"Yes, dear," said Rosamond. But then she began quickly to speak to the little girl of the pretty colours of the still remaining beech leaves in the Bois de Boulogne, through which for a change they were that day driving. For she could not reply with any confidence in her tone, and she did not want the child to find out her misgiving. Walter had been gone three days and had written twice--once a hurried word to tell of his arrival, once the following day to tell of failure. He had been to two or three of the hotels but had found no traces of Captain Bertram, but there still remained several others, and he hoped to send by his next letter if not good yet anyway more certain news.
So Auntie still put off writing to "Miss Susan," for though since seeing the announcement of Mrs. Lacy"s death she did not blame her as much as at first, she yet could not feel it probable that the young lady was suffering great anxiety.
"In any case I had better wait till Walter tells us _something_," she said to Rosamond. "And when I do write I do not know how to address the letter. Gladdie is sure she was to be married a very few days after they left, but she cannot remember the name of the gentleman, whom she has only seen once or twice, as he lived at a distance, and had made Miss Susan"s acquaintance away from her home."
"Address to her maiden name--it would be sent after her," suggested Rosamond.
"But Gladdie is not sure what that is," replied Auntie, half laughing.
"She doesn"t know if it is "Lacy," or if she had a different name from her aunt. She is such a baby in some ways. I am sure she has not the slightest idea what _our_ surnames are. You are "Rosamond" and I am "Auntie.""
"Or "Madame" when she speaks of you to the servants. She is getting on so nicely with her French, Auntie. That reminds me Louis has been to the Rue Verte, and has brought back word that Madame Nestor is much better, and would be so delighted to see the children any day we can send them."
"Or take them," said Auntie. "I would not like them to go without us the first time, for fear they should feel at all frightened. And yet it is right for them to go. They must always be grateful to Madame Nestor, who did her very best for them."
"Gladys confided to me she would be a little afraid of going back, though she knows that Anna is no longer there. But she says she will feel as if they were going back to _stay_ there, and as if _this_ would turn out to be only a beautiful dream."
"Poor little dear," said Auntie.
"And she"s going to take her new doll--both to show her off, and that she may feel _she_ isn"t a dream! She has such funny ideas sometimes.
Auntie----"
"What, dear?"
"If Walter can"t find the father--I suppose I should say if he is dead--what is to be done?"
"We must find out all we can--through that Miss Susan, I suppose--as to who are the children"s guardians, and what money they have, and all about it."
"I wish we could adopt them," said Rosamond. "We"re rich enough."
"Yes; but that is not the only question. You are almost sure to marry."
"I don"t know that," said Rosamond, but her face flushed a little.
"And Walter, too, some day."
"Oh, Auntie! Walter! Why he"s only eighteen."
"Well, all the same, time goes on, and adopting children often causes complications. Besides, it is not likely that they have _no_ relations."
"Well, we shall see what the next letter says," said Rosamond.
It was not a letter after all, but a telegram, and this was what it said:--
"Found Bertram. Will explain all. Returning to-morrow."
The aunt and niece looked at each other.
"He might have said a little more," said the latter. "This is only enough to rouse our curiosity."
"We must say nothing to the children yet," decided Auntie.
"I do hope, as he is alive," said Rosamond, "that he"s a nice good sort of man. If he weren"t, that would be worse than anything--having to give up the children to him," and she looked quite unhappy.
"Don"t let your imagination run away with you so, my dear child," said Auntie. "It"s very unlikely that he"s not nice in every way. Remember what Gladys says of his kind letters, and how fond Mrs. Lacy was of him, and how she always taught them to look forward to his return. No; _my_ fears are about his health, poor fellow."
The children went the next morning with Rosamond and her maid to see Madame Nestor, and Rosamond brought back with her to show her aunt a letter Madame Nestor had just received, which threw a little light on one part of the subject. It was from Leonie telling of Mr. and Mrs.
Marton"s arrival at their destination, and alluding to the children as if she had no doubt that they had only been left two or three days at the Rue Verte. "Monsieur," meaning Mr. Marton, "was so glad," she wrote, "to find at Ma.r.s.eilles that the children"s Papa was going on to Paris almost at once. He had left a letter for Captain Bertram at the hotel, as he had gone to Nice for a day or two; and Madame had only just had time to write to the ladies in England to tell how it had all been. And she was writing by this mail to ask for news of the "dear little things," as she called Gladys and Roger. They had thought of them all the way, and Madame thanked Madame Nestor so much for her kindness.
She--Leonie--hoped very much she would see them again some day. Then she presented her compliments to her cousin Adolphe, and promised to write again soon--and that was all."
"It is still mysterious enough," said Auntie; "but it shows the Martons were not to blame. As Mr. Marton has written to England again, we shall probably be hearing something from "Miss Susan" before long. It _is_ strange she has not written before, as she has had the Rue Verte address all this time, I suppose."
And here, perhaps, as "Miss Susan" is not, to my mind nor to yours either, children, I feel sure, by any means the most interesting person in this little story, though, on the other hand, she was far from without good qualities, it may be as well to explain how it had come to pa.s.s that nothing had been heard of her.
