THE cab was loaded with two boxes on the roof, foreign trunks, of a different shape from those used at home; and a woman’s face, in a fantastic foreign head-dress, peered through the window. Who could this be? Mary stood as if spell-bound, unable to make a movement. The driver, who was an ordinary cab-driver from Pennington, whose homely everydayness of appearance intensified the strangeness of the others, opened the door of the carriage, and lifted out, first a small boy, with a scared face and a finger in his mouth, who stared at the strange place, and the figures in the doorway, with a fixed gaze of panic, on the eve of tears. Then out came with a bound, as if pushed from behind as well as helped a little roughly by the cabman, the foreign woman, at whose dress the child clutched with a frightened cry. Then there was a pause, during which some one inside threw out a succession of wraps, small bags, and parcels; and then there stepped forth, with a great shawl on one arm, and a basket almost as large as herself on the other, clearly the leading spirit of the party, a little girl who appeared to be about ten years old. “You will wait a moment, man, till we get the pay for you,” said this little personage in a high-pitched voice, with a distinctness of enunciation which made it apparent that the language, though spoken with very little accent, was unfamiliar to her. Then she turned to the woman and said a few words much more rapidly, with as much aid of gesture as was compatible with the burdens. Mary felt herself look on at all this like a woman in a dream. What was it all—a dream or reality? She felt incapable of movement, or rather too much interested in the curious scene which was going on before her, to think of movement or interference of any kind. When she had given her directions, whatever they were, the little girl turned round and faced the open door and the lady who had not moved. She gave these new circumstances a long, steady, investigating look. They were within a dozen yards of each other, but the chatelaine stood still and said nothing, while the little invader inspected her, and prepared her assault. The child, who looked the impersonation of life and purpose between her helpless companion and the wondering stranger whom she confronted, was dark and pale, not like the fair English children to whom Mary Musgrave was accustomed. Her dark eyes seemed out of proportion to her small, colourless face, and gave it an eager look of precocious intelligence. Her features were small, her dark hair falling about her in half-curling masses, her head covered with a little velvet cap trimmed with fur, as unlike anything children wore in England at the time as the anxious meaning of her face was different from ordinary baby prettiness. She made a momentary pause—then put down the basket on the stones, threw the shawl on the top of it, and mounted the breach with resolute courage. The stones were rough to the little child’s feet; there was a dilation in her eyes that looked like coming tears, and as she faced the alarming stranger, who stood there looking at her, a burning red flush came momentarily over her face. But she neither sat down and cried as she would have liked to do, nor ran back again to cling to the nurse’s skirts like her little brother. The small thing had a duty to do, and did it with a courage which might have put heroes to shame. Resolutely she toiled her way up to Miss Musgrave at the open door.
“Are you—Mary?” she said; the little voice was strange yet sweet, with its distinct pronunciation and unfamiliar accent. “Are you—Mary?” Her big eyes seemed to search the lady all over, making a rapid comparison with some description she had received. There was doubt in her tone when she repeated the name a second time, and the tears visibly came nearer, and got with a shake and tremor into her voice.
“What do you want with Mary?” said Miss Musgrave; “who are you, little girl?”
“I do not think you can be Mary,” said the child. “He said your hair was like Nello’s, but it is more like his own. And he said you were beautiful—so you are beautiful, but old—and he never said you were old. Oh, if you are not Mary, what shall we do? what shall we do?”
She clasped her little hands together, and for a moment trembled on the edge of a childish outburst, but stopped herself with a sudden curb of unmistakable will. “I must think what is to be done,” she cried out sharply, putting her little hands upon her trembling mouth.
“Who are you? who are you?” cried Mary Musgrave, trembling in her turn; “child, who was it that sent you to me?”
The little thing kept her eyes fixed upon her, with that watchfulness which is the only defence of weakness, ready to fly like a little wild creature at any approach of danger. She opened a little bag which hung by her side and took a letter from it, never taking her great eyes all the time from Miss Musgrave’s face. “This was for you, if you were Mary,” she said; holding the letter jealously in both hands. “But he said, when I spoke to you, if it was you, you would know.”
“You strange little girl!” cried Miss Musgrave, stepping out upon the stones and holding out her hands eagerly; but the child made a little move backward at the moment, in desperation of fear, yet courage.
“I will not give it you! I will not give it! it is everything we have—unless you are Mary,” she cried, with the burst of a suppressed sob.
