“I am listening, Francis; but, excuse me, I do not rightly understand you. Is this not a question of a child which you are obliged to maintain?”
“Yes, certainly; and that’s not the heaviest part of the burden. I have also to maintain the mother.”
“Francis!” I exclaimed, in a transport of joy and relief.
“Now it is my turn to say I don’t understand you,” she rejoined, regarding me with an adorable simplicity. “Do you think it a light charge for me, in my position, to bring up a child, and provide for its mother whom I have sent to a private asylum?”
I thanked Heaven from the bottom of my heart that she, in her innocency, did not suspect the conclusions I had drawn from the words and manner of the old witch.
“This is the fatal consequence of my rash obstinacy with poor Harry Blount,” she continued. “You have heard me speak of the accident before. He was carried in a dying state into the cottage of this Mrs. Jool and her daughter. In my despair, I repeated several times: ‘It is my fault; I have killed him, I have killed him.’ The daughter knelt beside Blount in the wildest agony; and Harry could just murmur, ‘My wife, my poor wife; have pity on her, Miss Francis!’ I did not know until this moment that they were secretly married. I promised solemnly I would care for her, and even if I had made no promise I should still have done all I have done for her.
“The mother always was, and is, a bad woman; she had, as it were, thrown her daughter into the arms of Blount, whom she considered a good match. After the funeral, she made such good use of my words uttered in despair, and spread such nefarious reports in the village, that I was accused in all earnest of being his murderer. In fact, we were obliged to consult the magistrate, a friend of ours, as to the measures we ought to take to contradict and put a stop to such slanderous charges. This, of course, did not relieve me of my obligations towards the daughter, in whom, very soon after the birth of her child, symptoms of insanity manifested themselves. The child had to be taken from her, and it was given in care to a sister of hers in the neighbouring village, who had just lost her youngest born. Perhaps you would imagine she took it out of sisterly charity; but no, she insisted upon my paying her monthly wages as I should have to do any other wet nurse. Besides, I had to do what I could for the poor mother. It was most fortunate for me that on the occasion of my visit to Utrecht I met with Aunt Roselaer, otherwise I could not have afforded the expense the mother has cost under the care of Dr. D. Mrs. Jool, not caring to live alone, went to the house of her married daughter under the pretext of watching over the little one; but the fact is, she would there have a better opportunity of extorting money from me, and this she does under all kinds of pretences. The child has long been weaned, and ought not to be left in their charge. I am always threatening to take it away from them, but I have not yet done so; for, to confess a truth, I have recoiled from the rumours and false charges such a change would give rise to. The mother and child are now costing me the greater part of my income. My grandfather finds fault with me about it, for he regards it as so much money thrown away. Now, Leopold, do you think I could draw a man I really loved into such a maëlstrom as this?”
“The man worthy to possess you, Francis, will not be drawn in, but will aid you in getting out of it.”
“It is impossible; I will never abandon this child of Harry Blount’s.”
“I would never advise you to do anything of the sort. I know the way to treat such people as Mrs. Jool. The child must be taken away from her and brought up by respectable farmers; perhaps the Pauwelsens would take him. To-morrow I will go with you to the village——”