The Changeling. Walter Besant
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 coaches. From the first descended a young man of twenty or thereabouts, still slight and boyish in figure. He had been sitting alone in the carriage.
From the second came a middle-aged man of the greatest respectability, to look at. He was so respectable, so eminently respectable, that he could not possibly be anything but a butler. With him was a completely respectable person of the other sex, who could be no other than a housekeeper.
In the third carriage there were two young maid-servants in black, and a boy in buttons. At the halting of the carriage they clapped their handkerchiefs to their eyes, because they knew what was expected on such an occasion; and they kept up this external show of grief until they had mounted the steps and the door was shut. The page, who was with them, had been weeping freely ever since they started; not so much from unavailing grief, as from the blackness of the ceremony, and the dreadful coffin, and the horror and terror and mystery of the thing. He went up the stairs snuffling, and so continued for the rest of the day.
The young gentleman mounted to the drawing-room, where his mother, sitting in a straight, high chair, more like an office-chair than one designed for a drawing-room, was dictating to a shorthand girl secretary. The table was covered with papers. In the back drawing-room two other girls were writing. For Lady Woodroffe was president of one society, chairman of committee of another, honorary secretary of a third; her letters and articles were on subjects and works of philanthropy, purity, rescue, white lilies, temperance, and education. Her platform advocacy of such works had placed her in the forefront of civilizing women; she was a great captain in Israel, a very Deborah, a Jael.
She was also, which certainly assisted her efforts, a very handsome woman still, perhaps austere: but then her eloquence was of the severe order. She appealed to the conscience, to duty, to responsibility, to honour. If sinners quailed at contemplating the gulf between themselves and the prophetess, who, like Jeremiah, had so little sympathy with those who slide backwards and enjoy the exercise, it was a perpetual joy to ladies of principle to consider an example so powerful.
She was dressed in black silk, but wore no widow's weeds; her husband, the first Sir Humphrey, had been dead four years.
The young gentleman threw himself into a chair. Lady Woodroffe nodded to her secretary, who gathered up her papers and retreated to the back drawing-room, closing the door.
"Well, mother," said the boy, carelessly, "we've buried the old woman."
"Yes. I hope you were not too much distressed, Humphrey. I am pleased that you went to the funeral, if only to gratify the servants."
"How could I refuse to attend her funeral? – an old servant like that. It's a beastly thing – a funeral, – and a beastly nuisance."
"We must not forget her services," the lady replied. "It was in return for those services that I kept her here, and nursed her through her old age. One does not encumber one's self with sick old women except in such cases as this."
"No, thank goodness." The young man was in no gracious mood. "Give me a servant who takes her wages and goes off, without asking for our gratitude."
"Still, she was your nurse – and a good nurse."
"Too ostentatious of her affection, especially towards the end."
"She was also" – Lady Woodroffe pursued her own thoughts, which was her way – "a silent woman; a woman who could be trusted, if necessary, with secrets – family secrets."
"Thank goodness, we've got none. From family secrets, family skeletons, family ghosts, good Lord, deliver us!"
"There are secrets, or skeletons, in every family, I suppose. Fortunately, we forget some, and we never hear of others. You are fortunate, Humphrey, that you are free from the vexation – or the shame – or the shock – of family secrets, which mean family scandals. Now, at all events, you are perfectly safe, because there is no one living who can create a family ghost for you, or provide you with a skeleton."
Humphrey laughed lightly. "Let the dead bury their dead," he replied. "So long as I know nothing about the skeleton, it can go on grinning in the cupboard, for aught I care.
"Did I tell you," the young man continued, after a pause, "of her last words?"
"What last words?"
"I thought I had told you. Curious words they were. I suppose her mind was wandering."
"Humphrey," said his mother, sharply, "what did she say? What words?"
"Well, they sent for me. It was just before the end. She was lying apparently asleep, her eyes shut. I thought she was going. The nurse was at the other end of the room, fussing with the tea-cups. Then she opened her eyes and saw me. She whispered, 'Low down, low down, Master Humphrey.' So I stooped down, and she said, 'Don't blame her, Master Humphrey. I persuaded her, and we kept it up, for your sake. Nobody suspects. All for your sake I kept it up,' Then she closed her eyes, and opened them no more."
"What do you understand by those words, Humphrey?"
"Nothing. I cannot understand them. She was accusing herself, I suppose, of something – I know not what. What did she keep up? Whom did she persuade? But why should we want to know?"
"Wandering words. Nurses will tell you that no importance can be attached to the last words when the brain wanders. Well, Humphrey, while you were at the funeral I unlocked her drawers and examined the contents. I found that she had quite a large sum of money invested. One is not in good service for all these years without saving something. There is a little pile