Contraband Part 9

Lascelles. Altogether everybody's movements seemed dependent on the baronet, who walked coolly up the lawn to the drawing-room windows, pinning the gauze veil more carefully round his hat.

"What time are we to start?" said he, taking it for granted, as he wished to go himself, that everybody else did. "I'm afraid I _must_ be on the Course early; but that need not hurry the others. Nelly and I can go in my carriage, and I'll order it at once. Or I can take Mr.

Goldthred, or do anything anybody likes. Who wants to come with me? You mustn't all speak at once!"

"I don't care about going at all, papa," said Helen, but intercepting a glance from their hostess, which ordered Goldthred, as plainly as eyes could speak, to remain and keep her company, added hastily, "unless there's plenty of room."

"_Plenty_ of room!" echoed Mrs. Lascelles, with her own arrangements in view. "We shall only want one carriage if we take mine. Four of us inside, and Mr. Goldthred, for so short a distance, won't mind sitting on the box. No, that won't do; where are we to put Jin?"

"Jin's not going!" interrupted a voice from the open window of an upper room. "Jin's got a headache, and some letters to write. You won't get her to Ascot to-day unless you drag her with wild horses, so you needn't distress yourselves about Jin!"

Uncle Joseph's face turned from yellow to its normal tint of mottled brown. What a trump of a girl he thought her after all! And, fully convinced she was scheming to pa.s.s the whole morning with himself, sorely repented he should have so misjudged her a quarter-of-an-hour ago.

His difficulty now was to avoid joining the rest of the party; but bethinking him of a certain substantial pony in the stable, called "Punch," he declared he thought a thorough shaking would do him good, and expressed his intention of riding that animal to the Course.

"Once they're off," argued Uncle Joseph, "they'll never trouble their heads about their host, and then, my pretty Jin, you and I can come to an understanding at last!"

Even with a party of four, however, it takes time to get pleasure-goers under weigh. Mrs. Lascelles forgot her smelling-bottle, Helen mislaid her shawl; Sir Henry, on whose account they had all hurried themselves, was ten minutes behind everybody else. The carriage stood a good half-hour at the door before it was fairly started, and Uncle Joseph spent that time in his own dressing-room, with his heart beating like a boy's.

At last the welcome sound of wheels announced that the coast was clear.

He sallied forth eagerly, and, considering his years, with no little alacrity, in pursuit of his ladye-love. Not in her bedroom, certainly, for the door stood wide open! Not in the drawing-room--the dining-room--the billiard-room, nor the boudoir! Zounds! not in the conservatory, nor on the lawn! Beads of perspiration broke out on Uncle Joseph's bald head, and he couldn't tell whether it was anger or anxiety that made him feel as if he was going to choke. Panting, protesting, under a burning sun, he followed the shrubbery walk that brought him to the hay-field, through which a thoroughfare for foot people led to the high road. Here he ran into the very arms of Goldthred, coming back by this short cut for his race-gla.s.ses, which he had forgotten, while the carriage waited at the nearest angle of the fragrant meadow, flecked and rippled with its new-mown hay.

Uncle Joseph was without his hat. He must have lost his head also, when, thinking it necessary to account for his disturbed appearance, he inquired vehemently:

"Have you seen Miss Ross? I--I forgot to order dinner before starting. I want to find Miss Ross."

"You won't overtake her," answered Goldthred coolly. "She was half way across the next field when I came into this. She must be at the turnpike by now."

Uncle Joseph waited to hear no more. Breaking wildly from his informant, he dashed off towards the stable, while the latter, recovering his gla.s.ses, walked solemnly back to the carriage, and jumped in, as if nothing had happened.

There is, at least, this good quality belonging to a man in love, that he is not easily astonished, nor does he occupy himself with the affairs of others. Goldthred had forgotten his meeting with Uncle Joseph, and dismissed the whole subject from his mind, before the carriage had got twenty yards or Mrs. Lascelles had spoken as many words.

Now Punch was a good stout cob, of that cla.s.s and calibre which is so prized by gentlemen who have left off reckoning up their age and weight.

After fifty, and over fifteen stone, it is needless to be continually balancing the account. Punch possessed capital legs and feet, sloping shoulders, an intelligent head with very small ears, a strong neck, and an exceedingly round stomach. Such an animal, I confess, I cannot but admire, and have no objection to ride, unless I am in a hurry. Even when time presses I bear the creature no malice, but I fear he hates _me_!

Punch could scuttle along at his own pace for a good many miles, safely and perseveringly enough; but against yours, if you were in the habit of riding a thorough-bred hack, he would protest in a very few furlongs.

Obviously, to such a quadruped, time was of the utmost importance, and it seemed hard so much of it had to be wasted daily in preparing him for a start.

