"BABA LOVES YOU VERY MUCH."
"Will the lady who on Monday morning brought Baba home out of the fog,
kindly call at 100, Eaton Square, any time between eleven and one
o'clock?"
The words seemed to start from the printed page before Christina's
eyes, and she read them over and over again with growing wonder. It
was Friday morning, two days after her two disastrous visits--one to
the shut-up house in Bayswater, the other to the insolent
jewellers--and with difficulty she had managed to crawl round to the
Free Library, feeling that she dared leave no stone unturned in a fresh
search for work. The day before she had perforce spent in bed, for her
day of fatigue, emotion, and exposure to the weather, had been followed
by a night of fever and aching limbs; and on the Thursday morning she
could scarcely lift her head from the pillow. But on Friday, realising
affrightedly that each day brought her nearer to absolute destitution,
she made a herculean effort, got up and dressed, and, feeling more dead
than alive, dragged herself to the library, to study the monotonous
advertisement columns of the newspapers. And having wearily glanced
down the familiarly-worded lines, in which nursery governesses and
companions were asked for, at wages that would not satisfy the average
kitchen-maid, she turned to the front page of the _Morning Post_, and
found herself confronted with the advertisement that now held her
astonished eyes:
"Will the lady who on Monday morning brought Baba home out of the fog,
kindly call at 100, Eaton Square, any time between eleven and one
o'clock."
Unless there were two Babas in the world, and two ladies who had taken
them home out of the fog, she herself was clearly the person indicated
by the advertisement; and as the square in which the bewitching baby
had been taken from her by an excited footman, was certainly Eaton
Square, she had little doubt but that the advertiser wished to thank,
and perhaps to reward, her. A hot flush came into her white cheeks as
the word "reward" entered her mind; all her instincts revolted against
the notion of being rewarded for doing what had been a most obvious
duty. But with the instinct of revolt came also a little rush of hope.
To the tired girl the advertisement seemed like a friendly hand
outstretched towards her; and though pride whispered to her to pay no
heed to it, and to ignore it altogether, the sense that kindliness
towards a total stranger had prompted the advertisement, fought hard
with pride. After all, if she went to 100, Eaton Square, she need
accept nothing at the hands of the inmates: that they should wish to
thank her for the safe return of their little one was only natural, and
it would be churlish of her to refuse to be thanked.
In her excitement, she omitted to take down any addresses of employers;
for the first time since she had begun to haunt the Free Library, she
went out of its doors without a list of names to which letters must be
written, setting forth her own qualifications for tending children, or
amusing the elderly. She had actually forgotten to draw from her
pocket the sheet of notepaper she never failed to bring with her on her
morning quest, so full was her mind of the coming visit to Eaton
Square. Her weary limbs still refused to hurry, and she walked slowly
back to her lodgings, "to make herself tidy," as she put it, before
venturing into what was to her an actually new world. Her heart was
beating very fast as she rang the bell of the great Eaton Square
mansion, and, thanks partly to nervousness, partly to fatigue, her legs
were trembling so much, that she was obliged to clutch at the wall for
support, to prevent herself from falling. A footman flung open the
door--a tall, rather supercilious footman, whose face was not the
good-natured, foolish face of the James who had lifted the red-cloaked
baby from her arms. This man looked the visitor up and down with a
comprehensive stare, which held in it both enquiry and contempt, and
had the effect of banishing Christina's small remnant of courage.
"Could I--see--the lady of the house?" she asked.
"What might you want with her?" the servant demanded with a sniff.
"There was an advertisement in to-day's _Morning Post_," the girl
answered, her voice shaking with nervous weariness; "it said, 'call
between eleven and one'--and I came to----"
"Come after the place, have you?"--the footman's tone changed to one of
huge condescension. "Oh! well, step in, and I'll see if her ladyship
can see you."
"The place!--her ladyship!" Christina looked at the man with bewildered
eyes, and said faintly--"I don't know anything about a place. I have
not come for that. Only the advertisement said, 'call between eleven
and one o'clock.'"
"Step inside," came the short order, whilst Henry, the first footman,
inwardly remarked that he wished her ladyship wouldn't go putting in
advertisements, and not mentioning them to the establishment. "Take a
seat there, and I'll ascertain whether her ladyship is disengaged."
Had Christina been in her normal health, the man's grandiloquent manner
and language would have amused her. With her nerves at high tension,
her limbs trembling, and her whole frame exhausted and weary, she felt
only a great inclination either to flee out of the front door, or to
sit down and cry. The hall, softly-carpeted and warm, fragrant with
the flowers massed in great pots at the foot of the staircase, and
quiet with the stillness of a well-ordered house, oppressed her. The
solemn voice of a grandfather clock in the corner, had only the effect
of making the prevailing silence more noticeable, and Christina
experienced a wild longing to scream, or to burst into uncontrollable
laughter, just to break the stillness which weighed upon her like a
nightmare.
