Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

it is not true!--or perhaps one has a colder heart than the others. You have been near to me, mother; I have watched, as you went away crying, and all I said was, 'Ah, the poor lady, I am sorry for her!' I had no more pity for you than Anneli had. Anneli used to say, 'Perhaps, fraulein, she has lost some one who resembles you.'"

"I had lost you--I had lost you," the mother said, drawing the girl toward her again. "But now I have found you again, Natalushka. I thank God for his goodness to me. I said to myself, 'If my child turns away from me, I will die!' and I thought that if you had any portrait of me, it would be taken when I was young, and you would not care for an old woman grown haggard and plain--"

"Oh, do you think it is for smooth portraits that I care?" the girl said, impetuously. She drew out from some concealed pocket a small case, and opened it. "Do you think it is for smooth faces one cares? There--I will never look at it again!"

She threw it on to the table with a proud gesture.

"But you had it next your heart, Natalushka," said her mother, smiling.

"But I have you in my heart, mother: what do I want with a portrait?" said the girl.

She drew her daughter down to her again, and put her arm once more round her neck.

"I once had hair like yours, Natalushka, but not so beautiful as yours, I think. And you wore the locket, too? Did not that make you guess? Had you no suspicion?"

"How could I--how could I?" she asked. "Even when I showed it to Calabressa--"

Here she stopped suddenly.

"Did he know, mother?"

"Oh yes."

"Then why did he not tell me? Oh, it was cruel!" she said, indignantly.

"He told me, Natalie," George Brand said.

"You knew?" the girl said, turning to him with wide eyes.

"Yes; and Calabressa, when he told me, implored me never to tell you. Well, perhaps he thought it would give you needless pain. But I was thinking, within the last few days, that I ought to tell you before I left for America."

"Do you hear, mother?" the girl said, in a low voice. "He is going away to America--and alone. I wished to go; he refuses."

"Now I am going away much more contented, Natalie, since you will have a constant companion with you. I presume, madame, you will remain in England?"

The elder woman looked up with rather a frightened air.

"Alas, monsieur, I do not know! When at last I found myself free--when I knew I could come and speak to my child--that was all I thought of."

"But you wish to remain in England: is it not so?"

"What have I in the world now but this beautiful child--whose heart is not cold, though her mother comes so late to claim her?"

"Then be satisfied, madame. It is simple. No one can interfere with you. But I will provide you, if you will allow me, with better lodgings than these. I have a few days' idleness still before me."

"That is his way, mother," Natalie said, in a still lower voice. "It is always about others he is thinking--how to do one a kindness."

"I presume," he said, in quite a matter-of-fact way, "that you do not wish your being in London to become known?"

She looked up timidly, but in truth she could hardly take her attention away from this newly-found daughter of hers for a single second. She still continued stroking the soft hair and rounded cheek as she said,

"If that is possible."

"It would not be long possible in an open thoroughfare like this," he said; "But I think I could find you a small old-fashioned house down about Brompton, with a garden and a high wall. I have passed such places occasionally. There Natalie could come to see you, and walk with you. There is another thing," he said, in a matter-of-fact way, taking out his watch. "It is now nearly two o'clock. Now, dear madame, Natalie is in the habit of having luncheon at one. You would not like to see your child starve before your eyes?"

The elder woman rose instantly; then she colored somewhat.

"No doubt you did not expect visitors," George Brand said, quickly. "Well, what do you say to this? Let us get into a four-wheeled cab, and drive down to my chambers. I have an indefatigable fellow, who could get something for us in the desert of Saharra."

"What do you say, child?"

Natalie had risen too: she was regarding her mother with earnest eyes, and not thinking much about luncheon.

"I will do whatever you wish," she was saying: but suddenly she cried, "Oh, I am indeed so happy!" and flung her arms round her mother's neck, and burst into a flood of tears for the first time. She had struggled long; but she had broken down at last.

"Natalie," said George Brand, pretending to be very anxious about the time, "could you get your mother's things for her? I think we shall be down there by a quarter past two."

She turned to him with her streaming eyes.

"Yes, we will go with you. Do not let us be separated."

"Then look sharp," said he, severely.

Natalie took her mother into the adjoining room. Brand, standing at the window, succeeded in catching the eye of a cab-man, whom he signaled to come to the door below. Presently the two women appeared.

"Now," he said, "Miss Natalie, there is to be no more crying."

