The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

CHAPTER XIII

Thus, after having unconsciously passed through peril and danger, the heroine of this story may be said to have found a place in the world. Lowly indeed was her home-as low as a grave; but as from the grave, where the lifeless clay rots and moulders, the spirit rises to purer space, so doubtless will the Duchess of Rosemary Lane find means to rise in her mortal state, to a higher rung in the ladder of life than the humble cellar of Seth Dumbrick. At present she is helpless, dependent on strangers for food and shelter-thrown into the arms of charity, and saved from early suffering by the cunning and devotion of a child but two or three years older than herself.

From the evening of Seth's party his fame increased, and that of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was firmly established. The gossips were firmly convinced that a thrilling mystery was connected with the child's birth, and the title of Duchess was willingly admitted. It conferred distinction upon the neighbourhood, and, apart from that consideration, it was pretty and fantastic, and took the fancy of the humble folk. Her position as the aristocratic head of Rosemary Lane being, therefore, indisputably recognised, the Duchess at once assumed her proper position in society.

She held her court in the narrow byways and thoroughfares of the district, and no monarch ever had a more devoted and admiring following. All the children in and about Rosemary Lane walked in her train, and wherever she sat and made her throne, in mud-gutter or on windowsill, she was surrounded by flatterers, aping their betters in a short-sighted, wrong-headed fashion; for from this little queen of the humble streets, nothing was to be gained but smiles and thanks. Which renders apparent the fact that, although, as has been demonstrated, these children were to some extent worldly, they were not yet sufficiently wise to know that the heart is a good-enough mint in its way, but that its coinage is scarcely available for material uses.

It was by her beauty, and the pride which her worshipper, Sally Chester, took in her, that her position was chiefly maintained. Sally was scarcely ever seen with a clean face; the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was scarcely ever seen with a dirty one. Sally was never without rents in her clothes and holes in her stockings; the Duchess was invariably a picture of neatness. Sally's hair hung always in wild disorder about her thin, sallow face; the Duchess's was always carefully combed and smoothed. "A duchess!" exclaimed many a woman; "upon my word, she looks like one!" It was the fashion with many of the youngsters to bite their nails; she never did. Her little plump fingers were generally white and clean, and her nails were seldom, if ever, in mourning. And Seth Dumbrick took care of her feet. It became his whim to make for his new charge the prettiest boots and shoes, which were at once the envy and admiration of her playmates. She received all the court paid to her, all the flatteries of her worshippers, all the adoration which Sally poured upon her, with queenly composure. There are natures with a wondrous capacity for bestowing love, and whose sweetest pleasure it is to lavish affection on an endeared object. Such a nature Sally possessed, and it had found its idol.

But had not the Duchess of Rosemary Lane been distinguished and made conspicuous by circumstances not dependent upon herself, she would have claimed attention from certain qualities peculiarly her own. In conjunction with her beauty, she had, when she was puzzled or pleased, quaint tricks of expression indescribably winning, and when no actual passion or emotion lighted up her features and they were in repose, she looked so sweet and pure that all hearts were instinctively attracted towards her.

Seth Dumbrick, when he adopted the girls, had done so with a full intention to perform his duty by them. There was more than one difficulty, however, for which he was utterly unprepared, and the first of these presented itself in the person of Mrs. Chester's "lovely lad," Ned.

Upon his mother's departure to her new sphere of duties, this estimable young gentleman found himself without a home; whereupon he began, after the usual custom of such natures, to repine bitterly at fate because of his unfortunate lot. But fate is an insensible antagonist, and, repine at it as you will, you cannot make it feel. Ned Chester cast about for some more vulnerable foe, and by a curious process of reasoning, he selected Seth Dumbrick. His sister Sally and the Duchess of Rosemary Lane played important parts in the belief, and it led him to the opinion that, in adopting them, Seth Dumbrick had inflicted a distinct injury upon him. With this injury rankling in his mind, he, some three months after his mother's departure, presented himself at Seth Dumbrick's stall. Seth Dumbrick was not the first to speak. He saw that Ned Chester was not sober, and he had no desire to quarrel with him.

"Well, you Dumbrick!" exclaimed Ned.

Seth Dumbrick merely smiled; the most irritating answer he could have made.

"You Dumbrick, do you hear?" demanded Ned.

