“Well, cheer up, dear Miss Prudence,” she said sympathetically. “I am glad she is better. Perhaps she may be all right to-morrow.”
“I’m sure I hope so,” answered the depressed Prudence, as she made her way to her own apartment. To-night she had no heart to enter the drawing-room and angle for a few words of conversation from Major Jones, round-eyed, stupid Mr. Batley, or gruff Mr. Lorimer, or to join the game of whist that so often resulted in personalities.
There was still a painful scene before her. She must tell her sister that Mrs. Geldheraus had left England, and that there was consequently no immediate hope of her resuming her proper size. Ever since Augusta awoke and saw that her sister had returned, she had followed her movements with anxious and enquiring eyes; but Prudence determined to give her no information until night, when all the boarders were safely in bed, and when infantile cries were unlikely to reach them. Accordingly, having waited until one by one the residents at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, had departed to their several rooms, and the house was wrapped in repose, Prudence stole into her sister’s apartment and communicated the disastrous intelligence. She had reason to congratulate herself on the choice of so late an hour, for Augusta, despite prayers and remonstrances, took it very badly indeed. She sobbed, howled, kicked, balled her little red fists into her eyes, and in every way that her circumstances permitted expressed her sorrow, anger, and disappointment. In vain Prudence implored her to be quiet. Her overwhelming dismay apparently shut out all other thought, and it was only when her sister actually put a pillow over her head, to stifle her cries, that she consented to moderate the expression of her grief. Once she grew quieter, the tender-hearted Prudence took her up, kissed and tried to comfort her, walking her up and down the room as if she were in reality the baby she seemed to be, and continued this soothing progress until Augusta wept herself to sleep in her arms.
CHAPTER XII.
“GOOD MRS. BROWN.”
Early next morning Prudence carefully locked all the doors of her own room and of her sister’s apartment and went round to the stationer’s to see if a letter had come for her from X. Y. Z. With much relief she picked out, from a bundle of others, a missive addressed to P. S., and proceeded to read it. It was tolerably written and spelled, the paper was clean, and the communication was signed “Mrs. Brown.” “Mrs. Brown” agreed to meet Prudence at nine o’clock that evening in the first-class waiting room at London Bridge Station, and had no doubt they would come to terms. “She was prepared,” she said, “to take the pretty little dear and treat it with a mother’s love,” and regretted that she was unable to make an appointment earlier in the day “on account of family reasons.”
Perilous as was the delay to Prudence, she was pleased with the letter. The writer, if not a person of culture, was evidently kind and respectable, so she resolved to be patient, and bear the strain of the situation for a few hours longer.
Her next move was to purchase a feeding bottle, for her previous efforts to make Augusta swallow milk had been singularly unsuccessful, and she was filled with uneasiness lest her sister might be starved to death. She then returned home, fed Augusta, washed her, and dressed her in the garments provided by Whiteley, and finally proceeded to explain to her the measures she had taken.
“I have told you already,” she said, “that if you remained like this it would be impossible to keep you here. They all look suspiciously at me downstairs, and I really believe they think you have either got the plague, or else that I am slowly poisoning you. Mrs. Wilcox spoke to me again about getting a doctor, and I am afraid that at any moment she may come with one, and insist on his seeing you. Now, I have our good name to consider, and I know that if you are not sent away, and sent speedily, Miss Lord will be capable of breaking in the door. Then, if you are discovered, we shall simply be lost. As for telling the truth, they wouldn’t believe me if I swore to it. It is no use your objecting, Augusta, if you mean that squirm for an objection. You have got yourself and me into this hole, and the least you can do is to be quiet and help me to avoid scandal. There you go again. What on earth do you mean? If you want me to keep you here until Mrs. Geldheraus replies, it simply can’t be done. She may not write for a week, and every moment I am running risk of discovery. No, I shall convey you away to-night, whatever happens. Every question asked about you sends my heart into my mouth. I have been making arrangements for your comfort. You are to go to a nice, respectable, married woman, who has no children of her own. She guarantees you a good home, with the care and affection of a mother. I have thought out everything. When you are gone, I shall send some of our boxes to Paddington Station as a blind. I had better stay on here for a week or a fortnight after you, just to disarm suspicion. By that time we shall know what Mrs. Geldheraus can do for you, and we must shape our future actions accordingly. Gracious Heaven! if she says she can do nothing for you, what will become of us? I suppose I shall have to pretend you are dead, and rear you somewhere as my adopted daughter! It is a horrible position to be placed in. I am getting hardened to telling falsehoods to those people downstairs, and yet I tremble at the life of deceit I see before me. We shall have to avoid all our friends—everyone who has known us. If I were even sure you would gradually grow up as an ordinary baby does, I might look forward to your speaking in a year or so, and then you might advise me what to do, but if you remain always dumb, and always a baby——!”
Overcome by her troubles, and by the long vista of difficulties she saw opening before her, poor Prudence sobbed aloud.
There was much to be done, however, so she bathed her eyes, powdered her flushed cheeks, and proceeded to pack up such indispensable articles as would be needed by Augusta. She kept to her room as much as possible all day. At dinner she announced that her sister was better, and that she herself might possibly spend the evening with some friends, so requested that the front door might be left unchained, to permit of her letting herself in with a latch-key that she borrowed from Major Jones. Nobody made any comment. The general opinion as to her treatment of her poor suffering sister, was too strong to admit of anything short of the whole truth being spoken.