Thereby Hangs a Tale. Volume One

The captain would have been more elate if he had been able to follow the fortunes of Sam Jenkles’s cab; for having received his instructions, Sam bowled along by Euston Square in the direction of the Hampstead Road, till he had to go at a foot’s pace on account of some alteration to the roadway, the result being that for a few moments the cab was abreast of a barouche containing four ladies, one of whom started, and said, in a quick whisper —

“Oh, look, Tiny, that’s the church with the figures I told you about.”

But Fin Rea was too late, her sister was leaning over the side of the carriage, gazing intently at Sam Jenkles’s cab, and the dark-haired girl, with the wondrous colour and look of animation, looking so lovingly in her companion’s face; and as the carriage swept on, unseen by the occupants of the cab, poor Tiny sank back, not fainting, but with a pitiful sigh and a look of stony despair that made Fin clasp her hands, as she set her little white teeth together, and muttered —

“The wretch!”

Lady Rea saw nothing of this; but Aunt Matty, who was beside her, did, and a look of quiet triumph came into her withered features. But nothing was said, and as for the cab, it rolled on and on quickly, till it came to the tree-shadowed hill beneath Lady Coutts’ park, and then, after a long walk up to the top of Highgate Hill, on and on again, till London was far behind, the soft green meads and the sheltered lanes reached; and while Sam pulled up at a roadside public-house, amongst half a dozen fragrant, high-laden hay carts, Richard led off his charge, with sinking heart, over a stile, and away midst waving cornfields, bright with poppy and bugloss; and by hedges wreathed with great white convolvuli, and the twining, tendrilled bryonies, or wild clematis.

Richard was grave, and his heart sank as he saw the joyous air of the young girl by his side, felt the light touch of her little hand, and when he met her eyes read in them so much gentle, trusting love, that he felt as if he had been a scoundrel to her, and that he was about to blight her life.

He was not a vain man, and he had used no arts to gain the sympathy that it was easy to read in the sweet face beside him but he could not help telling himself that it was but too plain; and he groaned in his heart as he thought of that which he had determined to say.

“Hark, listen!” cried the girl, as a lark rose from the corn close by. “Isn’t it beautiful? How different to those poor caged things in our street. Look, too, at the green there – four, five, twenty different tints upon those trees. Oh, you are losing half the beauties of those banks! Look at them, scarlet with poppies! There, too, the crimson valerian. How beautiful the foxgloves are! Why, there’s a white one. Who’d ever think that London could be so near!”

She stopped, panting, and held her hand to her side.

“You are tired?” he said, anxiously.

“Oh no,” she said, darting a grateful look in return for his sympathy – “it is nothing. I feel as if I should like to set off and run, but I think sometimes I am not so strong as I used to be. Mamma says I have outgrown my strength; but it is my cough.”

She said these last words plaintively, and there was a sad, pinched look in her face as she gazed up at him; but it lit up again directly as she met his eager, earnest eyes fixed upon her, and her trembling little hand stole farther through his arm.

“That’s right,” he said, patting it – “lean on me. I’m big and strong.”

“May I?” she said, softly.

“To be sure,” he answered.

“It’s very kind of you,” she whispered, “and I like it. I go out so little, and yet I long to; and if I don’t stay here long, I shall have seen so little of the world.”

“Netta, my child,” he exclaimed, “what are you saying?”

The girl’s other hand was laid upon his arm, as they stood beneath a shady tree, and she looked up at him in a dreamy way.

“I think sometimes,” she said, slowly, “that I shall not be here long. It’s my cough, I suppose. It’s so pleasant to feel, though, that people – some one cares for me; only it makes me feel that I shall not want to go.”

“Come, come, this is nonsense,” he said, cheerily. “Why, you’re not an invalid.”

“I should be, I think, if we were rich,” she said, sadly. “But let’s go on along by that high sand bank, where the flowers are growing; and here is a wood all deep shades of green.”

“But you will be tired?”

“No, no; you said I might rest on you. I should not be weak if I could live out here, and dear mamma were not compelled to work. Poor mamma!”

