CHAPTER XVI.
"MY MOTHER GAVE IT TO ME."
"Baba would like her doctor man to come to her Christmas-tree; Baba does love her doctor man." At the sound of the pleading voice, the sight of the appealing blue eyes, Cicely put down her pen with a laugh, and caught the child in her arms.
"You most absurd and beguiling infant, why do you want your doctor man, as you call him?"
"'Cos Baba does. She loves him awful, drefful much," and to give her mother some glimmering idea of the depth of her affection, Baba clasped her hands round her own small person, and looked into Cicely's face, with another appealing glance.
"Christina, do you imagine Dr. Fergusson could be induced to come over here for Christmas?" Cicely questioned, as Baba's nurse came into the cosy boudoir at Bramwell Castle; "this picanniny of mine wants him invited to her Christmas-tree."
"I should think it would depend on how busy he is just now. The practice seemed to be a big one. But perhaps at this time people will be considerate enough not to fall ill, and will give the doctor a little rest. Surely, Dr. Fergusson could motor over? It can't be very far from here to Graystone."
"Quite within a motor drive; and he was so very good to Baba, I should like to ask him to come if he will. Rupert writes, that, as he feared, he cannot be with us. He has had to start off post haste to Naples. That tiresome boy, Jack Layton, a mutual cousin of Rupert's and mine, has gone and got typhoid there, and of course Rupert, being a sort of unattached, universal fairy godfather, has been sent for to look after him."
"Is Mr. Mernside a fairy godfather?" Christina smiled at the quaint nomenclature.
"I always think so. He is ready to do any thing for any of his aggravating relations, at any moment, and as Jack has selected this particular moment to get typhoid, Rupert will be away for Christmas. I wonder whether Dr. Fergusson would think it very odd and unconventional, if I invited him here, on our rather short acquaintance?"
Cicely looked thoughtfully across her pretty room at Christina, and the girl laughed, and shook her head.
"He is not so silly," she answered. "Dr. Fergusson is just one of those simple, straightforward men who take things as they are meant, and don't hunt round for ulterior motives. He won't even begin to think whether your invitation is conventional or unconventional, he will only think how good it is of you to ask him at all."
"How wise you are," Lady Cicely exclaimed; "where does that little dark head of yours get all its wisdom?"
Christina laughed again. In those days of her happy life with Baba and Baba's mother, her bright young laugh rang out very often—the laugh that seemed such a true index to her young, bright soul. She had put behind her all the misery and hardship of the past, and, with the wholesome philosophy natural to her, lived in the full enjoyment of her present content; and the few weeks of happiness, good food, and freedom from anxiety, had changed the white-faced, hollow-eyed girl who had perforce tried to pawn her mother's jewel, into a charming, and very pretty semblance of her former self.
"I am not wise," she said; "only I have had a good many rough times, and I have learnt to do what one of my landladies called, 'sizing up men and women.' I have had to size people up, and try to get a just estimate of them."
"And you have 'sized up' Dr. Fergusson?"
"I have found out that he is the very soul of simplicity and straightforwardness, and that he is so kind that there is nothing he would not do for his fellow creatures," she answered eagerly; "and as for worrying about the conventional, I am sure it never enters his head to do such a thing."
It flashed across Cicely's mind to wonder whether Christina's praise of the doctor rose from any warmer feeling than that of friendly gratitude, but the girl's eyes met hers so frankly, her manner was so simple, and the very outspokenness of her enthusiasm, seemed to point to such a heart-whole condition, that the brief thought was dismissed.
"I wish I could accept your most tempting invitation," Fergusson wrote, in reply to Cicely's letter; "but, alas! Christmas does not promise much diminution of the work here. If, however, you will allow me to come to you for Miss Baba's tree, on the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, I could manage to do that in my car. It will give me great pleasure to see my small patient again."
As she folded up the letter, Cicely felt that it would also give her pleasure to see the kindly-faced doctor, whose personality during Baba's illness, had impressed her as being so helpful, who, in some dim and unexplained way, made her think of the husband, for whose loss her heart had never ceased to ache.
"I am afraid I am very glad Cousin Arthur and Cousin Ellen cannot arrive before eight o'clock dinner on Christmas Eve," she said to Christina, after receiving Fergusson's letter; "they mean so well, poor dears, but they are such sadly wet blankets. Cousin Arthur would certainly send our spirits down to zero, by telling us that the more we enjoyed ourselves the more wrath to come was being stored up for us! You know he says he never sees any beautiful scenery without remembering that it will all be burnt some day!"
"How delicious! I am afraid I am looking forward to seeing Sir Arthur; he is at least original."
