MR. MANNERING’S convalescence was worse than his illness had been to the house in Bloomsbury. Mrs. Simcox’s weekly bill fell by chance into the patient’s hands, and its items filled him with horror. When a man is himself painfully supported on cups of soup and wings of chicken, the details of roast lamb for the day-nurse’s dinner, and bacon and eggs for the night-nurse’s breakfast, take an exaggerated magnitude. And Mrs. Simcox was very conscientious, putting down even the parsley and the mint which were necessary for these meals. This bill put back the patient’s recovery for a week, and prolonged the expenses, and brought the whole house, as Mrs. Simcox declared tearfully, on her comparatively innocent head.
“For wherever’s the bill to go if not to the gentleman hisself?” cried the poor woman. “He’s sittin’ up every day, and gettin’ on famous, by what I hears. And he always did like to see ’is own bills, did Mr. Mannering: and what’s a little bit of a thing like Miss Dora to go to, to make her understand money? Lord bless you! she don’t spend a shilling in a week, nor knows nothing about it. And the nurses, as was always to have everything comfortable, seeing the ’ard work as they ’as, poor things. And if it was a bit o’ mint for sauce, or a leaf o’ parsley for garnish, I’d have put it in out o’ my own pocket and welcome, if I’d a thought a gentleman would go on about sich things.”
“You ridiculous woman, why couldn’t you have brought it to me, as you have done before? And who do you suppose cares for your parsley and your mint?” cried Miss Bethune. But nobody knew better than Miss Bethune that the bills could not now be brought to her; and it was with a sore heart, and that sense of the utter impossibility of affording any help, with which we look on impotent at the troubles of our neighbours, whom we dare not offend even by our sympathy, that she went downstairs in a morning of July, when London was hot and stifling, yet still, as ever, a little grace and coolness dwelt in the morning, to refresh herself with a walk under the trees in the Square, to which she had a privilege of entrance.
Even in London in the height of summer the morning is sweet. There is that sense of ease and lightness in it, which warm and tranquil weather brings, before it comes too hot to bear. There were smells in the streets in the afternoon, and the din of passing carts and carriages, of children playing, of street cries and shouts, which would sometimes become intolerable; but in the morning there was shade and softness, and a sense of trouble suspended for the moment or withdrawn, which often follows the sudden sharp realisation of any misfortune which comes with the first waking. The pavement was cool, and the air was (comparatively) sweet. There was a tinkle of water, though only from a water cart. Miss Bethune opened the door into this sweetness and coolness and morning glory which exists even in Bloomsbury, and found herself suddenly confronted by a stranger, whose hand had been raised to knock when the door thus suddenly opened before him. The sudden encounter gave her a little shock, which was not lessened by the appearance of the young man—a young fellow of three or four and twenty, in light summer clothes, and with a pleasant sunburnt countenance.
Not his the form, not his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly.
Miss Bethune was no youthful maiden, but this sudden apparition had a great effect upon her. The sight made her start, and grow red and grow pale without any reason, like a young person in her teens.
“I beg your pardon,” said the young man, making a step back, and taking off his hat. This was clearly an afterthought, and due to her appearance, which was not that of the mistress of a lodging-house. “I wanted to ask after a ——”
“I am not the person of the house,” said Miss Bethune quickly.
“Might I ask you all the same? I would so much rather hear from some one who knows him.”
Miss Bethune’s eyes had been fixed upon him with the closest attention, but her interest suddenly changed and dropped at the last word. “Him?” she said involuntarily, with a flash out of her eyes, and a look almost of disappointment, almost of surprise. What had she expected? She recovered in a moment the composure which had been disturbed by this stranger’s appearance, for what reason she only knew.
“I came,” he said, hesitating a little, and giving her another look, in which there was also some surprise and much curiosity, “to inquire about Mr. Mannering, who, I am told, lives here.”
“Yes, he lives here.”
“And has been ill?”
“And has been ill,” she repeated after him.
The young man smiled, and paused again. He seemed to be amused by these repetitions. He had a very pleasant face, not intellectual, not remarkable, but full of life and good-humour. He said: “Perhaps I ought not to trouble you; but if you know him, and his child——”
“I know him very well, and his child,—who is a child no longer, but almost grown up. He is slowly recovering out of a very long dangerous illness.”
