Chapter XX: By Miss Milly Mortimer

It is I who must finish what there is to tell. My dear Milly was not in a condition, either of mind or body, to go on with the story that had moved her so much; and since then, poor dear child, you may suppose how little heart she had to enter upon other things. We heard of the battle that had just been fought not long after, and knew that Harry was sure to have been in it, having got letters from him of his safe arrival just the day after my sister’s death. And then we had to wait for the lists. I can tell nobody how we lived through these days. She used to go down and teach in the village school, and to all the distressed people near. The things she did for them might have shocked me at another time. Anything, it did not matter what, a servant’s work, whatever there might happen to be to do--and came home at night tired to death, but with no sleep in her poor eyes. She used to say, though she could not sleep, that it was a kind of comfort to be very tired, it dulled her a little in her heart. When the news came he was slightly wounded, and had distinguished himself, she fell down in a faint at my feet. It was the first moment she dared be insensible. After that little term of relief, our anxieties were constant. But at last, you know, it is all over, and he is coming home.

But to go back to that day. When we left my sister’s deathbed, and I, without even Milly to support me, went down alone with them all to hear everything told over again, and all Mr. Cresswell’s remarks and astonishment, you may well imagine it was very hard to me. I would have given anything to have been able to keep all that from Mr. Cresswell, but after what he had heard, and Sarah’s extraordinary signature, of course it was indispensable that he should understand the whole business; as well as for my nephew’s sake. I am bound to say Luigi behaved to his poor mother in a very different way from that in which she had treated him. If she had been the best mother in the world he could not have told the tale more gently. He went over it all,--how there had been a secret marriage done in Leghorn, where it was not unlawful for a Catholic to marry a Protestant, and where his father came under some engagement to take our own name. How it was kept secret for some reason of her own. How my father found it out. How the Count was summoned and called upon to bind himself, now that the affair could not be mended, to come home with them, and take the name of Mortimer. How, being dreadfully irritated by his wife (I don’t doubt she could have driven a man mad, especially in the days of her beauty), he refused; and how she had renounced, and given him up, and had nothing more to say to him. You may say, why did not he claim his rights? I can’t tell. He might have ruined her reputation, to be sure, or made the whole story public; but I suppose she must have been more than a match for him. She retired away into some village, and had her baby, and left it there. Then she came home. The Count never disturbed her all his life; and when he died he told his son the story, and bade him never to rest till he had recovered his mother. The young man, all amazed, full of grief for his father and anxiety to find _her_, came to England, asking for the Countess Sermoneta. It was only after many failures, and seeking better information from his father’s papers, that he came to believe that she called herself still Miss Mortimer; and we know all the rest. Luigi did not blame her, not a single word; he sat with his head leaning on his hands, overcome with distress and trouble. He called her his mother, his mother, every time he spoke, and said the name in such a tone as would have gone to anybody’s heart. Little Sara sat gazing at him all the time, with her whole heart in her eyes. When he covered his face with his hands in that pitiful way, Sara was unable to contain herself; she moved restlessly in her seat, fell a-crying in extreme agitation, and then, just for a moment, laid her hand upon his and pressed it with a quick momentary touch of sympathy. Her father’s eyes gleamed out for a moment surprise, anger, I cannot tell what mixture of feelings; but, dear! dear! what had their courtships and lovemakings to do in this stricken house? I could not bear any such question just at that moment. I told Cresswell that it was needful he should make my will, too, as well as my sister’s, and that I left my share to my nephew, without any conditions. Cresswell made objections, as was natural for a lawyer. His objections were too much for me; I got angry and impatient, more than I ought to have done. Here was he pottering about proofs and such things, when I knew, and had seen, and read it all in my sister’s face. This story was the key to Sarah’s life; I understood it all now what it meant, from her never-uttered quarrel with my father, down to the time when she met Luigi on the road. And the man spoke to me about proofs! I made him draw out a kind of form of a will, like that which Sarah had signed, but which Mr. Cresswell worded so cautiously, that it would be null if Luigi was not proved my nephew--bequeathing all my share of the Park estate to him. I confess it cost me a pang to do this; I confess freely that, to part the lands, and to leave it away from Milly, and to think it was Sarah and not me who had provided for that dear child, went to my heart; but I would rather have died than refused justice to my sister’s son.

Luigi came round to my side and took my two hands and kissed them. I was so wicked as to dislike it just at that moment, and to think it was one of his Italian ways. But he stood before me with tears in his eyes, and that look of the Mortimers, which nobody could mistake. “And your love?” he said. I could not stand out against that; I broke down entirely, and cried and sobbed like a child. Dreadful days these had been! Now I was overpowered, and could do no more. When I rose to go upstairs Luigi drew my arm into his, and took care of me like a son. He begged me to go to Milly, and not to be by myself; and I cannot tell how, but his voice had so great an effect upon me, that I did just as he said. Oh, dear! dear! to think what Sarah had cast away from her. There was she, lying alone, rejecting every creature in the world but Carson,--and here was the love that belonged to her, coming to _me_.