They walked on in silence, and she leaned more heavily upon his arm. Twice their eyes met, and as Netta’s fell before those of her companion it was not until they had told the sweet, pure love of her young heart. They were no fiery, rapturous glances – no looks of passionate ecstasy; but the soft, beaming maiden love of an innocent, trusting girl, whose young heart was opening, like a flower, to offer its fragrant sweets to the man who had first spoken gentle words to her – words that had seemed to her, who had not had girlhood’s joys, like the words of love. And that young heart had opened under the influence, like the scented rosebud in the sun; but there was a fatal canker there, and as the flower bloomed, the withering was at hand.

“Let us stop here,” cried Netta, drinking in the beauty of the scene; “it is like being young again, when we were so happy – when mamma watched for papa’s coming, and there seemed no trouble in life. Oh, it has been a cruel time!”

She shuddered, and clung to the arm which supported her.

“This is very wrong of me,” she said, looking up, and smiling the next moment. “I ought not to talk of the past like that.”

“Shall we sit down here?” he said, pointing to a fallen tree trunk.

Then, with the low hum of the insects round them, they entered the edge of the wood.

He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments, and twice her eyes were raised to his with so appealing and tender a look that he felt unmanned. He had brought her there to tell her something, and her love disarmed him; so that he snatched at a chance to put off that which he wished to say.

“You were telling me of the happy past,” he said. “Your were well off once?”

“Yes, and so happy,” said the girl, her eyes filling with tears. “I ought not, perhaps, to tell you, though.”

“You may trust me, Netta,” he said, taking her hand.

“I always felt that I could,” she cried, eagerly, as her face flushed more deeply, and her hand trembled in his; for he had again called her Netta, and her heart throbbed with joy, even though he was so grave. “Shall I tell you?”

“Yes – tell me; but are you weary?”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, excitedly. “But I must not mention names. Mamma wishes ours kept secret, for she is very proud. Papa is an officer, and as I remember him first, he was so handsome, even as mamma was beautiful. We used to live in a pretty cottage, just outside town, and papa was so kind. But how it came about I never knew, he gradually grew cold, and hard, and stern, so that I was afraid of him when he came to see us, and he used to be angry to mamma, and then stay away for weeks together, then months, till at last we rarely saw him. The pretty cottage was sold, with everything in it – even my presents; and mamma and I lived in lodgings. And then trouble used to come about money; for poor mamma would be half distracted when none was sent her, and this dreadful neglected state went on, till mamma said she could bear it no more. Then she used to go out and give lessons; but that was terribly precarious work, and soon after she used to work with her needle.”

“And your father?” said Richard.

“Never came,” said Netta – “at least, very rarely. But I ought not to tell you more.”

“Can you not trust me?” he said, with a smile.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” cried the girl, impetuously, and she nestled closer to him. “I can trust you. It was like this: – Papa was a Roman Catholic, and mamma had always brought me up in her own Protestant religion; and by degrees I found out he had made a point of that, and had told mamma that their marriage was void, as it had only been performed according to one church. He used to write and tell her that he was free, and that if she would give up every claim on him, and promise to write to that effect, he would settle a regular income upon her.”

“And your mamma?”

“I heard her say once to herself that it would be disgracing me, and that she would sooner we starved. That is why we have worked so hard, and had to live in such dreadful places,” said the girl, shuddering.

“My poor child!” he said, tenderly. “Yours has been a hard life, and you so delicate.”

“I shall grow strong now,” she said, half shyly; “but why do you call me child?”

She looked up in his face with a smile, half playful, half tender – a look that made him shiver.

“You are not cross with me?” she said, gazing at him piteously.

“Cross? No,” he said, gently.

And he once more took her hand, trying hard to begin that which he had brought her there to tell, but as far off as ever. At the end of a minute, though, she gave him the opportunity, by saying naïvely —

“You have never told me anything about yourself. Mamma wondered what you were – so different to everybody we meet.”

“Let me tell you, Netta,” he said, earnestly. “And promise me this – that we are still to be great friends.”