right hand in everything. For the first time in her life she forgot her
plain looks and her mother's trials, and felt that she had been born to
some purpose, and that purpose a good one. And then there came an awful
day, when the mother's illness was at the worst, when the two nurses
stood one on each side of the bed and freely discussed her state, in
utter indifference to the husband standing miserably by, with Gerty's
little sharp face peeping from behind him.
"Eh, pore thing, I'm sure!" with a sniff and a sob, "it is 'ard at 'er
age to go i' this way--pore thing, it is 'ard. Which ring did you say
Gerty was to 'ave, love?" bending down over the sick woman, who was just
conscious enough to know that some one was speaking to her--"the keeper?
Yes, love; I'll see to it. And which is for Ada Elizabeth?"
"Her breathing's getting much harder," put in the woman on the other
side; "it won't be long now. T' doctor said there was a chance with
care, but I know better. I've seen so many, and if it's the Lord's will
to take her, He'll take her. We may do all we can, but it's no use, for
I've seen so many."
Mr. Dicki'son gave a smothered groan, and turning sharply round went out
of the room and down the narrow creaking stairs, with a great lump in
his throat and a thick mist in front of his eyes. A fretful wail from
little Mirry had fallen upon his ear, and he found her sobbing
piteously, while Ada Elizabeth tried in vain to pacify her. She was
more quiet when she found herself in his arms; and then he noticed, with
a sudden and awful fear knocking at his heart, that there was something
wrong with his right hand, Ada Elizabeth--that she looked fagged and
white, and that there was a brilliancy in her dull grey eyes such as he
had never seen there before.
"Ada Elizabeth, what ails you?" he asked anxiously.
[Illustration: "Ada Elizabeth, what ails you?" he asked anxiously.]
"Nought, Father; I'm a bit tired, that's all," she answered, pushing her
heavy hair away from her forehead. "Mirry was awake all night nearly,
and I couldn't keep her quiet hardly."
Mr. Dicki'son looked closely at Mirry; but though the child was
evidently heavy and inclined to be fretful, there was not the same
glitter in her eyes as there was in her sister's.
"Here, Gerty," he said, "nurse Mirry a bit. I want to go upstairs for a
minute."
"Can't Ada Elizabeth have her?" asked Gerty, who always wanted to be in
the sick-room, so that she might know the latest news of her mother and
be to the front whoever came--for in those dark days, between the rector
and the doctors and the neighbours who came in and out, there were a
good many visitors to the little house. "Our Ada Elizabeth always keeps
Mirry quiet better than I can, father."
"Do as I bid you," returned Mr. Dicki'son sharply; and thus rebuked,
Gerty sat crossly down and bumped little Mirry on to her knee with a
burst of temper, which set the child wailing again.
Mr. Dicki'son had already reached the sick-room, where the nurses were
still standing over his half-unconscious wife's bed.
"I want you a minute, missus," he said to the one who had been so
anxious concerning the disposal of Mrs. Dicki'son's few bits of
jewellery. "Just come downstairs a minute."
The woman followed him, wondering what he could want. "Just look at
this little lass," he said, taking Ada Elizabeth by the hand and leading
her to the window. "Do you think there is aught amiss with her?"
There is little or no reserve among the poor, they speak their minds,
and they tell ill news with a terrible bluntness which is simply
appalling to those of a higher station; and this woman did not hesitate
to say what she thought, notwithstanding the fact that she knew that the
man was utterly overwrought, and that the child's fever-bright eyes were
fixed earnestly upon her.
"Mr. Dicki'son," she cried, "I'll not deceive you, no; some folks would
tell you as nought ailed, but not me--wi' her pore mother dying
upstairs. I couldn't find it in my 'eart to do it; I couldn't indeed.
Pore Ada Elizabeth's took, and you'd better run round to Widow Martin's
and see if t' doctor's been there this morning. He telled me I might
send there for him up to one o'clock, and it's only ten minutes past.
Ada Elizabeth, lie down on t' sofa, honey, and keep yourself quiet.
Gerty, can't you keep Mirry at t' window? Ada Elizabeth's took with the
fever, and can't bear being tewed about wi' her."
Mr. Dicki'son was off after the doctor like a shot, and less than a
quarter of an hour brought him back to see if the nurse's fiat was a
true one. Alas! it proved to be too true, and the kind-hearted doctor
drew the grief-stricken man on one side.
"Look here, Dicki'son," he said, "your wife is very ill indeed; it's no
use my deceiving you--her life hangs on a thread, and it will be only by
the greatest care if she is pulled through this. The child has
undoubtedly got the fever upon her, and she cannot have the attention
she ought to have here. There is not room enough nor quiet enough, and
there's nobody to attend to her. Get her off to the hospital at once."
"The hospital!" repeated Mr. Dicki'son blankly. He had all the horror of
a hospital that so many of his class have.
"It's the child's best chance," answered the doctor. "Of course, it may
turn out only a mild attack. All the better that she should be in the
hospital, in any case; in fact, I wish your wife was there this minute."
"Doctor," said Mr. Dicki'son hoarsely, "I don't like my little lass
going to the hospital. I don't like it."
"But there is no help for it, and she'll be far better off there than
she would be at home," the doctor answered; "but, all the same, they'd
better not talk about it before your wife. Even when she is delirious
or half-unconscious she knows a good deal of what's going on about her.
I'll step up and have a look at her, and will speak to the women
myself."
Before a couple of hours were over, Ada Elizabeth was comfortably in bed
in the quiet and shady ward of the well-managed hospital, and in the
little house in Gardener's Lane the struggle between life and death went
on, while Gerty had to devote herself as best she could to the children.
Gerty felt that it was desperately hard upon her, for Mirry and
six-year-old Georgie fretted without ceasing for "our Ada Elizabeth,"
and would not be comforted; not, all the same, that Gerty's ideas of
comfort were very soothing ones--a bump and a shake, and divers
threatenings of Bogle-Bo, and a black man who came down chimneys to
carry naughty children away, being about her form; and little Mirry and
Georgie found it but a poor substitute for the tender if dull patience
of "our Ada Elizabeth."
However, in spite of all the very real drawbacks which she had to fight
against, Mrs. Dicki'son did not die; slowly and painfully she struggled
back to her own senses again, with a dim realization of how very near
the gate of death she had wandered. But, alas! by the time the doctor
had, with a kindly pat upon his shoulder, told Mr. Dicki'son that his
wife would live if no very serious relapse took place, the fever had
fastened on another victim, and little Mirry was tossing to and fro with
fever-flushed face, and the same unnatural brilliancy in her bonny blue
eyes as had lighted up Ada Elizabeth's dull, grey ones.
They had not taken her to the hospital; it was so full that only urgent
cases were admitted now: and since the mother was on the road to
recovery, there was time to attend to the child. And so she lay in the
next room to her mother, whose weakened senses gradually awoke to the
knowledge of what was going on about her.
"Is that Mirry crying?" she asked, on the morning when the child was at
its worst.
"Now don't you fret yourself, love," returned the nurse evasively. "T'
bairn's being took care of right enough; they will cry a bit sometimes,
you know"; and then she shut the door, and the mother dozed off to sleep
again.
But in the evening the pitiful wail reached her ears again. "I want our
Ada 'Liz'bet'," the child's fretful voice cried; "Mirry do want our Ada
'Liz'bet' so bad-a-ly--me want our Ada 'Liz'bet'."
Mrs. Dicki'son started nervously and tried to lift herself in her bed.
"I'm sure Mirry's ill," she gasped. "Mrs. Barker, don't deceive me.
Tell me, is she ill?"
"Well, my dear, I won't deceive yer," the nurse answered; "poor little
Mirry's been took with the fever--yes, but don't you go and fret
yourself. Mrs. Bell's waiting of her, and she wants for nought, and t'
doctor says it's only a mild attack; only children runs up and down so
quick, and she's a bit more fretful than usual to-night, that's all."
"Mirry do want our Ada 'Liz'bet'," wailed the sick child in the next
room.
Mrs. Dicki'son turned her head weakly from side to side and trembled in
every limb.
"Why _can't_ Ada Elizabeth go to her?" she burst out at last.
