Cursed by a Fortune Part 60

"Now, Mr Wilton," he said, shortly, "you have achieved your purpose and tracked me home."

"And no thanks to you," said Claud, with one of his broad grins. "Won't ask me in, I suppose?"

"No, sir, I shall not."

"All right I didn't expect you would. Of course I should have found you out some time from the directories."

"My name is not in them, sir."

"Oh, but it soon would be, Doctor. I say, shall you tell her you have seen me?"

"For cool impudence, Mr Claud Wilton," said Leigh, by way of answer, "I have never seen your equal."

"'Tisn't impudence, Doctor," said Claud, earnestly; "it's pluck and bull-dog. I haven't been much account, and I don't come up to what you think a fellow should be."

"You certainly do not," said Leigh, unable to repress a smile.

"I know that, but I've got some stuff in me, after all, and when I take hold I don't let go."

He gave Leigh a quick nod, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, walked right on, without looking back, Leigh watching him till he turned a corner, before taking out a latch-key and letting himself into the house.

"The devil does not seem so black as he is painted, after all," he said, as he wiped his feet, and at the sound Jenny, quite without crutches, came hurrying down the stairs.

"Oh, Pierce, dear, have you been to those people in Bedford Street?

They've been again twice, and I told them you'd gone."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Leigh. "What a head I have! Someone met me on the way, and diverted my thoughts. I'll go at once."

And he hurried out.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

It was a splendid grand piano whose tones rang, through the house, and brought poor Becky, with her pale, anaemic, tied-up face, from the lower regions, to stand peering round corners and listening till the final chords of some sonata rang out, when she would dart back into hiding, but only to steal up again as slowly and cautiously as a serpent, and thrust out her head from the gloom which hung forever upon the kitchen stairs, when Kate's low, sweet voice was heard singing some sad old ballad, a favourite of her father's, one which brought up the happy past, and ended often enough in the tears dropping silently upon the ivory keys.

Such a song will sometimes draw tears from many a listener; the melody, the words, recollections evoked, the expression given by the singer, all have their effect; and perhaps it was a memory of the baker (or milkman) which floated into poor, timid, shrinking Becky, for almost invariably she melted into tears.

"She says it's like being in heaven, ma'am," said Sarah Plant, giving voice upstairs to her child's strained ideas of happiness. "And really the place don't seem like the same, for, G.o.d bless you! you have made us all so happy here."

Kate sighed, for she did not share the happy feeling. There were times when her lot seemed too hard to bear. Garstang was kindness itself; he seemed to be constantly striving to make her content. Books, music, papers, fruit, and flowers--violets constantly as soon as he saw the brightening of her eyes whenever he brought her a bunch. Almost every expressed wish was gratified. But there was that intense longing for communion with others. If she could only have written to poor, amiable, faithful Eliza or to Jenny Leigh, she would have borne her imprisonment better; but she had religiously studied her new guardian's wishes upon that point, yielding to his advice whenever he reiterated the dangers which would beset their path if James Wilton discovered where she was.

"As it is, my dear child," he would say again and again, "it is sanctuary; and I'm on thorns whenever I am absent, for fear you should be tempted by the bright sunshine out of the gloom of this dull house, be seen by one or other of James Wilton's emissaries, and I return to find the cage I have tried so hard to gild, empty--the bird taken away to another kind of captivity, one which surely would not be so easy to bear."

"No, no, no; I could not bear it!" she cried, wildly. "I do not murmur.

I will not complain, guardian; but there are times when I would give anything to be out somewhere in the bright open air, with the beautiful blue sky overhead, the soft gra.s.s beneath my feet, and the birds singing in my ears."

"Yes, yes, I know, my poor dear child," he said, tenderly. "It is cruelly hard upon you, but what can I do? I am waiting and hoping that James Wilton on finding his helplessness will become more open to making some kind of reasonable terms. I am sure you would be willing to meet him."

"To meet him again? Oh, no, I could not. The thought is horrible," she cried. "He seems to have broken faith so, after all his promises to my dying father."

