“Little girl,” said Miss Musgrave, the tears dropping from her cheeks. “There is only one man’s child that you can be. You are John’s little girl, my brother John, and I am his sister Mary. But I do not know your name, nor any thing about you. Give me John’s letter—and come to me, come to me, my child!”
“I am Lilias,” said the little girl; but she held back, still examining with curious though less terrified eyes. “You will give it me back if you are not Mary?” she went on, at length holding out the letter; but she took no notice of the invitation to come nearer, which Mary herself forgot in the eagerness of her anxiety to get the letter, the first communication from her brother—if it was from her brother—for so many years. She took it quickly, almost snatching it from the child’s reluctant fingers, and leaning against the doorway in her agitation, tore it hastily open. Little Lilias was agitated too, with fear and desolate strangeness, and that terrible ignorance of any alternative between safety and utter destruction which makes danger insupportable to a child. What were they to do if their claims were not acknowledged? Wander into the woods and die in the darkness like the children in the story? Little Lilias had feared nothing till that first doubt had come over her at the door of the house, where, her father had instructed her, she was to be made so happy. But if they were not taken in and made happy, what were she and Nello to do? A terror of darkness, and cold, and starvation came upon the little girl. She would wrap the big shawl about her little brother, but what if wild beasts or robbers should come in the middle of the dark? Her little bosom swelled full, the sobs rose into her throat. Oh where could she go with Nello, if this was not Mary? But she restrained the sobs by a last effort, like a little hero. She sat down on the stone edge of the causeway, and held her hands clasped tight to keep herself together, and fixed her eyes upon the lady with the letter. The lady and the letter swam and changed, through the big tears that kept coming, but she never took those great dark, intense eyes from Miss Musgrave’s face. The Italian nurse was bending over Nello, fully occupied in hushing his little plaints. Nello was tired, hungry, sleepy, cold. He had no responsibility upon him, poor little mite, to overcome the weakness of nature. He looked no more than six, though he was older, a small and delicate child; and he clung to his nurse, holding her desperately, afraid of he knew not what. She had plenty to do to take care of him without thinking of what was going on above; though the woman was indignant to be kept waiting, and cast fierce looks, in the intervals of petting Nello, upon the lady, the cold Englishwoman who was so long of taking the children to her arms. As for the cabman, emblem of the general unconcern which surrounds every individual drama, he stood leaning calmly upon his horse, waiting for the dénoûment, whatever it might be. Miss Musgrave would see him paid one way or another, and this was the only thing for which he needed to care.
“Lilias,” said Miss Musgrave, going hastily to the child, with tears running down her cheeks, “I am your aunt Mary, my darling, and you will soon learn to know me. Come and give me a kiss, and bring me your little brother. You are tired with your long journey, my poor child.”
“No, no—I am not tired—only Nello; and he is h-hungry. Ah! Kiss Nello, Nello—come and kiss him; he is the baby. And are you Mary—real, real Mary?” cried the little girl, bursting out into sobs; “oh; I cannot h-help it. I did not mean it; I was fr-frightened. Nello, come, come, Mary is here.”
“Yes, Mary is here,” said Miss Musgrave, taking the child into her arms, who, even while she sobbed against her shoulder, put out an impatient little hand and beckoned, crying, “Nello! Nello!” But it was not so easy to extract Nello from his nurse’s arms. He cried and clung all the faster from hearing his sister’s outburst; their poor little hearts were full; and what chokings of vague misery, the fatigue and discomfort infinitely deepened by a dumb consciousness of loneliness, danger, and strangeness behind, were in these little inarticulate souls! something more desperate in its inability to understand what it feared, its dim anguish of uncomprehension, than anything that can be realized and fathomed. Mary signed eagerly to the nurse to bring the little boy indoors into the hall, which was not a reassuring place, vast and dark as it was, in the dimness of the evening, to a child. But she had too many difficulties on her hands in this strange crisis to think of that. She had the boxes brought in also, and hastily sent the carriage away, with a desperate sense as of burning her ships, and leaving no possible way to herself of escape from the difficulty. The gardener, who had appeared round the corner, attracted by the sound, presented himself as much out of curiosity as of goodwill to assist in carrying in the boxes, “though it would be handiest to drive round to the front door, and tak’ them straight oop t’ stair,” he said, innocently enough. But when Miss Musgrave gave authoritative directions that they were to be brought into the hall, naturally the gardener was surprised. This was a proceeding entirely unheard of, and not to be understood in any way.
