rather think not, and added two unnecessary words—“workhouse brat!”
Bootles turned, and looked down upon him in profoundest contempt.
“My dear chap,” he said, coolly, “to chargeyouwith being the father ofthatchild,” pointing with his whip to the picture in Lacy’s arms, “would be a compliment on your personal appearance which I should never, under any circumstances, have dreamed of paying you.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Hartog afterwards to Lacy, “Bootles is a dashed good fellow—one of the best fellows in the world. I don’t know that there’s another I’d trust as far or as thoroughly; but all the same, Bootles is sometimes best left alone, and, for my part, I think Gilchrist and every one else had best leave him alone about this youngster.”
“Ya—as,” returned Lacy; then began to laugh. “Oh! but it was fine, though, about ‘personal appearance.’” And then he added, “Ugly little beast!”
Itwas not to be expected, and Bootles did not expect it, that the story of the mysterious little stranger could be confined to barracks. In fact, in the course of a few hours it had flown all over the town, gaining additions and alterations by the frequency of its repetition, until at last Bootles himself could hardly recognize it. A baby had been found in Captain Ferrers’s rooms; no one knew where it had come from nor to whom it belonged. Then—Captain Ferrers had rescued a young baby from a brutal father who was going to dash its brains out against the door-post. Then—Captain Ferrers had picked up a new-born infant while hunting with the duke’s hounds. Then—Captain Ferrers was suffering from mental aberration, or, to speak plainly, was getting a bit cracked, and had adopted a child a year old out of Idleminster workhouse. Then—It was really most romantic, but Captain Ferrers had been engaged to and jilted by a young lady longago—which, of course, accounted for his being impervious to the fascinations of the Idleminster girls—who had married, been deserted by her husband, and now died—some versions of the story said “committed suicide”—leaving him the charge of a baby, etc.
Some people told one version of the story and some people told another, but nobody blamed Bootles very much. It might be because he was so rich and so handsome and pleasant; it might be because Idleminster society was free from that leaven of censoriousness which causes most people to look at most things from the worst possible view.
But Bootles went on his serene way, telling the true state of the case to every one who mentioned the affair to him, and always ending, “And hang it, you know, it’s a pretty little beggar, and Icouldn’tsend it to the workhouse.”
He made no secret about it at all, and on the Saturday following the advent of the child an advertisement appeared in the IdleminsterChroniclewhich made Idleminster tongues clack for a week:
“Wanted,immediately,a highly respectable and thoroughly experienced nurse of middle age,totake the entire charge of a child about a year old.Good wages to a suitable person.Apply to Captain Ferrers,Scarlet Lancers.”
“Wanted,immediately,a highly respectable and thoroughly experienced nurse of middle age,totake the entire charge of a child about a year old.Good wages to a suitable person.Apply to Captain Ferrers,Scarlet Lancers.”
In due time this advertisement produced the right sort of person, and a staid and respectable widow of about fifty was soon installed in a room next to Mr. Gray’s quarters, in charge of Miss Mignon, as the child had already come to be called by everybody.
It was a charming child—strong and healthy, seemed to have no trouble with temper or teeth, hardly ever cried, and might be seen morning and afternoon being wheeled by its nurse in a baby-carriage about the barrack square or along the road outside the Broad Arrow boundaries. And so, as the weeks rolled by and wore into months, it began to toddle about, and could say “Bootles” as plain as a pike-staff.
In April the Scarlet Lancers were moved from Idleminster to Blankhampton, where Bootles had to undergo a new experience, for every one there took him for a widower on account of the child.
Bootles would explain. “Take her about with me? Yes; she likes it. Always wants to go when she sees the trap. A bother? Not a bit of it; the jolliest little woman in creation, andas good as gold. What am I going to do with her when she grows up? Well, Lacy says he is going to marry her. If he don’t, somebody else will—no fear.”
Taking it all round, Miss Mignon had a remarkably good time of it, and seemed thoroughly to appreciate the pleasant places in which her lines had fallen. It was wonderful, too, what an immense favorite she was with “the fellows.” At first she had been “Bootles’s brat,” but very soon that was dropped, and by the time she could toddle, which she did in very good time, no one thought of mentioning her or of speaking to her except as “Miss Mignon.” Scarcely any of the officers dreamed for a moment of returning after a few days’ leave without “taking along,” as the Americans say, a box of sweets or a bundle of toys for Miss Mignon. Indeed the young lady came to have such a collection that after a while Mrs. Nurse’s patient soul arose, and with Captain Ferrers’s permission all the discarded ones were distributed among the less fortunate children of the regiment.
