A few days later the note was returned to the Squire through the post, accompanied by a few unsigned lines to the effect that the widow of Richard Cortelyon would accept no help at the hands of the man who had treated her husband with such inhuman cruelty.
Not long after this Miss Baynard wrote to the widow, to the address furnished by her in her letter, mentioning how attached she had been to Dick, and hinting delicately at the happiness it would afford her to send Mrs. Cortelyon a little monetary help now and again. But at the end of a fortnight her letter came back marked, "Gone away--present address not known," and enclosed in an official envelope. It had been opened and resealed by the post-office authorities. As it happened, the letter fell into the Squire's hands, who, noticing only the official envelope, opened it without perceiving that it was addressed to his niece. As a consequence he at once sent for her.
After explaining how it happened that he had opened the letter, he continued: "I am astonished and annoyed, Nell--very seriously annoyed--that, after what thou heard me say two or three weeks ago, thou should have chosen of thy own accord to communicate with this play-acting creature, and even to offer to help her out of thy own scanty means. Fortunately, the woman has disappeared. No doubt she has gone back to the life and the companions that are most congenial to her--curses on her for a vile baggage! To her I owe it that my boy lies mouldering in the grave. Never again, Nell, on pain of offending me past forgiveness, do thou attempt to have aught to do with her. 'Tis beneath thee to notice such creatures in any way--and she above all others."
It was an injunction which Nell--who had listened to his tirade with a sort of proud disdain and without a word of reply--determined to obey or disobey as circumstances might determine. For the present she was helpless to do more than she had done. Unfortunately, she had mislaid the address given her by Dick at parting, otherwise she might perhaps have been able to obtain tidings of Mrs. Cortelyon through the latter's uncle, the London tobacconist.
[CHAPTER V.]
FAMILY MATTERS.
Four years passed away without bringing any further tidings of the widow and her child, during all which time their names were not once mentioned between uncle and niece. By the latter their existence was by no means forgotten; she often thought about them, often longed to see them. Whether it ever entered the mind of Squire Cortelyon that he had a living grandson was known to himself alone. He grew old and made no sign.
Meanwhile Miss Baynard had shot up from a lanky slip of a girl into a very beautiful young woman.
When she first went to live at Stanbrook, the Squire, having no female element in his house of a higher status than that of housekeeper, engaged the services of Mrs. Budd--widow of the Rev. Onesimus Budd--for the dual positions of gouvernante and companion to his orphan niece. Mrs. Budd's duties as governess had long ago come to an end, but therewith she had assumed what to many people would have seemed the much more responsible and onerous post of chaperon. But, although a clever little woman in her way, Mrs. Budd was nothing if not easy-going. For her the wheels of existence were always well oiled. Nothing disturbed her much. Responsibility slid off her like water off a duck's back. Life for her meant little more than a sufficiency of sofas fitted with the softest cushions. She was excessively good-natured, and, hating to be worried herself, was careful never to worry others. She and her charge got on capitally together, chiefly because she was too wise ever to offer any very strenuous opposition to the whims and vagaries of that self-willed young woman. A mild protest, by way of easement to her conscience, she did now and then venture upon, which, however, Miss Baynard would brush aside with as little effort or compunction as she would a cobweb.
To some of Squire Cortelyon's neighbors it seemed an inconsistency on his part that he, who had packed off his son to school at the earliest possible age, should have taken to his hearth, and have kept her there, an orphan niece of no fortune, when he might so easily have rid himself of her in the same way that he had rid himself of Dick. And certainly, as has been remarked, the Squire was no lover of children, and was generally credited with not having an ounce of sentiment in his composition. For all that, Miss Baynard stayed on at Stanbrook, knowing no other house, her great-uncle so far relaxing his ingrained parsimony on her account as to pay Mrs. Budd's salary without a murmur, and allow his niece a few--a very few--guineas a year by way of pocket-money.