Part 48 (1/2)

The cage of the puma.

Marway was a fine, handsome fellow, whose manners, where he saw reason, soon won him favour, and two of the young men in the office were his ready slaves. Every moment of the next day Clare was watched. Marway had laid his plans, and would forestall frustration. Clare could hardly do anything before the dinner-hour, but Marway would make a.s.surance double sure.

At anchor in the roads lay a certain frigate, whose duty it was to sail round the islands, like a duck about her floating brood. Among the young officers on board were two with whom Marway was intimate. He had met them the night before, and they had together laid a plot for nullifying Clare's interference with Marway's scheme--which his friends also had reason to wish successful, for Marway owed them both money. Clare had come in the way of all three.

Now little Ann was a guardian cherub to the object of their enmity, and he and she must first of all be separated. Clare had asked leave of Miss Shotover to take the child to Noah's ark, as she called it, that evening, and Marway had learned it from her: Clare's going would favour their plan, but the child's presence would render it impracticable.

One thing in their favour was, that Mr. Shotover was from home. If Clare had resolved on telling him rather than the admiral, he could not until the next evening, and that would give them abundant time. On the other hand, having him watched, they could easily prevent him from finding the admiral. But Clare had indeed come to the just conclusion that his master had the first right to know what he had to tell. His object was not the exposure of Marway, but the protection of his master's daughter: he would, therefore, wait Mr. Shotover's return.

He said to himself also, that Marway would thereby have a chance to bethink himself, and, like Hamlet's uncle, ”try what repentance can.”

As soon as he had put the bank in order for the night, he went to find his little companion, and take her to Noah's ark. The child had been sitting all the morning and afternoon in a profound stillness of expectation; but the hour came and pa.s.sed, and Clare did not appear.

”You never, never, never came,” she said to him afterward. ”I had to go to bed, and the beasts went away.”

It was many long weeks before she told him this, or her solemn little visage smiled again.

He went to the little room off the hall, where he almost always found her waiting for him, dressed to go. She was not there. n.o.body came. He grew impatient, and ran in his eagerness up the front stair. At the top he met the butler coming from the drawing-room--a respectable old man, who had been in the family as long as his master.

”Pardon me, Mr. Porson,” said the butler, who was especially polite to Clare, recognizing in him the enn.o.blement of his own order, ”but it is against the rules for any of the gentlemen below to come up this staircase.”

”I know I'm in the wrong,” answered Clare; ”but I was in such a hurry I ventured this once. I've been waiting for Miss Ann twenty minutes.”

”If you will go down, I will make inquiry, and let you know directly,”

replied the butler.

Clare went down, and had not waited more than another minute when the butler brought the message that the child was not to go out. In vain Clare sought an explanation; the old man knew nothing of the matter, but confessed that Miss Shotover seemed a little put out.

Then Clare saw that his desire to do justice had thwarted his endeavour: Marway had seen Miss Shotover, he concluded, and had so thoroughly prejudiced her against anything he might say, that she had already taken the child from him! He repented that he had told him his purpose before he was ready to follow it up with immediate action. Distressed at the thought of little Ann's disappointment, he set out for the show, glad in the midst of his grief, that he was going to see Pummy once more.

The weather had been a little cloudy all day, but as he left the closer part of the town, the vaporous vault gave way, and the west revealed a glorious sunset. Troubled for the trouble of little Ann, Clare seemed drawn into the sunset. The splendour said to him: ”Go on; sorrow is but a cloud. Do the work given you to do, and the clouds will keep moving; stop your work and the clouds will settle down hard.”

”When I was on the tramp,” thought Clare, ”I always went on, and that's how I came here. If I hadn't gone on, I should never have found the darling!”

As little as during any day's tramp did he know how his reflection was going to be justified.

He wandered on, and the minutes pa.s.sed slowly: it was wandering now with no child in his arms! He was in no haste to go to the menagerie; he would be in good time for the beasts; and the later he was, the sooner he would see his mother alone and have a talk with her!

At last, it being now quite dark, he turned, and made for the caravans.

A crowd was going up the steps, pa.s.sing Mrs. Halliwell slowly, and descending into the area surrounded by the beasts. Clare went up, and laid his money on the little white table. The good woman took it with a smile, threw it in her wooden bowl, and handed him, as if it had been his change, three bright sovereigns. Clare turned his face away. He could not take them. He felt as if it would break one bond between them.

”The money's your own!” she said, in a low voice.

”By and by, mother!” he answered.

”No, no, take it now,” she insisted, in an almost angry whisper; but the same moment threw the sovereigns among the silver, and some coppers that lay on the table over them.