But Miss Mignon’s favorite plaything was Bootles himself—after Bootles, Lacy. People said it was wonderful, the depth of the affection betweenthe big soldier of thirty-five and the little dot of a child, scarcely two. Bootles she adored, and where Bootles was she would be, if by hook or by crook she could convey her small person into his presence. Once she spied him turn in at the gates on the right hand of the colonel, when the regiment was returning from a field-day, and escaping from her nurse’s hand, set off as hard as she could run in the direction of the band, which immediately preceded the commanding officer. Mrs. Nurse gave chase, but alas! Mrs. Nurse was stout, and had the ill luck, moreover, to come a cropper over a drain tile lying conveniently in her way, while the child, unconscious of danger, ran straight for Bootles. Neither Bootles nor Lacy, who was on the colonel’s left, perceived her until she was close upon them, waving her small hands, and shouting, in her shrill and joyous child’s voice, “Bootles! Bootles!”
It seemed to Bootles, as be looked past the colonel, that the child was almost under the hoofs of Lacy’s charger. “Lacy!” he called out—“Lacy!” But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s way; but when he turned round he saw that his friend’s face was as white as chalk.
But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s wayBut Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s way
But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s wayBut Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s way
But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s way
But Lacy was already on the ground, and caught Miss Mignon out of harm’s way
As for the colonel, when he saw Mrs. Nurse gathering herself up with rueful looks at the drain tile, he simply roared, and Miss Mignon chimed in as if it were the finest joke in the world.
“That was a smash,” she remarked, from her proud position on Lacy’s shoulder, “just like Humpty Dumpty”—a comment which gave that estimable person the name of Mrs. Humpty Dumpty as long as she remained with the regiment.
A few weeks after this the annual inspection came off, and Miss Mignon, resenting the lengthened absence of her Bootles, again managed to escape from her nurse, and pattered boldly, as fast as her small feet would carry her, right into the mess-room, where Bootles was sitting, just opposite the general, at the late lunch. Miss Mignon not seeing him at first, wandered coolly behind the row of scarlet-clad backs, until she spied him at the other side of the table. Then, having no awe whatever of inspecting officers, she wedged herself in between his chair and the colonel’s with a triumphant and joyous laugh.
The general gave a great start, and the colonel laughed. Bootles, in dismay, jumped up, and came quickly round the table to take her away.
“Well, you little rogue,” said the colonel, reaching a nectarine for her. “What do you want?”
“I wanted Bootles, sir,” said Miss Mignon, confidentially. “And nurse falled asleep, so I tooked French leave.” Almost the only peculiarity in her speech was the habit of making all verbs regular.
“And who are you, my little maid?” the general asked, in extreme amusement.
“Oh, I’m Miss Mignon,” with dignity.
The old general fairly chuckled with delight, and as he had put his arm round the child, Bootles, who was standing behind, could not very well take her away.
“Oh, Miss Mignon—hey? And whom do you belong to?”
“Why, to Bootles,” in surprise at his ignorance.
“To Bootles? And who is Bootles?”
“Bootles is Bootles, and I love him,” Miss Mignon replied, as if that settled everything.
“Happy Bootles!” cried the old soldier.
“What a lot of medals you’ve got!” cried Miss Mignon, pressing closer.
“I’m afraid, sir, she is troubling you,” Bootles interposed at this point, but secretly delighted with the turn affairs had taken.
“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”
“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”
“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”
“What a lot of medals you’ve got!”
“No, no; let her see my medals,” replied the general, who was as proud of his medals as Bootles of Miss Mignon.
“Are you a ‘sir’ too?” Miss Mignon asked, gazing at the handsome old man with more respect.
“What does she mean?” he cried.
Bootles laughed.
“Well, sir, she hears us speak to the colonel so, that is all.”
“Dear me! What a remarkably intelligent and attractive child!” exclaimed the general, quietly. “How old is she?”
“About two, sir.”
Now it happened that the old general had a craze for absolute accuracy, and he caught Bootles up with pleasant sharpness.
“Oh! Does that mean more or less?”
“I can’t say, sir. She is about two. I do not know the date of her birth.”
“Then she is not yours?”
