"MY MOTHER GAVE IT TO ME."
"Baba would like her doctor man to come to her Christmas-tree; Baba
does love her doctor man." At the sound of the pleading voice, the
sight of the appealing blue eyes, Cicely put down her pen with a laugh,
and caught the child in her arms.
"You most absurd and beguiling infant, why do you want your doctor man,
as you call him?"
"'Cos Baba does. She loves him awful, drefful much," and to give her
mother some glimmering idea of the depth of her affection, Baba clasped
her hands round her own small person, and looked into Cicely's face,
with another appealing glance.
"Christina, do you imagine Dr. Fergusson could be induced to come over
here for Christmas?" Cicely questioned, as Baba's nurse came into the
cosy boudoir at Bramwell Castle; "this picanniny of mine wants him
invited to her Christmas-tree."
"I should think it would depend on how busy he is just now. The
practice seemed to be a big one. But perhaps at this time people will
be considerate enough not to fall ill, and will give the doctor a
little rest. Surely, Dr. Fergusson could motor over? It can't be very
far from here to Graystone."
"Quite within a motor drive; and he was so very good to Baba, I should
like to ask him to come if he will. Rupert writes, that, as he feared,
he cannot be with us. He has had to start off post haste to Naples.
That tiresome boy, Jack Layton, a mutual cousin of Rupert's and mine,
has gone and got typhoid there, and of course Rupert, being a sort of
unattached, universal fairy godfather, has been sent for to look after
him."
"Is Mr. Mernside a fairy godfather?" Christina smiled at the quaint
nomenclature.
"I always think so. He is ready to do any thing for any of his
aggravating relations, at any moment, and as Jack has selected this
particular moment to get typhoid, Rupert will be away for Christmas. I
wonder whether Dr. Fergusson would think it very odd and
unconventional, if I invited him here, on our rather short
acquaintance?"
Cicely looked thoughtfully across her pretty room at Christina, and the
girl laughed, and shook her head.
"He is not so silly," she answered. "Dr. Fergusson is just one of
those simple, straightforward men who take things as they are meant,
and don't hunt round for ulterior motives. He won't even begin to
think whether your invitation is conventional or unconventional, he
will only think how good it is of you to ask him at all."
"How wise you are," Lady Cicely exclaimed; "where does that little dark
head of yours get all its wisdom?"
Christina laughed again. In those days of her happy life with Baba and
Baba's mother, her bright young laugh rang out very often--the laugh
that seemed such a true index to her young, bright soul. She had put
behind her all the misery and hardship of the past, and, with the
wholesome philosophy natural to her, lived in the full enjoyment of her
present content; and the few weeks of happiness, good food, and freedom
from anxiety, had changed the white-faced, hollow-eyed girl who had
perforce tried to pawn her mother's jewel, into a charming, and very
pretty semblance of her former self.
"I am not wise," she said; "only I have had a good many rough times,
and I have learnt to do what one of my landladies called, 'sizing up
men and women.' I have had to size people up, and try to get a just
estimate of them."
"And you have 'sized up' Dr. Fergusson?"
"I have found out that he is the very soul of simplicity and
straightforwardness, and that he is so kind that there is nothing he
would not do for his fellow creatures," she answered eagerly; "and as
for worrying about the conventional, I am sure it never enters his head
to do such a thing."
It flashed across Cicely's mind to wonder whether Christina's praise of
the doctor rose from any warmer feeling than that of friendly
gratitude, but the girl's eyes met hers so frankly, her manner was so
simple, and the very outspokenness of her enthusiasm, seemed to point
to such a heart-whole condition, that the brief thought was dismissed.
"I wish I could accept your most tempting invitation," Fergusson wrote,
in reply to Cicely's letter; "but, alas! Christmas does not promise
much diminution of the work here. If, however, you will allow me to
come to you for Miss Baba's tree, on the afternoon of the
twenty-fourth, I could manage to do that in my car. It will give me
great pleasure to see my small patient again."
