The Last of the Mortimers

Chapter X

I HAD not a very good night after these troubles: somehow one’s sleep goes from one more easily when one grows old; and I kept dreaming all the night through of my sister and little Sara, and something they were concealing from me, mixing them both up together in my mind. I rose very uneasy and excited, not a bit refreshed, as one should feel in the morning. One thing very strange I have noticed all my life in dreams. Though never a single thing that one dreams should ever come true, the feeling one has comes true somehow. I don’t know whether anybody will understand me. I have had friends in my young days, whom I thought a great deal upon, that did not prove true to me. And I have remarked, often long before I found them out, however fond or trustful in them I was through the day, I was always uneasy in my dreams, always finding out something wrong or meeting some unkindness—which makes me have a great confidence, not in what you would call dreams, you know, but in the sentiment of dreams, if you can understand what I mean. I woke up very unrefreshed, as I say; and got dressed and came downstairs as soon as it was daylight, though I knew well enough I should find nobody there. My sister always breakfasted in her own room, and Sara was late of coming down at the best of times; however, I got some letters about business, which were perhaps the best things I could have had. They put me off minding my quarrel with little Sara, or trying to find out what had kept Sarah so late on her drive.

I had nearly finished breakfast when little Sara came downstairs. She came up to me just as she had done the night before, holding out her hand and stooping down her cheek to be kissed, but not looking at me. I kissed her, the provoking puss, and poured out her coffee. And after ten minutes or so we got on chatting just as usual, which was a relief to me, for I don’t like apologies and explanations. I never could bear them. Little Sara, after she had got over feeling a little awkward and stiff, as people always do when they have been wrong, was just in her ordinary. She was used to affront people and to have them come to again, the little wicked creature—I am afraid she did not mind.

This little quarrel had put Sarah a good deal out of my mind, I must allow, but I got back to being anxious about her directly when I saw her come down-stairs. I can’t tell what the change upon her was—she did not look older or paler, or anything that you could put plainly in words—she was just as particularly dressed, and had her silver-white curls as nice, and her cap as pretty as usual, but she was not the same as she had been yesterday; certainly there was some change. Not to speak of that little nervous motion of her head and hands, which was greater to-day than ever I had seen it, there was a strange vigilance and watchfulness in her look which I don’t remember to have ever seen there before. She looked me very full in the face, I remember with a sort of daring defying openness, and the same to little Sara, though, of course what could the child know? All over, down to her very hands, as she went on with her knitting, there was a kind of self-consciousness that had a very odd effect upon me. I could not tell what in the world to think of it. And as for supposing that some mere common little accident, or a fright, or anything outside of herself, had woke her up to that look, you need not tell me. I have not lived fifty years in this world for nothing. I knew better. Whatever it was that changed Sarah’s look, the causes of it were deep down and secret in herself.

It was this of course that made me anxious and almost alarmed, for I could not but think she must have something on her mind to make her look so. And when she beckoned to me that afternoon after dinner, as she did when she had anything particular to say, I confess my heart went thump against my breast, and I trembled all over. However, I went close up as usual, and drew my chair towards her that I might hear. Little Sara was close by. She could hear too if she pleased, but Sarah took no notice of the child.

“Have you heard anything from Cresswell about Richard Mortimer?” Sarah asked me quite sharply all at once.

“Why, no: he did not say anything yesterday when he was here. Did you have any conversation with him?”

“I! Do I have any conversation with any one?” said Sarah, in her bitter way. “I want you to bestir yourself about this business, however. We must have an heir.”

“It is odd how little I have thought about it since that day—very odd,” said I; “and I was quite in earnest before. I wondered if Providence might, maybe, have taken it up now? I have seen such a thing: one falls off one’s anxiety somehow, one can’t tell how; and lo! the reason is, that the thing’s coming about all naturally without any help from you. We’ll be having the heir dropped down at the park gates some of these days, all as right and natural as ever was.”

