CHAPTER XI
That night Innocent made an end of all her hesitation. Resolutely she put away every thought that could deter her from the step she was now resolved to take. Poor old Priscilla little imagined the underlying cause of the lingering tenderness with which the girl kissed her "good-night," looking back with more than her usual sweetness as she went along the corridor to her own little room. Once there, she locked and bolted the door fast, and then set to work gathering a few little things together and putting them in a large but light-weight satchel, such as she had often used to carry some of the choicest apples from the orchard when they were being gathered in. Her first care was for her manuscript,—the long-treasured scribble, kept so secretly and so often considered with hope and fear, and wonder and doubting—then she took one or two of the more cherished volumes which had formerly been the property of the "Sieur Amadis" and packed them with it. Choosing only the most necessary garments from her little store, she soon filled her extemporary travelling-bag, and then sat down to write a letter to Robin. It was brief and explicit.
"DEAR ROBIN,"—it ran—"I have left this beloved home. It is impossible for me to stay. Dad left me some money in bank-notes in that sealed letter—so I want for nothing. Do not be anxious or unhappy—but marry soon and forget me. I know you will always be good to Priscilla—tell her I am not ungrateful to her for all her care of me. I love her dearly. But I am placed in the world unfortunately, and I must do something that will help me out of the shame of being a burden on others and an object of pity or contempt. If you will keep the old books Dad gave me, and still call them mine, you will be doing me a great kindness. And will you take care of Cupid?—he is quite a clever bird and knows his friends. He will come to you or Priscilla as easily as he comes to me. Good-bye, you dear, kind boy! I love you very much, but not as you want me to love you,—and I should only make you miserable if I stayed here and married you. God bless you! "INNOCENT."
She put this in an envelope and addressed it,—then making sure that everything was ready, she took a few sovereigns from the little pile of housekeeping money which Priscilla always brought to her to count over every week and compare with the household expenses.
"I can return these when I change one of Dad's bank-notes," she said to herself—"but I must have something smaller to pay my way with just now than a hundred pounds."
Indeed the notes Hugo Jocelyn had left for her might have given her some little trouble and embarrassment, but she did not pause to consider difficulties. When a human creature resolves to dare and to do, no impediment, real or imaginary, is allowed to stand long in the way. An impulse pushes the soul forward, be it ever so reluctantly—the impulse is sometimes from heaven and sometimes from hell—but as long as it is active and peremptory, it is obeyed blindly and to the full.
This little ignorant and unworldly girl passed the rest of the night in tidying the beloved room where she had spent so many happy hours, and setting everything in order,—talking in whispers between whiles to the ghostly presence of the "Sieur Amadis" as to a friend who knew her difficult plight and guessed her intentions.
"You see," she said, softly, "there is no way out of it. It is not as if I were anybody—I am nobody! I was never wanted in the world at all. I have no name. I have never been baptised. And though I know now that I have a mother, I feel that she is nothing to me. I can hardly believe she is my mother. She is a lady of fashion with a secret—and I am the secret! I ought to be put away and buried and forgotten!—that would be safest for her, and perhaps best for me! But I should like to live long enough to make her wish she had been true to my father and had owned me as his child! Ah, such dreams! Will they ever come true!"
She paused, looking up by the dim candle-light at the arms of the
"Sieur Amadis"—who "Here seekinge Forgetfulnesse did here fynde
Peace"—and at the motto "Mon coeur me soutien."
"Poor 'Sieur Amadis!'" she murmured—"He sought forgetfulness!—shall I ever do the same? How strange it will be not to WISH to remember!—surely one must be very old, or sad, to find gladness in forgetting!"