Chapter V: The Letter

“NOW we shall see!” Dulcibel announced in a tone of much excitement, as she drew near the door of a lonely cottage, walking by her husband’s side. On his other side trotted Joan, solemn and content.

The morning had turned out a sunny contrast to the day before, and they had decided to bring Joan with them. She was very willing to come. The last few minutes there had been about her a certain air of expectancy; and when they turned from the high road into a side lane, Joan’s little hand had given the first pull in that direction. George Rutherford marked this silently.

“Now for it, Georgie, dear! Will she acknowledge the child, I wonder? What do you think?”

“Possibly the child may acknowledge her,” suggested George.

“To be sure; I didn’t think of that. What a queer place for a lady to stay in! Clean, certainly, but—. And she really is a lady, isn’t she? Didn’t you say so?”

“My dear, I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance yet,” said George.

“Oh, you are always so dreadfully cautious and uncertain! I like to make up my mind one way or the other, and then if one is mistaken one can so easily change. What are you waiting for?”

A gesture checked Dulcibel’s advance. She stood still wonderingly. Joan slid her little hand out of George’s, walked calmly to the cottage door, and endeavored to turn the handle, with the air of one at home.

“Joan, does mother live here?” asked George.

“Muvver an’ Frint,” pronounced Joan.

“George!” interjected Dulcibel.

“Spartan brevity,” murmured George. “Hush—wait, Dulcie!”

Joan’s efforts produced an effect. The door was opened from within, and a fresh-faced, elderly woman stood there. She uttered an exclamation, put up her hands, and fell back a step. Joan offered a kiss, evidently as a matter of course. Then she returned to George, and endeavored to pull him forward.

“If it isn’t little Miss Joan—her very own self!” said Mrs. Flint.

“There!” Dulcibel said.

“This is the little girl whom we found beside the shaking bridge,” said George gravely.

“It’s Mrs. Brooke’s little girl, sir.”

“I told you so!” sounded from Dulcibel.

“Is Mrs. Brooke indoors?”

“No sir; Mrs. Brooke has left this morning quite sudden—she said she was obliged. She’s been gone two hours and more.”

Husband and wife exchanged looks, Dulcibel of course muttering once again—“I told you so!”

George Rutherford’s fair, good-humored face had taken a stern set.

“Where has Mrs. Brooke gone?”

“I don’t know, sir, indeed. But there’s a letter for you, sir, and perhaps that’ll make things clear, for I confess I don’t understand about Miss Joan, and that’s a fact, seeing Mrs. Brooke took her away to see friends, and you found her all alone at the shaking bridge. I don’t understand it, sir; but would you please to step in and sit down? I’m sorry things aren’t straighter—it’s early yet, you see. I’ll get the letter, sir.”

Dulcibel accepted one chair, and George another, Joan leaning against his knee. “That woman is not Welsh,” Dulcibel remarked, in Flint’s absence.

“No; English. She came, when her husband died, to live with his parents, and since their death this cottage has belonged to her. I believe her husband was a soldier; and she has two sons now in the army, who help to keep her.” George spoke abstractedly, adding—“This seems strange.”

“Just what I have expected all along,” said Dulcibel.

Mrs. Flint came back, and George received the folded sheet, a slight exclamation passing his lips as he noted the address—“How could she know my name?”

“Why, of course you gave it yesterday,” said Dulcibel.

“No, I did not.”

“No, sir, you didn’t mention no name,” chimed in Mrs. Flint. “I couldn’t make out how it was the lady seemed to know, if so be that’s right.”

“Quite right,” George said laconically.

He opened and read slowly—read more than once, with a look of growing astonishment. He seemed to forget the presence of others. Once or twice he put the letter down on his knee, gazing into the distance, rubbing his brow and combing out his beard, with gestures of perplexity peculiar to himself. Dulcibel could endure the suspense no longer.

“Georgie, what does she say? Do please tell me.”

George woke up, as from a dream, and gave the paper to his wife.

“Read it,” he said; and then he suddenly caught up Joan, and folded her in both his strong arms. “Little lamb—poor little, motherless lamb!” broke from him in stirred, deep tones, while his brows were still sternly bent. Dulcibel sat looking at him.

“Then it has been done all on purpose, Georgie, dear?”

“Read the letter,” George answered; and Dulcibel obeyed. It ran as follows:—

“Sir,—Forgive a broken-hearted woman for
troubling you. I am poor, ill and friendless.”

“I have not known what to do. The last year and
a half since my husband’s death has been one
long misery. My money is now almost at an end,
and I have no more coming. I am broken-down in
health, and I cannot work.”

“The thought of dying and leaving my little Joan
in the hands of strangers has pressed upon me
night and day. Sometimes I have been half
maddened by it, and by my own helplessness.
I am alone in the world—cut off from my own
family, and also from my husband’s family—
no matter how. They never forgave him for
marrying me. I cannot tell you more.”

“It came to my knowledge that you would be in
this part, just when I was doubting what to do
next. And I came here, hardly knowing why. Only
it seemed to me as if you were the one person
in all the world who would be willing to help!
And I am in such sore need!”

“I could not ask help of you to your face. You
knew me once, in past days, and I was ashamed.
Sometimes I thought I would send you my child
with a letter, begging you to care for her.
Then yesterday—it came all at once—when I was
in the valley with Joan, you were there too.
You did not see me, but I knew your face
again—how could I help it? And the thought
came into my head to leave Joan beside the
bridge, where you would be sure to pass.
I told her to sit still till a kind gentleman
came to her, and I said good-bye and went away
to watch, not very far, but out of sight. I saw
you carrying her away—my darling—asleep in your
arms. And, oh, how I blessed you in my heart!
I think a mother’s blessing must be worth
having, even from one so unworthy.”

