The Last of the Mortimers
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I can’t tell anybody what a comfort it was to my heart when my new Milly Mortimer came. If the two had been very bright and elate about finding themselves heirs to a great estate I might have been disgusted, glad as I was to know about them; for, to be sure, one does not like one’s heirs to be very triumphant about wealth they can only have after one’s own death. But something more than houses or lands was in that young creature’s mind. She was wonderfully steady and cheerful, but never for a moment lost out of her eyes what was going to happen to her. It was not mere sympathy, you know, that made me know so well how she was feeling, for, to be sure, I never was in her circumstances nor anything like them; it was because I was her relation, and had a natural insight into her mind. I don’t believe Sara had the least perception of it. When we came upstairs after dinner, leaving that fine young soldier, whom really I felt quite proud of, with Mr. Cresswell, this came out wonderfully, and in a way that went to my heart. Sara, who was extremely affectionate to her, set her in an easy chair and brought her a footstool, and paid her all those caressing little attentions which such kittens can be so nice about when they please. “I am so glad you have come to know my godmamma just now,” said Sara, kissing her, “because she will know to comfort you when Mr. Langham goes away.”
My Milly said nothing for a moment; she rather drew herself away from Sara’s kiss. She did not lean back, but sat upright in her chair, and put away the stool with her foot. “I am a soldier’s wife,” she said the next minute in the most unspeakable tone, with a kind of sob that did not sound, but only showed, in a silent heave of her breast. Ah, the dear child! have not soldiers’ wives a good call to be heroes too? I drew Sara away from her in a sort of passion; that velvet creature with her sympathy and her kisses, when the other was hanging on the edge of such a parting! If one could do nothing for the sweet soul, one might have the charity to leave her alone.
But after a while I drew Milly into talking of herself, for I was naturally anxious to know all about her, and where she had been brought up, and how she had found out that she belonged to us. We all knew that young Langham and Mr. Cresswell were going over the papers that her husband had brought with him, and setting it all straight; but as I never had any doubt from the moment I saw those books of hers, I was much more anxious to know from Milly herself how she had spent her life. She told us with a little reserve about her Irish friends and her odd bringing up, and then how she had met with Harry. She told you all about that herself, I know, a great deal better than I could repeat it, and fuller, too, than she told us. But when she got fully into that story, she could not help forgetting herself and the present circumstances a little. Sara sat on a stool before her, with her hands clasped on her knees, devouring every word. Certainly Sara took a wonderful interest in it. I never saw her so entirely carried away by interest and sympathy. When Milly was done, the creature jumped up and defied me.
“You couldn’t blame her; you couldn’t have the heart to blame her! It was just what she ought to have done!” cried Sara, with her face in such a commotion, all shining, and blushing, and dewy with tears. I was confounded by her earnest looks. It was very interesting, certainly, but there was nothing to transport her into such a little rapture as that.
“Child, be quiet,” said I; “you are determined to do me some harm, surely. I don’t blame Milly. She thought she had nobody belonging to her, though she was mistaken there. My dear, you have one old woman belonging to you that will expect a great deal, I can tell you. I can feel somehow, as if it might have been me you were telling of, if I had ever been as pretty or as young–”
“Godmamma, such nonsense!” cried Sara; “you must have been as young once; and if you were not far prettier than godmamma Sarah, I will never believe my eyes!”
“Your godmamma Sarah was a great beauty,” said I; “but that is nothing to the purpose. If I had ever been as young and as pretty as this Milly Mortimer, I might have fallen in with a Harry too, who knows? and it might not have been any the better for you, my dear child; so it’s just as well that things are as they are. But, all the same, I can’t help thinking that it might have been my story you’re telling. There’s a great deal in a name, whatever people may say. I shall think the second Milly is to go through all the things the first Milly only wondered about. I never had any life of my own to speak of. You have one already. I shall think I have got hold of that life, that always slipped through my fingers, when I see you going through with it. I shall never feel myself an odd person again.”
“Ah! but life is not happiness,” burst from my poor Milly’s lips in spite of herself; then she hastily drew up again: “I mean it is not play,” she said, after a while.
