Volume Ii Part 18 (2/2)

'Do-I shall be here all right. It amuses me more to have a quiet rubber than to be tearing all over London by night after anything in petticoats.'

'Ah, you are a philosopher.'

'I wish I could return the compliment.'

'By-the-by,' said the Baronet, changing the subject, 'did you ever hear of the curious predicament I am in?'

'What do you mean-the birth and disappearance of the baby?'

'Exactly so. You were in Italy at the time, or I should have liked to have talked it over. My lady, as you know, did me the favour to present me with a son and heir. I am not a judge of babies myself, nor am I particularly partial to them, but it was a creditable baby, so far as I can judge. I imagine its lungs were sound by the way in which it squealed. It had the regulation number of limbs, the family proboscis, and apparently the parental eyes. The women all voted it a sweet little innocent, and the image of its father.'

'That's a matter of course,' said the friend.

'Well, one day the child was missing.'

'I remember hearing of it. It was said your lady was in delicate health at the time, and the shock caused her death.'

'I believe it had something to do with it; but the fact was with all her admirable qualities she had peculiar notions, and that led to little unpleasantnesses between us at times, and she worried herself about trifles in a way I am sure that was not good for her, and I must own that when the child was missing, naturally, she was very much cut up.'

'And the father?' said the friend.

'I took it more calmly, I own. You can't expect a man of the world, like myself, to have been broken-hearted about the loss of a little bit of flesh like that. Had it lived to become a young man, and to have plagued his poor father as I plagued mine, or as most young fellows do, I should have been prostrated with grief, I dare say. As it was, I bore the loss with the heroism of a martyr, and the resignation of a saint.'

'You need not tell me that; I can quite believe it,' remarked his friend with a smile.

'Well, as I have said, her ladys.h.i.+p worried herself a good deal unnecessarily. I never can understand why women have such particular ideas. I suppose they learn them from the parson. Now, there was Lady ---' (naming the wife of a volatile premier forgotten now, but much beloved by the British public for his spirited foreign policy and his low Church bishops). 'I had the honour of dining with her ladys.h.i.+p at the time there was a little scandal afloat respecting his lords.h.i.+p's proceedings with a governess who had made her appearance in the family of one of his relatives. The thing was in the papers, and it was nonsense pretending to ignore it. Somehow or other it was incidentally alluded to.

'”Ah,” said her ladys.h.i.+p, turning to me with one of her most bewitching smiles, ”that is so like my dear old man.”

'Her ladys.h.i.+p was a sensible woman, and loved her gay Lothario not a bit the less for his little peccadilloes. I never saw a more harmonious pair. They were a model couple, and if they had gone to Dunmow for the flitch of bacon, they would have won it. I never could get my lady to look at things in such a sensible manner, and I do fear that at times she fretted herself a good deal, and we know that is bad for health. One of our nursemaids was a perfect Hebe. I could not resist the temptation. I believe some ill-natured female aroused my lady's suspicions. At any rate, one cold winter's evening she forced herself into my sanctum. I did not happen to be alone. Hebe, as I called her, was with me. We had a scene. I took the mail train that same night to Paris. The poor girl, I understand, was turned out of the house the moment I had gone. My opinion is she stole that baby out of revenge. It was missing about a month after. I must own her ladys.h.i.+p took every step she could to prove that the girl had stolen the child. We had detectives hard at work, and when the child was restored in a mysterious way, the matter dropped.

Then, alas! the child died, and the mother too. That was many years ago, and from that day to this I never have been able to hear anything of the woman. The child is buried in the family vault, but I have been much troubled lately.'

'As how?'

'Why, suppose the child is not dead. That the one restored was someone else's. That I have a son and heir suddenly about to be sprung upon me, at an inconvenient season. That would be awkward, to say the least.'

'D--- awkward,' was the sympathetic reply.

'Suppose, for the sake of argument, I were to marry again, and have a family, and another son and heir, and a claimant came forward for the family t.i.tle and estate.'

'Ah, that would be a nice business for the lawyers, and a G.o.dsend for the newspapers.'

'Undoubtedly, but a bad one for everyone else, especially if the costs were to come out of the estate.'

'Well, the lawyers would have to be paid.'

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