Chapter V.

IT seems I was destined to hear of nothing but this Italian. I had not kept faith to him, certainly. I had been startled and thrown back by finding out how the idea of him got to be involved in Sarah’s trouble; and really I did not care much about the Countess Sermoneta, whom I had never heard of. I had been interested in him, I allow; but how could I keep up an interest in strangers, with so much closer an anxiety near home?

However, just the next day after I had spoken to Carson, Dr. Roberts called. Dr. Roberts was our rector; not a relation, but a kind of family connection, somehow, I really could not tell how. For three or four generations, at least, a Roberts had held our family living. There were so few of us Mortimers, as I have already explained, that the living could never be of any use to us; and our great-great-grandfathers had happened to be intimate, and so it came about that the living was as much an hereditary thing to the Robertses as our property was to us. Dr. Roberts was the best of good, easy, quiet men.{124} He preached us a nice little sermon every Sunday. He would dine with the people who were in a condition to ask him, and make himself as agreeable as possible. He patted the children on the head, and wondered how it was that he had forgotten their names. Of course he had his own way of doing most things, and seldom varied; but then one could always calculate on what he would do and say, and wasn’t that a comfort? On the whole, he was the most excellent, good drowse of a man I ever knew. He led a very quiet life, with little interruption, except when, now and then, a storm seized upon him, in the shape of a new curate with advanced ideas. In such cases Dr. Roberts generally bowed to the tempest till its force was exhausted. He laughed in his quiet way at the young men. “They are all for making a fuss when they begin,” he said to me, confidentially; “but depend upon it, when they come to our age, Miss Milly, they’ll find the advantage of just getting along.” That was his favourite mode of progress. He was too stout and easy to make much haste. He loved to get along quietly; and really, as ours was a small parish, and nothing particular to make a commotion about, I don’t suppose there was much harm done.

But only to think of Dr. Roberts becoming one of my assailants! I never could have expected any such thing. He came in, bringing some books from Miss Kate, who was as unlike him as possible. She was very active in the parish, and had something to do, with or for, everybody. She was rather Low-Church, and sent us books to read, to do us good, which, for my part, I always read faithfully, being very willing to have good done me, as far as it was practicable. Dr. Roberts sat down with a little sigh in the round easy chair, his particular chair, which Ellis wheeled out for him; not with a sentimental sigh, good man; but the road to the Park ascends a little, and the doctor, for the same reason as Hamlet, was a little scant of breath.

We were all as usual. Sarah, in the shadow of the screen, with her knitting-pins in her hands, and her basket of wools and patterns at her side; myself opposite, commanding a view of the door and the great mirror, and all the room; little Sara, half a mile off, reading at one of the windows—for it was very mild for February, and really one did not feel much need of a fire. Dr. Roberts wandered on in his comfortable way for half an hour at least; he complimented Miss Mortimer on always being so industrious, and me upon my blooming looks! only think of that! but I dare say he must have forgotten that it{125} was Sarah who was the beauty; and he gave us a quiet opinion upon the books he had brought us, that they were “very much in Kate’s style, you know;” and had a word to say about the curate—just one of his comfortable calls, when he has something to say about everybody; nothing more.

“But, by-the-bye,” said the good Doctor, “I had almost forgotten the principal thing. There’s something romantic going on among us just now, Miss Milly. Where is little Miss Cresswell? she ought to hear this.”

“What is it, Doctor?” I asked, rather startled at this beginning.

“Well, the fact is, I have had a strange sort of visitor,” said the Doctor, with a soft little laugh; “or rather two, I should say,” he continued, after a little pause, “ha! ha! I had Hubert to him, who pretends to speak Italian, you know, ha! ha! He could speak Dante, perhaps; but he can’t manage the Transteverine. I can’t say that I did not enjoy it a little. These young fellows, Miss Milly, are so happy in their own good opinion. Poor Hubert was terribly put out.”

“Who are you speaking of?” asked I again.

“Well, of a visitor I had; or two, as I have just said,—the master and the man. The master speaks English very tolerably; the man is the real, native, original article, newly imported. I am in good condition myself,” said the good Doctor, giving a quiet unconscious pinch on his plump wrist; “but anything like that, you know, goes quite beyond me. You would have laughed to see poor young Hubert, poor fellow, talking to him in his high Dantesque way, and the fat fellow dashing in through the midst of it all, helter skelter, in real Italian. Ha! ha! it was a most amusing scene.”

“Italian?” said I, scarcely venturing to speak above my breath, my consternation was so great.

