It was a splendid grand piano whose tones rang, through the house, and
brought poor Becky, with her pale, anaemic, tied-up face, from the lower
regions, to stand peering round corners and listening till the final
chords of some sonata rang out, when she would dart back into hiding,
but only to steal up again as slowly and cautiously as a serpent, and
thrust out her head from the gloom which hung forever upon the kitchen
stairs, when Kate's low, sweet voice was heard singing some sad old
ballad, a favourite of her father's, one which brought up the happy
past, and ended often enough in the tears dropping silently upon the
ivory keys.
Such a song will sometimes draw tears from many a listener; the melody,
the words, recollections evoked, the expression given by the singer, all
have their effect; and perhaps it was a memory of the baker (or milkman)
which floated into poor, timid, shrinking Becky, for almost invariably
she melted into tears.
"She says it's like being in heaven, ma'am," said Sarah Plant, giving
voice upstairs to her child's strained ideas of happiness. "And really
the place don't seem like the same, for, God bless you! you have made us
all so happy here."
Kate sighed, for she did not share the happy feeling. There were times
when her lot seemed too hard to bear. Garstang was kindness itself; he
seemed to be constantly striving to make her content. Books, music,
papers, fruit, and flowers--violets constantly as soon as he saw the
brightening of her eyes whenever he brought her a bunch. Almost every
expressed wish was gratified. But there was that intense longing for
communion with others. If she could only have written to poor, amiable,
faithful Eliza or to Jenny Leigh, she would have borne her imprisonment
better; but she had religiously studied her new guardian's wishes upon
that point, yielding to his advice whenever he reiterated the dangers
which would beset their path if James Wilton discovered where she was.
"As it is, my dear child," he would say again and again, "it is
sanctuary; and I'm on thorns whenever I am absent, for fear you should
be tempted by the bright sunshine out of the gloom of this dull house,
be seen by one or other of James Wilton's emissaries, and I return to
find the cage I have tried so hard to gild, empty--the bird taken away
to another kind of captivity, one which surely would not be so easy to
bear."
"No, no, no; I could not bear it!" she cried, wildly. "I do not murmur.
I will not complain, guardian; but there are times when I would give
anything to be out somewhere in the bright open air, with the beautiful
blue sky overhead, the soft grass beneath my feet, and the birds singing
in my ears."
"Yes, yes, I know, my poor dear child," he said, tenderly. "It is
cruelly hard upon you, but what can I do? I am waiting and hoping that
James Wilton on finding his helplessness will become more open to making
some kind of reasonable terms. I am sure you would be willing to meet
him."
"To meet him again? Oh, no, I could not. The thought is horrible," she
cried. "He seems to have broken faith so, after all his promises to my
dying father."
"He has," said Garstang, solemnly; "but you misunderstand me; I did not
mean personally meet him, but in terms, which would be paying so much
money--in other words, buying your freedom."
"Oh, yes, yes," she cried, wildly, "at any cost. It is as you said one
evening, guardian; I am cursed by a fortune."
"Cursed indeed, my dear. But there, try and be hopeful and patient, and
we will have more walks of an evening. Only to think of it, our having
to steal out at night like two thieves, for a dark walk in Russell
Square sometimes. I don't wonder that the police used to watch us."
"If I could only write a few letters, guardian!"
"Yes, my dear, if you only could. I cannot say to you, do not, only lay
the case before you once again."
"Yes, yes, yes," she said, hastily wiping away a few tears. "I am very,
very foolish and ungrateful; but now that's all over, and I am going to
be patient, and wait for freedom. I am far better off than many who are
chained to a sick bed."
"No," he said, gently, shaking his head at her; "far worse off.
Sickness brings a dull lassitude and indifference to external things.
The calm rest of the bedroom is welcome, and the chamber itself the
patient's little world. You, my dear, are in the full tide of life and
youth, with all its aspirations, and must suffer there, more. But
there; I am working like a slave to settle a lot of business going
through the courts; and as soon as I can get it over we will take flight
somewhere abroad, away from the gilded cage, out to the mountains and
forests, where you can tire me out with your desires to be in the open
air."
"I--I don't think I wish to leave England," she said, hesitatingly, and
with the earnest far-off look in her eyes that he had seen before.
"Well, well, we will find some secluded place by the lakes, where we are
not likely to be found out, and where the birds will sing to you. And,
here's a happy thought, Kate, my child--you shall have some fellow
prisoners."
"Companions?" she said, eagerly.
"Yes, companions," he replied, with a smile; "but I meant birds--
canaries, larks--what do you say to doves? They make charming pets."
"No, no," she said, hastily; "don't do that, Mr Garstang. One prisoner
is enough."
He bowed his head.
"You have only to express your wishes, my child," he said.--"Then you
are going to try and drive away the clouds?"
"Oh, yes, I am going to be quite patient," she said, smiling at him; and
she placed her hands in his.
"Thank you," he said, gently; and for the first time he drew her nearer
to him, and bent down to kiss her forehead--the slightest touch--and
then dropped her hands, to turn away with a sigh.
And the days wore on, with the prisoner fighting hard with self, to be
contented with her lot. She practiced hard at the piano, and studied up
the crabbed Gothic letters of the German works in one of the cases. Now
and then, too, she sang about the great, gloomy house, but mostly to
stop hurriedly on finding that she had listeners, attracted from the
lower regions.
But try how she would to occupy her thoughts, she could not master those
which would bring a faint colour to her cheeks. For ever and again the
calm, firm countenance of Pierce Leigh would intrude itself, and the
colour grew deeper, as she felt that there was something strange in all
this, especially when he of whom she thought had never, by word or look,
given her cause to think that he cared for her. And yet, in her secret
heart, she felt that he did. And what would he think of her? He could
not know anything of her proceedings, but little of her reasons for
fleeing from her uncle's care.