"He won't approve of you, or Baba, or of anything any of us do," Cicely answered; "his attitude of mind is disapproving. He has got the kind of mind that always gets out of bed on the wrong side."
Perhaps, at the back of her own mind, her little ladyship was not sorry that Sir Arthur and Fergusson should have no opportunity of meeting; for, as her natural astuteness told her, if Sir Arthur looked with disapproving eyes upon Rupert, with how much more disapproval would he regard a stranger, who was also a doctor. Sir Arthur belonged to the old school of county magnates, who looked upon men of medicine as on a level very little higher than a butcher or baker, and entirely refused to entertain the notion that doctor and gentleman could ever be synonymous terms. And Cicely was well aware that the old gentleman's disapproval might conceivably find voice, and that she would be reproached for receiving such guests in "poor dear John's" house.
Fortunately for everyone's peace of mind, the Congreves, being unable to leave London until late on Christmas Eve, were also unable to play the part of kill-joys at Baba's Christmas-tree, and the little party which assembled in the big hall of the Castle, was composed of congenial and friendly folk, who were ready to become little children again, to play with a little child.
The hall, oak-panelled, and hung with suits of armour, and weapons handed down from war-like Redesdale ancestors, had long since been converted into a luxurious lounge, where, if comfortably upholstered chairs, big palms, masses of flowers, and tables strewn with the latest books, were incongruities, the incongruity at least made the hall a most pleasant and sociable sitting-room. And so Fergusson thought it, when from the sharpness of the grey winter day, he passed through an outer vestibule, into the well-warmed, well-lighted place. Only he himself knew with what an unaccountable sinking of the heart he had driven up the beech avenue leading to the Castle, and realised what an imposing place it was, to which he had been bidden. Involuntarily, and in sharp contrast, the thought of his own modest house rose before his mental vision, and the usually cheery doctor, for perhaps the first time in his disciplined and philosophical existence, felt disposed to curse the Fates, for dividing rich and poor by gulfs of such appalling dimensions. But that sinking of the heart, and all the other unwonted sentiments stirred in him by the sight of the great pile of Bramwell, its stately park and lordly surroundings, were swept away by the cordial greeting bestowed upon him, by the little lady of the house, and by Baba's enthusiastic welcome.
"Baba's doctor man," the child cried, with a small shriek of delight when he appeared, and Baba monopolised her doctor man during the whole two hours he was able to spend with them. But if to the larger number of the party assembled in the hall, Fergusson seemed to have neither eyes nor ears for anyone but the child-queen of the occasion, Christina's observant eyes told her that his glance often rested upon Cicely's fair head, and that whenever it did so, a great tenderness crept into that glance. As she had told Lady Cicely, the rough school in which her life had lately been spent, had taught her to study and understand her fellow beings, and the doctor's secret, unknown to himself, was shared by Christina, on that happy Christmas Eve. She was a very safe and discreet guardian of secrets, this girl with the sweet eyes, but she gave a quick little sigh when she understood the meaning of Fergusson's glance, for to her, as to himself, there seemed an unbridgeable gulf, between the hard-working doctor, and the dainty châtelaine of Bramwell Castle. Before he left, Fergusson contrived to make his way to Christina's side, and to say in an undertone:—
"I think you will be sorry to know that your beautiful lady of the lonely valley is in great trouble."
"Oh!" Christina exclaimed softly, her eyes darkening; "has the end come for him?"
"Yes, five days ago. She is wonderful, but the heart-break in her eyes is pitiful to see. I sometimes doubt whether her strength will hold out; she is very fragile, and all the strain has told on her more than I like."
"Was he buried at——" Christina was beginning, when Fergusson finished the sentence quickly.
"No, not at Graystone. I don't know where she took him, but it was away from that part of the country altogether. She and her faithful Elizabeth went with him, and now she is back in that lonely house again. I have tried to persuade her to leave it—to go to London—to go anywhere away—but she answers me she is happier there, and I cannot oppose her. But it is all a tragedy, an inexplicable tragedy."
He could say no more, but what he had told Christina, filled the girl's heart with sadness; her beautiful lady had made a profound impression upon her, and the thought of the sorrowful woman in that lonely house in the valley, hurt the girl's tender soul.
"I am glad we asked Dr. Fergusson," Cicely said to her, when later on in the evening the two were alone together in Baba's day nursery; "there is something so cheering about him, something," she added, with a wistful look into Christina's face, "that makes me think of my husband."
"Is he like Mr. Redesdale?" Christina asked sympathetically.