I said this without thinking much about it; just because it was an idea of mine, that most times, when God lays a kind of lull upon our anxieties and struggles, it really turns out to be because He himself is taking them in hand; but having said this easy and calm, without anything particular in my mind, you may judge how I was startled half out of my wits by Sarah dashing down her knitting-pin out of her hand, stamping her foot on the footstool, and half screaming out in her sharp, strangled whisper, that sounded like the very voice of rage itself— “The fool! the fool! oh, the fool! Shall I be obliged to leave my home and my seclusion and do it myself? I that might have been so different! Good God! shall I be obliged to do it—me! When I was a young girl I might have hoped to die a duchess,—everybody said so,—and now, instead of being cared for and shielded from the envious world,—people were always envious of me since ever I remember,—must I go trudging out to find this wretched cousin? Is this all the gratitude and natural feeling you have? Good heaven! to put such a thing upon me!”

She stopped, all panting and breathless, like a wild creature that had relieved itself somehow with a yell or a cry; but, strange, strange, at that moment Ellis opened the door. I will never think again she does not hear. The sound caught her in a moment. Her passion changed into that new watching look quicker than I can tell; and she sat with her eyes fixed upon me,—for, poor soul, to be sure she could not see through the screen behind her to find out what Ellis came for,—as if she could have killed me for the least motion. I got so excited myself that I could hardly see the name on the card Ellis brought in. Sarah’s looks, not to say her words, had put it so clearly in my mind that something was going to happen, that my self-possession almost forsook me. I let the card flutter down out of my hand when I lifted it off the tray, and did not hear a single syllable of what the man was saying till he had repeated it all twice over. It was only a neighbour who had sent over to ask for Miss Mortimer, having heard somehow that Sarah was poorly. She heard him herself, however, and gave an answer—her compliments, and she was quite well—before I knew what it was all about. If she had boxed me well she could not have muddled my head half so much as she had done now. When Ellis went away again, and left me alone close by her, I quite shook in my chair.

But she had got over her rage as it seemed. She stooped down to pick up her knitting-pin—with a little pettish exclamation that nobody helped her now-a-days—just in her usual way, and took up the dropt stitches in her knitting. But I could very well see that her hand trembled. As she did not say any more, I thought I might venture to draw back my chair. But when she saw the motion she started, looked up at me, and held up her hand. I was not to get so easily away.

“I had no idea you minded it so much. Well, well, Sarah,” cried I, in desperation, “I will write this moment to urge Mr. Cresswell on.”

“And shout it all out, please, that the child may hear!” said Sarah, with a spiteful look as if she could bite me. I was actually afraid of her. I got up as fast as I could, and went off to the writing-table at the other end of the room. There was nothing I would not do to please her in a rational way; but, of all the vagaries she ever took up before, what did this dreadful passion mean?

Chapter XI

THE next day I had something to do in the village, which was only about half a mile from the Park gates; but little Sara, when I asked her to go with me, had got some piece of business to her fancy in the greenhouse, and was not disposed to leave it, so I went off by myself. I went in, as I passed the lodge, to ask for little Mary Williams, who had a cough which I quite expected would turn to hooping-cough, though her mother would not believe it (I turned out to be right, of course). Mrs. Williams was rather in a way, poor body, that morning. Mary was worse and worse, with a flushed face and shocking cough, and nothing would please her mother but that it was inflammation, and the child would die. It is quite the strangest thing in the world, among those sort of people, how soon they make up their minds that their children are to die. I scolded her well, which did her good, and promised her the liniment we always have for hooping-cough, and said I should bring up a picture-book for the child (it’s a good little thing when it is well) from the new little shop in the village. This opened up, as I found out, quite a new phase of poor Williams’ trouble.