"Will you come this way, please?"
She started violently as the footman's voice sounded close to her. His
footstep on the thick pile of the stair carpet had been quite
inaudible, and she was surprised to see him once more beside her. At
his bidding she rose mechanically, and followed him up the wide
staircase, whose soft carpet was a bewildering novelty to the girl
accustomed to the simplest surroundings, across a landing, fragrant,
like the hall, with growing roses and exotic plants, into a small
boudoir, in which she found herself alone. In all her twenty years of
life she had never before been in a room like this room, and, standing
in the centre of it, just where her guide had left her, she looked
round her timidly, and drew a long breath of admiration and amazement.
The murkiness of the November day that darkened the world outside, did
not appear to enter into this lovely apartment, which gave Christina a
sense of summer and sunshine.
"It is just like a pink rose," she said to herself, her eyes wandering
from the walls, delicately tinted a soft rose colour, to the sofa and
chairs upholstered in a deeper shade of the same colour, and the
carpet, whose darker tint of rose harmonised with the paler hues.
Every table seemed to the girl to overflow with books and magazines;
bowls of flowers, vases of flowers, pots of flowers, stood on every
available shelf, and in every possible corner. The windows were draped
with rose-coloured silk curtains, that made even the grey sky beyond
them look less grey, and the pictures on the walls drew a gasp of
delight from Christina's lips. They were mainly landscapes, and in
almost every case they represented wide spaces, open tracts of country,
that gave one a sense of life and freshness. Here was an expanse of
sea, blue and smiling as the sky that stooped to meet it; there, long
green rollers swept up a sandy beach, whilst clouds lit up by a rift of
sunshine, lay on the horizon. On this side was a moorland, purple with
heather, bathed in the glory of the setting sun; on that side, a plain,
far-reaching as the sea itself, soft and green and misty, bounded by
mountains, whose snow-crowned summits stood out in serried stateliness
against the faint blue sky. In a looking-glass hanging on the wall,
Christina caught sight of her own reflection, and a shamed
consciousness of her white face and shabby clothes, gave her a sense of
the incongruousness between her own appearance, and the loveliness
around her. But this uneasy sense of discrepancy had barely entered
her mind, when the door opened, and there entered a tiny personage,
whose daintiness made Christina all at once feel huge, awkward, and
ungainly.
"It was sweet of you to come," the little lady exclaimed, holding out
to the girl a white hand flashing with diamonds, "you are the kind lady
who brought my Baba home? Henry was very incoherent; he always is, in
a grand, long-winded way of his own. But I gathered from his
meandering remarks, that you had come in answer to my advertisement."
"Yes," Christina answered; "I saw it--the advertisement--in the
_Morning Post_ to-day. I thought it was so kind of you to advertise,
that I came. But, of course, when I brought the darling baby home, I
only did what everybody else would have done," she added, rather
breathlessly.
"A lady--and very proud," the thought ran through her listener's brain;
but aloud the little lady only said:
"I can't put into words how grateful I am to you, all the same. You
see, my little girlie is my ewe lamb--my only child--and she is very
precious. If anything had happened to her, I--oh! but we mustn't talk
about dreadful things that might happen, when I hope they never will.
Baba was a naughty monkey to run out alone. But she is rather a sweet
monkey, isn't she?"
"She is one of the dearest babies I ever saw," Christina answered
simply, sitting down in the chair her hostess pushed forward for her,
and feeling some of her awkwardness slipping from her, in presence of
this kindly, dainty little lady. With girlish enthusiasm her eyes
drank in the loveliness of the other's fair face, its delicate
colouring, its crown of bright hair; the perfection of the tiny form,
the gracefulness of the dead black gown, that fell in exactly the right
folds, and was hung as no dress of poor little Christina's had ever
been persuaded to hang.
"Baba--we call her Baba, because her own name, Veronica, is so big for
such a baby--has managed to get rather out of hand since her nurse
left. We do try not to spoil her, but we don't always succeed very
well. I think you must be very fond of children--aren't you? You made
a great impression on Baba."
"I love little children," Christina answered, with the simplicity and
sincerity which characterised her; "since I have had to earn my own
living, I have been a nursery governess."
"It is very absurd, but I don't even know your name, and I daresay you
are equally ignorant of mine?" the little lady in the armchair
exclaimed, with a gay laugh. "Rupert did not put any name in the
advertisement; he said it was wiser not--but I am Lady Cicely
Redesdale, and Baba, as I say, is my only child, and--very precious."
Lady Cicely's blue eyes looked thoughtfully at Christina, her last
words were spoken absently.
"I did not even know into which house the small girl was carried on
Monday," Christina replied, laughing also; "the footman ran along the
pavement when he saw us, and until I read your advertisement to-day, I
had no idea which number in the square was the one he had come from.