As she folded up the letter, Cicely felt that it would also give her
pleasure to see the kindly-faced doctor, whose personality during
Baba's illness, had impressed her as being so helpful, who, in some dim
and unexplained way, made her think of the husband, for whose loss her
heart had never ceased to ache.
"I am afraid I am very glad Cousin Arthur and Cousin Ellen cannot
arrive before eight o'clock dinner on Christmas Eve," she said to
Christina, after receiving Fergusson's letter; "they mean so well, poor
dears, but they are such sadly wet blankets. Cousin Arthur would
certainly send our spirits down to zero, by telling us that the more we
enjoyed ourselves the more wrath to come was being stored up for us!
You know he says he never sees any beautiful scenery without
remembering that it will all be burnt some day!"
"How delicious! I am afraid I am looking forward to seeing Sir Arthur;
he is at least original."
"He won't approve of you, or Baba, or of anything any of us do," Cicely
answered; "his attitude of mind is disapproving. He has got the kind
of mind that always gets out of bed on the wrong side."
Perhaps, at the back of her own mind, her little ladyship was not sorry
that Sir Arthur and Fergusson should have no opportunity of meeting;
for, as her natural astuteness told her, if Sir Arthur looked with
disapproving eyes upon Rupert, with how much more disapproval would he
regard a stranger, who was also a doctor. Sir Arthur belonged to the
old school of county magnates, who looked upon men of medicine as on a
level very little higher than a butcher or baker, and entirely refused
to entertain the notion that doctor and gentleman could ever be
synonymous terms. And Cicely was well aware that the old gentleman's
disapproval might conceivably find voice, and that she would be
reproached for receiving such guests in "poor dear John's" house.
Fortunately for everyone's peace of mind, the Congreves, being unable
to leave London until late on Christmas Eve, were also unable to play
the part of kill-joys at Baba's Christmas-tree, and the little party
which assembled in the big hall of the Castle, was composed of
congenial and friendly folk, who were ready to become little children
again, to play with a little child.
The hall, oak-panelled, and hung with suits of armour, and weapons
handed down from war-like Redesdale ancestors, had long since been
converted into a luxurious lounge, where, if comfortably upholstered
chairs, big palms, masses of flowers, and tables strewn with the latest
books, were incongruities, the incongruity at least made the hall a
most pleasant and sociable sitting-room. And so Fergusson thought it,
when from the sharpness of the grey winter day, he passed through an
outer vestibule, into the well-warmed, well-lighted place. Only he
himself knew with what an unaccountable sinking of the heart he had
driven up the beech avenue leading to the Castle, and realised what an
imposing place it was, to which he had been bidden. Involuntarily, and
in sharp contrast, the thought of his own modest house rose before his
mental vision, and the usually cheery doctor, for perhaps the first
time in his disciplined and philosophical existence, felt disposed to
curse the Fates, for dividing rich and poor by gulfs of such appalling
dimensions. But that sinking of the heart, and all the other unwonted
sentiments stirred in him by the sight of the great pile of Bramwell,
its stately park and lordly surroundings, were swept away by the
cordial greeting bestowed upon him, by the little lady of the house,
and by Baba's enthusiastic welcome.
"Baba's doctor man," the child cried, with a small shriek of delight
when he appeared, and Baba monopolised her doctor man during the whole
two hours he was able to spend with them. But if to the larger number
of the party assembled in the hall, Fergusson seemed to have neither
eyes nor ears for anyone but the child-queen of the occasion,
Christina's observant eyes told her that his glance often rested upon
Cicely's fair head, and that whenever it did so, a great tenderness
crept into that glance. As she had told Lady Cicely, the rough school
in which her life had lately been spent, had taught her to study and
understand her fellow beings, and the doctor's secret, unknown to
himself, was shared by Christina, on that happy Christmas Eve. She was
a very safe and discreet guardian of secrets, this girl with the sweet
eyes, but she gave a quick little sigh when she understood the meaning
of Fergusson's glance, for to her, as to himself, there seemed an
unbridgeable gulf, between the hard-working doctor, and the dainty
_chatelaine_ of Bramwell Castle. Before he left, Fergusson contrived
to make his way to Christina's side, and to say in an undertone:--
"I think you will be sorry to know that your beautiful lady of the
lonely valley is in great trouble."
