HERBERT MILNER.
"WHY, my boy, what have you got there?"
The question was asked by a lady, who looked up from doing some bright
wool work, to gaze in astonishment at her son, as he set down a heavy
Gladstone-bag upon the table.
It was a handsomely furnished room; and the lad, who seemed to be
about fourteen or fifteen, did not seem much accustomed to carry heavy
burdens, although he appeared pleased enough with this one.
"Feel it, mother!" he said, bringing it round to her side that she
might lift it.
"But what is it, my dear?" she asked, lifting the well-stuffed bag.
"They're Mr. Ramsay's papers and things, that have been sent home from
the office—papers, and letters, and all sorts—for you see, he was ill
such a long time, that often when he went to his office he could not do
anything, and these have been turned out of his private drawer; and so,
of course—"
[Illustration: "Why, my boy, what have you got there?"]
"But what are you going to do with them?" interrupted his mother, in
the same surprised tone.
"I have brought them for you to look over," replied her son.
"Herbert! What do you mean?"
"Why, mother, you told me to ask if there was anything you could do
for Mrs. Ramsay, and while I was speaking this bag was brought, with
a letter, saying they were the papers found in Mr. Ramsay's private
drawer. You see, he has been dead a fortnight now, so I daresay they
want the room."
"I expect they do; but what am I to do with them?" said Mrs. Milner.
"Really, Herbert—"
"I am coming to that directly. When poor Mrs. Ramsay saw the bag, she
just sat down and cried. She is a poor thing, mother."
"Yes, I know she is. But you have not told me why you brought them here
now," said his mother, impatiently.
"Oh, well, I told her you would do anything you could to help her; and
then I asked if I should bring the bag here for you to look over. You
know, mother, you are not like Mrs. Ramsay a bit. You don't sit down
and cry over things, and so I thought—"
"But, Herbert, you had no right to think that I should like to go
through Mr. Ramsay's private papers."
"But you could do it better than Mrs. Ramsay I am sure; and you
wouldn't cry over it, as she would," protested Herbert.
Mrs. Milner was very vexed that her son should have put such a literal
construction upon her offer to help her friend; and she thought Mrs.
Ramsay ought to have known better, than to send her such a task. And
so she resolved not to touch the bag this evening, but to call and
see the widow the next day, and see if she could not rectify what she
considered must be Herbert's blunder in the matter.
So the bag was put away, and mother and son spent a pleasant evening
together, which was only once disturbed, and that was by a question
that had been talked of occasionally between them lately, concerning an
unknown aunt of Herbert's.
Mrs. Milner was a widow, and Herbert was her only son; and until
lately, he thought he had no other relative, for his father was an only
child. And somehow, without a word having been said about the matter,
he had come to the conclusion that his mother also had neither brother
nor sister. When, all at once, his mother told him that he had an aunt
and cousins somewhere, and she would now like to know where they could
be found, but it was so many years since she had heard anything of her
younger sister, that she sometimes thought she must be dead.
It almost took the boy's breath away at first to hear that somewhere
in the world were people who could claim relationship with him. And
every now and again he would ask some question or other about these
unknown friends. But his mother could tell him very little, beyond the
fact that her sister had offended everybody who knew her, by marrying a
man they considered beneath her; and as she refused to take anybody's
advice, she was allowed to drift away from all who knew her.
"But the thought of my poor sister Elsie troubled your father before
he died, for he thought he had perhaps been hard upon her. And so I
promised I would try and find her; and he left some money for her if
ever she needed it," she added, when telling her son of this sister.
Mrs. Milner thought she had better speak thus plainly to her son,
when she put a carefully worded advertisement into some of the London
newspapers; for there was no telling what might come of it. The unknown
sister, or her despised husband, might appear at the door of their
fashionable house at any time, and Herbert was not one to keep such a
matter to himself. And so, to prevent him talking to other people about
it, if such a thing should happen, Mrs. Milner told him beforehand.
But nothing had come of those advertisements, and more than a year had
passed now; and it rather vexed Mrs. Milner to be reminded of her lost
sister.
And so, when Herbert said, rather abruptly that evening, "Couldn't we
do something else to find my lost aunt, mother?"
She looked up with a frown, and said, "My dear Herbert, do give your
attention to the chess—that is sufficient for the present."
Herbert did not say any more until the game was finished. But when
he had put up the chess board, he came and sat down by the fire, and
looked thoughtfully into the cavernous depths of the coals for a
minute, and then said slowly, "Don't you think we ought to try and find
that auntie of mine?"