The nurse coughed awkwardly. "Well, my dear," she began, "poor Ada
Elizabeth isn't 'ere."
"Isn't 'ere!" repeated Mrs. Dicki'son wildly, and just then her husband
walked into the room and up to the bedside.
She clutched hold of him with frantic eagerness. "Father," she cried
hysterically, "is it true our Mirry's took with the fever?"
"Yes, Em'ly; but it's a very mild case," he answered, feeling that it
was best in her excited and nervous condition to tell her the exact
truth at once. "She's fretty to-night, but she's not so ill that you
need worry about her; she's being took every care of."
"But she's crying for our Ada Elizabeth," Mrs. Dicki'son persisted.
"Hark! There she is again. Why _can't_ Ada Elizabeth be quick and go to
her? Where is she? What does Mrs. Barker mean by saying she isn't
'ere?"
Mr. Dicki'son cast a wrathful glance at the nurse, but he did not
attempt to hide from his wife any longer the fact that Ada Elizabeth was
not in the house. "You know you was very ill, Em'ly, a bit back," he
said, with an air and tone of humble apology, "and our Ada Elizabeth was
taken with the fever just the day you was at the worst; and there was no
one to wait on her, and the doctor would have her go to the hospital,
and--what was I to do, Em'ly? It went against my very heart to let the
little lass go, but she was willing, and you was taking all our time. I
was very near beside myself, Em'ly I was, or I'd never have consented."
Mrs. Dicki'son lay for some minutes in silence, exhausted by the
violence of her agitation; then the fretful wail in the adjoining room
broke the stillness again.
"I do _want_ our Ada 'Liz'bet'," the child cried piteously. Mrs.
Dicki'son burst out into passionate sobbing. "I lie 'ere and I can't
lift my finger for 'er," she gasped out, "and--and--it was just like Ada
Elizabeth to go and get the fever when she was most wanted; she always
was the contrariest child that I had, always."
Mr. Dicki'son drew his breath sharply, as if some one had struck him in
the face, but with an effort he pulled himself together and answered her
gently: "Nay, wife--Emily, don't say that. The little lass held up
until she couldn't hold up no longer. I'll go and quiet Mirry. She's
always quiet enough with me. Keep yourself still, and I'll stop with
the bairn until she's asleep"; and then he bent and kissed her forehead,
and passed softly out of the room, only whispering, "Not one word" to
the nurse as he passed her.
But, dear Heaven! how that man's heart ached as he sat soothing his
little fever-flushed child into quietness! I said but now that he drew
his breath sharply as if some one had struck him in the face. Alas! it
was worse than that, for the wife of his bosom, the mother of his
children, had struck him, stabbed him, to the lowest depths of his heart
by her querulous complaint against the child who had gone from him only
a few hours before, on whose little white, plain face he had just looked
for the last time, and on which his scalding tears had fallen, for he
knew that, plain, and dull, and unobtrusive as she had always been--the
butt of her sister's sharp tongue, the trial of his wife's whole
existence--he knew that with the closing of the heavy eyes the brightest
light of his life had gone out.
And little Mirry, wrapped in a blanket, lay upon his breast soothed into
slumber. Did something fall from his eyes upon her face, that she
started and looked up at him? She must have mistaken the one plain face
for the other, for she put up her little hot hand and stroked his cheek.
"You tum back, Ada 'Liz'bet'?" she murmured, as she sank off to sleep
again; "Mirry did want you _so_ bad-a-ly." The sick child's tender
words took away half the bitterness of the sting which his wife had
thrust into his heart, and his whole soul seemed to overflow with a
great gush of love as he swayed her gently to and fro. _She_ had loved
the unattractive face, and missed it bitterly; _she_ had wearied for the
rare, patient smile and the slow, gentle voice, and, to Mr. Dicki'son's
dull mind, the child's craving had bound Ada Elizabeth's heavy brows
with a crown of pure gold, with the truest proof that "affection never
was wasted."
[Illustration: "You tum back, Ada 'Liz'bet'?" she murmured.]
Halt!
"Halt! Who goes there?" cried a man's voice through the thick gloom of
the dark night.
There was no answer save silence; and, after listening for a moment,
Private Flinders turned, and began to tramp once more along the ten
paces which extended from his sentry-box. "I could have sworn I heard a
footstep," he said to himself. "It's curious how one's ears deceive one
on a night like this."
Ten paces one way, ten paces the other; turn, and back again, and begin
your ten paces over again. Yes, it is monotonous, there is no doubt of
that; but it is the bounden duty of a sentry, unless he happens to
prefer standing still in his box, getting stiff and chill, and perhaps
running the risk of being caught asleep at his post--no light offence in
a barrack, I can tell you. Ten paces one way, ten paces the other--a
rustling, a mere movement, such as would scarcely have attracted the
attention of most people, but which caught Private Flinders' sharp ears,
and brought him up to a standstill again in an attitude of strict
watchfulness.
"Halt! Who goes there?" he cried again, and listened once more. Again
silence met him, and again he stood, alert and suspicious, waiting for
the reply, "Friend."
"By Gum, this is queer," he thought, as he stood listening. "I'll
search to the bottom of it though. I daresay it's only some of the chaps
getting at me; but I'll be even with 'em, if it is."
He groped about in rather an aimless sort of way, for the night was
black as pitch; and his eyes, though they had grown used to the inky
want of light, could distinguish nothing of his surroundings.
"Now, where are you, you beggar?" he remarked, beginning to lose his
habitual serenity, and laying about him with his carbine. After a
stroke or two the weapon touched something, though not heavily, and a
howl followed--a howl which was unmistakably that of a small child. It
conveyed both fear and bodily pain. Private Flinders followed up the
howl by feeling cautiously in the part whence the sounds had come. His
hand closed upon something soft and shrinking, and the howls were
redoubled.
"Hollo! what the deuce are you?" he exclaimed, drawing the shrieking
captive nearer to him. "Why, I'm blessed if it ain't a kid--and a girl,
too. Well, I'm blowed! And where did you happen to come from?"
The howl by this time had developed into a faint sniffing, for Private
Flinders' voice was neither harsh nor forbidding. But the creature did
not venture on speech.
"Where did you come from, and what are you doing here?" he asked. "Do
you belong to the barricks, and has your mammy been wollopping of you?
Or did you stray in from outside?"
"Lost my mammy," the small creature burst out, finding that she was
expected to say something.
"What's your mammy's name?" Flinders asked.
"Mammy, of course," was the reply.
"And what's your name?"
"Susy."
"Susy. Aye, but Susy what?"
"Susy," repeated the little person, beginning to whimper again.
"Where do you live?"
"At home," said Susy, in an insulted tone, as if all these questions
were quite superfluous.
"Well! blest if _I_ know what to do with you," said Flinders, pushing
his busby on one side, and scratching his head vigorously. "I don't
believe you belong to the barricks--your speech haven't got the twang of
it. And if you've strayed in from outside, Gord knows what 'll become
of you. Certain it is that you won't be let to stop here."
"Susy so cold," whimpered the mite pitifully.
"I should think you was cold," returned Private Flinders
sympathetically. "I'm none too warm myself; and the fog seems to fair
eat into one's bones. Well, little 'un, I can't carry you back to where
you came from, that's very certain. I can't even take you round to the
guard-room. Now, what the deuce am I to do with you? And I shan't be
relieved for over a hour."
Private Flinders being one of the most good-natured men in creation, it
ended by his gathering the child in his arms, and carrying her up and
down on his beat until the relief came.
"Why, what's the meaning of this?" demanded the corporal of the guard,
when he perceived the unusual encumbrance to the private's movements.
"Ah! Corporal, that's more than I can tell you," responded the other
promptly. "This here kid toddled along over a hour ago; and as she
don't seem to know what her name is, or where she come from, I just
walked about with her, that she mightn't be froze to death. I suppose
we'd best carry her to the guard-room fire, and keep her warm till
morning."
"And then?" asked the corporal, with a twinkle in his eye, which the
dark night effectually hid.
"Gord knows," was the private's quick reply.
Eventually, the mite who rejoiced in the name of Susy, and did not know
whence she had come or whither she was going, was carried off to the
guard-room and made as comfortable as circumstances would permit--that
being the only course, indeed, at that hour of the night, or, to be
quite correct, of the morning--which could with reason be followed.
