Through the wind and rain of the wintry storm, Lady Thetford was driven to the station, in time to catch the three-fifty train to the metropolis. She went unattended; with no message to any one, only saying she would be back in three days at the furthest.
In that dull household, where so few events ever disturbed the stagnant quiet, this sudden journey produced an indescribable sensation. What could have taken my lady to London at a moment"s notice? Some urgent reason it must have been to force her out of the gloomy seclusion in which she had buried herself since her husband"s death. But, discuss it as they might, they could come no nearer the heart of the mystery.
CHAPTER VI.
GUY.
The rainy December day closed in a rainier night. Another day dawned on the world, sunless, and chilly, and overcast still.
It dawned on London in murky, yellow fog, on sloppy, muddy streets--in gloom and dreariness, and a raw, easterly wind. In the densely populated streets of the district of Lambeth, where poverty huddled in tall, gaunt buildings, the dismal light stole murkily and slowly over the crowded, filthy streets and swarming purlieus.
In a small upper room of a large dilapidated house, this bad December morning, a painter stood at his easel. The room was bare and cold, and comfortless in the extreme; the painter was middle-aged, small, brown and shriveled, and very much out at elbows. The dull, gray light fell full on his work--no inspiration of genius by any means--only the portrait, coa.r.s.ely colored, of a fat, well-to-do butcher"s daughter round the corner. The man was Joseph Legard, scene-painter to one of the minor city theatres, who eked out his slender income by painting portraits when he could get them to paint. He was as fond of his art as any of the great, old masters; but he had only one attribute in common with those immortals--extreme poverty; for his salary was not large, and Mr. Legard found it a tight fit, indeed, to "make both ends meet."
So he stood over his work this dull morning, however, in his fireless room, with a cheerful, brown face, whistling a tune. In the adjoining room he could hear his wife"s voice raised shrilly, and the cries of half a dozen Legards. He was used to it, and it did not disturb him; and he painted and whistled cheerily, touching up the butcher"s daughter"s snub nose and fat cheeks and double chin, until light footsteps came running up-stairs, and the door was flung wide by an impetuous hand. A boy of ten, or thereabouts, came in--a bright-eyed, fair-haired lad, with a handsome, resolute face, and eyes of cloudless, Saxon blue.
"Ah, Guy!" said the scene-painter, turning round and nodding good-humoredly. "I"ve been expecting you! What do you think of Miss Jenkins?"
The boy looked at the picture with the glance of an embryo connoisseur.
"It"s as like her as two peas, Joe; or would be, if her hair was a little redder, and her nose a little thicker, and the freckles were plainer. But it looks like her as it is."
"Well, you see, Guy," said the painter, going on with Miss Jenkins"s left eyebrow, "it don"t do to make "em too true--people don"t like it; they pay their money, and they expect to take it out in good looks. And now, any news this morning, Guy?"
The boy leaned against the window and looked out into the dingy street, his bright, young face growing gloomy and overcast.
"No," he said, moodily; "there is no news, except that Phil Darking was drunk last night, and savage as a mad dog this morning--and that"s no news, I"m sure!"
"And n.o.body"s come about the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Times_?"
"No, and never will. It"s all humbug what granny says about my belonging to anybody rich; if I did, they"d have seen after me long ago. Phil says my mother was a house-maid, and my father a valet--and they were only too glad to get me off their hands. Vyking was a valet, granny says she knows; and it"s not likely he"ll turn up after all these years. I don"t care, I"d rather go to the work-house; I"d rather starve in the streets, than live another week with Phil Darking."
The blue eyes filled with tears, and he dashed them pa.s.sionately away.
The painter looked up with a distressed face.
"Has he been beating you again, Guy?"
"It"s no matter--he"s a brute! Granny and Ellen are sorry, and do what they can; but that"s nothing. I wish I had never been born!"
"It is hard," said the painter, compa.s.sionately, "but keep up heart, Guy; if the worst comes, why you can stop here and take pot-luck with the rest--not that that"s much better than starvation. You can take to my business shortly, now; and you"ll make a better scene-painter than ever I could. You"ve got it in you."
"Do you really think so, Joe?" cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. "Do you? I"d rather be an artist than a king----Halloo!"