“That is what we heard. I came, not for myself, but for a lady who takes a great interest. I think that she is a relation of—of Mr. Mannering’s late wife.”
“Is that woman dead, then?” Miss Bethune said. “I too take a great interest in the family. I shall be glad to tell you anything I know: but come with me into the Square, where we can talk at our ease.” She led him to a favourite seat under the shadow of a tree. Though it was in Bloomsbury, and the sounds of town were in the air, that quiet green place might have been far in the country, in the midst of pastoral acres. The Squares of Bloomsbury are too respectable to produce many children. There were scarcely even any perambulators to vulgarise this retreat. She turned to him as she sat down, and said again: “So that woman is dead?”
The young stranger looked surprised. “You mean Mrs. Mannering?” he said. “I suppose so, though I know nothing of her. May I say who I am first? My name is Gordon. I have just come from South America with Mrs. Bristow, the wife of my guardian, who died there a year ago. And it is she who has sent me to inquire.”
“Gordon?” said Miss Bethune. She had closed her eyes, and her head was going round; but she signed to him with her hand to sit down, and made a great effort to recover herself. “You will be of one of the Scotch families?” she said.
“I don’t know. I have never been in this country till now.”
“Born abroad?” she said, suddenly opening her eyes.
“I think so—at least—but, indeed, I can tell you very little about myself. It was Mrs. Bristow——”
“Yes, I know. I am very indiscreet, putting so many questions, but you reminded me of—of some one I once knew. Mrs. Bristow, you were saying?”
“She was very anxious to know something of Mr. Mannering and his child. I think she must be a relation of his late wife.”
“God be thanked if there is a relation that may be of use to Dora. She wants to know—what? If you were going to question the landlady, it would not be much——”
“I was to try to do exactly what I seem to have been so fortunate as to have done—to find some friend whom I could ask about them. I am sure you must be a friend to them?”
“How can you be sure of that, you that know neither them nor me?”
He smiled, with a very attractive, ingenuous smile. “Because you have the face of a friend.”
“Have I that? There’s many, many, then, that would have been the better for knowing it that have never found it out. And you are a friend to Mrs. Bristow on the other side?”
“A friend to her?—no, I am more like her son, yet not her son, for my own mother is living—at least, I believe so. I am her servant, and a little her ward, and—devoted to her,” he added, with a bright flush of animation and sincerity. Miss Bethune took no notice of these last words.
“Your mother is living, you believe? and don’t you know her, then? And why should you be ward or son to this other woman, and your mother alive?”
“Pardon me,” said the young man, “that is my story, and it is not worth a thought. The question is about Mrs. Bristow and the Mannerings. She is anxious about them, and she is very broken in health. And I think there is some family trouble there too, so that she can’t come in a natural straightforward way and make herself known to them. These family quarrels are dreadful things.”
“Dreadful things,” Miss Bethune said.
“They are bad enough for those with whom they originate; but for those who come after, worse still. To be deprived of a natural friend all your life because of some row that took place before you were born!”
“You are a Daniel come to judgment,” said Miss Bethune, pale to her very lips.
“I hope,” he said kindly, “I am not saying anything I ought not to say? I hope you are not ill?”
“Go on,” she said, waving her hand. “About this Mrs. Bristow, that is what we were talking of. The Mannerings could not be more in need of a friend than they are now. He has been very ill. I hear it is very doubtful if he’ll ever be himself again, or able to go back to his occupation. And she is very young, nearly grown up, but still a child. If there was a friend, a relation, to stand up for them, now would be the very time.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I have been very fortunate in finding you, but I don’t think Mrs. Bristow can take any open step. My idea is that she must be a sister of Mrs. Mannering, and thus involved in the dissension, whatever it was.”
“It was more than a dissension, so far as I have heard,” Miss Bethune said.
“That is what makes it so hard. What she wishes is to see Dora.”
“Indeed, I mean no disrespect. I have never known her by any other name. I have helped to pack boxes for her, and choose playthings.”
Miss Bethune uttered a sudden exclamation.
