The Changeling. Walter Besant
must not be more than eighteen months or less than a year. My own child was thirteen months old. He was born on December 2, 1872."
"I have a large acquaintance in a poor neighbourhood," said the doctor. "The women of my quarter have many babies. If you will give me a day or two, I may find what you want." He made a note—"Light hair, blue eyes; birth somewhere near December 2, 1872,—age, therefore, about thirteen months."
At a quarter before three in the afternoon a woman, carrying a baby, stood inside the railway station at Birmingham. She was young, thinly clad, though the day was cold; her face was delicate and refined, though pinched with want and trouble. She looked at her child every minute, and her tears fell fast.
The doctor arrived, looked round, and walked up to her. "Now, Mrs. Anthony," he said, "I've come for the baby."
"Oh! If it were not for the workhouse I would never part with him."
"Come, my good woman, you know you promised."
"Take him," she said suddenly. She almost flung him in the doctor's arms, and rushed away.
Above the noise of the trains and the station, the doctor heard her sobbing as she ran out of the station.
"She'll soon get over it," he said. But, as has already been observed, the doctor was as yet inexperienced in the feminine heart.
About six o'clock that evening the lady who had received the baby had arrived at her house in Bryanston Square.
"Now," she said, when she had reached the nursery, "we will have a look at the creature—oh! the little gutter-born creature!—that is to be my own all the rest of my life."
The ayah threw back the wraps, and disclosed a lusty boy, about a year or fifteen months old.
The lady sat down by the table, and dropped her hands in her lap.
"Oh," she cried, "I could not tell him! It broke my heart to watch the boy on his deathbed: it would kill him—it would kill him—the child of his old age, his only child! To save my husband I would do worse things than this—far worse things—far worse things."
Among the child's clothes, which were clean and well kept, there was a paper. The lady snatched it up. There was writing on it. "His name"—the writing was plain and clear, not that of a wholly uneducated woman—"is Humphrey. His surname does not matter. It begins with 'W.'"
"Why," cried the lady, "Humphrey! Humphrey! My boy's own name! And his surname begins with 'W'—my boy's initial! If it should be my own boy!—oh! ayah, my own boy come back again!"
The ayah shook her head sadly. But she changed the child's clothes for those of the dead child; and she folded up his own things, and laid them in a drawer.
"The doctor has not deceived me," said the lady. "Fair hair, blue eyes; eyes and hair the colour of my boy." The tears came into her eyes.
"He's a beautiful boy," said the nurse; "not a spot nor a blemish, and his limbs round and straight and strong. See how he kicks. And look—look! why, if he hasn't got the chin—the sahib's chin!"
It was not much: a dimple, a hollow between the lower lip and the end of the chin.
"Strange! So he has. Do you think, nurse, the sahib, his father, will think that the child looks his age? He is to be a year and a quarter, you know."
The ayah laughed. "Men know nothing," she said.
In a day or two the supposed parent returned home. He was a man advanced in years, between sixty and seventy. He was tall and spare of figure. His features were strongly marked, the features of a man who administers and commands. His face was full of authority; his eyes were as keen as a hawk's. He stepped up the stairs with the spring of five and twenty, and welcomed his wife with the sprightliness of a bridegroom of that elastic age. The man was, in fact, a retired Indian. He had spent forty years or so in administrating provinces: he was a king retired from business, a sovereign abdicated, on whose face a long reign had left the stamp of kingcraft. It was natural that in the evening of his life this man should marry a young and beautiful girl; it was also quite natural that this girl should entertain, for a husband old enough to be her grandfather, an affection and respect which dominated her.
He held out both arms; he embraced his wife with the ardour of a young lover; he turned her face to the light.
"Lilias!" he murmured, "let me look at you. Why, my dear, you look pale—and worried! Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing—nothing—now you are home again."
"And the boy? Where is the boy?"
"He shall be brought in." The ayah appeared carrying the child. "Here he is; quite well—and strong—and happy. Your son is quite happy—quite happy——" Her voice broke. She sank into a chair, and fell into hysterical sobbing and weeping. "He is quite—quite—quite happy."
They brought cold water, and presently she became calmer. Then the father turned again to consider the boy.
"He looks strong and hearty; but he doesn't seem much bigger than when you carried him off six months ago."
"A little backward with his growth." The mother had now recovered. "But that's nothing. He's made a new start already. Feel his fingers. There's a grip! Your own living picture, Humphrey!"
"Ay, ay. Perhaps I would rather, for good looks, that he took after his mother. Blue eyes, fair hair, and the family dimple in the chin."
When the doctor was left alone, he took the envelope containing the bank-notes from his pocket, and threw it on his desk. Then he sat down, and began to think over the situation.
"What does she do it for?" he asked. "Her own child is dead. There is no doubt about that; her face is so full of trouble. She wants to deceive her husband: at least, I suppose so. She will keep that secret to herself. The ayah is faithful—that's pretty certain. There will be no blackmailing in that quarter. A fine face she has"—meaning the lady, not the ayah. "Hard and determined, though. I should like to see it soften. I wish she had trusted me. But there, one couldn't expect it of a woman of that temperament—cold, reserved, haughty; a countess, perhaps. It's like the old story-books. Somebody will be disinherited. This boy is going to do it. Nobody will ever find it out. And that's the way they build up their fine pedigrees!"
The doctor was quite wrong. Nobody was to be disinherited; nor was there an estate. This you must understand, to begin with. The rest I am going to tell you.
"No clue," the doctor continued. "She is quite safe, unless she were to meet me. No other clue. Nobody else knows." He took up the envelope, and observed that it had part of an address upon it. All he could read, however, was one word—"Lady." "Oho!" he said; "there is a title, after all. It looks as if the latter half were a 'W.' There's a conspiracy, and I'm a conspirator! Humph! She's a beautiful creature!"
He fell into meditation on that subject which is always interesting to mere man—the face of a woman. Then his thoughts naturally wandered off to the conversation he had held with that memorable face.
"I should like, if I could, to learn how this job will turn out from the hereditary point of view! Will that interesting babe take after his father? Will he astonish his friends by becoming a low comedian? Or will he take after his mother, and become a simple, honourable Englishman? Or will he combine the inferior qualities of both, and become a beautiful and harmonious blend, which may make him either a villain of the deeper dye, or a common cold-blooded man of the world, with a touch of the artist?"
CHAPTER II.
THE ONLY WITNESS GONE.
One afternoon, about eighteen years later, certain mourning-coaches, returning home from a funeral, drew up before a house in Bryanston Square. There were three