Chapter III.

I DON’T know very well how I got to Mr. Cresswell’s house. I did manage to get there somehow. I went listlessly through the old fashioned streets I knew so well, and turned down upon that serious old house with its brick front and rows of windows all covered with Venetian blinds. It met the morning sun full, and that was why the blinds were down; but it had a dismal effect upon me, as anything else would have had at that moment. I know how the rooms look inside when the blinds are down; it throws a chill into one’s heart that has known them put down for sadder reasons. I went into the house in the same listless way, like a person in a dream. Somehow I could not take any comfort in those dear young creatures I had just found out. Mr. Luigi, whom I had not found out, returned upon me like a nightmare. Was there no possible way in which this mystery could be discovered? What if I sought an interview with himself and put it to him fairly to tell me who he was? I went into Bob Cresswell’s drawing-room, where the windows were open and the sunshine slanting in through the Venetian blinds. It was rather dark, but a green pleasant darkness, the wind stirring the curtains, and now and then knocking the wood of the blinds softly against the woodwork of the window; a cheerful kind of gloom. Sara’s knick-knacks lay scattered about everywhere on the tables, and there were cushions, and ottomans, and screens, and fantastic pieces of ornamental work about, enough to have persuaded a stranger that Sara was the most industrious person in the world. The creature bought them all, you know, at fancy fairs and such absurd places. I am not sure that she ever took a needle in her fingers; but she said herself she had not the slightest intention of saving her poor papa’s money; and indeed it was very true.

I was thankful to sit down by myself a little in the silence. Sara was out, it appeared, and I threw myself into an easy-chair, and actually felt the quietness and green-twilight look of the room, with just a touch of sunshine here and there upon the carpet near the windows, a comfort to me. Once again,{242} as you may suppose, I thought it all over; but into the confused crowd of my own thoughts, where Sarah, Carson, Mr. Luigi, his fat servant, my new-found Milly Mortimer, and all her belongings, kept swaying in and out and round about each other, there came gleams of the other people suggested by this room;—Mr. Cresswell trying to make some light out of the confusion, Sara darting about, a mischievous, bewildering little sprite, and even, by some strange incoherency of my imagination, Sara’s poor pretty young mother, dead seventeen years ago, flickering about it, with her melancholy young eyes. Poor sweet lonely creature! I remember her a bride in that very room, with Bob Cresswell who might almost have been her father, very fond, but not knowing a bit what to make of her; and then lying helpless on the sofa, and then fading away out of sight, and the place that had known her knowing her no more. Ah me! I wonder whether that is not the best way of getting an end put to all one’s riddles. If Sarah and I had died girls, we should have been girls for ever,—pleasant shadows always belonging to the old house. Now it would be different, very different. When we were gone, what story might be told about us? “In their time something dreadful occurred about the succession, proving that they had never any right to the estate;” or “the great lawsuit began between the heirs of a younger branch and a supposed son of Squire Lewis.” Dear! dear! Who could this young man be? and now here was our real relation, our pretty Milly Mortimer—our true heir, if we were the true heirs of the estate. Dare I let her believe herself the heir of the Park with this mystery hanging over all our heads? Poor dear child, she was thinking more about her husband’s marching orders than if a hundred Parks had been in her power. Trouble there, trouble here; everywhere trouble of one sort or another. I declare I felt very tired of it all, sitting in that cool shady drawing-room. I could turn nowhere without finding some aggravation. This is how life serves us, though it seems such a great thing to keep in life.

“But, godmamma, how in all the world did you come here?” cried Sara Cresswell, springing upon me suddenly, before I had seen her come in, like a kitten as she was; “you who never come to Chester but in great state, to call upon people! It’s only one o’clock, and there’s no carriage about the streets, and you’ve got your old brown dress on. How did you get here?”

“Never mind, child,” said I, a little sharply; “you take{243} away my breath. Suppose you get me some lunch, and don’t ask any questions. I am going to stay all day, perhaps all night,” I said with a little desperation; “perhaps it’s the best thing I could do.”

“Godmamma, something has happened!” cried Sara; and she came and knelt down on the stool at my feet, looking up in my face, with cheeks all crimsoned over, and eyes sparkling brighter than I had ever seen them. It was not anxiety but positive expectation that flushed the child’s face. I could not help thrusting her away from me with my hand, in the fulness of my heart.

“Child!” cried I, “you are glad! you think something has happened to us, and it flushes you with pleasure. I did not expect as much from you!”

Sara stumbled up to her feet, confused and affronted. She stood a moment irresolute, not sure, apparently, how to take it, or whether to show me to the full extent how angry and annoyed she was. However, I suppose she remembered that we were in her father’s house, and that I was her guest after a fashion; for she stammered some kind of apology. “You took me into your confidence before, and naturally I wanted to know,” cried the child, with half-subdued fury. She had never been taught how to manage her temper, and she could not do it when she tried.