Docile in his general character, perfectly free from nervousness and vice, he had yet a provoking trick of puffing himself out during the operation of saddling to a size that rendered the roomiest girths in the stable too scanty for his swelling carcase. Ten minutes at least Uncle Joseph and the stable boy b.u.t.ted and tugged and swore, ere, to use the expression of the latter, they could "make tongue and buckle meet." Ten minutes more were wasted in water brushing the pony's mane and blacking his round, well-shaped feet; for the urchin, true to the traditions of his craft, would forego not the smallest rite of that stable discipline in which he had been trained. Altogether, by the time Uncle Joseph was fairly in the saddle for pursuit, Miss Ross had got such a start as, with her light step and agile figure, precluded the possibility of being caught against her will.

Four miles an hour, heel and toe, gracefully and without effort, as if she was dancing, this active young person flitted across the hay-fields, till she reached a humble little cottage standing between the highway and the river's brink. Here she disappeared from Uncle Joseph's sight, who had just viewed her, having bustled Punch along the hot, hard road at a pace which put them both in a white lather.

The rider's first idea was to secure his steed and follow up the chase; but few men act on impulse after--what shall we say?--fifty; and Punch, who had his own opinion about waiting in the sun, might very probably slip his bridle in order to trot home! Reflecting with dismay on such a contingency, in such weather for walking, Uncle Joseph "concluded," as the Americans say, that he would wait where he was, and watch.

Miss Ross, in the mean time, happily unconscious that she was observed, tapped at the cottage-door, which was opened by a dark-eyed urchin of five years or so, whom, to his intense astonishment, she smothered in kisses on the spot. Mrs. Mole, the owner of the cottage, emerging from the gloom of her back kitchen, was aware of a toss of black curls, and a pair of st.u.r.dy, struggling legs, not over clean, in the embrace of a radiant being who had dropped, to all appearance, from the clouds.

"Your servant, miss," said the old woman, drying her arms on her ap.r.o.n, while she performed a defiant curtsy. "You've--a--taken quite a fancy to my little lad, seemingly. Yet I don't remember to have ever seen you afore."

I often think the poor resent a liberty with so much more dignity than their betters.

For answer, Jin, whose French education had afforded her many useful little hints, slipped a packet of tea into the old woman's hand. It was what they drank at The Lilies, strong, fragrant, and five shillings a pound.

"I haven't the pleasure of knowing you, ma'am," said she civilly; "but I've seen this little angel before, and I can't help admiring him. Have you no more of them?"

Mrs. Mole was sixty if she was a day; but like your grandmother and mine, like everybody's grandmother, Eve herself, she was open to flattery. The supposition that this pretty child might be hers was pleasing; the inference that he had brothers and sisters, possibly younger than himself, gratifying indeed.

"He isn't my own, miss," said she, stroking the child's curls, who clung tight to her gown, with his eyes fixed on Miss Ross. "And more's the pity!--go to the lady, Johnnie, _do_!--for a sweeter babe, and a 'ealthier, you'll not put your 'and on, not from here to Windsor Castle.

He ain't got no mother, miss, nor he don't want none, do you, Johnnie?

not so long as you've your old Moley to love ye--that's what he calls me, miss. _My_ name's Mole, miss, askin' your pardon."

The child, who was a bold little fellow enough, having inspected the visitor thoroughly, as children always do inspect an object of apprehension, now took courage to seat himself on her knee, with his finger in his mouth and his eyes fixed on his boots, in undivided attention.

Miss Ross turned the plain little frock down to where, below the sun-burned neck, his skin was white and pure as marble, all but one mottled mark, the size of a five-franc piece. Then she burst out crying, and Johnny, sprawling in haste to the floor, howled hideously for company.

"Deary, deary me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Mole, completely softened, and, to use her own expression, "upset," by these signals of distress. "Don't ye take on so, miss. Whist! Johnnie, this moment, or I'll give you something to cry for! Take a gla.s.s of water, miss. You've been walking too fast in the sun--or say the word, and I'll make ye a cup o' tea in five minutes."

"A gla.s.s of water, please," gasped Miss Ross; and while the old woman went to fetch it, followed by Johnnie, the young one summoned all her self-command not to betray her secret and her relationship to the child.

It was her own Gustave. Of that she could have no doubt since she had laid bare the mark between his shoulders. Perhaps she was sure of him yesterday, shouting at the cottage-door while the carriage pa.s.sed; perhaps she had been sure all last night, waking every ten minutes from a dream of her boy; all this morning, resolving that nothing should prevent her seeing him to-day; no, not the certainty of calumny, exposure, open shame! Had it been otherwise, she must have broken down more foolishly, more completely. Now she recovered herself, as she had often done before in positions of far greater difficulty. When she took the gla.s.s of water from Mrs. Mole's sympathising hand, her voice was steady, her face perfectly calm and serene.

"You are right," she said, "the sun is hot, and I walked here very fast.

The sight of this pretty child, too, was rather trying. He reminds me of--of--a nephew I lost long ago. Thank you. I'm better now, but I _should_ like to sit down and rest for half an hour, if I'm not in your way. So--so--this little fellow isn't yours, Mrs. Mole, after all."

