Mrs. Molesworth

"They felt very happy and content and went indoors and sat to the table and had their dinner."—The Almond Tree.

Brothers Grimm.

Rosamond and her aunt had a good many commissions to do that afternoon. They had not long before this changed their house, and there were still a great many pretty things to choose and to buy for the new rooms. But though it was pleasant work it was tiring, and it was, too, so exceedingly cold that even in the comfortable carriage with its hot-water bottles and fur rugs, the young girl shivered and said to her aunt she would be glad to be at home again, and to get a nice hot cup of tea.

"Yes," said her aunt, "and it is getting late. At this time of year the days seem to close in so suddenly."

"I'm afraid it is going to be a severe winter. I do so dislike severe winters, Auntie," said Rosamond, who had spent some part of her life in a warm climate.

"So do I," said her aunt, with a sigh, "it makes everything so much harder for the poor. I really think it is true that cold is worse to endure than hunger."

"You are so kind, Auntie dear," said Rosamond. "You really seem as if you felt other people's sufferings your own self. I think it is the little children I am most sorry for. Perhaps because I have been such a spoilt child myself! I cannot imagine how it would be possible to live through what some children have to live through. Above all, unkindness and neglect. That reminds me——"

She was going to tell her aunt of the children she had seen at Madame Nestor's, and of the sharp way the young woman in the shop had spoken to them, but just at that moment the carriage turned into the courtyard of their house, and the footman sprung down and opened the door.

"I wonder what put those children in my head just now?" thought Rosamond, as she followed her aunt slowly up the wide thickly-carpeted staircase. "I suppose it was talking of the poor people, though they were not exactly poor."

But a moment or two later she really felt as if her thoughts had taken shape, or that she was dreaming, when she caught sight of the most unexpected picture that presented itself to herself and her aunt on opening the door of their pretty "little drawing-room."

The room was brightly lighted, the fire was burning cheerily—not far from it stood the low afternoon tea-table covered with a white cloth and heaped up with plates of bread-and-butter and cakes—while the tea-urn sang its pleasant murmur. And the group round the table? That was the astonishing part of it. Walter was having a tea-party!

For an instant—they had opened the door softly and he was very much taken up with his guests—the aunt and niece stood looking on without any one's hearing them. Walter was seated in a big arm-chair, and perched on his knee was a very tiny little boy in an English sailor dress. He was a pretty fair child, with a bright pink flush on his face, and he seemed exceedingly happy and to be thoroughly enjoying the cup of hot but mild tea and slice of cake which his host was pressing on him. And on a small chair just opposite sat a pale-faced dark-eyed little girl with an anxious look on her face, yet at the same time an expression of great content. No wonder; she was only seven years old! Fancy the relief it must have been to delicate little Gladys to find herself again in a room like this—to have the comfort of the delicious fire and the food even, to which she was accustomed—above all, to see Roger safe and happy; if only it would last!

"This tea isn't too strong for him, is it, Gladys?" Walter said.

And Gladys leaning forward examined it with a motherly air, that was both pathetic and amusing.

"No, that's quite right. That's just like what he had it at home."

The aunt and niece looked at each other.

"Who can they be?" whispered the aunt; but Rosamond, though she had scarcely seen the faces of the children in the Rue Verte, seemed to know by instinct. But before she had time to speak, Walter started up; the whisper, low as it was, had caught his ear and Gladys's too. She too got up from her seat and stood facing the ladies, while her cheeks grew still paler, and the anxious look quite chased away the peaceful satisfaction from her poor little face.

"Auntie!" said Walter, and in his voice too there was a little anxiety, not lost on Gladys. For though he knew his aunt to be as kind as any one could be, still it was a rather "cool" thing, he felt, to have brought in two small people he had found in the street without knowing anything whatever about them, and to be giving them tea in her drawing-room. "Auntie," he repeated, "this young lady, Miss Gladys Bertram, and her little brother had come to see you, to ask your help. I found them waiting in the street, the concierge had told them you were out; it was bitterly cold, and they had come a very long way. I brought them in and gave them tea, as you see."