"Oh!" Christina exclaimed softly, her eyes darkening; "has the end come
for him?"
"Yes, five days ago. She is wonderful, but the heart-break in her eyes
is pitiful to see. I sometimes doubt whether her strength will hold
out; she is very fragile, and all the strain has told on her more than
I like."
"Was he buried at----" Christina was beginning, when Fergusson finished
the sentence quickly.
"No, not at Graystone. I don't know where she took him, but it was
away from that part of the country altogether. She and her faithful
Elizabeth went with him, and now she is back in that lonely house
again. I have tried to persuade her to leave it--to go to London--to
go anywhere away--but she answers me she is happier there, and I cannot
oppose her. But it is all a tragedy, an inexplicable tragedy."
He could say no more, but what he had told Christina, filled the girl's
heart with sadness; her beautiful lady had made a profound impression
upon her, and the thought of the sorrowful woman in that lonely house
in the valley, hurt the girl's tender soul.
"I am glad we asked Dr. Fergusson," Cicely said to her, when later on
in the evening the two were alone together in Baba's day nursery;
"there is something so cheering about him, something," she added, with
a wistful look into Christina's face, "that makes me think of my
husband."
"Is he like Mr. Redesdale?" Christina asked sympathetically.
"No, not in the least--it is not that. At least, his eyes are brown,
and my husband had brown eyes, but it is not exactly a likeness that
can be defined feature for feature. It is something subtly
indefinable, but when I see Dr. Fergusson, and when he talks to me, it
makes me think of John. It makes me almost feel as if John were here
again."
* * * * *
"You are to come down to dinner to-night, and you are to wear the new
frock," Lady Cicely's tones were very decided, her blue eyes shone, her
face was dimpling with smiles.
"Oh! but--indeed--I don't think I ought; how can I? It--it wouldn't be
suitable, would it, for Baba's nurse to dine downstairs?"
"Will you let Baba's mother decide what is best for the nurse to do?"
Cicely answered, laughing, and patting Christina on the shoulder; "you
are just to do what I tell you, and I tell you you must come down to
dinner to-night, and wear the new frock."
"I don't know how to thank you for that," Christina said, with girlish
eagerness. "I haven't ever had a frock like it in all my life. You
see, when my father and mother were alive, we never went to parties, so
I didn't have evening gowns. And since I have been working for myself,
of course I haven't needed any, but this one you have given me is much,
much too lovely."
"Perhaps I am the best judge of that, too! I want you to look suitably
dressed when you come downstairs, and you must look your very best
to-night, to disarm Cousin Arthur."
"I am afraid already he doesn't approve of me," Christina said
ruefully; "he looked at me with such severe eyes after church this
morning, and began at once to ask me about my theories of education.
And--I haven't got any." A ripple of laughter broke from her. "I had
to say so, and he seemed so shocked."
"But he is very easily shocked; take heart of grace and remember that.
And dear old Miss Doubleday thinks you are managing Baba splendidly.
She is a competent judge because she had the managing of me!"
"Then I don't think there was anything wrong with her system of
education," Christina said quickly, with a glance of shy admiration at
her employer, who had sunk into the nursery rocking-chair, and was
swinging her daintily-shod feet up and down before the fire; "if Baba
grows up like her mother, she need not wish for anything better. I
like kind old Miss Doubleday, she is so friendly to me."
Miss Doubleday, Cicely's old governess, was spending Christmas at
Bramwell, and had shown appreciation of Christina and her ways.
"You nice little enthusiast!" Cicely looked affectionately up at the
girl, who stood on the hearth beside her; "you idealise everybody,
don't you, Christina?"