“I am not her father, sir, but at present she belongs to me,” Bootles said, smiling. “I’m afraid—”
“Not at all, but perhaps she had better go. What a charming child!” This last was perhapsbecause Miss Mignon, finding her time had come—and she never made a fuss on such occasions—put two soft arms round his neck, and gave him such a genuine hug of friendship that the old man’s heart was quite taken by storm.
So Miss Mignon was carried off, looking back to the last over Bootles’s shoulder, and waving her adieu to the handsome old man, who had such a fascinating array of clasps and medals.
“I didn’t quite understand—what relation is the child to him?” he asked of the colonel.
“None whatever. Ferrers found her late one night in his bed, with her wardrobe, and a letter from the mother, written as if Ferrers was the father. He, however, gave me his word of honor that he knew nothing about it, and some of us think the whole affair was simply a plant, as he is known to be a very kind-hearted fellow. Others, however, Ferrers among them, think that note and child were intended for one of the others. Nobody, however, would own to it, and Ferrers has kept the child ever since—I don’t suppose he would part with her now for anything. I wanted him to send her to the workhouse, but ’tis a jolly bright little soul, and I am glad he did not.”
“Then he is not married?”
“Oh dear no. He pays a woman fifty pounds a year to look after her, and all her meals go from the mess. In fact, he is bringing her up as if she were his own; and the child adores him—simply adores him.”
“I respect that man,” said the general, warmly. “It is an awful thing for a child to be reared in a workhouse—awful.”
“Yes; Bootles feels very strongly on the subject,” replied the colonel, absently.
By the time Bootles returned, the officers had risen from the table, and he met the guests and the seniors just entering the anteroom.
“I’ll shake hands with you, Captain Ferrers, if you please,” said the general, cordially. “I agree with you that it is an awful thing for a child to be brought up in a workhouse. It is a subject upon which I feel very strongly—very strongly. A child reared as a pauper does not start the world with a fair chance. I have met so often, in the course of my military experience, with recruits bred in the Unions—I never knew one do well. No; pauperism is ground into them, and they are never able to shake it off.”
“Well, sir, that is my opinion,” said Bootles, modestly. “I hope, though, you won’t think mylittle maid is often so obtrusive as to-day. She is really always very good.”
“A charming little child,” replied the general, as if he meant it too, and then he shook hands with Bootles again.
Therewas only one blot in the sweetness and light of Miss Mignon’s baby character, so far as the officers of the Scarlet Lancers were concerned. Among them all there was only one whom she did not like. She had degrees of love—Bootles ranked first, then Lacy, then two or three groups of friends whom she liked best, better, and well; but she had no degrees of dislike where she did not love. She hated, hated fiercely and furiously, hated with all her baby heart and soul. There were several persons in her small world whom she detested thus, absolutely declining to hold communication or to accept overtures from them, however sweetly made; but there was only one of the officers who came under this head, and he was Gilchrist, the man who had dubbed her at firstworkhouse brat. Miss Mignon could not endure him. When old enough to understand that a certain box of sweeties had come from Mr. Gilchrist, she would drop it as if it burned her fingers, drawdown the corners of her mouth, and remark, “Miss Mignon is very much obliged;” an observation which invariably sent Bootles and Lacy off into fits of laughter, at which the little maid would fly open-armed to him, and cry, “But MignonlovesBootles.” But the fact remained the same, that Miss Mignon detested Gilchrist, who, indeed, was not a favorite in the regiment. Nor, indeed, did Gilchrist seem to like Miss Mignon any better, though he now and then brought his offerings of toys and bonbons like the rest. In the face of Bootles’s severe snub about the two odious words he had applied to her, he was hardly such a simpleton as to further rouse or annoy the most popular man in the regiment; yet if he could possibly cast a slur on Bootles or on the child he did it. Never from his lips came the pet name “Miss Mignon,” never did his black eyes rest on her without a sneer or a jibe; if he could by any chance twist Bootles’s words into an admission that the child was really his, he took care never to lose the opportunity.
“Oh, come, now,” Preston cried one day, when he had been sneering at Bootles and Lacy, who had just driven away with the child between them, “Bootles is a right good sort—no mistake on thatpoint. No sneaking hypocrisy about him. It would be well for you and me if we were half as fine chaps; but we are not, Gilchrist, and, what is more, we never shall be.”
“Oh no; but where is the mother of that brat?”