I did not see Mr. Cresswell again before he went away. Sara came up a little after, in despair, saying he had ordered her to return with him, and came and hugged me silently, and cried, with a frightened look upon her pale little face. “I would say farewell to godmamma Sarah, if I dared,” cried the poor child; but I dared not let her do it. She went away, casting longing looks back at us like a creature condemned. It was natural that she should feel leaving us in so much trouble, and going back to her own quiet, motionless home. It was not Sara’s fault she had not been watching with us every moment of that terrible night; but, for all that, it was very right of Mr. Cresswell to take her away.

And then some days of watching followed. Once Sarah admitted me into her room, and she saw the doctor without making any objection--she would have lived still, had that been possible--but when I begged her to see Luigi, just to say one word to him, to let him believe she recognised him as her son, her looks grew so terrible that I dared not say more. He went himself, out of my knowledge, to her door, and begged and prayed to be let in; but Carson came out to him, pallid with terror, and begged him to go away, or he would kill Miss Mortimer--for they kept up that farce of a name to the end. Luigi came to me heart-broken; it was, indeed, a terrible position for the young man. He reproached himself for seeking his natural rights, and bringing on all this misery. He said, “I have killed my mother!” It was all I could do to comfort him. God forgive her! it was not he who was to blame.

This was how my sister Sarah died. I try never to think of it. I try not to remember that dreadful time. Thank heaven! to judge others is not our part in this life. There is very little comfort to be had out of it, anyhow; living and dying it was a sad existence for a woman. If she had not much love in her lifetime, I think there are few graves over which have been shed more bitter tears. On her tombstone she is called Countess Sermoneta; the first time she has ever borne that ill-fated name.

It was not difficult to prove the whole history. By degrees Mr. Cresswell gathered enough from other sources to convince him of Luigi’s story; and after that it did not take much persuasion to make him consent to give my nephew his daughter. It was not the match he might have made, of course. The Sermonetas are a very old family in their own country; not much wonder the Count would not consent to give up his own name, and take the name of the haughty Englishman that despised him. Luigi would have changed his, had his mother bidden him, and for his father’s sake; but the young man was deeply grateful to me for not making any conditions. For my part, I did not want him to be the representative of the Mortimers. I may safely say I came to love him like a child of my own at last. But after all he was a foreigner still, and even when I came to be fond of him, I never could see him without pain mixing with the pleasure. It was Harry, little Harry, my sweet English baby, Milly’s beautiful boy, that was to be the Mortimers’ heir.

And Sara will not be married till Harry Langham comes home. Perhaps it is not justice to Sara to say my nephew might have done better; but, after all, you know, her father is only an attorney, our family attorney. Her hair is grown now, and she is a little older, and very pretty; very pretty indeed the little creature is. She is not in the least like what my sister Sarah used to be; she can never be such a beauty as her poor godmamma was. If it were nothing else, she is too little for _beauty_; but I must say she is extremely pretty. I don’t know if there is such another in all Cheshire. My Milly is different. Of the two _I_ should rather have her; but then I am not a young man.

And the war is over, and the dear child is nervously happy, and counting the days. About another week or so and Harry Langham will be at home.

POSTSCRIPT.

BY MRS. LANGHAM.

Harry is home, safe and well. He is to get the Medjidie and the French ribbon of honour; but you can see that in the papers. It is something else I have to tell.

It is just a week before Sara’s marriage day, and Lizzie comes to me looking very foolish. I had thought she had recovered of her awkwardness. There she stands, twisting her feet again, rolling up her arms in her white apron, holding her head to one side in a paroxysm of her old use and wont. Really, if she were not standing in such a preposterous attitude, Lizzie would look rather pretty; she has such a nice complexion, and her red-brown hair pleases me--it is not too red. It suits those features which are not at all regular, but only very pleasant and bright, with health, and youth, and a good heart. But now there is something dreadful choking Lizzie, which must be got out.

“Mem, the Captain’s come hame,” came at last in a burst.

He was brevet Major now, and most people about the Park called him Colonel; and he was in the next room, no further off, so I rather stared at Lizzie’s piece of news.

“And wee Mr. Harry, he’s a grand little gentleman,” said Lizzie; “and a’s weel, and there’s no cloud in a’ the sky as big as the dear bairn’s little finger, let abee a man’s hand.”

This solemn enumeration of my joys alarmed me considerably. “Do you know of anything that has happened, Lizzie?” I cried with a momentary return of my old fears.

