“O sir! don’t mention it,” said the landlady; and, as she spoke, she took a piece of paper from her bosom, very neatly folded, and laid it on the table. “And here, sir,” she added, taking from the same depository a card,—“here is the card left by the gentleman who saw to the funeral. He called half an hour ago, and bade me say, with his compliments, that he would wait on you to-morrow at eleven o’clock. So I hope you won’t go yet: for I think he means to settle everything for you; he said as much, sir.”
Philip glanced over the card, and read, “Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln’s Inn.” His brow grew dark—he let the card fall on the ground, put his foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, “The lawyer shall not bribe me out of my curse!” He turned to the total of the bill—not heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense of her scanty maintenance and humble lodging—paid the money, and, as the landlady wrote the receipt, he asked, “Who was the gentleman—the younger gentleman—who called in the morning of the day my mother died?”
“Oh, sir! I am so sorry I did not get his name. Mr. Perkins said that he was some relation. Very odd he has never been since. But he’ll be sure to call again, sir; you had much better stay here.”
“No: it does not signify. All that he could do is done. But stay, give him this note, if he should call.”
Philip, taking the pen from the landlady’s hand, hastily wrote (while Mrs. Lacy went to bring him sealing-wax and a light) these words:
“I cannot guess who you are: they say that you call yourself a relation; that must be some mistake. I knew not that my poor mother had relations so kind. But, whoever you be, you soothed her last hours—she died in your arms; and if ever—years, long years hence—we should chance to meet, and I can do anything to aid another, my blood, and my life, and my heart, and my soul, all are slaves to your will. If you be really of her kindred, I commend to you my brother: he is at ——, with Mr. Morton. If you can serve him, my mother’s soul will watch over you as a guardian angel. As for me, I ask no help from any one: I go into the world and will carve out my own way. So much do I shrink from the thought of charity from others, that I do not believe I could bless you as I do now if your kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my mother’s grave. PHILIP.”
He sealed this letter, and gave it to the woman.
“Oh, by the by,” said she, “I had forgot; the Doctor said that if you would send for him, he would be most happy to call on you, and give you any advice.”
“Very well.”
“And what shall I say to Mr. Blackwell?”