THIS interview did not calm the nerves of the agitated girl or bring her soothing or sleep. It was almost morning before the calm of exhaustion came, hushing the thoughts in her troubled brain and the pulses in her tired body. She slept without comfort, almost without unconsciousness, carrying her cares along with her, and when she awoke suddenly to an unusual sound by her bedside, could scarcely make up her mind that she had been asleep at all, and believed at first that the little babbling voice close to her ear was part of a feverish dream. She started up in her bed, and saw on the carpet close to her the little three-year-old boy, a small, square figure with very large wide-open blue eyes, who was altogether new to her experiences, and whom she only identified after a moment’s astonished consideration as little George, her brother’s child. The first clear idea that flashed across her mind was that, as Tom said, he was “the image of his mother,” not a Chester at all, or like any of her family, but the picture, in little, of the very overblown beauty of George’s wife. This sensation checked in Winifred’s mind, mechanically, without any will of hers, the natural impulse of tenderness towards the child, who, staring at her with his round eyes, had been making ineffectual pulls at the counterpane, and calling at intervals, “Auntie Winnie!” in a frightened and reluctant tone. Little George had “got on” very well with his newly-found relative on the night of his arrival, but to see an unknown lady in bed, with long hair framing her pale face, and that look of sleep which simulates death, had much disturbed the little boy. He fulfilled his consigne with much faltering bravery, but he did not like it; and when the white lady with the brown hair started up suddenly, he recoiled with a cry which was very nearly a wail. She recovered and came to herself sooner than he did, and, smiling, held out a hand to him.
“Little George, is it you? Come, then, and tell me what it is,” she said.
Here the baby recoiled a step farther, and stared with still larger eyes, his mouth open ready to cry again, the tears rising, his little person drawn together with that instinctive dread of some attack which seems natural to the helpless. Winnie stretched out her arm to him with a smile of invitation.
“Come to me, little man, come to me,” she cried. Tears came to her eyes too, and a softening to her heart. The little creature belonged to her after a fashion; he was her own flesh and blood; he was innocent, not struggling for gain. She did not ask how he came there, nor notice the straying of his eyes to something behind, which inspired yet terrified him. She was too glad to feel the unaccustomed sensation of pleasure loosen her bonds. “It is true I am your Aunt Winnie. Come, Georgie, don’t be afraid of me. Come, for I love you,” she said.
Half attracted, half forced by the influence behind, which was to Winnie invisible, the child made a shy step towards the bed. “Oo send Georgie away,” he stammered. “Oo send Georgie back to big ship. Mamma ky. Georgie no like big ship.”
“Come and tell me, Georgie.” She leant towards him, holding out arms in which the child saw a refuge from the imperative signs which were being addressed to him from behind the bed. He came forward slowly with his little tottering steps, his big eyes full of inquiry, wonder, and suspicion.
“Oo take care of Georgie?” he said, with a little whimper that went to Winifred’s heart; then suffered himself to be drawn into her arms. The touch of the infant was like balm to her.
“Yes, dear,” she cried, with tears in her eyes; “as far as I can, and with all my heart I will take care of Georgie.” It was a vow made, not to the infant, who had no comprehension, but to Heaven and her own heart.
But there was some one else who heard and understood after her fashion. As Winifred said these words with a fervour beyond description, a sudden running fire of sobs broke forth behind the head of her bed. Then with a rush and sweep something heavy and soft fell down by her side, almost crushing Georgie, who began to cry with fright and wonder.
“Oh, Miss Winnie! God bless you! I knew that was what you would say,” cried Mrs. George, clasping Winifred’s arm with both her hands, and laying down her wet, soft cheek upon it. “He thought not; he said we should have to go back again in that dreadful ship; but oh, bless you! I knew you weren’t one of that kind!”
“Is it you, Mrs. George?” said Winifred faintly. The sudden apparition of the mother gave her a shock; and she began to perceive that the little scene was melodramatic, got up to excite her feelings. She drew back a little coldly; but the baby gazing at her between his bursts of crying, and pressing closer and closer to her shoulder, frightened by his mother’s onslaught, was no actor. She began to feel after a moment that the mother herself, crying volubly like a schoolgirl, and clutching her arm as if it were that of a giant, was, if an actor so very simple an actor, with devices so transparent and an object so little concealed, that moral indignation was completely misplaced against her artless wiles, and that nature was far stronger in her than guile. In the first revulsion she spoke coldly; but after a moment, with a truer insight, “Stand up,” she said. “Don’t cry so. Get a chair and come and sit by me. You must not go on your knees to me.”
