CHAPTER V.
A MYSTERIOUS VISIT.
A few days after, in the early afternoon, as Meg was sitting on thefloor in her attic with the bundle of articles given her by Mr. Standishspread out on her lap, the books he had given her on the floor aroundher, the door opened and Mrs. Browne entered.
Meg had been silent and repellent since her friend's departure. She hadlived alone, communing with her grief.
The landlady sat down on the child's bed and began rocking herselfbackward and forward, uttering faint moans.
Meg looked at her gravely and apparently unmoved.
"What are you crying for?" she asked at last, when Mrs. Browne's moansbecame too emphatic to be passed over in silence.
"I am going to lose you, Meg--after all these years--There's agentleman downstairs--waiting to take you away. Oh! oh! oh!" moaned Mrs.Browne.
"A gentleman--what gentleman?" asked Meg with trembling eagerness, alight springing to her eyes, for her thoughts had flown to her onlyfriend.
"A kind gentleman--Mr. Fullbloom--You must remember, Meg, as I alwayssaid--Mr. Fullbloom--pays for you regular--regular as quarter-day comes,he pays. Remember, as I always said it--And now he's come to take youaway from me--who loves you as a mother."
"Is he coming to take me away to that school?" asked Meg, sitting upstraight, speaking in curt and business-like tones.
"Yes, you're to go to a school--a grander school--a ladies' school--andyou'll forget me, who loved you like a mother."
Meg did not answer. She began to prepare rapidly for her departure. Shewas going to the school; and this was the first step toward rejoiningMr. Standish in the future.
She paid no heed to Mrs. Browne's feeble grieving over the shabbiness ofher wardrobe, her unmended boots, and to the landlady's repeatedinjunctions to "speak up for me who has been good to you as a mother tothe gentleman." Every week, Mrs. Browne protested, she had meant to buyMeg a pretty dress and hat.
"What do I want with a fine dress at school for? I am going tolearn--that's what I am going to do. I am going to be a lady," said Megseverely, locking the writing-case, a present from Mr. Standish, inwhich she had deposited her bundle of articles, and wrapping her booksin brown paper.
"The gentleman says you're to take nothing with you except just whatwill go in a little bag," said Mrs. Browne; "and I've brought you mybest hand-bag."
"I'll not go away without these things," said Meg ardently. "I'll not goto school or nowhere without them."
Mrs. Browne shook her head; but Meg was not to be moved.
A few minutes' later, attired in her Sunday garments, her feet shod inworn boots, Meg, carrying her parcel, went downstairs, followed by Mrs.Browne. In the best parlor stood the gentleman she had once seen in Mr.Standish's room, and to whom she had been introduced as the "little girlI spoke to you of."
He still wore a frilled shirt and tapped a silver snuffbox, and helooked at Meg with his head very much on one side.
"Ready to go--ready to go!" he said in a quick chirping voice. "Notcrying, eh? not crying?"
Meg disengaged her hand to take the one proffered to her.
"Can't take that parcel," said Mr. Fullbloom, shaking his head. "Can'ttake it."
"Then I won't go away--I won't go to the school without it," said Megwith fierce decision.
"Tut, tut, tut!" said the lawyer. "What's inside it? Lollipops, eh?lollipops?"
"No," said Meg, pale with eagerness; "it's books and things--keepsakes.I'll never part with them--never!"
"Oh, hoity-toity!" said Mr. Fullbloom, then impressed with the child'sresolute look. "Well, well," he added, jerking his head to the otherside, "perhaps we'll find a place for it in the carriage."
Then once more Mrs. Browne lifted up her voice, and weeping embracedMeg, who submitted to her caress with a certain stiff-backedirresponsiveness. It is probable that if Meg had been called under othercircumstances to leave the gloomy old boarding-house and the boozylandlady, about whom clustered all the associations of her childhood,she would have felt the pang of the uprooting; but an absorbingaffection now filled her little heart, and with it had come new hopesand ambition.
A brougham was waiting at the door. Into it she stepped, and after her,Mr. Fullbloom. The next moment she was driving swiftly and silentlyalong. It was all very strange; yet Meg did not feel surprised. Griefhad lifted her unconsciously to a higher level of expectation; allunknowingly her attitude toward life was changed.
She was vaguely aware that she was the object of her companion's amusedand attentive observation. For all his waggish ways and dartingmovements Mr. Fullbloom had a shrewd and observant mind. He was alawyer, accustomed to note with discriminating eye external signs thatgave him the clew to the personality of those with whom he came incontact. It had grown to be a second nature with him to take note ofappearances. This little maid's imperturbable demeanor before the tearsof Mrs. Browne, her quick, fearless trust in him, her determinedattitude toward the bundle covered with brown paper, piqued hiscuriosity, and moved a deeper interest in her than that which he usuallyaccorded to children. The clear-cut little profile, he acknowledged, hada character of its own. Meg's attitude, as she sat upright and somewhatstiffly, partook of the same individuality. Mr. Fullbloom noted everydetail of the child's dress--the well-worn turban hat crowning thebrown crop of hair, the shabby velveteen dress, the weather-beatenjacket with its border of mangy fur, the old boots, the darned worstedgloves covering the hands that clasped the parcel.
"I think I know a little girl who is not very sorry to leave the oldhouse--not sorry," he said at last, stooping forward and cocking hishead with that bird-like swiftness.
"I want to go to that school. Are we going there now?" inquired Meg.
"Perhaps we are--perhaps we are not--perhaps we are going to a fairypalace," replied Mr. Fullbloom with a suggestive sidelong glance.
Meg looked at him smilelessly.
"There are no fairies," she said curtly. "Am I going to that school?"
