Chapter II

THE nurse rose from her seat as her mistress entered and at once laid down the needlework with which she was busied. Then she drew Mrs. Austin's favourite chair towards the fireside, and standing near it, waited for what was to follow.

Barbara Molesworth was a striking-looking woman of forty, tall of stature, and with a face which invited confidence by its combined expression of truth, firmness, common sense and kindness.

It would have been impossible to look into Barbara's fine honest grey eyes and doubt her trustworthiness. At that moment they were turned upon her mistress with a tender anxiety that was most touching to behold.

Mistress and maid were nearly of an age, and had known each other all their lives. When Miss Carrington, the banker's daughter, became the wife of Captain, afterwards Colonel Austin, she would have no personal attendant but the village girl she knew and could trust.

Barbara proudly left her home to be Mrs. Austin's maid, but she only filled that post until the first child was born, and then her mistress said, "Nobody will love and care for my baby like you." So the maid became the nurse, and through all the years that followed, with their joys and sorrows, she remained faithful to the trust reposed in her, and gave the children a love second only to that she lavished on her mistress.

Considered of the first importance in the household, Barbara had no enemies amongst the servants, for she bore herself wisely, giving offence to none in word or deed, but by her example shaming wrong-doers and encouraging the weak who wished to do right. Treated with friendship and confidence by her mistress, she never presumed on these or forgot the social difference between them.

But Mrs. Austin knew that in Barbara she had such a friend, and from her such devotion to herself and her children as no wealth alone could buy; and she valued these things accordingly, and gave back love for love.

"Sit down, Barbara," she said. "I want a quiet talk with you about Margery. Do not take your work, I want every bit of help and sympathy you can give me in a difficult matter. Nay, come closer, and let me hold your hand, Barbara; it makes me feel stronger. May God help me! I am so lonely and so perplexed!"

The nurse drew a lower seat close by that of her mistress, and taking Mrs. Austin's delicate white hand in hers, she kissed it again and again, then holding it in both her own, she said, "Surely, dear mistress, there is no fresh trouble! Tell me what is on your mind. If my life would buy you happiness, or make my darling Miss Margery's face glow with health again, you know I would give it."

"I do know, Barbara; and that expressions which from most lips would mean nothing, mean all that is said when they come from yours. Now listen: Jane Gresham has put an idea into my mind which may prove a seed for blessing to spring from. You must say what you think of it."

Then Mrs. Austin told the nurse all that had passed between her and Jane.

Barbara listened attentively, but did not at once answer, when asked by her mistress, "What had best be done?"

"It is hard to say," she replied, after an interval of silence. "There are sense and reason in Jane Gresham's advice, but it is an awful risk to run. You may get a pretty and healthy child, so far as the body is concerned, but one that has been trained by a good and loving mother, a lady like yourself, would not be easy to find. Such mothers do not give away their treasures."

"I must not expect perfection, Barbara, but a child of seven years, even if not brought up with all the care my children have had, would be easy to lead, and could be moulded at will."

"Not so, dear mistress. The babe drinks in good or evil with its first food. Evil is an almost certain heritage, and passes from generation to generation, despite of pains and care. I would have you be even more particular as to what the parents have been than what the child is now, if you think of taking one."

"But dear, dear! It will be like the rearing of a cuckoo in a hedge-sparrow's nest. I cannot make up my mind to it, though I dare not advise you against trying, for Miss Margery's sake. You know the old rhyme—"

"The bird can have no peace or rest
That rears a cuckoo in his nest;
The cuckoo lodger makes a rout,
And flings the sparrow's fledglings out.
The cuckoo thrives and soon can fly,
The sparrow's younglings fall and die."

Mrs. Austin could hardly refrain from smiling as Barbara quoted the village rhyme that had been familiar to them both as children, and which was equally so to Newthorpe youngsters still.

"I have not found my young cuckoo yet, Barbara," she said. "If I do succeed, you will be good to the child, for Margery's sake and mine."

"I will do my best for any child, mistress dear, and in any place. First of all, because, be it gentle or simple, the same great Creator breathed into it the breath of life, that gave me 'life and breath and all things.' An immortal soul is God's trust to those who have to train it, or help in nursing it for Him. Next, a child's helplessness, its pretty ways, even if they be contradictious and wayward at times, speak to me with such a strong pleading voice that I can never close my ears against it. So here are two reasons for promising. Beside, if I had only my darling Miss Margery and you, dear mistress, to think about, should I not do my best for the child who was to be as my nursling's sister and friend? My earnest prayer is that God will guide your choice."

"Amen!" responded Mrs. Austin. "As yet, I know not where to look, or whom to ask."

