The Children's Pilgrimage by L. T. Meade (best sales books of all time txt) 📗

your little closet without more ado. She seemed quite comforted that I should take to her, and left off crying for her mother. I asked her the next day a lot of questions, but to everything she said she did not know. She did not know where her mother lived now. She would rather not see her mother, now she was not so lonely. She would rather not tell her real name. I might call her Susie. She had been in France, but she did not like it, and she had got back to England. She had wandered back, and she was very desolate, and she had wanted her mother dreadfully, but not now. Her mother had been bad to her, and she did not wish for her now that I was so good. To hear her talk you'd think as she was hard, but at night John and I 'ud hear her sobbing often and often in her little bed, and naming of her mammie. Never did I come across a more willful bit of flesh and blood. But she had that about her as jest took everyone by storm. My husband and I couldn't make enough on her, and we both jest made her welcome to be a child of our own. She was nothing really but a child, a big, fair English child. She said as she wor twelve years old. She was lovely, fair as a lily, and with long, yellow hair."

"Fair, and with yellow hair?" said Cecile, suddenly springing to her feet. "Yes, and with little teeth like pearls, and eyes as blue as the sky."

"Why, Cecile, did you know her?" said Mrs. Moseley. "Yes, yes, that's jest her. I never did see bluer eyes."

"And was her name Lovedy—Lovedy Joy?" asked Cecile.

"I don't know, child; she wouldn't tell her real name; she was only jest Susie to us."

"Oh, ma'am! Dear Mrs. Moseley, ma'am, where's Susie now?"

"Ah, child! that's wot I can't tell you; I wishes as I could. One day Susie went out and never come back again. She used to talk o' France, same as you talk o' France, so perhaps she went there; anyhow, she never come back to us who loved her. We fretted sore, and we hadvertised in the papers, but we never, never heard another word of Susie, and that's seven years or more gone by."

CHAPTER VIII. THE TRIALS OF SECRECY.

The next day Mrs. Moseley went round to see her clergyman, Mr. Danvers, to consult him about Cecile and Maurice. They puzzled her, these queer little French children. Maurice was, it is true, nothing but a rather willful, and yet winsome, baby boy; but Cecile had character. Cecile was the gentlest of the gentle, but she was firm as the finest steel. Mrs. Moseley owned to feeling even a little vexed with Cecile, she was so determined in her intention of going to France, and so equally determined not to tell what her motive in going there was. She said over and over with a solemn shake of her wise little head that she must go there, that a heavy weight was laid upon her, that she was under a promise to the dead. Mrs. Moseley, remembering how Susie had run away, felt a little afraid. Suppose Cecile, too, disappeared? It was so easy for children to disappear in London. They were just as much lost as if they were dead to their friends, and nobody ever heard of them again. Mrs. Moseley could not watch the children all day; at last in her despair she determined to appeal to her clergyman.

"I don't know what to make of the little girl," she said in conclusion, "she reminds me awful much of Susie. She's rare and winsome; I think she have a deeper nature than my poor lost Susie, but she's lovable like her. And it have come over me, Mr. Danvers, as she knows Susie, for, though she is the werry closest little thing I ever come across, her face went quite white when I telled her about my poor lost girl, and she axed me quite piteous and eager if her name wor Lovedy Joy."

"Lovedy is a very uncommon name." said Mr. Danvers. "You had no reason, Mrs. Moseley, to suppose that was Susan's name?"

"She never let it out to me as it wor, sir. Oh, ain't it a trial, as folk will be so close and contrary."

Mr. Danvers smiled.

"I will go and see this little Cecile," he said, "and I must try to win her confidence."

The good clergyman did go the next afternoon, and finding Cecile all alone, he endeavored to get her to confide in him. To a certain extent he was successful, the little girl told him all she could remember of her French father and her English stepmother. All about her queer old world life with Maurice and their dog in the deserted court back of Bloomsbury. She also told him of Warren's Grove, and of how the French cousin no longer sent that fifty pounds a year which was to pay Lydia Purcell, how in consequence she and Maurice were to go to the Union, and how Toby was to be hung; she said that rather than submit to that, she and Maurice had resolved to run away. She even shyly and in conclusion confided some of her religious doubts and difficulties to the kind clergyman. And she said with a frank sweet light in her blue eyes that she was quite happy now, for she had found out all about the Guide she needed. But about her secret, her Russia-leather purse, her motive in going to France, Cecile was absolutely silent.

"I must go to France," she said, "and I must not tell why; 'tis a great secret, and it would be wrong to tell. I'd much rather tell you, sir, and Mrs. Moseley, but I must not. I did tell Jane Parsons, I could not help that, but I must try to keep my great secret to myself for the future."

It was impossible not to respect the little creature's silence as much as her confidence.

