Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/430

 422 adjoining country seats, he left me at home. By this means, as I seldom, if ever, came into contact with persons of my own age, I grew up with precocious ideas and tastes, which gained for me, when very young, the title of “old-fashioned,” and as I grew older of “eccentric.”

Thus, then, it had fared with me, until I arrived at the age of sixteen, when my uncle one morning received a letter, which threw our quiet household into a state of excitement. In order to explain this matter, I must refer to an event which happened early in the life of Mark Haughton. He was engaged to be married to a very pretty cousin of his own. Both families were agreeable, and the two young people seemed mutually attached to one another. Why or wherefore it was never understood, but one morning it was discovered that the pretty cousin had eloped with a Captain Maurice,—an officer, whom she had met at a county ball. Her father was extremely angry, and refused to see his daughter, or hear from her again. Poor Mark spoke very little about the matter, but he never said a word against his cousin, nor would he allow any one to do so, in his presence. Afterwards, when the poor runaway had written two or three heart-broken letters home, in which she said that her husband was going to India, and that she was going to accompany him, it was whispered that Uncle Mark had written her a letter, but what it contained, no one save himself and the recipient knew. These events occurred nearly twenty years before I ever heard anything of them, but the letter which now arrived at Haughton Tower seemed likely to bring forward again the circumstances of the past. The letter was dated from an hotel in London, and was written by a Captain Flemming, who had just returned on sick leave from Calcutta. A little girl had been intrusted to his care, and he had brought her to England. He was too unwell to proceed to Mr. Haughton’s residence, but begged him to come up to town at once, and receive his charge. He also enclosed a note, which he expected would explain the matter more clearly.

The enclosed note was very small and was directed in a frail female hand to Mark Haughton. It ran as follows:

,—When everyone else treated me with harshness and cruelty, you alone, who had been most wronged, looked with pity and kindness upon me. Your letter, with its promise, which I received just before leaving England, is not forgotten. You then said that “if ever it lay in your power to serve me, that I might rely upon you.” That time has come. Major Maurice, my husband, whom misfortune seemed to mark as its own, is no more, and my physician says that I cannot survive him more than a few days longer. All my children are dead except one, my little daughter Mary, and she will now be left an orphan. I intrust her to you. I cannot send her to my father’s house; those who have been so cruel to the daughter, will not be kind to the daughter’s child. I rely on your generosity and goodness of heart, and I know that my hopes will be fully realised when I am dead. Good bye! Cousin Mark. Forgive me, and may Heaven reward you!

I, who knew nothing of the matter then, was astonished to see tears in my uncle’s eyes, after reading this letter, and still more astonished when I saw him dash them hurriedly away, saying.saying: [sic]

“God bless the woman! what on earth made her write to me in this way? It’s impossible—she can’t be dead. But in any case, I must be off to London at once. Take care of her child—of Mary’s child? Of course I will—twenty of them, if there were as many! Here, Charlie, don’t stand gaping at me in that way. See that my portmanteau is packed at once, and tell Thomas to bring the dog-cart round as soon as possible, for I want to catch the afternoon express for the south!”

I obeyed his orders, and soon after the dog-cart was brought round, and Uncle Mark, enveloped in great coats and mufflers, took his seat.

“Charlie,” said he, leaning over, and speaking to me, just before starting. “I leave you as housekeeper until I return in a few days, and look here, Charlie, my boy, I’ll probably bring home with me a little sister for you. See that you are kind to her, you young dog, or I’ll pack you off, bag and baggage!”

“Never fear, uncle,” I said. “Good bye!” and away went the dog-cart, my uncle waving farewell to me, until I lost sight of him far down the avenue.

I thought over the matter of this little sister that my uncle had promised to bring home, but I could not realise the subject. I determined to wait patiently till he returned. After he had been absent for a week, I received a letter from him, in which he said that he would be still longer detained in town, and that he would write and tell me when he should come back. I had never been left so much to myself before, and I rather enjoyed my freedom. September was well advanced, and I went every day with one of the keepers, and knocked about the partridges to my heart’s content.

Another week, or more, had passed away, and I had been all day on the moors, and with my gun on my shoulder was taking a short cut through the garden to reach the house, when I was suddenly startled by an unusual sight. A little girl dressed in mourning, with a very pale face, very black hair, and very large, soft black eyes, met me, as I turned a corner of the garden-path. She carried in one hand a small bunch of newly-gathered blue flowers, which she was looking at admiringly, but, on hearing my footsteps, she stopped and we faced one another. I did not know which way to look, for I was very shy, and she seemed to scrutinise me so closely, that I believe I blushed. She was so different from any child or girl that I had ever seen before, that I was very much struck with her appearance. The buxom country lasses, and the dashing young amazons, whom I had seen and admired at the cover side, presented a strong contrast to the pale, fragile little form before me.

“I suppose you are cousin Charlie?” she said, after a slight pause. She spoke in such a sweet, musical childish voice that I seemed somehow to have known it from infancy, and my heart appeared to respond to it at once. At the same time, she held out to me a tiny little hand that reminded