“Who are you then, child? Yes, I am Mary, Mary Musgrave—give me the letter. Is not this the house you were told of? Give me the letter—the letter!” said Miss Musgrave, once more holding out her hands.
And once more the child made her jealous mental comparison between what the lady was, and what she had been told to look for. “I cannot do what I please,” she said, with little quivering lips. “I have Nello to take care of. He is only such a little, little child. Yes, it is the house he told me of; but he said if you were Mary—Ah! he said you would know us and take us into your arms, and be so kind, so kind!”
“Little girl,” said Miss Musgrave, the tears dropping from her cheeks. “There is only one man’s child that you can be. You are John’s little girl, my brother John, and I am his sister Mary. But I do not know your name, nor any thing about you. Give me John’s letter—and come to me, come to me, my child!”
“I am Lilias,” said the little girl; but she held back, still examining with curious though less terrified eyes. “You will give it me back if you are not Mary?” she went on, at length holding out the letter; but she took no notice of the invitation to come nearer, which Mary herself forgot in the eagerness of her anxiety to get the letter, the first communication from her brother—if it was from her brother—for so many years. She took it quickly, almost snatching it from the child’s reluctant fingers, and leaning against the doorway in her agitation, tore it hastily open. Little Lilias was agitated too, with fear and desolate strangeness, and that terrible ignorance of any alternative between safety and utter destruction which makes danger insupportable to a child. What were they to do if their claims were not acknowledged? Wander into the woods and die in the darkness like the children in the story? Little Lilias had feared nothing till that first doubt had come over her at the door of the house, where, her father had instructed her, she was to be made so happy. But if they were not taken in and made happy, what were she and Nello to do? A terror of darkness, and cold, and starvation came upon the little girl. She would wrap the big shawl about her little brother, but what if wild beasts or robbers should come in the middle of the dark? Her little bosom swelled full, the sobs rose into her throat. Oh where could she go with Nello, if this was not Mary? But she restrained the sobs by a last effort, like a little hero. She sat down on the stone edge of the causeway, and held her hands clasped tight to keep herself together, and fixed her eyes upon the lady with the letter. The lady and the letter swam and changed, through the big tears that kept coming, but she never took those great dark, intense eyes from Miss Musgrave’s face. The Italian nurse was bending over Nello, fully occupied in hushing his little plaints. Nello was tired, hungry, sleepy, cold. He had no responsibility upon him, poor little mite, to overcome the weakness of nature. He looked no more than six, though he was older, a small and delicate child; and he clung to his nurse, holding her desperately, afraid of he knew not what. She had plenty to do to take care of him without thinking of what was going on above; though the woman was indignant to be kept waiting, and cast fierce looks, in the intervals of petting Nello, upon the lady, the cold Englishwoman who was so long of taking the children to her arms. As for the cabman, emblem of the general unconcern which surrounds every individual drama, he stood leaning calmly upon his horse, waiting for the dénoûment, whatever it might be. Miss Musgrave would see him paid one way or another, and this was the only thing for which he needed to care.
“Lilias,” said Miss Musgrave, going hastily to the child, with tears running down her cheeks, “I am your aunt Mary, my darling, and you will soon learn to know me. Come and give me a kiss, and bring me your little brother. You are tired with your long journey, my poor child.”
“No, no—I am not tired—only Nello; and he is h-hungry. Ah! Kiss Nello, Nello—come and kiss him; he is the baby. And are you Mary—real, real Mary?” cried the little girl, bursting out into sobs; “oh; I cannot h-help it. I did not mean it; I was fr-frightened. Nello, come, come, Mary is here.”
“Yes, Mary is here,” said Miss Musgrave, taking the child into her arms, who, even while she sobbed against her shoulder, put out an impatient little hand and beckoned, crying, “Nello! Nello!” But it was not so easy to extract Nello from his nurse’s arms. He cried and clung all the faster from hearing his sister’s outburst; their poor little hearts were full; and what chokings of vague misery, the fatigue and discomfort infinitely deepened by a dumb consciousness of loneliness, danger, and strangeness behind, were in these little inarticulate souls! something more desperate in its inability to understand what it feared, its dim anguish of uncomprehension, than anything that can be realized and fathomed. Mary signed eagerly to the nurse to bring the little boy indoors into the hall, which was not a reassuring place, vast and dark as it was, in the dimness of the evening, to a child. But she had too many difficulties on her hands in this strange crisis to think of that. She had the boxes brought in also, and hastily sent the carriage away, with a desperate sense as of burning her ships, and leaving no possible way to herself of escape from the difficulty. The gardener, who had appeared round the corner, attracted by the sound, presented himself as much out of curiosity as of goodwill to assist in carrying in the boxes, “though it would be handiest to drive round to the front door, and tak’ them straight oop t’ stair,” he said, innocently enough. But when Miss Musgrave gave authoritative directions that they were to be brought into the hall, naturally the gardener was surprised. This was a proceeding entirely unheard of, and not to be understood in any way.
