There were a few more rooms to be seen – a drawing-room suite, now closed and disused; an ancient library, with a wonderful stained window, and a vast echoing reception-room. But it was all over at last, and Mrs. Hilliard, with her keys, trotted cheerfully off; and Mrs. Weymore was left to solitude and her own thoughts once more.
A strange person, certainly. She locked the door and fell down on her knees by the bedside, sobbing until her whole form was convulsed.
"Oh! why did I come here? Why did I come here?" came passionately with the wild storm of sobs. "I might have known how it would be! Nearly nine years – nine lone, long years, and not to have forgotten yet!"
CHAPTER V.
A JOURNEY TO LONDON
Very slowly, very monotonously went life at Thetford Towers. The only noticable change and that my lady went rather more into society, and a greater number of visitors came to the manor. There had been a children's party on the occasion of Sir Rupert's eighth birthday, and Mrs. Weymore had played for the little people to dance; and my lady had cast off her chronic gloom, had been handsome and happy as of old. There had been a dinner-party later – an imprecedented event now at Thetford Towers; and the weeds, worn so long, had been discarded, and in diamonds and black velvet Lady Ada Thetford had been beautiful, and stately, and gracious, as a young queen. No one knew the reason of the sudden change, but they accepted the fact just as they found it, and set it down, perhaps, to woman's caprice.
So slowly the summer passed: autumn came and went, and it was December, and the ninth anniversary of Sir Noel's death.
A gloomy day – wet, and wild, and windy. The wind, sweeping over the angry sea, surged and roared through the skeleton trees; the rain lashed the windows in rattling gusts; and the leaden sky hung low and frowning over the drenched and dreary earth. A dismal day – very like that other, nine years ago, that had been Sir Noel's last.
In Lady Thetford's boudoir a bright-red coal fire blazed. Pale-blue curtains of satin damask shut out the wintry prospect, and the softest and richest of foreign carpets hushed every footfall. Before the fire, on a little table, my lady's breakfast temptingly stood; the silver, old and quaint; the rare antique porcelain sparkling in the ruddy firelight. An easy chair, carved and gilded, and cushioned in azure velvet, stood by the table; and near my lady's plate lay the letters and papers the morning's mail had brought.
A toy of a clock on the low marble mantle chimed musically ten as my lady entered. In her dainty morning negligée, with her dark hair rippling and falling low on her neck, she looked very young, and fair, and graceful. Behind her came her maid, a blooming English girl, who took off the cover and poured out my lady's chocolate.
Lady Thetford sank languidly into the azure velvet depths of her
fautenuil
, and took up her letters. There were three – one a note from her man of business; one an invitation to a dinner-party; and the third, a big official-looking document, with a huge seal, and no end of postmarks. The languid eyes suddenly lighted; the pale cheeks flushed as she took it eagerly up. It was a letter from India from Capt. Everard.
Lady Thetford sipped her chocolate, and read her letter leisurely, with her slippered feet on the shining fender. It was a long letter, and she read it over slowly twice, three times, before she laid it down. She finished her breakfast, motioned her maid to remove the service, and lying back in her chair, with her deep, dark eyes fixed dreamily on the fire, she fell into a reverie of other days far gone. The lover of her girlhood came back to her from over the sea. He was lying at her feet once more in the long summer days, under the waving trees of her girlhood's home. Ah, how happy! how happy she had been in those by-gone days, before Sir Noel Thetford had come, with his wealth and his title, to tempt her from her love and truth.
Eleven struck, twelve from the musical clock on the mantle, and still my lady sat living in the past. Outside the wintry storm raged on; the rain clamored against the curtained glass, and the wind worried the trees. With a long sigh my lady awoke from her dream, and mechanically took up the
Times
newspaper – the first of the little heap.
"Vain! vain!" she thought, dreamily; "worse than vain those dreams now. With my own hand I threw back the heart that loved me; of my own free will I resigned the man I loved. And now the old love, that I thought would die in the splendor of my new life, is stronger than ever – and it is nine years too late."