"Oh, yes, I hear," quietly replied Seth. "What do you want?"

"My sister."

"Sally!" called Seth Dumbrick. "Here's your brother wants to see you."

Sally came up from the cellar, accompanied by the Duchess. They stood by Seth's side, who proceeded with his work in silence. Ned Chester gave Sally a wrathful look, and made as though he would clutch her. Seth, an attentive observer of every look and movement, interposed his arm.

"What's that for?" cried Ned Chester, fancying that he saw his opportunity.

Seth Dumbrick looked at his bare arm contemplatively, as though that was the subject upon which Ned Chester desired information. His shirt sleeves were tucked up to his shoulders, and his muscles made no mean display.

"What's that for?" he echoed, holding out his arm, and straightening it, so that his clenched fist almost touched the young man's face.

Ned Chester started back with an exclamation of alarm; he was not a brave man.

"Are you going to hit me?" he cried.

"No," said Seth Dumbrick; "there's no call to hit you, I take it. I thought you asked what my arm was for. Well, it's for work. Yours is for play, I suppose. But as my arm has come into the conversation, let me tell you that it's an arm that can take its own part, though it's many a year ago since it struck anything more sensible than leather."

The hint was too plain to be mistaken. Ned Chester turned to Sally.

"Sally," he whined, "haven't you got something to say to your poor brother?"

Sally considered for a moment, and made up her mind once and for all, if the tone in which she spoke could be taken as an indication.

"No," she said, "I ain't got nothink to say, and I don t want to have nothink to do with you."

"By which," added Seth Dumbrick, as a strong endorsement, " I should understand, if I was in your place, that my room would be better than my company."

"You little viper!" exclaimed Ned Chester wrathfully, addressing his sister, and would have continued but that Seth interrupted him with:

"Stop, stop; this young lady's under my protection. If she doesn't want to say anything to you, you shan't make her. Go down, Sally, if you don't care to stop."

Sally, glad to escape, was about to obey, when the Duchess, who had not moved from Sally's side during the conversation, plucked Seth Dumbrick's shirt-sleeve. Seth peered inquisitively at her.

"Don't hurt him," lisped the child.

A gleam of satisfaction came into Ned Chester's eyes.

"No, no, Duchess," said Seth good-humouredly, "I'll not hurt him. Nobody wants to do anything to him one way or the another. Go down with Sally."

But before the Duchess obeyed, she held out her hand to Ned.

"Goodbye," she said.

Ned seized her hand and kissed it.

"Goodbye," he said, with a triumphant glance at Seth; "there's one at all events with a heart in her bosom."

The whining tone in which he spoke was so distasteful to Seth Dumbrick that he averted his eyes from the lovely lad, and presently, when he looked up, he saw that he was alone. At the same time he observed that a pair of boots which he had newly mended was missing. For a moment he thought of pursuing the thief, but he relinquished his intention, and continued his work, with a frown on his face.

"Sally," he said, that night, when the shutters were up, "that brother of yours is a bad lot."

Sally nodded an emphatic assent.

"You're not over-fond of him."

"I've got nothink to be fond on him for," was Sally's rejoinder. "But mother she jist worships him, she does."

"It would make her sorry to hear that he'd got into any trouble-eh, Sally?"

"It'd jist worrit the life out of her-and I'd be sorry, too."

"Seen Pharaoh lately?"

"No, Daddy," replied Sally nervously.

"Pharaoh never said anything to you about your brother, did he?"

"No, Daddy Dumbrick, never."

"Ah!" proceeded Seth, getting down the Bible from which he was teaching Sally to read. "If Pharaoh was to come to you in a trance, and was to tell you that Ned Chester was going away, and was never coming back again, it'd be as welcome to me as the best week's work I've ever done in my life."

But Sally was too shrewd to risk her reputation upon a chance so remote, and with reference to this subject she did not introduce Pharaoh into the conversation for many weeks. During this interval, the Duchess behaved herself in a manner which occasioned her guardian and Sally much anxiety. Sally, running home one day, after having been out with the Duchess for two or three hours, rushed down the cellar, and up again, in terror and distress.

"Oh, oh!" she cried beating her hands together. "The Duchess! The Duchess!"

"What about her?" cried Seth, starting up in alarm.