"No, not in the least—it is not that. At least, his eyes are brown, and my husband had brown eyes, but it is not exactly a likeness that can be defined feature for feature. It is something subtly indefinable, but when I see Dr. Fergusson, and when he talks to me, it makes me think of John. It makes me almost feel as if John were here again."
*****
"You are to come down to dinner to-night, and you are to wear the new frock," Lady Cicely's tones were very decided, her blue eyes shone, her face was dimpling with smiles.
"Oh! but—indeed—I don't think I ought; how can I? It—it wouldn't be suitable, would it, for Baba's nurse to dine downstairs?"
"Will you let Baba's mother decide what is best for the nurse to do?" Cicely answered, laughing, and patting Christina on the shoulder; "you are just to do what I tell you, and I tell you you must come down to dinner to-night, and wear the new frock."
"I don't know how to thank you for that," Christina said, with girlish eagerness. "I haven't ever had a frock like it in all my life. You see, when my father and mother were alive, we never went to parties, so I didn't have evening gowns. And since I have been working for myself, of course I haven't needed any, but this one you have given me is much, much too lovely."
"Perhaps I am the best judge of that, too! I want you to look suitably dressed when you come downstairs, and you must look your very best to-night, to disarm Cousin Arthur."
"I am afraid already he doesn't approve of me," Christina said ruefully; "he looked at me with such severe eyes after church this morning, and began at once to ask me about my theories of education. And—I haven't got any." A ripple of laughter broke from her. "I had to say so, and he seemed so shocked."
"But he is very easily shocked; take heart of grace and remember that. And dear old Miss Doubleday thinks you are managing Baba splendidly. She is a competent judge because she had the managing of me!"
"Then I don't think there was anything wrong with her system of education," Christina said quickly, with a glance of shy admiration at her employer, who had sunk into the nursery rocking-chair, and was swinging her daintily-shod feet up and down before the fire; "if Baba grows up like her mother, she need not wish for anything better. I like kind old Miss Doubleday, she is so friendly to me."
Miss Doubleday, Cicely's old governess, was spending Christmas at Bramwell, and had shown appreciation of Christina and her ways.
"You nice little enthusiast!" Cicely looked affectionately up at the girl, who stood on the hearth beside her; "you idealise everybody, don't you, Christina?"
"I don't know about idealising," Christina spoke thoughtfully, "but, when I care about people, I do see all the best in them——"
"And are blind to all the worst? Yes, I understand," Cicely laughed, "if you liked Cousin Arthur, you would even see him through rose-coloured spectacles?"
"He is a very good man," Christina answered sturdily; "there is something about that uncompromising puritan spirit that appeals to me. His views may be narrow——"
"They certainly are," Cicely murmured sotto voce, "but they are all on the side of loftiness and right."
"I wish I could make out why there is something familiar to me about his face and manner. I am sure I have never seen him before, and yet I seem to have associations of some sort with him. He looks so sad and worried, too; and that very look on his face is vaguely familiar." Christina spoke thoughtfully, her brows drawn together.
"There has been some trouble about a brother-in-law," Cicely answered. "I know I ought to have the story at my fingers' ends, but I can't remember one single detail of it, and I don't like to tell Cousin Arthur so. Nor do I like to ask any questions. He and Cousin Ellen both look so much gloomier and more upset than they were in town. I have been wondering whether any fresh developments have occurred. However, it isn't any real business of mine, and we will try to give the poor dears a happy time here. I must go and dress, and you are to do as I told you; put on your new frock, and come down to the drawing-room. Janet is quite able to manage Baba for one evening."
Christina's fingers shook with eagerness, as she drew from its tissue wrappings Lady Cicely's Christmas present to her—the simple, yet charming gown, which to her girlish eyes seemed the acme of all that was most lovely. Poor little girl, she had never seen herself in a dress cut low at the neck before, and though this gown was only cut in the most modest of squares, her own reflection in the glass told her that the rounded lines of her throat and neck were enhanced by the delicate lace that trimmed the soft silk of the gown, and that the dress itself, in its severely simple lines, suited admirably the slimness of her graceful young form. Her eyes shone like stars, there was a colour in her cheeks, and she had piled her dusky hair into a loose and becoming knot, on the top of her small, well-shaped head.
"I do really believe I look very nearly pretty," she said naïvely, nodding to herself in the mirror.
"I wish——" but she did not put her wish into words, only, as the colour deepened on her face, and she turned away from the sight of her own confusion, she found herself thinking that it was a pity Mr. Jack Layton had chosen this inopportune moment to fall ill with typhoid, and that Mr. Mernside had not been able to make one of the house party this evening. At sight of Christina, Baba, who was being prepared for bed by Janet, danced about the nursery in her pink dressing-gown, clapping her hands and chanting in a shrill monotone—
"Oh! Baba's pretty lady, Baba's pretty lady, oh!" until her nurse caught the small, soft creature in her arms, cuddling her closely and covering her laughing, rosy face with kisses.
