That Stick Part 34

'I don't wonder!'

'And--and I never would listen to you and Mary about poor Ida. I let her idle and dress, and read all those novels, and it is out of them she got that monstrous notion. You little know what I have gone through with that girl, Frank, so different from the other two. Oh! if I could only begin over again!'

'Perhaps,' said Frank, full of pity, 'this terrible shock may open her eyes, and by G.o.d's blessing be the beginning of better things.'

'Oh, Frank, you are a perfect angel ever to bear the sight of us again!'

cried the poor woman, ever violent in her feelings and demonstrations.

'Hark! What's that?--I can't see any one.'

'Please, ma'am, it's Miss Rollstone, with a letter for his Lords.h.i.+p.'

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII THE CLUE

'BEST OF ROSES,--

'I don't know where my uncle is, so please send him this. I got to Toronto all right, and had not much trouble in finding out the steady-going Jones, who is rather a swell, chief mate on board the _British Empress_. He was a good deal taken aback by my story, and said that his brother had come out with his wife, but no child. It was quite plain that he was a good deal disappointed in the Rattler, and not at all prepared for Mrs. Louisa, whom neither he nor his wife admired at all, at all. He had got his brother a berth on a summer steamer that had just been set up on Lake Winnipeg--being no doubt glad to get rid of such an enc.u.mbrance as the wife, and he looked very blue when he heard that I was quite certain that she had taken the kid away with her, and been paid for it. There was nothing for it but to go after them, and find out from them what they had done with poor little Mite. He is a right good fellow, and would have gone with me, but that he is bound to his boat, and a stunner she is; but he gave me a letter to Sam, so I had to get on the Canadian Pacific Railway, so that I should have been nonplussed but for your loan. Splendid places it goes through, you never saw such trees, nor such game.

'As good luck would have it, I was in the same car with an Englishman--a gentleman, one could see with half an eye, and we fraternised, so that I told him what I was come about. He was awfully good-natured, and told me he lived a mile or two out of Winnipeg, and had a share in the steam company, and if I found any difficulty I was to come to him, Mr. Forman, at Northmoor. I stared at the name, as you may guess! There was a fine horse and buggy waiting for him at the station, and off he went. I put up at the hotel--there's sure to be that whatever there is not--and went after the Joneses next. I got at the woman first, she looked ill and f.a.gged, as if she didn't find life with Rattler very jolly. She cried bucketsful, and said she didn't know anything, since she put the poor little Mite to sleep after supper in a public-house at Liverpool. She was dead tired, and when she woke he was gone, and her husband swore at her, and never would tell her what he had done with the boy, except that he had not hurt him. Then I interviewed Sam Rattler himself. He cut up rough, as he said my Lord had done him an ill turn, and he had the game in his hands now, and was not going to let him know what was become of his child, without he came down handsome enough to make up for what he had done him out of. So then I had to go off to Mr. Forman. He has such a place, a house such as any one might be delighted to have--pine trees behind, a garden in front, no end of barns and stables, with houses and cows, fine wheat fields spreading all round, such as would do your heart good. That is what Mr. Forman and his brother-in-law, Captain Alder, have made, and there's a sweet little lady as ever you saw, Alder's sister. The Captain was greatly puzzled to hear it was Lord Northmoor's son I was looking for. He is not up in the peerage like your father, you see, and I had to make him understand. He thought Lord N. must be either the old man, or Lady Adela's little boy. He said some of his happiest days had been at Northmoor, and he asked after Lady Adela, and if Miss Morton was married. He came with me, and soon made Mr. Rattler change his note, by showing him that it would be easy to give him the sack, even if he was not laid hold of by the law on my information for stealing the child. They are both magistrates and could do it. So at last the fellow growled out that he wasn't going to be troubled with another man's brat, and just before embarking, he had laid it down asleep at the door of Liverpool Workhouse! So no doubt poor little Michael is there! I would have telegraphed at once; but I don't know where my uncle is, or whether he knows about it, but you can find out and send him this letter at once. I have asked him to pay your advance out of my quarter; and as to the rest of it, it is all owing to you that the poor little kid is not to grow up a pauper.

'I am staying on at Northmoor--it sounds natural; they want another hand for their harvesting, so I am working out my board, as is the way here, at any rate till I hear from my uncle, and I shall ask him to let me stay here for good as a farming-pupil. It would suit me ever so much better than the militia, even if I could get into it, which I suppose I haven't done. It is a splendid country, big enough to stretch oneself in, and I shall never stand being cramped up in an island after it; besides that I don't want to see Ida again in a hurry, though there is some one I should like no end to see again.

There, I must not say any more, but send this on to my uncle. I wish I could see his face. I did look to bring Mite back to him, but that can't be, as I have not tin enough to carry me home. I hope your loan has not got you into a sc.r.a.pe.

'Yours ever (I mean it), 'H. MORTON.'

The letter to Lord Northmoor, which the servant put into his hand, was shorter, and began with the more important sentence--'The rascal dropped Michael at Liverpool Workhouse.'

The father read it with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of 'Thank G.o.d,' the aunt answered with a cry of horror, so that he thought for a moment she had supposed he said 'dropped him into the sea,' and repeated 'Liverpool Workhouse.'