She stayed a little longer, talking with Barbara about other matters, and then left the nursery.

On the following morning a great surprise awaited her, which seemed, indeed, little short of a miracle.

The letters reached Monks Lea early, and were always carried to Mrs. Austin's room by Barbara, as the lady herself did not often rise until after breakfast. She could not have told why she selected one letter in an unfamiliar hand to be read first of all, unless it was, that judging it to be like some others of a business character, she chose to glance over them and then linger over those from friends and kinsfolk.

The selected letter was long, and there was an enclosure folded in tissue paper that might be a photograph.

Barbara, standing by the bed, noted that her mistress's pale cheek became flushed as she read on, and her eager looks showed that the contents of the letter stirred her deeply. When she had finished, she unfolded the paper and gazed with delighted admiration on the photograph. Then turning with a look of positive awe to the nurse, she said, "Barbara, something like a miracle has happened; this letter contains the offer of a child. She is a girl, seven and a half years old, and with the face of an angel. Look at it."

So saying, Mrs. Austin placed the photograph in Barbara's hand, and remained in dreamy absorbed silence, as if lost in wonder at what had come to pass.

"If this likeness tells truth, she is a beauty to look at; and, oh! If she is only as good as she is pretty, there will be nothing to desire!" exclaimed the nurse, in honest admiration of the lovely child face it portrayed. "Surely this is a true Godsend to you in your difficulty, dear mistress."

"I believe it, Barbara; and now I must tell you whose child this is: you remember Edward Austin, who caused my husband a great deal of trouble soon after we were married."

"I may well remember him,"' said the nurse, and drew herself up, as that name was mentioned, with a look of righteous indignation on her face; for the man, a wild, unprincipled spendthrift, had persecuted Barbara Molesworth, then a handsome girl of twenty-one, with unwelcome attentions, which had only been stopped by her master's interference.

"He is dead, Barbara," said Mrs. Austin, gently.

The indignant look gave way to one of pity as she heard the news, and Barbara replied, "I hope he had become a changed man before the last call came."

"I am afraid not, Barbara. From time to time I have helped him, not because there was any claim of kindred, for though he bore my husband's name, the cousinship was so distant as to be hardly traceable. His wife died two years ago, leaving a child; and the only bright spot in Edward Austin's character was love for his little daughter, and concern for her future. She has been cared for by a friend of her mother's until now, the child having been left penniless. The good woman has other and nearer claims, and having been informed that Edward Austin was a relative of my husband's, she has written to ask if I will do something for the orphan. I could not refuse in any case, but, situated as I am, this letter seems the most wonderful answer to my yearning prayers."

Mrs. Austin's face, lighted with hope and thankfulness, was beautiful to see, but there was no reflection of those feelings in the countenance of Barbara Molesworth.

"If it were the child of any other father I could rejoice too. But, oh! my dear, dear mistress, I could go on my knees to beg that you would not bring Edward Austin's daughter to Monks Lea. I can see nothing but sorrow to follow. Like father, like child. He was a bad man; fair of face, false of tongue; an undutiful son, a faithless husband; a man who would use a friend for his own purposes, rob him, and then laugh at him for his credulity, whilst he pocketed the money out of which he had cajoled him. The poison of adders was under his lips, and he stung the hand that ministered to his needs!"

Barbara spoke with such rapidity and earnestness that Mrs. Austin was quite distressed, and the look of hope faded from her face.

"You frighten me, Barbara," she said; "and you grieve me, for how can this innocent and lovely child be to blame for her father's misdoings?"

"Forgive me, dear mistress, if I have said too much, and spoken hard things. You never knew all the wickedness of Edward Austin. The colonel did, and I feel sure, if he were living to-day, he would shrink from the very thought of bringing a child of his to be a sister to Miss Margery. You ask me, how can the child be to blame for her father's doings? Poor thing! If she had to carry the burden of his faults, she would indeed be heavily weighted! But I did not mean that; I only meant to say that you cannot expect good fruit from a corrupt tree. There's Scripture for that,—'Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' This child is a shoot from a corrupt tree, and she will bring no blessing with her. Do not take her, mistress dear! If you do, she will be as the cuckoo in the nest, and injure your own darling."

"But, Barbara, I do not think you understand, or that those Scripture words have the meaning you put upon them. Surely they refer to the doings of the wicked, not to their children. 'Ye shall know them by their fruits,' refers to their actions, not to their offspring," replied Mrs. Austin.

"I may be wrong in this matter, but I am not mistaken about the character of this child's father. As a young man, he had such a face that a painter might have chosen it as a model for an angel's. I would rather have seen the child's resemble her mother's, for she was a good, true woman by all accounts, though her looks were nothing to boast of," replied Barbara, still unconvinced.