"But you is Baba's pretty lady to-night," the child said solemnly, stroking Christina's neck and face with her dimpled hands. "I like you in a white frock, and when the pink colour runs up your cheeks. Put something round your neck," she went on imperiously. "Mummy's got lots of sparkle things to put round her neck, and you must have something sparkle on your pretty white neck."
"Something sparkle on your pretty white neck." Why should she not, just for this once, wear the only piece of jewellery she possessed? As it was Christmas Day, and everything was more than usually festive, surely she might put on the lovely pendant her mother had given her? Christina stood still in the middle of the nursery, cogitating upon the momentous question, whilst Baba danced round her, holding the pink dressing-gown well above her pink slippered feet, and shaking her golden curls whilst she chanted again—
"Oh! Baba's pretty lady; Baba's pretty lady, oh!"
"Even though I am a nurse, I am a lady, too," Christina reflected; "and Lady Cicely has given me this beautiful frock, so that I may look my best downstairs, and, my pendant would be right with the white gown. I think it wouldn't be wrong to wear it."
Her thought was quickly translated into action. Going back to the night nursery, she extracted from the bottom of her modest trunk, the box in which she kept her treasure, and drawing out the pendant on its slender chain, held it up to catch the rays of light from the hanging lamp over the chest of drawers. The great emerald shone brightly like some vividly green star, Christina thought, and the brilliants with which it was set, sparkled and scintillated in the light.
"It does look nice," the girl whispered complacently, as she clasped the chain, and saw the exquisite jewel resting against the whiteness of her neck, "and I wonder what those twisted letters A.V.C. mean? Mother's first name was Mary, her second name was Helen, and not anything beginning with A or V, and of course I don't know what was her surname. I wonder why the initials are A.V.C."
But her speculations were of short duration, and soon forgotten in the excitement of going downstairs to join the rest of the party in the hall, after receiving Baba's bear-like good-night hug, and parting words of admiration.
"I am going to have such a very happy evening," Christina said to herself, as she went along the corridor, and stood for a moment at the top of the wide staircase, looking down into the hall below. "I didn't think I was ever in my life going to have such a happy time, as Lady Cicely lets me have, and to-night will be lovely, just lovely. And how beautiful the hall looks." Her face was bright with eagerness, her eyes shining with excitement, as she ran down the stairs, quite unaware of what a charming picture she made against the background of dark oak, in her simple white gown, with her crown of dusky hair, and the shining happiness of her eyes. She was right in designating the hall as beautiful. Lighted by myriads of candles, the old walls reflected the bright armour, and the leaping flames of the huge fire that burnt on the hearth; the carpets and rugs were all of rich soft hues, that harmonised with the black oak and the shining armour, and pots of bright azaleas, of roses, and of tall lilies, filled the place with colour and fragrance. Christina drew a long breath of delight, and the momentary shyness that had swept over her, when the little group by the fireplace turned to watch her descend the stairs, was dissipated when Lady Cicely put out a hand, and said kindly:
"Come close to the blaze, dear, and enjoy it. Is that monkey of mine safely in bed?"
"She is on her way there, but I left her dancing round the nursery, singing improvised songs about my clothes, and——"
Her sentence was cut short by a sharp exclamation from Sir Arthur, who, as she came near the fire at Cicely's invitation, cast a keenly enquiring glance at her, taking in each detail of her person, from the crown of her hair to the tip of the shoe just showing beneath her white gown. And when that inquisitorial glance fell upon the jewel resting on her neck, that sharp exclamation broke from him.
"How did you come by that pendant?" he questioned, the words jerked out with an abruptness totally lacking in courtesy. "Did it not strike you as rather rash to flaunt it here, in my very face?"
"'How did you come by that pendant?' he questioned.
"To—flaunt—it here?" Christina said shakily, her hand going instinctively to her treasure. "I—don't understand."
"Come, come, my dear young lady," Sir Arthur answered curtly, waving Cicely aside, when she made an attempt to intervene. "You cannot—you really cannot, pretend to misunderstand my very simple question. I asked you—where did you get that pendant?"
Christina's eyes, wide with fright, and bewildered with the shock of being questioned so brusquely and severely, looked from Sir Arthur to Lady Cicely, as though appealing for help, and Cicely said quietly—
"Cousin Arthur—what does all this mean?"
