"STRANGERS YET."
The rower of this boat, whose back was necessarily turned to the shore,
wore a pea-jacket, with its collar turned up to the brim of a black hat,
such as is not usually affected by watermen, either professional or
amateur. Through Jin's beating heart shot a sickening throb of misgiving
and alarm. She turned cold and faint, catching up her boy and hugging
him instinctively to her breast.
As the rower, obviously unused to an oarsman's exercise, rose,
straightened himself, and turned round, he started with a violence that
shot the boat back into deep water, her chain running out with a clang
over her bows. Stupefied as it seemed by this apparition of the man whom
she had watched from Mrs. Mole's door three hours ago, Jin's eyes
dilated, her jaw dropped, while she gazed in Picard's face as if she had
been turned to stone.
He was the first to recover himself, and burst into a laugh, not
entirely forced.
"Who would ever have thought it?" said he, shoving the boat close in
shore. "Of all reunions this is the most extraordinary, the most
unlooked for. Jump in, Madame, there is no time to lose: in ten minutes
it will rain like a water-spout. Great heavens, you are unaltered after
all these years, and you have not a grey hair in your head!"
She obeyed mechanically in silence, folding Gustave beneath her shawl,
who protested with energy against the embarkation, expressing a strong
desire to return to "Old Moley" forthwith.
Once more in mid-stream, Picard laid on his oars as if doubtful whether
to proceed. "What are you doing with that boy?" he asked.
She had recovered her presence of mind, though still confused and
bewildered, as after some stunning blow.
"You _know_ me, Achille," said she, bending on him the defiant,
impracticable gaze he remembered so well. "Whatever happens, wherever we
are bound, the child goes with me! Where are you taking us? What is the
meaning of it all?"
Picard's face was not improved by the diabolical expression that swept
over it. "The meaning is this," he answered in a hoarse whisper: "I am
helping Captain Vanguard to run away with my own--bah!" he broke off
abruptly, "there will be time enough for explanations between here and
Windsor bridge: the question is now about the child. He must not go a
yard farther--he'll be wet to the skin as it is. There are few things I
wouldn't part with to--to--undo the wrongs between you and me; but I
cannot, and will not, give up the boy!"
She would have been fiercer in all probability, but that Picard,
accepting the heavy down-pour, which now commenced, in his thin summer
waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, had stripped off his pea-coat, and was
wrapping the boy carefully in its folds, without however removing him
from his mother's embrace. The little fellow smiled, and tugged
playfully at this rugged nurse's whiskers, obviously welcoming the face
of a friend, but repeated his request to return to "Old Moley" as
speedily as possible.
"I mean to have no discussions," said Jin, in tight, concentrated
accents that denoted suppressed rage and inflexible resolution. "I never
wished to see your face again, and I shall insist presently on knowing
why you are here now; but in the mean time I desire to know what right
you have to the child."
"I like that!" exclaimed Picard with a bitter laugh. "Rather, what right
have you? I saved his life!"
"I gave him birth!" answered Jin collectedly. "This is the infant you
deserted so gallantly and so generously when you left his mother.
Enough! He has no claim on you, my precious; you belong solely and
exclusively to me!"
Picard heeded not. Bending over that little bundle, folded so carefully
in his pea-jacket, on its mother's knee, he kissed the soft brow
tenderly, gently, almost reverently, while a tear hanging in the man's
shaggy whiskers, dropped on the pure delicate cheek of the child.
"No wonder I loved you," he muttered. "I wish I had been a better man,
for your sake."
Miss Ross was touched. "_Allons!_" said she; "you and I may come to an
understanding, after all. Speak the truth and so will I. How did you
find the boy, and where?"
Ashamed of his feelings, as such men usually are ashamed of any one
redeeming point in a character saturated with evil, he had recovered his
emotion, and was pulling leisurely down stream with the utmost
composure.
"How and where?" he repeated. "Well, the story is simple enough, and
there would be nothing extraordinary in it, but for what I have this
moment learned, I give you my honour, for the first time. I happened to
be at Lyons in one of the worst floods they had there for twenty years.
The river rose incredibly during the night, and I was out at daybreak
to--to see the fun, you know, and render any assistance I could afford.
In the top room of a cottage, completely undermined and tottering, I saw
a woman making signals of distress. Between us lay what looked like a
canal: it may have been a street once for all I know, but a few defaced
walls, five or six feet above the water-level, were alone left.
Excepting the half-fallen cottage from which this woman waved her arms,
not a tenement was standing for some score of yards on each side. I was
already immersed to my waist, but I had to swim for it before I could
reach the poor creature, who seemed out of her wits with terror.
