The words had scarcely left her lips, the tears were still shining in her eyes, when Marian started up, called out of her dream by a sound which none of them besides had been quick enough to hear. “There! there! I hear him,” cried Marian, shaking back her loose curls; and they all heard the far-off rapid rumble of a vehicle, gradually invading all the echoes of this quietness. It came along steadily—nearer—nearer—waking every one to the most overpowering excitement. Miss Anastasia marched through the little parlour, with an echoing step, throwing her tall shadow on the blind, clasping her fingers tight. Mr Atheling rushed to the door; Marian ran to the kitchen to wake up Susan, and see that the tray was ready for Charlie’s refreshment; Mamma stirred the fire, and made it blaze; Agnes drew the blind aside, and looked out into the darkness from the window. Yes, there could be no mistake; on came the rumbling wheels, closer and closer. Then the cab became absolutely visible, opposite the door—some one leapt out—was it Charlie?—but he had to wait, to help some one else, very slow and uncertain, out of the vehicle. They all crowded to the door, the mother and sisters for the moment half forgetting Miss Anastasia; and there stood a most indisputable Charlie, very near six feet high, with a travelling-cap and a rough overcoat, bringing home the most extraordinary guest imaginable to his amazed parental home.
It was a woman, enveloped from head to foot in a great cloak, but unbonneted, and with an amazing head-dress; and after her stumbled forth a boy, of precisely the same genus and appearance as the Italian boys with hurdy-gurdies and with images, familiar enough in Bellevue. Charlie hurried forward, paying the greatest possible attention to his charge, who was somewhat peevish. He scarcely left her hand when he plunged among all those anxious people at the door. “All safe—all well, mother; how did you know I was coming?—how d’ye do, papa? Let her in, let her in, girls!—she’s tired to death, and doesn’t know a word of English. Let’s have her disposed of first of all—she’s worth her weight in gold—— Miss Rivers!”
The young man fell back in extreme amazement. “Who is she, young Atheling?” cried Miss Anastasia, towering high in the background over everybody’s head.
Charlie took off his cap with a visible improvement of “manners.” “The nurse that brought them home,” he answered, in the concisest and most satisfactory fashion; and, grasping the hand of every one as he passed, with real pleasure glowing on his bronzed face, Charlie steered his charge in—seeing there was light in it—to the best room. Arrived there, he fairly turned his back to the wall, and harangued his anxious audience.
“It’s all right,” said Charlie; “she tells her story as clearly as possible when she’s not out of humour, and the doctor’s on his way. I’ve made sure of everything of importance; and now, mother, if you can manage it, and Miss Rivers does not object, let us have something to eat, and get her off to bed, and then you shall hear all the rest.”
Marian went off instantly to call Susan, and all the way Marian repeated under her breath, “All the rest! all the rest of what? Oh, Louis! but I’ll find out what they mean.”
CHAPTER XXII.
CHARLIE’S REPORT.
It was far from an easy achievement to get her safely conveyed up the stairs. She turned round and delivered addresses to them in most lively and oratorical Italian, eloquent on the subject of her sufferings by the way; she was disposed to be out of temper when no one answered her but Charlie, and fairly wound up, and stimulated with Miss Anastasia’s capon and Mrs Atheling’s wine, was not half so much disposed to be sent off to bed as her entertainers were to send her. These entertainers were in the oddest state of amaze and excitement possible. It was beginning to draw near the wintry morning of another day, and this strange figure in the strange dress, which did not look half so pretty in its actual reality, and upon this hard-featured peasant woman, as it did in pictures and romance—the voluble foreign tongue of which they did not know a word—the emphatic gestures; the change in the appearance of Charlie, and the entire suddenness of the whole scene, confused the minds of the lookers-on. Then a pale face in a white cap, a little shrinking white-robed figure, trembling and anxious, was perceptible to Mrs Atheling at the top of the stair, looking down upon it with terror. So Mamma peremptorily sent Charlie back beside Miss Anastasia, and resumed into her own hands the management of affairs. Under her guidance the woman and the boy were comfortably disposed of, no one being able to speak a word to them, in the room which had been Charlie’s. Rachel was comforted and sent back to bed, and then Mrs Atheling turned suddenly upon her own girls. “My dears,” said Mamma, “you are not wanted down stairs. I don’t suppose Papa and I are wanted either; Miss Anastasia must talk over her business with Charlie—it is not our business you know, Marian, my darling; go to sleep.”
“Go to sleep!—people cannot go to sleep just when they choose at five o’clock in the morning, mamma!” cried the aggrieved and indignant Marian; but Agnes, though quite as curious as her sister, was wise enough to lend her assistance in the cause of subordination. Marian was under very strong temptation. She thought she could almost like to steal down in the dark and listen; but honour, we are glad to say, prevailed over curiosity, and sleep over both. When her pretty young head touched the pillow, there was no eavesdropping possible to Marian; and in the entirest privacy and silence, after all this tumult, in the presence of Mamma and Mr Atheling, and addressing himself to Miss Anastasia, Charlie told his tale. He took out his pocket-book from his pocket—the same old-fashioned big pocket-book which he had carried away with him, and gave his evidences one by one into Miss Anastasia’s hands as he spoke.
But the old lady’s fingers trembled: she had restrained herself as well as she could, feeling it only just that he should be welcomed by his own, and even half diverted out of her anxiety by the excited Tyrolese; but now her restrained feelings rushed back upon her heart. The papers rustled in her hand; she did not hear him as he began, in order, and deliberately, his report. “Information! I cannot receive information, I am too far gone for that,” cried the old lady, with a hysterical break in her voice. “Give me no facts, Charlie, Charlie!—I am not able to put them together—tell me once in a word—is it true?”