“How should I know? or Bootles? I shouldn’t mind laying my life that Bootles never did and never will cause her or any other woman to write such a letter as came with the child that night. Jolly good thing for this one if she was Bootles’s wife, instead of being tied up to the hound who bound her to secrecy and deserted her. Perhaps she’s dead, poor soul! Who knows?”
“Perhaps she isn’t,” Gilchrist sneered. “Some people never die.”
Good-natured and not very wise Preston stared at him, and Hartog looked from behind his newspaper, aghast at the bitterness of his tone.
“Good heavens, Gilchrist!” Preston cried, “are youwantingsomebody to die?”
Gilchrist tried to laugh, and succeeded very badly. He rose from his chair, knocking a few scattered cigar ashes carefully off his braided cuff.
“Well, I confess I should not be sorry to see that prating brat of Bootles’s out of the road. We should perhaps get at the truth then.” Andhaving delivered himself of this feeling speech, he went out, banging the door after him.
“Well, upon my soul!” exclaimed Preston.
“Oh, the man’s got a tile loose in his upper story,” said Hartog, decidedly. “No man in his senses would talk such miserable rot as that. Always thought Gilchrist a crazy fool myself, but I’m sure of it now.”
“And how he sticks to it Miss Mignon is Bootles’s own child—as if it could be any good for him to say she isn’t if she is.”
“No. I shall tell Bootles to keep an eye on Gilchrist. I say, what a comfort it would be if he would only exchange! I suppose we can’t manage to dazzle him with the delights of India, eh?”
“Not very well. Besides, he lost ever so much seniority by coming to us.”
“No such luck. It’s queer, though, he should be so persistent about Bootles and Miss Mignon. I suppose he wants to daub Bootles with some of his own mud. Thinks if he only throws enough, some of it’s sure to stick; and so it would with most men. Happily, however, it don’t in the least matter what a little cad like Gilchrist chooses to say about a man like Bootles—a jealous little beast.”
Neither of them said any more about the matter, but Hartog took the earliest opportunity of repeating to Bootles what “that ass Gilchrist” had said about seeing that prating brat of Bootles’s out of the road, and in consequence a kind of watch was set upon the child. Not that Bootles, though he had a very poor opinion of Gilchrist and Gilchrist’s brains, was afraid for a moment that he would give Miss Mignon poisoned bonbons, or run off with her and drop her in the river; yet he did think it not improbable that he might encourage an already dangerous spirit of adventure, and of course be absolutely blameless if she could get trampled by a horse’s cruel hoofs, or crushed by one of the many traps going in and out of barracks.
When Bootles had taken his first long leave after Miss Mignon’s coming, he had left her at Idleminster in charge of her nurse; but when long leave came round again, and she must have been about two and a half, he decided to take her with him. One reason for this was certainly a fear of any pranks Gilchrist might choose to play, another that Lacy was taking his leave at the same time, and Bootles was afraid, in the absence of both, Miss Mignon might fret herself into a fever. And,besides, he had missed the child during a fortnight’s deer-stalking in Scotland that autumn more than he would have liked to own.
From Blankhampton, therefore, they went to his place, Ferrers Court, where he was to entertain a rather large party for Christmas, with a sister of his mother’s, and his only near relative, to do the honors for him, and among his guests a Mrs. Smith, a widow, and sister to that dead girl to whom he fancied a resemblance in Miss Mignon. However, at the last moment, Mrs. Smith wrote to excuse herself.
“I am very, very sorry,” she said, “but a very dear friend of mine, with whom I spent two winters in Italy, has suddenly appeared, with a travelling companion and two maids, to pay me a long-promised visit of at least two months. She is a Russian countess—a widow like myself, and wishes, I fancy, to improve her English, which she already speaks very well. Of course I am dreadfully disappointed, but cannot help it.”
Now it happened that Bootles had a very deep and great respect and liking for Mrs. Smith, and not for all the widowed countesses in Russia was he willing to upset his plans; therefore he wrote off at once to Mrs. Smith, after a five minutes’consultation with Lady Marion, to beg her to carry out her original intentions, and bring Madame and her retinue “along.” Would she telegraph her reply?
Mrs. Smith did so, the reply being, Yes. Moreover, she supplemented the telegram by a letter, in which she mentioned among other things that Madame Gourbolska’s travelling companion must be treated in all ways as an ordinary guest.