Treading water a few feet below, I implored her to plunge in at once,
and trust to me. I thought she was coming, when '_Tiens!_' she screamed
out--I can hear her now--and threw, as I imagined, a linen bundle at my
head. It fell beyond me, and sank immediately. I dived for it, and
quickly too; but while I was under water the walls fell with a crash,
and the whirl carried me several paces from where I had gone down, not,
however, before I had succeeded in grasping the bundle, which I brought
with me to the surface. As the rush subsided I found the stream
encumbered with dust, beams, household furniture, but of the woman I
could see nothing. Doubtless at the instant, perhaps from the very
effort she made to consign me her burthen, its foundations gave way, and
she fell among the ruins of her house, to be drowned without a chance of
escape.
"The bundle contained a boy--living, unhurt, and very wet. I have taken
care of him ever since. There he is. Do you think anything would tempt
me to part from him now?"
The tears rose to Jin's eyes. "God bless you!" said she. "You saved my
child!"
"I saved _our_ child," he answered; "and I am not going to give him up."
"Why are you here to-day?" she asked. "And where do you mean to put me
ashore?"
She was meditating, even then, how she might escape him; if to reach
Frank Vanguard, well and good; but, at any rate, to attain some refuge
where she could be alone with her child.
He laughed, to cover a strong sense of embarrassment, even of shame.
"This is a strange _rencontre_," he said. "It must be Fate. You and I
have never once met among all the amusements of a London season; and we
meet now in the rain, on the lonely river, at a time when we ought most
to forget and ignore each other's existence. Of all people in the world,
I must be the last you would have wished to come across to-night."
"En effet," she muttered, "c'est un rencontre assez mal-à-propos."
Her coolness seemed contagious. He proceeded with a _sang-froid_ too
complete to be perfectly natural:
"I came here to oblige my dearest friend, a man for whom I would make
almost any sacrifice. That foreign prince at Windsor has taken a sudden
fancy to inspect a regiment of Household Cavalry in their barracks. He
is there at this moment, attended by every officer available for duty.
My friend Captain Vanguard came to me in the greatest agitation. He had
a rendezvous, he said, for this evening with a lady. It could not be put
off. It was of the gravest importance. If he failed to appear, she was
lost. He reposed entire confidence in my honour. He asked my advice.
What was to be done? I considered. I remembered my obligations to him. I
put myself in his place. In short, here I am, _in_ his place, pledged to
conduct you safely to the Castle Hotel, there to wait till he is at
leisure to join you, after which I am free to take whatever course I
think due to my own character in this most awkward complication. I need
not say that it never entered my head the Miss Ross I had heard of in
society, or the lady whose _enlèvement_ I was to conduct for my friend,
could be--well--could be _you_! Madame, we have met in a manner that is
creditable to neither of us--that is utterly ruinous to one. Can we not
ignore this clumsy _contretemps_? Can we not agree to conceal it, and
never meet again?"
Jin felt much reassured by this climax, though ready to sink with shame
and vexation at the whole business.
"You know I am going to--to _marry_ Captain Vanguard," she said,
looking him straight in the face, though she hesitated a little in her
sentence. "Will you promise to throw no impediment in my way--to keep
your own counsel? In short, to let bygones be bygones, if, on my part, I
consent to leave the past unscrutinised and unavenged?"
"It's a fair offer," he replied; "but I cannot give you up the boy."
"Then war to the knife!" she burst out recklessly. "I will lose husband,
lover, home, character, everything--life itself--rather than part with
Gustave for a day!"
Perhaps he knew what a desperate woman was. Perhaps--for, in his own
way, he too loved little Gustave very dearly--he reflected that a child
might safely be committed to a mother's tenderness, even were that
mother the wildest and most wilful of her sex. In a couple of minutes
his busy brain formed a thousand schemes, took in a thousand
contingencies. Frank Vanguard was about to marry the woman who had once
held a wife's place at his hearth. Well, to that he had no objection. He
would at least be freed from an awkward claim, which might interfere
with certain vague schemes of his own that had only recently begun to
take a shape. In those schemes Frank's assistance, as a friend of Sir
Henry Hallaton's, might be valuable. An intimacy with Vanguard, and the
latter's good word, would vouch at least for his position and standing
in society. Helen could no longer consider him a mere unknown
adventurer. Some influence he might obtain over Frank through his wife,
if, indeed, this wild, untoward marriage were to come off. His chief
difficulty lay in that wife's inflexible and impracticable character;
but surely he could bend her to his will through her affection for the
boy.