"She's lost-she's lost! she's been kidnapped by the gipsies! I can't find her nowhere."

Seth ran at once into the streets, and Sally ran after him, with the tears running down her dirty face; but although they hunted high and low, and inquired at the police-station for a lost child, they could discover no trace of the Duchess. In a very despondent state of mind, Seth retraced his steps to his stall, Sally walking heart-broken by his side.

"It's as bad," he murmured ruefully, "as being a father in reality. Sally, if the Duchess is lost, and we can't find her, we'll emigrate."

This offered no consolation to Sally, whose tears flowed more freely at the melancholy tone in which Seth spoke.

"I'll spend every penny I've got-it ain't much, Sal-to find her," said Seth.

"Perhaps," whispered Sally, with her heart palpitating wildly. "Perhaps she's drownded."

The suggestion made Seth shiver, and he and Sally proceeded home in silence.

"I'll work no more to-day," he said when he reached the stall; "I'll not sleep to-night without finding her, if she is to be found. Here, take these things downstairs."

But as with feverish haste he gathered together his tools, he heard Sally, who by that time had entered the cellar, scream loudly and violently.

"Save my soul!" he exclaimed, as he scrambled down the stairs; "that's to say, if I've got a soul to be saved, – what's the matter now?"

He was not long in doubt. Sitting very contentedly on the ground, with two half-eaten apples and some very sticky sweetstuff in her lap, was the cause of all their anxiety, and Sally was crying and laughing over her. The Duchess's face and mouth was smeared with sweet particles, and she bore the surfeited appearance of having much indulged. She laughed at Seth as he entered, and would have clapped her hands but that they held portions of the banquet of which she had been so freely partaking. Seth heaved a great sigh of relief. When love, after a life which has been barren of it, comes for the first time to a man as old as Seth-whether it be love for a child or for a woman-it is strong and abiding. Seth's heart, which was as heavy as lead, grew as light as the proverbial feather, and a glad smile came to his lips.

"You little runaway! you little truant!" he said, lifting the Duchess to his lap, and kissing her sticky lips; "where have you been hiding yourself?"

It would have been hard to tell which of the three was the most delighted-he, or Sally, or the Duchess of Rosemary Lane. They all laughed and crowed together. Presently Seth comported himself more gravely.

"Come, my beauty," he said in a serious tone, "where have you been hiding?"

The Duchess became as grave and serious as her interrogator.

"I mustn't tell," she answered.

"Ah, but you must," persisted Seth; "we want to know, so that the next time it happens we may be able to find you."

"No, no," laughingly crowed the child; "I mustn't tell-I mustn't tell."

And that was all they could extract from her, with all their questioning and coaxing. Where had she been to? She mustn't tell. Who had given her the fruit and sweets? She mustn't tell. The only satisfaction they obtained from her was upon their asking if she had been told not to tell, and she answered, with a sly laugh, Yes. With this they were fain to rest content.

But when she was abed and asleep, Seth and Sally interchanged a grave confidence, to the effect that the Duchess must be carefully looked after. Sally needed no prompting. She had fully made up her mind to watch her precious charge with increased care and vigilance. Sharp as she was, however, the Duchess outwitted her. Within a week she was missing again. But Sally was more fortunate in her inquiries on this occasion. Meeting Betsy Newbiggin, she purchased from that industrious trader, for five pins and a farthing, the information that the Duchess of Rosemary Lane and Sally's brother were seen walking along hand-in-hand a quarter of an hour ago, in the direction of Ned Chester's lodging. Sally knew where her brother lived, and she ran swiftly to the place. The room occupied by her brother was at the top of the house; and when Sally reached the landing, she found the door closed upon her. Peeping through the keyhole, she saw the Duchess sitting on the bed, and Ned Chester sitting by her feeding her with sweetstuff. Sally was too frightened to go in; she knew the disposition of her brother, and she was fearful of driving him to the extreme measure of running away altogether with the Duchess-for that dreaded contingency was in her mind. What passed between the child and the man consisted chiefly of repetitions of the lovely lad's misfortunes, of his hard fate, and of the cruel way in which people oppressed him. He said, also, that he hated Seth Dumbrick; he hated Sally; he hated everything. When Sally heard his expressions of unmeaning hatred towards herself and her protector, she listened in an agony of agitation for some vindication from the Duchess: none reached her ears; but upon placing her eye to the keyhole, it brought a sense of satisfaction to her to observe that a mournful expression was clouding the child's bright face.