She tried to wrench her thoughts away and fix them on her newspaper. In vain! her eyes wandered aimlessly over the closely-printed columns – her mind was in India with Capt. Everard. All at once she started, uttered a sudden, sharp cry, and grasped the paper with dilated eyes and whitening cheeks. At the top of a column of "personal" advertisements was one which her strained eyes literally devoured.
"If Mr. Vyking, who ten years ago left a male infant in charge of Mrs. Martha Brand, wishes to keep that child out of the work-house, he will call, within the next five days, at No. 17 Wadington Street, Lambeth."
Again and again, and again Lady Thetford read this apparently uninteresting advertisement. Slowly the paper dropped into her lap, and she sat staring blankly into the fire.
"At last!" she thought, "at last it has come. I fancied all danger was over – the death, perhaps, had forestalled me; and now, after all these years, I am summoned to keep my broken promise!"
The hue of death had settled on her face; she sat cold and rigid, staring with that blank, fixed gaze into the fire. Ceaselessly beat the rain; wilder grew the December day; steadily the moments wore on, and still she sat in that fixed trance. The armula clock struck two – the sound aroused her at last.
"I must!" she said, setting her teeth. "I will! My boy shall not lose his birthright, come what may!"
She rose and rang the bell – very pale, but icily calm. Her maid answered the summons.
"Eliza," my lady asked, "at what hour does the afternoon train leave St. Gosport for London!"
Eliza stared – did not know, but would ascertain. In five minutes she was back.
"At half-past three, my lady; and another at seven."
Lady Thetford glanced at the clock – it was a quarter past two.
"Tell William to have the carriage at the door at a quarter past three; and do you pack my dressing case, and the few things I shall need for two or three days' absence. I am going to London."
Eliza stood for a moment quite petrified. In all the nine years of her service under my lady, no such order as this had ever been received. To go to London at a moment's notice – my lady, who rarely went beyond her own park gates! Turning away, not quite certain that her ears had not deceived her, my lady's voice arrested her.
"Send Mrs. Weymore to me; and do you lose no time in packing up."
Eliza departed. Mrs. Weymore appeared. My lady had some instructions to give concerning the children during her absence. Then the governess was dismissed, and she was again alone.
Through the wind and rain of the wintry storm, Lady Thetford was driven to the station, in time to catch the three-fifty train to the metropolis. She went unattended; with no message to any one, only saying she would be back in three days at the furthest.
In that dull household, where so few events ever disturbed the stagnant quiet, this sudden journey produced an indescribable sensation. What could have taken my lady to London at a moment's notice? Some urgent reason it must have been to force her out of the gloomy seclusion in which she had buried herself since her husband's death. But, discuss it as they might, they could come no nearer the heart of the mystery.
CHAPTER VI.
GUY
The rainy December day closed in a rainier night. Another day dawned on the world, sunless, and chilly, and overcast still.
It dawned on London in murky, yellow fog, on sloppy, muddy streets – in gloom and dreariness, and a raw, easterly wind. In the densely populated streets of the district of Lambeth, where poverty huddled in tall, gaunt buildings, the dismal light stole murkily and slowly over the crowded, filthy streets and swarming purlieus.
In a small upper room of a large dilapidated house, this bad December morning, a painter stood at his easel. The room was bare and cold, and comfortless in the extreme; the painter was middle-aged, small, brown and shriveled, and very much out at elbows. The dull, gray light fell full on his work – no inspiration of genius by any means – only the portrait, coarsely colored, of a fat, well-to-do butcher's daughter round the corner. The man was Joseph Legard, scene-painter to one of the minor city theatres, who eked out his slender income by painting portraits when he could get them to paint. He was as fond of his art as any of the great, old masters; but he had only one attribute in common with those immortals – extreme poverty; for his salary was not large, and Mr. Legard found it a tight fit, indeed, to "make both ends meet."
So he stood over his work this dull morning, however, in his fireless room, with a cheerful, brown face, whistling a tune. In the adjoining room he could hear his wife's voice raised shrilly, and the cries of half a dozen Legards. He was used to it, and it did not disturb him; and he painted and whistled cheerily, touching up the butcher's daughter's snub nose and fat cheeks and double chin, until light footsteps came running up-stairs, and the door was flung wide by an impetuous hand. A boy of ten, or thereabouts, came in – a bright-eyed, fair-haired lad, with a handsome, resolute face, and eyes of cloudless, Saxon blue.