“You,” said I, “we are your godmothers, Sara, and have loved you all your life; but you want to know, just as if it were a story in a novel—though, for all you can tell, it may be something that involves our fortune, or our good name, or our life.”

Now this was very foolish of me, and I confess it. It was not anger at Sara that made me say it—nothing of the sort. But I had come through a good deal, and my mind was so full that I could bear no more. It burst from me like something I could not retain, and after that I am ashamed to confess, I cried. It was merely the excitement and agitation of the day, so unusual to me, and coming after such a long strain of silent excitement as I had already come through.

Sara stood before me confounded. She was quite unprepared for anything of this kind. She kept standing by me in a bewildered way, too much puzzled to say anything. At length she knelt down on the footstool and pressed my hand upon her little soft mouth. “Something dreadful has happened, godmamma?” said Sara, looking up at me wistfully. The poor child was really alarmed and full of anxiety now.{244}

“No, no,” said I, “nothing has happened at all. I am only too nervous and alarmed and unhappy to bear speaking to. I am not unhappy either. Sara, child, can’t you leave me by myself a little and order luncheon? I’ll tell you all about it then.”

Sara got up immediately to do what I told her; but before she left me stole her arm round my neck and kissed me. “I have got a secret to tell you, godmamma; you’ll be so glad when you know,” whispered the creature in my ear. Glad! I suppose it would be some of her love affairs,—some deluded young man she was going to marry, perhaps. Well! so I might have been glad, in a manner, if it were a suitable match, and she had taken any other time to tell me; but you may fancy how much happiness I had to spare for anybody now.

It may be imagined that my appetite was not very great in spite of my anxiety about luncheon, but I certainly was glad to have a glass of Mr. Cresswell’s nice Madeira after all my fatigue and exhaustion. Sara and I sat opposite to each other in the dining-room, where the blinds were down also, without saying much for some time. She was watching me I could see. There she sat very demure and a little anxious, in her velvet jacket, shaking her short curls, now and then, with an impatient kind of motion. I was glad to see that kitten have so much perception of the rights of hospitality; for she allowed me to take my time, and did not torture me with questions, so that I really got the good of this little interval, and was refreshed.

“I ought to be very happy instead of being so nervous and uncomfortable,” cried I at last; “for only fancy, my dear child, who I have found. Do you remember when you were at the Park hearing your godmamma Sarah speak of an heir whom she wanted your papa to advertise for? Well, what do you think, Sara? I have actually found her! for she is not an heir but an heiress. What your godmamma Sarah will say when she hears it, I can’t think; for she has never been advertised for, you know. She has turned up ‘quite promiscuous,’ as Ellis says.”

“Oh!—so you know!” said Sara, in quite a disappointed tone; “and I thought I had such a secret for you. Well, of course, since you do know, it doesn’t matter; they’re coming here to-night.”

“My dear, I know they are coming here to-night. They told me so; and your papa is to go over the whole, and make it all out how it is. Ah, dear me!” said I with a sigh, “if that were but all!”{245}

“Dear godmamma,” said Sara in her coaxing way, “are you not glad? I thought you would certainly be glad to find another Milly Mortimer; but you’ve got something on your mind.”

“Ah, yes, I have something on my mind,” said I. “Sara, child, I don’t know what to do with myself. I must see this Mr. Luigi before I go home.”

“You can’t, godmamma; he is not in Chester,” cried Sara, with a sudden blush. “As soon as he found out—the very next morning at least—he went away to fetch some things he had left behind.”

“Found out what?”

Sara put her hands together with a childish appealing motion. “Indeed, I do not know—indeed, dear godmamma, I do not know. If you think it wrong of me to have spoken to him, I am very sorry, but I can’t help it. I met him at Mrs. Langham’s, you know,—and he saw Sarah Mortimer written in her book. And the next morning he met me,—I mean I met him—we happened to meet in the street—and he told me he had found the clue he wanted, and was going to fetch some things he had put for safety in London—and I know he has not come back.”

“How do you know he has not come back?” said I.

Sara thought I was thinking of her, and the child blushed and looked uneasy; I observed as much, but I did not till long afterwards connect it with Mr. Luigi. I was too impatient to know about himself.

“Because I should have seen him,” said Sara, faltering. It did not come into my head to inquire why she was so sure she would have seen him. My thoughts were occupied about my own business. I groaned in my heart over her words. Not yet was I to discover this mystery. Not yet was I to clear my mind of the burden which surely, surely, I could not long go on bearing. It must come to an end, or me.