A CRAFTY OLD LADY.
Mrs. Ives was like and yet unlike her daughter. She had the same sandy
complexion, her face was slightly freckled and her lips very thin; she
had shrewd, kindly eyes, however, and a brisk, active manner. She was
about sixty years of age. Clara bustled about now to make her mother
comfortable.
“You sit just here,” she said, pushing the old lady into the only
arm-chair which the little room contained. “After you have had a good
breakfast you shall lie down for a bit. There’s a great deal to be done,
and I have much to tell you.”
“Well, tell it and be quick, Clara. You always were a queer one, and you
look changed—you’ve got so smart. Why are you wearing that pretty dress?
I thought you always wore your nurse’s livery.”
“I am not going to be a nurse any more, mother.”
“A mercy me!” said the old lady, throwing up her hands. “And after all
the expense of having you eddicated, and you one of the Nightingale
nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital and all. They think a sight of you in
the old place. Wherever I go the folks is always asking me how Sister
Clara is getting on, and I tell you I’m just as proud as Punch of you. I
say you nurse all the dukes in London, and that you’re took up wonderful
by the Royal Family. They believes it—some folks will believe anything.
And now you’re going to give it all up. You’re not going into domestic
service again, are you?”
“After a fashion, I am, mother; but there, don’t talk so much. Drink
your warm coffee. I’ll have a nice rasher of bacon and an egg done for
you in a jiffy.”
“I can’t abear them cooking eggs,” said the old lady. “I’ll have a bit
of bacon if you do it crisp and tasty. I traveled up without any fret or
worry, and slept the whole of the way. What a queer, extravagant thing
you was to say I might come first class. Not me! I traveled third. I’d
like to see myself first. It wouldn’t seem respectful to the quality.”
Clara did not reply. She knew her mother’s ways.
“There’s no necessity to be so very close about money now,” she said,
after a long pause. “I’m doing well and I want you to have all
comforts.”
“You’re doing well when you give up your profession? It looks like it.
Are you gwine to be married?”
“Well, that’s about it, mother. You’ve hit the nail on the head now. I
am.
“Tell me all about it, Clara,” said the old lady. “I love to hear a
right good rattling love story. Is it to the grocer, or the fishmonger,
or the baker? I always said you’d do well in a shop. You’re the sort to
draw customers, though you are plain, to be sure. Your freckles seem to
have spread. Can’t you get a lotion to take ’em off? They’re not at all
becoming.”
“Dear me, mother, don’t mind about my freckles now. I was born with
them, and they must stay on my face!”
“That they must, Clara, and it’s wrong for me to grumble, but I did fret
about them freckles when you was a little tot. Dear heart! I used to
dream of ’em at nights. I used to say, they’ll come between her and
matrimony—such a plague of ’em as you had—but now it seems I was all
wrong. Maybe freckles have come into fashion. Who’s the lucky man,
Clara?”
“He’s not the baker, nor the grocer, nor the fishmonger,” said Clara
quietly. “Here, mother, eat your bacon. I’ll tell you everything
afterwards.”
While Mrs. Ives enjoyed her breakfast, the nurse withdrew into the inner
room and began to dress little Piers.
“I’m ever so well,” said the boy. “I’m going out for a bit to-day.”
“But, my dear, it’s raining.”
“That doesn’t matter. You can send for my carriage. I always drive in
the brougham on wet days. Nurse, who was that person you were talking
to? I heard a voice keep chattering and chattering. Whose was it?”
“My mother’s, dear.”
“Has your mother come? Oh, I am glad. I want to see her.”
“You shall see her when you are dressed, Piers.”
“But I’m very sorry I wasn’t in the room when she arrived. I wanted to
see you kiss her. Are you beginning to obey her already? You know it’s
the fifth commandment—children ought to obey their parents.”
“Oh, it’s all right, dear. Don’t talk quite so much, Piers. Sit still
while I dress you.”
“I feel so well and jolly,” said the child. “When may I go home?”
“Not for a bit yet. You would be as bad as ever if you did—you’d have
that sinking feeling you spoke to me about.”
The child shuddered and began to tremble visibly.
“You’re not going back at present, darling. You don’t mind staying in
this cosy little house with me, do you?”
“It’s like a doll’s house,” said the child; “and your mother must be the
head doll. What fun! I’m one of the little ones and you’re another
doll.”
“Now, come here, Piers, and stand by me, and let me say something. I
believe you are a brave boy and that you wouldn’t tell a lie?”
“Of course I wouldn’t. I’m quite an important person, you know. Do you
think great men such as I shall be tell lies?”
“I don’t believe you could tell a lie, Piers. Now, I want you to promise
me something; I am sure when you promise you will keep your word. I
don’t want my mother to know that you are Sir Piers Pelham.”
“Why?”
“I cannot tell you why. Sometime she may know, but not yet. All you have
to say is that you are Piers, little Piers, my patient. You are not to
tell her what your surname is, nor anything about the grand house you
used to live in, nor about your mother, nor Dick, nor Barbara. Just say
you are my little patient and that you love me—don’t say anything else.”
“Must I really promise?”
“Yes.”
“It seems such an awful lot to promise, and I am afraid. You know, I am
not old and I might forget. It’s difficult to remember that you’re not
to talk of the people you love. Why must I do it?”
“Well, Piers, I thought it would be fun, but you need not if you dislike
it. I cannot take you to my mother if you do not, that’s all. I’ll have
to send her back to Cornwall. She’s a very amusing old lady, and you’d
like her.”
“Oh, I’ll promise then,” said the child.
