That Stick

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> That Stick

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'Life will be different to us henceforth,' he once said. 'We have had
three years of the most perfect happiness. He gave and He hath taken
away. Blessed--'

And there he stopped, for he saw the working of her face. Otherwise they
hardly spoke of their loss even to one another. It went down deeper than
they could bear to utter, and their hearts and eyes met if their lips did
not. Only Lord Northmoor lay too dejected to make the steps expected in
the recovery of strength for a few days after the grievous revelation,
and on the day when at last he was placed on a couch by the window, his
wife collapsed, and, almost unconscious, was carried to her bed.

It was not a severe or alarming attack, and all she wanted was to be let
alone; but there was enough of sore throat and other symptoms to prolong
the quarantine, and Lady Adela could no longer be excluded from giving
her aid. She went to and fro between the patients, and comforted each
with regard to the other, telling the one how her husband's strength was
returning, and keeping the other tranquil by the assurance that what his
wife most needed was perfect rest, especially from the necessity of
restraining herself. Those eyes showed how many tears were poured forth
when they could have their free course. Lady Adela had gone through
enough to feel with ready tact what would be least jarring to each. She
had persuaded Bertha to go back to London, both to her many avocations
and to receive Amice, who must still be kept at a distance for some time.

Lord Northmoor, as soon as he had strength and self-command for it, read
poor Mrs. Morton's letters, and also saw Eden, for whom there was little
fear of infection. She managed to tell her history and answer all his
questions in detail, but she quite broke down under his kind tone of
forgiveness and assurance that no blame attached to her, and that he was
only grateful to her for her tender care of his child, and she went away
sobbing pitifully.

Adela came back, after taking her from the room, where Frank was sitting
in an easy-chair by the window, and looking out on the summer garden,
which seemed to be stripped of all its charm and value for him.

'Poor thing,' she said, 'she is quite overcome by your kindness.'

'I do not think any one is more to be pitied,' said he.

'No, indeed, but she wishes you would have heard what she had to say
about the supposing Ida to have gone in that direction.'

'I thought it better not. It would not have exonerated the poor little
maid from carelessness, and there is no use in fostering a sense of
injury or suspicion, when what is done cannot be undone,' he said
wearily.

'Indeed you are quite right,' said Adela earnestly. 'You know how to be
in charity with all men. Oh, the needless misery of hasty unjust
suspicions!' Then as he looked up at her--'Do you know our own story?'

'Only the main facts.'

'I think you ought to know it. It accounts for so much!' said she, moved
partly by the need of utterance, and partly by the sense that the turn of
his thoughts might be good for him. 'You know what a passion for horses
there has always been in this family.'

'I know--I could have had it if my life had begun more prosperously.'

'And you have done your best to save Herbert from it. Well, my Arthur
had it to a great degree; and so indeed had Bertha. They were brought up
to nothing else; Bertha was, I really think, a better judge than her
brother, she was not so reckless. They became intimate with a Captain
Alder, who was in the barracks at Copington--much the nicest, as I used
to think, of the set, though I was not very glad to see an attachment
growing up between him and Bertha. There was always such a capacity of
goodness in her that I longed to see her in the way of being raised
altogether.'

'She has always been most kind to us. There is much to admire in her.'

'Her present life has developed all that is best; but--' She hesitated,
wondering whether the good simple man were sensible of that warp in the
nature that she had felt. She went on, 'Then she was a masterful,
high-spirited girl, to whom it seemed inevitable to come to high words
with any one about whom she cared. And I must say--she and my husband,
while they were passionately fond of one another, seemed to have a sort
of fascination in provoking one another, not only in words but in deeds.
Ah, you can hardly believe it of her! How people get tamed! Well,
Arthur bought a horse, a beautiful creature, but desperately vicious.
Captain Alder had been with him when he first saw it, and admired it; but
I do not think gave an opinion against it. Bertha, however, from the
moment she saw its eyes and ears, protested against it in her vehement
way. I remember imploring her not to make Arthur defy her; but really
when they got into those moods, I don't think they could stop themselves,
and she thought Captain Alder encouraged him. So Arthur went out on that
fatal drive in the dog-cart, and no sooner were they out on the Colbeam
road than the horse bolted, they came into collision with a hay waggon.
And--'

'I know!'