She slept, as healthy children do, like a top or dog, and when she awoke
in the morning she expressed no fear or very much surprise, and, having
enquired in a casual kind of way for her mammy, she partook of a very
good breakfast of bread and milk, followed by a drink of coffee and a
taste or two of such other provisions as were going round. Later on
Private Flinders was sent for to the orderly-room, and told to give the
commanding officer such information as he was in possession of
concerning the stray mite, who was still in the warm guard-room.
Now it happened that the commanding officer of the 9th Hussars was a
gentleman to whom routine was a religion and discipline a salvation, and
he expressed himself sharply enough as to the only course which could
possibly be pursued under the present circumstances.
"We had better send down to the workhouse people to come and remove the
child at once. Otherwise, we may have endless trouble with the mother;
and, moreover, if it once got about that these barracks were open to
that kind of thing, the regiment would soon be turned into a regular
foundling hospital. Let the workhouse people be sent for at once. What
did you say, Mr. Jervis? That the child might be quartered for a few
hours among the married people. Yes, I daresay, but if the mother is on
the look-out, which is very doubtful, she is more likely to go to the
police-station than she is to come here. As to any stigma, the mother
should have borne that in mind when she lost the child. On second
thoughts, I think it is to the police-station that we should send; yes,
that will be quite the best thing to do."
A few hours later the child Susy was transferred from the guard-room to
the police-station, and there she made herself equally at home, only
asking occasionally, in a perfunctory kind of way, for "Mammy," and
being quite easily satisfied when she was told that she would be coming
along by-and-by.
During the few hours that she was at the police-station she became quite
a favourite, and made friends with all the stalwart constables, just as
she had done with one and all of the strapping Hussars at the cavalry
barracks. She was not shy, for she answered the magistrate in quite a
friendly way, though she gave no information as to her belongings,
simply because she had no information to give. And the end was that she
was condemned to the workhouse, and was carried off to that undesirable
haven as soon as the interview with the magistrate was over.
"A blooming shame, I call it, poor little kid," said Private Flinders
that evening to a group of his friends, in the comfortable safety of the
troop-room. "She was a jolly little lass; and if I'd been a married
man, I'd have kept her myself, dashed if I wouldn't!"
"Perhaps your missis might 'ave 'ad a word or two to say to that,
Flinders," cried a natty fellow, just up to the standard in height, and
no more.
"Oh, I'd have made it all right with her," returned Flinders, with that
easy assurance of everything good that want of experience gives. "But
to send it to the workhouse--it's a blooming shame! They treat kids
anyhow in them places. Now then, Thomson, what are you a-grinning at?
Perhaps you know as much about workhouses as I can tell you."
"Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't," replied Thomson, with provoking
good temper. "I wasn't a-laughing at the workhouse; cussing them is
more like what one feels. But to think of you, old chap, tramping up
and down with the blessed kid asleep--well, it beats everything I ever
heard tell of, blame me if it don't."
Private Flinders, however, was not to be laughed out of his interest in
the little child Susy; and regularly every week he walked down to the
workhouse, and asked to see her taking always a few sweeties, bought out
of his scanty pay, the cost of which meant his going without some small
luxury for himself. And Susy, who was miserably unhappy in that abode
of sorrow which we provide in this country for the destitute, grew to
look eagerly for his visits, and sobbed out all her little troubles and
trials to his sympathetic ears.
"Susy don't like her," she confided to him one day when the matron had
left them alone together. "She slaps me. Susy don't love her."
"But Susy will learn to be a good girl, and not get slapped," the
soldier said, with something suspiciously like a lump in his throat.
"See, I've brought you some lollipops--you'll like them, won't you?"
He happened to run up against the matron as he walked away toward the
door. "She's a tender little thing, missis," he remarked, with a vague
kind of notion that even workhouse matrons have hearts sometimes. And
so some of them have, though not many. This particular one was among
the many.
[Illustration: "She's a tender little thing, missis," he remarked.]
"A very self-willed child," she remarked sharply, "considering that
she's so young. We have a great deal of trouble with her. She does not
seem to know the meaning of the word obedience."
"She is but a baby," ventured the soldier apologetically.
"Baby, or no baby, she'll have to learn it here," snapped the matron
viciously; and then Flinders went on his way, feeling sadder than ever,
and yet more and more regretful that he was not married, or had at least
a mother in a position to adopt a little child.
The next time he went they had cut the child's lovely long, curling
locks, indeed, she had been shorn like a sheep in spring-time.
Flinders' soft heart gave a great throb, and he cuddled the mite to his
broad breast, as if by so doing he could undo the indignity that had
been put upon her.
"Susy," he said, when he had handed over his sweets and she was busily
munching them up, "I want you to try and remember something."
Susy looked at him doubtfully, but nodded her cropped head with an air
of wise acquiescence. Flinders went on talking quietly.
"You remember before you came here--you had a home and a mammy, don't
you?"
"Yes," said Susy promptly.
"What sort of a house was it?"
"Where my mammy was?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Big," replied Susy briefly, selecting another sweetie with care.
"And what was it called?"
"The house," said the child, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Flinders gave a sigh. "Yes, I dare say it was. Don't you remember,
though, what your mammy was called?"
"Why mammy, of course," said Susy, as if the question was too utterly
foolish for serious consideration.
"Yes, but other people didn't call her mammy--it was only you did that,"
said Flinders desperately. "What did other people call her? Can't you
remember that?"
It happened that Susy not only remembered, but immediately gave
utterance to her recollections in such a way as fairly made the soldier
jump. "They called my mammy 'my lady,'" she said simply.
Private Flinders gave the child a great hug, and put her down off his
knee. "Gord bless you, little 'un," he ejaculated. "And see if I don't
ferret that mammy of yours out before I'm many days older--see if I
don't."
He met the matron as he went towards the entrance. "Missis," he said,
stopping, "I've got a clue to that little 'un's belongings. I'm off to
the police station now about it. I'd advise you to treat her as tender
as you can. It'll come home to you, mark my words."
"Dear me," snapped the matron; "is she going to turn out a princess in
disguise, then?"
"It'll perhaps turn out a pity you was in such a hurry to crop her
hair," said Private Flinders, with dignity.
In the face of that sudden recollection of the child's, he felt that he
could afford to be, to a certain extent, stand-offish to the cold-eyed,
unloving woman before him.
"Oh, rules are rules," said the matron, with an air of fine disdain;
"and, in an institution like ours, all must be served alike. It would
be a pretty thing if we had to spend half of every day curling the
children's hair. Good-day to you."
He felt that he had got the worst of it, and that it was more than
possible that little Susy would pay the penalty of his indiscretion.
Fool that he had been not to hold his tongue until he had something more
tangible to say. Well, it was done now, and could not be undone, and it
behoved him to lose no time, but to find out the truth as soon as
possible.
The inspector whom he found in charge of the police-station listened to
his tale with a strictly professional demeanour.
"Yes, I remember the little girl coming in and being taken to the
workhouse. I remember the case right enough. You'd better leave it to
us, and we will find out whether such a child is missing anywhere in the
country."
I need hardly say that in Private Flinders' mind there lurked that
deep-rooted distrust of a policeman that lives somewhere or other in the
heart of every soldier. It came uppermost in his mind at that moment.
"You'll do your best?" he said, a little wistfully. "You'll not let time
go by, and--and----?"
"We shall be in communication with every police-station in the kingdom
in a few hours," returned the inspector, who knew pretty well what was
passing in the soldier's mind. "But, all the same, you mustn't be
over-much disappointed if there proves to be nothing in it. You see, if
such a child was being inquired for, we should have heard of it before
this. However, we'll do our best; you may be very sure of that."
With that Private Flinders was obliged to rest content. He made
inquiries from day to day, and eventually this advertisement appeared in
the leading daily papers:--
TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS.--A little girl, apparently about three years
old, is in charge of the police at Bridbrook. She says her name is
Susy, and appears to be the child of well-to-do parents. Very fair
hair, blue eyes, features small and pretty. Clothes very good, but much
soiled.--Address, POLICE STATION, BRIDBROOK.
