第50章

She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encountered the colonel in the hall.Here she poured into his astonished ear a voluble and exaggerated statement of her discovery, and indignant recital of her wrongs."Don't tell me the whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand; for I know it was!" she almost screamed."And think,"she added, "of the heartlessness of the wretch, leaving his own child alone here in that way.""It's a blank shame!" stammered the colonel without the least idea of what he was talking about.In fact, utterly unable as he was to comprehend a reason for the woman's excitement with his estimate of her character, I fear he showed it more plainly than he intended.

He stammered, expanded his chest, looked stern, gallant, tender, but all unintelligently.Mrs.Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a sickening doubt of the existence of natures in perfect affinity.

"It's of no use," said Mrs.Tretherick with sudden vehemence, in answer to some inaudible remark of the colonel's, and withdrawing her hand from the fervent grasp of that ardent and sympathetic man.

"It's of no use: my mind is made up.You can send for my trunk as soon as you like; but I shall stay here, and confront that man with the proof of his vileness.I will put him face to face with his infamy."I do not know whether Col.Starbottle thoroughly appreciated the convincing proof of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity afforded by the damning evidence of the existence of Tretherick's own child in his own house.He was dimly aware, however, of some unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression of the infinite longing of his own sentimental nature.But, before he could say any thing, Carry appeared on the landing above them, looking timidly, and yet half-critically at the pair.

"That's her," said Mrs.Tretherick excitedly.In her deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, she rose above a consideration of grammatical construction.

"Ah!" said the colonel, with a sudden assumption of parental affection and jocularity that was glaringly unreal and affected.

"Ah! pretty little girl, pretty little girl! How do you do? How are you? You find yourself pretty well, do you, pretty little girl?" The colonel's impulse also was to expand his chest, and swing his cane, until it occurred to him that this action might be ineffective with a child of six or seven.Carry, however, took no immediate notice of this advance, but further discomposed the chivalrous colonel by running quickly to Mrs.Tretherick, and hiding herself, as if for protection, in the folds of her gown.

Nevertheless, the colonel was not vanquished.Falling back into an attitude of respectful admiration, he pointed out a marvellous resemblance to the "Madonna and Child." Mrs.Tretherick simpered, but did not dislodge Carry as before.There was an awkward pause for a moment; and then Mrs.Tretherick, motioning significantly to the child, said in a whisper, "Go now.Don't come here again, but meet me to-night at the hotel." She extended her hand: the colonel bent over it gallantly, and, raising his hat, the next moment was gone.

"Do you think," said Mrs.Tretherick with an embarrassed voice and a prodigious blush, looking down, and addressing the fiery curls just visible in the folds of her dress,--"do you think you will be 'dood,' if I let you stay in here and sit with me?""And let me tall you mamma?" queried Carry, looking up.

"And let you call me mamma!" assented Mrs.Tretherick with an embarrassed laugh.

"Yeth," said Carry promptly.

They entered the bedroom together.Carry's eye instantly caught sight of the trunk.

"Are you dowin away adain, mamma?" she said with a quick nervous look, and a clutch at the woman's dress.

"No-o," said Mrs.Tretherick, looking out of the window.

"Only playing your dowin away," suggested Carry with a laugh."Let me play too."Mrs.Tretherick assented.Carry flew into the next room, and presently re-appeared, dragging a small trunk, into which she gravely proceeded to pack her clothes.Mrs.Tretherick noticed that they were not many.A question or two regarding them brought out some further replies from the child; and, before many minutes had elapsed, Mrs.Tretherick was in possession of all her earlier history.But, to do this, Mrs.Tretherick had been obliged to take Carry upon her lap, pending the most confidential disclosures.

They sat thus a long time after Mrs.Tretherick had apparently ceased to be interested in Carry's disclosures; and, when lost in thought, she allowed the child to rattle on unheeded, and ran her fingers through the scarlet curls.

"You don't hold me right, mamma," said Carry at last, after one or two uneasy shiftings of position.

"How should I hold you?" asked Mrs.Tretherick with a half-amused, half-embarrassed laugh.

"Dis way," said Carry, curling up into position, with one arm around Mrs.Tretherick's neck, and her cheek resting on her bosom,--"dis way,--dere." After a little preparatory nestling, not unlike some small animal, she closed her eyes, and went to sleep.