So, at the time originally appointed for Mrs. Smith’s coming, the party of six—three ladies and three maids—arrived. Bootles himself went to the station to meet them. He found that Madame Gourbolska was young, not more than thirty, of the plump and fair Russian type, quite fair enough to hold her own beside Mrs. Smith, whom he regarded as the most beautiful woman of his acquaintance. The third lady, Miss Grace, was fair also, perhaps not so positively beautiful as either the English or the Russian lady, but fair-haired, fair-skinned, with soft blue-gray eyes, intensely blue in some lights, as Bootles noticed directly. Graceful she was to a degree, and as he watched her move across the little station he thought how wonderfully her name suited her.
Mrs. Smith smiled at him as he helped her tomount to the top of the omnibus. “Is not the likeness wonderful?” she said, with one of those quick sighs with which we speak of our dead; and then she said, “Poor Rosy.”
Bootles turned and looked at Miss Grace again, his mind going back to those dark days, past and gone now, when he and his best friend had been estranged for honor’s sake; when he and this imperially beautiful woman had stood side by side watching a young life die out; had together seen the sacrifice of a heart, the martyr of love to man.
“Yes, it is very great,” he said, briefly.
That dead sister of Mrs. Smith had always been and would always be a not-to-be-broken bond of union between them, for the widow knew how gladly “that grand Bootles,” as she always called him, would have tried to make up for the love she had lost, while to Bootles Mrs. Smith stood out from the rest of womankind as the sister of the only woman he had ever wished or asked to marry him.
He helped Miss Grace up to the seat beside Mrs. Smith, and took his own place beside the Russian lady, who entertained him very well during the three miles’ drive between Eagles Station and Ferrers Court.
In another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-wayIn another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-way
In another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-wayIn another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-way
In another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-way
In another moment they had drawn up at the great gothic door-way
“Oh, but what a paradise!” she cried, as the carriage turned into the court-yard.
“I am delighted that it pleases you,” he answered, glancing round to see what effect his ancestral home had upon Miss Grace.
“Lovely!” she murmured to Mrs. Smith.
In another moment they had drawn up at the great Gothic door-way, and immediately the figure of a little child dressed in white appeared on the top of the broad steps, kissing her small hands in token of welcome.
“Go in directly; you’ll get cold. Go in, I say,” Bootles called out. It was, indeed, bitterly cold, and a few flakes of snow were falling. But Miss Mignon had a budget of news for her Bootles, and was not to be done out of telling it.
“Lal has had a letter from home,” she piped out in her shrill voice. Lal was her name for Lacy, and home meant Blankhampton Barracks. “And the St. Bernard has gotted two puppies—beauties—and I’m to have one. Lal says so. And Terry has broked his leg.” Terry was one of Bootles’s grooms. “And Major Ally’s going to be married.”
Bootles was so surprised that he forgot the cold and his order that Miss Mignon should go in.
“What!” he exclaimed, incredulously.
Just then Lacy himself came to the top of the steps with open arms, so to speak, and carried off Mrs. Smith into the house. Miss Mignon took advantage of the opportunity to run down the steps just as Bootles helped Madame Gourbolska to the ground.
“I welcome you with much pleasure,” he said, cordially—“Miss Grace also,” as he gave her his hand to jump the last step. “I am afraid you are tired. You are very white.”
“I am tired,” she said, in a low voice, not looking at him, but at the child.
“It is so bitterly cold. Don’t stand a moment. Mignon,willyou go in?”
Miss Mignon skipped up the steps, and the Russian lady caught her in her arms.
“Oh, you little angel! and what is your name?”
“I’m Miss Mignon. You’re a very pretty lady,” returned Mignon, critically. “I wanted to go to the station, but Bootles said it was too cold, and Lal—”
“Madame does not know what Bootles and Lal mean,” interrupted Bootles.
“This is Bootles, and that’s Lal,” Miss Mignon informed her. “I’m Miss Mignon, and I belong to Bootles.”
“Oh, you belong to Bootles. I am sure he must be very proud of you,” Madame answered.
“I believe I’m a great bother to him,” Miss Mignon announced, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Bootles laughed. “Come to the fire, Madame,” he said. Then turning to Miss Grace, “I’m sure you are very cold—you are as white as a ghost. I’m sure,” addressing Lady Marion, “Aunt Marion, wine would be much better than this tea.”