"Ah, Guy!" said the scene-painter, turning round and nodding good-humoredly. "I've been expecting you! What do you think of Miss Jenkins?"
The boy looked at the picture with the glance of an embryo connoisseur.
"It's as like her as two peas, Joe; or would be, if her hair was a little redder, and her nose a little thicker, and the freckles were plainer. But it looks like her as it is."
"Well, you see, Guy," said the painter, going on with Miss Jenkins's left eyebrow, "it don't do to make 'em too true – people don't like it; they pay their money, and they expect to take it out in good looks. And now, any news this morning, Guy?"
The boy leaned against the window and looked out into the dingy street, his bright, young face growing gloomy and overcast.
"No," he said, moodily; "there is no news, except that Phil Darking was drunk last night, and savage as a mad dog this morning – and that's no news, I'm sure!"
"And nobody's come about the advertisement in the
Times
?"
"No, and never will. It's all humbug what granny says about my belonging to anybody rich; if I did, they'd have seen after me long ago. Phil says my mother was a house-maid, and my father a valet – and they were only too glad to get me off their hands. Vyking was a valet, granny says she knows; and it's not likely he'll turn up after all these years. I don't care, I'd rather go to the work-house; I'd rather starve in the streets, than live another week with Phil Darking."
The blue eyes filled with tears, and he dashed them passionately away. The painter looked up with a distressed face.
"Has he been beating you again, Guy?"
"It's no matter – he's a brute! Granny and Ellen are sorry, and do what they can; but that's nothing. I wish I had never been born!"
"It is hard," said the painter, compassionately, "but keep up heart, Guy; if the worst comes, why you can stop here and take pot-luck with the rest – not that that's much better than starvation. You can take to my business shortly, now; and you'll make a better scene-painter than ever I could. You've got it in you."
"Do you really think so, Joe?" cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. "Do you? I'd rather be an artist than a king – Halloo!"
He stopped short in surprise, staring out of the window. Legard looked. Up the dirty street came a handsome cab, and stopped at their own door. The driver alighted, made some inquiry, then opened the cab-door, and a lady stepped lightly out on the curb-stone – a lady, tall and stately, dressed in black and closely veiled.
"Now, who can this visitor be for?" said Legard. "People in this neighborhood ain't in the habit of having morning calls made on them in cabs. She's coming up-stairs!"
He held the door open, listening. The lady ascended the first flight of stairs, stopped on the landing, and inquired of some one for "Mrs. Martha Brand."
"For granny!" exclaimed the boy. "Joe, I shouldn't wonder if it was some one about that advertisement, after all!"
"Neither should I," said Legard. "There! she's gone in. You'll be sent for directly, Guy!"
Yes, the lady had gone in. She had encountered on the landing a sickly young woman with a baby in her arms, who had stared at the name she inquired for.
"Mrs. Martha Brand? Why, that's mother! Walk in this way, if you please, ma'am."
She opened the door, and ushered the veiled lady into a small, close room, poorly furnished. Over a smouldering fire, mending stockings, sat an old woman, who, notwithstanding the extreme shabbiness and poverty of her dress, lifted a pleasant, intelligent old face.
"A lady to see you, mother," said the young woman, hushing her fretful baby and looking curiously at the veiled face.
But the lady made no attempt to raise the envious screen, not even when Mrs. Martha Brand got up, dropping a respectful little servant's courtesy and placing a chair. It was a very thick veil – an impenetrable shield – and nothing could be discovered of the face behind it but that it was fixedly pale. She sank into the seat, her face turned to the old woman behind that sable screen.
"You are Mrs. Brand?"
The voice was refined and patrician. It would have told she was a lady, even if the rich garments she wore did not.
"Yes, ma'am – your ladyship; Martha Brand."
"And you inserted that advertisement in the
Times
regarding a child left in your care ten years ago?"
Mother and daughter started, and stared at the speaker.
"It was addressed to Mr. Vyking, who left the child in your charge, by which I infer you are not aware that he has left England."
"Left England, has he?" said Mrs. Brand. "More shame for him, then, never to let me know or leave a farthing to support the boy!"
