I am writing what she thought, remember, not what she said; for she was not in the habit of thinking aloud, nor did I ever know anybody who was.
Aurora took up a shawl that she had flung upon the sofa, and threw it lightly over her head, veiling herself with a cloud of black lace, through which the restless, shivering diamonds shone out like stars in a midnight sky. She looked like Hecate, as she stood on the threshold of the French window lingering for a moment with a deep-laid purpose in her heart, and a resolute light in her eyes. The clock in the steeple of the village church struck the three-quarters after eight while she lingered for those few moments. As the last chime died away in the summer air, she looked up darkly at the evening sky, and walked with a rapid footstep out upon the lawn towards the southern end of the wood that bordered the Park.
XXIV
Captain Prodder Carries Bad News to His Niece’s House
While Aurora stood upon the threshold of the open window, a man was lingering upon the broad stone steps before the door of the entrance hall, remonstrating with one of John Mellish’s servants, who held supercilious parley with the intruder, and kept him at arm’s length with the contemptuous indifference of a well-bred servant.
This stranger was Captain Samuel Prodder, who had arrived at Doncaster late in the afternoon, had dined at the Reindeer, and had come over to Mellish Park in a gig driven by a hanger-on of that establishment. The gig and the hanger-on were both in waiting at the bottom of the steps; and if there had been anything wanting to turn the balance of the footman’s contempt for Captain Prodder’s blue coat, loose shirt-collar, and silver watch chain, the gig from the Reindeer would have done it.
“Yes, Mrs. Mellish is at home,” the gentleman in plush replied, after surveying the sea-captain with a leisurely and critical air, which was rather provoking to poor Samuel; “but she’s engaged.”
“But perhaps she’ll put off her engagements for a bit when she hears who it is as wants to see her,” answered the captain, diving into his capacious pocket. “She’ll tell a different story, I dare say, when you take her that bit of pasteboard.”
He handed the man a card, or rather let me say a stiff square of thick pasteboard, inscribed with his name, so disguised by the flourishing caprices of the engraver as to be not very easily deciphered by unaccustomed eyes. The card bore Captain Prodder’s address as well as his name, and informed his acquaintances that he was part-owner of the Nancy Jane, and that all consignments of goods were to be made to him at etc. etc.
The footman took the document between his thumb and finger, and examined it as minutely as if it had been some relic of the middle ages. A new light dawned upon him as he deciphered the information about the Nancy Jane, and he looked at the captain for the first time with some approach to human interest in his countenance.
“Is it cigars you want to dispose hof?” he asked, “or bandannas? If it’s cigars, you might come round to our ’all, and show us the harticle.”
“Cigars!” roared Samuel Prodder. “Do you take me for a smuggler, you—?” Here followed one of those hearty seafaring epithets with which polite Mr. Chucks was apt to finish his speeches. “I’m your missus’s own uncle; leastways, I—I knew her mother when she was a little gal,” he added, in considerable confusion; for he remembered how far away his sea-captainship thrust him from Mrs. Mellish and her wellborn husband; “so just take her my card, and look sharp about it, will you?”
“We’ve a dinner-party,” the footman said, coldly, “and I don’t know if the ladies have returned to the drawing-room; but if you’re anyways related to missis—I’ll go and see.”
The man strolled leisurely away, leaving poor Samuel biting his nails in mute vexation at having let slip that ugly fact of her relationship.
“That swab in the same cut coat as Lord Nelson wore aboard the Victory, will look down upon her now he knows she’s niece to a old sea-captain that carries dry goods on commission, and can’t keep his tongue between his teeth,” he thought.
The footman came back while Samuel Prodder was upbraiding himself for his folly, and informed him that Mrs. Mellish was not to be found in the house.
“Who’s that playin’ upon the pianer, then?” asked Mr. Prodder, with sceptical bluntness.
“Oh, that’s the clugyman’s wife,” answered the man, contemptuously; “a ciddyvong guvness, I should think, for she plays too well for a real lady. Missus don’t play—leastways only pawlkers, and that sort of think. Good night.”
He closed the two half-glass doors upon Captain Prodder without farther ceremony, and shut Samuel out of his niece’s house.
“To think that I played hopscotch and swapped marbles for hardbake with this gal’s mother,” thought the captain, “and that her servant turns up his nose at me and shuts the door in my face!”
It was in sorrow rather than in anger that the disappointed sailor thought this. He had scarcely hoped for anything better. It was only natural that those about his niece should flout at and contemptuously treat him. Let him get to her—let him come only for a moment face to face with Eliza’s child, and he did not fear the issue.
“I’ll walk through the Park,” he said to the man who had driven him from Doncaster; “it’s a nice evenin’, and there’s pleasant walks under the trees to win’ard. You can drive back into
