Christina Part 25

"Will you let Baba's mother decide what is best for the nurse to do?"

Cicely answered, laughing, and patting Christina on the shoulder; "you are just to do what I tell you, and I tell you you must come down to dinner to-night, and wear the new frock."

"I don't know how to thank you for that," Christina said, with girlish eagerness. "I haven't ever had a frock like it in all my life. You see, when my father and mother were alive, we never went to parties, so I didn't have evening gowns. And since I have been working for myself, of course I haven't needed any, but this one you have given me is much, much too lovely."

"Perhaps I am the best judge of that, too! I want you to look suitably dressed when you come downstairs, and you must look your very best to-night, to disarm Cousin Arthur."

"I am afraid already he doesn't approve of me," Christina said ruefully; "he looked at me with such severe eyes after church this morning, and began at once to ask me about my theories of education.

And--I haven't got any." A ripple of laughter broke from her. "I had to say so, and he seemed so shocked."

"But he is very easily shocked; take heart of grace and remember that.

And dear old Miss Doubleday thinks you are managing Baba splendidly.

She is a competent judge because she had the managing of me!"

"Then I don't think there was anything wrong with her system of education," Christina said quickly, with a glance of shy admiration at her employer, who had sunk into the nursery rocking-chair, and was swinging her daintily-shod feet up and down before the fire; "if Baba grows up like her mother, she need not wish for anything better. I like kind old Miss Doubleday, she is so friendly to me."

Miss Doubleday, Cicely's old governess, was spending Christmas at Bramwell, and had shown appreciation of Christina and her ways.

"You nice little enthusiast!" Cicely looked affectionately up at the girl, who stood on the hearth beside her; "you idealise everybody, don't you, Christina?"

"I don't know about idealising," Christina spoke thoughtfully, "but, when I care about people, I do see all the best in them----"

"And are blind to all the worst? Yes, I understand," Cicely laughed, "if you liked Cousin Arthur, you would even see him through rose-coloured spectacles?"

"He is a very good man," Christina answered st.u.r.dily; "there is something about that uncompromising puritan spirit that appeals to me.

His views may be narrow----"

"They certainly are," Cicely murmured _sotto voce_, "but they are all on the side of loftiness and right."

"I wish I could make out why there is something familiar to me about his face and manner. I am sure I have never seen him before, and yet I seem to have a.s.sociations of some sort with him. He looks so sad and worried, too; and that very look on his face is vaguely familiar."

Christina spoke thoughtfully, her brows drawn together.

"There has been some trouble about a brother-in-law," Cicely answered.

"I know I ought to have the story at my fingers' ends, but I can't remember one single detail of it, and I don't like to tell Cousin Arthur so. Nor do I like to ask any questions. He and Cousin Ellen both look so much gloomier and more upset than they were in town. I have been wondering whether any fresh developments have occurred.

However, it isn't any real business of mine, and we will try to give the poor dears a happy time here. I must go and dress, and you are to do as I told you; put on your new frock, and come down to the drawing-room. Janet is quite able to manage Baba for one evening."

Christina's fingers shook with eagerness, as she drew from its tissue wrappings Lady Cicely's Christmas present to her--the simple, yet charming gown, which to her girlish eyes seemed the acme of all that was most lovely. Poor little girl, she had never seen herself in a dress cut low at the neck before, and though this gown was only cut in the most modest of squares, her own reflection in the gla.s.s told her that the rounded lines of her throat and neck were enhanced by the delicate lace that trimmed the soft silk of the gown, and that the dress itself, in its severely simple lines, suited admirably the slimness of her graceful young form. Her eyes shone like stars, there was a colour in her cheeks, and she had piled her dusky hair into a loose and becoming knot, on the top of her small, well-shaped head.

"I do really believe I look very nearly pretty," she said navely, nodding to herself in the mirror.

"I wish----" but she did not put her wish into words, only, as the colour deepened on her face, and she turned away from the sight of her own confusion, she found herself thinking that it was a pity Mr. Jack Layton had chosen this inopportune moment to fall ill with typhoid, and that Mr. Mernside had not been able to make one of the house party this evening. At sight of Christina, Baba, who was being prepared for bed by Janet, danced about the nursery in her pink dressing-gown, clapping her hands and chanting in a shrill monotone--

"Oh! Baba's pretty lady, Baba's pretty lady, oh!" until her nurse caught the small, soft creature in her arms, cuddling her closely and covering her laughing, rosy face with kisses.

"But you _is_ Baba's pretty lady to-night," the child said solemnly, stroking Christina's neck and face with her dimpled hands. "I like you in a white frock, and when the pink colour runs up your cheeks. Put something round your neck," she went on imperiously. "Mummy's got lots of sparkle things to put round her neck, and you must have something sparkle on your pretty white neck."

"Something sparkle on your pretty white neck." Why should she not, just for this once, wear the only piece of jewellery she possessed? As it was Christmas Day, and everything was more than usually festive, surely she might put on the lovely pendant her mother had given her?

Christina stood still in the middle of the nursery, cogitating upon the momentous question, whilst Baba danced round her, holding the pink dressing-gown well above her pink slippered feet, and shaking her golden curls whilst she chanted again--

"Oh! Baba's pretty lady; Baba's pretty lady, oh!"

