That Boy of Norcott's

by Charles James Lever

“I am, with accustomed esteem and respect,

“Your devoted servant,

“Jacob Ulrich.

“P. S. Herr Ignaz is, happily for him, in a condition that renders him unconscious of his calamity. The family has retired for the present to the small cottage near the gate of the Abazzia Villa, called 'Die Hutte,' but desires complete privacy, and declines all condolences.—J. U.

“2nd P. S. The enclosed letters have arrived here during your absence.”

So intensely imbued was my mind with suspicion and distrust, that it was not till after long and careful examination I satisfied myself that this letter was genuine, and that its contents might be taken as true. The packet it enclosed would, however, have resolved all doubt; they were three letters from my dear mother. Frequent reference was made to other letters which had never reached me, and in which it was clear the mode in which she had learned my address was explained. She also spoke of Sara as of one she knew by correspondence, and gave me to understand how she was following every little humble incident of my daily life with loving interest and affection. She enjoined me by all means to devote myself heartily and wholly to those who had befriended me so generously, and to merit the esteem of that good girl, who, caring nothing for herself, gave her heart and soul to the service of her father.

“I have told you so much,” said she, “of myself in former letters” (these I never saw) “that I shall not weary you with more. You know why I gave up the school, and through what reasonings I consented to call myself Lady Norcott, though in such poverty as mine the assumption of a title only provoked ridicule. Mr. McBride, however, persuaded me that a voluntary surrender of my position might be made terrible use of against me, should—what I cannot believe—the attempt ever be made to question the legality of my marriage with your father.

“It has been so constantly repeated, however, that Sir Roger means to marry this lady,—some say they are already married,—that I have had careful abstracts made of the registry, and every detail duly certified which can establish your legitimacy,—not that I can bring myself to believe your father would ever raise that question. Strangely enough, my allowance, left unpaid for several years, was lately resumed, and Foster and Wall received orders to acknowledge my drafts on them, for what, I concluded, were meant to cover all the arrears due. As I had already tided over these years of trial and pressure, I refused all save the sum due for the current year, and begged to learn Sir Roger's address that I might write to him. To this they replied 'that they had no information to give me on the subject; that their instructions, as regarded payments to me, came to them from the house of Rodiger, in Frankfort, and in the manner and terms already communicated to me,'—all showing me that the whole was a matter of business, into which no sentiment was to enter, or be deemed capable of entering.”

It was about this period my mother came to learn my address, and she avowed that all other thoughts and cares were speedily lost in the whirlpool of joy these tidings swept around her. Her eagerness to see me grew intense, but was tempered by the fear lest her selfish anxiety might prejudice me in that esteem I had already won from my employers, of whom, strangely enough, she spoke freely and familiarly, as though she had known them.

The whole tone of these letters—and I read them over and over—calmed and reassured me. Full of personal details, they were never selfish in its unpleasant sense. They often spoke of poverty, but rather as a thing to be baffled by good-humored contrivance or rendered endurable by habit than as matter for complaint and bewailment. Little dashes of light-heartedness would now and then break the dark sombreness of the picture, and show how her spirit was yet alive to life and its enjoyments. Above all, there was no croaking, no foreboding. She had lived through some years of trial and sorrow, and if the future had others as gloomy in store, it was time enough when they came to meet their exigencies.