“No, no; tea,” they cried—at least the two elder ladies, for Miss Grace seemed to have no ears for any one but the child.
“Won’t you speak to me?” she asked, presently, as Miss Mignon gravely regarded her with her big blue eyes.
Miss Mignon went close to her immediately. “Did Bootles let you drive?” she asked, with interest.
Miss Grace shook her head, and lifted Miss Mignon onto her knee. “I did not ask him,” she said.
“Oh!” Then, after a pause, “I al—ways do.”
“But not a pair?” in surprise.
Miss Mignon nodded. “When they’re not too fresh. Bootles would have letted you, if you’d asked him.”
“I will another time.”
“Lacy,” said Bootles, suddenly, “is it true about Allardyce?”
“Hartog says so. They say she—er—dwrinks like a duck.”
“Pooh!” But Bootles laughed as if it was a great joke, and Mrs. Smith begged to be enlightened.
“Oh! don’t you remember Allardyce? He’s the great military teetotal light.”
“And—er—he wreally is anAWFULduf-fah,” remarked Miss Mignon, in so exact and so unconscious an imitation of Lacy’s drawl that her hearers went off into fits of laughter, and Miss Grace, clasping her close to her breast, bent, and kissed the luxuriant golden curls.
“You’re crying,” said Miss Mignon, promptly, scanning Miss Grace’s face with her big eyes.
“No; but you made me laugh,” she said, hastily.
“Some people do cry when they laugh,” Miss Mignon informed her. “Our colonel does. Now Major Garnet always chokes, and then Bootles thumps him. I don’t know what he’ll do,” she added, in a tone of deep concern, “if he chokes while we are away.”
“I never saw such an original little piece ofmischief in my life,” cried Mrs. Smith. “And how charmingly dressed—is she not, Madame? So sensible of you to cover her up with that warm serge up to her throat and down to her wrists. Who put you up to it?”
“I fancy we evolved the idea among us. You see she runs in and out of my rooms, her own, and Mrs. Gray’s, the adjutant’s wife, that is,” Bootles answered. “And barrack corridors are not exactly hot-houses. Besides, our doctor keeps his eye on her, and he blames the wrapping-up for her never having a day’s illness.”
“I believe in it,” asserted Mrs. Smith.
“And I—oh! our married ladies tell me I am quite an authority on the subject. I can tell you we get fearfully chaffed about her, Lacy and I.”
“Why?” Miss Grace asked.
“Well, because she goes about with us a good deal, and people seem to find the situation difficult to understand.” He took it for granted that she knew all about Miss Mignon, and she did not press the question further. But half an hour later, when Mrs. Smith was thinking of dressing, Miss Grace tapped at her door and entered.
“Could you lend me a few black pins?” sheasked. “Madame and I have both forgotten them.”
“Certainly, my dear—take the box.”
But Miss Grace only took a few in the pink palm of her hand.
“What a pretty child that is!” she said, carelessly. “Did the mother die when it was born?”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Mrs. Smith, “she is not Captain Ferrers’s child. No relation whatever.”
“No? Whose, then?”
“Ah! That is a question.” Then she briefly told Miss Mignon’s history, ending: “But he will never part with her now. He is so fond of her, and she adores him.”
“He is a fine fellow,” said Miss Grace, toying with the pins in her hand.
“A fine fellow! He is a splendid character,” Mrs. Smith cried, warmly. “I assure you I have studied that man—and I have known him for years—and Icannotfind a fault in him. Years ago, when we were in great trouble, my mother and I, at the time my sister died, oh, hewasso good, so—well,” with a quick sigh, “I cannot explain it all, but he was such a comfort to us, and she died, poor darling, under very painful circumstances, especially for me. Oh, there are very few in theworld like him—not one in ten thousand. Take his action as regarded that dear little child, for instance. His brother officers wanted him to send her to the workhouse, but as he wrote to me, ‘Some day I may meet the mother, and how should I face her?’”
“Ah!” murmured Miss Grace, and Mrs. Smith went on.
“It was no small undertaking for a man in his position, for he has not left her to the entire care of servants—she is continually with him and Mr. Lacy, who is also very fond of her. Do you know, he pays her nurse fifty pounds a year. In fact, she is just as if she were really his own child. But it is just like him.”
“And they would have sent her to the workhouse?”
“One or two of them—not Mr. Lacy, of course.”