“It’ll be a deal more trouble after,” he said, under his breath, which did not matter much. But when he had obeyed his mistress’s orders, he went round to the kitchen full of the new event. “There’s something oop,” the gardener said, delighted to bring so much excitement with him, and he gave a full account of the two pale little children, the foreign woman with skewers stuck in her hair, and finally, most wonderful of all, the boxes which he had deposited with his own hands on the floor of the hall. “I ken nothing about it,” he said, “but them as has been longer aboot t’ house than me could tell a deal if they pleased; and Miss Brown, it’s her as is wanted,” he added leisurely at the end.
Miss Brown, who was Mary Musgrave’s maid, and had been standing listening to his story with frequent contradictions and denials, in a state of general protestation, started at these words.
“You great gaby,” she said, “why didn’t you say so at first?” and hurried out of the kitchen, not indisposed to get at the bottom of the matter. She had been Miss Musgrave’s favourite attendant for twenty years, and in that time had, as may be supposed, known about many things which her superiors believed locked in the depths of their own bosoms. She could have written the private history of the family with less inaccuracy than belongs to most records of secret history. And she was naturally indignant that Tom Gardener, a poor talkative creature, who could keep nothing to himself, should have known this new and startling event sooner than she did. She hurried through the long passage from the kitchen, casting a stealthy glance in passing at the closed door of the library, where the Squire sat unconscious. A subdued delight was in the mind of the old servant; certainly it is best when there are no mysteries in a family, when all goes well—but it is not so amusing. A great event of which it was evident the squire was in ignorance, which probably would have to be kept from him, and as much as possible from the household—well, it might be unfortunate that such things should be, but it was exciting, it woke people up.
Miss Brown obeyed this summons with more genuine alacrity than she had felt for years.
Very different were the feelings of her mistress standing there in the dimness of the old hall, her frame thrilling and her heart aching with the appeal which her brother had made to her, out of a silence which for more than a dozen years had been unbroken as that of the grave. She could scarcely believe yet that she had seen his very handwriting and read words which came straight from him and were signed by his now unfamiliar name. The children, who crouched together frightened by the darkness, were as phantoms to her, like a dream about which she had just got into the stage of doubt. Till now it had been all real to her, as dreams appear at first. But now, she stood, closing the door in the stillness of the evening, which, still as it was, was full of curiosity and questioning and prying eyes, and asked herself if these little figures were real, or inventions of her fancy. Real children of her living brother—was it true, was it possible? They were awe-stricken by the gathering dusk, by the strange half-empty room, by the dim circle of the unknown which surrounded them on every side. The nurse had put herself upon a chair on the edge of the carpet, where she sat holding the little boy on her knee, while little Lilias, who had backed slowly towards this one familiar figure, stood leaning against her, clutching her also with one hand, though she concealed instinctively this sign of fear. The boy withdrew the wondering whiteness of his face from the nurse’s shoulder now and then to give a frightened, fascinated look around, then buried it again in a dumb trance of dismay and terror, too frightened to cry. What was to be done with these frightened children and the strange woman to whom they clung? Mary could not keep them here to send them wild with alarm. They wanted soft beds, warm fires, cheerful lights, food and comfort, and they had come to seek it in the only house in the world which was closed by a curse and a vow against them. Mary Musgrave was not the kind of woman who is easily frightened by vows or curses; there was none of the romantic folly in her which would believe in the reality of an unjust or uncalled-for malediction. But she was persuaded of the reality of a thing which involved no supernatural mysteries, the obstinancy of her father’s mind, and his determination to hold by the verdict he had given. Years move and change everything, even the hills and the seas—but not the narrow mind of an obstinate and selfish man. She did not call him by these names; he was her father and she did not judge him; but no more did she hope in him. And in this wonderful moment a whole circle of possibilities ran through her mind. She might take them to the village; but there were other dangers there; or to the Parsonage, but Mr. Pen was weak and poor Emily a gossip. Could she dare the danger that was nearest, and take them somehow upstairs out of the way, and conceal them there, defying her father? In whatever way it was settled she would not desert them—but what was she to do? Miss Brown coming upon her suddenly in the dusk frightened her almost as much as the children were frightened. The want of light and the strangeness of the crisis combined made every new figure like a ghost.