“Oh, but that I will,” cried Mrs. George, “as if you were the Queen, Miss Winnie; for you have got our lives in your hands. Look at that poor little fellow, who is your own flesh and blood. Oh, will you listen to what worldly folks say, and send him away to be brought up as if he was nobody, and him your own nephew and just heir?—oh, I don’t mean that! It appears he’s got no rights, though I always thought—the eldest son’s eldest son! But no; I don’t say that. George pleased himself marrying me, and if he lost his place for that, ain’t it more than ever my duty to do what I can for him? And I don’t make no claim. I don’t talk about rights. You’ve got the right, Miss Winnie, and there’s an end of it. Whoever opposes, it will never be George and me. But oh,” cried the young woman, rising from her knees, and addressing to Winifred all the simple eloquence of her soft face, her blue eyes blurred with tears, which flowed in half a dozen channels over the rosy undefined outline of her cheeks,—“oh, if you only knew what life was in foreign parts! It don’t suit George. He was brought up a gentleman, and he can’t abear common ways. And the children!—oh, Miss Winnie, the little boys! Would you stand by and see them brought up to hold horses and to run errands—them that are your own flesh and blood?”
Little Georgie had ceased to whimper. The sight of his mother’s crying overawed the baby. He was too safe and secure in Winifred’s arms to move at once—but, reflecting in his infant soul, with his big eyes turned to his mother all the while she spoke, was at last touched beyond his childish capacity of endurance, forsook the haven in which he had found shelter, and, flinging his arms about her knees, cried out, “Mamma, don’t ky, mamma, me love you!” burying his face in the folds of her dress. Mrs. George stooped down and gathered him up in her arms with a sleight of hand natural to mothers, and then, child and all, precipitated herself once more on the carpet at the bedside.
Winifred, too, was carried out of herself by this little scene. She dried the fast-flowing tears from the soft face so near to her as if the young mother had been no more serious an agent than Georgie. “You shall not go back. You shall want nothing that I can do for you,” she cried, soothing them. It was some time before the tumult calmed; but when at last the fit of crying was over, Mrs. George began at once to smile again, with an easy turn from despair to satisfaction. She held her child for Winifred to kiss, her own lips trembling between joy and trouble.
“I don’t ask you to kiss me, for I’m not good enough for you to kiss; but Georgie—he is your own flesh and blood.”
“Do not say so,” said Winifred, kissing mother and child. “And now sit beside me and talk to me, and do not call me miss, for I am your sister. I am sure you have been a good wife to George.”
“I should be that and more: since he lost his fortune, and his ’ome, and all, for me,” she cried.
The scene which ensued was the most unexpected of all. Mrs. George placed the child upon Winifred’s bed and began, without further ado, a baby game of peeps and transparent hidings, her excitement turning to laughter, as it had turned to tears. Winifred, too, though her heart was heavy enough, found herself drawn into that sudden revulsion. They played with little Georgie for half an hour in the middle of all the care and pain that surrounded them, the one woman with her heart breaking, the other feeling, as far as she could feel anything, that the very life of her family hung in the balance—moving the child to peals of laughter, in which they shared after their fashion, as women only can, interposing this episode of play into the gravest crisis. It was only when Georgie’s laughter began to show signs of that over-excitement that leads to tears, that Winifred suddenly said, almost to herself, “But how am I to do it? how am I to do it?” with an accent of weary effort which almost reached the length of despair.
“Oh dear! you that are so good and kind,” cried Mrs. George, changing also in a moment, “just let us stay with you, dear Winnie—it’s a liberty to call you Winnie; but oh dear, dear! why can’t we just live all together? That would do nobody any harm. That would go against no one’s will. It wasn’t said you were not to give me and George and the children an ’ome. Oh, only think! it’s such a big, big house! If you didn’t like the noise of the children,—but you aren’t one of that sort, not to like the noise of the children, and so I told George,—they could have their nursery where you would never hear a sound. And George would be a deal of use to you in managing the estate, and I would do the housekeeping, and welcome, and save you any trouble. And why, why—oh, why shouldn’t we just settle down all together, and be, oh, so comfortable, Miss Winnie, dear?”