Mrs. Lacy grew rapidly worse after the children left, but with her gentle unselfishness she would not allow her niece"s marriage to be put off, but begged her on the contrary to hasten it, which was done. Two days after it had taken place, Susan, who had gone away for a very short honeymoon, was recalled. She never left Mrs. Lacy again till she died. I think the saddest part of dying for the dear old lady was over when she had said good-bye to her little favourites. For some time Susan felt no anxiety about the children, for, from Ma.r.s.eilles, she had heard from young Mrs. Marton of Captain Bertram"s not having met them in Paris, and of the arrangement they had been obliged to make. But, that arrived at Ma.r.s.eilles, they had found he had gone two days before to Nice, to look for a house for his children, the landlord said, whom he was going to Paris to fetch. He had left all his luggage there, and had intended to be back this day or the day before, the landlord was not sure which, and to go on to Paris. No doubt he would be returning that same evening, only, unfortunately, his newly-arrived friends Mr. and Mrs. Marton would have gone, but he faithfully promised to deliver to him at once the letter Mr. Marton wrote and left for him.
"It seems the only thing to do," added young Mrs. Marton, "and I do hope it will be all right. Captain Bertram must have mistaken a day.
Anyway he will know where to find the children, I enclose their address to you too--at least I will get it from Leonie before I shut this letter, for I do not remember it, so that in case you do not hear soon from Captain Bertram you can write there."
But in her hurry--for just as she was finishing the letter, her husband called to her that they must be off--the young lady forgot to enclose the address! So there was nowhere for Susan to write to, when, as the days went on and no letter came from Captain Bertram, she did begin to grow uneasy, not exactly about the children"s safety, but about their father having gone for them.
"Still," she said to her husband, "if he had _not_ got them with him, he would have written to ask where they were. He was never a very good correspondent. But I wonder he hasn"t written to ask how my aunt is. I hope there is nothing the matter. I _hope_ I did not do wrong in letting them go without actually knowing of his being in Paris."
Of course her husband a.s.sured her she had not. But her conscience was not at rest, for Susan had grown gentler now that she was happily married, and she was softened too by the thought of her kind aunt"s state. All through the last sad days the children kept coming into her mind, and though Mrs. Lacy was too weak even to ask about them, Susan felt almost guilty when she finally tried to thank her for her goodness.
"I don"t deserve it," she thought, "I was not kind to the two human beings she loved best," and she wrote over and over again to Captain Bertram at the Ma.r.s.eilles hotel, begging him to send her news of the children, and when Mrs. Marton"s letter came from India repeating what she had before written from Ma.r.s.eilles, but with of course no further news, and no mention of the Paris address, poor Susan became so unhappy that her husband promised to take her over to make inquiries in person if no answer came to another letter he sent to Ma.r.s.eilles to the landlord of the hotel, begging him to tell all he knew of Captain Bertram"s movements. This letter brought a reply, as you will hear, from Captain Bertram himself.
It was evening before Walter arrived. Gladys and Roger were in bed and asleep. Auntie and Rosamond were waiting for him with the greatest anxiety to hear his news. He looked bright and cheery as he came into the room, still enveloped in his wraps, which he began to pull off.
"It"s nice and warm in here," he said; "but, oh, it"s so cold outside.
And it was so mild and sunny down there; I would have liked to stay a day or two longer. It was to please _him_ I hurried back so quickly--poor man, he is in _such_ a state about the children!"
"But, Walter, what is the meaning of it all? Why has he not come himself?"
"Do you like him?" put in Rosamond.
"Awfully," said Walter boyishly. "He"s just what you would expect their father to be. But I"m forgetting--I haven"t told you. He"s been dreadfully ill--he can only just crawl a step or two. And all this time he"s not had the slightest misgiving about the children, except the fear of not living to see them again of course. He"s not had the least doubt of their being safe in England; and only just lately, as he began to get well enough to think consecutively, he has wondered why he got no letters. He was just going to try to write to that place--Market-Lilford--when I got there. So he was mystified too! But we got to the bottom of it. This was how it was. He was feeling ill at Ma.r.s.eilles--he had put off too long in India--and he thought it was the air of the place, and as he had some days to pa.s.s before he was due in Paris, he went on to Nice, thinking he"d get all right there and be able to look about for a house if he liked it. But instead of getting all right he broke down completely. He wrote out a telegram to tell Miss Susan that he was ill, and that she must not start the children. It would have been in plenty of time to stop them, had she got it, but she never did."
"Never got it," repeated both ladies.
"No; the waiter told him it was all right, but it wasn"t. His writing was so bad that at the office they couldn"t read the address, and the message was returned from London the next day; and by that time he was so ill that the doctor wouldn"t allow them to ask him a thing, and he probably wouldn"t have understood them if they had. This, you see, he"s only found out since I got there. The doctor was meaning to tell him, but he took his time about it, and he did not know how important it was.
So, in a way, n.o.body was to blame except that Miss Susan. That"s what Bertram says himself; but while I was there he telegraphed to Ma.r.s.eilles for his letters. There were several from her, and the last so frantic that he"s writing to say it"s all right; especially as she"s been very cut up about the poor old lady"s death. But she shouldn"t have started the children till he telegraphed _from Paris_. Besides, he had told her to send a maid with them for the journey. It wasn"t the Martons" fault; they did their best."
"Was he distressed at hearing of Mrs. Lacy"s death?" asked Auntie.
"_Very_," said Walter; "it put him back, the doctor said; but he"ll be all right when he sees the children. If you had seen him when I told him about their finding their way to us, not even knowing our names, all over Paris! He didn"t know whether to laugh or cry. He"s weak still, you know. And then he"s so _dreadfully_ grateful to us! I was glad to get away."
"And when does he want them?" said Rosamond dolefully.
"As soon as possible. He can"t come north this winter. And he"s not rich, I can see. So I was thinking----"