Mr. Danvers said, in conclusion, "I will not press for your story, my little girl; but it is only right that I as a clergyman, and someone much older than you, should say, that no matter what promise you are under, it would be very wrong for you and your baby brother to go alone to France now. Whatever you may feel called on to do when you are grown up, such a step would now be wrong. I will write to your French cousin, and ask him if he is willing to give you and Maurice a home; in which case I must try to find someone who will take you two little creatures back to your old life in the Pyrenees. Until you hear from me again, it is your duty to stay here."

"Me and Maurice, we asked Mammie Moseley for a night's lodging," said Cecile. "Will it be many nights before you hear from our cousin in France? Because me and Maurice, we have very little money, please, sir."

"I will see to the money part," said Mr. Danvers.

"And please, sir," asked Cecile, as he rose to leave, "is Jography a thing or a person?"

"Geography!" said the clergyman, laughing. "You shall come to school to-morrow morning, my little maid, and learn something of geography."

CHAPTER IX. "A LETTER."

Mr. Danvers was as good as his word and wrote by the next post to the French cousin. He wrote a pathetic and powerful appeal to this man, describing the destitute children in terms that might well move his heart. But whether it so happened that the French relation had no heart to be moved, whether he was weary of an uncongenial subject, or was ill, and so unable to reply—whatever the reason, good Mr. Danvers never got any answer to his letter.

Meanwhile Cecile and Maurice went to school by day, and sometimes also by night. At school both children learned a great many things. Cecile found out what geography was, and her teacher, who was a very good-natured young woman, did not refuse her earnest request to learn all she could about France.

Cecile had long ago been taught by her own dead father to read, and she could write a very little. She was by no means what would be considered a smart child. Her ideas came slowly—she took in gradually. There were latent powers of some strength in the little brain, and what she once learned she never forgot, but no amount of school teaching could come to Cecile quickly. Maurice, on the contrary, drank in his school accomplishments as greedily and easily as a little thirsty flower drinks in light and water. He found no difficulty in his lessons, and was soon quite the pride of the infant school where he was placed.

The change in his life was doing him good. He was a willful little creature, and the regular employment was taming him, and Mrs. Moseley's motherly care, joined to a slight degree of wholesome discipline, was subduing the little faults of selfishness which his previous life as Cecile's sole charge could not but engender.

It is to be regretted that Toby, hitherto, perhaps, the most perfect character of the three, should in these few weeks of prosperity degenerate the most. Having no school to attend, and no care whatever on his mind, this dog decided to give himself up to enjoyment. The weather was most bitterly cold. It was quite unnecessary for him to accompany Cecile and Maurice to school. His education had long ago been finished. So he selected to stay in the warm kitchen, and lie as close to the stove as possible. He made dubious and uncertain friends with the cat. He slept a great deal, he ate a great deal. As the weeks flew on, he became fat, lazy-looking, and uninteresting. Were it not for subsequent and previous conduct he would not have been a dog worth writing about. So bad is prosperity for some!

But prosperous days were not the will of their heavenly Father for these little pilgrims just yet, and their brief and happy sojourn with kind Mrs. Moseley was to come to a rather sudden end.

Cecile, believing fully in the good clergyman's words, was waiting patiently for that letter from France, which was to enable Maurice, Toby, and herself to travel there in the very best way. Her little heart was at rest. During the six weeks she remained with Mrs. Moseley, she gained great strength both of body and mind.

She must find Lovedy. But surely Mr. Danvers was right and if she had a grown person to go with her and her little brother, from how many perils would they not be saved? She waited, therefore, quite quietly for the letter that never came; meanwhile employing herself in learning all she could about France. She was more sure than ever now that Lovedy was there, for something seemed to tell her that Lovedy and Susie were one. Of course this beautiful Susie had gone back to France, and once there, Cecile would quickly find her. She had now a double delight and pleasure in the hope of finding Lovedy Joy. She would give her her mother's message, and her mother's precious purse of gold. But she could do more than that. Lovedy's own mother was dead. But there was another woman who cared for Lovedy with a mother's warm and tender heart. Another woman who mourned for the lost Susie she could never see, but for whom she kept a little room all warm and bright. Cecile pictured over and over how tenderly she would tell this poor, wandering girl of the love waiting for her, and longing for her, and of how she herself would bring her back to Mammie Moseley.

Things were in this state, and the children and their adopted parents were all very happy together, when the change that I have spoken of came.

It was a snowy and bleak day in February, and the little party were all at breakfast, when a quick and, it must be owned, very unfamiliar step was heard running up the attic stairs. The rope was pulled with a vigorous tug, and a postman's hand thrust in a letter.

"'Tis that letter from foreign parts, as sure as sure, never welcome it," said Moseley, swallowing his coffee with a great gulp, and rising to secure the rare missive.

Cecile felt herself growing pale, and a lump rising in her throat. But Mrs. Moseley, seizing the letter, and turning it over, exclaimed excitedly:

"Why, sakes alive, John, it ain't a foreign letter at all; it have the Norwich post-mark on it. I do hope as there ain't no bad news of mother."

"Well, open it and see, wife,"