“If it were play, it would be for children; it is heavy work and sore,” cried I; “that much I know, you may be sure; but then there are words said, that one can never forget, about him that endureth to the end.”
Such words were comfort to me; but not just to that young creature in the intolerable hope and anguish she had in her heart. She was not thinking of any end; I was foolish to say it; and after all I knew more of life than she did—far more! and knew very well it did not spring on by means of heartbreaking events like the parting she was thinking of, or joyful ones like the meeting again which already she had set all her heart and life on, but crept into days and days like the slow current it had been to me. Sara, however, as was natural, was impatient of this talk. I believe she had something on her mind too.
“You do not blame your Milly, godmamma?” she cried, a little spitefully; “but I suppose you would blame any other poor girl; as if people were always to do what was told them, and like such people as they were ordered to like! You old people are often very cruel. Of course you would blame every one else in the world?”
“I should certainly blame you,” cried I, “if you should venture to think you might deceive your good father, that never denied you anything in his life. You velvet creature, what do you know about it? You never had an unkind word said to you, nor the most foolish wish in your little perverse heart denied. If you were to do such a thing, I could find it in my heart to lock you up in a garret and give you bread and water. It would not be a simple-hearted young creature with every excuse in the world for her, but a little cheat and traitor, and unnatural little deceiver. There! you are a wicked creature, but you are not so bad as that. If you said it yourself I should not believe it of you!”
But to my amazement the child stood aghast, too much dismayed, apparently, to be angry, and faltered out, “Believe what?” with her cheeks suddenly growing so pale that she frightened me. The next moment she had rushed into the back drawing-room, and from thence disappeared,—for I went to look after her,—fairly flying either from herself or me. I was entirely confounded. I could not tell what to make of it. Was little Sara in a mystery too?
“If I am betraying Sara, I am very sorry,” said Milly, when I looked to her for sympathy; “but I fear, though they don’t know it themselves, that she and the Italian gentleman are thinking more of each other, perhaps, than they ought.”
She had scarcely finished speaking when Sara returned, dauntless and defiant. “I rushed away to see whether your note had gone to godmamma Sarah,” said the daring creature, actually looking into my very eyes. “A sudden dreadful thought struck me that it had been forgotten. But it is all right, godmamma; and now I think we might have some tea.”
Chapter V
THE gentlemen came upstairs looking very cheerful and friendly, so of course everything had been satisfactory in their conversation. After a little while Mr. Cresswell came to tell me all about it. He said the papers seemed all quite satisfactory, and he had no doubt Mrs. Langham was really Richard Mortimer’s daughter, the nearest, and indeed only relation, on the Mortimer side of the house, that we had in the world.
“I have no doubt about it,” said I; “but I am very glad, all the same, to have it confirmed. Now, my dear child, you know that we belong to each other. My sister and I are, on your father’s side, the only relations you have in the world.”
Milly turned round to receive the kiss I gave her, but trembled and looked as if she dared not lift her eyes to me. Somehow I believe that idea which brightened her husband, came like a cold shadow between her and me, the thought that I would take care of her when he was away. It was very unreasonable, to be sure; but, dear, dear, it was very natural! I did not quarrel with her for the impulse of her heart.
“But softly, softly, my dear lady,” said Mr. Cresswell; “the papers all seem very satisfactory, I admit; but the ladies are always jumping at conclusions. I shall have to get my Irish correspondent to go over the whole matter, and test it, step by step. Not but that I am perfectly satisfied; but nobody can tell what may happen. A suit might arise, and some of these documents might be found to have a flaw in it. We must be cautious, very cautious, in all matters of succession.”
“A suit! Why, wouldn’t Richard Mortimer, if he were alive, be heir-at-law? Who could raise a suit?” cried I.
I suppose he saw that there was some anxiety in my look which I did not express; and, to be sure, he owed me something for having thwarted and baffled him. “There is no calculating what mysterious claimant might appear,” said Mr. Cresswell, quite jauntily. “I heard somebody say, not very long ago, that all the romance now-a-days came through the hands of conveyancers and attorneys. My dear lady, leave it to me; I understand my own business, never fear.”