“I wouldn’t encourage it ma’am, no sure, I wouldn’t, not for a hundred picture-books. I wouldn’t go for to set up them as ’tices men out of their houses and lads fro’ home. No! I seen enough of that when poor old Williams was alive, and we was all in Liverpool. It’s all as one as the public-houses, ma’am. I can’t see no difference. Williams, it was his chapell; and the boy, it’s his night-school and his reading. I don’t see no good of it. In the old man’s time, many’s the weary night I’ve sat by mysel’ mending their bits o’ things, and never a soul to cheer me up; and now, look’ee here, the boy’s tooken to it; and if I’m to lose Mary–”

“You ridiculous woman,” cried I, while the poor creature fell sobbing and took to her apron, “what’s to make you lose Mary? The child’s going in for hooping-cough, as sure ever child was, and I see no reason in the world why she shouldn’t get over it nicely, with the spring coming on as well. Don’t fret; trouble comes soon enough without going out of the way to meet it. What’s all this story you’ve been telling me about poor Willie, and the shop in the village, and the night-school? Don’t you know, you foolish woman, the night-school may be the making of the boy?”

“I don’t know nothink about it, ma’am, nor I don’t want to know,” said our liberal-minded retainer. “I know it takes the boy out o’ the house most nights in the week; and I sits a-thinking upon my troubles, and listening to all the sounds in the trees, sometimes moidered and sometimes scared. I’d clear away thankful any night, even washing night, when I’m folding for the mangle, to have him write his copy at home; and have a hearth-stone for him, though I say it as shouldn’t, as bright as a king’s. But he’s a deal grander nor the like o’ that, he is—he’ll stay and read the papers and talk. Bother their talk and their papers! I ask you, ma’am, wouldn’t Willie be a deal better at home?”

“I shouldn’t say but what I might perhaps think so too,” said I; “but then the gentlemen say not, and they should know best.”

“The gentlemen! and there’s another worry, sure,” said Mrs. Williams; “who would you think, ma’am, has been in the village, but a Frenchman, a-spying all about, and asking questions; and had the impudence to come to my very door, to the very park gates, to ask if I knowed a lady with a French name that was here or hereabout. I answered him short, and said I knew nothink about the French, and shut the door in his face, begging your pardon, ma’am; for, to be sure, he was after no good, coming asking for outlandish ladies here.”

“Very odd,” said I, “I hope it’s no robber, Williams. You were quite right to shut the door in his face.”

“And if I might make so bold,” said Williams, coming closer and speaking low, “Jacob, he maintains it was a French fellow with a mustache that scared Miss Sarah the day afore yesterday. Jacob seen him, but took no notice; and directly after Miss Sarah up and pulled the string, and told him to drive round by Eden Castle, a good five-mile round, and to go quick. You may depend Miss Sarah took him for a robber, or somethink; and I’m dead sure it was the same man.”

I was very much startled by this, though I could scarcely tell why; but, of course, I would not let Williams suppose there was any mystery in it. “Very likely,” said I; “my sister goes out so little, she’s timid—but I am losing my time. Good-bye, little Mary, I’ll fetch you your picture-book; and be sure you rub her chest well with the liniment. I have always found it successful, and I’ve tried it for ten years.”

When I had fairly got out of the lodge, I went along without losing any more time, wonderfully puzzled in my own mind. Here was a riddle I could neither understand nor find any key to. After hearing little Sara’s tale, and all she had to say about the Italian, there was nothing so surprising in finding him out here, if it should happen to be him, seeing the park was only a few miles from Chester; only that Sara showed more interest in him than she had any call to do, and if he should happen to be coming after her, it was a thing that should be looked to. But why, in all the world, should Sarah be agitated by the sight of him? That was the extraordinary circumstance. As for supposing her to be alarmed at the idea of a robber, that, of course, was the merest folly, and I never entertained the idea for a moment. But if this were not the reason, what could the reason be? I was entirely lost in bewilderment and consternation. Could it be the mere passing face of a stranger which made her so deeply anxious as to the name of the visitor who called next day, and the entrance of Ellis with the card? How, in all the world, could a wandering Italian, seeking or pretending to seek for somebody no one had ever heard of, make any difference to Sarah? The more I turned it over the more I was mystified. I could not even guess at any meaning in it; but to drive five miles round out of her way, to be so excited all at once about the heir of the Mortimers, and to have got such a strange, watchful, vigilant look on her face, these changes could not come from nothing: but I had not the merest shadow of a clue to guide me in connecting little Sara’s Italian, if it was he, with my sister Sarah’s agitation and excitement. I stopped short at this, and could not go a step further; if there was any connection between the two—if there was nothing else to account for Sarah’s trouble which I did not know of—then the whole affair was the most extraordinary mystery I ever came across.