"It means," he said grimly, "that your child's nurse—her lady nurse—is wearing the pendant for which the police and I have been searching in vain. It means——"
"No, oh, no!" Cicely broke in. "I can't believe what you are implying. It couldn't be true. Christina tell Sir Arthur he is making a mistake. Tell him where your pendant comes from."
"From my mother," the girl faltered, still too taken aback by the unexpected onslaught, to be able to think clearly. "This pendant belonged to her; she gave it to me, and I——"
"Tut, tut!" Sir Arthur interrupted irritably; "it is futile to try and throw dust in our eyes in this way. That pendant is unmistakable—quite unmistakable—no one who had once seen it, could be under any delusion about it. It is unique—an heirloom in our family. The very letters above the emerald, are initials of an ancestress of mine."
Christina stood there silently whilst the above words were hurled at her, but her face grew paler and paler, fear deepened in her eyes.
"My mother—gave it to me," she said again, when as Sir Arthur ended, there was an expectant pause, as though some explanation was demanded from her; "she gave it to me when she died—it was hers."
"Then you can, of course, tell us for what names the letters stand?" Sir Arthur said slowly, a tinge of contempt in his voice; and because of that note of contempt, Cicely moved nearer to the shrinking girl, whose frightened, bewildered expression moved the little lady's heart to pity for her, and indignation against the angry old man.
"Cousin Arthur," she said impulsively, "it is not fair to judge Christina, before she has explained about the pendant. Everybody in this land is innocent until he is proved guilty—that is surely only the bare law," and Cicely laughed a little nervously, looking round for support to Miss Doubleday, her kindly old governess, who, also moved by pity for the accused girl, had drawn nearer to Christina.
"I wish to do nothing unfair," was Sir Arthur's chilly rejoinder; "if, as Miss Moore tells us, that pendant belonged to her mother, she will be able to tell us, too, what the initials signify."
"I—don't—know," Christina faltered. "I—have often wondered—I——"
"Perhaps one of them is the initial of your mother's maiden name?" Miss Doubleday said gently, anxious to do everything in her power to help the now trembling girl.
"I—don't know my mother's maiden name——" Christina was beginning, when a short laugh broke from Sir Arthur.
"You do not know your mother's maiden name?" he said slowly; "come, come, surely you cannot expect us to believe that."
"I don't know whether you will believe it or not," Christina answered, with a sudden flash of defiance, "it is true. And I don't know what the initials are, but—my mother gave me the pendant. I am telling you the simple truth. I cannot say more."
"Perhaps you will tell us you never tried to—sell—or pawn that piece of jewellery, at a pawnbroker's shop in Chelsea a few weeks ago?" Sir Arthur asked next, his glance taking in the look of consternation that flashed over her face, the new, shrinking terror in her eyes. "Ah! you cannot deny that fact?"
"No, oh! no," Christina put out her hands as if to ward off an actual blow. "I did try to pawn it. I was so dreadfully poor, but—the man frightened me. I came away from the shop, then——"
"Exactly; they frightened you, because they showed you plainly that they suspected you of having come by the pendant dishonestly. You ran away from the shop."
The dreadful truth of every word spoken, the dreadful difficulty—nay, so it seemed to Christina, the impossibility of refuting the accusation levelled against her, made her feel helpless, tongue-tied, like some creature caught in a trap, from which there was no way of escape. She had no means, none at all, of proving her own story. Her mother, who had given her the jewel, was dead. She had never shown it to anyone; she had never had occasion to show it to anybody; as far as she knew, there was not a living soul in the world, who could come forward to declare that the pendant was hers. Even Mrs. Donaldson, her late employer, could not have vouched for her truth and honesty in this respect, for Mrs. Donaldson had not known that she possessed the beautiful thing; she had only been her mother's acquaintance, not even an intimate friend.
"But surely," the practical Miss Doubleday here intervened, "surely, if Miss Moore were guilty of stealing the pendant, she would not wear it here, under your very eyes, Sir Arthur. It is not likely——"
"I understood Miss Moore to say she was ignorant of the meaning of the initials above the pendant," the old gentleman answered coldly; "presumably, therefore, she is not aware that C stands for Congreve. There is no reason to suppose that she knew from whose bag she was taking the pendant, when she took it."
"But I did not take it," Christina cried; "indeed, indeed, I did not. It is my own, my very own; all I have told you is true." Sir Arthur ignored her words, turning gravely to his cousin.
"My dear Cicely, I am very sorry to be unintentionally the cause of so much unpleasantness for you, but I am afraid that, in the interests of justice, I shall be obliged to make this the subject of police investigation."