Chapter VI: A Man Who Never Forgave

To the address thus obtained by her--her uncle being now well on the road to recovery--Miss Baynard went next afternoon in a hackney-coach, accompanied by her maid.

Mr. McManus, a little, old, and very snuffy man, with a shrewd but kindly expression, readily furnished her with the information asked for, after Nell had introduced herself and told him for what purpose she wanted it.

"Ah, poor lass! I'm sadly afraid she's not long for this world," remarked the old fellow with a melancholy shake of the head, in allusion to Dick's widow.

"Is she so ill as that?" queried Nell, thoroughly shocked.

"Aye, that is she. Long afore next year at this time the daisies'll be growin' over her grave. She caught a chill last Christmas, and it settled on her chest, which was always delicate, and now--why now, as I say, all the doctors in the world couldn't set her on her feet again."

"I cannot tell you how grieved I am to hear this. And the boy--her child--what of him?"

"Oh, he's as right as a trivet. A famous young shaver, and no mistake. There's nothing the matter with him."

Miss Baynard drove direct from Holborn to the address given her, which was Lawn Cottage, Chelsea. There Marjory Cortelyon rented a couple of rooms, a middle-aged widow, Mrs. Mardin by name, being at once her landlady and her nurse.

Nell, having sent in her name, was presently admitted to the invalid's little sitting-room, with its pleasant outlook across a wide sweep of sunny meadows, long ago covered with bricks and mortar.

The ex-actress lay on a couch near the window, a frail figure, wasted by illness to little more than skin and bone. That she had been very pretty once on a time was still plainly evident, and in her large, lustrous eyes, sunken though they were, Nell read something which went direct to her heart. There had never been anything meretricious or tawdry about her, otherwise Dick Cortelyon would not have made her his wife. She had been good and pure, and, in her way, a lady.

Nell, after pausing on the threshold for a couple of seconds while she took in the scene, went quickly forward and, dropping on one knee by the couch, bent over and kissed the dying woman. Tears dimmed her eyes, and a few moments passed before a word would come. Indeed, Marjory was the first to speak. At the touch of Nell's lips her ivory cheeks flushed, and a lovely smile played for a few seconds round her mouth. "My Dick loved you very dearly, and no wonder," she said softly. "I have often longed to see you, and I'm sure I shall die happier now that I have done so."

Nell's visit lasted upwards of an hour. She explained to Marjory how it happened that she had been unable either to communicate with her or to visit her before. Greatly to her disappointment, young Evan was from home, he having been taken into the country to spend a few days with a married sister of Marjory's, but Nell was told that if she chose to come again in a week's time he would then be back, and this she promised herself that she certainly would do.

By and by Nell said: "And now, Marjory dear, you must allow me to renew the offer made by me in the letter which failed to find you. Although you do not see your way to accept pecuniary help from Mr. Cortelyon, there is no reason in the world why you should not accept it from me, and I am quite sure that if poor dear Dick could speak to you from the grave he would agree with all I say. That he left you very poorly off, although through no fault of his own, I know full well. Therefore, I say again, why not----"

The sick woman held up one of her transparent hands. "You are kindness itself, Miss Baynard," she said, "and were I in want of help, you would be the first person to whom I would appeal; but I am not in want of anything. I have everything I need, and more, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Geoffrey Dare."

"Of Mr. Geoffrey Dare?" echoed Nell.

"Did Dick never speak of him to you?"

"Not to my knowledge; but you must remember that when Dick first came to London I was hardly out of the schoolroom, and that we saw very little of him at Stanbrook afterwards, before that last visit of all, with its unhappy ending."

"Well, my husband and Geoff Dare--we always used to call him and speak of him as 'Geoff'--were like brothers (not that all brothers hit it off together by any means), and of all Dick's many fine friends he was the only that was in the secret of our wedding. It was a secret he told to nobody, and when Dick's father cast him off and hard times came, he remained just the same Geoff that he had always been; not the least bit of change did we ever find in him. Then, when my child was born, nothing would suit him but that he must stand godfather to it. All through Dick's illness, which lasted a matter of four months, he would leave his gayeties and engagements at the other end of the town--we were living at that time in a couple of rooms in Clerkenwell--and come two or three times a week to sit with him and cheer him up. And when all was over, it was his money that helped to bury my husband, and it was on his arm that I leaned as I stood by the grave-side--he and I by our two selves. Is there any one like him in the world, I wonder?"

She sank back exhausted; but a little wine and water which Miss Baynard proceeded to administer speedily revived her.

Then said Nell: "Judging from what you tell me, Mr. Dare must indeed be a friend among a thousand, and for what he has done for you and yours I honor and respect him. Now, however, that you and I have found each other, there is no reason why you should any longer burden his generosity. You and I, my dear Marjory, are cousins; Dick and I, as you know, loved each other like brother and sister; consequently, it is to me, and to me only, that you and Evan ought to look in time to come."

A faint smile, it might almost be termed a smile of amusement, lighted up the sick woman's face. "'Tis very evident that you don't know Geoff Dare, or you would not talk like that," she said. "Why, merely for me to hint at such a thing would turn him into a thundercloud, and then there would be an explosion fit to bring the roof off. Oh, he has a fine temper of his own, I can tell you! And besides and worse than all, it would cut him to the quick, and that is what I would never be a party to doing. Then again, dear Miss Baynard, it isn't as if he was a poor man. In that case what you urge would bear twice thinking about. But Geoff is anything but poor, although--so Dick used to say--far over-fond of the gaming table and the race-course, like most young bucks of the day."

