Part 52 (2/2)
”Everybody is welcome to her at all hours, except me. That lady said it was because I interrupted her flirtation. Aha! well, I shan't interrupt her flirtation much longer. I shan't be in her way or anybody's long. A few short hours, and this bitter day will be forgotten, and nothing left me but the memory of the kindness she had for me once, or seemed to have, and the angel face I must carry in my heart wherever I go, by land or sea. The sea? would to G.o.d I was upon it this minute! I'd rather be at sea than ash.o.r.e in the dirtiest night that ever blew.”
He had been walking to and fro a good half-hour, deeply dejected and turning bitter, when, looking in accidentally at the hall door, he caught sight of Mrs. Wilson sitting all alone where he had left her.
”Why, what on earth is the meaning of that?” thought he; and he went into the hall and asked Mrs. Wilson how she came to be there all alone.
”That is what I have been asking myself a while past,” was the dry reply.
”Have you not seen her?”
”No, sir, I have not seen her, and, to my mind, it is doubtful whether I am to see her.”
”But I say you shall see her.”
”No, no, don't put yourself out, sir,” said the woman, carelessly; ”I dare say I shall have better luck next time, if I should ever come to this house again, which it is not very likely.” She added gently, ”Young folk are thoughtless; we must not judge them too hardly.”
”Thoughtless they may be, but they have no business to be heartless. I have a great mind to go up and fetch her down.”
”Don't ye trouble, sir. It is not worth while putting you about for an old woman like me.” Then suddenly dropping the mask of nonchalance which women of this cla.s.s often put on to hide their sensibility, she said, very, very gravely, and with a sad dignity, that one would not have expected from her gossip and her finery, ”I begin to fear, sir, that the child I have suckled does not care to know me now she is a woman grown.”
David dashed up the stairs with a red streak on his brow. He burst into the drawing-room, and there sat Mrs. Bazalgette overlooking, and Lucy working with a face of beautiful calm. She looked just then so very like a pure, tranquil Madonna making an altar-cloth, or something, that David's intention to give her a scolding was withered in the bud, and he gazed at her surprised and irresolute, and said not a word.
”Anything the matter?” inquired Mrs. Bazalgette, attracted by the bruskness of his entry.
”Yes, there is,” said David sternly.
Lucy looked up.
”Miss Fountain's old nurse has been sitting in the hall more than half an hour, and n.o.body has had the politeness to go near her.”
”Oh, is that all? Well, don't look daggers at me. There is Lucy; give her a lesson in good-breeding, Mr. Dodd.” This was said a little satirically, and rather nettled David.
”Perhaps it does not become me to set up for a teacher of that. I know my own deficiencies as well as anybody in this house knows them; but this I know, that, if an old friend walked eight miles to see me, it would not be good-breeding in me to refuse to walk eight yards to see her. And, another thing, everybody's time is worth something; if I did not mean to see her, I would have that much consideration to send down and tell her so, and not keep the woman wasting her time as well as her trouble, and vexing her heart into the bargain.”
”Where is she, Mr. Dodd?” asked Lucy quickly.
”Where is she?” cried David, getting louder and louder. ”Why, she is cooling her heels in the hall this half hour and more. They hadn't the manners to show her into a room.”
”I will go to her, Mr. Dodd,” said Lucy, turning a little pale. ”Don't be angry; I will go directly”; and, having said this with an abject slavishness that formed a miraculous contrast with her late crossness and imperious chilliness, she put down her work hastily and went out; only at the door she curved her throat, and cast back, Parthian-like, a glance of timid reproach, as much as to say, ”Need you have been so very harsh with a creature so obedient as this is?”
That deprecating glance did Mr. Dodd's business. It shot him with remorse, and made him feel a brute.
”Ha! ha! That is the way to speak to her, Mr. Dodd; the other gentlemen spoil her.”
”It was very unbecoming of me to speak to her harshly like that.”
”Pooh! nonsense; these girls like to be ordered about; it saves them the trouble of thinking for themselves; but what is to become of me?
You have sent off my workwoman.”
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