A few hours after the appearance of the advertisement, a telegram
arrived at the police-station:--
"Keep child. Will come as soon as possible.--JACKSON."
* * * * *
Less than three hours afterwards, an excited woman rushed into the
station, having precipitated herself out of a cab, and almost flung
herself upon the astonished inspector.
"I've come for the child--the little girl," she gasped, as if she had
run at racing speed direct from the place indicated by the telegram.
"Oh, she belongs to you, does she?" remarked the inspector coolly.
"Well, you've no call to be in such a 'urry; you've been very
comfortable about her for the last six weeks."
"Comfortable!" echoed the excited one; "why, I've been very near out of
my mind. I thought she was drowned, and I was so frightened, I daren't
say a word to any one about it. And my lady away----"
"Then you're not the mother?" said the inspector sharply.
"The mother!--my goodness, no! I'm the head nurse. My young lady's
mother is the Countess of Morecambe."
"Then what does _she_ say to all this, pray?" he asked.
"My lady went abroad two months ago to one of those foreign cure places,
and she doesn't know but what Lady Susy is safe with me at this minute,"
the woman replied.
The inspector gave a prolonged whistle.
"Well, you're a pretty sort of nurse to leave in charge of a child," he
remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if you get the sack for this. Do you
know the child's at the workhouse, and that they've cropped her head as
bare as mine?"
At this the woman simply sat down and sobbed aloud.
"Aye, you may well cry," said the inspector grimly. "I should if I was
in your shoes."
She finally told how the child had been missed; how she had refrained
from giving notice to the police through fear of publicity, and
believing she could find her by diligent search in the locality; how "my
lady" was a widow, with only this one little child; how she had been
advised to go for this cure; how she had consented to the nurse taking
Lady Susy to the seaside meantime, well knowing that she would be safe
and happy with her.
"Yes, you may laugh at that," she wound up; "but my dear lamb has often
called me 'mammy' as anything else, and my lady has often said she was
quite jealous of me."
"All the same, I shouldn't wonder if you get the sack," repeated the
inspector, who was not troubled with much sentiment.
I scarcely know how to tell the rest--how Jackson went off to the
workhouse, and enlightened the matron and others as to the child's
station in life; how she seized her little ladyship, and almost
smothered her with kisses; how she bewailed her shorn locks, and
wondered and conjectured as to how she could possibly have got to a
place so far from her home as Bridbrook.
But, a few weeks later, a lovely woman in mourning came to the cavalry
barracks, and inquired for Private Flinders. She wept during the
interview, this lovely lady; and when she had gone away, Private
Flinders opened the packet she had put into his hands, to find a cheque
for a hundred pounds, and a handsome gold watch and chain. And at the
end of the chain was a plain gold locket, on one side of which was
engraved Private Flinders' initials, whilst on the other was written the
single word, "Halt!"
The Little Lady with the Voice
A FAIRY TALE
Marjory Drummond was sitting on the bank of the river, and, if the whole
truth must be owned, she was crying. She was not crying loudly or
passionately, but as she rested her cheek on her hand, the sad salt
tears slowly gathered in her eyes, and brimmed over one by one, falling
each with a separate splash upon the blue cotton gown which she wore.
[Illustration: The sad salt tears slowly gathered in her eyes.]
The sun was shining high in the blue heavens, the river danced and sang
merrily as it went rippling by, and all the hedgerows were alive with
flowers, and the air was full of the scent of the new-cut hay. Yet
Marjory was very miserable, and for her the skies looked dark and dull,
the river only gave her even sadder thoughts than she already had, and
the new-cut hay seemed quite scentless and dead. And all because a man
had failed her--a man had proved to be clay instead of gold. And so she
sat there in the gay summer sunshine and wished that she had never been
born, or that she were dead, or some such folly, and the butterflies
fluttered about, and the bees hummed, and all nature, excepting herself,
seemed to be radiant and joyous. An old water-vole came out of his
hiding-place by the river and watched her with a wise air, and a
dragon-fly whizzed past and hovered over the surface of the sunlit
water, but Marjory's eyes were blind to each and all of these things,
and still the tears welled up and overflowed their bounds, and she wept
on.
"What is the matter?" said a voice just at her ear.
Marjory gave a jump, and dashed her tears away; it was one thing to
indulge herself in her grief, but it was quite another to let any one
else, and that a stranger, see her. "What is wrong with you, Marjory?"
said the voice once more.
"Nothing!" answered Marjory shortly.
"I may, perhaps, be able to help you," the gentle little voice
persisted.
"Nobody can help me," said Marjory, with a great sigh, "nobody can help
me--nobody."
"Don't be so sure of that," said the voice. "Why do you keep this curl
of hair? Why do you turn so persistently away from me? Why don't you
look at me?"
Marjory turned her head, but she could see no one near. "Who are you?
Why do you hide?" she asked in turn.
"You look too high," said the voice. "Look lower; yes--ah, how d'you
do?"
Marjory almost jumped into the river in her fright, for there, standing
under the shade of a big dandelion, was the smallest being she had ever
seen in her life. Yet, as she sat staring at her, this tiny woman
seemed to increase in size, and to assume a shape which was somehow
familiar to her. "You know me now?" asked the little woman, smiling at
her again.
"N--o," replied Marjory, stammering a little.
"Oh, yes, you do. You remember the old woman whose part you took a few
weeks ago--down by the old church, when some boys were teasing her?
Well, that was me--me--and now I'm going to do something for you. I am
going to make you happy."
"Are you a witch?" asked Marjory, in a very awed voice.
"Hu--sh--sh! We never use such an uncomplimentary word in _our_ world.
But you poor mortals are often very rude, even without knowing it. I am
not what is called a witch, young lady. I am a familiar."
Marjory's eyes opened wider than ever; she bent forward and asked an
earnest question: "Are you my familiar?" she said.
"Perhaps, perhaps," answered the little woman, nodding her head wisely.
"That all depends on yourself. If you are good, yes; if you are bad,
no--most emphatically, no. I am much too important a person to be
familiar to worthless people."
"I'm sure you are very kind," said Marjory meekly. "But what will you
do to make me happy? You cannot give me back my Jack, because he has
married some one else--the wretch!" she added under her breath, but the
ejaculation was for the woman whom Jack had married, not for Jack
himself.
"You will learn to live without your Jack, as you call him," said the
little woman with the soft voice, sagely, "and to feel thankful that he
chose elsewhere. You once did me a service, and that is a thing that a
familiar never, never forgets. I have been watching you ever since that
time, and now I will reward you. Marjory Drummond, from this time
henceforth everything shall prosper with you; everything you touch shall
turn to gold, everything you wish shall come to pass; what you strive
after you shall have; your greatest desires shall be realised; and you
shall have power to draw tears from all eyes whenever you choose. This
last I give you in compensation for the tears that you have shed this
day. Farewell!"
"Stay!" cried Marjory. "Won't you even tell me your name? May I not
thank you?"
"No. The thanks are mine," said the little lady. "When we meet again I
will tell you my name--not before."
In a moment she was gone, and so quickly and mysteriously did she go
that Marjory did not see her disappear. She rubbed her eyes and looked
round. "I must have been asleep!" she exclaimed. "I must have dreamt
it."
* * * * *
Several years had gone by. With Marjory Drummond everything had
prospered, and she was on the high road to success, and fame, and
fortune. Whenever her name was spoken, people nodded their heads wisely,
and said: "A wonderful girl, nothing she cannot do"; and they mostly
said it as if each one of them had had a hand in making her the clever
girl that she was.
As an artist she was extremely gifted, being well hung in the Academy of
the year; as an actress, though only playing with that form of art, she
was hard to beat; and she had written stories and tales which were so
infinitely above the average that editors were one and all delighted at
any time to have the chance of a story signed with the initials "M.D.,"
initials which the world thought and declared were those of one of the
most fashionable doctors of the day.
And at last the world of letters woke up and rubbed its eyes very much
as Marjory had rubbed her eyes that day on the river's bank, and the
world said, "We have a great and gifted man among us." "'M.D.' is _the_
writer of the time." And slowly, little by little, the secret crept
out, and Marjory was feted and flattered, and made the star of the
season. Her name was in every one's mouth, and her work was sought
after eagerly and read by all. And among those who worshipped at her
shrine was the "Jack" who had flouted her in the old days, yet not quite
the same, but a "Jack" very much altered and world-worn, so that Marjory
could no longer regret or wish that the lines of her life had fallen
otherwise than they had done.
