Speak as kind to him as you can! What words were these to be said to her whose whole being was disturbed and excited by the idea of seeing this stranger! Keep yourself from falling at his feet and kissing them; from falling on his neck and weeping over him. If Dick had but known, these were more likely things to happen. She scarcely saw her boy go out, or could distinguish what were the last words he said to her. Her heart was full of the other—the other, whose face her hungry eyes had not been able to distinguish from her window, who had never seen her, so far as he knew, and yet who was hers, though she dared not say so, dared not claim any share in him. Dared not! though she could not have told why. To her there were barriers between them impassable. She had given him up when he was a child for the sake of justice, and the wild natural virtue and honour in her soul stood between her and the child she had relinquished. It seemed to her that in giving him up she had come under a solemn tacit engagement never to make herself known to him, and she was too profoundly agitated now to be able to think. Indeed I do not think that reasonable sober thought, built upon just foundations, was ever possible to her. She could muse and brood, and did so, and had done so,—doing little else for many a silent year; and she could sit still, mentally, and allow her imagination and mind to be taken possession of by a tumult of fancy and feeling, which drew her now and then to a hasty decision, and which, had she been questioned on the subject, she would have called thinking—as, indeed, it stands for thinking with many of us. It had been this confused working in her of recollection and of a fanciful remorse which had determined her to give up Valentine to his father; and now that old fever seemed to have come back again, and to boil in her veins. I don’t know if she had seriously regretted her decision then, or if she had ever allowed herself to think of it as a thing that could have been helped, or that might still be remedied. But by this time, at least, she had come to feel that it never could be remedied, and that Valentine Ross, Lord Eskside’s heir, could never be carried off to the woods and fields as her son, as perhaps a child might have been. He was a gentleman now, she felt, with a forlorn pride, which mingled strangely with the anguish of absolute loss with which she realised the distance between them,—the tremendous and uncrossable gulf between his state and hers. He was her son, yet never could know her, never acknowledge her,—and she was to speak with him that night.
The sun had begun to sink, before, starting up from her long and agitated musing, the womanish idea struck her of making some preparations for his reception, arranging her poor room and her person to make as favourable an impression as possible upon the young prince who was her own child. What was she to do? She had been a gentleman’s wife once, though for so short a time; and sometimes of late this recollection had come strongly to her mind, with a sensation of curious pride which was new to her. Now she made an effort to recall that strange chapter in her life, when she had lived among beautiful things, and worn beautiful dresses, and might have learned what gentlemen like. She had never seen Val sufficiently near to distinguish his features; and oddly enough, ignoring the likeness of her husband which was in Dick, she expected to find in Valentine another Richard, and instinctively concluded that his tastes must be what his father’s were. After a short pause of consideration, she went to a trunk, which she had lately sent for to the vagrant headquarters, where it had been kept for her for years—a trunk containing some relics of that departed life in which she had been “a lady.” Out of this she took a little shawl embroidered in silken garlands, and which had faded into colours even more tasteful and sweet than they were in their newest glories—a shawl for which Mr Grinder, or any other dilettante in Eton, would have given her almost anything she liked to ask. This she threw over a rough table of Dick’s making, and placed on it some flowers in a homely little vase of coarse material yet graceful shape. Here, too, she placed a book or two drawn from the same repository of treasures—books in rich faded binding, chiefly poetry, which Richard had given her in his early folly. The small table with its rich cover, its bright flowers and gilded books, looked like a little altar of fancy and grace in the bare room; it was indeed an altar dedicated to the memory of the past, to the pleasure of the unknown.
When she had arranged this touching and simple piece of incongruity, she proceeded to dress herself. She took off her printed gown and put on a black one, which also came out of her trunk. She put aside the printed handkerchief which she usually wore, tramp fashion, on her head, and brushed out her long, beautiful black hair, in which there was not one white thread. Why should there have been? She was not more than thirty-five or thirty-six, though she looked older. She twisted her hair in great coils round her head—a kind of coiffure which I think the poor creature remembered Richard had liked. Her appearance was strangely changed when she had made this simple toilet. She looked like some wild half-savage princess condemned to exile and penury, deprived of her retinue and familiar pomp, but not of her natural dignity. The form of her fine head, the turn of her graceful shoulders, had not been visible in her tramp dress. When she had done everything she could think of to perfect the effect which she prepared, poor soul, so carefully, she sat down, with what calm she could muster, to wait for her boys. Her boys, her children, the two who had come into the world at one birth, had lain in her arms together, but who now were as unconscious of the relationship, and as far divided, as if worlds had lain between them! Indeed she was quite calm and still to outward appearance, having acquired that power of perfect external self-restraint which many passionate natures possess, though her heart beat loud in her head and ears, performing a whole muffled orchestra of wild music. Had any stranger spoken to her she would not have heard; had any one come in, except the two she was expecting, I do not think she would have seen them, she was so utterly absorbed in one thought.
At last she heard the sound of their steps coming up-stairs. The light had begun to wane in the west, and a purple tone of half darkness had come into the golden air of the evening. She stood up mechanically, not knowing what she was doing, and the next moment two figures stood before her—one well known, her familiar boy,—the other! Was this the other? A strange sensation, half of pleasure, half of disappointment, shot through her at the sight of his face.
Val had come in carelessly enough, taking off his hat, but with the ease of a superior. He stopped short, however, when he saw the altogether unexpected appearance of the woman who was Dick’s mother. He felt a curious thrill come into his veins—of surprise, he thought. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I hope you don’t mind my coming? Brown said you wouldn’t mind.”
“You are very welcome, sir,” she said, her voice trembling in spite of her. “If there is anything I can do for you. You have been so kind—to my boy.”
“Oh,” said Val, embarrassed, with a shy laugh, “it pays to be kind to Brown. He’s done us credit. I say—what a nice place you’ve got here!”
He was looking almost with consternation at the beautiful embroidery and the books. Where could they have picked up such things? He was half impressed and half alarmed, he could not have told why. He put out a furtive hand and clutched at Dick’s arm. “I say, do you think she minds?” Val had never been so shy in his life.
“You want me to tell you your fortune, sir?” she said, recovering a little. “I don’t hold with it; but I’ll do it if you wish it. I’ll do it—once—and for you.”
“Oh, thanks, awfully,” cried Val, more and more taken aback—“if you’re sure you don’t mind:” and he held out his hand with a certain timidity most unusual to him. She took it suddenly in both hers by an uncontrollable movement, held it fast, gazed at it earnestly, and bent down her head as if she would have kissed it. Val felt her hands tremble, and her agitation was so evident that both the boys were moved to unutterable wonder; yet somehow, I think, the one of them who wondered least was Valentine, upon whom this trembling eager grasp made the strangest impression. He felt as if the tears were coming to his eyes, but could not tell why.