I walked pretty smartly down to the village while I was occupied with these thoughts. A nice little village ours was, though I can’t really say whether you would have called it picturesque. A little bit of a thread of a stream ran along the lower edge of the common, and found its way somehow, all by itself, little thing as it was, down to the Dee. At that time of year the common was rather chilly to look at, the grass and the gorse bushes being a good bit blackened by frost, which had set in pretty sharply. I remember noticing, as I passed, that Dame Marsden, whose cottage is the first you come to on the left-hand side, just on the edge of the common, had her washing out, some of the things, after the line was full, being spread on the gorse, and that the shirts were lying there with their stiff white arms stuck out like pokers, as hard with the frost as if they had been made of wood. But after you pass the first few cottages, which just lie here and there, you come to a snug bit of street, with the Rectory garden and a peep of the house on one side, and the doctor’s house staring straight at it across the road; and the other better houses of the village thrusting forward on both sides, as if to take care of the aristocracy, and keep them cosy. Just before you come to the doctor’s was the new shop I had spoken of at the lodge. It was got up by the doctor, and was going to be a failure. It had all kinds of cheap books and papers, and of all things in the world, a reading room! And the shopkeeper, who was rather a smart young fellow, taught a night school after the shop was over. I dare to say it wasn’t a bad place; but, of course, in a bit of a rural village like ours, it was easy to see it would never succeed.

Into this shop, however, I went to get little Mary Williams her picture-book; and I can’t but say I was very much struck and surprised to see a stranger standing there whom I had never seen before, and to hear roars of laughter coming out of the shop and drawing the children about the door. The stranger was one of the fattest men I ever saw: not that he was dreadfully big or unwieldy,—on the contrary, he was spinning about on his toes in a way that would have been a trial to the lightest Englishman. His fatness was so beautifully distributed that it was amazing to see. His arms in the coat-sleeves which fitted them like the covers of a cushion, his short plump fingers, all were in perfect keeping. As for his face, that was nearly lost in beard. When I entered the shop he had seized his beard with one of his fat hands, in the warmth of his monologue; for he was talking, I have no doubt, in a very animated and lively manner, if any one could have understood a word of what he said. Now, I confess I felt a good deal of sympathy with the poor fellow; for I remember quite well the only time I ever was abroad feeling an odd sort of conviction that if I only spoke very clear, plain, distinct English, and spoke loud enough, people, after a while, must come to understand me. When he saw me he made a spin clean out of my way, took off the queer hat he had on, made me a bow, and stopped talking till I had done my business; which was the most civil thing I had seen in a stranger for many a day. And the face was such a jolly, honest sort of face that, in spite of my prejudice against foreigners, I felt quite disarmed all at once.

“Who is he? What is he saying?” said I to the shop-people.

“Goodness knows!” cried old Mrs. Taylor, the shopkeeper’s mother. “I know no more on’t nor if it was a dog. Lord, Miss Milly! to think of poor creatures brought up from their cradles to talk sich stuff as that!”

“I was brought up at a grammar-school, ma’am,” said young Taylor himself, with a blush; “where it isn’t modern languages, you know, ma’am, that’s the great thing; and, though I know the grammar, I’m not very well up in my French.”

Here his little sister, who had kept nudging him all this time, suddenly whispered, with her face growing crimson, “Oh, Alfred! ask Miss Milly!—to be sure she knows.”