"I don't know about idealising," Christina spoke thoughtfully, "but,
when I care about people, I do see all the best in them----"
"And are blind to all the worst? Yes, I understand," Cicely laughed,
"if you liked Cousin Arthur, you would even see him through
rose-coloured spectacles?"
"He is a very good man," Christina answered sturdily; "there is
something about that uncompromising puritan spirit that appeals to me.
His views may be narrow----"
"They certainly are," Cicely murmured _sotto voce_, "but they are all
on the side of loftiness and right."
"I wish I could make out why there is something familiar to me about
his face and manner. I am sure I have never seen him before, and yet I
seem to have associations of some sort with him. He looks so sad and
worried, too; and that very look on his face is vaguely familiar."
Christina spoke thoughtfully, her brows drawn together.
"There has been some trouble about a brother-in-law," Cicely answered.
"I know I ought to have the story at my fingers' ends, but I can't
remember one single detail of it, and I don't like to tell Cousin
Arthur so. Nor do I like to ask any questions. He and Cousin Ellen
both look so much gloomier and more upset than they were in town. I
have been wondering whether any fresh developments have occurred.
However, it isn't any real business of mine, and we will try to give
the poor dears a happy time here. I must go and dress, and you are to
do as I told you; put on your new frock, and come down to the
drawing-room. Janet is quite able to manage Baba for one evening."
Christina's fingers shook with eagerness, as she drew from its tissue
wrappings Lady Cicely's Christmas present to her--the simple, yet
charming gown, which to her girlish eyes seemed the acme of all that
was most lovely. Poor little girl, she had never seen herself in a
dress cut low at the neck before, and though this gown was only cut in
the most modest of squares, her own reflection in the glass told her
that the rounded lines of her throat and neck were enhanced by the
delicate lace that trimmed the soft silk of the gown, and that the
dress itself, in its severely simple lines, suited admirably the
slimness of her graceful young form. Her eyes shone like stars, there
was a colour in her cheeks, and she had piled her dusky hair into a
loose and becoming knot, on the top of her small, well-shaped head.
"I do really believe I look very nearly pretty," she said naively,
nodding to herself in the mirror.
"I wish----" but she did not put her wish into words, only, as the
colour deepened on her face, and she turned away from the sight of her
own confusion, she found herself thinking that it was a pity Mr. Jack
Layton had chosen this inopportune moment to fall ill with typhoid, and
that Mr. Mernside had not been able to make one of the house party this
evening. At sight of Christina, Baba, who was being prepared for bed
by Janet, danced about the nursery in her pink dressing-gown, clapping
her hands and chanting in a shrill monotone--
"Oh! Baba's pretty lady, Baba's pretty lady, oh!" until her nurse
caught the small, soft creature in her arms, cuddling her closely and
covering her laughing, rosy face with kisses.
"But you _is_ Baba's pretty lady to-night," the child said solemnly,
stroking Christina's neck and face with her dimpled hands. "I like you
in a white frock, and when the pink colour runs up your cheeks. Put
something round your neck," she went on imperiously. "Mummy's got lots
of sparkle things to put round her neck, and you must have something
sparkle on your pretty white neck."
"Something sparkle on your pretty white neck." Why should she not,
just for this once, wear the only piece of jewellery she possessed? As
it was Christmas Day, and everything was more than usually festive,
surely she might put on the lovely pendant her mother had given her?
Christina stood still in the middle of the nursery, cogitating upon the
momentous question, whilst Baba danced round her, holding the pink
dressing-gown well above her pink slippered feet, and shaking her
golden curls whilst she chanted again--
"Oh! Baba's pretty lady; Baba's pretty lady, oh!"
"Even though I am a nurse, I am a lady, too," Christina reflected; "and
Lady Cicely has given me this beautiful frock, so that I may look my
best downstairs, and, my pendant would be right with the white gown. I
think it wouldn't be wrong to wear it."
Her thought was quickly translated into action. Going back to the
night nursery, she extracted from the bottom of her modest trunk, the
box in which she kept her treasure, and drawing out the pendant on its
slender chain, held it up to catch the rays of light from the hanging
lamp over the chest of drawers. The great emerald shone brightly like
some vividly green star, Christina thought, and the brilliants with
which it was set, sparkled and scintillated in the light.
