Cursed by a Fortune Part 24

"Poor fellow! he always was afflicted with that kind of timid shrinking," said Wilton, ironically. "No, stop. How is Kate?"

"I don't know, my dear; Eliza said that she had been twice to her room, but she was evidently fast asleep, and she would not disturb her."

"Humph! I shall be glad when she can come regularly to her meals."

"What shall you say to her this morning?"

"Wait and see--Well, is he coming down?"

"Beg pardon, sir," said the footman. "I've been knocking ever so long at Mr Claud's door, and I can't get any answer."

Mrs Wilton's hand dropped from the tap of the tea urn, and the boiling water began to flow over the top of the pot.

"Humph! Sulky," muttered Wilton--"Eh? What are you staring at?"

"Beg pardon, sir, but he didn't put his boots outside last night, and he never took his hot water in."

"Oh, James, James!" cried Mrs Wilton, wildly, "I knew it, I knew it. I dreamed about the black cow all last night, and there's something wrong."

"Stop a minute: I'll come," said Wilton, quickly, and a startled look came into his face.

"Take me--take me, too," sobbed his wife. "Oh, my poor boy! If anything has happened to him in the night. I shall never forgive myself. Samuel--Samuel!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Run round to the stables and send one of the men over for Doctor Leigh at once."

Wilton felt too much startled to counter-order this, but before the man had gone a dozen steps he shouted to him.

"Tell the gardener to bring a mallet and cold chisel from the tool shed."

"Yes, sir," and full of excitement the man ran off, while his master and mistress hurried upstairs to their son's door. But before they reached it Wilton had recovered his calmness.

"What nonsense," he muttered. Then softly: "Here, you speak to him.

Gently. Only overslept himself."

He tapped, and signed to his wife.

But her voice sounded full of agitation, as she said:

"Claud, dear; it's getting very late." Then louder: "Claud! Claud, my dear, are you unwell?" Then with aery of agony, "Claud! Claud, my darling! Oh, pray, pray speak to me, or you'll break my poor heart!"

"Here, stand aside," cried Wilton, who was thoroughly startled now. He seized the handle of the door, turned it, and tried to force it open, but in vain. The next moment he was about to lay his shoulder close down to the keyhole, when Kate's maid came running up to them.

"Mrs Wilton! Mrs Wilton!" she cried; "pray, pray come! My dear young lady! Oh, help, help! I ought to have spoken sooner. What shall I do?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Wilton pere and mere had not been gone five minutes when there was a gentle tap at Kate's door, and she started and turned her fearful face in that direction, but made no reply. The tap was repeated,

"Miss Kate," came in a sharp whisper; "it is only me, my dear."

"Ah," sighed the girl, as if in relief; and she nearly ran to the door, turned the key, and admitted the old servant, locked the door again, and flung her arms about the woman's neck, to bury her face in her breast, and sob as if her heart would break.

"There, there, there," cooed the woman, as if to the little child she had nursed long years before; and she led her gently to a couch, and drew the weeping girt down half reclining upon her breast. "Cry then, my precious; it will do you good; and then you must tell Liza all about it--what has been the matter, dear?"

"Matter!" cried Kate, starting up, and gazing angrily in the woman's face. "Liza, it's horrible. Why did I ever come to this dreadful house?"

"Hush, hush, my own; you will make yourself had again. We must not have you ill."

"Bad--ill?" cried Kate. "Better dead and at rest. Oh, I hate him! I hate him! How dare he touch me like that! It was horrible--an outrage!"

The woman's face flushed, and her eyes sparkled angrily, then her lips moved as if to question, but she closed them tightly into a thin line and waited, knowing from old experience that it would not be long before her young mistress' grief and trouble would be poured into er ear.

She was quiet, and clasping the agitated girl once lore in her arms, she began to rock herself slowly to and fro.

"No, no! don't," cried Kate, peevishly, and she raised her head once more, looking handsomer than ever in her anger and indignation. "I am no longer a child. Aunt and uncle have encouraged it. This hateful money is at the bottom of it all. They wish me to marry him. Pah! he makes me shudder with disgust. And how could I even think of such a horror with all this terrible trouble so new."

Eliza half closed her eyes and nodded her head, while her mouth seemed almost to disappear.

"It is cruel--it is horrible," Kate continued. "They have encouraged it all through. Even aunt, with her sickly worship of her wretched spoiled boy. Oh, what a poor, pitiful, weak creature she must have thought me.

No one seemed to understand me but Mr Garstang."

Eliza knit her brows a little at his name, but she remained silent, and by slow degrees she was put in possession of all that had taken place; and then, faint and weary, Kate let her head sink down till her forehead rested once more upon the breast where she had so often sunk to rest.

"Oh, the hateful money!" she sighed, as the tears came at last. "Let him have it. What is it to me? But I cannot stop here, nurse; it is impossible. We must go at once. Uncle is my guardian, but surely he cannot force me to stay against my inclination. If I remained here it would kill me. Nurse," she cried, with a display of determination that the woman had never seen in her before, "you must pack up what is necessary, and to-morrow we will go. It would be easy to stay at some hotel till we found a place--a furnished cottage just big enough for us two; anywhere so that we could be at peace. We could be happier then-- Why don't you speak to me when I want comfort in my trouble?"

"Because no words of mine could give you the comfort you need, my dear.

Don't you know that my heart bleeds for you, and that always when my poor darling child has suffered I have suffered, too?"

"Yes, yes, dear; I know," said Kate, raising her face to kiss the woman pa.s.sionately. "I do know. Don't take any notice of what I said. All this has made me feel so wickedly angry, and as if I hated the whole world."

"Don't I know my darling too well to mind a few hasty words?" said the woman, softly. "Say what you please. If it is angry I know it only comes from the lips, and there is something for me always in my darling's heart."

"That does me good, nurse," said the girl, clinging to her affectionately for a few moments, and then once more sitting up, to speak firmly. "It makes me feel after all that I am not alone, and that my dear, dead mother was right when she said, 'Never part from Eliza.

She is not our servant; she has always been our faithful, humble, trusty friend.'"

The woman's face softened now, and a couple of tears stole down her cheeks.

"Now, nurse, we must talk and make our plans. I wish I could see Mr Garstang, and ask his advice."

"Do you like Mr Garstang, my dear?" said the woman, gently.

"Yes; he is a gentleman. He seems to me the only one who can talk to me as what I am, and without thinking I am what they call me--an heiress."

"But poor dear master never trusted Mr Garstang."