His face had flushed as he spoke, and there was a tone of appeal in his voice; he could not before Gladys add what was on his lips: "You are not vexed with me?"

"You did quite right, my dear boy," said his aunt heartily. "Rosamond and I are cold and tired too. We should like a cup of tea also, and then these little friends of ours will tell us all they have to tell."

"I have seen them before," added Walter in a lower tone, going nearer his aunt under pretext of getting her a chair. "You remember the children on the Boulevards I told you about the other day? It is they."

But Gladys, who till then had stood still, gazing at the ladies without speaking, suddenly sprang forward and almost threw herself into "Auntie's" arms.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed, bursting into tears. "I was just thinking perhaps you'd be vexed with him," she pointed to Walter, "and he's been so kind, and it is so nice here. Oh, we couldn't, we couldn't go back there!" and clasping her new friend still more closely she sobbed as if her overcharged heart would break.

Auntie and Rosamond soothed her with the kindest words they could find, and then Auntie, who always had her wits about her, reminded Gladys that they too were very anxious to have a cup of tea, would she help to pour it out? She evidently knew all about it, whereupon Gladys's sobs and tears stopped as if by magic, and she was again the motherly capable little girl they had seen her on entering the room.

Tea over—before thinking of taking off their bonnets—Auntie and Rosamond, and Walter too, made Gladys tell them all she had to tell. It was a little difficult to follow at first, for, like a child she mixed up names and events in rather a kaleidoscope fashion. But at last by dint of patience and encouragement and several "beginnings again at the beginning," they got a clear idea of the whole strange and yet simple story, all of which that was known to Gladys herself, you, my little readers, already know, except the history of the last miserable day in the Rue Verte, when Anna's temper had got the better of her prudence to such an extent as to make Gladys feel they could bear it no longer. She had struck them both in her passion that very morning when FranÇoise was at the market, and wild with fear, more for Roger than herself, Gladys had set off to ask help and advice from the only people she knew of in all great Paris who could understand her story.

"Except him," added Gladys, nodding at Walter, "but we didn't know where he lived. I couldn't write to Miss Susan, for I hadn't any paper or envelopes. I thought I'd wait till Mr. 'Dolph came home and that he'd let me write, but I don't know when he's coming, and I hadn't any money, and if she—oh! if she had struck Roger again it might have killed him. He's so little, you know," and Gladys shuddered.

There was silence for a few moments. Then Auntie turned to Walter.

"The first thing to be done, it seems to me, is for you to go to the Rue Verte to tell the Nestors—Madame Nestor, that is to say—where these little people are. She will be very uneasy, I fear, poor woman."

"Anna won't tell her, I don't think," said Gladys. "Poor Mrs. Nest—she is so kind. I shouldn't like her to be unhappy."

"And," continued the lady, "you must ask for the children's clothes."

Gladys's eyes glistened.

"Do you mean, are you going to let us stay here?" she said; "I mean till to-morrow, perhaps, till Miss Susan can come?"

"Where else could you go, my dears?" said Auntie kindly.

"I don't know; I—I thought perhaps you'd get us a little room somewhere, and Miss Susan would pay it when she comes. I thought perhaps you'd send her a tele—, you know what I mean, and perhaps she could come for us that way. It's so quick, only it costs a great deal, doesn't it?"

Auntie and Rosamond had hard work to prevent themselves laughing at this queer idea of Gladys's, but when her mistake was explained to her, she took it very philosophically.

"Then do you think I should write to Miss Susan to-day?" said Gladys. "You'll help me, won't you?" she added, turning to Rosamond. "I don't know very well how to write the address."

"Of course I will help you, dear," said Rosamond, but her aunt interrupted.

"I do not think little Gladys need write to-night," she said. "Indeed, perhaps it may be as well for me to write for her to the lady she speaks of. But now, Walter, you had better go off at once, and bring back the children's belongings with you. What were you going to say, dear?" for Gladys seemed as if she were going to speak.