“Then it was from Mrs. Bristow the boxes came?”
“Have I let out something that was a secret? I am not very good at secrets,” he said with a laugh.
“She might be an aunt as you say:—an aunt would be a good thing for her, poor child:—or she might be—— But is it Dora only she wants to see?”
“Dora only; and only Dora if it is certain that she would entertain no prejudices against a relation of her mother.”
“How could there be prejudices of such a kind?”
“That is too much to say: but I know from my own case that there are,” the young man said.
“I would like to hear your own case.”
He laughed again. “You are very kind to be so much interested in a stranger: but I must settle matters for my kind guardian. She has not been a happy woman, I don’t know why,—though he was as good a man as ever lived:—and now she is in very poor health—oh, really ill. I scarcely thought I could have got her to England alive. To see Dora is all she seems to wish for. Help me, oh, help me to get her that gratification!” he cried.
Miss Bethune smiled upon him in reply, with an involuntary movement of her hands towards him. She was pale, and a strange light was on her face.
“I will do that if I can,” she said. “I will do it if it is possible. If I help you what will you give me in return?”
The youth looked at her in mild surprise. He did not understand what she could mean. “Give you in return?” he asked, with astonishment.
“Ay, my young man, for my hire; everybody has a price, as I daresay you have heard said—which is a great lie, and yet true enough. Mine is not just a common price, as you will believe. I’m full of fancies, a—whimsical kind of a being. You will have to pay me for my goodwill.”
He rose up from the seat under the tree, and, taking off his hat again, made her a solemn bow. “Anything that is within my power I will gladly give to secure my good guardian what she wishes. I owe everything to her.”
Miss Bethune sat looking up at him with that light on her face which made it unlike everything that had been seen before. She was scarcely recognisable, or would have been to those who already knew her. To the stranger standing somewhat stiffly before her, surprised and somewhat shocked by the strange demand, it seemed that this, as he had thought, plain middle-aged woman had suddenly become beautiful.
He had liked her face at the first. It had seemed to him a friend’s face, as he had said. But now it was something more. The surprise, the involuntary start of repugnance from a woman, a lady, who boldly asked something in return for the help she promised, mingled with a strange attraction towards her, and extraordinary curiosity as to what she could mean. To pay for her goodwill! Such a thing is, perhaps, implied in every prayer for help; gratitude at the least, if nothing more, is the pay which all the world is supposed to give for good offices: but one does not ask even for gratitude in words. And she was in no hurry to explain. She sat in the warm shade, with all the greenness behind, and looked at him as if she found somehow a supreme satisfaction in the sight—as if she desired to prolong the moment, and even his curiosity and surprise. He on his part was stiff, disturbed, not happy at all. He did not like a woman to let herself down, to show any wrong side of her, any acquisitiveness, or equivocal sentiment. What did she want of him? What had he to give? The thought seemed to lessen himself by reason of lessening her in his eyes.
“I tell you I am a very whimsical woman,” she said at length; “above all things I am fond of hearing every man’s story, and tracing out the different threads of life. It is my amusement, like any other. If I bring this lady to speech of Dora, and show her how she could be of real advantage to both the girl and her father, will you promise me to come to me another time, and tell me, as far as you know, everything that has happened to you since the day you were born?”
Young Gordon’s stiffness melted away. The surprise on his face, which had been mingled with annoyance, turned into mirth and pleasure. “You don’t know what you are bringing on yourself,” he said, “nothing very amusing. I have little in my own record. I never had any adventures. But if that is your fancy, surely I will, whenever you like, tell you everything that I know about myself.”
She rose up, with the light fading a little, but yet leaving behind it a sweetness which was not generally in Miss Bethune’s face. “Let your friend come in the afternoon at three any day—it is then her father takes his sleep—and ask for Miss Bethune. I will see that it is made all right. And as for you, you will leave me your address?” she said, going with him towards the gate. “You said you believed your mother was living—is your father living too?”
“He died a long time ago,” said the young man, and then added: “May I not know who it is that is standing our friend?”
Perhaps Miss Bethune did not hear him; certainly she let him out; and turned to lock the gate, without making any reply.