“It’ll be a deal more trouble after,” he said, under his breath, which did not matter much. But when he had obeyed his mistress’s orders, he went round to the kitchen full of the new event. “There’s something oop,” the gardener said, delighted to bring so much excitement with him, and he gave a full account of the two pale little children, the foreign woman with skewers stuck in her hair, and finally, most wonderful of all, the boxes which he had deposited with his own hands on the floor of the hall. “I ken nothing about it,” he said, “but them as has been longer aboot t’ house than me could tell a deal if they pleased; and Miss Brown, it’s her as is wanted,” he added leisurely at the end.
Miss Brown, who was Mary Musgrave’s maid, and had been standing listening to his story with frequent contradictions and denials, in a state of general protestation, started at these words.
“You great gaby,” she said, “why didn’t you say so at first?” and hurried out of the kitchen, not indisposed to get at the bottom of the matter. She had been Miss Musgrave’s favourite attendant for twenty years, and in that time had, as may be supposed, known about many things which her superiors believed locked in the depths of their own bosoms. She could have written the private history of the family with less inaccuracy than belongs to most records of secret history. And she was naturally indignant that Tom Gardener, a poor talkative creature, who could keep nothing to himself, should have known this new and startling event sooner than she did. She hurried through the long passage from the kitchen, casting a stealthy glance in passing at the closed door of the library, where the Squire sat unconscious. A subdued delight was in the mind of the old servant; certainly it is best when there are no mysteries in a family, when all goes well—but it is not so amusing. A great event of which it was evident the squire was in ignorance, which probably would have to be kept from him, and as much as possible from the household—well, it might be unfortunate that such things should be, but it was exciting, it woke people up.
Miss Brown obeyed this summons with more genuine alacrity than she had felt for years.
Very different were the feelings of her mistress standing there in the dimness of the old hall, her frame thrilling and her heart aching with the appeal which her brother had made to her, out of a silence which for more than a dozen years had been unbroken as that of the grave. She could scarcely believe yet that she had seen his very handwriting and read words which came straight from him and were signed by his now unfamiliar name. The children, who crouched together frightened by the darkness, were as phantoms to her, like a dream about which she had just got into the stage of doubt. Till now it had been all real to her, as dreams appear at first. But now, she stood, closing the door in the stillness of the evening, which, still as it was, was full of curiosity and questioning and prying eyes, and asked herself if these little figures were real, or inventions of her fancy. Real children of her living brother—was it true, was it possible? They were awe-stricken by the gathering dusk, by the strange half-empty room, by the dim circle of the unknown which surrounded them on every side. The nurse had put herself upon a chair on the edge of the carpet, where she sat holding the little boy on her knee, while little Lilias, who had backed slowly towards this one familiar figure, stood leaning against her, clutching her also with one hand, though she concealed instinctively this sign of fear. The boy withdrew the wondering whiteness of his face from the nurse’s shoulder now and then to give a frightened, fascinated look around, then buried it again in a dumb trance of dismay and terror, too frightened to cry. What was to be done with these frightened children and the strange woman to whom they clung? Mary could not keep them here to send them wild with alarm. They wanted soft beds, warm fires, cheerful lights, food and comfort, and they had come to seek it in the only house in the world which was closed by a curse and a vow against them. Mary Musgrave was not the kind of woman who is easily frightened by vows or curses; there was none of the romantic folly in her which would believe in the reality of an unjust or uncalled-for malediction. But she was persuaded of the reality of a thing which involved no supernatural mysteries, the obstinancy of her father’s mind, and his determination to hold by the verdict he had given. Years move and change everything, even the hills and the seas—but not the narrow mind of an obstinate and selfish man. She did not call him by these names; he was her father and she did not judge him; but no more did she hope in him. And in this wonderful moment a whole circle of possibilities ran through her mind. She might take them to the village; but there were other dangers there; or to the Parsonage, but Mr. Pen was weak and poor Emily a gossip. Could she dare the danger that was nearest, and take them somehow upstairs out of the way, and conceal them there, defying her father? In whatever way it was settled she would not desert them—but what was she to do? Miss Brown coming upon her suddenly in the dusk frightened her almost as much as the children were frightened. The want of light and the strangeness of the crisis combined made every new figure like a ghost.