Gladys's face grew red.

"Anna said once that she would sell our big trunk and all our best clothes—I mean she said Mrs. Nest would—to get money for all we had cost them. But I'm sure Mrs. Nest wouldn't. And when Papa comes he'll pay everything."

The elder lady looked at Walter.

"Try and bring away everything with you," she said. "Take Louis, so that he may help to carry out the boxes. Do your best anyway."

It turned out easier than Auntie had feared, for Walter found Adolphe Nestor already returned, and in a state of frantic anxiety about the children. Knowing that they could not be in better hands than those in which they had placed themselves, he was only too thankful to let them remain there, and gave Walter all the information he could about Mr. and Mrs. Marton, who had confided the children to his mother's care.

"She can tell you all about the family better than I," he said. "I think even she has the address of Madame Marton's mother, where her cousin was so long nurse. Oh, they are in every way most respectable, and indeed one can see by the children themselves that they are little gentlepeople. There must be something sadly amiss for the father not to have come for them. I fear even that he is perhaps dead."

Then he went on to tell Walter that he had told Anna he could no longer keep her in his employment, and that all was at an end with her.

"And indeed," he said, his round face getting very red, "I think no man would be happy with a wife with such a temper," in which Walter, who at eighteen considered himself very wise, cordially agreed.

Adolphe had not told his mother of the children's flight, for she was still very feverish and excitable; but he said she would be relieved to know where they had found refuge. And then he gave Walter the English money which Mr. Marton had left for their use, and which his mother had kept unbroken.

Walter took it, though reluctantly, but he saw that it would have hurt Adolphe to refuse it; and he also reflected that there were other ways in which the Nestors could be rewarded for their kindness. And so he left the Rue Verte with all the children's belongings safely piled on the top of the cab, and with a much more friendly feeling to the upholsterer than he had expected to have, promising to let him know the result of the inquiries his aunt intended immediately to set on foot; and also assuring him that they should not leave Paris without coming to say good-bye to him and his kind old mother.

When the two tired but happy little people were safely in bed that night, their three new friends sat round the fire to have a good talk about them.

"It is a very strange affair, really," said Walter. "I'm more than half inclined to agree with Nestor that the father must be dead."

"But even then," said Auntie, "the friends in England who had charge of them would have known it, and would have sent to inquire about them."

"That 'Miss Susan,' as they call her, seems to me to have thought of nothing but the easiest way to get rid of them," said Rosamond indignantly. "She should never have let them start without a letter or a telegram of Captain Bertram's being actually in Paris, and, as far as I can make out from little Gladys, she had not got that—only of his arrival at Marseilles and his intention of coming."

"Did Gladys mention Marseilles? Does she know where it is?" asked Walter.

"Yes, she said the old lady whom they were very fond of showed it to her on the map, and explained that it was the town in France 'at which the big ships from India stopped,' Gladys is quite clear about all that. She is a very clever child in some ways, though in others she seems almost a baby."

"Nothing about her would surprise me after her managing to find her way here," said Auntie. "Just fancy her leading that baby, Roger, all the way here from the Rue Verte!"

"Do you know how she did?" said Rosamond. "She tore a little piece of paper off the edge of a newspaper and wrote the address, 'Avenue GÉrard 9,' on it with an end of pencil she found lying about; and she showed this bit of paper to anybody 'kind-looking' whom they met, and thus she got directed. Was it not a good idea? She said if she had asked the way the French people would not have understood her speaking."

"Then what do you decide to do, Auntie?" said Walter. "Shall I telegraph in the morning to this Miss Susan, or will you write?"

Auntie hesitated.

"I don't see how you can do either with much chance of it reaching her," said Rosamond. "Gladys, you know, said she was going to be married."

"Well, supposing in the first place," said Auntie, "we were to telegraph to the principal hotels at Marseilles and ask if Captain Bertram is there—it would do no harm—it is just possible that by some mistake he is all this time under the belief that the children are still in England."

