CHAPTER XXIV
FOR more than a fortnight, every morning and every afternoon, Cara’s mother and nurse foregathered by appointment: sometimes at the band on the Leas, sometimes along the shady Lower Road; and here Letty would wheel the perambulator. Her admiration for the child was mutual, and she was terrified, lest the nurse should wonder why the little thing was always so ready to come to her, and why she invariably called her ‘Mamma.’
“I am sure, you must be like her mother,” said Smithson, “and that is why little Cara takes to you. Aye, and they do say, that she was wrapped up in her. Mr. Blagdon, he don’t care a brass farthing about the child, and was main angry, that miss Cara wasn’t a boy. He never comes to Sharsley, and the place was that dreary, the old nurse give notice—shewas a vinegar-faced one, if you like, and they do say was a spy on the lady. It was Lady Rashleigh—Mr. Blagdon’s sister—that engaged me. She’s a funny one, with a big face and a loud voice; it was her notion sending the child down here, and later on, maybe, she’s coming herself. She don’t care for Miss Cara—says we have her spoiled. What do you say to that, missy? Sometimes, you are a very naughty little girl, you know”(missy, drowsy and indifferent, closed her big blue eyes). Then the nurse lowering her voice, proceeded: “Sometimes she looks like a little angel, doesn’t she? But other times, I tell you, you’d think it was a little devil you had to deal with! Of course, there being no lady, it’s a responsible situation, and I’ve no nursemaid, as you see; it’s a good place, and the wages is first-class.Sixty—only for that, I never would stand the loneliness—and the child.”
Horrified and indignant, Letty took the part of her offspring, and replied:
“I have no doubt itislonely living in the corner of a great big house, with only Cara for your constant companion: but then the child is such a darling!”
“Eh, miss, you’ve heard the saying, ‘All is not gold that glitters’? This one, will give somebody a rare time yet; the best of her is all on the outside; inside, she is just a greedy, selfish, treacherous, little monkey!”
“Oh, nurse, how can you say such dreadful things of a poor innocent baby? I expect, that in your heart you really don’tcareabout children. Now do you?”
“Well, of course, miss, it’s only to you, a stranger, I would say what I do; it’s not likely, I’d tell this to one of her relations, and her auntie is down enough on her as it is.Shesees through her arts, when we stay with her in Town, and has given her some rare good smackings, I can tell you! To you, as I say, being a stranger, she is the most beautiful child in Folkestone—there is not another on the Leas to touch her; all the nursesenvies me, and people crowds round her, as if she was a show: and she smiles and carries on like anything—especially to the gentlemen. How she’s learnt such an awful amount of deceit, in such a short time, puzzlesme; she’s as sly as sly, and you’d never think there was so strong a will in that little bit of a body, and what she’ll be like, when she grows up, I’d be frightened to say! She’ll grow up soon, I expect; but there’s one thing I’m sure of, and that is, that, wherever she is, she’ll give trouble!”
These alarming prophecies on the part of nurse held no terrors for Letty, but only made her all the more determined to snatch her darling from a woman who did not appreciate her—who was not worthy to wheel her perambulator. Smithson was a tremendous talker, and, strange to say, exhibited no curiosity, with respect to her companion. Contented with the fact that she was a young lady who was rather delicate and was waiting at the ‘Grand’ for the arrival of a relative. Sometimes, she vaguely wondered why she seemed to know no one, and seemed so silent and downcast. However, this sociable stranger was an acceptable acquaintance, who often relieved her of her duties with Miss Cara; playing with the child on the beach for hours, wheeling her in the perambulator, making her daisy-chains, whilst Mrs. Smithson skipped through library novels, talked incessantly, and, occasionally leaving the lady in charge, took the opportunity to do a little shopping.
Mrs. Smithson had confided to Letty, that she had a cousin up at Shorncliffe: a sergeant-major with hiswife, and having no nursemaid had its drawbacks—for she could never leave the child, and have an afternoon off.
“Now there’s a play on at the theatre I’d give my two eyes to see, and go to thematinéenext Saturday with Carson and his wife; but I ask you, how can I?”
“You can manage it perfectly well,” rejoined Letty promptly. “I have nothing to do, and I shall be delighted to take charge of Cara.”
“Oh, miss, you are really too kind! But I couldn’t allow you to do such a thing.”