"You cannot take him with you now," observed Picard, in a perfectly
matter-of-fact tone. "Think of the travelling, and the weather, and the
ridicule attached to the whole proceeding. You are not going to join
your future husband, surely, with a ready-made child?"
"I _am_!" she exclaimed, in high indignation. "Frank knows all about it,
and takes us as we are!"
"Then I may explain everything," said he, pulling on faster, as if
satisfied. "It makes it much easier for me as regards my duty to my
friend."
She saw her false position, and felt she was now at his mercy.
"Let us make a bargain," she said. "I would not injure _you_; I hope you
would not injure _me_. I confess I have deceived Captain Vanguard in
this matter. I told him about Gustave, but I said he was a sister's son.
I cannot part with the child. I implore you to let me keep him! If you
will consent so far, and abstain from crossing my path at this the
turning-point of my whole life's happiness, I will swear to absolve you,
formally and in writing, from any claim I may have on your property or
your personal freedom; and if ever I can be of service to you, or
advance your career in any way, so help my heaven, I will!"
Picard pondered. She had made the very proposal he would himself have
broached; but he was too crafty to betray satisfaction, and, to do him
justice, felt very loth to lose the child none the less that he had now
discovered it was his own. Yet he could not but reflect that so long as
Gustave remained with her by his consent, he had the mother at a
disadvantage, and could drive her which way he would. Frank Vanguard's
domestic happiness would thus be at his mercy, and it was strange if,
with consummate knowledge of the world, and utter freedom from scruples,
he could not turn such a power to good account.
"Agreed," said he, as they shot past the Brocas clump, and caught sight
of Windsor Castle, looming gigantic through a leaden atmosphere of mist
and rain. "Agreed. We are strangers again from henceforth as regards
Vanguard--as regards the world. When we meet in society, that is to be
clearly understood. But we are _not_ strangers as regards our boy. Once
a week you will write and tell me of his welfare. Once a month you will
arrange that I shall see him, either with or without witnesses--I care
not which. Stay! I have it. You shall tell Vanguard I am the father of
your dead sister's child! Capital! I begin to think I have quite a
genius for intrigue!"
"It is such a tissue of falsehood!" she groaned; "and Frank is so
honest--so trustful!"
He ground his teeth; but forced himself to answer with unwavering
accents and a smooth brow.
"I cannot enter into the sentiment of the thing. You know me of old.
That is my ultimatum. Take it or leave it. I must run you ashore here,
and I can show you the short cut to the hotel."
"Agreed!" she whispered, as he handed her along a quivering plank that
let her reach the shore dry-shod. "Honour?"
"Even among thieves," he added, with a laugh; and thus was the contract
ratified on both sides.
But short as was that by-way from the river to the Castle Hotel, heavily
as the rain came down, enforcing the utmost attention to little
Gustave--a perishable article indeed "to be kept dry, this side
uppermost"--and fractious as was the deportment of that inexperienced
traveller who, thoroughly bewildered with his situation, retained but
the one idea of bewailing his lot aloud, while he held on manfully to
the new toy, Jin found time to arrive at the noblest, the grandest, and
the most important resolution she had ever made in her life.
It has always appeared to me there is one infallible criterion of that
rare and mysterious affection which goes by the name of true love. "How
many _dollars_ do you like her?" asked a Yankee of the friend who
expatiated on his devotion to a beloved object; thus gauging, as he
considered, that devotion by a standard at once unerring, and not to be
misconceived. The friend, "estimating" that he "liked her a thousand
dollars," proved himself ten times more to be depended on than his
rival, who only "liked her a hundred;" and, in my opinion, there was
much knowledge of human nature in this Yankee's mode of valuing an
attachment. If you own but five dollars in the world, and you "love your
love five-dollars' worth," you are very much in love with her indeed,
and have come triumphantly through that strongest test of sincerity
which consists in self-sacrifice.
There must have been a spark of sacred fire under the lurid flame which
Frank had kindled in her breast, or Miss Ross would have escaped a
struggle that seemed to tear her heart in pieces during this short wet
walk with all its accompanying annoyances--that made her unconscious of
heavy rain, draggled garments, and unwelcome company--that, but for a
mother's instinct, would have caused her to forget the necessity of
sheltering her boy.