Miss Grace was silent for a few moments. Then she roused herself as from a brown-study.
“Well, I am detaining you, Mrs. Smith, and shall be late myself. Thank you very much.” Then she went away, passing softly down the corridor, and entered her room, locking the door behind her. But once in that safe shelter she flung the pins on the table and dropped upon her knees, burying herface in her hands, while the scalding tears forced their way between her fingers, and the great sobs shook her frame. “‘Some day he might meet the mother,’ she sobbed, ‘and how should he face her?’ Oh, my child, my little child, how shall I face him? How shall I bear it? How shall I live in the same house with him without falling on my knees and blessing him for saving my little child from—God knows what?”
Lacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian ladyLacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady
Lacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian ladyLacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady
Lacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady
Lacy was occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady
Amonthhad passed, and the three ladies still remained at Ferrers Court, though other visitors had come and gone, lots of them. Lacy was still there also, and occupied in making desperate love to the Russian lady, utterly ignoring two important facts—one that she only laughed at him, the other that she was three years his senior.
But while all this was going on, Bootles had fallen in love at last, as men and women only fall once in their lives, and of course the lady was Madame Gourbolska’s friend, Miss Grace—had he but known it, the mother of Mignon.
But Bootles never suspected that for a moment. True, there was a likeness so strong as to proclaim the truth, and many a time Miss Grace wondered, when she caught sight of the child’s face and her own in a glass, that all these people did not see it. Yet neither Bootles nor any one else did see it, and the game of love was played on with desperate earnestness on his side, and with equally desperate desire to prevent it on hers.
But Bootles admired shy game, and Miss Grace’s evident shyness made him only the more earnest; and not being troubled with that faint heart which never won fair lady, he had no intention of allowing Madame Gourbolska to depart from beneath his roof without asking Miss Grace to return to it as its mistress. Therefore one afternoon, when he returned from hunting in much bespattered pink, and went into the fire-lit library, where he found Miss Grace half dreaming by the fire, he shut the door with the intention of getting it over at once. Miss Grace rose with some signs of confusion.
“Don’t go for a minute,” said Bootles; “I want to speak to you. It seems to me that you have grown very fond of my little Mignon. Is it not so?”
Miss Grace caught at the carvings of the oaken chimney-shelf to steady herself, and her heart began to beat hard and fast.
“Yes, I am very fond of her,” she stammered.
“I wish you would take her for your own,” Bootles said, very gently.
“For—my own?” sharply. “What do you mean?”
For a moment she thought he knew all, but his next words undeceived her.
“If she had such a mother as you, poor little motherless waif, and ifIhad such a wife, and if Ferrers Court had such a mistress! Oh! don’t you understand what I mean?” taking her hand.
Miss Grace snatched the hand away. “Oh, don’t,don’t,DON’T!” she said, turning away.
But Bootles possessed himself of it again. “Must I tell you more? Oh, my darling, how from the very first day I ever saw you I loved you with all my heart and soul? How, when I bade you welcome to my house, I could, and would if I had dared, have taken you up to my heart and kissed you before every one? How—”
“Oh, tell me nothing—nothing!” she cried, with feverish haste. “Don’t you understand it cannot be? It is impossible—quite impossible.”
“Impossible!” he echoed, blankly. “Why is it impossible? Not because you don’t care, that I’ll swear.”
She said nothing.
“Or, if that is so, look at me and say I don’t love you.”
But Miss Grace did not speak, nor yet did she look.
“Or will you tell me that there is some oneelse whom you like better?” he asked, regaining hope.
No, Miss Grace did not seem inclined to vouchsafe that information either.
“Or that the care of the child would be an objection?”
“No!” she burst out, in an agonized tone.
“Then what do you mean by impossible?” he asked. “It seems to me very possible indeed.”
She looked at him—that proud, handsome, erect man, with a smile of expectant happiness on his good face—and tried to take her hands away.
“Oh!” she sobbed out, “don’t you think I would if I could? I have not been so happy that I would throw away such happiness as you could give me. Some day you may know what it costs me to tell you that it is quite impossible.”
“You give me no hope?” he asked, in a dull voice, and she saw that he had grown white to his very lips.
“None,” she returned; then added, bitterly, “Oh, hope and I have had nothing to say to one another this long, long while.”
Bootles dropped her hand listlessly. “Then it is no use my boring you,” he said, turning away.