"Very like, ma"am--very like, indeed--because, I think, I forgot to mention my name to her," he drawled pleasantly. "I"ve taken a deal of trouble--I have--to find you out, ma"am, and two hundred and forty-five miles here, ma"am, and the same back again--a journey of four hundred and ninety miles--is not just nothing. I"m glad to see you, ma"am--happy to find you in your drawing-room, ma"am--hope you find yourself as well, ma"am, as your numerous friends could wish you. My name, ma"am, is Levi, being junior governor of the firm of Goldshed and Levi, well known on "Change, ma"am, and justly appreciated by a large circle of friends, as you may read upon this card."
The card which he tendered did not, it must be allowed, speak of these admiring friends, but simply announced that "Goldshed and Levi" were "Stockbrokers," pursuing their calling at "Offices--10, Scroop Street, Gimmel Lane," in the City. And having held this card before her eyes for a sufficient time, he put it into his pocket.
"You see, ma"am, I"ve come all this way for our house, to ask you whether you would like to hear some news of your governor, ma"am?"
"Of whom, sir?" inquired the tall old lady, who had remained standing all this time, as she had received him, and was now looking at him with eyes, not of suspicion, but of undisguised fear.
"Of your husband, ma"am, I mean," drawled he, eyeing her with his cunning smile.
"You don"t mean, sir----" said she faintly, and thereupon she was seized with a trembling, and sat down, and her very lips turned white, and Mr.
Levi began to think "the old girl was looking uncommon queerish," and did not like the idea of "its happening," under these circ.u.mstances.
"There, ma"am--don"t take on! Where"s the water? Da-a-a-mn the drop!" he exclaimed, turning up mugs and jugs in a flurry. "I say--Mary Anne--Jane--chick-a-biddy--girl--be alive there, will ye?" howled the visitor over the banister. "Water, can"t ye? Old woman"s sick!"
"Better now, sir--better--just open that--a little air, please," the old lady whispered.
With some hurried fumbling he succeeded in getting the lattice open.
"Water, will you? What a time you"re about it, little beast!" he bawled in the face of the child.
"Much better, thanks--very much better," whispered the old lady.
"Of course, you"re better, ma"am. Here it is at la-a-ast. Have some water, ma"am? Do. Give her the water, you little fool."
She sipped a little.
"Coming round--all right," he said tenderly. "What cattle them old women are! drat them." A little pause followed.
"A deal better now, ma"am?"
"I"m startled, sir."
"Of course you"re startled, ma"am."
"And faint."
"Why not, ma"am?"
Mrs. Rebecca Mervyn breathed three or four great sighs, and began to look again like a living woman.
"Now she looks quite nice," (he p.r.o.nounced it ni-i-ishe) "doesn"t she?
You may make tracksh, young woman; go, will you?"
"I feel so much better," said the old lady when they were alone, "pray go on."
"You do--quite--ever so much better. _Shall_ I go on?"
"Pray do, sir."
"Well now, see, if I do, there must be no more of that, old lady. If you can"t talk of the governor, we"ll just let him alone," said Levi, st.u.r.dily.
"For G.o.d"s sake, sir, if you mean my husband, tell me all you know."
"All aint a great deal, ma"am; but a cove has turned up who knew him well."
"Some one who knew him?"
"Just so, ma"am." He balanced whether he should tell her that he was dead or not, but decided that it would be more convenient, though less tragic, to avoid getting up a new scene like the other, so he modified his narrative. "He"s turned up, ma"am, and knew him very intimate; and has got a meogny" (he so p.r.o.nounced mahogany) "desk of his, gave in charge to him, since he could not come home at present, containing a law paper, ma"am, making over to his son and yours some property in England."
"Then, he is not coming?" said she.
"Not as I knowzh, ma"am."
"He has been a long time away," she continued.
"So I"m informed, ma"am," he observed.
"I"ll tell you how it was, and when he went away."
"Thank ye, ma"am," he interposed. "I"ve heard--melancholy case, ma"am; got seven penn"orth, didn"t he, and never turned up again?"
"Seven what, sir?"
"Seven years, ma"am; seven penn"orth we call it, ma"am, familiar like."
"I don"t understand you, sir--I don"t know what it means; I saw him sail away. It went off, off, off."
"I"ll bet a pound it did, ma"am," said Mr. Levi.
"Only to be for a very short time; the sail--I could see it very far--how pretty they look on the sea; but very lonely, I think--too lonely."
"A touch of solitary, ma"am," acquiesced Levi.
"Away, in the yacht," she dreamed on.
"The royal yacht, ma"am, no doubt."
"The yacht, we called it. He said he would return next day; and it went round Pendillion--round the headland of Pendillion, I lost it, and it never came again; but I think it will, sir--don"t you? I"m sure it will--he was so confident; only smiled and nodded, and he said, "No, I won"t say good-bye." He would not have said that if he did not mean to return--he could not so deceive a lonely poor thing like me, that adored him."
"No, he couldn"t ma"am, not he; no man could. Betray the girl that adored him! Ba-a-ah! impossible," replied Mr. Levi, and shook his glossy ringlets sleepily, and dropped his eyelids, smiling. This old girl amused him, her romance was such a joke. But the light was perceptibly growing more dusky, and business must not wait upon fun, so Mr. Levi said--
"He"sh no chicken by this time, ma"am--your son, ma"am; I"m told he"sh twenty-sheven yearsh old--thatsh no chicken--twenty-sheven next birthday."
"Do you know anything of him, sir? Oh, no, he doesn"t," she said, looking dreamily with her great sad eyes upon him.
"Jest you tell me, ma"am, where was he baptised, and by what name?" said her visitor.
A look of doubt and fear came slowly and wildly into her face as she looked at him.