“Never,” she replied, sadly. “We did everyfink we could to find ’im; but we was livin’ on the very edge of the bush at that time, an’ the poor lad must ’ave got lost in it, an’ starved to death. Even men ’ave done that,” she added, with her apron at her eyes.
“And why did you return to England?” he asked, in the same dull level voice.
“I couldn’t abear the place, after we’d lost ’im; an’ things went wrong, an’ Siggs an’ me lost most of our money. Besides, I was always longin’ for the old place where I was born; an’ so at last we come ’ome, without nobody bein’ a bit the wiser, an’ took the Chater Arms—an’ settled down.”
Carried away by the remembrances of years, Betty Siggs had forgotten the real object with which she had started the conversation; she remembered it quickly now, and her tone changed. But it was no longer harsh; the remembrance of her boy, as she called him, had softened her, and she turned to the graceless Dandy Chater—(as she imagined him to be)—and spoke pleadingly.
“Master Dandy, won’t you listen to an old woman—won’t you tell me w’ere I can find this poor girl—Patience; won’t you——”
Philip Crowdy, remembering suddenly the part he had to play, got up impatiently, and made for the door.
“I tell you,” he said, with a frown, “that I know nothing about her. And please let us hear no more of such idle tales as these. Your boy, indeed!” He laughed, and swung out of the place into the road.
Yet, as he walked along, his heart was very sore, and his face was troubled. “Poor old Betty!” he muttered to himself—“she thinks I’m Dandy Chater—and a blackguard; what would she think, if she knew that the boy she lost in the bush was saved, after all; and that he stands here to-day, in his dead brother’s place, and under his dead brother’s name? What would she say, if she knew that I am her boy, as she calls me—Philip Crowdy—or Philip Chater?”
CHAPTER IV
A SUNDAY TO BE REMEMBERED
The sun, shining brightly over the trim lawns which stretched before Chater Hall, seemed to declare, deceitfully enough, the next morning, that winter was dead and buried, and spring come in full force to take its place. Philip Crowdy—or Philip Chater, as we must now call him—waking in the unaccustomed softnesses of a great bed, and gradually opening his eyes upon the luxuries about him, awoke as gradually to a remembrance of his new position; looked at it lazily and comfortably, as a man will who wakes from deep sleep; and then came to a full realisation of all it meant, and sat up quickly in bed.