Queen Square, Bloomsbury, is a neighbourhood which by no means accords
with the expectation evoked by its high-sounding patronymic. It is,
besides, somewhat difficult to find, and when discovered, it has a
guilty-looking air of having been playing hide-and-seek with its most
aristocratic neighbours, Russell and Bloomsbury, and lost itself.
Before Southampton Row was the stately thoroughfare it is now, Queen
Square must have been a parasite of Russell Square; but in time it
seems to have been built out. You stumble upon it suddenly, in making
a short-cut from Southampton Row to Bedford Row, and wonder how it got
there. It is quiet, decayed—in a word, shabby-genteel—and cheap.
On the south side, sheltered by two sad-looking trees of a nondescript
character, and fronted by an imposing-looking portico, is a
decayed-looking house, the stucco of which bears a strong likeness
to the outside of a Stilton cheese. The windows are none too clean,
and the blinds and curtains are all deeply tinged with London fog and
London smoke. For the information of the metropolis at large, the door
bears a tarnished brass plate announcing that it is the habitation of
Mrs Whipple; and furthermore—from the same source—the inquiring mind
is further enlightened with the fact that Mrs Whipple is a dressmaker.
A few fly-blown prints of fashions, of a startling description and
impossible colour, support this fact; and information is further added
by the announcement that the artiste within lets apartments; for that
legend is inscribed, in runaway letters, on the back of an old showcard
which is suspended in one of the ground-floor windows.
From the general _tout ensemble_ of the Whipple mansion, the most
casual-minded individual on lodgings bent can easily judge of its
cheapness. The ‘ground-floor’—be it whispered in the strictest
confidence—pays twenty-five shillings per week; the honoured
‘drawing-rooms,’ two pounds; and the slighted ‘second-floors,’ what the
estimable Whipple denominates ‘a matter of fifteen shillings.’ It is
with the second-floors that our business lies.
The room was large, and furnished with an eye to economy. The carpet
was of no particular pattern, having long since been worn down to the
thread; and the household gods consisted of five chairs and a couch
covered by that peculiar-looking horsehair, which might, from its
hardness and capacity for wear, be woven steel. A misty-looking glass
in a maple frame, and a chimney-board decked with two blue-and-green
shepherdesses of an impossible period, completed the garniture. In the
centre of the room was a round oak table with spidery uncertain legs,
and at the table sat a young man writing. He was young, apparently
not more than thirty, but the unmistakable shadow of care lay on his
face. His dress was suggestive of one who had been somewhat dandyish in
time gone by, but who had latterly ceased to trouble about appearances
or neatness. For a time he continued steadily at his work, watched
intently by a little child who sat coiled up in the hard-looking
armchair, and waiting with exemplary patience for the worker to quit
his employment. As he worked on, the child became visibly interested
as the page approached completion, and at last, with a weary sigh, he
finished, pushed his work from him, and turned with a bright smile to
the patient little one.
‘You’ve been a very good little girl, Nelly.—Now, what is it you have
so particularly to say to me?’ he said.
‘Is it a tale you are writing, papa?’ she asked.
‘Yes, darling; but not the sort of tale to interest you.’
‘I like all your tales, papa. Uncle Jasper told mamma they were all so
“liginal.” I like liginal tales.’
‘I suppose you mean original, darling?’
‘I said liginal,’ persisted the little one, with childish gravity. ‘Are
you going to sell that one, papa? I hope you will; I want a new dolly
so badly. My old dolly is getting quite shabby.’
‘Some day you shall have plenty.’
The child looked up in his face solemnly. ‘Really, papa! But do you
know, pa, that some day seems such a long way off? How old am I, papa?’
‘Very, very old, Nelly,’ he replied with a little laugh. ‘Not quite so
old as I am, but very old.’
‘Yes, papa? Then do you know, ever since I can remember, that some day
has been coming. Will it come this week?’
‘I don’t know, darling. It may come any time. It may come to-day;
perhaps it is on the way now.’
‘I don’t know, papa,’ replied the little one, shaking her head
solemnly. ‘It is an awful while coming. I prayed so hard last night for
it to come, after mamma put me in bed. What makes mamma cry when she
puts me to bed? Is she crying for some day?’
‘Oh, that’s all your fancy, little one,’ replied the father huskily.
‘Mamma does not cry. You must be mistaken.’
‘No, indeed, papa; I’se not mistook. One day I heard mamma sing about
some day, and then she cried—she made my face quite wet.’