“Kiss me, Piers, on each cheek, and then make me the promise very
solemnly.”
“If it’s going to be solemn I’d better kneel down and pray to God to
help me to keep it,” said the boy.
“You can do that by and by when you say your prayers, but not now. Kiss
me and promise.”
“I promise,” said the child.
“That’s my brave little lad. Now I will take you and show you to my
mother.”
As Clara spoke she opened the door which divided the bedroom from the
little sitting-room and brought Sir Piers into the sitting-room. The
child came forward with his usual manly grace. He flung back his
handsome little head and stared into the eyes of the old lady.
“My word! what a fine little fellow!” she cried. “Come and kiss me, my
little lad.”
The boy held up his coral lips.
“I like you,” he said softly. “Are you nurse’s mother?”
“Yes, dear.”
The old lady made room for Piers on her lap.
“What a very wrinkled face you have,” he said.
“No more wrinkles than I ought to have,” was the reply. “It’s becoming
to have wrinkles when you’re turning a bit aged. It’s like the russet
apple when it’s ripe—I’m ripe, and that’s why the wrinkles is there.”
“Ripe,” said little Piers. He touched the old cheek with his tiny
finger. “I like you,” he repeated after a pause. “I’m glad I made that
promise.”
“What promise, little un?”
“Oh, something to Nurse Clara, but I mustn’t tell you. If I told you it
would be breaking my word. Nurse, come here. I’m going to be a good boy,
and I’m going to love your mother. If I love her and if I keep my word
for a whole week, may I go home?”
“Perhaps,” said Nurse Clara.
Mrs. Ives fixed her shrewd eyes on her daughter.
“There’s something at the back of all this,” thought the old lady to
herself. “That boy is no ordinary patient. I’ll get to the bottom of it,
or my name’s not Sarah Ives. It’s just like Clara, she was always one
for mysteries.”
“It’s a fine day,” said Mrs. Ives, getting up as she spoke and going to
the window.
“No, it isn’t; it rains,” said little Piers.
“It did rain, but it’s fine now. Suppose I take you for a walk?”
“Oh, yes,” said the child, clapping his hands.
“But you mustn’t walk to-day,” said Nurse Clara. “It’s part of the cure;
the doctor wishes him to stay indoors,” she continued, turning to her
mother.
Little Piers frowned.
“I’m ever so much better, and the air would do me good,” he said. “You
might send for the——”
Nurse Ives held up a warning finger.
“You are not to go out,” she said. “Mother, you are much too tired after
your long journey to think of such a thing. I am going to leave you both
now for a time, as I have got several things to buy. You look well after
the child while I’m out, mother; you’ll be careful of him, won’t you?”
“Careful!” said Mrs. Ives, “when I’ve had six of my own, and buried five
of ’em. You’re the only one left, Clara, and your freckles was always a
worry. I not understand how to look after a child! I don’t know what you
mean.”
“Of course, mother, you’re splendid with children. Well, I’ll be back in
an hour or so.”
Nurse Ives put on a smart hat—the hat was made of black lace—she covered
her sandy locks and freckled face with a spotted veil, and, nodding to
her mother and the child, went out.
“She do look smart—quite the lady,” said the old woman, glancing at
Piers as she spoke.
Piers nodded.
“She’s very handsome, and I love her,” he said.
“Well, now, child, it surprises me to hear you talk. I never would have
said Clara was handsome, though she is my own darter, but there’s no
accounting for tastes. How close this room is! Now I’d like to go for a
walk uncommon. Suppose you and me was to go out unbeknown to Clara?”
“Might we?” said little Piers, his face coloring.
“Might you? And what’s to hinder you if I say you may? We might go for a
little stroll all by our two selves, mightn’t we?”
“I’d love it better than anything,” said little Piers. “But perhaps
Nurse Clara——”
“Nurse Clara needn’t know, you little silly. Go and fetch your cap and
we’ll be off.”
Little Piers looked puzzled for a moment; then his face lit up and he
ran eagerly into the bedroom. He soon came back.
“I can’t find my cap,” he said.
Mrs. Ives accompanied him into Clara’s bedroom. They searched high and
low in vain.
“What a pity!” she said. “And I thought I’d like a spell of the air.
Well, you look here, little boy, we will go out presently when Clara
comes in.”
“And I could show you the house where I used to live; but oh, I forgot,
I can’t—it would be telling my secret.”
“So you have a secret, little un?”
“Haven’t I just—such a big one!”
“I wonder now, if I could guess it,” said Mrs. Ives in a thoughtful
voice.
Piers clapped his hands.
“What fun if you did,” he cried. “Nurse wouldn’t mind if you guessed
it—that wouldn’t be _me_ telling.”
“Of course it wouldn’t. Well, now, let me see; you are high born?”
Piers nodded. “Good, good,” he exclaimed.
“And rich?”
“Good again,” said Piers.
“If I was to see that house where you lived I could tell a lot more.
Showing me the house isn’t letting out the secret.”
“Isn’t it? Perhaps not. I’d like to show you the house very much
indeed.”
“But perhaps you have forgotten what part of London it’s in?”
“Not I—not I: it’s near Harley Street where that dreadful doctor lives—I
hate that doctor, Mrs. Ives. Oh, I know quite well how to get there, and
as you say, it wouldn’t be telling.”
“Of course it wouldn’t; and it would be much nicer for you if I guessed
your secret, for then we could talk it over together. I tell you what:
let’s go out at once, without waiting for that cap of yours. We can buy
a new one for sixpence at the first shop we come across.”
They went.