"Before I tell I want to know who gave you those keepsakes--who was it?The clever young gentleman who took such an interest in little Miss Meg,and who had set his heart so much upon her going to school--was it?"said Mr. Fullbloom facetiously, laying his hand upon the bundle.
"Mr. Standish," answered Meg softly; and the lawyer was astonished atthe emotion perceptible on the child's face. It seemed to quiver likethe chords of a harp upon which a hand is laid.
The silence was broken, and the lawyer began to question. Meg wasguarded and reticent in her monosyllabic replies; but by a few leadingquestions the lawyer got from her what he wished to know.
He became satisfied that the picture Mr. Standish had drawn of herisolation, neglect, and half-servile position in the boarding-house wasunexaggerated. His veiled cross-examination was scarcely concludedbefore the brougham drew up before a large house overlooking a square,in which tall trees cast their shade athwart the smoothly shaven turf.
"Was this grand house the lady's school?" thought Meg.
A solemn man in black opened the door; an imposing being in agold-buttoned coat, plush breeches, and silk stockings came forward, andMeg by a dexterous move just rescued her parcel from his officiousclutches.
Mr. Fullbloom led her into a side room, saying as he left her that hewould be back immediately. The firelight glowed upon frames and mirrors,delicate porcelains, and blue satin hangings. For a few moments thelittle Cinderella figure remained standing immobile amid thesesurroundings, lost in wonder, then the lawyer returned, and taking herby the hand conducted her upstairs.
Who was she going to see now? Was she about to be brought before themaster or mistress of this fairy palace?
Meg was aware of passing through a room larger and more splendid thanthe one she had just left. Then Mr. Fullbloom pushed open a door andushered her into another room furnished with bookcases filled withbooks, a long table, and dark leather chairs.
An old gentleman was sitting there. His chair was against the window, sothat
his face was in shadow, but his white hair shone. He was leaningback; there was something rigid in his attitude; his long white handsgrasped the arms of the chair.
"Here is the little girl," said Mr. Fullbloom.
The white-haired gentleman made no sign of greeting, and did not speakfor a moment; but a close observer might have noticed, even in thathalf-light, a slight twitch of the old hand.
"You are the little girl who spent all your life in Mrs. Browne'sboarding-house?" he said at last, abruptly.
"Yes, sir," said Meg with a quiver in her voice.
In her heart she thought the elderly gentleman was not to be compared inappearance with the glittering footman; but his chill stare seemed tofreeze her.
"You remember no other place? You have never been to another?" he asked.
"I remember other places, but I have never lived in another place," saidMeg with her usual accuracy.
"What is your name?"
"Meg."
"Meg what?"
"Browne," said Meg.
"No, that is not your name. Beecham is your name. Don'tforget--Beecham."
"Beecham?" repeated Meg, amazed.
"Take off your hat!" said her interlocutor.
Meg lifted her left hand to obey, but the elastic caught in her hair,and she put her precious parcel down to free her right hand.
"You were to take nothing out of that house," said the old gentlemansternly.
"I won't give them up--I won't!" cried Meg with kindling countenance,and with hands outstretched to protect her parcel.
"You won't!" repeated the old gentleman with frozen severity. Mr.Fullbloom bent over his chair. There was a whispered colloquy. Then theold gentleman said in a voice that might have been that of an audibleicicle: "You may keep those things if you do not ask for anythingelse."
"I do not want anything else," said Meg with energy.
"Turn to the light."
Meg, all rebellion smoothed from her countenance, turned, obedient as alight-haunting flower, toward the gleam of sunshine filtering throughthe heavy curtains. The light fell caressingly on the spirited littleface in its renewed quietude.
"That will do," said the old gentleman; and he fell into a broodingsilence.
"This little girl wants to grow up a learned little lady--a learnedlittle lady," put in Mr. Fullbloom cheerily after a pause.
"Yes, that is what I want to be," answered Meg with an eager nod.
"If you are sent to school," resumed the stranger sternly, bending onthe child a glance that seemed to her to be one of aversion, "you mustpromise never to speak of that time spent in the boarding-house. You areto forget everything that happened there, and everybody you met there."
"I'll not forget every one. There is one person I will neverforget--never," replied Meg with energy.
"Mr. Standish, the young man who was her friend. Can't ask her to forgethim yet--can't do that," put in Mr. Fullbloom in a tone of jauntyconciliation, shaking his head. "I feel sure Meg will not speak abouthim."
"I don't want to talk about him," said Meg, her voice instinct with thesacredness of her affection.
"Do you know how to read?" asked the old gentleman.
"Yes," replied Meg briefly.
Her mysterious questioner opened a volume, turned rapidly over the pagesuntil he came to one where a chapter ended. He passed his forefingerover the page with a heaviness that widened the delicate nail.
"When a chapter is done, it is done--you turn the page." He suited theaction to the words and brought his palm down upon the book. "Youunderstand?" Meg nodded. "You begin another chapter--the first chapterof your life is finished--you understand?" Again Meg nodded. "It was anugly chapter--it remains with you to make the next chapter a better anda finer one."
"I will not talk of anybody or of anything; but I will always think ofone person," persisted Meg, intent upon making the conditions of thebargain clear between her and this stranger.
"I cannot dictate to your thoughts," he replied. "I want you to promisenot to speak about the past. What will you say when you are questionedconcerning it by teachers, schoolfellows, or servants?"
"I'll tell them it's none of their business, that's what I will tellthem," said Meg, with spirit and a relapse into a pronunciation thatsavored more of Mrs. Browne's than of Mr. Standish's influence.
Mr. Fullbloom chuckled, but the old man remained smileless.
"I have nothing more to add; take the child away," he said.
Mr. Fullbloom put out his hand to Meg. She hesitated, looking toward theold gentleman to say good-by.
Once more the child encountered a glance that seemed to freeze her withits mysterious dislike and she went out in silence.