"He has," said Garstang, solemnly; "but you misunderstand me; I did not mean personally meet him, but in terms, which would be paying so much money--in other words, buying your freedom."

"Oh, yes, yes," she cried, wildly, "at any cost. It is as you said one evening, guardian; I am cursed by a fortune."

"Cursed indeed, my dear. But there, try and be hopeful and patient, and we will have more walks of an evening. Only to think of it, our having to steal out at night like two thieves, for a dark walk in Russell Square sometimes. I don't wonder that the police used to watch us."

"If I could only write a few letters, guardian!"

"Yes, my dear, if you only could. I cannot say to you, do not, only lay the case before you once again."

"Yes, yes, yes," she said, hastily wiping away a few tears. "I am very, very foolish and ungrateful; but now that's all over, and I am going to be patient, and wait for freedom. I am far better off than many who are chained to a sick bed."

"No," he said, gently, shaking his head at her; "far worse off.

Sickness brings a dull la.s.situde and indifference to external things.

The calm rest of the bedroom is welcome, and the chamber itself the patient's little world. You, my dear, are in the full tide of life and youth, with all its aspirations, and must suffer there, more. But there; I am working like a slave to settle a lot of business going through the courts; and as soon as I can get it over we will take flight somewhere abroad, away from the gilded cage, out to the mountains and forests, where you can tire me out with your desires to be in the open air."

"I--I don't think I wish to leave England," she said, hesitatingly, and with the earnest far-off look in her eyes that he had seen before.

"Well, well, we will find some secluded place by the lakes, where we are not likely to be found out, and where the birds will sing to you. And, here's a happy thought, Kate, my child--you shall have some fellow prisoners."

"Companions?" she said, eagerly.

"Yes, companions," he replied, with a smile; "but I meant birds-- canaries, larks--what do you say to doves? They make charming pets."

"No, no," she said, hastily; "don't do that, Mr Garstang. One prisoner is enough."

He bowed his head.

"You have only to express your wishes, my child," he said.--"Then you are going to try and drive away the clouds?"

"Oh, yes, I am going to be quite patient," she said, smiling at him; and she placed her hands in his.

"Thank you," he said, gently; and for the first time he drew her nearer to him, and bent down to kiss her forehead--the slightest touch--and then dropped her hands, to turn away with a sigh.

And the days wore on, with the prisoner fighting hard with self, to be contented with her lot. She practiced hard at the piano, and studied up the crabbed Gothic letters of the German works in one of the cases. Now and then, too, she sang about the great, gloomy house, but mostly to stop hurriedly on finding that she had listeners, attracted from the lower regions.

But try how she would to occupy her thoughts, she could not master those which would bring a faint colour to her cheeks. For ever and again the calm, firm countenance of Pierce Leigh would intrude itself, and the colour grew deeper, as she felt that there was something strange in all this, especially when he of whom she thought had never, by word or look, given her cause to think that he cared for her. And yet, in her secret heart, she felt that he did. And what would he think of her? He could not know anything of her proceedings, but little of her reasons for fleeing from her uncle's care.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

The memories of her slight friendship with the Leighs--slight in the rareness of their meetings--grew and grew as the days pa.s.sed on, till Kate Wilton found herself constantly thinking of the brother and sister she had left at Northwood. Jenny's bright face was always obtruding itself, seeming to laugh from the pages of the dull old German book over which she pored; and it became a habit in her solitary life to sit and dream and think over it, as it slowly seemed to change; the merry eyes grew calm and grave, the broad forehead broader, till, though the similarity was there, it was the face of the brother, and she would close the book with a startled feeling of annoyance, feeling ready to upbraid herself for her want of modesty--so she put it--in thinking so much of one of whom she knew so little.

At such times she began to suffer from peculiar little nervous fits of irritation, which were followed by long dreamy thoughts which troubled her more than ever, respecting what the Leighs would think of her flight.

Music, long talks with Sarah Plant, efforts to try and draw out poor Becky, everything she could think of to take her attention and employ her mind, were tried vainly. The faces of the brother and sister would obtrude more and more, as her nervous fretfulness increased, and rapidly now the natural struggle against her long imprisonment increased.