'Captain Alder was thrown on the top of the hay and not hurt. He came to
prepare me to receive Arthur, and then went up to the house. Bertha,
poor girl, in her wild grief almost flew at him. It was all his doing,
she said; he had egged Arthur on; she supposed Arthur had bets. In
short, she knew not what she said; but he left the house, and never has
been near her again.'

'Were they engaged?'

'Not quite formally, but they understood one another, and were waiting
for a favourable moment with old Lord Northmoor, who was not easy to deal
with, and it was far from being a good match anyway. We all thought, I
believe, that the drive was the fault or rather the folly of Captain
Alder, and Arthur was too ill to explain--unconscious at first--then not
rousing himself. At last he asked for his friend, and then he told me
that Captain Alder had done all in his power to prevent his taking the
creature out--had told him he had no right to endanger his life; and when
only laughed at, had insisted on going with him, in hopes, I suppose, of
averting mischief. I wrote--Lord Northmoor wrote to him at his quarters;
but our letters came back to us. We had kept no watch on the gazette,
and he had retired and left no address with his brother-officers. Bertha
knew that his parents were dead, and that he had a sister at school at
Clifton. I wrote to her, but the mistress sent back my letter; and we
found that he had fetched away his sister and gone. Even his money was
taken from Coutts's, as if to cut off any clue.'

'He should not have so attended to a girl in her angry grief.'

'No, but I think there was some self-blame in him, though not about that
horse. I believe he thought he might have checked Arthur more. And he
had debts which he seems to have paid on selling out his capital. So, as
I have told poor Bertha whenever she would let me, there may have been
other reasons besides her stinging words.'

'And it has preyed on her?'

'More than any one would guess who had not known her in old times. I was
glad that you secured that child, Cea, to her. She seems to have
fastened her affections on her.'

'Alder,' presently repeated Frank. 'Alder--I was thinking how the name
had come before me. There were some clients of ours--of Mr. Burford's, I
mean--of that name; I think they sold an estate. Some day I will find
out whether he knows anything about them, and I shall remember more by
and by.'

'It would be an immense relief if you could find out anything good about
the poor fellow,' said Adela, very glad to have found any topic of
interest, and pleased to find that it occupied his thoughts afterwards,
when he asked whether she knew the Christian name of _this_ young man,
without mentioning any antecedent, as if he had been going on with the
subject all the time.

In a few days the pair were able to meet, and to take up again the life
over which a dark veil had suddenly descended, contrasting with the
sunshine of those last few years. To hold up one another, and do their
duty on their way to the better world, was evidently the one thought,
though they said little.

Still neither was yet in a condition to return to ordinary life, and it
was determined that as soon as they were disinfected, they should leave
the house to undergo the same process, and spend a few weeks at some
health resort. Only Mary shuddered at the notion of hearing the sound of
the sea, and Malvern was finally fixed upon. Lady Adela would go with
them, and she wrote to beg that Constance, so soon as her term was over,
might bring Amice thither, to be in a separate lodging at first, till
there had been time to see whether the little girl's company would be a
solace or a trial to the bereaved parents.

Bertha, as soon as the chief anxiety was over, joined Mrs. Bury in a
mountaineering expedition. She declared that she had never dared to
leave Cea before, lest the wretched father, now proved to be a myth,
should come and abstract the child.

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE PHANTOM OF THE STATION

There was a crash in Mrs. Morton's kitchen, where an elegant five o'clock
tea was preparing, not only to greet Herbert, who had just come home to
await the news of his fate after the last military examination open to
him, but also for a friend or two of his mother's, who, to his great
annoyance, might be expected to drop in on any Wednesday afternoon.

Every one ran out to see what was the matter, and the maid was found
picking up Mrs. Morton's silver teapot, the basket-work handle of which
had suddenly collapsed under the weight of tea and tea-leaves. The
mistress's exclamations and objurgation of the maid for not having
discovered its frail condition need not be repeated. It had been a
wedding-present, and was her great pride. After due examination to see
whether there were any bruises or dents, she said--

'Well, Ida, we must have yours; run and fetch it out of the box. You
have the key of it.' And she held out the key of the cupboard where the
spoons were daily taken out by herself or Ida.

The teapot had been left to Ida by a godmother, who had been a farmer's
wife, with a small legacy, but was of an unfashionable make and seldom
saw the light.

'That horrid, great clumsy thing!' said Ida. 'You had much better use
the blue china one.'

