Out in the Forty-Five Part 52

"Oh, fie, Cousin Caroline! Don't tell the world your taste is so bad as that!"

Suddenly a sound broke across it all, that sent everything vanishing away, present and future, good and ill, and carried me off to the old winter parlour at Brocklebank.

"Bless me, man! don't you know how to carry a basket?" said a voice, which I felt as ready and as glad to welcome as if it had been that of an angel. "Well, you Londoners have not much pith. We c.u.mberland folks don't carry our baskets with the tips of our fingers--can't, very often; they are a good heft."

"Madam," said Dobson at the door, looking more uncomfortable than I had ever seen him, "here is a--a person--who--"

"Woman, man! I'm a woman, and not ashamed of it! Mrs Desborough, Madam, I hope you are well."

What Grandmamma was going to do or say, I cannot tell. She sat looking at her visitor from head to foot, as if she were some kind of curiosity.

I am afraid I spoilt the effect completely, for with a cry of "Aunt Kezia!" I rushed to her and threw my arms round her neck, and got a warmer hug than I expected my Aunt Kezia to have given me. Oh dear, what a comfort it was to see her! She was what n.o.body else was in Bloomsbury Square--something to lean on and cling to. And I did cling to her: and if I went down in the esteem of all the big people round me, I felt as if I did not care a straw about it, now that I had got my own dear Aunt Kezia again.

"Here's one glad to see me, at any rate!" said my Aunt Kezia; and I fancy her eyes were not quite dry.

"Here are two, Aunt Kezia," said Hatty, coming up.

"Mrs Kezia Courtenay, is it not?" said Grandmamma, so extra graciously that I felt sure she was vexed. "I am extreme glad to see you, Madam.

Have you come from the North to-day? Hester, my dear, you will like to take your aunt to your chamber. Caroline, you may go also, if you desire it."

Thus benignantly dismissed, we carried off my Aunt Kezia as if she had been a casket of jewels. And as to what the fine folks said behind our backs, either of her or of us, I do not believe either Hatty or I cared a bit. I can answer for one of us, anyhow.

"Now sit down and rest yourself, Aunt Kezia," said I, when we reached our chamber. "Oh, how delightful it is to have you! Is Father well?

Are we to go home?"

And then it flashed upon me--to go home, leaving Colonel Keith in prison, and Annas and Flora in such a position! Must we do that? I listened somewhat anxiously for my Aunt Kezia's answer.

"It is pleasant to see you, girls, I can tell you. And it is double pleasant to have such a hearty welcome to anybody. Your Father and Sophy are quite well, and everybody else. You are to go home?--ay: but when, we'll see by-and-by. But now I want my questions answered, if you please. I shall be glad to know what has come to you both? I sent off two throddy, rosy-cheeked maids to London, that did a bit of credit to c.u.mberland air and country milk, and here are two poor, thin, limp, white creatures, that look as if they had lost all the sunshine out of them. What have you been doing to yourselves?--or what has somebody else been doing to you? Which is it?"

"Cary must speak for herself," said Hatty, "Hatty must speak for herself," said I.

Hatty laughed.

"It is somebody else, with Hatty," I went on, "and I don't quite know how it is with me, Aunt Kezia. I have been feeling for some weeks past as if I had the world on my shoulders."

"Your shoulders are not strong enough for that, child," replied my Aunt Kezia. "There is but one shoulder which can carry the world. 'The government shall be upon His shoulder.' You may well look poor if you have been at that work. Where are Flora and Miss Keith?--and what has become of their brothers, both?"

"Annas and Flora have just come back to London," said Hatty. "But Angus is in dreadful trouble, Aunt; and I do not know where Colonel Keith is-- with the Prince, I suppose."

"No, Hatty," said I. "Aunt Kezia, Angus is safe, but an exile in France; and Colonel Keith lies in Newgate Prison, waiting for death."

"What do you know about it?" asked Hatty, in an astonished tone.

My Aunt Kezia looked from one of us to the other.

"You cannot both be right," said she. "I hope you are mistaken, Cary."

"I have no chance to be so," I answered; and I heard my voice tremble.

"Colonel Keith bought Angus's freedom with his own life. At least, there is every reason to fear that result, and none to hope."

"Then that man who escaped was Angus?" asked Hatty.

I bowed my head. I felt inclined to burst out crying if I spoke.

"But who told you? and how come you to be so sure it is true?"

"I was the girl who carried the basket into the prison." I just managed to say so much without breaking down, though that tiresome lump in my throat kept teasing me.

"You!" cried Hatty, in more tones than the word has letters. "Cary, you must be dreaming! When could you have done it?"

"In the evening, on one of Grandmamma's Tuesdays, and I was back before any one missed me, except you."

"Who went with you?--who was in the plot? Do tell us, Cary!"

"Yes, I suppose you may know now," I said, for I could now speak more calmly. "Ephraim took me to the place where I put on the disguise, and forward to the prison. Then Colonel Keith and I carried in the basket, and Angus brought it out. Ephraim came to us after we left the prison, and brought me back here."

"Ephraim Hebblethwaite helped _you_ to do _that_?"

I did not understand Hatty's tone. She was astonished, undoubtedly so, but she was something else too, and what that was I could not tell.

My Aunt Kezia listened silently.

"Why, Cary, you are a heroine! I could not have believed that a timid little thing like you--" Hatty stopped.

"There was n.o.body else," said I. "You were not well enough, you know.

I had to do it; but I can a.s.sure you, Hatty, I felt like anything but a hero."

"They are the heroes," said my Aunt Kezia, softly, "who feel unlike heroes, but have to do it, and go and do it therefore. Colonel Keith and Cary seem to be of that sort. And there is only one other kind of heroes--those who stand by and see their best beloved do such things, and, knowing it to be G.o.d's will, bid them G.o.d-speed with cheerful countenance, and cry their own hearts out afterwards, when no one sees them but Himself."

"That is Annas' sort," said I.

"Yes, and one other," replied my Aunt Kezia.

"But Hatty did not know till afterwards," said I.

"Child, I did not mean Hatty. Do Flora and Miss Keith look as white as you poor thin things?"

"Much worse, I think," said I. "Annas keeps up, and does not shed a tear, and Flora cries her eyes out. But they are both white and sadly worn."

"Poor souls!" said my Aunt Kezia. "Maybe they would like to go home with us. Do you know when they wish to go?"

"Annas has been promised a hearing of Princess Caroline, to intercede for her brother," I made answer. "I think she will be ready to go as soon as that is over. There would be no good in waiting." And my voice choked a little as I remembered for what our poor Annas would otherwise wait.

"Cary Courtenay, do you know you have got ten years on your head in six months?"

"I feel as if I were a good deal older," I said, smiling.

"You are the elder of the two now," said my Aunt Kezia, drily. "Not but what Hatty has been through the kiln too; but it has softened her, and hardened you."

"Then Hatty is gold, and I am only clay," I said, and I could not help laughing a little, though I have not laughed much lately.