"It does look nice," the girl whispered complacently, as she clasped
the chain, and saw the exquisite jewel resting against the whiteness of
her neck, "and I wonder what those twisted letters A.V.C. mean?
Mother's first name was Mary, her second name was Helen, and not
anything beginning with A or V, and of course I don't know what was her
surname. I wonder why the initials are A.V.C."
But her speculations were of short duration, and soon forgotten in the
excitement of going downstairs to join the rest of the party in the
hall, after receiving Baba's bear-like good-night hug, and parting
words of admiration.
"I am going to have such a very happy evening," Christina said to
herself, as she went along the corridor, and stood for a moment at the
top of the wide staircase, looking down into the hall below. "I didn't
think I was ever in my life going to have such a happy time, as Lady
Cicely lets me have, and to-night will be lovely, just lovely. And how
beautiful the hall looks." Her face was bright with eagerness, her
eyes shining with excitement, as she ran down the stairs, quite unaware
of what a charming picture she made against the background of dark oak,
in her simple white gown, with her crown of dusky hair, and the shining
happiness of her eyes. She was right in designating the hall as
beautiful. Lighted by myriads of candles, the old walls reflected the
bright armour, and the leaping flames of the huge fire that burnt on
the hearth; the carpets and rugs were all of rich soft hues, that
harmonised with the black oak and the shining armour, and pots of
bright azaleas, of roses, and of tall lilies, filled the place with
colour and fragrance. Christina drew a long breath of delight, and the
momentary shyness that had swept over her, when the little group by the
fireplace turned to watch her descend the stairs, was dissipated when
Lady Cicely put out a hand, and said kindly:
"Come close to the blaze, dear, and enjoy it. Is that monkey of mine
safely in bed?"
"She is on her way there, but I left her dancing round the nursery,
singing improvised songs about my clothes, and----"
Her sentence was cut short by a sharp exclamation from Sir Arthur, who,
as she came near the fire at Cicely's invitation, cast a keenly
enquiring glance at her, taking in each detail of her person, from the
crown of her hair to the tip of the shoe just showing beneath her white
gown. And when that inquisitorial glance fell upon the jewel resting
on her neck, that sharp exclamation broke from him.
"How did you come by that pendant?" he questioned, the words jerked out
with an abruptness totally lacking in courtesy. "Did it not strike you
as rather rash to flaunt it here, in my very face?"
[Illustration: "'How did you come by that pendant?' he questioned.]
"To--flaunt--it here?" Christina said shakily, her hand going
instinctively to her treasure. "I--don't understand."
"Come, come, my dear young lady," Sir Arthur answered curtly, waving
Cicely aside, when she made an attempt to intervene. "You cannot--you
really cannot, pretend to misunderstand my very simple question. I
asked you--where did you get that pendant?"
Christina's eyes, wide with fright, and bewildered with the shock of
being questioned so brusquely and severely, looked from Sir Arthur to
Lady Cicely, as though appealing for help, and Cicely said quietly--
"Cousin Arthur--what does all this mean?"
"It means," he said grimly, "that your child's nurse--her _lady_
nurse--is wearing the pendant for which the police and I have been
searching in vain. It means----"
"No, oh, no!" Cicely broke in. "I can't believe what you are implying.
It couldn't be true. Christina tell Sir Arthur he is making a mistake.
Tell him where your pendant comes from."
"From my mother," the girl faltered, still too taken aback by the
unexpected onslaught, to be able to think clearly. "This pendant
belonged to her; she gave it to me, and I----"
"Tut, tut!" Sir Arthur interrupted irritably; "it is futile to try and
throw dust in our eyes in this way. That pendant is
unmistakable--quite unmistakable--no one who had once seen it, could be
under any delusion about it. It is unique--an heirloom in our family.
The very letters above the emerald, are initials of an ancestress of
mine."