'I'll never use that crockery for company when there's silver in the
house! What would Mrs. Denham say if she dropped in?'

'I won't pour out tea in that ugly, heavy brute of a thing.'

'Then if you won't, I will. Give me the key this instant!'

'It is mine, and I am not going to give it up!'

'Come, Ida,' said Herbert, weary of the altercation; 'any one would think
you had made away with it! Let us have it for peace's sake.'

'It's no business of yours.'

He whistled. However, at that moment the door-bell rang.

It was to admit a couple of old ladies, whom both the young people viewed
as very dull company; and the story of the illness of 'my brother, Lord
Northmoor,' as related by their mother, had become very tedious, so that
as soon as possible they both sauntered out on the beach.

'I wonder when uncle will send for you!' Ida said. 'He must give you a
good allowance now.'

'Don't talk of it, Ida; it makes me sick to think of it. I say--is that
the old red rock where they saw the last of the poor little kid?'

'Yes; that was where his hat was.'

'Did you find it? Was it washed up?'

'Don't talk of such dreadful things, Bertie; I can't bear it! And
there's Rose Rollstone!'

Ida would have done her utmost to keep her brother and Rose Rollstone
apart at any other time, but she was at the moment only too glad to
divert his attention, and allowed him, without protest, to walk up to
Rose, shake hands with her, and rejoice in her coming home for good; but,
do what Ida would, she could not keep him from recurring to the thought
of the little cousin of whom he had been very fond.

'Such a jolly little kid!' he said; 'and full of spirit! You should have
seen him when I picked him up before me on the cob. How he laughed!'

'So good, too,' said Rose. 'He looked so sweet with those pretty brown
eyes and fair curls at church that last Sunday.'

'I can't make out how it was. The tide could not have been high enough
to wash him off going round that rock, or the other children would not
have gone round it.'

'Oh, I suppose he ran after a wave,' said Ida hastily.

'Do you know,' said Rose mysteriously, 'I could have declared I saw him
that very evening, and with his nursery-maid, too!'

'Nonsense, Rose! We don't believe in ghosts!' said Ida.

'It was not like a ghost,' said Rose. 'You know I had come down for the
bank-holiday, and went back to finish my quarter at the art embroidery.
Well, when we stopped at the North Westhaven station, I saw a man, woman,
and child get in, and it struck me that the boy was Master Michael and
the woman Louisa Hall. I think she looked into the carriage where I was,
and I was going to ask her where she was taking him.'

'Nonsense, Rose! How can you listen to such folly, Herbert?'

'But that's not all! I saw them again under the gas when I got out. I
was very near trying to speak to her, but I lost sight of her in the
throng; but I saw that face so like Master Michael, only scared and just
ready to cry.'

'You'll run about telling that fine ghost-story,' said Ida roughly.

'But Louisa could not have been a ghost,' said Rose, bewildered. 'I
thought she was his nursery-maid taking him somewhere! Didn't she--'
then with a sudden flash--'Oh!'

'Turned off long ago for flirting with that scamp Rattler,' said Herbert.
'Now she has run off with him.'

'There was a sailor-looking man with her,' said Rose.

'I never heard such intolerable nonsense!' burst out Ida. 'Mere
absurdity!'

Herbert looked at her with surprise at the strange passion she exhibited.
He asked--

'Did you say the Hall girl had run away?'

'Oh, never mind, Herbert!' cried Ida, as if unable to command herself.
'What is it to you what a nasty, horrid girl like that does?'

'Hold your tongue, Ida!' he said resolutely. 'If you won't speak, let
Rose.'

'She did,' said Rose, in a low, anxious, terrified voice. 'I only heard
it since I came home. She was married at the registrar's office to that
man Jones, whom they call the Rattler, and went off with him. It must
have been her whom I saw, really and truly; and, oh, Herbert, could she
have been so wicked as to steal Master Michael!'

'Somebody else has been wicked then,' said Herbert, laying hold of his
sister's arm.

'I don't know what all this means,' exclaimed Ida, in great agitation;
'nor what you and Rose are at! Making up such horrible, abominable
insinuations against me, your poor sister! But Rose Rollstone always
hated me!'

'She does not know what she is saying,' sighed Rose; and, with much
delicacy, she moved away.

'Let me go, Herbert!' cried Ida, as she felt his grip on her hand.