"But never mind them," said Ned Chester; "you love me, don't you?"

"Yes, yes," replied the Duchess; "I love you."

"And I love you. Kiss me, Duchess. There won't be many prettier faces than yours when you grow up, and I'll love you more then than I do now. And you will love me more, won't you?"

"Yes, if you give me apples and sweetstuff. I love them."

"You shall have everything you ask for, Duchess; mind that-everything. I'm not rich now, but I shall be then; and you shall have carriages and horses-"

"Yes, yes," cried the Duchess, clapping her hands; "I'll love you-I'll love you!"

"And when you are old enough, you will be my little wife?"

"Yes, yes, I will."

"So we'll kiss on it, and it's a bargain."

After the embrace, a movement on the part of her brother, which indicated that he was about to leave the room, caused Sally to beat a rapid retreat downstairs, where, in the street, she waited for the Duchess to come out. The child came, holding Ned Chester by the hand, and Sally followed them unobserved until her brother left the Duchess with some playmates. Sally did not acquaint Seth Dumbrick with her discovery; but she, within an hour, introduced the subject in a manner familiar to them both.

"I want to tell you. Daddy Dumbrick, Pharer come again."

"I thought he would, Sal. Pharaoh's rising as a spirit. Get straight to what he said."

"He said, said Pharer, 'the Duchess has been playing truant.'"

"Wide-awake old king! Go on, Sal."

"But 'taint her fault, said Pharer; she's been seducted away."

"She's been what?"

"Seducted away. Now, said Pharer, you'll miss her agin soon."

"When?"

"Pharer didn't say. You'll miss her agin soon, he said. There's somebody as is fond on her, and as hates you and Daddy Dumbrick, and everybody but the Duchess. So look out."

"We will. That wasn't all, Sal."

"No. Said Pharer, the next time you miss her, tell Daddy Dumbrick to go to No. 8, Lemon Street, to the top of the house on the third floor, and there he'll find her."

Seth stared at Sally. "That's all?"

"That's all."

"Did Pharaoh say who lives there?"

"No."

"And," said Seth, placing his hand kindly on Sally's head, "you don't want to tell."

"No; for if anythink happened to him through me, mother would never speak to me agin."

"All right, Sal. I can guess what you don't want to tell. The next time you can't find the Duchess, you come to me; I'll soon settle matters."

The opportunity occurred very soon, and was brought about probably by Sally, who relaxed her watch so that Seth could make the discovery for himself. Taking Sally with him, Seth proceeded to the house, and found Ned Chester entertaining the child, to whom he had taken so strange a liking. He was charming the Duchess's soul with his tin whistle; and Seth, pausing on the stairs, listened in wonder to the melodious sounds produced by the drunken vagrant. He was ignorant of Ned Chester's accomplishments in the musical way, and was only made acquainted with Ned's possession of so rare a talent by Sally exclaiming:

"There he is!"

"That's never your brother, Sal," observed Seth.

"Yes, it is; that's how he gets his living. Don't he play beautifully?"

Seth, without replying, entered the room, and opened the battle at once.

"Take her home," he said, passing the Duchess to Sally; "your brother and I are going to talk a bit. Don't be afraid, Sal; we sha'n't fight-at least I sha'n't, and I don't think he's got pluck enough. Now," he continued, when the children were gone, "let's make short work of this. What do you mean by tricking my child away day after day in this fashion?"

"Your child!" sneered Ned. "She's as much mine as yours; I love her as much."

"I'll not question that. If you love her for her good, it's a bit of light in you that I'm not sorry to see. But the child's mine, so far as the poor little castaway who's been thrown on the world in the way she's been can be said to be anybody's. And I mean to keep her, and put a stop to any nonsense on your part. Understand that."

".I'm not good enough for the little beauty, I shouldn't wonder to hear you say. Perhaps you can prove that you're better company than me."

"I can. In the first place, you are a drunken sot, which I am not. In the second place, you are a thief, which I am not."

"And in no place at all," cried Ned Chester, both fearful and furious, "you are a liar, which I am not."