“I assure you I should really like it,” responded the arch-deceiver. “I am fond of Cara, and I think she is fond of me; so if you care to make your arrangements, there is nothing whatever to prevent you going to thematinée.”
After some half-hearted expostulations, and protestations, the whole thing was settled. Nurse Smithson was to have Saturday afternoon all to herself, from two till seven—so as to have ample time to go up to the camp to tea with her cousin—and as Letty walked back to lunch, she felt as if she was treading on air!
Saturday, and this was Tuesday! She had written to Mrs. Hesketh, who vehemently opposed her scheme; but seeing that Letty was fully determined to kidnap Cara, reluctantly agreed to assist her.
On Wednesday afternoon, she came down to Folkestone, in the hope of talking over her friend,—but this expectation was fruitless. The boot was on the other foot; it was Letty who talkedherover! She seemedchanged: to have acquired a consciousness of power, an air of graceful assurance, and the faculty of making up her mind!
At dinner, there was a truce between their wrestling personalities, but the new-comer resolved to have it out with her young friend, as subsequently they walked to the band on the lower Leas.
“Remember, Letty, you lose five hundred a year,” she began,à propos de rien, as they approached the rendezvous of hundreds of crowded chairs, the brilliantly lit bandstand, and caught the flashes from Cape Grisnez—illuminating a glassy Channel—starred with the fishing fleet.
“That is true,” assented her companion; “but then, I gain Cara, and, tome, she is worth ten times that sum.”
“Then, my dear, perhaps you will also tell me how you propose to live?” was the dry enquiry.
“I have saved two hundred pounds. Here are seats—what a crowd! I’ll pay the collector—it’s only coppers.”
Mrs. Hesketh, not a whit propitiated, went on to state that two hundred pounds in the hands of a girl who knew nothing of money, would not go far.
“Though,” she added, “of courseIwill help you.”
“No, no indeed,” protested Letty, putting down a strange dog that had sprung into her lap. “By and by I hope to earn my living, and I will ask you to draw, and to forward the interest on my legacy, and also to sell my pearls, my mother’s necklace. They arevaluable; an Indian Rajah gave them to my father for something he had done—saved him from an assassin, I believe.”
“Nonsense! No, I don’t mean about your father,” said her companion impatiently. “I have a plan; that is to say, if you are bent on carrying out this act of lunacy?”
“I am—oh, dearest cousin Maudie, Imust! You are strong and all-sufficient for yourself. I am a weak, invertebrate creature.”
“Invertebrate—good word!” interrupted her friend.
“And I must have something to live for—something tolove.”
“You had Lancelot Lumley.”
“That’s different! I would only bringhimshame and trouble; but Cara is mine. I will rescue her, form her character as well as ever I can,—and make her happy.”
“I wonder if she will makeyouhappy?”
“Of course she will. And now, what is your plan?”
“You can leave your pearls with me in pawn, and I will pay you thirty pounds a year on them, till you return home, and claim them.”
For a long time Letty combated this suggestion: in fact, all through the valse ‘Mes Rêves,’ played so seductively by the band.
But Mrs. Hesketh, a practical woman, was determined that her foolish friend should not fare forth into the cold world, quite penniless, with the exception of her hoarded two hundred pounds.
“And another thing, I must say, Letty, and that is about the nurse. Have you thought of the frightful trouble she will get into; and her state of mind when she returns and finds that you have stolen her charge?”
“Yes: I am leaving a present, and a letter to clear her entirely. I fancy she will be surprised when she discovers that, of all people, I am Cara’smother!”
“She won’t make friends again in a hurry, with pretty strange ladies! You are a child in the ways of the world; you have never in all your life had to depend upon yourself, you don’t know the value of money,—or how far it goes. As to earning it, I’m afraid you will not have much chance of that in Switzerland, among an untiring, and industrious people. Seventy pounds a year, will at least keep you from starvation: for Switzerland is a cheap country to live in—once you leave the radius of the big hotels—so you will give me your address, and four times a year I will send you seventeen pounds. And perhaps, if my health permits, I will go out, and settle myself down somewhere near you, for a little while.”
“That will be good of you. Oh, if you onlywould!”
“If it were suspected, that I was here with you, abetting and aiding your criminal act, and arranging for your departure, I should get into a nice scrape, but you know, my dear, I have always liked you, and I’m sorry you have made such an awful hash of your life.”
