Part 35 (1/2)

”Well, little girl,” she said, ”you are late in paying me your visit this morning?”

”It was very wrong of you, mother, not to send for me when you were so ill last night,” I answered.

”Oh, that time,” said mother, ”it seems ages off already, and I am quite as well as usual. I have got a kind nurse to look after me now.

Nurse Marion, come here.”

I could not help giving a visible start. Were things so bad with mother that she required the services of a trained nurse? A comely, sweet-faced, young woman of about thirty years of age, now approached from her seat behind the curtain.

”The doctor sent me in, Miss Wickham; he thought your mother would be the better for constant care for two or three days.”

”I am very glad you have come,” I answered.

”Oh, it is so nice,” said mother; ”Nurse Marion has made me delightfully comfortable; and is not the room sweet with that delicious old-fas.h.i.+oned lavender she uses, and with all those spring flowers?”

”I have opened the window, too,” said the nurse, ”the more air the dear lady gets the better for her; but now, Miss Wickham, I cannot allow your mother to talk. Will you come back again; or, if you stay, will you be very quiet?”

”As you are here to look after mother I will come back again,” I said.

I bent down, kissed the lily white hand which lay on the counterpane, and rushed from the room. Stabs of agony were going through my heart, and yet I must not give way!

I ran upstairs, and knocked at Mrs. Fanning's door. As Albert Fanning was out, I was determined to see her. There was no reply to my summons, and after a moment I opened the door and looked in. The room was empty. I went to my own room, sat down for a moment, and tried to consider how things were tending with me, and what the end would be.

Rather than mother should suffer another pang, I would marry Albert Fanning. But must it come to this!

I put on my outdoor things, and ran downstairs. The closeness and oppression of the day before had changed into a most balmy and delicious spring morning; a sort of foretaste day of early summer. I was reckless, my purse was very light, but what did that matter. I stopped a hansom, got into it, and gave the man Albert Fanning's address in Paternoster Row. Was I mad to go to him--to beard the lion in his den? I did not know; I only knew that sane or mad, I must do what I had made up my mind to do.

The hansom bowled smoothly along, and I sat back in the farthest corner, and tried to hope that no one saw me. A pale, very slender, very miserable girl was all that they would have seen; the grace gone from her, the beauty all departed; a sort of wreck of a girl, who had made a great failure of her life, and of the happiness of those belonging to her. Oh, if only the past six or eight months could be lived over again, how differently would I have spent them! The cottage in the country seemed now to be a sort of paradise. If only I could take mother to it, I would be content to be buried away from the eyes of the world for evermore. But mother was dying; there would be no need soon for any of us to trouble about her future, for G.o.d Himself was taking it into His own hands, and had prepared for her a mansion, and an unfading habitation.

I scarcely dared think of this. Be the end long, or be the end short, during the remaining days or weeks of her existence, she must not be worried, she must go happily, securely, confidently, down to the Valley. That was the thought, the only thought which stayed with me, as I drove as fast as I could in the direction of Mr. Fanning's place of business.

The cab was not allowed to go up the Row, so I paid my fare at the entrance, and then walked to my destination. I knew the number well, for Albert had mentioned it two or three times in my hearing, having indeed often urged me to go and see him. I stopped therefore at the right place, looked up, saw the name of Albert Fanning in huge letters across the window, opened the door and entered. I found myself in a big, book saloon, and going up to a man asked if Mr. Fanning were in.

The man was one of those smart sort of clerks, who generally know everybody's business but their own. He looked me all over in a somewhat quizzical way, and then said--

”Have you an appointment, miss?”

”I have not,” I replied.

”Our chief, Mr. Fanning, never sees ladies without appointments.”

”I think he will see me,” I answered, ”he happens to know me. Please say that Miss Westenra Wickham has called to see him.”

The clerk stared at me for a moment.

”Miss West! what Wickham Miss? Perhaps you wouldn't mind writing it down.”

I did not want to write down my name, but I did so; I gave it to the clerk, who withdrew, smiling to a brother clerk as he did so. He came back in a minute or two, looking rather red about the face, and went back to his seat without approaching me, and at the same time I heard heavy, ungainly steps rus.h.i.+ng downstairs, and Mr. Fanning, in his office coat, which was decidedly shabby, and almost as greasy as the one which belonged to the ”Man in Possession” on the previous evening, entered the saloon. His hair stood wildly up on his head, and his blue eyes were full of excitement. He came straight up to me.

”I say, this is a pleasure,” he exclaimed, ”and quite unlooked for.

Pray, come upstairs at once, Miss Wickham. I am delighted to see you--delighted. Understand, Parkins,” he said, addressing the clerk who had brought my message, ”that I am engaged for the present, absolutely engaged, and can see _no one_. Now, Miss Wickham, now.”

He ushered me as if I were a queen through the saloon, past the wondering and almost t.i.ttering clerks, and up some winding stairs to his own sanctum on the first floor.