"Then why not take the charitable side, and believe that while the father's beauty has descended to the little one, the mother's goodness and truth have been her heritage also?"

By this question Mrs. Austin turned Barbara's arguments against herself, and the nurse was unable to answer them. For a few moments she stood in silence, then replied—

"You are wiser and cleverer than I am, dear mistress, and far better, too, for you are of those who 'think no evil,' and strive to find and cherish good in all things. I cannot prove that you are mistaken in this case. Indeed, it is just of your goodness and patience, that you allow me, your humble servant, to speak with such plainness and freedom. But you know how I love you and yours, and you bear with me for the sake of all that has come and gone during the lives we have mostly spent together. And now it is not for me to battle with your wishes, or trouble you with my impetuous tongue, especially when I have no sounder argument to offer than I have urged already. Yet sometimes the instinct born of love is worth more than learning, and there is that in me which says, as plainly as ever voice uttered words, 'It will be for evil to you and Miss Margery, and not for good, if you bring the child of Edward Austin under this roof.'"

Mrs. Austin could not help being deeply impressed by Barbara's words, and touched by her faith in these inward impressions; but she was too anxious to try the effect of a child's companionship on her own daughter to be turned from her purpose by them.

"You have not heard the contents of this letter yet," she said; "listen, and I will read what is written—

"Dear Madam,"

"You will remember that two years ago I wrote to inform you of Mrs. Edward Austin's death, during the absence of her husband on the Continent, and of the sad circumstances which attended it. But for the kindness of friends she and her child would have been destitute of common necessaries; but for your goodness she would have been buried at the cost of the parish, for no one knew where her husband was to be found at the time. He returned, as you also know, and was greatly distressed by the loss of his excellent wife and the position of his child, who was left by her mother in my care."

"Again by your bounty, Mr. Austin was enabled to prepare a home to shelter the innocent little one, to whom, in spite of his many faults, he was devotedly attached. Only a week ago the father and child were living together, a respectable middle-aged housekeeper having charge of the cottage which sheltered them, and I believe he was both a better and happier man than he had been for years. The innocent companionship of his little Clare was a wonderful help and safeguard, and showed what strength there may be even in a child's loving hand, and what good may spring from a pure affection for 'one of these little ones.'"

"I have again to communicate sorrowful news. Mr. Austin was taken ill and died in a few hours. He had only strength to ask me to write and tell you that he was sensible of your own and Colonel Austin's past goodness to him, and to implore you, in the event of his death, to save his darling from the workhouse—the only shelter open to her, unless you would be her friend. I promised to care for her until your answer should arrive. I only wish I could keep her altogether, for she is one of the loveliest and sweetest little creatures I ever saw, though now fretting incessantly after her father, who was buried yesterday."

"You will, however, be better able to judge from her photograph than
from any description of mine."

"As to Mr. Edward Austin's affairs, it appears that there were some trifling debts; but these and the funeral expenses will be covered by the sale of his furniture and some articles of jewellery, etc. Fortunately, he left a written document empowering a gentleman to dispose of all these things; so that I have nothing to do with any business matters. My promise will have been fulfilled when I have given the child into your care, if you will consent to receive her."

"Regretting that I am a second time the bearer of sorrowful
tidings—I am, dear madam,"
"Yours very faithfully,"
"LAURA ALLINGTON."

Mrs. Austin refolded the letter, and again took up the photograph, at which she gazed with increasing admiration.

"Your mind is made up, dear mistress. I can see it in your face. All I have to do is to obey your will, and make the best of it," said Barbara.

"I do not see how I can send any answer, except that I am willing to take charge of the child; and, in spite of your croaking, dear nurse, I shall look upon her as a true Godsend."

"I pray that she may prove so," said Barbara; and, lifting her mistress's hand to her lips, she kissed it tenderly.

"Nay, kiss me, Barbara—good, true, life-long friend!" said Mrs. Austin; and drawing the nurse's head towards her, she embraced her affectionately.

"You forgive my croaking, then. It all came of my anxiety that no harm should happen you or yours through your very good doing," she replied. Then, as if a new thought suggested suspicion, Barbara asked—

"Have you the letters Mrs. Allington wrote two years ago? This hand is a strange one to me. I do not think I ever saw it before, and yet I brought all that lady's letters to you at the time. I seldom forget writing."

"I destroyed all the old letters; but I believe this is in the same hand, only the former were written with a very fine pen, and this with a broad-pointed one. I could at any time make as great a difference in my own writing by a change of pens."

Barbara made no further remark; and by return of post a letter went to Mrs. Allington, with a promise to receive the child at Monks Lea.