And, to tell the truth, though I knew I could never keep up a conversation, I had been privately conning over in my own mind a little scrap of French, though whether he was French or not I knew no more than Jenny Taylor. So I faced round boldly enough, not being afraid of any criticism, and fired off my interrogation at the good-humoured fat fellow. He looked so blank after I had spoken that it was quite apparent he did not understand a word of it. He made a profusion of bows. He entered into a long and animated explanation, which sent Jenny Taylor into fits of laughter, and filled her mother with commiseration. But I caught two words, and these confounded me. The first was “Italiano,” over and over repeated; the second which he pronounced, pointing out to the street with many lively gestures, was “padrone.” I comprehended the matter all at once, and it made my heart beat. This was the servant whom little Sara had described, and the master, the “padrone,” was in the village pursuing his extraordinary inquiries, whatever they were, here. For the moment I could not help being agitated; I felt, I cannot explain why, as if I were on the eve of finding out something. I asked him eagerly, in English, where his master was; and again received a voluble and smiling answer, I have no doubt in very good Italian. Then we shook our heads mutually and laughed, neither quite convinced that the other could not understand if he or she would. But the end was that I got my picture-book and left the shop without ascertaining anything about the padrone. Perhaps it was just as well. Why should I go and thrust myself into mysteries and troubles which did not make any call upon me?

Chapter XII

I HAD a good many little errands in the village, and stayed there for some time. It was dusk when I turned to go home. Very nice the village looks at dusk, I assure you—the rectory windows beginning to shine through the trees, and the doctor’s dining-room answering opposite as if by a kind of reflection; but no lamps or candles lighted yet in the other village houses, only the warm glow of the fire shining through the little muslin blind on the geraniums in the window; and, perhaps, the mother standing at the door to look out for the boys at play, or to see if it is time for father’s coming home. Dame Marsden’s shirts were still lying stiff and stark like ghosts upon the gorse bushes; and some of the early labourers began to come tramping heavily down the road with their long, slow, heavy steps. I had just stopped to ask James Hobson for his old father, when my share of the adventure came. I call it the adventure, because I suppose, somehow, we were all in it—Sarah, little Sara Cresswell, and me.

Just when that good Jem had gone on—such a fellow he is, too! keeps his old father like a prince!—another sort of a figure appeared before the light; and, bless me, to think I should have forgotten that circumstance!—of course it was the same figure that started so suddenly past me that evening when I stood looking for Sarah at the gate. He took off his hat to me, in the half light, and stopped. I stopped also, I cannot tell why. So far as I could see, a handsome young man, not so dark as one expects to see an Italian, and none of that sort of French showman look—you know what I mean—that these sort of people generally have: on the contrary, a look very much as if he were a gentleman; only, if I may say it, more innocent, more like a child in his ways than the young men are now-a-days. I did not see all this just in a moment, you may be sure. Indeed, I rather felt annoyed and displeased when the stranger stopped me on the road—my own road, that seemed to belong to me as much as the staircase or corridor at home. If he had not been possessed of a kind of ingratiating, conciliatory sort of manner, as these foreigners mostly have, I should scarcely have given him a civil answer, I do believe.

“Pardon, Madame”—not Madam, you perceive, which is the stiffest, ugliest word that can be used in English—and I can’t make out how, by putting an e to the end of it, and laying the emphasis on the last syllable, it can be made so deferential and full of respect as the French word sounds to English ears—“pardon, Madame; I was taking the liberty to make inquiries in your village, and when I am so fortunate as to make an encounter with yourself, I think it a very happy accident. Will Madame permit me to ask her a question; only one,—it is very important to me?”

“Sir,” said I, being a little struck with his language, and still more with his voice, which seemed to recall to me some other voice I had once known, “you speak very good English.”

His hat was off again, of course, in a moment to acknowledge the compliment; but dark as it was, I could neither overlook nor could I in the least understand, the singular, half pathetic, melancholy look he gave me as he answered. “I had an English mother,” said the young foreigner; and he looked at me in the darkness, and in my complete ignorance of him, as if somehow I, plain Millicent Mortimer, a single woman over fifty, and living among my own people, either knew something about his mother, or had done her an injury, or was hiding her up somewhere, or I don’t know what. I could not tell anybody how utterly confounded and thunderstruck I was. I had nearly screamed out: “I? What do I know about your mother?” so much impression did it have on me. After all it is wonderful how these foreigners do talk in this underhand sort of way with their eyes. I declare I do not so much wonder at the influence they often get over young creatures. That sort of thing is wonderfully impressive to the imagination.