This suggestion, it need scarcely be said, struck Winifred with dismay. The face, no longer weeping, no longer elevated by the passionate earnestness of the first appeal, dropping to calculations which, perhaps, were more congenial to its nature, gave her a chill of repulsion while still her heart was soft. She seemed to see, with a curious second sight, the scene of family life, of family tragedy, which might ensue were this impossible plan attempted. It was with difficulty that she stopped Mrs. George, who, in the heat of success, would have settled all the details at once, and it was only the entrance of Miss Farrell, tenderly anxious about her pupil’s health, and astounded to find Mrs. George and her child established in her room, that finally delivered poor Winnie.
“You would have no need of strangers eating you up if you had us,” her sister-in-law said, as she stooped to kiss her ostentatiously, and held the child up to repeat the salute ere she went away.
Winifred had kissed the young mother almost with emotion in the midst of her pleading; but somehow this return of the embrace gave a slight shock both to her delicacy and pride. She laughed a little and coloured when Miss Farrell, after the door closed, looked at her astonished. “You think I have grown into wonderful intimacy with Mrs. George?” she said.
“I do indeed, Winnie. My dear, I would not interfere, but you must not let your kind heart carry you too far.”
“Oh, my kind heart!” cried the girl, feeling a desperate irony in the words. “She suggests that they should live with me,” she added, turning her head away.
“Live with you? Winnie! my dear!” Miss Farrell gasped, with a sharp break between each word.
“She thinks it will arrange itself so, quite simply—oh, it is quite simple! Dear Miss Farrell, don’t say anything. I have been pushing it off. I have been pretending to be ill because I was miserable. Let me get up now—and don’t say anything,” she added after a moment, with lips that trembled in spite of herself. “There are no—letters; no one—has been here?”
“Nothing, Winnie.” Her friend did not look at her; she dared not betray her too profound sympathy, her personal anguish, even by a kiss.
When Winifred came downstairs she found Mr. Babington waiting for her. He was a very old acquaintance, whom she had not been used to think of as a friend; but trouble makes strange changes in the aspect of things around us, turning sometimes those whom we have loved most into strangers, and lighting up faces that have been indifferent to us with new lights of compassion and sympathy. Mr. Babington’s formal manner, his well-known features, so composed and commonplace, his grey, keen eyes under their bushy eyebrows, suddenly took a new appearance to Winifred. They seemed to shine upon her with the warmth of ancient friendship. She had known him all her life, yet, it seemed, had never known him till to-day. He came to meet her, holding out his hand, with some kind, ordinary questions about her health, but all the while a light put out, as it were, at the windows of his soul, to help her, another poor soul stumbling along in the darkness. It was not anything that he said, nor that she said. She did not ask for any help, nor he offer it; and yet in a moment Winifred felt herself, in her mind, clinging to him with the sense that here was an old, old friend, somebody, above all doubt and uncertainty, in whom she could trust.
“Miss Winifred,” he said, “I am afraid, though you don’t seem much like it, that we must talk of business.”
“Yes; I wish it, Mr. Babington. I am only foolish and troubled—not ill at all.”
“I am not so sure about that; but still— Your brother Tom has been warning me, Miss Winifred— I hope to save you from a false step; that you are thinking of—going against your father’s will”—
“Did Tom tell you so, Mr. Babington?”
“He did. I confess that I was not surprised. I have expected you to do so all along; but so fine a fortune as you have got is not to be lightly parted with, my dear young lady. Think of all the power it gives you, power to do good, to increase the happiness, or at least the comfort, perhaps of hundreds of people. If it was in your brothers’ hands, do you think it would be used as well? We must think of that, Miss Winifred, we must think of that.”
“If it was in my power,” she said, looking at him wistfully, “I should think rather of what is just. Can anything be good that is founded upon injustice? Oh, Mr. Babington, put yourself in my place! Could you bear to take away from your brother, from any one, what was his by nature—to put yourself in his seat, to take it from him, to rob him?”
