head encouragingly, but he was not looking at little George; he was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground.
“You’re rather fidgety about some one, ma’am, I’m afraid,” said Robert.
She colored violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered him in a confused manner.
“I was looking for Mr. Maldon, sir,” she said; “he’ll be so disappointed if he doesn’t see you.”
“You know who I am, then?”
“No, sir, but —”
The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his bosom and showing it to Robert.
“This is the watch the pretty lady gave me,” he said. “I’ve got it now — but I haven’t had it long, because the jeweler who cleans it is an idle man, gran’pa says, and always keeps it such a long time; and gran’pa says it will have to be cleaned again, because of the taxes. He always takes it to be cleaned when there’s taxes — but he says if he were to lose it the pretty lady would give me another. Do you know the pretty lady?”
“No, Georgey, but tell me about her.”
Mrs. Plowson made another descent upon the boy. She was armed with a pocket-handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the state of little George’s nose, but Robert warded off the dreaded weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor.
“The boy will do very well, ma’am,” he said, “if you’ll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes. Now, Georgey, suppose you sit on my knee, and tell me all about the pretty lady.”
The child clambered from the table onto Mr. Audley’s knees, assisting his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian’s coat-collar.
“I’ll tell you all about the pretty lady,” he said, “because I like you very much. Gran’pa told me not to tell anybody, but I’ll tell you, you know, because I like you, and because you’re going to take me to school. The pretty lady came here one night — long ago — oh, so long ago,” said the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time. “She came when I was not nearly so big as I am now — and she came at night — after I’d gone to bed, and she came up into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried — and she left the watch under my pillow, and she — Why do you make faces at me, Mrs. Plowson? I may tell this gentleman,” Georgey added, suddenly addressing the widow, who was standing behind Robert’s shoulder.
Mrs. Plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid Master George was troublesome.
“Suppose you wait till I say so, ma’am, before you stop the little fellow’s mouth,” said Robert Audley, sharply. “A suspicious person might think from your manner that Mr. Maldon and you had some conspiracy between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy’s talk may let slip.”
He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs. Plowson as he said this. The fair-haired widow’s face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet them with her tongue before the words would come.
The little boy relieved her embarrassment.
“Don’t be cross to Mrs. Plowson,” he said. “Mrs. Plowson is very kind to me. Mrs. Plowson is Matilda’s mother. You don’t know Matilda. Poor Matilda was always crying; she was ill, she —”
The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr. Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master. Early in the day though it was, the old man’s speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs. Plowson.
“You’re a prett’ creature to call yoursel’ sensible woman?” he said. “Why don’t you take th’ chile ‘way, er wash ‘s face? D’yer want to ruin me? D’yer want to ‘stroy me? Take th’ chile ‘way! Mr. Audley, sir, I’m ver’ glad to see yer; ver’ ‘appy to ‘ceive yer in m’ humbl’ ‘bode,” the old man added with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor.
“Whatever this man’s secrets are,” thought Robert, as Mrs. Plowson hustled little George Talboys out of the room, “that woman has no unimportant share of them. Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker and thicker at every step; but I try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friend’s unknown grave.”
Chapter 21
Little Georgey Leaves His Old Home.
“I am going to take your grandson away with me, Mr. Maldon,” Robert said gravely, as Mrs. Plowson retired with her young charge.
The old man’s drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy mists of a London fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear. The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon’s intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rum-and-water; but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point.
“Yes, yes,” he said, feebly; “take the boy away from his poor old grandfather; I always thought so.”
“You always thought that I should take him away?” scrutinizing the half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. “Why did you think so, Mr. Maldon?”
The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely:
“Thought so —‘cause I thought so.”
Meeting the young barrister’s impatient frown, he made another effort, and the light glimmered again.
“Because I thought you or his father would fetch ‘m away.”
“When I was last in this house, Mr. Maldon, you told me that George Talboys had sailed for Australia.”
“Yes, yes — I know, I know,” the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands —“I know; but he might have come back — mightn’t he? He was restless, and — and — queer in his mind, perhaps, sometimes. He might have come back.”
He repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones; groping about on the littered mantle-piece for a dirty-looking clay pipe, and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently.
Robert Audley watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up and down the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consoler.
Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face.