"I can prove what I say, and will, to the magistrates, if you want me to. When you came to my stall a little while ago you stole a pair of boots."

"That's well trumped up. To be true, you must have found it out at the time. It's not a good move of yours."

"I did find it out at the time; and I went two days afterwards to the pawnbroker's where you pledged them, and made certain. The pawnbroker'll swear to you; I'll swear to the boots. It's a Botany Bay job, as clear as sunlight. You're fiddling with your fingers in your waistcoat pocket. You've got the ticket there. What do you say to that now, for a move?"

"Why," stammered Ned, growing very white about the lips, "can't a man buy a pawn-ticket, and-and-"

"It will be best for me to do the talking, Ned Chester. I shall get along better than you. The reason that I didn't come straight after you at the time was that I thought of the mother who loves you. That's why I spared you then; for your mother's sake, not for your own. I suspect it's out of spite against me that you are trying to trick the little Duchess from me and Sally-"

"No," interrupted Ned Chester, the colour coming into his face again; "it's chiefly out of love for her. Look here," he cried, bursting into tears, "I can't tell you what it is that makes me so fond of her, but I'm a different man when she's with me than when she's not. I've spent my last penny on her this very day, and I don't know what to do for a drink. She's got a face like an angel, and-and-"

But his voice trailed off here, and he paused, as much amazed himself at his involuntary outburst as was Seth Dumbrick, who had listened to it without interruption.

"You're not the only man," said Seth, after a pause, "who's got that sort of feeling towards the child. Now, mind. I'm speaking to you calm and reasonable, first for your mother's sake, next for Sally's; I'm old enough to be your father, and it's for their sakes, not for your own, that I tell you you're on the wrong track. You go on drinking for another two or three years as you've been doing the last two or three, and, if I'm any judge of appearances, you'll wake up one fine morning and find yourself in a madhouse-which wouldn't matter a bit so long as your mother didn't know, for you're nothing as you are but a lump o' mischief. Well, I love that child in a way that makes me surprised at myself, and I mean to stand by her through life, and I don't mean to see her wronged. Feeling like that towards her, it isn't likely that I'm going to let you step in between us, and poison her against me and Sally. You've opened your mind to me, and I've opened mine to you. I'll open it farther. You trick my child away again, and I'll have you sent across the water for stealing the boots from my stall. If I don't, may I be struck down dead where I stand! There-that's the first strong oath I've taken since I was a young man, when I used to swear a bit."

Stupefied by fear, and entirely dominated by the strong will of Seth Dumbrick, Ned Chester waited in impotent rage for what was to follow.

"Now for my proposition. You've got a lucky mole on your forehead-"

Ned Chester with a bewildered air raised his hand to the hitherto luckless possession.

" – And that mole's going to lead you to fortune, your mother's told me. What if I show you the way?" He took a piece of a newspaper from his pocket. "Here's an account of gold, in great lumps, being found in Australia. If you were there, with your mole, you'd be the luckiest man in the mines."

Ned Chester jumped up in excitement.

"Of course I should. If I was there! But how to get there! A poor beggar like me!" He pulled out the lining of his empty pockets with a distracted air.

"There are ships going away from the docks every week for the mines. Go and get shipped as a sailor. If not as a sailor, as something else. There's the gold waiting for you to pick it up. If a matter of three pound'll get you off, I've got that much saved, and you shall have it. I'll give it to get rid of you, and for the sake of your mother and Sally-"

"And the Duchess," added Ned, somewhat maliciously.

"And the Duchess; you're right; so that you shan't worry the life out of us. I don't intend to say another word but this. When you come to me and say you're going, I'll give you the three pound the day the ship sails out of the Docks. And if you are not gone in less than a fortnight-well, just you imagine that I'm taking that oath over again-I'll have the handcuffs put on you and make an end of you."

Before the fortnight had passed, Seth Dumbrick, bidding Sally keep at home with the Duchess, and not stir out till he returned, went away in the early morning, and did not make his appearance till the evening. He was in high spirits. With the Duchess on his lap, he said in a cheerful voice to Sally:

"Sally, if you had a trance to-night, and Pharaoh came to you and said that your brother had gone over the water and was never coming back, it would be the truest thing he ever said since the time he was done up in a bundle, and became a spirit. It's true, Sal. The Duchess is all ours now."