"What can we do? I was speaking to Mr. Capon the other day. Of course
he had the management of all the business; and if a lawyer cannot see
what is to be done, I am afraid we are not likely to succeed whatever
we may try."
Herbert sighed, but did not look convinced. "I don't believe in lawyers
much for a case like that," he said, in a disparaging tone. "If auntie
was an heiress now, and there was a great deal of property in the
question, it would make all the difference. I daresay they would find
out something more that could be done then. But, as it is,—well,—I am
not satisfied, mother."
His mother laughed at the tone in which these words were spoken. "My
dear, I daresay the Capons would do more if I pressed them, but it
would cost a great deal of money, and we are not such very rich people,
you know. Besides, we cannot tell whether these unknown relatives are
at all desirable kind of people to become acquainted with. I have not
seen or heard of my sister for years; and her husband I never liked—he
was much beneath us; and these sort of people always seem to sink lower
and lower."
"But I have often heard you say that money is not everything, mother,"
said Herbert, quickly.
"I was not thinking of money alone, but of other things as well—moral
character—and the finer feeling that makes all the difference between
a gentleman and common people. Now Henry Winn—the man your aunt
married—belonged to common people; and there is little doubt she
has sunk to his level by this time." And Mrs. Milner sighed, as she
recalled the picture of her younger sister when she last saw her.
After a pause, the conversation was renewed by Herbert asking some
further questions about his unknown aunt—whether his mother had ever
heard that he had cousins, as well as an aunt.
"Oh, I have no doubt there is quite a swarm of them. But they would be
very undesirable acquaintances for you, my boy; and so I do not see
that any good could be done by trying to find them."
"But there is the money my father left for aunt, if ever she should
need it!" exclaimed the boy. "I have been thinking of that since I sat
down here. Suppose aunt should want it just now! We ought to make sure
of this, mother. Of course they may have got rich; there is no telling
what may have happened; and they may now be rich, vulgar people, like
the Stones."
"Herbert, why will you persist in saying the Stones are vulgar?" said
his mother, rather angrily.
The boy laughed. "Because it is so plain to everybody. They are always
trying to show off something or other. My aunt cannot be worse than the
Stones; and if she is your sister, she could not be half so bad," he
said, kissing his mother.
This gentle flattery appeased her, and the rest of the evening passed
pleasantly enough.
Just before bed time he said, "Now, look here, mammy, I have one more
spare day before I go back to school, and I'll give it to you to help
with that bag, if you will promise not to bother Mrs. Ramsay about it.
We will begin soon after breakfast in your morning-room. I know just
how the thing ought to be done. You shall open the letters, and I will
write down on a slip of paper the name of the person it came from, and
just in a word or two what it was about, and then we will tie them up
in packets, and give them over to Mrs. Ramsay. She may like to see
them, by-and-bye, but there may be some business, she says, that ought
to be attended to at once, so that some one must look over them."
Mrs. Milner would give no promise that night, but the weather helped
Herbert in his plan, for the next morning proved to be a wet, windy
day, that compelled them to stay indoors. And as soon as breakfast was
over, the boy fetched the Gladstone-bag, and began turning out its
contents upon the table.
"We shall forget the miserable weather now," he said, as he fetched a
sheet of foolscap paper, and prepared to make his memoranda.
His mother sighed, but thought she might as well resign herself to the
task, though she still felt that Mrs. Ramsay ought to do it herself.
Fortunately the letters all seemed short, and could be easily read,
and so half a dozen memoranda were very quickly made of these. And
then Mrs. Milner picked up one that seemed to require a great deal of
reading before it could be understood.
"That seems to be a very long letter, mother," said Herbert, looking up
from his task.
For a minute or two his mother still sat with the letter in her hand.
But her son could see she was not reading it now, and he wondered what
news it could contain that his mother was so affected by it.
"You read it, Herbert. I wonder how it came into Mr. Ramsay's hands. It
is marked, 'To be enquired about.'"
She passed the letter to Herbert as she spoke, and he saw it was an
official notification, that a scholarship gained by some girl had been
resigned in favour of another, because of the death of the winner's
father. There was some explanation about the girl having decided to
stay at home and help her mother, but he saw nothing in this that
should disturb his mother, and did not notice the name of the girl, in
his hurry to read the business it contained.
"Do you think Mr. Ramsay intended to help this girl? What is her name?"
and the boy turned to the letter once more.
"It is the name that struck me—Elsie Winn! My sister's name was Elsie,
and I wondered whether this could be her daughter."
