Part 30 (1/2)

It was a lovely evening of late summer. The square in which she lived was cool and quiet, for very few of its inhabitants had come back from their summer excursions. Away in the distance, beyond the leafy common, she could hear the subdued roar of the city, but on the brick pavements about her there was scarcely a footfall.

The window at which she sat faced the south. In winter her son's room was flooded with sunlight, but in summer the branching elm outside put forth a kindly screen of leaves to s.h.i.+eld it from the too oppressive heat. Her glance wandered between the delicate lace curtains, swaying to and fro, to this old elm that seemed a member of her family. How much her son loved it,--and with an indulgent thought of Vesper's pa.s.sion for the natives of the outdoor world, a disagreeable recollection of the Acadien woman's child leaped into her mind.

How absurdly fond of trees and flowers he had been, and what a fanciful, unnatural child he was, altogether. She had never liked him, and he had never liked her, and she wrinkled her brows at the distasteful remembrance of him.

A knock at the half-open door distracted her attention, and, languidly turning her head, she said, ”What is it, Henry?”

”It's a young woman, Mis' Nimmo,” replied that ever alert and demure colored boy, ”what sometimes brings you photographs. She come in a hack with a girl.”

”Let her come up. She may leave the girl below.”

”I guess that girl ain't a girl, Mis' Nimmo,--she looks mighty like a boy. She's the symbol of the little feller in the French place I took you to.”

Mrs. Nimmo gave him a rebuking glance. ”Let the girl remain down-stairs.”

”Madame,” said a sudden voice, ”this is now Boston,--where is the Englishman?”

Mrs. Nimmo started from her chair. Here was the French child himself, standing calmly before her in the twilight, his small body habited in ridiculous and disfiguring girl's clothes, his cropped curly head and white face appearing above an absurd kind of grayish yellow cloak.

”Narcisse!” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

”Madame,” said the faint yet determined little voice, ”is the Englishman in his house?”

Mrs. Nimmo's glance fell upon Henry, who was standing open-mouthed and grotesque, and with a gesture she sent him from the room.

Narcisse, exhausted yet eager, had started on a tour of investigation about the room, holding up with one hand the girl's trappings, which considerably hampered his movements, and clutching something to his breast with the other. He had found the house of the Englishman and his mother, and by sure tokens he recognized his recent presence in this very room. Here were his books, his gloves, his cap, and, best of all, another picture of him; and, with a cry of delight, he dropped on a footstool before a full-length portrait of the man he adored. Here he would rest: his search was ended; and meekly surveying Mrs. Nimmo, he murmured, ”Could Narcisse have a gla.s.s of milk?”

Mrs. Nimmo's emotions at present all seemed to belong to the order of the intense. She had never before been so troubled; she had never before been so bewildered. What did the presence of this child under her roof mean? Was his mother anywhere near? Surely not,--Rose would never clothe her comely child in those shabby garments of the other s.e.x.

She turned her puzzled face to the doorway, and found an answer to her questions in the presence of an anxious-faced young woman there, who said, apologetically, ”He got away from me; he's been like a wild thing to get here. Do you know him?”

”Know him? Yes, I have seen him before.”

The anxious-faced young woman breathed a sigh of relief. ”I thought, maybe, I'd been taken in. I was just closing up the studio, an hour ago, when two men came up the stairs with this little fellow wrapped in an old coat. They said they were from a schooner called the _Nancy Jane_, down at one of the wharves, and they picked up this boy in a drifting boat on the Bay Saint-Mary two days ago. They said he was frightened half out of his senses, and was holding on to that photo in his hand,--show the lady, dear.”

Narcisse, whose tired head was nodding sleepily on his breast, paid no attention to her request, so she gently withdrew one of his hands from under his cloak and exhibited in it a torn and stained photograph of Vesper.

Mrs. Nimmo caught her breath, and attempted to take it from him, but he quickly roused himself, and, placing it beneath him, rolled over on the floor, and, with a farewell glance at the portrait above, fell sound asleep.

”He's beat out,” said the anxious-faced young woman. ”I'm glad I've got him to friends. The sailors were awful glad to get rid of him. They kind of thought he was a French child from Nova Scotia, but they hadn't time to run back with him, for they had to hurry here with their cargo, and then he held on to the photo and said he wanted to be taken to that young man. The sailors saw our address on it, but they sort of mis...o...b..ed we wouldn't keep him. However, I thought I'd take him off their hands, for he was frightened to death they would carry him back to their vessel, though I guess they was kind enough to him. I gave them back their coat, and borrowed some things from the woman who takes care of our studio. I forgot to say the boy had only a night-dress on when they found him.”

Mrs. Nimmo mechanically felt in her pocket for her purse. ”They didn't say anything about a woman being with him?”

”No, ma'am; he wouldn't talk to them much, but they said it was likely a child's trick of getting in a boat and setting himself loose.”

”Would you--would you care to keep him until he is sent for?” faltered Mrs. Nimmo.

”I--oh, no, I couldn't. I've only a room in a lodging-house. I'd be afraid of something happening to him, for I'm out all day. I offered him something to eat, but he wouldn't take it--oh, thank you, ma'am, I didn't spend all that. I guess I'll have to go. Does he come from down East?”

”Yes, he is French. My son visited his house this summer, and used to pet him a good deal.”

The young woman cast a glance of veiled admiration at the portrait. ”And the little one ran away to find him. Quite a story. He's cute, too,”