Christina stood there silently whilst the above words were hurled at
her, but her face grew paler and paler, fear deepened in her eyes.
"My mother--gave it to me," she said again, when as Sir Arthur ended,
there was an expectant pause, as though some explanation was demanded
from her; "she gave it to me when she died--it was hers."
"Then you can, of course, tell us for what names the letters stand?"
Sir Arthur said slowly, a tinge of contempt in his voice; and because
of that note of contempt, Cicely moved nearer to the shrinking girl,
whose frightened, bewildered expression moved the little lady's heart
to pity for her, and indignation against the angry old man.
"Cousin Arthur," she said impulsively, "it is not fair to judge
Christina, before she has explained about the pendant. Everybody in
this land is innocent until he is proved guilty--that is surely only
the bare law," and Cicely laughed a little nervously, looking round for
support to Miss Doubleday, her kindly old governess, who, also moved by
pity for the accused girl, had drawn nearer to Christina.
"I wish to do nothing unfair," was Sir Arthur's chilly rejoinder; "if,
as Miss Moore tells us, that pendant belonged to her mother, she will
be able to tell us, too, what the initials signify."
"I--don't--know," Christina faltered. "I--have often wondered--I----"
"Perhaps one of them is the initial of your mother's maiden name?" Miss
Doubleday said gently, anxious to do everything in her power to help
the now trembling girl.
"I--don't know my mother's maiden name----" Christina was beginning,
when a short laugh broke from Sir Arthur.
"You do not know your mother's maiden name?" he said slowly; "come,
come, surely you cannot expect us to believe that."
"I don't know whether you will believe it or not," Christina answered,
with a sudden flash of defiance, "it is true. And I don't know what
the initials are, but--my mother gave me the pendant. I am telling you
the simple truth. I cannot say more."
"Perhaps you will tell us you never tried to--sell--or pawn that piece
of jewellery, at a pawnbroker's shop in Chelsea a few weeks ago?" Sir
Arthur asked next, his glance taking in the look of consternation that
flashed over her face, the new, shrinking terror in her eyes. "Ah! you
cannot deny that fact?"
"No, oh! no," Christina put out her hands as if to ward off an actual
blow. "I did try to pawn it. I was so dreadfully poor, but--the man
frightened me. I came away from the shop, then----"
"Exactly; they frightened you, because they showed you plainly that
they suspected you of having come by the pendant dishonestly. You ran
away from the shop."
The dreadful truth of every word spoken, the dreadful difficulty--nay,
so it seemed to Christina, the impossibility of refuting the accusation
levelled against her, made her feel helpless, tongue-tied, like some
creature caught in a trap, from which there was no way of escape. She
had no means, none at all, of proving her own story. Her mother, who
had given her the jewel, was dead. She had never shown it to anyone;
she had never had occasion to show it to anybody; as far as she knew,
there was not a living soul in the world, who could come forward to
declare that the pendant was hers. Even Mrs. Donaldson, her late
employer, could not have vouched for her truth and honesty in this
respect, for Mrs. Donaldson had not known that she possessed the
beautiful thing; she had only been her mother's acquaintance, not even
an intimate friend.
"But surely," the practical Miss Doubleday here intervened, "surely, if
Miss Moore were guilty of stealing the pendant, she would not wear it
here, under your very eyes, Sir Arthur. It is not likely----"
"I understood Miss Moore to say she was ignorant of the meaning of the
initials above the pendant," the old gentleman answered coldly;
"presumably, therefore, she is not aware that C stands for Congreve.
There is no reason to suppose that she knew from whose bag she was
taking the pendant, when she took it."
"But I did not take it," Christina cried; "indeed, indeed, I did not.
It is my own, my very own; all I have told you is true." Sir Arthur
ignored her words, turning gravely to his cousin.
"My dear Cicely, I am very sorry to be unintentionally the cause of so
much unpleasantness for you, but I am afraid that, in the interests of
justice, I shall be obliged to make this the subject of police
investigation."