Once more the boy turned to the letter and read it through more
carefully. When he came to the end, he said, "We must find these
people, and see if it is my lost aunt. If it should be, they certainly
need the money my father left for them; and they are not the kind of
people you feared they might be."
"How do you know that, Herbert?"
"Why, mother, you see the letter from her governess says she is a very
estimable girl, and deeply regrets having to give up the scholarship,
but that she thinks it is her duty to do this, and stay at home and
help her mother. Now, a girl who would do this is worth something!
There is some grit in her, and she isn't likely to be vulgar, or at all
a common sort of girl."
"My dear boy, how you do jump to conclusions! I send you to Mrs. Ramsay
with a polite message, and you bring me back a bag of correspondence to
look over. Now, this letter tells of a girl giving up a scholarship to
stay at home with her mother, and you jump to the conclusion that she
is a little paragon of perfection!"
"No, no, mother, I did not say that; I mean that a girl who will give
up a good chance in life—as this probably was to her—just to stay at
home and help her mother, is not a common, vulgar girl, but has the
making of a lady in her."
"Herbert, Herbert," said his mother, smiling.
"You forget, mother, her mother is your sister, very likely; so why
shouldn't she be a lady? Now, what are you going to do?" he asked, the
next minute.
"Do! What do you mean? Are we not going to look through this bag?"
"But—but—mother, you will surely write a letter to the governess of
this school, and ask her to tell you where this Elsie Winn lives. You
can find out easily enough that way whether her mother is my lost aunt.
And, of course, they will be very glad of the money that is waiting for
them."
His mother smiled at his eagerness. "I will write to Capon by-and-bye,
and ask him to make enquiries about these people, as this may prove to
be a clue."
"Oh, mother! And I shall be away at school before you can hear
anything," he said, impatiently.
"My dear boy, suppose these people should be total strangers, what good
could be done? No, no, we must wait and let Mr. Capon write, or send
a messenger, to find out what he can about these people; and then, of
course, if it should be your aunt, why, I will go and see her."
"Thank you, mother. I really should like to feel that I have a cousin
of some sort; and this Elsie I could be proud of, because it was a
plucky thing to give up a scholarship after she had won it, and I
should like to feel that I had a cousin like that."
Mrs. Milner thought the matter was disposed of when she had given
this promise; but her son fetched writing materials at once, that she
might send to the lawyer without delay. For he was anxious to have
some further tidings of this Elsie Winn, nearly a year having passed
since the letter was written; and there was no telling what might have
happened during that time, especially as her father had died, and he
could not have been a wealthy man, or his daughter would not have
worked for a scholarship to enable her to go to a higher grade school.
And it seemed likely that his aunt would have to work for herself and
her children now, as this girl had to stay at home and help.
These thoughts made him more impatient; and Mrs. Milner had to yield to
his entreaties, and write the letter to her lawyer at once, asking him
to make enquiries about this family through the schoolmistress who had
sent this letter.
While his mother wrote the letter, Herbert copied the address of the
school, that he might take it with him when he went away; for if he
did not hear soon the result of Mr. Capon's enquiries, he resolved to
write himself, and say that he believed these people were relatives.
Mr. Capon would not do this, he felt sure; and it was very likely that
these enquiries would be like the other he had made. He had no faith in
Mr. Capon, and what he was likely to do, because it was only about a
hundred pounds that had been left for his aunt, and such a small sum as
that would not be worth their great lawyer making a fuss about.
He saw that Mr. Capon's letter was sent to the post; and he half hoped
that some sort of answer would come before he went away the next day.
They got through their task of looking over Mr. Ramsay's papers, many
of which proved to be circulars and begging letters of various sorts.
For Mr. Ramsay, having no children of his own, was known to be a
charitable gentleman; and this was probably why the letter from the
school had been sent to him.
It might be that he had enquired, and helped this girl and her mother;
but he hoped he had not, if it should prove that it was his very
own cousin. The rest of the papers were soon disposed of, no others
proving to be of any interest to anybody; and after tea, Herbert took
the bag and his memoranda back to Mrs. Ramsay. But he said nothing of
the letter they had found, which proved to be of so much interest to
themselves.
Mrs. Milner said she would talk the matter over with her old friend
when they met, and Herbert had better not say anything about it.
The next day the lad went back to school; and though the-meeting again
with old school-fellows, after the holidays, was pleasant enough, he
did not forget Elsie Winn and her scholarship: for in the very first
letter he wrote home, he asked if his mother had heard from Mr. Capon,
and begged her to tell him as soon as ever she had any news from the
lawyer.