“Hush, hush, my dear girl! I am afraid I have not a conscience so delicate as yours. I could bear a great deal which does not seem bearable to you. And you must remember it is no doing of yours. Your father thought, and I agree with him, that you would make a better use of his money, and do more credit to his name, than either of your brothers. It throws a fearful responsibility upon you, we may allow; but still, my dear Miss Winifred”—
“Mr. Babington,” she cried, interrupting him, “you are my oldest friend—oh yes, my oldest friend! You know, if I am forced to do this, it will only be deceiving from beginning to end. I will only pretend to obey. I will be trying all the time, as I am now, to find out ways of defeating all his purposes, and doing—what he said I was not to do!”
Her eyes shone almost wildly through the tears that stood in them. She changed colour from pale to red, from red to pale; her weakness gave her the guise of impassioned strength.
“Miss Winifred,” said the lawyer very gravely, “do you know that you are guilty of the last imprudence in saying this, of all people in the world, to me?”
“Oh,” she cried, “you are my friend, my old friend! I never remember the time when I did not know you. It is not imprudent, it is my only hope. Think a little of me first, whom you knew long before this will was made. Tell me how I can get out of the bondage of it. Teach me, teach me how to cheat everybody, for that is all that is left to me! how to keep it from them so as best to give it to them. Teach me! for there is no one I can ask but you.”
The lawyer looked at her with a very serious face. Her great emotion, her trembling earnestness, the very force of her appeal, as of one consulting her only oracle, hurt the good man with a sympathetic pain. “My dear,” he said, “God forbid I should refuse you my advice, or misunderstand you, you who are far too good for any of them. But, Miss Winifred, think again, my dear. Are you altogether a free agent? Is there not some one else who has a right to be consulted before you take a step—which may change the whole course of your life?”
Winifred grew so pale that he thought she was going to faint, and got up hurriedly to ring the bell. She stopped him with a movement of her hand. Then she said firmly, “There is no one; no one can come between me and my duty. I will consult nobody—but you.”
“My dear young lady, excuse me if I speak too plainly; but want of confidence between two people that are in the position of”—
“You mean,” she said faintly yet steadily, “Dr. Langton? Mr. Babington, he has no duty towards George and Tom. I love them—how can I help it? they are my brothers; but he—why should he love them? I don’t expect it—I can’t expect it. I must settle this by myself.”
“And yet he will be the one to suffer,” said the lawyer reflectively in a parenthesis. “My dear Miss Winifred, take a little time to think it over, there is no cause for hurry; take a week, take another day. Think a little”—
“I have done nothing but think,” she said, “since you told me first. Thinking kills me, I cannot go on with it; and you can’t tell—oh, you can’t tell how it harms them, what it makes them do and say! Tom”—(here her voice was stifled by the rising sob in her throat) “and all of them,” she cried hastily. “Oh, tell me how to be done with it, to settle it so that there shall be no more thinking, no more struggling!” She clasped her hands with a pathetic entreaty, and looked imploringly at him. And she bore in her face the signs of the struggle which she pleaded to be freed from. Her face had the parched and feverish look of anxiety, its young, soft outline had grown pinched and hollow, and all the cheerful glow of health had faded. The lawyer looked at her with genuine tenderness and pity.
“My poor child,” he said, “one can very well see that this great fortune, which your poor father believed was to make you happy, has brought anything but happiness to you.”
She gave him a little pathetic smile, and shook her head; but she was not able to speak.
“Then, Miss Winifred,” he said cheerfully, “since you are certain that you don’t want it, and won’t have it, and have made up your mind to do nothing but scheme and plot to frustrate the will, even when you are seeming to obey it,—I think I know a better way. Write down what you mean to do with the property, and leave the rest to me.”
She looked at him, roused by his words, with an awakening thrill of wonder. “Write down—what I mean to do? But that will make me helpless to do it; that will risk everything; or so you said.”
“I said true. Nevertheless, if you are sure you wish, at the bottom of your heart, to sacrifice yourself to your brothers”—
She shook her head half angrily, with a gesture of impatience. “To give them back their rights.”
“That means the same thing in your phraseology. If that is what you really wish, do what I say, and leave the rest to me.”
She looked at him for a moment, bewildered, then rose up hastily and flew to the writing-table. How easy it was to do it! how blessed if only it were possible to throw this weight once for all off her shoulders, and be free!