I felt as if a perfect fever possessed me for the moment. My pulse beat loud, and my ears rang and tingled. “What mysterious claimant could there be to the Park?” I cried. I betrayed myself. He saw in a moment that this was the dread that was on my mind.
“Quite impossible to say. I know no loophole one could creep in through,” he said, with a little shrug of his shoulders and a pretended laugh. “But these things defy all probabilities. It is best to make everything safe for our young friends here.”
Now this, I confess, nettled me exceedingly; for though we had taken so much notice of his daughter, and had lived so quietly for many years, neither Sarah nor I had ever given up the pretensions of the Mortimers to be one of the first families in the county. And to hear an attorney speaking of “our young friends here,” as if they were falling heirs to some old maiden lady’s little bit of property! I was very much exasperated.
“It seems to me, Mr. Cresswell, that you make a little mistake,” said I. “Our family is not in such a position that its members could either be lost or found without attracting observation. In a different rank of life such things might happen; but the Mortimers, and all belonging to them, are too well known among English families, if I am not mistaken, to allow of any unknown connections turning up.”
Mr. Cresswell immediately saw that he had gone too far, and he muttered a kind of apology and got out of it the best way he could. I drew back my chair a little, naturally indignant. But Cresswell, whose father and his father’s father had been the confidential agents of our family, who knew very well what we had been, and what we were whenever we chose to assert ourselves,—to think of him, a Chester attorney, patronising our heirs and successors! You may imagine I had a good right to be angry, and especially as I could see he was quite pluming himself on his cleverness in finding out what was in my mind. He thought it was a whim that had taken possession of me, no doubt,—a kind of monomania. I could even see, as he thought it all quietly over by himself over his cup of tea, what a smile came upon his face.
Young Langham, however, just then contrived to gain my attention. He did it very carefully, watching his opportunities when Milly was not looking at him, or when he thought she was not looking at him. “I am heartily glad to have found you out now, of all times,” said the young man. “Milly would not have gone to her relations in Ireland, and I have no relations. She will be very lonely when we are gone. Poor Milly! It is a hard life I have brought her into, and she so young.”
“You are not much older yourself,” said I; “and if you children bring such trouble on yourselves, you must be all the braver to bear it. I doubt if she’d change with Sara Cresswell at this moment, or any other unmarried young creature in the world.”
The young man looked up at me gratefully. “I can’t tell you how good she is,” he said, in his simplicity. “She never breaks down nor complains of anything. I don’t understand how she has saved and spared our little means and made them do; but she has, somehow. Now, though she’s pale with thinking of this—don’t you think she’s pale? but I forgot, you never saw her before—she has set all her mind upon my outfit, and will hear of nothing else. I wish it were true what the books say. I wish one’s young wife would content herself with thoughts of glory and honour; indeed, I wish one could do as much one’s self,” said the good young fellow, with a smile and sigh. “I fear I am only going, for instance, because I must go; and that I’ll cast many a look behind me on my Milly left alone. She’s just twenty,” he said, with an affectionate look at her which brought her eyes upon us and our conversation, and interrupted so far the confidential character of the interview between him and me.
“Say nothing about it just now,” said I, hurriedly, “it only vexes her to hear you talk of what she is to do; leave her alone, dear soul—but at the same time don’t be afraid. The very day you go I’ll fetch her to the Park. She shall be our child while you are away—and it is to the Park you shall come when you come home. But say nothing about it now. She cannot bear to think of it at present. When the worst is over she’ll breathe again. Hush! don’t let her hear us now!”
“But you know her, though you don’t know her,” said he, under his breath, with a half-wondering grateful look at me that quite restored my good-humour. I remember I nodded at him cheerfully. Know her! I should like to know who had as good a right! These young creatures can’t understand how many things an old woman knows.
Here Milly came up to us, a little jealous, thinking somehow we were plotting against her. “Harry is talking to you of something?” she said, with a little hesitation in her voice.