"Even though I am a nurse, I am a lady, too," Christina reflected; "and Lady Cicely has given me this beautiful frock, so that I may look my best downstairs, and, my pendant would be right with the white gown. I think it wouldn't be wrong to wear it."

Her thought was quickly translated into action. Going back to the night nursery, she extracted from the bottom of her modest trunk, the box in which she kept her treasure, and drawing out the pendant on its slender chain, held it up to catch the rays of light from the hanging lamp over the chest of drawers. The great emerald shone brightly like some vividly green star, Christina thought, and the brilliants with which it was set, sparkled and scintillated in the light.

"It does look nice," the girl whispered complacently, as she clasped the chain, and saw the exquisite jewel resting against the whiteness of her neck, "and I wonder what those twisted letters A.V.C. mean?

Mother's first name was Mary, her second name was Helen, and not anything beginning with A or V, and of course I don't know what was her surname. I wonder why the initials are A.V.C."

But her speculations were of short duration, and soon forgotten in the excitement of going downstairs to join the rest of the party in the hall, after receiving Baba's bear-like good-night hug, and parting words of admiration.

"I am going to have such a very happy evening," Christina said to herself, as she went along the corridor, and stood for a moment at the top of the wide staircase, looking down into the hall below. "I didn't think I was ever in my life going to have such a happy time, as Lady Cicely lets me have, and to-night will be lovely, just lovely. And how beautiful the hall looks." Her face was bright with eagerness, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement, as she ran down the stairs, quite unaware of what a charming picture she made against the background of dark oak, in her simple white gown, with her crown of dusky hair, and the s.h.i.+ning happiness of her eyes. She was right in designating the hall as beautiful. Lighted by myriads of candles, the old walls reflected the bright armour, and the leaping flames of the huge fire that burnt on the hearth; the carpets and rugs were all of rich soft hues, that harmonised with the black oak and the s.h.i.+ning armour, and pots of bright azaleas, of roses, and of tall lilies, filled the place with colour and fragrance. Christina drew a long breath of delight, and the momentary shyness that had swept over her, when the little group by the fireplace turned to watch her descend the stairs, was dissipated when Lady Cicely put out a hand, and said kindly:

"Come close to the blaze, dear, and enjoy it. Is that monkey of mine safely in bed?"

"She is on her way there, but I left her dancing round the nursery, singing improvised songs about my clothes, and----"

Her sentence was cut short by a sharp exclamation from Sir Arthur, who, as she came near the fire at Cicely's invitation, cast a keenly enquiring glance at her, taking in each detail of her person, from the crown of her hair to the tip of the shoe just showing beneath her white gown. And when that inquisitorial glance fell upon the jewel resting on her neck, that sharp exclamation broke from him.

"How did you come by that pendant?" he questioned, the words jerked out with an abruptness totally lacking in courtesy. "Did it not strike you as rather rash to flaunt it here, in my very face?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'How did you come by that pendant?' he questioned.]

"To--flaunt--it here?" Christina said shakily, her hand going instinctively to her treasure. "I--don't understand."

"Come, come, my dear young lady," Sir Arthur answered curtly, waving Cicely aside, when she made an attempt to intervene. "You cannot--you really cannot, pretend to misunderstand my very simple question. I asked you--where did you get that pendant?"

Christina's eyes, wide with fright, and bewildered with the shock of being questioned so brusquely and severely, looked from Sir Arthur to Lady Cicely, as though appealing for help, and Cicely said quietly--

"Cousin Arthur--what does all this mean?"

"It means," he said grimly, "that your child's nurse--her _lady_ nurse--is wearing the pendant for which the police and I have been searching in vain. It means----"

"No, oh, no!" Cicely broke in. "I can't believe what you are implying.

It couldn't be true. Christina tell Sir Arthur he is making a mistake.

Tell him where your pendant comes from."

"From my mother," the girl faltered, still too taken aback by the unexpected onslaught, to be able to think clearly. "This pendant belonged to her; she gave it to me, and I----"

"Tut, tut!" Sir Arthur interrupted irritably; "it is futile to try and throw dust in our eyes in this way. That pendant is unmistakable--quite unmistakable--no one who had once seen it, could be under any delusion about it. It is unique--an heirloom in our family.

The very letters above the emerald, are initials of an ancestress of mine."

Christina stood there silently whilst the above words were hurled at her, but her face grew paler and paler, fear deepened in her eyes.

"My mother--gave it to me," she said again, when as Sir Arthur ended, there was an expectant pause, as though some explanation was demanded from her; "she gave it to me when she died--it was hers."

"Then you can, of course, tell us for what names the letters stand?"

Sir Arthur said slowly, a tinge of contempt in his voice; and because of that note of contempt, Cicely moved nearer to the shrinking girl, whose frightened, bewildered expression moved the little lady's heart to pity for her, and indignation against the angry old man.

"Cousin Arthur," she said impulsively, "it is not fair to judge Christina, before she has explained about the pendant. Everybody in this land is innocent until he is proved guilty--that is surely only the bare law," and Cicely laughed a little nervously, looking round for support to Miss Doubleday, her kindly old governess, who, also moved by pity for the accused girl, had drawn nearer to Christina.