My name is Moore--Christina Moore--and I live in Maremont Street."
"In Maremont Street? But--isn't that rather a--wretched neighbourhood
for you? Do your people live there?"
"I have no people," the girl answered, an unconscious wistfulness in
her eyes that appealed to Lady Cicely's kind heart. "I lost my father
and mother three years ago, and since then I have been living with some
friends, and taking care of their children. But now they have gone to
Canada and I am alone in the world." It was said without any _arriere
pensee_; no thought of exploiting her loneliness crossed Christina's
mind. The sympathetic glance of the blue eyes watching her, led her on
to frankness of speech, and to speak to an educated lady again was a
delight, to which for the past few months she had been an entire
stranger.
"And you--are obliged to work for yourself?" Lady Cicely put the
question with hesitating kindliness.
"Oh, yes"--a faint smile crossed Christina's face--"and just now it is
rather hard to get. Nobody seems to want the sort of work that I can
do. You see, I have had very little education--not enough to teach big
children--and I have no certificates or diplomas, or anything. I don't
think my father ever dreamt that I should have to earn my own living,
or he would have had me trained to do it."
"But you have taken care of little children?" again Lady Cicely's eyes
searched the girl's face earnestly--"and you are very fond of them?"
"I love them," Christina said, for the third time, "and I am never
tired of being with them, and taking care of them. But there are such
lots of other girls like me, with very few qualifications, and so,
though I answer ever so many advertisements, I can't get a place."
"Do you mind waiting here just a moment?" Lady Cicely asked abruptly.
"I--I should like you to see Baba before you go; perhaps we might
find--we might think----" and with this vague sentence, the small lady
went out of the room, leaving Christina puzzled and wondering.
Lady Cicely meanwhile hurried downstairs to the library, where a man
sat looking over a mass of legal papers.
"Rupert," she exclaimed impetuously, "it is the girl who brought Baba
back, and my brain is teeming with plans for helping her."
"Is she a young person?"
"No, no--a lady. Very shabby, very tired-looking, very poor, I should
guess; but unmistakably a lady. And--I'm so sorry for her, Rupert; she
is just a slip of a girl, who looks as if she wanted mothering."
"Now, Cicely, do you wish to embark on the mother's role? As one of
your trustees, let me warn you I shan't allow any quixotism."
"Leave those tiresome old papers for five minutes, and come and see
this girl. I don't want to be quixotic, and I am ready to abide by
your judgment, but come and look at Miss Moore."
"The tiresome old papers are fairly important deeds connected with your
estate, and the future inheritance of your daughter, Miss Veronica Joan
Redesdale," her cousin answered with a laugh; "but I suppose your
ladyship's whims must take precedence of your property. Where is Miss
Moore?"
"In my boudoir, and very shy. I am sure she was afraid at first that I
meant to offer her money, there was a sort of proud shrinking in her
eyes--and she has very pretty eyes, too. Of course, my idea _had_ been
to offer her money, because I imagined she would be of the shop-girl
type, but I should as soon think of offering you money, as of
suggesting giving it to Miss Moore."
"Come along, then; let us get the inspection over. But, if you can't
give her money, what do you propose to do with her?"
"I--thought"--Lady Cicely paused, glanced into her cousin's grave face,
and glanced away again--"I fancied, perhaps, I might help her to get
work. She is horribly poor, and she looks half-fed, and so tired.
I--well--I--really and truly, Rupert, I wondered whether she could come
here as nurse to Baba."
A low whistle was Rupert's response, then he said slowly--
"You didn't suggest this to her, did you? You are so kind, so
impulsive, but, remember this girl is a perfect stranger. She may
be--anything. As you yourself told me two days ago, you must have
unimpeachable references with anyone who takes charge of Baba."
"Of course I said nothing to her. Now, Rupert, I know I am impulsive,
but I am not entirely devoid of all common sense. Come and give me
your opinion, and I promise--yes, I absolutely _promise_--to be guided
by you."
Rupert's grey eyes smiled down with brotherly affection into his little
cousin's face, and he followed her obediently from the room, and
upstairs, wondering vaguely why it was, that, much as he cared for and
admired Cicely, she had never inspired him with any deeper affection.
Like an elder brother to her from her earliest childhood, the brotherly
relation had continued between them after Cicely's marriage, and it had
been by her dead husband's most earnest wish, and specified
instructions, that Mernside was one of her trustees and Baba's
guardians, and Mr. Redesdale had bidden his wife consult Rupert about
everything connected with the estate and its baby heiress.
On the landing at the head of the stairs a small figure with flying
golden curls, and filmy white frock, flung herself upon her mother,
shrieking delightedly.
"Baba's runned away from Jane. Now Baba come with mummy."