“On the subject we both like best, just now,” said I. “But I wish you both to go with me to the Park. You can manage it, can you not? The dear baby, and the little nurse, and—but the fat Italian? Ah! he doesn’t belong to you.
“No! he was in great triumph to-night; his master has come home,” said young Langham. “He does not belong to us; but he is a devoted slave of Milly’s for all that.”
“His master came home to-night!” I repeated the words over to myself involuntarily; and then a sudden thought struck me in the feverish impulse which came with that news. “Children,” said I, with a little gasp, “it is deeply to all our interest to know who that young man is. I can never rest, nor take comfort in anything till I know. Will you try to have him with you to-morrow, and I will come and speak to him? Hush! neither the Cresswells nor anybody is to know; it concerns only us Mortimers. Will you help me to see him at your house?”
“You are trembling,” said Milly, suddenly taking hold of my hand. “Tell Harry what it is and he will do it. He is to be trusted; but it will agitate you.”
“I cannot tell Harry, for I do not know,” said I, below my breath, leaning heavily upon the arm, so firm and yet so soft, that had come to my aid. “But I will take Harry’s support and yours. It shall be in your house. Whatever is to be said shall be said before you. Thank heaven! if I do get agitated and forget myself you will remember what he says.”
“It is something that distresses you?” said the young stranger, once more looking into my face, not curious but wistful. I should have been angry had Sara Cresswell asked as much. I was glad and comforted to see Milly anxious on my account.
“I cannot tell what it is; but whatever it is, it is right that you should know all about it,” said I. “For anything I can tell you it may interfere both with your succession and ours. I can’t tell you anything about it, that is the truth! I know no more than your baby does how Mr. Luigi can have any connection with our family; but he has a connection somehow—that is all I know. To-morrow, to-morrow, please God! we’ll try to find out what it is.”
The two young people were a good deal startled by my agitation; perhaps, as was natural, they were also moved by the thought of another person who might interfere with the inheritance that had just begun to dazzle their eyes; but as I leaned back in my chair, exhausted with the flutter that came over me at the very thought of questioning Mr. Luigi, my eyes fell upon Mr. Cresswell, still sipping a cup of tea, and quietly watching me over the top of his spectacles; and at the same moment Sara came in from the back drawing-room with great agitation and excitement in her face. I could see that she scarcely could restrain herself from coming to me and telling me something; but with a sudden guilty glance at her father, and a sudden unaccountable blush, she stole off into a corner, and, of all the wonderful things in the world, produced actually some work out of some fantastic ornamental work-table or other! That was certainly a new development in Sara. But I could read in her face that she had seen him too. She too had somehow poked her curls into this mystery. All around me, everybody I looked at, were moved by it, into curiosity or interest, or something deeper—I, the principal person in the business, feeling them all look at me, could only feel the more that I was going blindfold to, I could not tell what danger or precipice. Blindfold! but at least it should be straightforward. I knew that much of the to-morrow, which it made me tremble with excitement to think of; but I knew nothing more.
PART VI.
THE LIEUTENANT’S WIFE
Chapter I
MY dear old relation whom we have found out so suddenly, and whom I am quite ashamed to have once thought to be a kind of usurper of something that belonged to me, has been too much distressed and troubled altogether about this business to have the trouble of writing it down as well; and I have so little, so strangely little, to take up my time just now. The days are somehow all blank, with nothing ever happening in them. In my mind I can always see the ship making way over the sea, with the same rush of green water, and the same low-falling, quiet sky, and no other ships in sight. It has been very quiet weather—that is a great mercy. They should be almost landed there by this time.