“Yes, I sent for you. I am in—difficulty, Martha. These children have just come—the children of a friend—— ” Her first idea was to conceal the real state of the case even from her confidential and well-informed maid.
“Dear me,” said Miss Brown, with seeming innocence. “How strange! to bring a little lady and gentleman without any warning. But I’ll go and give orders, ma’am; there are plenty of rooms vacant, there need not be any difficulty—— ”
Miss Musgrave caught her by the arm.
“What I want for the moment is light, and some food here. Bring me the lamp I always use. No, not Eastwood; never mind Eastwood. I want you to bring it, they will be less afraid in the light.”
“There is a fire in the dining-room, ma’am, it is only a step, and Eastwood is lighting the candles; and there you can have what you like for them.”
It was confidence Miss Brown wanted—nothing but confidence. With that she was ready to do anything; without it she was Miss Musgrave’s respectable maid, to whom all mysteries were more or less improper. She crossed her hands firmly and waited. The room was growing darker and darker every minute, and the foreign nurse began to lose patience. She called “Madame! madame!” in a high voice; then poured forth into a stream of words, so rapid and so loud as both mistress and maid thought they had never heard spoken before. Miss Musgrave was not a great linguist. She knew enough to be aware that it was Italian the woman was speaking, but that was all.
“I do not understand you,” she said in distress, going up to the little group. But as she approached a sudden accession of terror, instantly suppressed on the part of the little girl but irrepressible by the younger boy, and which broke forth in a disjointed way, arrested her steps. Were they afraid of her, these children? “Little Lilias,” she said piteously, “be a brave child and stand by me. I cannot take you out of this cold room yet, but lights are coming and you will be taken care of. If I leave you alone for a little while will you promise me to be brave and not to be afraid?”
There was a pause, broken only by little flutterings of that nervous exhaustion which made the children so accessible to fear. Then a small voice said, dauntless, yet with a falter—
“I will stay. I will not be afraid.”
“Thank God,” said Mary Musgrave, to herself. The child was already a help and assistance. “Martha,” she said hastily, “tell no one; they are—my brother’s children—”
“Good Lord!” said Martha Brown, frightened out of her primness. “And it’s dark, and there’s two big boxes, and master don’t know.”
“That is the worst of all,” said Miss Musgrave sadly. She had never spoken to any one of her father’s inexorable verdict against John and all belonging to him. “The heir! and I must not take him into the house of his fathers! Take care of them, take care of them while I go—— And, Martha, say nothing—not a word.”
“Not if they were to cut me in pieces, ma’am!” said Miss Brown fervently. She was too old a servant to work in the dark; but confidence restored all her faculties to her. It was not, however, in the nature of things that she should discharge her commission without a betrayal more or less of the emergency. “I want some milk, please,” she said to the cook, “for my lady.” It was only in moments of importance that she so spoke of her mistress. And the very sound of her step told a tale.
“I told ye there was somethink oop,” said Tom Gardener, still lingering in the kitchen.
And to see how the house brightened up, and all the servants grew alert in the flutter of this novelty! Nothing had happened at the castle for so long—they had a right to a sensation. Cook, who had been there for a long time, recounted her experience to her assistants in low tones of mystery.
“Ah, if ye’d known the place when the gentlemen was at home,” said cook; “the things as happened in t’auld house—such goings on!—coming in late and early—o’er the watter and o’er the land—and the strivings, that was enough to make a body flee out of their skin!” She ended with a regretful sigh for the old times. “That was life, that was!” she said.
Meanwhile Mary Musgrave came in out of the dark hall into the lighted warmth of the dining-room, where the glass and the silver shone red in the firelight. How cosy and pleasant it was there! how warm and cheerful! Just the place to comfort the children and make them forget their miseries. The children! How easily her mind had undertaken the charge of them—the fact of their existence; already they had become the chief feature in her life. She paused to look at herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, to smooth her hair, and put the ribbon straight at her neck. The Squire was “very particular,” and yet she did not remember to have had this anxious desire to be pleasant to his eyes since that day when she had crept to him to implore a reversal of his sentence. She had obtained nothing from him then; would she be more fortunate now? The colour had gone out of her face, but her eyes were brighter and more resolute than usual. How her heart beat when Mr. Musgrave said, “Come in,” calmly from the midst of his studies, as she knocked trembling at the library door!