"Oh no!" she said, smiling quite radiantly. "And I am so anxious to see the rooms--I have heard so much of them from Lord Evelyn."

She said nothing further then, for she was passing before him on her way out. In doing so, she managed, unseen, to pick up the miniature she had thrown on the table. She had made believe to despise that portrait very much; but all the same, as they went down the dark staircase, she conveyed it back to the secret little pocket she had made for it--next her heart.


CHAPTER XXXVIII.


A SUMMONS.

"Mother," said the girl, in the soft-sounding Magyar, as these two were together going down-stairs, "give me your hand; let me hold it tight, to make sure. All the way here I kept terrifying myself by thinking it must be a dream; that I should wake, and find the world empty without you, just as before. But now--now with your hand in mine, I am sure."

"Natalushka, you can hear me speak also. Ghosts do not speak like this, do they?"

Brand had preceded them to open the door. As Natalie was passing him she paused for a second, and regarded him with the beautiful, tender, dark eyes.

"I am not likely to forget what I owe to you," she said in English.

He followed them into the cab.

"What you owe to me?" he said, lightly. "You owe me nothing at all. But if you wish to do me a good turn, you may pretend to be pleased with whatever old Waters can get together for you. The poor old fellow will be in a dreadful state. To entertain two ladies, and not a moment of warning! However, we will show you the river, and the boats and things, and give him a few minutes' grace."

Indeed, it was entirely as a sort of harmless frolic that he chose to regard this present excursion of theirs. He was afraid of the effect of excessive emotion on this worn woman, and he was anxious that she should see her daughter cheerful and happy. He would not have them think of any future; above all, he would have nothing said about himself or America; it was all an affair of the moment--the joyous re-union of mother and daughter--a pleasant morning with London all busy and astir--the only serious thing in the whole world the possible anxieties and struggles of the venerable major-domo in Buckingham Street.

He had not much difficulty in entertaining these two guests of his on their way down. They professed to be greatly interested in the history and antiquities of the old-fashioned little thoroughfare over the river; arrived there, they regarded with much apparent curiosity the houses pointed out to them as having been the abode of illustrious personages: they examined the old water gate; and, in ascending the oak staircase, they heard of painted ceilings and what not with a deep and respectful attention. But always these two had each other's hand clasped tight, and occasionally Natalie murmured a little snatch of Magyar. It was only to make sure, she explained.

Before they reached the topmost story they heard a considerable noise overhead. It was a one-sided altercation; broken and piteous on the one hand, voluble and angry on the other.

"It sounds as if Waters were having a row with the man in possession," Brand said.

They drew nearer.

"Why, Natalie, it is your friend Kirski!"

Brand was following his two guests up-stairs; and so could not interfere between the two combatants before they arrived. But the moment that Natalie appeared on the landing there was a dead silence. Kirski shrunk back with a slight exclamation, and stood looking from one to the other with a frightened air. She advanced to him and asked him what was the matter, in his native tongue. He shrunk farther back. The man could not or would not speak. He murmured something to himself, and stared at her as if she were a spectre.

"He has got a letter for you, sir," Waters said; "I have seen the address; and he will neither leave it nor take it. And as for what he has been trying to say, Lord A'mighty knows what it is--I don't."

"Very well--all right," Brand said. "You leave him to us. Cut away and get some luncheon--whatever you can find--at once."

But Natalie had gone nearer to the Russian, and was talking to him in that fearless, gentle way of hers. By-and-by he spoke, in an uncertain, almost gasping voice. Then he showed her a letter; and, in obedience to something she said, went timidly forward and placed it in Brand's hand.


"A Monsieur,
M. George Brand, Esq.,
Londres."


This was the superscription; and Brand recognized the handwriting easily enough.

"The letter is from Calabressa," he said obviously. "Tell him not to be alarmed. We shall not eat him, however hungry we may be."

Kirski had recovered himself somewhat, and was speaking eagerly to her, in a timid, anxious, imploring fashion. She listened in silence; but she was clearly somewhat embarrassed, and when she turned to her lover there was some flush of color on her face.

"He talks some wild things," she said, "and some foolish things; but he means no harm. I am sorry for the poor man. He is afraid you are angry with him; he says he promised never to try to see me; that he would not have come if he had known. I have told him you are not angry; that it is not his fault; that you will show that you are not angry."

But first of all Brand ushered his guests into the long, low-roofed chamber, and drew the portieres across the