Chatterbox, 1906

by Various

CHAPTER XIX.

'Good-bye, dear!' said Mrs. Wright, with tears in her eyes, as Estelle clung to her in a last embrace. 'Perhaps you will come back some day, and see us again.'

'Indeed, dear Goody, I will. You have been good to me! I shall love to think of you and Jack, and everything here, often and often—and of all the kind people I have met. I cannot thank you enough for all you have done. I have been so happy. I shall never forget it.'

'I hope your friends will think you looking bonnie, dear,' went on Mrs. Wright. 'If they had seen you when Jack brought you here, they would not believe it was the same little missie at all. Now, don't be ill on the voyage, and spoil all the credit due to me.'

Mrs. Wright tried to speak in a lively tone, but the effort ended in tears. The child had been hers so long that the parting was almost as painful as if she were really losing one of her own dear ones. Estelle clung to her, wishing she could persuade her dear Goody to come home with her, that Aunt Betty might see her and thank her properly. But this was too much to expect. Goody was sure she would sever survive the voyage. Jack also was averse to the idea. He did not want to have two helpless people on his hands, he said, laughingly.

Mrs. Wright accompanied them down to the harbour, and, as they rowed out to the ship, Estelle watched her standing there till distance and tears blotted out the sight.

The wind was fair abaft, and they made good way. Estelle began gradually to like the smooth motion. Her spirits came back as she felt that every knot brought her nearer home and Aunt Betty. Jack had done his best to make her comfortable, but the smack was not a large vessel, and its accommodation was necessarily limited. Nevertheless, all that could be done to make her voyage a pleasant one was done by Jack, Fargis, and the crew. She had the cabin all to herself, and a chair was always ready for her on deck when she chose to occupy it. Usually, however, she preferred to sit near where-ever Jack was, and to talk to him. She would build castles in the air of what would happen when her father returned, and she could tell him all her wishes. He would be quite sure to do all she desired; he never refused any reasonable request, and all her requests were reasonable. Jack smiled. He let her ramble on in her dreams of how they were to meet again, and how he must have a boat of his own, and a comfortable home in England for dear Goody to live in.

Then the talk would revert to other and sadder matters. These were never mentioned except when they were quite alone, which could not be often. Once or twice, however, they did get such a quiet hour when the night-watches had been set, and it was Jack's turn on duty. Estelle would not go to bed; she preferred to come on deck to talk to him. How often afterwards did she look back upon those nights! Fine, clear moonlight; the sky full of stars, stretched like a dark curtain over them; all around the equally dark water, through which they cut with almost uncanny smoothness; the silence about them broken only by the soft lapping of the waves, and the occasional creak of the spars, or the flap of the sails.

Fargis, who had some knowledge of the coast, made for Tyre-cum-Widcombe, where, he declared, all the information required could be obtained. And so it proved. Jack, leaving Estelle on board, went to the biggest inn in the place. There he had his questions answered, with the additional assurance that he could have any carriage he liked to take the little lady home. The Earl himself was now staying at the Moat House.

As soon as it became generally known that little Lady Estelle de Bohun had been found, and was at that moment aboard the French smack in the harbour, a crowd began rapidly to get together on the little quay. The cheering, the pressing forward to get a glimpse of her, astonished the French crew quite as much as it did Estelle. Neither she nor they had any idea of her importance. They listened with keen interest as Jack translated to them what he had been told of the lost child, and how Lord Lynwood had routed the whole country upside down in his determination not to leave a stone unturned to find her. Jack became a hero to all who knew how he had saved the child; and there were a few who, pressing up to Fargis, made out the story of the rescue from his broken English.