"I am inclined to believe it was not his fault," said the clear, patrician voice. "He left England suddenly and against his will, and, I have reason to think, will never return. But there are others interested – more interested than he could possibly be – in the child, who remain, and who are willing to take him off your hands. But first, why is it you are so anxious, after keeping him all these years, to get rid of him?"
"Well, you see, your ladyship," replied Martha Brand, "it is not me, nor likewise Ellen there, who is my daughter. We'd keep the lad and welcome, and share the last crust we had with him, as we often have – for we're very poor people; but, you see, Ellen, she's married now, and her husband never could bear Guy – that's what we call him, your ladyship – Guy, which it was Mr. Vyking's own orders. Phil Darking, her husband, never did like him somehow; and when he gets drunk, saving your ladyship's presence, he beats him most unmercifully. And now we're going to America – to New York, where Phil's got a brother and work is better, and he won't fetch Guy. So, your ladyship, I thought I'd try once more before we deserted him, and put that advertisement in the
Times
, which I'm very glad I did, if it will fetch the poor lad any friends."
There was a moment's pause; then the lady asked, thoughtfully: "And when do you leave for New York?"
"The day after to-morrow, ma'am – and a long journey it is for a poor old body like me."
"Did you live here when Mr. Vyking left the child with you – in this neighborhood?"
"Not in this neighborhood, nor in London at all, your ladyship. It was Lowdean, in Berkshire, and my husband was alive at the time. I had just lost my baby, and the landlady of the hotel recommended me. So he brought it, and paid me thirty sovereigns, and promised me thirty more every twelvemonth, and told me to call it Guy Vyking – and that was the last I ever saw of him."
"And the infant's mother?" said the lady, her voice changing perceptibly – "do you know anything of her?"
"But very little," said Martha Brand, shaking her head. "I never set eyes on her, although she was sick at the inn for upward of three weeks. But Mrs. Vine, the landlady, she saw her twice; and she told me what a pretty young creeter she was – and a lady, if there ever was a lady yet."
"Then the child was born in Berkshire – how was it?"
"Well, your ladyship, it was an accident, seeing as how the carriage broke down with Mr. Vyking and the lady, a-driving furious to catch the last London train. The lady was so hurted that she had to be carried to the inn, and went quite out of her head, raving and dangerous like. Mr. Vyking had the landlady to wait upon her until he could telegraph to London for a nurse, which one came down next day and took charge of her. The baby wasn't two days old when he brought it to me, and the poor young mother was dreadful low and out of her head all the time. Mr. Vyking and the nurse were all that saw her, and the doctor, of course; but she didn't die, as the doctor thought she would, but got well, and before she came right to her senses Mr. Vyking paid the doctor and told him he needn't come back. And then, a little more than a fortnight after, they took her away, all sly and secret-like, and what they told her about her poor baby I don't know. I always thought there was something dreadful wrong about the whole thing."
"And this Mr. Vyking – was he the child's father – the woman's husband?"
Martha Brand looked sharply at the speaker, as if she suspected
she
could answer that question best herself.
"Nobody knew, but everybody thought who. I've always been of opinion myself that Guy's father and mother were gentlefolks, and I always shall be."
"Does the boy know his own story?"
"Yes, your ladyship – all I've told you."
"Where is he? I should like to see him."
Mrs. Brand's daughter, all this time hushing her baby, started up.
"I'll fetch him. He's up-stairs in Legard's, I know."
She left the room and ran up-stairs. The painter, Legard, still was touching up Miss Jenkins, and the bright-haired boy stood watching the progress of that work of art.
"Guy! Guy!" she cried breathlessly, "come down-stairs at once. You're wanted."
"Who wants me, Ellen?"
"A lady, dressed in the most elegant and expensive mourning – a real lady, Guy; and she has come about that advertisement, and she wants to see you."
"What is she like, Mrs. Darking?" inquired the painter – "young or old?"
"Young, I should think; but she hides her face behind a thick veil, as if she didn't want to be known. Come, Guy."
She hurried the lad down-stairs and into their little room. The veiled lady still sat talking to the old woman, her back to the dim daylight, and that disguising veil sti