'Not I, Ida--till you have answered me! Is this so--that Michael is not
drowned, but carried off by that woman?' demanded Herbert, holding her
fast and looking at her with manly gravity, not devoid of horror.

'He is a horrid little impostor, palmed off to keep you out of the title
and everything! That's why I did it!' sobbed Ida, trying to wrench
herself away.

'Oh, you did it, did you? You confess that! And what have you done with
him?'

'I tell you he is no Morton at all--just the nurse-woman's child, taken
to spite you. I found it all out at--what's its name?--Botzen; only ma
would not be convinced.'

'I should suppose not! To think that my uncle and aunt would do such a
thing--why, I don't know whether it is not worse than stealing the
child!'

'Herbert! Herbert! do you want to bring your sister to jail, talking in
that way?'

'It is no more than you deserve. I _would_ bring you there if it is the
only way to get back the child! I do not know what is bad enough for
you. My poor uncle and aunt! To have brought such misery on them!' He
clenched his hands as he spoke.

'Everybody said she didn't mind--didn't ask questions, didn't cry, didn't
go on a bit like his real mother.'

'She could not, or it might have been the death of my uncle. Bertha
wrote it all to me; but you--you would never understand. Ida, I can't
believe that you, my sister, could have done such an awfully wicked
thing!'

'I wouldn't, only I was sure he was not--'

'No more of that stuff!' said Herbert. 'You don't know what they are.'

'I do. So strict--not a bit like a mother.'

'If our mother had been like them, you might not have been such a
senseless monster,' said Herbert, pausing for a word. 'Come, now; tell
me what you have done with him, or I shall have to set on the police.'

'Oh, Herbert, how can you be so cruel?'

'It is not I that am cruel! Come, speak out! Did you bribe her with
your teapot? Ah! I see: what has she done with him?'

He gripped her arm almost as he used to torture her when they were
children, and insisted again that either she must tell him the whole
truth or he should set the police on the track.

'You wouldn't,' she said, awed. 'Think of the exposure and of mother!'

'I can think of nothing but saving Mite! I say--my mother knows nothing
of this?'

'Oh no, no!'

Herbert breathed more freely, but he was firm, and seemed suddenly to
have grown out of boyishness into manly determination, and gradually he
extracted the whole story from her. He would not listen to the delusion
in which she had worked herself into believing, founded upon the
negations for which she had sedulously avoided seeking positive
refutation, and which had been bolstered up by her imagination and
wishes, working on the unsubstantial precedents of novels. She had
brought herself absolutely to believe in the imposture, and at a moment
when her uncle's condition seemed absolutely to place within her grasp
the coronet for Herbert, with all possibilities for herself.

Then came the idea of Louisa Hall, inspired by seeing her speak to little
Michael on the beach, and obtain his pretty smiles and exclamation of
'Lou, Lou! mine Lou!' for he had certainly liked this girl better than
Ellen, who was wanting in life and animation. Ida knew that Sam Jones,
alias Rattler, was going out to join his brother in Canada, and that
Louisa was vehemently desirous to accompany him, but had failed to
satisfy the requirements of Government as to character, so as to obtain a
free passage, and was therefore about to be left behind in desertion and
distress. She might beguile Michael away quietly and carry him to
Canada, where, as it seemed, there were any amount of farmers ready to
adopt English children--a much better lot, in Ida's eyes, than the little
Tyrolese impostor deserved. She even persuaded herself that she was
doing an act of great goodness, when, at the price of her teapot, she
obtained that Louisa should be married by the registrar to Sam Jones, and
their passage paid, on condition of their carrying away Michael with
them. The man was nothing loth, having really a certain preference for
Louisa, and likewise a grudge against Lord Northmoor for having spoilt
that game with Miss Morton, which might have brought the means for the
voyage.

They were married on Whit Monday, and Ida was warned that if she and
Louisa could not get possession of the child by Wednesday, he would be
left behind. Louisa was accordingly on the watch, and Ida hovered about,
just enough completely to put the nurses off their guard. They heard
Michael's imploring call of 'Willie! Willie!' and then Louisa descended
on him with coaxings and promises, and Ida knew no more, except that, as
she had desired, a parcel had been sent her containing the hat and shoes.
The spade she had herself picked up.

When Rose had seen them, they had no doubt been on their way to
Liverpool.