"Oh, Baba, you are not a good baby," Cicely exclaimed, with an attempt
at severity, which only produced a chuckle from the small girl; "it is
time mummy found a very stern nurse. Nevertheless her appearance is
opportune," she said, _sotto voce_, to Rupert. "I told Miss Moore I
would fetch Baba, and I don't want her to feel she is being inspected.
Run on into mummy's boudoir, sweetheart," she added aloud to the child,
"there's somebody there for Baba to see."
It was a pretty sight which greeted the two elders when, a moment
later, they entered the rose-coloured room; and Rupert paused for an
instant in the doorway, to look and smile. Baba, after one short
glance at the stranger, who had risen from her chair, made a rush
across the room towards her, clasped her round the knees, and cried
fervently--
"Dat's Baba's lady, what found her in the ugly fog. Kiss Baba," and,
at the moment of their entrance, Rupert and Cicely saw the girl stoop
and lift the baby in her arms, with a tenderness that marked a true
child lover, and an absence of self-consciousness induced by her
ignorance that two pairs of eyes were fixed upon her.
"Baba loves you very much," the child babbled on, her soft fingers
touching Christina's white face, "and thank you for bringing Baba home.
Pretty lady," she added suddenly, "Baba like when the pinky colour goes
all up and down your cheeks." For, at that moment, the girl had become
aware of the presence, not only of Lady Cicely, but of a tall stranger
with grave grey eyes, and a rosy flush swept over the whiteness of her
face.
"Baba has not forgotten you," the former said, with her gay little
laugh. "Rupert, this is Miss Moore, who so kindly brought naughty Baba
home out of the fog. My cousin is Baba's guardian, Miss Moore, and he
is as grateful to you as I am."
Christina, in her embarrassment, did not observe Lady Cicely's omission
of the tall stranger's surname; Cicely herself was unconscious that she
had not said it, and Rupert was only intent on setting the girl at her
ease.
"Baba seems to be bestowing her own thanks in her own violent way," he
said, as the child's dimpled arms were flung again round Christina's
neck, and her soft face pressed against the girl's flushed one; "but we
all owe you a debt of gratitude for having found, and brought her back.
London streets are not the safest place for little babies of that age,
with pearl necklaces round their necks."
"That was what I thought," Christina exclaimed impulsively; "at
least--I mean," she stammered, "I couldn't help being glad that I was
the first person to find her, and that it was not one of the dreadful
people who do prowl about in fogs, who saw her first."
"We are most thankful for that, too," Rupert answered; and then, being
a man of the world, he skilfully led the conversation to more general
subjects, until Christina was soon talking quietly and naturally, with
no more tremors or self-consciousness.
When, a few minutes later, she rose to go, Lady Cicely held her hands
in a clasp that was very comforting to the weary girl, and said gently--
"I am not going to worry you with more thank-yous; but I want you to
come and see me again in a day or two. I think, perhaps, I may be able
to hear of some work that would suit you."
As Christina wended her way homewards, she felt, tired though she was,
as if her feet trod on air. Hope was once more fully alive within her.
Lady Cicely's lovely face and charming manner had bewitched the girl,
and she was sure--quite, quite sure--that if the sweet little blue-eyed
lady said she would do something for her, that something would
infallibly be done. And--the tall cousin, with the grave grey eyes,
and the mouth that seemed to Christina to be set in lines of pain?
Those grey eyes and that firmly-set mouth, haunted her during the whole
course of her walk, and through her mind there flashed unbidden the
thought--
"I--wish I could comfort him. I am sure he is unhappy."
Her way led her past the newspaper shop kept by Mr. Coles, and the
little man himself was standing at his door surveying the world.
"There is a letter in here for you, miss," he said good-naturedly; "it
came yesterday morning, and the wife and I made sure you'd be in for
it."
Christina started. The events of the day had obliterated from her mind
all recollection of the matrimonial advertisement, and the letters that
were to be addressed to Mr. Coles's shop. The memory of Wednesday's
disappointment came back to her, and as Mr. Coles put into her hand a
letter addressed "C.M." in the same bold, strong hand that had
addressed the other letter, her momentary inclination was to return it
to its writer unopened.
"Perhaps there is some explanation," was her next and saner reflection;
and, walking along the street, she opened, and read the letter, feeling
a certain compunction as she did so. The address was still that of the
newspaper office, and the letter ran--
"DEAR MADAM,--
"I deeply regret that you found the house, at which I had asked you to
call, shut up. I reached it a few minutes after you had left, and to
my own great surprise found--as you had done--no one there but a
caretaker. My friend must have been called away suddenly, for on
Tuesday, when I saw her, she most kindly arranged that her house should
be at my disposal. Please forgive what must have seemed to you most
strange. Would it suit you to arrange any meeting-place that would
accord with your wishes? With renewed apologies.
"Yours faithfully,
"R. MERNSIDE."