And often and often, as the years rolled by, and she was still the
darling star of the people who love to live in the realms of fiction,
did Marjory ponder over that vivid dream by the riverside, and try to
satisfy herself that it really was no more than a dream, and that the
old lady with the sweet clear voice had had no being except in her
excited brain. "I wish," she said aloud one day, when she was sitting by
the fire after finishing the most important work that had ever yet come
from her pen, "I wish that she would come back and satisfy me about it.
It seemed so real, so vivid, so distinct, and yet it is so
impossible----"
"Not impossible at all," said a familiar voice at her elbow.
Marjory looked round with a start. "Oh! is it you?" she cried. "Then
it was all true! I have never been able to make up my mind whether it
was true or only a dream. Now I know that it was quite real, and
everything that you promised me has come about. I am the happiest woman
in all the world to-day, and, dear friend, if ever I did a service to
you, you have amply repaid me."
"We never stint thanks in our world," said the little old lady, smiling.
"Then there is nothing more that you want?"
"Yes, kind friend, just one thing," said Marjory. "You promised me that
when we met again you would tell me your name."
The little woman melted away instantly, but somewhere out of the shadows
came a small sweet sighing voice, which said softly, "My name
is--Genius!"
Jewels to Wear
"Torches are made to burn;
jewels to wear."--_Shakespeare_
CHAPTER I
"I can't think, Nancy, why you cannot get something useful to occupy
yourself with. It seems to me that I have slaved and sacrificed myself
all my life, in every possible direction, simply that you may waste your
whole time spoiling good paper, scribbling, scribbling, scribbling, from
morning till night, with your fingers inky, and your thoughts in the
clouds, and your attention on nothing that I want you to attend to. I
don't call it a good reward to make to me. You will never do any good
with that ridiculous scribbling--never! When I think of what you
_might_ save me, of how you _might_ spare me in my anxious and busy
life, it makes me positively ill to think I am your mother. Here have I
been thinking of you, Nancy, and working for you, and struggling, and
fighting, and slaving for you for twenty years, and now that the time
has come when you might do something for me, you have only one idea in
your head, and that is writing rubbishy stories that nobody will ever
want to buy!"
[Illustration: "You have only one idea in your head, and that is writing
rubbishy stories that nobody will ever want to buy!"]
The girl thus addressed turned and looked at her mother.
"Mother, dear," she said depreciatingly, "I am sorry that I am not more
useful. I can't help it. I do think of you, I try to do everything I
can to relieve you, and help you; but these stories will come into my
head. They won't be put out of it. What am I to do?"
"What are you to do?" echoed the mother. "Why, look at that basket of
stockings to darn!"
"I am quite willing to darn them," said Nancy meekly.
"Yes, you are quite willing, I daresay. You are quite willing _when_ I
tell you. But you don't seem to see what a burden it is to me to have
to tell you everything as if you were a baby. There are the stockings,
and there are you; at your age, you don't surely need me to tell you
that the stockings need mending!"
"I will do them at once," said Nancy. "I will do them this minute."
"Yes, with your thoughts in the clouds, and your mind fixed on
scribbling. What, may I ask you, Nancy, do you think you will ever do
with it?"
"I don't know," said Nancy desperately. "Perhaps I may make some money
some day."
"Never, never! Waste it, you mean. Waste it over pens, ink, paper and
tablecloths. There is the tablecloth in your bedroom spotted with ink
from end to end. It is heart-breaking."
"Well, Mother, what do you wish me to do?" the girl asked in
desperation.
"Your plain and simple duty. I would like you to give up all idea of
wasting your time in that way from now on," said the mother
deliberately.
"Won't you even let me write a little to amuse myself in my spare time?"
asked the girl piteously.
"Your spare time!" echoed the mother impatiently. "What spare time have
poor people such as we are? What spare time have I? Here are we with
this great boarding-house on our hands, twenty-three boarders to be made
comfortable, kept in good temper, fed, housed, boarded--everything to be
done for them, and I have to do it. Why, in the time that you waste
over those stories, you might make yourself a brilliant pianist, and
play in the evening to them. Then you would be of some use."
"I don't think," said Nancy, "that anything will ever make me a
brilliant pianist, Mother. There's no music in me--not of that kind,
and I don't think that the boarders would like me half as well if I went
and strummed on the drawing-room piano every evening for an hour or two,
I really don't, Mother."
"No, you know better than I do, of course. That is the way with the
young people of the present day. You are all alike. Ah, it was
different when I was a girl. I would no more have dreamed of defying my
mother as you defy me----"
"Mother, I don't defy you," Nancy broke in indignantly. "I never defied
you in my life. I never thought of such a thing."
"Don't you write stories in defiance of my wishes?" Mrs. Macdonald
asked, dropping the tragedy air, and putting the question in a plain,
every-day, businesslike tone.
At this, Nancy Macdonald flushed a deep full red, a blush of shame it
was, or what felt like shame, and as it slowly faded away until her face
was a dull greyish white, all hope for that gift which was as the very
mainspring of her life, seemed to shrink and die within her.
"Mother," she said at last, in a firm tone, "I will do what you wish. I
will give up writing, I promise you, from this time forward, and I will
not write at all while I have any duty left in the day. You will not
mind my doing a little when I have seen the after dinner coffee served,
will you?"
"That means, I suppose," said Mrs. Macdonald rather tartly, "that you
will sit up half the night ruining your health, spoiling your eyesight,
wasting my gas, and making it perfectly impossible that you should get
up in good time in the morning."
"Mother," said the girl, in a most piteous tone, "when I am once late in
the morning, I will promise you to give it up altogether, and for ever;
more than that I cannot say. As you said just now, it is a hard life
here, and we have not very much leisure time; but, I implore you, do not
take my one delight and pleasure from me altogether!"
"If you put it in that way," said Mrs. Macdonald rather grudgingly, "of
course, we can but try the experiment; but what good, I ask you, Nancy,
do you think will ever come of it!"
"I don't know," said Nancy; "I can't say. Other people have made
fortunes; other people have done well by writing; why should not I?"
"As if _you_ would ever make a fortune!" said Mrs. Macdonald, with the
contemptuousness of a woman to whom the struggle of life had been hard
and to whom pounds, shillings and pence in the very hand were the only
proofs of reason for what she called "wasting time" over story-writing.
"Well, if not a fortune, at least a comfortable income," said Nancy
eagerly; "and if I did, Mother, I should give it all to you!"
"Thank you for nothing, my dear," was the ungracious reply.
To this Nancy made no answer. She carried the big basket of stockings
to the window, and sat down in the cold winter light to do such repairs
as were necessary. Poor child! It was a hard fate for her. She was the
eldest of a family of five, all dependent on the exertions of her
widowed mother in keeping afloat the big boarding-house by which they
lived. For a boarding-house, be it ever so liberally managed, be the
receipts ever so generous, is but a sordid abode, especially to those
who have the trouble and care of managing it; and to an eldest daughter,
and one who stands between the anxious mother and the younger children,
who mostly resemble young rooks with mouths chronically open, such a
life appears perhaps more sordid than it does to any one else.
To Nancy Macdonald, with her mind full of visionary beauty, and living
daily in a world of her own--not a world of boarding-houses--the life
they lived seemed even more sordid, more trivial, more petty, than it
was in reality. Her wants were not many; she was never inclined to rail
at fate because she had not been born with a silver spoon in her mouth,
not at all. But if only she could have a quiet home, with an assured
income, just sufficient to cover their modest wants, to provide good
wholesome food, to buy boots and shoes for the little ones, to pay the
wages of a good servant, to take those lines of anxious care from her
mother's forehead, so that she could employ her leisure in cultivating
her Art--she always called it her Art, poor child!--she would have been
perfectly happy, or she _thought_ she would have been perfectly happy,
which, in the main, amounted to the same thing. As she sat in the cold
light of that winter's afternoon, darning, as if for dear life, the
great pile of stockings which were her portion, she soon drifted away
from the tall Bloomsbury dwelling into a bright, brilliant land of
romance, where there were no troubles, no cares, where nothing was
sordid, and everything was bright and rosy, and even troubles and
worries might have been adequately described as "double water gilt."