“Yes,” said Dr. Roberts, calmly, with still a little agitation of laughter about his voice—the discomfiture of the curate amused him excessively—“Italian. The young man called on me to ask after a lady, whom he supposed to be living in this neighbourhood, a Countess Sermoneta. Did you ever hear of such a person, Miss Milly?”

“No,” said I, as quietly as I could. Sarah took no notice, showed no curiosity, betrayed to me that she had heard this name before, and did not learn the particulars of the stranger’s inquiry for the first time. In general she liked to hear the news; and though she rarely took any part in the conversation, listened to it, and showed that she did so. To-day she never{126} raised her head. Perhaps I was over-suspicious; but this entire want of interest only added to my bewildering doubts.

At this point little Sara came forward, and thrust herself, as was natural, into a conversation so interesting to her; I only wondered she had not done it sooner.

“That is poor Mr. Luigi, that has been so much talked of in Chester,” cried Sara; “and godmamma met him on the road, and promised to try and find out for him. Do make her take it up, please Dr. Roberts. Did you never hear of the lady either? How strange nobody should have heard of her! Who was she, does he say? What does he want with her? do tell us, dear Dr. Roberts, please.”

Sarah’s knitting-pins had dropped out of her hand when her goddaughter broke in upon Dr. Roberts’ good-humoured drowsy talk. I turned to help her to pick them up, but she waved me away. What could be the matter? she was trembling all over like an aspen leaf.

“My dear Miss Cresswell, he gave me no information whatever,” said the Doctor, smiling most graciously upon the pretty dainty little creature in her velvet jacket! “and indeed, he was not quite the kind of man that I should undertake to question. Hubert might do it, you know, ha! ha! but then he rather stands on the dignity of his office, and would not mind putting you, yourself, dangerous though it might be, through your catechism. I did all that lively curiosity could do, you may believe, to find out who he is, and who she was, but I made nothing of it. He, as you seem to know, calls himself Mr. Luigi, and he wants the Countess Sermoneta, a person no one in Cheshire ever heard of. I told him I had no doubt he was mistaken in the locality; near Manchester, perhaps, or Chichester, or some other place with a similar-sounding name; but I don’t think he took in what I said. And you saw him, too, Miss Milly? very odd, wasn’t it? He must have made a mistake in the place.”

“I suppose so,” said I, quite faintly. Sarah’s knitting-pins had actually fallen out of her hands again!

“I promised to inquire and let him know if I heard anything,” said the rector; “but if I do not know, and you do not know, Miss Milly,—we’re about the likeliest people in the county, I suspect,—I don’t think it is much good making other inquiries. You are sure you never heard the name?”

“Never in my life, so far as I recollect,” said I. “I promised to make inquiries, too, and asked him to come to the Park, and I would let him know. But that seems merely{127} tantalising him. If you will give me the address, Dr. Roberts, I will write him a note.”

He gave me the address in his own leisurely way, and then he returned to the scene at the rectory, where he had called the curate, who happened to be with him at the time, to talk to Mr. Luigi’s servant, not without some intention of doing the good young man a mischief, I am sure; and how poor Mr. Hubert talked Dantesque, as the Doctor said, shaking his portly person with quiet laughter, and the fat Italian burst in with a flood of what Dr. Roberts called real Italian. I could understand how it would be from what I had seen myself; but I confess I found it very difficult to listen and smile as it was necessary to do. There sat Sarah, close up in the shelter of her screen, never lifting her head or making any sign to show that she heard the conversation; not a smile rose upon her face; she saw nothing amusing in it; her lips were firm set together, and all the lines of her face drawn tight; and though her cheeks retained a kind of unnatural glow, which, for the first time in my life, made me think that Sarah used paint, or something to heighten her complexion, her brow and chin, and all except that pink spot, were ghastly grey, and colourless. She had stopped her knitting altogether now, and was rubbing her poor fingers, making believe to be very much occupied with them, stooping down to rub the joints before the fire. It quite went to my heart to see her sitting so forlorn there, shut up within herself. Ah! whatever it was she feared, could I ever be hard upon her? could I ever do anything but help her to bear what misfortune or anxiety she might be under? I thought Dr. Roberts would never be done with his story. I thought he would never go away. I dare say he, on his part, thought we had just had a quarrel, or something of that sort, and gave Miss Kate an amusing description of us when he went home; for he had an amusing way of telling a story. And then, how to get quit of little Sara when he was gone? I felt sure my sister would break out upon me somehow, very likely without taking any notice of the real reason; but all that silent excitement must find an outlet somehow; either that, or her mind would give way, or she would break a blood-vessel, or something dreadful would happen. I knew Sarah’s ways very well, we had been so long together. I knew that, one way or other, she must get it out, and relieve herself; and, to be sure, there was nobody whom she could relieve her feelings upon but me.