"That's not likely," said Walter; "no one would stay on at a hotel in Marseilles all this time for no reason—three weeks, it must be. But it's not a bad idea to telegraph there first."

"Gladys would be so pleased if it proved not to be necessary to send to 'Miss Susan' at all," said Rosamond, who seemed to have obtained the little girl's full confidence.

"Well, we shall see," said Auntie. "In the meantime the children are safe, and I hope happy."

"Mr. and Mrs. Marton must be in India by this time," said Walter. "They don't seem to have been to blame in the least—they did the best they could. It might be as well to write to them if we had their address."

"Perhaps old Madame Nestor may have it," said Rosamond. "The maid—her niece or cousin, whichever it is—may have left it with her."

"We can ask," said Auntie. "But it would take a good while to hear from India, and very likely they would have very little to tell, for there is one thing that strikes me," she went on thoughtfully, "which is, the Martons cannot have thought there was anything wrong when they got to Marseilles, otherwise they would have written or telegraphed to the Rue Verte, and certainly to the friends in England."

She looked up as if to read in the faces of her two young companions how this struck them.

"That's true," said Walter.

"But it only adds to the mystery," said Rosamond.

"Supposing," said Walter, "that the address has been lost—that of the Nestors, I mean—and that all this time Captain Bertram is hunting up and down Paris for his children?"

"That does not seem to me likely," said Auntie. "He would have telegraphed back to England."

"Where it wouldn't have been known, Rosamond," said Walter. "Rather to Mr. Marton in India."

"If he had his address," said Walter again.

"Well, anyway that could be got in England," said Auntie, a little impatiently. "No, no, Walter, it can't be that. Why, supposing Captain Bertram were here looking for his children, the police could have found them for him in a couple of days. No; I very much fear there is more wrong than a mere mistake. Poor little dears—they still seem to have such unbounded faith in 'Papa's coming.' I only trust no harm has come over him, poor man."

Walter telegraphed the next morning in his aunt's name to the two principal hotels at Marseilles, to inquire if Captain Bertram was or had been there. From one came back the answer, "No such name known." From the other the information that Captain Bertram had not yet returned from Nice, and that letters and his luggage were waiting for him at the hotel.

"Just read this, aunt," he said, hurrying into the drawing-room, and Auntie did so. Then she looked up.

"It is as I feared, I feel sure," she said. "Walter, you must go to Nice yourself, and make inquiries."

"I shall start to-night," said the young fellow readily.

"Stay a moment," said Auntie again. "We have the Times advertisements for the last few days; it may be as well to look over them."

"And the Saturday papers, with all the births, marriages, and deaths of the week put in at once," said Rosamond. "You take the Times," she added to her brother, going to a side-table where all the papers were lying in a pile, "and I'll look through the others."

For a few moments there was silence in the room. Gladys and Roger were very happy with some of their toys, which they had been allowed to unpack in the dining-room. "Bertram, Bertram, no, I see nothing. And there's no advertisement for two lost cherubs in the agony columns either," said Walter.

Suddenly Rosamond gave a little exclamation.

"Have you found anything?" asked Auntie.

"Nothing about Captain Bertram," she replied. "But I think this must be the old lady they lived with. 'Alicia, widow of the late Major-General Lacy,' etc., etc., 'at Market-Lilford on the 16th November, aged 69.' I am sure it is she, for Gladys's second name is 'Alicia,' and she told me it was 'after Mrs. Lacy.'"

"Poor old lady—she must have been very kind and good. That may explain 'Miss Susan's' apparent indifference. It was fully a fortnight ago, you see."

"Must I tell Gladys?" said Rosamond.

"Not yet, I think," said Auntie. "We may have worse to tell her, poor child."

"I don't know that it would be worse," said the young girl. "They can't remember their father."

"Still, they have always been looking forward to his coming. If it ends in good news, it will make them—Gladys especially—very happy."

"As for Roger, perfect happiness is already his," said Rosamond. "He asks no more than weak tea and bread-and-butter, Gladys always at hand, a good fire, and nobody to scold him."