He stopped short in surprise, staring out of the window. Legard looked.
Up the dirty street came a handsome cab, and stopped at their own door.
The driver alighted, made some inquiry, then opened the cab-door, and a lady stepped lightly out on the curb-stone--a lady, tall and stately, dressed in black and closely veiled.
"Now, who can this visitor be for?" said Legard. "People in this neighborhood ain"t in the habit of having morning calls made on them in cabs. She"s coming up-stairs!"
He held the door open, listening. The lady ascended the first flight of stairs, stopped on the landing, and inquired of some one for "Mrs.
Martha Brand."
"For granny!" exclaimed the boy. "Joe, I shouldn"t wonder if it was some one about that advertis.e.m.e.nt, after all!"
"Neither should I," said Legard. "There! she"s gone in. You"ll be sent for directly, Guy!"
Yes, the lady had gone in. She had encountered on the landing a sickly young woman with a baby in her arms, who had stared at the name she inquired for.
"Mrs. Martha Brand? Why, that"s mother! Walk in this way, if you please, ma"am."
She opened the door, and ushered the veiled lady into a small, close room, poorly furnished. Over a smouldering fire, mending stockings, sat an old woman, who, notwithstanding the extreme shabbiness and poverty of her dress, lifted a pleasant, intelligent old face.
"A lady to see you, mother," said the young woman, hushing her fretful baby and looking curiously at the veiled face.
But the lady made no attempt to raise the envious screen, not even when Mrs. Martha Brand got up, dropping a respectful little servant"s courtesy and placing a chair. It was a very thick veil--an impenetrable shield--and nothing could be discovered of the face behind it but that it was fixedly pale. She sank into the seat, her face turned to the old woman behind that sable screen.
"You are Mrs. Brand?"
The voice was refined and patrician. It would have told she was a lady, even if the rich garments she wore did not.
"Yes, ma"am--your ladyship; Martha Brand."
"And you inserted that advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Times_ regarding a child left in your care ten years ago?"
Mother and daughter started, and stared at the speaker.
"It was addressed to Mr. Vyking, who left the child in your charge, by which I infer you are not aware that he has left England."
"Left England, has he?" said Mrs. Brand. "More shame for him, then, never to let me know or leave a farthing to support the boy!"
"I am inclined to believe it was not his fault," said the clear, patrician voice. "He left England suddenly and against his will, and, I have reason to think, will never return. But there are others interested--more interested than he could possibly be--in the child, who remain, and who are willing to take him off your hands. But first, why is it you are so anxious, after keeping him all these years, to get rid of him?"
"Well, you see, your ladyship," replied Martha Brand, "it is not me, nor likewise Ellen there, who is my daughter. We"d keep the lad and welcome, and share the last crust we had with him, as we often have--for we"re very poor people; but, you see, Ellen, she"s married now, and her husband never could bear Guy--that"s what we call him, your ladyship--Guy, which it was Mr. Vyking"s own orders. Phil Darking, her husband, never did like him somehow; and when he gets drunk, saving your ladyship"s presence, he beats him most unmercifully. And now we"re going to America--to New York, where Phil"s got a brother and work is better, and he won"t fetch Guy. So, your ladyship, I thought I"d try once more before we deserted him, and put that advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Times_, which I"m very glad I did, if it will fetch the poor lad any friends."
There was a moment"s pause; then the lady asked, thoughtfully: "And when do you leave for New York?"
"The day after to-morrow, ma"am--and a long journey it is for a poor old body like me."
"Did you live here when Mr. Vyking left the child with you--in this neighborhood?"
"Not in this neighborhood, nor in London at all, your ladyship. It was Lowdean, in Berkshire, and my husband was alive at the time. I had just lost my baby, and the landlady of the hotel recommended me. So he brought it, and paid me thirty sovereigns, and promised me thirty more every twelvemonth, and told me to call it Guy Vyking--and that was the last I ever saw of him."
"And the infant"s mother?" said the lady, her voice changing perceptibly--"do you know anything of her?"
"But very little," said Martha Brand, shaking her head. "I never set eyes on her, although she was sick at the inn for upward of three weeks.