'I know it is preposterous--' he began.
'Preposterous! Yes, that you should care one bit for silly, foolish, naughty, self-willed me. Oh, Mr. Dutton, you can't mean it!'
'Indeed, I would have kept silence, and not disturbed you with my presumption, if--'
'Hush!' she cried. 'Why, it makes me so glad and so proud, I don't know what to do. I didn't think anybody was good enough for you-- unless it was dear, dear mother--and that it should be me.'
'It is true,' he said gravely, 'my younger days were spent in a vain dream of that angel, then when all that was ended, I thought such things were not for me; but the old feeling has wakened, it seems to me in greater force than ever, though I meant to have kept it in control--'
'Oh, I am glad you didn't! It seems as if the world swam round with wonder and happiness,' and she held his hand as if to steady herself, starting however as Annaple opened the door saying, 'We've been sending telegrams with the good news.'
Then an arch light came into her bright eyes, but the others were behind her, and she said no more.
CHAPTER XXXVII. FOUND AND TAKEN.
'The angels of the gateway Bent softly to the child, And stretched glad hands to take him To the kingdom undefiled.'--B. M.
'Come up and see him,' said Nuttie, as the dining-room door was shut. 'I must feast my eyes on him.'
Annaple replied by throwing an arm round her and looking into her eyes, kissing her on each cheek, and then, as they reached the landing in the summer twilight, waltzing round and round that narrow space with her.
'You ridiculous person!' said Nuttie. 'Do you mean that you saw!'
'Of course I did; I've seen ever so long--'
'Nonsense! That's impossible--'
'Impossible to owls and bats perhaps, but to nothing else not to see that there was one sole and single hero in the world to you, and that to him there was one single being in the world; and that being the case---'
'But, Annaple, you can't guess what he has always been to me.'
'Oh! don't I know?--a sort of Archbishop of Canterbury and George Heriot rolled into one. So much the more reason, my dear, I don't know when I've been so glad in my life than that your good times should be coming.'
'They are come in knowing this! It is only too wonderful,' said Nuttie, as they stood together among the plants in the little conservatory on the way upstairs. 'I always thought it insulting to him when they teased me about him.'
'They did, did they?'
'My father, incited by poor Gregorio. Oh, Annaple! don't let any one guess till we know how my father will take it. What is it, Ellen?' as the nursery-maid appeared on the stairs.
'If you please, ma'am, Mrs. Poole would be glad if you are coming up to the nursery.'
They both hastened up and nurse came out to meet them in the day nursery, making a sign to Ellen to take her place by the cot, and withholding the two ladies. She made them come as far off as possible, and then said that she was not at all satisfied about Master Alwyn. There had been the same drowsiness and disinclination to speak, and when she had undressed and washed him, he had seemed tender all over, and cried out and moaned as if her touch hurt him, especially on one side where, she felt convinced, there was some injury; but when she asked about it his eyes grew frightened and bewildered, and he only cried in a feeble sort of way, as if sobs gave him pain.
She had soothed him, and he had gone into his own bed with the same gentle languid gladness, but had presently begun moaning, and imploring in his sleep, wakening with screams and entreaties, 'Oh, I'll do it! I'll try!' and she thought him very feverish. Would it not be better that a doctor should see him?
Nurse was always an alarmist, and Nuttie could not help thinking that to wake the child to see a stranger to- night would only add to his terror and distress, while Annaple declared her entire belief that though no doubt the poor little fellow had been cruelly knocked about and bruised, a night's rest would probably restore his bright self, and make all that was past only like a bad dream. There was no judging to-night, and sleep was wonderful reparation to those little beings.
Then however the moans and murmurs began again, and now the awakening cry. They started forward, and as Nuttie came to the cot-side the child threw himself into her bosom with, 'Sister! Sister! It is sister!' but his eyes grew round with terror at sight of Annaple, and clinging tightly to Nuttie he gasped, 'Send her away! don't let her touch me! Fan's not here!'
To tell him she was Cousin Annaple, Billy's mamma, had no effect; he did not seem able to understand, and she could only retire--nurse being thus convinced that to let him see another stranger to-night would only do further harm. Nuttie and nurse succeeded in reassuring him that he was safe at home and with them, and in hushing him off into what they hoped would be a quiet wholesome sleep in spite of the hot sultry night, on which Annaple laid a good deal of the blame of his restlessness and feverishness.
Nuttie only came down for a short time before the visitors went away; and then she wrote a note to Dr. Brownlow, which Mark promised to leave as he went to the city in the morning, Mr. Egremont, in his present relief, pooh-poohing all fears, and backing up Annaple's belief in the powers of 'tired nature's soft restorer'; but Mr. Dutton looked grave and said that he had remarked the extreme tenderness, but had hoped that much was due to his own inexperience in handling little children. The parting clasp of the hand had a world of meaning in it, and Nuttie openly said that she hoped to tell him after matins at St. Michael's how the boy was. But she could not be there. When she went upstairs at night the half-delirious terrors had returned, and there was another difficult soothing and comforting before the child slept again. Nurse fancied the unwonted presence might disturb him, and insisted on her going to her own room.
When she returned in the morning it was to find that since daylight he had been more quietly asleep; but there was a worn sunken look about his face, and she could not be satisfied to leave him alone while the nurses stirred about and breakfasted.
He awoke smiling and happy; he looked about and said gladly, 'Wyn at home! Wyn's own nursery,' but he did not want to get up; 'Wyn so tired,' he said, speaking of himself in the baby form that he had for several months discarded, but he said his pretty 'thank you,' and took delight in breakfasting in his cot, though still in a subdued way, and showing great reluctance to move or be touched.
Nuttie was sent for to report of him to his father, who would not hear for a moment of anxiety, declaring that the boy would be quite well if they let him alone, he only wanted rest, and insisting on following out his intention of seeing a police superintendent to demand whether the kidnapping rascals could not be prosecuted.
Neither by Nuttie nor nurse could much be extracted from the poor little fellow himself about his adventures. He could not bear to think of them, and there was a mist of confusion over his mind, partly from weakness, partly, they also thought, from the drugged spirits with which he had been more than once dosed. He dimly remembered missing Gregorio in the park, and that he had tried to find his way home alone, but some one, a big boy, he thought, had said he would show him the way, took hold of his hand, dragged him, he knew not where, into dreadful dirt and stench, and apparently had silenced him with a blow before stripping him. But it was all very indistinct, he could not tell how Mother Bet got hold of him, and the being dressed in the rags of a girl had somehow loosed his hold of his own identity. He did not seem at all certain that the poor little dirty petticoated thing who had wakened in a horrible cellar, or in a dark jolting van who had been dubbed Fan, who had been forced by the stick to dance and twist and compelled to drink burning, choking stuff, was the same with Alwyn in his sailor suit or in his white cot.
It was Dr. Brownlow who at once detected that there had been much of this dosing, and drew forth the fact. It had probably been done whenever it was expedient that he should be hidden, or unable to make any appeal to outsiders. Alwyn was quite himself by day, and showed no unreasonable fear or shyness, but he begged not to be touched, and though he tried to be good and manly, could not keep from cries and screams when the doctor examined him.
Then it came out. 'It's where he kicked me.'
'Who?'
'That man--master, she said I must call him. He kicked poor little Fan with his great heavy big boots--'cause Fan would say Wyn's prayers.'
'Who was Fan?' asked the puzzled doctor.
'Himself,' whispered Nuttie. 'Alas! himself!'
