'Well, I never found you not to be trusted, though you are a coaxing puss,' said her father, and so the matter ended with him, but she had another encounter with her mother.
'Mind, Rose, if that churching-which Sunday was enough for any good girl in my time-is only to lead to walking with young gents which has no call to you, I won't have it done.'
Mrs. Rollstone was not cultivated up to her husband's mark, neither had she ever inspired so much confidence, and Rose made simple answer, 'It is all right, mamma; I have spoken to papa about it.'
'Oh, if your pa knows, I suppose he is satisfied; but men aren't the same as a mother, and if that there young Mr. Morton comes dangling and gallanting after you, he is after no good.'
'He is doing no such thing,' said Rose in a resolutely calm voice that might have shown that she was with difficulty controlling her temper; 'and, besides, he is going away.'
Wherewith Mrs. Rollstone had to be satisfied.
Rose took a bold measure when she had taken her five five-pound notes from the savings bank. She saw her father preparing to waddle out for his daily turn on the beach, and she put the envelope containing them, addressed to H. Morton, Esq., into his hand, begging him to give it to Mr. Morton himself.
Which he did, when he met Herbert trying to soothe his impatience with a cigar.
'Here, sir,' he said, 'my daughter wishes me to give you this. I don't ask what it is, mind; but I tell you plainly, I don't like secrets between young people.'
Herbert tried to laugh naturally, then said, 'Your daughter is no end of a trump, Mr. Rollstone.'
'Only recollect this, sir-I know my station and I know yours, and I will have no nonsense with her.'
'All right!' said Herbert shortly, with a laugh, his head too full of other matters to think what all this implied.
He wished to avoid exciting any disturbance, so he told his mother that he should be off again the next day.
'It is very hard,' grumbled Mrs. Morton, 'that you can never be contented to stay with your poor mother! I did hope that with the regatta, and the yachts, and Mr. Brady, you would find amusement enough to give us a little of your company; but nothing is good enough for you now. Which of your fine friends are you going to?'
Herbert was not superior to an evasion, and said, 'I'm going up to town first, and shall see Dacre, and I'll write by and by.'
She resigned herself to the erratic movements of the son, who, being again, in her eyes, heir to the peerage, was to her like a comet in a higher sphere.
CHAPTER XXXVI. IDA'S CONFESSION
The move to Malvern was at last made, and the air seemed at once to invigorate Lord Northmoor, though the journey tried his wife more than she had expected, and she remained in a very drooping state, in spite of her best efforts not to depress him. Nothing seemed to suit her so well as to lie on a couch in the garden of their lodging, with Constance beside her, talking, and sometimes smiling over all her little Mite's pretty ways; though at other times she did her best to seem to take interest in other matters, and to persuade her husband that his endeavours to give her pleasure or interest were successful, because the exertions he made for her sake were good for him.
He was by this time anxious-since he was by the end of three weeks quite well, and fairly strong-to go down to Westhaven, and learn all he could about the circumstances of the fate of his poor little son; and only delayed till he thought his wife could spare him. Lady Adela urged him at last to go. She thought that Mary lived in a state of effort for his sake, and that there was a certain yearning and yet dread in the minds of both for these further details, so that the visit had better be over.
Thus it was about six weeks after Herbert's departure that Mrs. Morton received a note to tell her that her brother-in-law would arrive the next evening. It was terrible news to Ida, and if there had been time she would have arranged to be absent elsewhere; but as it was she had no power to escape, and had to spend her time in assisting in all the elaborate preparations which her mother thought due to the Baron-a very different personage in her eyes from the actual Frank.
He did not come till late in the day, and then Mrs. Morton received him with a very genuine gush of tears, and anxious inquiries. He was thin, and looked much older; his hair was grayer, and had retreated from his brow, and there was a bent, worn, dejected air about the whole man, which, as Mrs. Morton said, made her ready to cry whenever she looked at him; but he was quite composed in manner and tone, so as to repress her agitation, and confirm Ida's inexperienced judgment in the idea that Michael was none of his. He was surprised and concerned at Herbert's absence, which was beginning to make his mother uneasy, and he promised to write to some of the boy's friends to inquire about him. To put off the evil day, Ida had suggested asking Mr. Deyncourt to meet him, but that gentleman could not come, and dinner went off in stiff efforts at conversation, for just now all the power thereof, that Lord Northmoor had ever acquired, seemed to have forsaken him.
Afterwards, in the August twilight, he begged to hear all. Ida withdrew, glad not to submit to the ordeal, while her mother observed, 'Poor, dear Ida! She was so fond of her dear little cousin, she cannot bear to hear him mentioned! She has never been well since!'
Then, with copious floods of tears, and all in perfect good faith, she related the history of the loss, as she knew it, with-on his leading questions-a full account of all the child's pretty ways during his stay, and how he had never failed to say his prayer about making papa better, and how he had made friends with Mr. Deyncourt, in spite of having pronounced his church like a big tin box all up in frills; and how he had admired the crabs, and run after the waves, and had been devoted to the Willie, who had thought him troublesome-giving all the anecdotes, to which Frank listened with set face and dry eyes, storing them for his wife. He thanked Mrs. Morton for all her care and tenderness, and expended assurances that no one thought her to blame.
'It is one of those dispensations,' he said, 'that no one can guard against. We can only be thankful for the years of joy that no one can take from us, and try to be worthy to meet him hereafter.'
Mrs. Morton had wept so much that she was very glad to seize the first excuse for wishing good-night. She said that she had put all Michael's little things in a box in his father's room, for him to take home to his mother, and bade Frank-as once more she called him-good-night, kissing him as she had never done before. The shock had brought out all that was best and most womanly in her.
That box had an irresistible attraction for Frank. He could not but open it, and on the top lay the white woolly, headless dog that had been Mite's special darling, had been hugged by him in his slumbers every night, and been the means of many a joyous game when father and mother came up to wish the noisy creature good-night, and 'Tarlo' had been made to bark at them.
Somehow the 'never more' overcame him completely. He had not before been beyond the restraint of guarding his feelings for Mary's sake; and, tired with the long day, and torn by the evening's narration, all his self-command gave way, and he fell into a perfect anguish of deep-drawn, almost hysterical sobbing.
[Picture: 'What?' and he threw the door wide open]
Those sobs were heard through the thin partition in Ida's room. They were very terrible to her. They broke down the remnant of her excuse that the child was an imposition. They woke all her woman's tenderness, and the impulse to console carried her in a few moments to the door.
'Uncle! Uncle Frank!'
'I'm not ill,' answered a broken, heaving, impatient voice. 'I want nothing.'
'Oh, let me in, dear uncle-I've something to tell you!'
'Not now,' came on the back of a sob. 'Go!'
'Oh, now, now!' and she even opened the door a little. 'He is not drowned! At least, Rose Rollstone thinks-'
'What?' and he threw the door wide open.
'Rose Rollstone is sure she saw him with Louisa Hall in London that day,' hurried out Ida, still bent on screening herself. 'She's gone to Canada. It's there that Herbert is gone to find him and bring him home!'
'And why-why were we never told?'
'You were too ill, uncle, and Rose did not know about it till she came home. Then she told Herbert, and he hoped to find him and write.'
'When was this?'