It seemed to be Herbert's horror-stricken look that first showed his
sister the enormity of what she had done, and when she pleaded 'for your
sake,' he made such a fierce sound of disgust, that she only durst add
further, 'Oh, Herbert, you will not tell?'

'Not find him?' he thundered.

'No, no; I didn't mean that! But don't let them know about me! Just
think--'

'I must think! Get away now; I can't bear you near!'

And just then a voice was heard, 'Miss Hider, Miss Hider, your ma wants
you!'

CHAPTER XXXV
THE QUEST

Herbert had made no promises, but as he paced up and down the shingle
after his sister had gone in, he had time to feel that, though he was
determined to act at once, the scandal of her deed must be as much as
possible avoided. Indeed, he believed that she might have rendered
herself amenable to prosecution for kidnapping the child, and he felt on
reflection that his mother must be spared the terror and disgrace. His
difficulties were much increased by the state of quarantine at Northmoor,
for though the journey to Malvern had been decided upon, neither patient
was yet in a state to attempt it, and as one of the servants had
unexpectedly sickened with the disease, all approach to the place was
forbidden; nor did he know with any certainty how far his uncle's
recovery had advanced, since Bertha, his chief informant, had gone abroad
with Mrs. Bury, and Constance was still at Oxford.

He went home, and straight up to his room, feeling it intolerable to meet
his sister; and there, the first sleepless night he had ever known,
convinced him that to the convalescents it would be cruelty to send his
intelligence, when it amounted to no more than that their poor little boy
had been made over to an unscrupulous woman and a violent,
good-for-nothing man.

'No,' said Herbert, as he tossed over; 'it would be worse than believing
him quietly dead, now they have settled down to that. I must get him
back before they know anything about it. But how? I must hunt up those
wretches' people here, and find where they are gone; if they know--as
like as not they won't. But I'll throw everything up till I find the
boy!' He knelt up in his bed, laid his hand on his Bible--his uncle's
gift--and solemnly swore it.

And Herbert was another youth from that hour.

When he had brought his ideas into some little order, the foremost was
that he must see Rose Rollstone, discover how much she knew or guessed,
and bind her to silence. 'No fear of her, jolly little thing!' said he
to himself; but, playfellows as they had been, private interviews were
not easy to secure under present circumstances.

However, the tinkling of the bell of the iron church suggested an idea.
'She is just the little saint of a thing to be always off to church at
unearthly hours. I'll catch her there--if only that black coat isn't
always after her!'

So Herbert hurried off to the iron building, satisfied himself with a
peep that Rose's sailor hat was there, and then--to make sure of
her--crept into a seat by the door, and found his plans none the worse
for praying for all needing help in mind, body, or estate. Rose came out
alone, and he was by her side at once. 'I say, Rose, you did not speak
about _that_ last night?'

'Oh no, indeed!'

'You're a brick! I got it all out of that sister of mine. I'm only
ashamed that she is my sister!'

'And where is the dear little boy?'

'That's the point,' and Herbert briefly explained his difficulties, and
Rose agreed that he must try to learn where the emigrants had gone, from
their relations. And when he expressed his full intention of following
them, even if he had to work his passage, before telling the parents, she
applauded the nobleness of the resolution, and all the romance in her
awoke at the notion of his bringing home the boy and setting him before
his parents. She was ready to promise secrecy for the sake of preventing
the prosecution that might, as Herbert saw, be a terrible thing for the
whole family; and besides, it must be confessed, the two young things did
rather enjoy the sharing of a secret. Herbert promised to meet her the
next morning, and report his discoveries and plans, as in fact she was
the only person with whom he could take counsel.

He did meet her accordingly, going first to the church. He had to tell
her that he had been able to make nothing of Mrs. Hall. He was not sure
whether she knew where her daughter had gone; at any rate, she would not
own to any knowledge, being probably afraid. Besides, when acting as
charwoman, Master Herbert had been such a torment to her that she was not
likely to oblige him.

He had succeeded better with the Jones family, and perhaps had learnt
prudence, for he had not begun by asking for the Rattler, but for the
respectable brother who had invited him out, and had thus learnt that the
destination of the emigrant was Toronto, where the elder brother was
employed on the _British Empress_, Ontario steamer. Mrs. Jones, the
mother, and her eldest son were decent people, and there was no reason to
think they were aware of the encumbrances that their scapegrace had taken
with him.

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