‘Hush, Nelly; don’t talk like that, darling.’
‘But she did,’ persisted the little one. ‘Do you ever cry, papa?’
‘Look at that little sparrow, Nelly. Does he not look hungry, poor
little fellow? He wants to come in the room to you.’
‘I dess he’s waiting for some day papa,’ said the child, looking out
at the dingy London sparrow perched on the window ledge. ‘He looks so
patient. I wonder if he’s hungry? I am, papa.’
The father looked at his little one with passionate tenderness. ‘Wait
till mamma comes, my darling.’
‘All right, papa; but I am _so_ hungry!—Oh, here is mamma. Doesn’t she
look nice, papa, and so happy?’
When Eleanor entered the dingy room, her husband could not fail to
notice the flush of hope and happiness on her face. He looked at her
with expectation in his eyes.
‘Did you think mother was never coming, Nelly? and do you want your
dinner, my child?’
‘You do look nice, ma,’ said the child admiringly. ‘You look as if you
had found some day.’
Eleanor looked inquiringly at her husband, for him to explain the
little one’s meaning.
‘Nelly and I have been having a metaphysical discussion,’ he said with
playful gravity. ‘We have been discussing the virtues of the future.
She is wishing for that impossible some day that people always expect.’
‘I don’t think she will be disappointed,’ said Mrs Seaton, with a fond
little smile at her child. ‘I believe I have found it.—Edgar, I have
been to see Mr Carver.’
‘I supposed it would have come to that. And he, I suppose, has been
poisoned by the sorceress, and refused to see you?’
‘O no,’ said Eleanor playfully. ‘We had quite a long chat—in fact, he
asked us all to dinner on Sunday.’
‘Wonderful! And he gave you a lot of good advice on the virtues of
economy, and his blessing at parting.’
‘No,’ she said; ‘he must have forgotten that: he gave me this envelope
for you with his compliments and best wishes.’
Edgar Seaton took the proffered envelope listlessly, and opened it with
careless fingers. But as soon as he saw the shape of the inclosure,
his expression changed to one of eagerness. ‘Why, it is a cheque!’ he
exclaimed excitedly.
‘O no,’ said his wife laughingly; ‘it is only the blessing.’
‘Well, it is a blessing in disguise,’ Seaton said, his voice trembling
with emotion. ‘It is a cheque for twenty-five pounds.—Nelly, God has
been very good to us to-day.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said his wife simply, with tears in her eyes.
Little Nelly looked from one to the other in puzzled suspense, scarcely
knowing whether to laugh or cry. Even her childish instinct discerned
the gravity of the situation.
‘Papa, has some day come? You look so happy.’
He caught her up in his arms and kissed her lovingly, and held her in
one arm, while he passed the other round his wife. ‘Yes, darling. Your
prayer has been answered. Some day—God be thanked—has come at last.’
For a moment no one spoke, for the hearts of husband and wife were full
of quiet thankfulness. What a little it takes to make poor humanity
happy, and fill up the cup of pleasure to the brim!
Round the merry dinner-table all was bright and cheerful, and it is
no exaggeration to say the board groaned under the profuse spread.
Eleanor lost no time in acquainting her husband with the strange story
of her uncle’s property, and Mr Carver’s views on the subject—a view
of the situation which he felt almost inclined to share after a little
consideration. It was extremely likely, he thought, that Margaret
Boulton would be able to throw some light on the subject; indeed, the
fact of her strange rescue from her self-imposed fate pointed almost
to a providential interference. It was known that she had a long
conversation with Mr Morton the day he died, a circumstance which
seemed to have given Miss Wakefield great uneasiness; and her strange
disappearance from Eastwood directly after the funeral gave some
colouring to the fact.
Margaret Boulton had not risen that day owing to a severe cold caught
by her exposure to the rain on the previous night; and Edgar and his
wife decided, directly she did so, to question her upon the matter. It
would be very strange if she could not give some clue.
‘I think, Nelly, we had better take Felix into our confidence,’ said
Edgar, when the remains of dinner had disappeared in company with the
grimy domestic. ‘He will be sure to be of some assistance to us; and
the more brains we have the better.’
‘Certainly, dear,’ she acquiesced; ‘he should know at once.’
‘I think I will walk to his rooms this afternoon.’
‘No occasion,’ said a cheerful voice at that moment. ‘Mr Felix is here
very much at your service. I’ve got some good news for you; and I am
sure, from your faces, you can return the compliment.’