But that is not my business just now. My dear Aunt Milly—it is true she is only my father’s cousin, but cousin is an awkward title between people of such different age, and, according to Sara Cresswell, she is my aunt, à la mode de Bretagne, which I don’t mind adopting without any very close inquiry into its meaning—made an engagement with us to come to our house the next morning after that first day we met her. Harry came home from the Cresswells that night in raptures with Aunt Milly. It was rather hard upon me to see him so pleased. Of course I knew very well what made him so pleased. He thought he had secured a home for me. He was never tired praising her in his way. I am not exactly sure whether she herself would have relished the praises he gave her, because he has a sad habit of talking slang like all the rest. But apart from any reason, he took to her, which it is a great pleasure to think of now. When we got home Mr. Luigi’s window was blazing with light just as it had done when he returned before; for Domenico seems to be quite of the opinion that candles are articles of love and welcome as well as of devotion. Harry, who had quite made acquaintance with the Italian gentleman when he was at home before, went in to see him, and I went upstairs to baby. I used to take comfort in getting by myself a little, just at that time. Ten minutes in my own room in the dark did me a great deal of good. When one takes an opportunity and gets it out of one’s heart now and then, one can go on longer and better—at least I have found it so.
Lizzie, always watchful, was very ready to let me hear that she was close at hand. The moment she heard me open my own room-door, she began to move about in the back apartment where she kept watch over baby, and I do believe it was only by dint of strong self-denial that she did not burst in upon me at once. I can’t fancy what she thought would happen if I “gave way.” It must have taken some very terrible shape to her fancy. After I had my moment of repose, I went to baby’s room. He was asleep like a little cherub in Mrs. Goldsworthy’s old wicker-work cradle, which I had trimmed with chintz for him; and Lizzie sat by the table working, but looking up at me with her sharp suspicious eyes—sidelong inquisitive looks, full of doubts of my fortitude, and anxiety for me. It was all affection, poor child. When one has affectionate creatures about one, it is impossible to be hard or shut one’s self up. I had no choice but to stop and tell Lizzie about my new friend.
“Oh, it was thon leddy was at the muckle gates, and warned us away for the kingcough,” cried Lizzie; “I minded her the very moment at the door. I was sure as could be from the first look that it was some friend.”
“Some friend,” in Lizzie’s language meant some relation. I asked in wonder, “Why?”
But Lizzie could not explain why; it was one of those unreasonable impressions which are either instinctively prophetic, or which are adopted unconsciously after the event has proved them true.
“But you were never slow where help was needed or comfort,” said Lizzie, dropping her eyes and ashamed of her own compliment; “and I kent there was somebody to be sent to comfort you; and wha could it be but a friend? For naebody could take you like the way you took me.”
I suppose Lizzie’s view of things, being the simplest, had power over me. I was struck by this way of regarding it. Perhaps I had not just been thinking of what was sent. I felt as if that tight binding over my heart relaxed a little. Ah! so well as the Sender knew all about it—all my loneliness, dismay, and troubles; all my Harry’s risks and dangers; all our life beyond—inscrutable dread life which I dared not attempt to look at—and everything that was in it. I held my breath, and was silent in this wide world that opened out to me through Lizzie’s words.
“And eh, mem,” cried Lizzie, opening her eyes wide, “I was sent for down the stair.”
“Where?” cried I in astonishment.
“I was sent for down the stair,” said Lizzie, with the oddest blush and twist of her person. “Menico, he’s aye been awfu’ ill at me since I wouldna gang to the playhouse after it was a’ settled—as if I could gang to play mysel’ the very day the news came! and eh, when he came up and glowered in at the door, and Mrs. Goldsworthy beside him, and no a person but me in oor house, I was awfu’ feared. Her being English, they were like twa foreigners thegither; and how was I to ken what they were wantin’? The only comfort I had was mindin’ upon the Captain’s sword. It was aye like a protection. But a’ they said was that Mrs. Goldsworthy would stop beside baby, and I was to gang down the stair and speak to the gentleman. I thought shame to look as if I was feared—but I was awfu’ feared for a’ that.”
“And what then?”
“I had to gang,” said Lizzie, holding down her head; “he was sleeping sound, and I kent I could hear the first word of greetin’ that was in his head; I could hear in ony corner o’ the house; and Mrs. Goldsworthy gied me her word she would sit awfu’ quiet and not disturb him. Eh, mem, are ye angry? I never did it afore, and I’ll never do it again.”