“So am I,” agreed Letty, with profound sincerity.
“My own marriage was not a success; my husbandand I were never sympathetic, we were always like two goats chained to a log; but we kept it to ourselves, and I am not sure, after all, that I am a very easy woman to live with. I am restless and discontented, I expect too much of life.”
“I should think you were excessively easy to live with, Cousin Maude; you and I got on together splendidly when we were abroad.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but then I am growing old, and the fires of life have died down. I must tell you, Letty, that I do not think, and never will think, that this step you are taking is awiseone. Of course, your motherly heart is empty without the child; but you are expatriating yourself on her account, you have relinquished almost every shilling in the world on her behalf, you have given up your friends, and you have given up Lancelot Lumley. I hope, as the years advance, that you will find that Cara has been worth this sacrifice, and that when old enough to be a companion, she will return your devotion four-fold.”
“But, Cousin Maude, I cannot seewhyyou think I am making a mistake?”
“I have longer sight than you: it is unnatural for a girl of one-and-twenty to cut herself adrift from the world, and devote her life absolutely to a baby of four. As I said to Blagdon, I have no doubt these things were done in years gone by,—when a wife’s whole existence was concentrated on her kitchen, and her nursery; but now we live in more advanced times; every woman has her place in the world, her individuallife—and, so to speak, her hand to play, and you are sitting down to take the part of Dummy!”
“Oh, Cousin Maude,” she protested, “how can you say so? I have this darling child, she will be all in all to me; it will be my pleasure to devote myself to her, to work for her, and to bring her up to begood. Think if I had left her with Hugo, or Hugo’s sister, to be educated under their influence. How soon her mind would be corrupted; what examples she would see before her! I daresay by the time she was sixteen she would be as bold and boisterous and evil-minded as the worst—at least, I shall save her fromthat.”
“I hope so, my dear, and I agree with you, that the society of Hugo Blagdon, his sister, and his friends, would be a deplorable education for any girl.”
After a pause she continued:
“You are getting back your looks, Letty, and your youth, and are no longer a stricken, haggard creature of thirty, but once more a girl in your springtime—you are divorced, and free. Supposing you were to come across somebody you really love, and were to marry again?”
“Oh, never, never! Besides, I don’t think a woman who has been divorced, should marry.”
“That is a much-debated question. And what if Lancelot Lumley were to return, and claim you? He has gone through the furnace for your sake. His poor old father has entirely lost his memory, and fortunately has never heard of the great Blagdon scandal. The last time I saw Frances, it seemed to methat she was changed; there were lines in her face, and she looked out of spirits, and down on her luck.”
“Poor Frances, I have indeed returned her evil for good. I cannot tell you what a support she was to me in those days when I was alone at Sharsley. I was so silly and nervous in that big house; always afraid to go to bed. My room was by itself in the west wing, and the rats in the wall, gave me palpitation of the heart, and I used to think of ghosts too—the blind Scrope lady, who gropes and fumbles outside doors—but Frances would come up with books and jokes, and insist on my going for walks with her, and talking me out of my fears. She and you, are my best, and only, friends.”
“Your best friend should be yourself, Letty—I can only offer you money and advice—you accept neither. How I wish I could give you what you want most—a will; a will to keep upon a certain steady path.”
“I am on the right path now,” she answered, “and, to follow your simile, hand in hand with Cara, I intend to stick to a road that leads to happiness.”
Mrs. Hesketh muttered something under her breath about a hedonist; then as the band played ‘God Save the King,’ they rose side by side, and presently were swallowed up in the streaming crowds returning to their several hotels; Letty expatiating on the beauty of the moonlit night, her companion dumb and distrait, in the face of the inevitable.
When the critical Saturday arrived, Nurse Smithson, dressed in her best, what she called ‘private’ clothes,and a superb hat, went off in high spirits to the theatre, attended by her friends. Letty collected the child’s belongings, packed them in a trunk, and took her away in a cab to the Pavilion Hotel, where she met Mrs. Hesketh, and her own luggage. By the four o’clock afternoon boat, among hordes of holiday passengers, was a remarkably pretty girl in blue serge, with a small fractious child in her charge. The two were sped by a distinguished lady friend, who waved to them from the end of the pier, as long as a handkerchief was visible.