Young writers do indulge in these blessed dreams of fancy, and Nancy,
remember, was only twenty. Her heroines were always lovely, always
extravagantly rich or picturesquely poor; her heroes were all lithe and
long, and most of them had tawny moustaches, and violet eyes like a
girl's. They were all guardsmen or noblemen. They knew not the want of
money; if they were _called_ poor, they went everywhere in hansoms, and
had valets and gambling debts. It was an ideal world, and Nancy
Macdonald was very happy in it.
From that time forward a new life began for the girl. The household
certainly went more smoothly, because of that promise to her mother; and
Mrs. Macdonald's sharp tongue whetted itself on other grievances more
frequently than on that old one about Nancy's scribbling propensities.
It was irritating to Nancy, of course, to hear her mother continually
nagging about something or other; but then, as she reminded herself very
often during the day, her mother had great anxieties and grievous
worries. She was a sort of double-distilled Martha, "careful and
troubled," not about many things, but about everything--everything that
did happen, or might happen, even what could happen under given
circumstances which might and probably never would occur. Still, it was
not so trying to bear when the shafts of sarcasm and complaining were
aimed at others instead of herself, and to do Nancy strict justice, she
did try honestly to do the work which lay to her hand.
In the midst of the multitudinous cares of the large household it must
be owned that the girl's writing suffered. It is all very well for a
girl in fiction to do scullery work all day long, and write the
brilliant novel of a season in odd moments, in a cold and cheerless
bedroom, but in real life it is very different. Nancy Macdonald gave
her attention to stockings and table-linen, and shopping and ordering
and dusting; to keeping boarders in good temper, and making herself
generally useful; to superintending the education and manners of the
little ones, to smoothing down the rough edges of her mother's chronic
asperity--in short, to being a real help; but her much loved work
practically went to the wall. She dreamed a good deal while she was
doing other things, but mere dreaming is not of much help towards making
name or fortune; work is the only road which leads to either. Still,
you cannot do your duty without improving your character, and Nancy
Macdonald's character was strengthening and softening every day. She
worked a little at night, but often she was far too tired and weary to
attempt it. Very often when she did so, she found that the words would
not run, the incidents would not connect themselves, and frequently that
her eyes would not keep open; and then I am obliged to say that it was
not an uncommon thing for Nancy Macdonald to get into bed and cry
herself to sleep.
Still, her character was strengthening. With every day that went by she
learnt more of the power of endurance; she became more patient, more
fixed in her ideas; the goal of her desires was set more immediately in
front of her. It was less visionary, but it was infinitely more
substantial. In a desultory kind of a way she still worked, still wrote
of lords and ladies whom she did not know in the flesh, still drew
pictures of guardsmen with longer legs and tawnier moustaches even than
before. She spent the whole of her pocket-money (which, by the bye,
consisted of certain perquisites in the house, the medicine bottles and
the dripping forming her chief sources of income) on manuscript paper,
and was sometimes hard pushed to pay the postage on the mysterious
packages which she smuggled into the post-office, and to provide the
stamps for paying the return fare of these children of her fancy. Poor
things, they always required it. No enterprising editors wanted the
long-legged guardsmen, their blue eyes and tawny moustaches
notwithstanding. Nobody had a welcome for the lovely ladies, who were
all dressed by Worth, though they never seemed to have heard of such a
person as Felix. The disappointments of their continued return were
very bitter to her; yet, at heart, Nancy Macdonald was a true artist,
and had all the true artist's pluck and perseverance, so that she never
thought of giving up her work. It was only that she had not yet found
her _metier_.
CHAPTER II
For about six months after Nancy's promise to her mother that she would
not even try to write during the working hours, life went fairly
prosperously with the widowed boarding-house keeper. Then a spell of bad
luck set in. Several boarders left and were not replaced. Their best
paying permanent boarder--a rich old gentleman, the head of a large
business in the city--died suddenly, died without a will, although he
had several times spoken of his intention of leaving Mrs. Macdonald a
handsome legacy; and his next-of-kin did not seem to think it necessary
to do more than pay the actual expenses which their relative had
incurred. Twice they had visitors who left without paying their bills;
and, as a last crowning act of ill-luck, the youngest child fell sick,
and the doctor pronounced the illness to be scarlet fever.
"When troubles come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions";
and that is as true to-day as when Shakespeare penned the lines more
than three hundred years ago.
Mrs. Macdonald was almost beside herself. She ceased to gird at any
member of the family or household; she girded at Fate instead, morning,
noon, and night. She discussed the situation in a frenzied manner, with
tears in her eyes and a large amount of gesticulation, which would have
formed an excellent object-lesson to a student for the stage; but, at
the same time, it must be owned that raving appeals to the Almighty,
passionate assertions that she was the most unlucky woman that the light
of day had ever shone upon, bitter forebodings of what her daily life
would be like when she was safely landed in the nearest workhouse, did
not avail anything. No, the Macdonald family was in for a spell of bad
luck, and all the asseverations in the world would not alter it or
gainsay it.
At this time Nancy was like a rock in the midst of a stormy sea. She,
after much self-communing, threw over her promise to her mother
concerning the time of her writing. She felt, as every true artist
feels, that it was in her to do great things; and that even a little
money earned in such a crisis would be of double value. So every moment
that she could steal from the now greatly decreased house duties she
spent in her own room, working with feverish haste and anxiety at a new
story, a story which was not about lords and ladies, or majestic
guardsmen, or lovely heroines in costly Parisian dresses; no, she felt,
all in a moment, the utter futility of trying to draw a phase of life
with which she herself was not familiar. It seemed to come to her like
a flash of light that her children of pen and ink were not real; that
she was fighting the air; that she was like an artist drawing without a
model. Like a living human voice a warning came into her mind, "Write
what you know; write what you see; before all things be an
impressionist." So her new child was slowly coming to life, a child
born in poverty and reared in a boarding-house. The form of the child
was crude, and was the work of an unpractised hand; but it was strong.
It was full of life; it was a thing alive; and as line after line came
from under her hand, as the story assumed shape and colour from under
her nervous fingers, Nancy Macdonald felt that she was on the right tack
at last, that this time she would not fail.
As soon as her story was done, she sent it with breathless hope to a
well-known weekly magazine which is almost a household word, and then
she sat down to wait. Oh! but it is weary waiting under such
circumstances. After three days of sickening suspense, Nancy decided in
her own mind that if she had to wait as many weeks she would be raving
mad at the end of them. So she locked herself in her room and began
another story, the story of a love affair which came about in just such
a house as their own.
Meantime, it can scarcely be said that the Macdonald fortunes improved.
It is true that the fever-stricken child recovered, and was sent away to
a superior convalescent home at the seaside. It is true that one or two
fresh boarders came, and that there were hopes that the family would be
able to weather the storm, supposing, that is, that they were able to
tide over the next few months. Still, in London, it is not easy to tide
over a few months when your resources have been drained, and your income
has been sorely diminished. There were bills for this and that, claims
for that and the other, and these came in with great rapidity and with
pressing demands for payment.
Mrs. Macdonald pitied herself more than ever; her tones, as she recalled
the virtues of her past life, were more tragic; her debit and credit
account with the Almighty she showed to be clearly falsified. Never was
so good a woman so abominably used of Providence and humanity alike.
She wept copiously over her deservings, and railed furiously against her
fate. Poor Mrs. Macdonald! For many a weary year she had toiled to the
best of her ability, and she had done her duty by her children according
to her lights, which were pitiably dim, "The Lord must indeed love me,"
she remarked, with bitterest irony, one day, when a mysterious visitor
had put a gruesome paper into her unwilling hands.
"It is but the beginning of the end, Nancy," she said resignedly, "the
beginning of the end. I haven't a sovereign in the house, and how I am
to pay nine pounds seventeen and fourpence is beyond me altogether. It
won't last long; we shall have the roof of the workhouse over our heads
soon. We can't go on like this. Where's the money to come from?"
