“It is very odd,” said I, “I can fancy I have heard a voice like yours somewhere long ago. I seem to feel as if I knew you. I don’t remember ever hearing the name you want; but I’ll consult my sister and an old servant we have, and try to find out,—Sermoneta! I certainly do not recollect ever hearing the name. But it is very sad you should be so disappointed. If you will come to the Park some day next week and ask for Miss Millicent, I will do my best to find out for you if anybody knows the name.”
He made a great many exclamations of thanks, which, to be sure, I could have dispensed with, and paused a little again in a hesitating way when I wanted to go on. At last he began quite in a new tone; and this was the oddest part of all.
“If Madame should find, on inquiring, that the bearer of this name did not will to bear it; if there might be reasons to conceal that name;—if the lady, who is the Contessa, would but see me, would but let me know——”
“Sir,” said I, interrupting the young fellow all at once, “is it an English lady you are speaking of? English ladies do not conceal their names. Reason or not, we own to the name that belongs to us in this country. No, no, I know nothing about such a possibility. I don’t believe in it either. If I can hear of a Countess Sermoneta, I’ll let you know; but as for anybody denying their own name, you must not think such things happen here. Good night. You’re not accustomed to England, I can see. You must not think me impatient; but that’s not how we do things in our country. Come to the Park, all the same; and I shall do what I can to find out whether anybody remembers what you want to know.”
This time he did not make any answer, only drew back a step, and so got quite out of the light of Dame Marsden’s window. He seemed to be silenced by what I had said, and I went on quite briskly, a little stimulated, I confess, by that little encounter, and the exertion of breaking my spear for English honour. Denying one’s name, indeed! Of course we have our faults like other people; but who ever heard of an English person (not speaking of thieves, or such creatures, of course), denying his name! The thing was quite preposterous. It quite warmed me up as I hastened back to the Park, though I was rather later than usual, and the night had fallen dark all at once; and, to be sure, this kept me from all those uncomfortable ideas—that perhaps, it might be a deception after all; and what if it were a contrivance to be admitted to the Park? and it might, even, for anything I know, be all a fortune-hunter’s device to get introduced to Sara Cresswell—which disturbed my mind sadly, though I felt much ashamed of them after I had time for reflection at home.
PART II.
THE LIEUTENANT’S WIFE.
Chapter I.
I WILL tell you exactly how it all happened.
I have been an orphan all my life; at least, if that is a little Irish, I mean that I never knew, or saw, that I know of, either my father or my mother. Sad enough in the best of cases, and mine was not the best case you could think of. I don’t know who paid for me when I was a child. Some of mamma’s relations, I suppose, among them; and of all people in the world to trust a poor little orphan child to, think of fixing upon a soldier’s wife, following the regiment! That is how I have always been half a soldier myself; and one reason, perhaps, if any reason was necessary but his dear, good, tender-hearted self, why I was so ready, when Harry asked me, to do the most foolish thing in the world.
Though I say they made a strange choice in leaving me with dear Nurse Richards, I don’t mean that it was not, so far as the woman was concerned, the very best choice that possibly could have been made. Richards himself was a sergeant, and she was quite a superior woman; but much more to the purpose than that, she had been my very own nurse, having taken me when poor mamma died. She had lost her baby, and I had lost my mother; and it was for real love, and not for hire, that Nurse Richards took the charge of me. She used to work hard, and deny herself many things, I know, to keep the little house, or the snug lodgings we always had, as far off from the barracks as Richards would allow them to be. I know she could not possibly have had enough money for me to make up for what she spent on my account; but I don’t think it was hard to her, working and sparing for the poor orphan little girl. I know such things by my own experience now. It was sweet to her to labour, and contrive, and do a hundred things I knew nothing about, for “the child’s” sake. I would do it all over again, and thankful, for her sake. Ah, that I would! Pain and trouble are sweet for those one loves.