IT was an agitated, troubled day. The accidental nature of the information, calmly told to one who was supposed to have no interest in it; the coincidence of the names; the startled feeling we had in thus being suddenly brought into contact with people nearly connected with us, who were unaware of our existence, and of whose existence we had been unaware, acted very powerfully on our imaginations. I don’t think either Harry or I had a moment’s doubt upon the subject. As to the identity of the persons, certainly none; and I confess that I, for one, received with perfect faith the suggestion that there was a wrong somehow in the matter, and that my father had turned out to be the true heir. It never occurred to me to imagine any other reason for the suppressed advertisement; and Mr. Cresswell, whom I had thought at the very climax of respectability, suddenly descended into a romantic lawyer-villain in my excited eyes.
To add to the agitation of my thoughts, Sara Cresswell chose to take that day for one of her odd visits. She came in the afternoon to stay with me till evening. She was clearly quite beyond her father’s control; not even subject to a wholesome restriction of hours and meal-times; for she never said her father was out to dinner on the occasions of her coming, nor accounted in any way for her liberty at his dinner-hour. The little brougham used to come for her at night, and her little maid in it—a sign, I suppose, that the father did not disapprove; but that was all. Only wilful as she was, I confess I had grown to like her very much. I sometimes lectured her; and once or twice we quarrelled; but she always came back next time just the same as ever. So quarrelling with her was evidently useless. I must say I had a very strange sensation in welcoming her to-day. Could she know her father’s base purposes about the Park which, according to all appearances, ought to be mine? Could she have been paying her court to those ladies with the hope of supplanting the true heir? A glance at her face, only too frank and daring always, might have{203} undeceived me; but of course, I was bucklered up in my own thoughts, and could see nothing else.
“You are ill,” said Sara, “or you are worried; or ’tis I have done something. If I have, I don’t mind; that is to say, I am very sorry, of course, and I will never do it again. But if you think you will get rid of me by looking glum, you are sadly mistaken. I shan’t go. If you won’t have me for a friend, I shall come for a servant, and fight it out with Lizzie. Lizzie, will you have me for ‘a neebor?’ Ah, I’m learning Scotch.”
“Eh, that’s no Scotch!” cried Lizzie; “ye dinna ken what it is. I’m, maybe, no that good at learning folk now, for I have to speak English mysel’.”
“And Italian, Lizzie!” cried Sara, clapping her hands, and forgetting all about my “glum” face.
Lizzie’s elbows and ankles fell almost immediately, and the most extraordinary blush rose on the girl’s face. “Eh, but it’s funny to hear twa speaking’t,” cried Lizzie, evading the subject eagerly. The truth is, she had got overmuch involved in the delightful excitement of the new language, and in consequence of the ludicrous fascination of the dictionary, by means of which Domenico and she conducted their conversations, had come to like the society of that worthy. When I found him escorting my child-maid and the baby out-of-doors, I thought it was time to remonstrate on the subject; and my remonstrance had woke a certain womanly consciousness in the awkward-sensitive girlish bosom of Lizzie. She was overwhelmed with shame.
Fortunately, the mention of the “twa” diverted Sara’s thoughts. She had never ceased to be interested in Mr. Luigi, and I saw a world of questions in her eye immediately. I hurried her downstairs, not feeling able, really, for random talk; and troubled, more than I could express, to think how disappointed Harry would be when he came home full of one subject, expecting to talk it over with me, and found me occupied entertaining a stranger,—a stranger, too, who had something to do with it, who was our rival, and plotting against us, all unaware of who we were.
However, as it happened, one of the first things Sara’s eye lighted upon when we entered the room, was that old drawing of poor papa’s, which lay on the table. She was the quickest creature imaginable. She had it in her hand before I knew what she was about. Her exclamation made me start and tremble as if I had been found out in something.{204} Here was another witness giving evidence freely, without any wish or contrivance of mine.
“Why, here is the Park!” cried Sara, “actually the very house! Where, in all the world, did you get it? Have you been there? Do you know them? Why, I thought you were quite strangers to Chester! I never knew anything so odd. Who did it? It is frightfully bad, to be sure, but a staring likeness. Dear Mrs. Langham, where did you get this?”
“I got it out of an old book,” said I, with a guilty faltering which I could not quite conceal. “What Park is it? where is it? I do not know the place.”
But I am sure if ever anybody looked guilty and the possessor of an uncomfortable secret, it was me at that moment. I turned away from Sara, putting away that envelope with the certificates which Harry (how careless!) had also left on the table. I am sure she must have felt there was something odd in my voice.
“What Park? why, the Park, to be sure. Everybody in Chester knows the Park; and here is an inscription, I declare!” she cried, running with it to the window. “Oh, look here; do look here! It must have been some old lover of godmamma Sarah’s. I never saw anything so funny in my life. ‘Sarah as I saw her last.’ Oh, Mrs. Langham! do come and look at this comical, delightful thing! Isn’t it famous? She’s as old—as old as any one’s grandmother. Who could it be? who could it possibly be?”
“Did you say your godmother?” said I. This was another novel aggravation. Of course I had heard Sara speak of her godmothers; but, somehow, I had not identified them with the ladies who were expected to make her their heir.
But Sara was too much excited and delighted, and full of glee and ridicule, to answer me. She kept dancing about and clapping her hands over the drawing; always returning to it, and indulging in criticisms as free and as depreciatory as Harry’s had been. It was getting dark, and I confess I was very glad to sit down a little in the half light, and repose myself as well as I could while she was thus engaged and wanted no attention from me. Just then, however, I heard Harry’s foot coming upstairs, and, to my great wonder and almost alarm, somebody else entered with Harry. I could scarcely see him as I rose to receive my husband’s companion. Somebody else, however, saw{205} him quicker than I did. In a moment Sara had dropped into the shadow of the curtains, and became perfectly silent. An inconceivable kind of sympathy with her (it could be nothing but mesmerism) somehow cleared up the twilight in a moment, and made me aware who the stranger was. It was Domenico’s master, Mr. Luigi, the Italian gentleman downstairs.
I cannot tell how the first preliminaries were got over. Of all times in the world to make acquaintance with anybody, think of the twilight, just before the candles came in, and when you could scarcely make out even the most familiar face! We got on somehow, however; we three&md............