And that, of course, Nancy knew no more than her mother.
"Could not we sell something?" she said, looking round their shabby
little sitting-room, where all that was worst in the house was gathered
together because it was only used by themselves. "Couldn't we sell
something?"
"I might sell my cameo brooch," said Mrs. Macdonald, with a huge sigh.
"It was the last present your poor father ever gave me."
"And I don't suppose it would fetch anything like nine pounds seventeen
and fourpence," said Nancy doubtfully.
"Your father paid a great deal for it," returned Mrs. Macdonald, "but
when one has to sell, it's different to buying. One gives one's things
away."
As a matter of fact, the late Mr. Macdonald had given fifty shillings
for the cameo brooch in question, having bought it in a pawnshop in the
Strand; but neither Mrs. Macdonald nor Nancy were aware of that fact.
"Dear Mother," said Nancy, "I would not worry. You have still a
fortnight before you need settle it one way or the other. A great many
things may turn up in a fortnight."
"Not a ten pound note," said Mrs. Macdonald, with an air of conviction.
"You don't know, Mother. Look how many things have turned up when we
least expected them, and money has come that seemed to have dropped from
the clouds. At all events, I would not break down over it until the
very last day comes; I would not indeed, Mother."
"Ah, perhaps you would not," said the mother, "I should not have done so
when I was your age. When you are mine, you will understand me better."
"Yes, dear, perhaps I shall; but you know, even if the worst
happens--oh, but we shall manage somehow, depend upon it, we shall
manage somehow."
But Nancy's youthful philosophy did not tend to check the flow of Mrs.
Macdonald's troubled spirit. A whole week went by, which she passed
chiefly in tears, and in drawing gloomy pictures of the details of the
life which would soon, soon be hers. "I shall have to wear a poke
bonnet and a shawl," she remarked, in a doleful tone one day, "and I
never could bear a shawl, even when they were in fashion--horrid cold
things." At meals, of course, poor lady, she had to keep a cheerful
countenance, so that her guests should not suspect how badly things were
going with them; but Nancy noticed that she ate very little, and like
most young people, her chief idea for a panacea for all woes took the
form of food. In Mrs. Macdonald's case, it took the form of fresh tea
and hot buttered toast; and, really, I would be sorry to say how much
tea was used in that household during those few days, by way of
bolstering its mistress's strength and spirits against what might happen
in the immediate future.
The fortnight of grace soon passed away, and with every day Mrs.
Macdonald's spirits sank lower and lower. She looked old and aged and
worn; and Nancy's heart ached when she realised that there was no
prospect of anything turning up, and apparently no chance of the danger
which threatened them being averted. What money had come in had mostly
been imperatively required to meet daily expenses. It seemed
preposterous that people with a large house as they had should be in
such straits for so small a sum; and yet, if they began selling their
belongings, which, with the exception of the cameo brooch and Mrs.
Macdonald's keeper ring, almost entirely consisted of furniture, she
knew that it would be impossible to replace them, or even to dispose of
them without the knowledge of their guests. She hardly liked to suggest
it to her mother, and yet she felt that when the last day came, she
would have no other course open to her.
It was the evening before the last day of grace, and still the needful
sum had not been set aside. Twice during the day Mrs. Macdonald had
subsided in tears and wretchedness into the old armchair by their little
sitting-room fire, while Nancy had brought her fresh fragrant tea and a
little covered plate of hot buttered toast, and had delicately urged her
to decide between selling the precious brooch and appealing to one or
other of the boarders for an advance payment.
"I will just wait till the morning," she said to herself, as she came
down from the drawing-room after dispensing the after-dinner coffees.
"Nancy! Nancy!" cried her younger sister Edith, at that moment. "Where
are you?"
"I am here, dear," Nancy replied. "What is the matter?"
The child, for Edith was only some thirteen or fourteen years old, came
running up the stairs two steps at a time.
"Here's a letter for you, Nancy," she said eagerly.
"A letter?" cried Nancy, her mind flying at once to her story.
"Yes, it's got a Queen's head on it or something. Here it is."
The two girls reached the large and dimly-lighted entrance-hall
together, one from upstairs and one from down.
"Give it to me," said Nancy, breathlessly.
She felt that it was a letter about her story. The very fact that it had
come without an accompanying roll of manuscript gave her hope. She tore
open the envelope with trembling fingers, and by the light of the single
flickering gas-lamp, read its contents.
"The Editor of the _Family Beacon_ presents his compliments to Miss
Macdonald, and will be pleased to accept her story, 'Out of Gloom into
the Sun,' for the sum of fifteen guineas, for which a cheque will be
sent immediately on receipt of her reply."
For a few moments the poor painted hall, with its gaunt umbrella stand
and cold black and white marble floor, seemed to be rocking up and down,
and spinning round and round. The revulsion of feeling was so intense
that the girl staggered up against the wall, fighting hard with her
palpitating heart.
"Oh, Nancy, what is it?" cried Edith, staring in a fright at her
sister's chalk-white face. "Is it bad news?"
"Oh, no, GOOD news; the best news. Where's Mother? I----" she could
not speak, she simply could not finish the sentence. Her trembling lips
refused to perform their office. In her shaking hands she still
clutched the precious letter, and gathering her wits together, she
turned and literally tore down the stairs to the basement.
"Mother! Mother! Where are you?" she cried.
"What is it?" cried Mrs. Macdonald, who, poor soul, was ready for all
and every evil that could fall upon her.
For a moment Nancy tried to control herself sufficiently to speak, but
the revulsion of feeling was too great. Twice she opened her mouth, but
no words would come. Then she dropped all of a heap at her mother's
feet, and hiding her head upon her knee, she burst into a passion of
tears.
[Illustration: Then she dropped all of a heap at her mother's feet, and
hiding her head upon her knee, she burst into a passion of tears.]
In spite of her acidity, and her disputes with Providence and things in
general, Mrs. Macdonald still retained some of her mother's instinct.
She drew the girl's head to her breast, and held her there tightly, with
a tragic at-least-we-will-all-die-together air that was utterly
pathetic. She had no words of consolation for what she believed was
some new and terrible trouble come upon them. Then, as Nancy still
sobbed on, she drew the letter from her unresisting fingers, mastered
its contents, and sat like a woman turned to stone.
"I am afraid," she said, after a long silence, "that I have been very
cruel to you, Nancy. I have called your scribbling, rubbish; I have
scolded you; I have been very hard on you; and instead of my being
punished for my blindness, it is _your_ work which has come to save me
from the end which I so dreaded. But I shall never forgive myself."
But Nancy, the storm over, brushed the tears away from her eyes, and sat
back, resting her elbow upon her mother's knee.
"Oh, it is very silly of me to go on like this," half laughing, and half
inclined to weep yet more. "I have been so worried you know, Mother.
It's really stupid of me; but you mustn't blame yourself now that good
luck has come to us, must you? You did what you thought was right, and
you had a right to speak; and, after all, I _did_ leave everything to
you--everything, and I might have wasted all my time. You were quite
right, Mother."
"What was that line Willie was writing in his copybook last week?" said
Mrs. Macdonald, holding the girl's hand fast, and looking, oh, so unlike
her usual self--"Torches were made to burn; jewels to wear."
Butler & Turner. The Selwood Printing Works. Frome, and London.