“Naething’s gaun to happen,” said Lizzie, “I’m meaning no to you; naething but the blessing of God that kens a’. It was just to say----”

Here Lizzie came to a dead stop, and cried, the unfailing resource in all difficulties. A perception of the truth flashed upon me as I looked at her.

“Do you mean to say----?” cried I, but got no further in my extreme amaze.

“Eh, it’s no me!” cried Lizzie. “But eh, Menico says----”

Here she stopped again, gave me a frightened look, made an attempt to go on--and finally, startled by a sound in the next room, where Harry was, dropped the apron she had unconsciously pulled off, on the floor, and fairly ran away.

Leaving me thunderstruck, and by no means pleased. I knew if I went and told Harry he would burst into fits of laughter, and there would be an end to all serious consideration of the subject. To lose Lizzie all at once like this, to let the creature go and marry a foreigner! There was something quite unbearable in the thought; what was I to do? A foreigner, and a Catholic, too, and a man twice as old as herself; the girl was mad! The more I thought of it the more distressed I grew. At last I went to seek Aunt Milly, who was the only practicable counsellor. She was in the garden, and I went to seek her there. It was July, and sultry weather. In the hall, now better occupied than it used to be, stood Domenico, in the white suit, vast and spotless, with which he always distinguished himself in summer weather, and which always put me in mind of that dreadful day when the Count Sermoneta first came, in his own name, to the Park. Domenico started forward, noiseless and smiling, to open the door. The action brought before me in a minute our little Chester lodgings, our troubled happy days, our parting, and all the simple kindness this honest fellow had done us. His face beamed through all my recollections of that time, always thus starting forward with the courtesy of the heart. My heart warmed to him in spite of all I had been cogitating against him. Perhaps he divined what it was occupied my thoughts--he followed me out at the door.

“It pleases to the Signora give me the Leezee?” said Domenico, with an insinuating look. “No? no? But what to have done? The Signora displeases herself of me? Wherefore? Because? I not know.”

“I am not displeased,” said I. “You are a very good fellow, Domenico, and have always been very kind. But she is a child; she is not seventeen. What would you do with her in a strange country? She is too young for you.”

“The Leezee contents herself,” said Domenico, with a broad smile opening out his black beard. “If it pleases to the Signora, I bring her back other times; I take the care of her; I make everything please to her. The Signora not wills to say no?”

And of course I did not say no; I had no right to say anything of the sort. And Lizzie actually was not afraid to marry that mountain of a man. She went away with him, looking dreadfully ashamed, and taking the most heartrending farewell of little Harry and me, Domenico looking on with great but smiling sympathy all the while, and not at all resenting her tears. But the Captain had come home, and little Harry had attained the independence of two and a half years. Lizzie felt she had discharged her trust, and was no longer imperatively needed to take care of me. I kissed her when she went away, as if she had been a sister of my own, and I confess was not ashamed to add a tear to the floods that poured from her brown eyes; but I am obliged to avow that it is not within the range of my powers to put correctly on paper all the long rolling syllables of her new name.

THE END.