'Oh, yes, yes; but that is so dreadful. The Honourable Michael Morton in a workhouse!'

'He is safe and well taken care of there, no doubt,' said Frank. 'I have no fears now. There are much worse places than the nurseries of those great unions.' Then, as he read on, 'There, Emma, your boy has acted n.o.bly. He has fully retrieved what his sister has done. Be happy over that, dear sister, and be thankful with me. My Mary, my Mary, will the joy be too much? Oh, my boy! How soon can I reach Liverpool? There, you will like to read it. I must go and thank that good girl who found him the means.'

He was gone, and found Rose in the act of reading her letter aloud (all but certain bits, that made her falter as if the writing was bad) to her parents and Mr. Deyncourt. And there, in full a.s.sembly, he found himself at a loss for words. No one was so much master of the situation as Mr.

Rollstone.

'My Lord, I have the honour to congratulate your Lords.h.i.+p,' he said, with a magnificence only marred by his difficulty in rising.

'I--I,' stammered his Lords.h.i.+p, with an unexpected choke in his throat, 'have to congratulate you, Mr. Rollstone, on having such a daughter.'

Then, grasping Rose's hand as in a vice, 'Miss Rollstone, what we owe to you--is past expression.'

'I am sure she is very happy, my Lord, to have been of service,' said her mother, with a simper.

Mr. Deyncourt, to relieve the tension of feeling, said, 'Miss Rollstone was reading the letter about Mr. Morton's adventures. Would you not like her to begin again?'

And while Rose obeyed, Lord Northmoor was able to extract his cheque-book from his pocket-book, and as Rose paused, to say--

'I have a debt of which my nephew reminds me. Miss Rollstone furnished the means for his journey. Will you let me fill this up? This can be repaid,' he added, with a smile, 'the rest, never.'

Mr. Rollstone might have been distressed at the venture on which his daughter's savings had gone; but he was perfectly happy and triumphant now, except that, even more than Mrs. Morton, he suffered from the idea of the Honourable Michael being exposed to the contamination of a workhouse, and was shocked at his Lords.h.i.+p's thinking it would have been worse for him to be with the Rattler. Then, hastily looking at his watch, Lord Northmoor asked when the post went out, and hearing there was but half an hour to spare, begged Mr. Deyncourt to let him lose no time by giving him the wherewithal to write to his wife.

'She would miss a note and be uneasy,' he said. 'Yet I hardly know what I dare tell her. Only not mourning paper!' he added, with an exultant smile.

In the curate's room he wrote--

'DEAREST WIFE,--

'I have been out all day, and have only a moment to say that I am quite well, and trust to have some most thankworthy news for you.

Don't be uneasy if you do not hear to-morrow.--Your own

'FRANK.'

There was still time to scribble--

'DEAR LADY ADELA,--

'I trust to you to prepare Mary for well-nigh incredible joy, but do not agitate her too soon. I cannot come till Friday afternoon.

'Yours gratefully, 'NORTHMOOR.'

Having sent this off, his next search was for a time-table. He would fain have gone by the mail train that very night, but Mr. Deyncourt and Mrs. Morton united in persuading him that his strength was not yet equal to such a pull upon it, and he yielded. They hardly knew the man, usually so equable and quiet as to be almost stolid.

He smiled, and declared he could neither eat nor sleep, but he actually did both, sleeping, indeed, better and longer than he had done since his illness, and coming down in the morning a new man, as he called himself, but the old one still in his kindness to Mrs. Morton. He promised to telegraph to her as soon as he knew all was well, a.s.sured her that he would do his best to keep the scandal out of the papers, that he would never forget his obligations to Herbert's generosity, and that if she made up her mind to leave Westhaven he would facilitate her so doing.

Ida was not up. She had had a very bad night, and indeed she had confessed that she had been miserable under dreams worse than waking, ever since the child was carried off. Her mother had observed her restlessness and nervousness, but had set a good deal down to love, and perhaps had not been entirely wrong. At any rate, she was now really ill, and could not bear the thought of seeing her uncle, though he sent a message to her that now he did not find it nearly so hard to forgive her, and that he felt for her with all his heart.

It was this gentleness that touched Mrs. Morton above all. Years had softened her; perhaps, too, his patience, and the higher tone of Mr.

Deyncourt's ministry, and she was, in many respects, a different woman from her who had so loudly protested against his marrying Mary Marshall.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX THE HONOURABLE PAUPER

Lord Northmoor's card was given to the porter with an urgent request for an interview with the Master of the workhouse.

He steadied his voice with difficulty when, on entering the office, he said that he had come to make inquiry after his son, a child of three and a half years old, who had been supposed to be drowned, but he had now discovered had been stolen by a former nurse, and left at the gate of the workhouse, and as the Master paused with an interrogative 'Yes, my Lord?'

he added--'On the night between the Wednesday and Thursday of Whitsun week, May the--'

'Children are so often left,' said the Master. 'I will ascertain from the books as to the date.'

After an interval really of scarcely a minute, but which might have been hours to the father's feeling, he read--

'May 18th.--Boy, of apparently four years old, left on the steps, asleep, apparently drugged.'