“You will care for her, will you not—oh, will
you not? It will not be the first kindness
done by you to me or mine; but you will not
know my married name—better that you should
not. I know you—something of you, at least—
of your goodness, your Christian generosity.
And I have felt that I might dare to do with
you as I would not dare to do with, I think
any other human being.”

“I shall never see Joan again. I am hopelessly
ill, and have few months to live. Joan will
soon forget me. My heart is breaking as I
write these words; but it will be best so.”

“I have a near relative abroad who will take
me in—only I must go to him alone—I could not
take Joan—could not leave her with him when I
die. I promised my husband I would keep her
from him. And yet I have nowhere else to go—
no money—no way of supporting Joan and myself.
Now you see the straits to which I am brought.
Will you not have pity upon me?”

“I have no hope for the future. I am not fit
to pray. But, oh, if God would care for my
child,—would make you take pity on her! I do
not think you will cast her off. I have no
right to expect God’s mercy. I have only
lived for myself, and years of wilfulness
are being visited on me heavily. I am reaping
now the wages of the past. It is very terrible
to be drawing near to death, with no friend
on earth or in heaven to help me. But would
that my wrong-doings might not be visited on
my child! Will you not care for her?”

“Joan will be four years old on the last day
of the year. She is like her father—not like
me. She has a quick temper; but she is so
loving where she really loves.”

“You will never see or hear anything of me
again from this day. My own people do not
even know whether I am still alive, except
the one to whom I am going; nor do they know
that I have a child. My husband’s people know,
but do not care. If Joan ever came in their
way they would only spurn her.”

“I have no more to say, except to plead again
for your pity for my little one.”

“I am yours, &c., M. BROOKE.”

“Georgie, what a most extraordinary and incomprehensible letter!” exclaimed Dulcibel with much emphasis.

George waited a moment, then said—“Yes.”

“Who can she be?”

A shake of the head answered.

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you the least idea?”

“No.”

“Not the very smallest? But you must have seen her some time or other. She evidently knows you quite well.”

“The knowledge is not reciprocal, Dulcie. I have no association with the name.”

“No—with her married name—she says you won’t recognize that; and ‘M’ may mean anything. But can’t you think of anybody you have been kind to—a Mary, or Maria, or Millie—somebody whose family you have helped in some way?”

George might have recalled a good many people to whom he had been kind, and a good many families helped by himself; but there was again a negative gesture.

“Memories are treacherous sometimes, Dulcie. Mine doesn’t serve me at the present moment.”

He turned to Mrs. Flint, and put a few inquiries, eliciting from her nothing in the way of information.

Dulcibel, at George’s suggestion, went into Mrs. Brooke’s bedroom, to search for any letters or papers which might have been left behind. Again the result was nothing, till, at the moment when Dulcibel was about to quit the room, a small folded paper, lying on the floor in a corner, attracted her attention. She caught it up, gave one glance, and rushed into the other room.

“Georgie!”

“My dear, don’t be breathless. What now?”

An old yellow half-sheet of paper, folded neatly over one short, thick lock of black hair; and on the outside was written, “Hubert Brooke: aged 21. Woodleigh.” That was all. But it might mean more than a stranger would suppose, for George’s home was Woodleigh Hall of Woodleigh.

“Singular!” was George’s comment.

“She must be some friend or acquaintance of yours.”

“I can’t possibly say. I am as much in the dark as you are yourself. This must have been dropped by accident. We will keep it carefully.”

Then he sank into a brown study.

“What do you mean to do next?” Dulcibel asked at length.

“Find her,” George answered with brevity.

“Find Joan’s mother! But how?”

“I don’t know yet. I am afraid you will be sorry to leave this pretty place so soon; but—”

“Sorry—I should think so! Leave it on her account! I think that woman has treated you atrociously,” Dulcibel said in her most indignant tone.

George did not gainsay the remark.

“Giving over her child to you in this cool fashion, and absolutely leaving you no choice! I don’t know which is worst—the wrong to you, or the wrong to Joan. How does she know that you won’t refuse altogether to have to do with Joan; and what would become of the poor little thing then? I think I never heard of such utter heartlessness. I don’t wonder at her feeling miserable. She ought to be miserable.”

“True enough,” George said quietly. “She has acted very wrongly; and therefore I am the more anxious to find her.”

“Of course she ought to be found, and to be made to work for the child. But I thought we were to have another fortnight here.”

“I could leave you at the hotel, Dulcie, with Leo and Joan, and come back to you all.”

“As if I should care for that! Oh, dear, no, Georgie! I don’t want Wales without you. How soon must we start? This evening? It really is too bad!”

“It is disappointing for you,” her husband said kindly.

“Oh, I don’t mind so much about that! What I do hate is seeing you imposed upon. Ninety-nine men in a hundred would send that child to the workhouse; and serve the mother right too!”

“But you don’t really wish it, Dulcie?”

“I don’t know what I wish,” Dulcibel answered, half crying. “Only I am out of patience with the whole affair; and I don’t like to see wickedness successful; and I haven’t a notion how to get my things packed in time, and I hate travelling all night. But I suppose it has to be.”

* * * * * * *

The search for Joan’s mother, carried on with a vigorous disregard of expenditure of time and money, proved futile. She had managed her retreat cleverly. Joan became from that time a permanent prótegé of George and Dulcibel.