She stole a glance--it was well he did not observe it--at the hated form
of the man by her side, and all the masculine part of her nature
rebelled in the remembrance of its former thraldom. The thought of Frank
Vanguard's open brow, of his loving eyes, his manly, kindly smile, and
feminine instincts of tender generosity, rose strong within her as she
turned scornfully from the suggestion that he, her own, who had chosen
her so nobly, so chivalrously, should be at the mercy of such a man as
Picard. "No!" thought Jin, walking on very fast, and hugging Gustave
tighter than ever to her breast. "Better that I should never see him
again, than fasten such a clog round his neck! Better that I should lose
my one dear chance on earth, than ruin him, degrade him, drag him down
to the level of such people as ourselves! I am not to be happy, it
seems, in that way; but I have no right to complain since I have got my
child. And yet, Frank, Frank, what will you think of me? You will never
know the sacrifice I made for you! You will never know what it cost me!
You will never know that I loved you better than my very life!"
While such thoughts were racking heart and brain, it was quite in
accordance with Jin's character that her outward manner should be more
than ordinarily composed and self-possessed. Arriving at the welcome
shelter of the Castle Hotel, she desired a fire to be kindled
immediately, and taking very little notice of Picard, busied herself
with the child and its wet things. He was quiet enough now; but moaned
at intervals as if uneasy in mind rather than in body; but it did not
escape a mother's observation that the cheek he pressed against her own
was hotter than usual, and though it made his dark eyes shine so
beautifully, she would rather not have seen that brilliant colour so
deep and strong. But it was a time for action, not for apprehension, and
she turned to Picard with a quiet gesture of authority, such as she
would have used towards a servant:
"Be so good as ring the bell," she said, "and tell them to get some
bread and milk for this little boy. Order tea in an hour, and then go to
the barracks and tell Captain Vanguard I am waiting here. I suppose I
shall not see you again--good-bye."
He took the hand she held out, with something of admiration and respect.
"Well, you _are_ a cool one!" he exclaimed. "I declare, you're cooler
even than _me_! In a matter like this, where there's interest in one
scale and feeling in the other, I think I can trust you as I would
myself!"
She only nodded, resuming the occupation, from which she had turned for
a moment, of drying her child's wet socks at the lately-kindled fire.
Picard caught the boy in his arms and smothered him with kisses; then
replacing him in his mother's lap, took his departure without another
word.
"Where's he going?" said Gustave, making a plunge, to land barefooted on
the floor.
"He's going away, dear," answered Jin, much pre-occupied, and scorching
the socks against the bars of the grate. "And we're going away too.
Don't you want to go away from this nasty room?"
"I want to go to Moley," answered the boy, in a sing-song that frequent
repetition on the river had rendered mechanical. "And I want my tupper,"
he added, brightening up at so happy an afterthought.
But he couldn't eat his supper when it came; and now that his things
were dry, Miss Ross was glad to hush him off to rest in her arms.
When he was sound asleep she rang the bell gently. "I am going out for
an hour," said she to the waiter. "If anybody calls, say that tea is
ordered to be ready when I come back."
Then she walked away in the pouring rain, and beckoned a flyman from the
stand.
"Drive to The Lilies," she said in a loud voice. "Shut those glasses,
and make haste."
But as soon as they were clear of the town she reversed her sailing
orders, and directed the man to proceed to Staines.
Arriving at the station, she found by a time-table that an up-train was
due in five minutes. "What do you charge for waiting?" asked Miss Ross,
as the driver let her out.
The man informed and overcharged her.
"Then wait here for the down-train in an hour," said she, paying him
liberally. "If you don't get a fare you can then drive back to Windsor;
but I shall desire the station-master to see that you remain here on the
chance."
So, hushing Gustave, who, considering he seemed so sleepy, was
strangely restless, Miss Ross took her place in the train, to be whirled
to town with the comfortable reflection that, till her fly returned to
Windsor, in two hours time, it would be impossible for Frank Vanguard to
obtain any trace of her, while she herself would be in the labyrinth of
London in forty minutes. She pulled the double veil from her pocket, and
dropped it over her face, while she rocked the boy tenderly on her knee.
It was well for him to have this protection, for Gustave did not need
another wetting, and his mother was crying as if her heart would break.
Thus it fell out that Frank, flying on the wings of love and a
thorough-bred hack from his duty at the barracks to his affianced at the
Castle Hotel, found nothing there but a black fire, an empty room, and a
waiter's assurance that "the lady would be back in less than
half-an-hour. She'd been gone longer nor that already."
Picard, of course, having fulfilled his mission, considered himself
absolved from further attendance, and Frank had nothing more to do but
walk up and down the cheerless apartment, fussing, fuming, wondering,
and, I fear, at times unable to restrain an oath. The rain fell, the
evening waned, the twilight turned to dark, and at length the waiter
came in with candles, and asked "if he should bring in tea?"
Then Frank could stand it no longer, but rushed wildly out to make
inquiries, invoking a hideous and totally undeserved fate on the waiter
and the tea.