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2 Good Wives. L. M. ALCOTT
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6 Queechy. ELIZABETH WETHERELL
7 Prince of the House of David. REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
8 The Throne of David. REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
9 Melbourne House. ELIZABETH WETHERELL
10 From Jest to Earnest. REV. E. P. ROE
11 Standish of Standish. JANE G. AUSTIN
12 A Knight of the Nineteenth Century. REV. E. P. ROE
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14 The Old Helmet. ELIZABETH WETHERELL
15 Daisy. ELIZABETH WETHERELL
16 Without a Home. REV. E. P. ROE
17 Barriers Burned Away. REV. E. P. ROE
18 Ben-Hur. LEW WALLACE
19 Beulah. A. J. EVANS WILSON
20 Infelice. A. J. EVANS WILSON
21 St. Elmo. A. J. EVANS WILSON
22 At the Mercy of Tiberius. A. J. EVANS WILSON
23 A Young Girl's Wooing. REV. E. P. ROE
24 A Humble Enterprise. ADA CAMBRIDGE
25 Titus. FLORENCE M. KINGSLEY
26 John Halifax, Gentleman. MRS. CRAIK
27 In His Steps. CHAS. M. SHELDON
28 The Pillar of Fire. REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
29 Mabel Vaughan. MISS CUMMING
30 Miss Lou. REV. E. P. ROE
31 Holiday House. CATHERINE SINCLAIR
33 Opening a Chestnut Burr. REV. E. P. ROE
34 Macaria. A. J. EVANS WILSON
35 A Man's Foes. E. H. STRAIN
36 A Day of Fate. REV. E. P. ROE
37 Prisoners of the Sea. F. M. KINGSLEY
38 What Katy Did Next. SUSAN COOLIDGE
39 Crucifixion of Phillip Strong. CHAS. M. SHELDON
40 His Brother's Keeper. CHAS. M. SHELDON
41 Richard Bruce. CHAS. M. SHELDON
42 The Twentieth Door. CHAS. M. SHELDON
43 Malcom Kirk. CHAS. M. SHELDON
44 Robert Hardy's Seven Days. CHAS. M. SHELDON
45 He Fell in Love with His Wife. REV. E. P. ROE
46 Two Years Ago. CHAS. KINGSLEY
47 Danesbury House. MRS. HENRY WOOD
48 Ministering Children. MISS CHARLESWORTH
49 Monica. E. EVERETT GREEN
50 A Face Illumined. REV. E. P. ROE
51 Vashti. A. J. EVANS WILSON
52 The Earth Trembled. REV. E. P. ROE
53 Princess Sarah. JOHN STRANGE WINTER
54 His Sombre Rivals. REV. E. P. ROE
55 The Cross Triumphant. FLORENCE M. KINGSLEY
56 Paul. FLORENCE M. KINGSLEY
57 An Original Belle. REV. E. P. ROE
58 Daisy in the Field. ELIZABETH WETHERELL
59 Naomi. MRS. J. B. WEBB
60 Near to Nature's Heart. REV. E. P. ROE
61 Edward Blake. CHAS. M. SHELDON
62 That Lass o' Lowrie's. MRS. F. H. BURNETT
63 A Mother's Holiday. JOHN STRANGE WINTER
64 Stepping Heavenward. ELIZABETH PRENTISS
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2 ROBINSON CRUSOE. By DANIEL DEFOE
3 BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
4 GRIMM'S FAIRY STORIES
5 GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
6 THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON
7 ANDERSEN'S POPULAR TALES
8 ANDERSEN'S STORIES
9 BOY'S OWN SEA STORIES
10 TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. By R. H. DANA
11 SCOTTISH CHIEFS. By JANE PORTER
13 IVANHOE. By SIR WALTER SCOTT
14 PRISONERS OF THE SEA. By F. M. KINGSLEY
15 WESTWARD HO! By CHARLES KINGSLEY
16 ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS
18 FRANK ALLREDDY'S FORTUNE. By CAPT. FRANKLIN FOX
20 TWO YEARS AGO. By CHARLES KINGSLEY
21 THE LAST OF THE BARONS. By BULWER LYTTON
22 HAROLD. By BULWER LYTTON
23 THE HOLY WAR. By JOHN BUNYAN
24 THE HEROES. By CHARLES KINGSLEY
25 THE BEACHCOMBERS. By GILBERT BISHOP
26 WILLIS, THE PILOT. A Sequel to the "Swiss Family Robinson."
27 THE CORAL ISLAND. By R. M. BALLANTYNE
28 MARTIN RATTLER. By R. M. BALLANTYNE
29 UNGAVA. By R. M. BALLANTYNE
30 THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS. By R. M. BALLANTYNE
31 PETER, THE WHALER. By W. H. G. KINGSTON
32 THE HEIR OF LANGRIDGE TOWERS. By R. M. FREEMAN
33 THE RAJAH OF MONKEY ISLAND. By ARTHUR LEE KNIGHT
34 THE CRUISE OF THE "GOLDEN WAVE". By W. N. OSCAR
35 THE WORLD OF ICE. By R. M. BALLANTYNE
36 OLD JACK. By W. H. G. KINGSTON
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5 GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
6 GRIMM'S FAIRY STORIES
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7A BUNYAN'S HOLY WAR
8 A BOY'S LIFE ABOARD SHIP. Illustrated
9 LIFE IN A WHALER. Illustrated
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11 HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY STORIES. Illustrated
12 HANS ANDERSEN'S POPULAR STORIES. Illustrated
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14 FROM LOG CABIN TO WHITE HOUSE. Illustrated
17 LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE
18 SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON
19 WILLIS, THE PILOT
20 ARABIAN NIGHTS
21 THE CORAL ISLAND
22 MARTIN RATTLER
23 UNGAVA
24 THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS
25 THE WORLD OF ICE
26 WESTWARD HO!
27 EVENINGS AT HOME
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31 THE WAY TO VICTORY
33 NEVER SAY DIE
37 PRINCE GOLDENBLADE
38 FEATS ON THE FIORD
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41 OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
42 A FACE ILLUMINED
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44 WHAT CAN SHE DO?
45 A DAY OF FATE
46 AN UNEXPECTED RESULT
47 TAKEN ALIVE
48 WITHOUT A HOME
49 A KNIGHT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
50 NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART
51 FROM JEST TO EARNEST
52 HIS SOMBRE RIVALS
53 AN ORIGINAL BELLE
54 HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE
55 THE EARTH TREMBLED
56 MISS LOU
57 FOUND, YET LOST
58 A YOUNG GIRL'S WOOING
59 DRIVEN BACK TO EDEN
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12 Julia Ried
13 Wise and Otherwise
14 The King's Daughter
15 The Hall in the Grove
16 A New Graft on the Family Tree
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19 The Pocket Measure
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22 Sidney Martin's Christmas
23 Little Fishers and their Nets
25 The Randolphs
26 One Commonplace Day
27 Chrissy's Endeavour
28 A Sevenfold Trouble
_BY OTHER AUTHORS._
38 John Halifax, Gentleman. By MRS. CRAIK
39 Danesbury House. By MRS. HENRY WOOD
40 Ministering Children. By M. L. CHARLESWORTH
41 Ben-Hur. By LEW WALLACE
42 The Fair God. By LEW WALLACE
43 Naomi. By MRS. WEBB
44 Beulah. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
45 Infelice. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
46 John Ward, Preacher. By MARGARET DELAND
47 St. Elmo. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
48 At the Mercy of Tiberius. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
49 Vashti. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
50 Macaria. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
51 Inez. By A. J. EVANS WILSON
53 Melbourne House. By ELIZABETH WETHERELL
54 Daisy. By ELIZABETH WETHERELL
54A Daisy in the Field. By ELIZABETH WETHERELL
55 Little Women. LOUISA M. ALCOTT
56 Good Wives. LOUISA M. ALCOTT
57 Aunt Jane's Hero. MRS. E. PRENTISS
58 Flower of the Family. MRS. E. PRENTISS
60 The Old Helmet. E. WETHERELL
61 What Katy Did. By SUSAN COOLIDGE
62 What Katy Did at School. By SUSAN COOLIDGE
62A What Katy Did Next. By SUSAN COOLIDGE
63 The Lamplighter. By MISS CUMMING
64 The Wide, Wide World. By E. WETHERELL
65 Queechy. By E. WETHERELL
67 Stepping Heavenward. By E. PRENTISS
68 The Prince of the House of David. By REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
69 Anna Lee. By T. S. ARTHUR
70 The Throne of David. By REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
71 The Pillar of Fire. By REV. J. H. INGRAHAM
72 Mabel Vaughan. By MISS CUMMING
73 The Basket of Flowers. By G. T. BEDELL
74 That Lass o' Lowrie's. By MRS. F. H. BURNETT
By CHAS. M. SHELDON.
91 In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?
92 The Crucifixion of Phillip Strong
93 His Brother's Keeper.
94 Richard Bruce; or, The Life that Now Is.
95 The Twentieth Door.
96 Malcom Kirk: Overcoming the World
97 Robert Hardy's Seven Days.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.