Mrs. Mole dearly loved a gossip. So would you or I, if we spent our days in a two-roomed cottage, with no companion but a child, no amus.e.m.e.nt whatever, no occupation but cleaning household utensils for the purpose of dirtying them forthwith, no daily paper, no exchange of ideas, no exercise of the intellect, beyond a weekly effort to keep awake during the parson's sermon. Gossip, indeed! If it was not for gossip how many good, industrious, hard-living women would go melancholy mad?

"He's not mine, miss. I wishes he wur," she answered, with an elbow in the palm of each hand, an att.i.tude Mrs. Mole considered favourable to conversation. "But, whatever I should do without Johnnie, or Johnnie without me, I know no more than the dead. The sense of that there child, miss, and the ways of 'un, you'd think as he was twelve year old at least. To see him take off his little boots, and fold up his little clothes, every article, and come an' say his little prayers on my knee afore ever he goes to his little bed, it's wonderful, that's what it is!"

The tears were rising to Jin's eyes once more. "Who taught him to say his prayers?" she asked, keeping them down with an effort.

"Well, he didn't know none when he came here first," answered Mrs. Mole apologetically. "He's very young a-course, and he hadn't been taught none maybe. But, Lor' bless ye, that there child didn't want no teaching. Ah! there's children in heaven, I humbly hope, and I'll never believe but they're like my Johnnie!"

"A little tidier I should suppose," thought Miss Ross, but she could have hugged this plain old woman nevertheless, for her kindly, honest heart.

"I can see he's well taken care of," she observed, turning the child's clothes with a mother's hand. "His skin shows how healthy he is, and he's as clean as a new pin."

Mrs. Mole glanced sharply in her visitor's face. "I ask yer pardon, ma'am," she said, "I kep on calling of you '_miss_,' and maybe you've children of your own."

Hugging the boy's head to her breast Jin took no notice of this remark, but asked in turn, how long the child had been there.

The question, though simple, produced a narrative of considerable volume, digressive, complicated, not free from tautology, and ample, even exuberant in detail. It comprised Mrs. Mole's girlhood, early life, peculiar character, and extraordinary experiences, together with a sketch of the late Mr. Mole's biography, his failure in the undertaking business, and the reasons which prompted her, the narrator, to accept him for a husband; the birth of two children, with red noses, the image of Mole, both of whom, to use her own expression, she had "buried;" the unaccountable disappearance of their father, taking with him whatever portable property was in their joint possession, including bed and bedding, an eight-day clock, and a warming-pan; the deceitfulness of the male s.e.x in general, and their sad tendency to falsehood, coupled with inebriety; the inscrutable ways of Providence, by which it seemed ordered that her own s.e.x should be "put upon" in all relations of life; the difficulty, which no one could contradict, of earning bread, as a lone woman, with rent and taxes to pay, everything rising in price, except her own labour, and an inflexible determination to keep herself respectable; the matrimonial offer she had received not longer back than five years gone last Easter Monday, from an energetic bargeman, of imposing appearance, and a bad habit of swearing "awful," which offer she could not prudently entertain, partly from uncertainty as to Mole's fate, partly from suspicion of the proposer's solvency, not to say sobriety; the depression of spirits resulting from this disappointment of the affections, and the "lonesomeness" of the cottage in the long winter nights, when she felt as if she "couldn't hardly a-bear it without a drop o' comfort." Finally, the determination she was driven to of taking in a child to nurse, "as should make the little place seem home-like, and help to get a livin' for us both."

"And it's past belief, miss," added Mrs. Mole, "as I put a notice in the weekly paper, an' never heard no more, till a matter of ten weeks ago, when a gentleman brought this here little lad to the door, and left him for me to nurse and look after, quite confident and agreeable. 'Mrs.

Mole,' says he--'your name's Mole, or I'm misinformed.' 'Yes, sir,' says I, 'you're right enough so fur as you know.' 'Mrs. Mole,' says he, 'I leave the child with you, an' I've no call to bid you take care of him, for I see it in your face, and you'll be as good as his own mother to him, supposin' he ever had one.' With that he slips a sovereign into my hand. I'm not deceivin' you, miss, and I drops him a curtsy, an', says I, 'Perhaps you'll favour me,' says I, 'with the babe's name,' says I, 'for I wouldn't call him out of it,' says I. It's my belief, miss, as the gentleman wasn't used to childer', an' didn't make no account of such things as nameses, for he thought a bit, an' 'Moses,' says he, 'that's the boy's name,' says he; but he answers much kinder to Johnnie, miss, as you can see for yourself. He was a hasty gentleman, seemingly, an' harbitrary, but a pleasant way with him; an' the child took on an'

pined a bit for the first day or two, when he wur gone to London or what-not, but he loves his old Moley best now, don't ye, deary? an' will tell ye, plain as he can speak, he don't want to leave his old Moley, never no more."

Miss Ross was puzzled. But for the mark on the boy's back, and something in her own heart, she would have believed herself mistaken after all.

Who could this man be, then? and how had he obtained possession of her boy? her boy, whom she had mourned so bitterly, believing that he slept beneath the waters of the turbulent Rhone.

"Have you never seen this gentleman again?" she asked, still pressing the child's head to her breast, a position he accepted with perfect equanimity.