That Stick ...

‘Yours ever (I mean it),

‘H. Morton.’

The letter to Lord Northmoor, which the servant put into his hand, was shorter, and began with the more important sentence—’The rascal dropped Michael at Liverpool Workhouse.’

The father read it with an ejaculation of ‘Thank God,’ the aunt answered with a cry of horror, so that he thought for a moment she had supposed he said ‘dropped him into the sea,’ and repeated ‘Liverpool Workhouse.’

‘Oh, yes, yes; but that is so dreadful.  The Honourable Michael Morton in a workhouse!’

‘He is safe and well taken care of there, no doubt,’ said Frank.  ‘I have no fears now.  There are much worse places than the nurseries of those great unions.’  Then, as he read on, ‘There, Emma, p. 266your boy has acted nobly.  He has fully retrieved what his sister has done.  Be happy over that, dear sister, and be thankful with me.  My Mary, my Mary, will the joy be too much?  Oh, my boy!  How soon can I reach Liverpool?  There, you will like to read it.  I must go and thank that good girl who found him the means.’

He was gone, and found Rose in the act of reading her letter aloud (all but certain bits, that made her falter as if the writing was bad) to her parents and Mr. Deyncourt.  And there, in full assembly, he found himself at a loss for words.  No one was so much master of the situation as Mr. Rollstone.

‘My Lord, I have the honour to congratulate your Lordship,’ he said, with a magnificence only marred by his difficulty in rising.

‘I—I,’ stammered his Lordship, with an unexpected choke in his throat, ‘have to congratulate you, Mr. Rollstone, on having such a daughter.’  Then, grasping Rose’s hand as in a vice, ‘Miss Rollstone, what we owe to you—is past expression.’

‘I am sure she is very happy, my Lord, to have been of service,’ said her mother, with a simper.

Mr. Deyncourt, to relieve the tension of feeling, said, ‘Miss Rollstone was reading the letter about Mr. Morton’s adventures.  Would you not like her to begin again?’

And while Rose obeyed, Lord Northmoor was able to extract his cheque-book from his pocket-book, and as Rose paused, to say—

‘I have a debt of which my nephew reminds me.  Miss Rollstone furnished the means for his p. 267journey.  Will you let me fill this up?  This can be repaid,’ he added, with a smile, ‘the rest, never.’

Mr. Rollstone might have been distressed at the venture on which his daughter’s savings had gone; but he was perfectly happy and triumphant now, except that, even more than Mrs. Morton, he suffered from the idea of the Honourable Michael being exposed to the contamination of a workhouse, and was shocked at his Lordship’s thinking it would have been worse for him to be with the Rattler.  Then, hastily looking at his watch, Lord Northmoor asked when the post went out, and hearing there was but half an hour to spare, begged Mr. Deyncourt to let him lose no time by giving him the wherewithal to write to his wife.

‘She would miss a note and be uneasy,’ he said.  ‘Yet I hardly know what I dare tell her.  Only not mourning paper!’ he added, with an exultant smile.

In the curate’s room he wrote—

‘Dearest Wife,—

‘I have been out all day, and have only a moment to say that I am quite well, and trust to have some most thankworthy news for you.  Don’t be uneasy if you do not hear to-morrow.—Your own

‘Frank.’

There was still time to scribble—

‘Dear Lady Adela,—

‘I trust to you to prepare Mary for well-nigh incredible joy, but do not agitate her too soon.  I cannot come till Friday afternoon.

‘Yours gratefully,

‘Northmoor.’

p. 268Having sent this off, his next search was for a time-table.  He would fain have gone by the mail train that very night, but Mr. Deyncourt and Mrs. Morton united in persuading him that his strength was not yet equal to such a pull upon it, and he yielded.  They hardly knew the man, usually so equable and quiet as to be almost stolid.

He smiled, and declared he could neither eat nor sleep, but he actually did both, sleeping, indeed, better and longer than he had done since his illness, and coming down in the morning a new man, as he called himself, but the old one still in his kindness to Mrs. Morton.  He promised to telegraph to her as soon as he knew all was well, assured her that he would do his best to keep the scandal out of the papers, that he would never forget his obligations to Herbert’s generosity, and that if she made up her mind to leave Westhaven he would facilitate her so doing.

Ida was not up.  She had had a very bad night, and indeed she had confessed that she had been miserable under dreams worse than waking, ever since the child was carried off.  Her mother had observed her restlessness and nervousness, but had set a good deal down to love, and perhaps had not been entirely wrong.  At any rate, she was now really ill, and could not bear the thought of seeing her uncle, though he sent a message to her that now he did not find it nearly so hard to forgive her, and that he felt for her with all his heart.