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_By BAYLE ST. JOHN._

761 Maretimo.

_By C. GOLDSCHMIDT._

762 Jacob Bendixen.

_By Lady SCOTT._

763 The Only Child.

_By Bros. MAYHEW._

765 The Image of his Father.

_By E. MACKENZIE._

768 Highland Lassies.

_By S. W. R._

769 Rose Douglas.

_By WAT BRADWOOD._

770 O. V. H. 770A Ensemble.

_By ALICE PERRY._

771 Esther’s Sacrifice.

_By A. MANNING._

772 Ladies of Bever Hollow.

_By JULIA KAVANAGH._

773 Madeleine.

_By Author of “GUY LIVINGSTONE.”_

774 Hagarene.

_By Mrs. HOUSTON._

777 Lilian’s Penance.

_By Lady THYNNE._

778 Off the Line.

_By ALICE KING._

779 Queen of Herself.

_By J. MASTERMAN._

780 A Fatal Error.

_By E. METEYARD._

781 Mainstone’s Housekeeper.

_By Mrs. RANDOLPH._

782 Wild Hyacinth.

_By Baroness DE BURY._

783 All for Greed.

_By Earl DESART._

785 Kelverdale.

_By MARK HOPE._

786 Dark and Light Stories.

_By Miss STEVENS._

789 Zana, the Gipsy.

_By SYLVESTER JUDD._

790 Margaret.

_BY A. DE VIGNY._

791 The Conspirators.

_By G. R. GLEIG._

792 Chelsea Pensioners.

_By A. DE FONBLANQUE._

793 A Lease for Lives.

_Ed. by Sir E. WRAXALL._

794 The Backwoodsman.

_By Miss LEVIEN._

795 Almost a Quixote.

_By E. JUNCKER._

797 Margaret’s Ordeal.

_By THORPE TALBOT._

798 Philiberta.

_By SOPHIE MAY._

799 Our Helen.

_By JAMES GREENWOOD._

800 Little Ragamuffins.

_By WM. ADAMSON._

802 Abbot of Aberbrothock.

_By Mrs. GORDON SMYTHIES._

804 Guilty or Not Guilty?

_By PERCY B. ST. JOHN._

805 Miranda.

_By Countess DE LA MOTTE._

806 The Diamond Necklace.

_By Captain FLACK._

807 Castaways of the Prairie.

_By “WANDERER.”_

808 Hunt-Room Stories and Yachting Yarns. Illustrated.

_By W. G. CRAVEN._

809 The Margravine.

_By A. WHAMOND._

810 The Conscript’s Revenge. 811 James Tacket.

_By Mrs. J. K. SPENDER._

814 Godwyn’s Ordeal.

_By Mrs. KENNARD._

818 The Right Sort.

_By Mrs. PIRKIS._

825 Wanted an Heir.

_BY A. DE GALLENGA._

826 Jenny Jennett.

_By SAMUEL LAING._

828 A Sporting Quixote.

_By HANNAH LYNCH._

830 Through Troubled Waters.

_By BYRON WEBBER._

834 Pigskin and Willow.

_By CATHARINE SINCLAIR._

850 Beatrice. 851 Modern Accomplishments. 852 Holiday House. 853 Modern Flirtations. 854 Mysterious Marriage.

_By JULES VERNE._

856 Five Weeks in a Balloon. 857 English at the North Pole. 858 Among the Cannibals. 859 A Journey to the Interior of the Earth.

_By ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN._

876 The Great Invasion. 877 Campaign In Kabylia. 878 Waterloo. 879 The Man-Wolf. 880 The Blockade. 881 The States-General. 882 Citizen Bonaparte. 883 Year One of the Republic. 884 Daniel Rock. 885 Friend Fritz. 886 The Conscript.

_By Mrs. LEITH ADAMS._

900 Aunt Hepsy’s Foundling.

_By SAMUEL WARREN._

905 Diary of a late Physician. 906 Ten Thousand a-Year.

_By HAMILTON AIDE._

920 Introduced to Society.

_By W. M. THACKERAY._

925 Yellowplush Correspondence, & Fitz-Boodle Papers, &c.

_By OSWALD CRAWFURD._

951 Grace Tolmar. 952 The World we Live In. 953 A Woman’s Reputation.

_By E. WERNER._

960 Riven Bonds. 961 Sacred Vows.

_By F. MARION CRAWFORD._

965 An American Politician. 966 To Leeward.

_BY C. E. CRADDOCK._

971 In the Clouds. 972 Story of Keedon Bluffs.

_By Prof. WILSON._

981 Tales of the Border. I. 982 ---- II. 983 ---- III. 984 ---- IV.

_By GUSTAVE AIMARD._

1001 The Tiger Slayer. 1002 Last of the Incas. 1003 Pirates of the Prairie. 1004 The Prairie Flower. 1005 The Trapper’s Daughter. 1006 The White Scalper. 1007 The Indian Chief.

_By Lord BEACONSFIELD._

1021 Vivian Grey. 1022 Coningsby. 1023 Henrietta Temple. 1024 Venetia. 1025 Sybil. 1026 Alroy, and Contarini Fleming. 1027 The Young Duke.

_By EMILE GABORIAU._

1031 In Deadly Peril.

_By ELIOT WARBURTON._

1051 The Crescent and Cross.

_By ALEXANDER DUMAS._

1060 Count of Monte Cristo.

_ANONYMOUS._

767 Belial. 776 First in the Field. 788 Leah, the Jewish Maiden. 796 Janetta, and Blythe Herndon. 803 Life in a Prison. 813 Tales of Tramps. Illust. 1102 Remarkable Impostors and Celebrated Claimants.

WARD, LOCK & CO.’S

SPORTSMAN’S LIBRARY OF FAVOURITE FICTION.

Crown 8vo, well bound, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. each.

1 From Post to Finish. HAWLEY SMART. 2 A False Start. HAWLEY SMART. 3 The Right Sort. MRS. E. KENNARD. 4 O. V. H.; or, How Mr. Blake Became Master of Fox-Hounds. WAT BRADWOOD. 5 The Flyers of the Hunt. JOHN MILLS. 6 Tilbury Nogo. J. G. WHYTE-MELVILLE. 7 Hunt-Room Stories. “WANDERER.” 8 The Flying Scud. C. C. CLARKE. 9 A Sporting Quixote. SAMUEL LAING. 10 Stable Secrets, and The Life of a Racehorse. JOHN MILLS.

WARD, LOCK & CO., London, Melbourne, and New York.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Last of the Mortimers, by Margaret Oliphant