Nell sat silent, if not convinced. The ground, so to speak, had been cut from under her, and she was at a loss what to say next.

Presently Mrs. Cortelyon spoke again. "While we are talking about Mr. Dare, there is something else with which he is concerned that I may as well tell you about, as my doing so may perhaps prevent any misunderstanding in time to come."

She closed her eyes for a few seconds while she inhaled her smelling-salts. Then she went on:

"Although both the doctor and Mrs. Mardin try to keep the truth from me, I am not deceived. That my days are numbered, that a very few weeks will bring the end, I know full well--and Mr. Dare knows it too. The last time he was here I challenged him with the truth, and he could not deny it. It was the uncertainty about my child's future, which lay like a dead weight at my heart, that impelled me to do so. But he--God bless him for it!--at once put my mind at rest on that score. He gave me his solemn promise that when I am gone he will act a father's part by his dead friend's child. He will bring up Evan as if he were his own son. That the boy is his godson I have already told you."

"But what if Evan's grandfather should some day change his mind and want to claim him?" The question sprang to Nell's lips almost before she knew that it had formed itself in her mind.

An angry light leapt into the young widow's eyes; a spot of vivid red flamed out in either cheek. For a moment or two she bit her nether lip hard, as if thereby to control her emotion. Then she said: "If I thought there was any likelihood of my darling ever falling into the hands of that cruel and wicked old man, I am quite sure that I should never rest in my grave. Oh, if only, when I am dead, I may be allowed to haunt him! But you do not think, do you, dear Miss Baynard, that he is ever likely to want to claim Evan?"

"One never can tell what may happen. Even the most self-willed people sometimes see reason to change their mind. My uncle is an old man, and Evan is his lineal heir. He has neither child nor grandchild but him. What more natural than that he should some day turn round, hold out his arms, and say: 'The past is dead and buried. Come to me. You belong to me and to me only. I am rich, and all that I have is yours?' What is to hinder such a thing from coming to pass?"

Mrs. Cortelyon remained silent for a few moments as if considering the picture thus presented to her. Then she said: "When Geoff comes next I must talk to him about it. You have frightened me. Neither he nor I have dreamt of such a possibility. When I am dead the child must disappear, he must be hidden away by Geoff where the Squire, should he ever want to do so, could not find him. Rather, I truly believe, could I bear to see Evan stark in his coffin than walking hand in hand with that flinty-hearted old man. I never hated any one in my life as I hate him, and I shall keep on hating him after I am dead."

Miss Baynard paid two more visits to Lawn Cottage before the time came for her and her uncle to go back to Stanbrook. Evan was at home on both occasions, and on both occasions they went together for a long walk. The boy took to her from the first. He was a handsome, healthy child, and--or so it seemed to Nell--wonderfully like what his father must have been at the same age. She would have liked dearly to take him and set him down suddenly in front of the Squire, and leave the rest to Nature's prompting, but such a course was out of the question. All she could do was to extort a promise from Mrs. Cortelyon that if that should come to pass which she herself asserted to be inevitable, and the boy before long be left motherless, then should she, Nell, be informed, either by Mr. Dare or Mr. McManus, where he could at any time be found, and should be allowed to have access to him as often as she might feel disposed to claim the privilege.

When the time came for the two women to say goodbye, both knew that the parting was a final one, but not a word was said by either to that effect. Both feigned a cheerfulness which was the last thing in the heart of either, and it was a relief to both when the ordeal was over and the door shut between them. Then came the time for tears.

Before leaving town Nell paid a second visit to Mr. McManus, and got him to promise to write to her as soon as all was over. It was a promise the old tobacconist faithfully kept, and Nell had only been six weeks back at home when the fatal tidings reached her.

After a little time given to tears in the solitude of her room, she dried her eyes and went in search of her uncle. She found him in the library, dusting and gloating over one of his cases of coins. He looked up sourly as the door opened. When so engaged he did not like being interrupted, but for that Nell cared not at all.

Walking directly up to the table, she said without preface: "Uncle, news has just reached me of the death of poor Dick's widow. She died of consumption three days ago."

The Squire dropped his duster, and, leaning back in his chair, grasped an arm of it with either hand, and turned his cold eyes full upon her.

"And pray, Miss Baynard, may I ask in what way the news concerns me?"

He had not called her "Miss Baynard" since her last mention of her cousin's name more than four years before, and Nell did not forget it. But she was in no wise daunted.

"If you choose to consider that the death of your son's wife is no concern of yours, so be it. That is a matter between yourself and your conscience. But, in case the fact should have escaped your memory, I may be allowed to remind you that Dick left a child behind him--a son--who is now both fatherless and motherless."

"And what have I to do with that?"

"Everything. He is your grandson, your sole descendant, your natural heir. He is flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, and ought to be dearer to you than all the world beside. Poor Dick died years ago. Why avenge his fault, if fault it was, on his innocent child? Think, uncle, think and----"

He brought down his fist heavily on the table. "Think, girl, say'st thou? Zounds! there's no need for me to think. My mind was made up long ago, and nothing thou can'st urge will move me from it. I tell thee, my grandson is no more to me than the veriest beggar's brat that crawls in a London gutter. Never will I acknowledge him, or have aught to do with him in any way. And if thou hast any regard left for me, or any care for my displeasure, thou wilt never speak of him in my presence again. As thou ought to have found out by now, I am a man who never forgives."