I have put them aside for you, if you like to have them."
"I don't want them," he replied carelessly.
"I shall keep them, then. There is her wardrobe also. I believe she had nephews and nieces and cousins in her native village in India. All her possessions shall be sent out to them. Meanwhile, there is a little packet of things which she tied up a great many years ago, and has kept ever since. The sight of them caused me a strange shock. I thought they had been long destroyed. They revived my memories of a day – an event – certain days – when you were an infant."
"What things are these, then?"
"They were your own things – some of the things which you wore when you were a child in arms, not more than a few months old."
"Oh, they are not very interesting, are they?"
"Perhaps not." Lady Woodroffe had in her lap a small packet tied up in a towel or a serviette. She placed it on the table. "Humphrey, I always think, when I look at old things, of the stories they might tell, if they could, of the histories and the changes which might have happened."
"Well, I don't know, mother. I am very well contented with things as they are, though they might have given my father a peerage. As for thinking of what they might have been, why, I might, perhaps, have been born in a gutter."
"You might, Humphrey" – the widow laughed, which was an unwonted thing in her – "you certainly might. And you cannot imagine what you would be now, had you been born in a gutter."
"What's the good of asking, then?"
"Look at this bundle of your things."
"I don't want to look at them."
"No, I dare say not. But I do. They tell a story to me which they cannot tell to you. I am glad the old woman kept them."
Lady Woodroffe untied the parcel, and laid open the things.
"The story is so curious that I cannot help looking at the things. I have opened the bundle a dozen times to-day, since I found it. I believe I shall have to tell you that story some day, Humphrey, whether I like it or not."
"What story can there be connected with a parcel of socks and shoes?"
"To you, at present, none. To me, a most eventful story. The old nurse knew the story very well, but she never talked about it. See, Humphrey, the things are of quite coarse materials – one would think they were made for that gutter child we talked about."
Her son stooped and picked up a paper that had fallen on the floor.
"'His name is Humphrey,'" he read. "A servant's handwriting, one would think. What was the use of writing what everybody knew?"
"Perhaps some servant was practising the art of penmanship. Well" – she tied up the parcel again – "I shall keep these things myself."
She put the parcel on the table, and presently carried it to her room. Her son immediately forgot all about the old nurse's strange last words, and the parcel of clothes, and everything. This was not unnatural, because he presently went back to Cambridge, where there is very little sympathy with the sentiment of baby linen.
When the door closed upon her son, his mother sprang to her feet.
"Oh!" she clasped her hands. Can we put her thoughts into words – the thoughts that are so swift, into words that are so slow – the thoughts that can so feebly express the mind with words that are so imperfect? "I have never felt myself free until to-day. She is dead; she is buried. On her death-bed she kept the secret. She never wrote it down; she never told any one: had she written it I should have found it; had she told any one I should have heard of it before now. And all, as she said, for the sake of the boy. She meant her long silence. I feared that at the last, when she lay a-dying, she might have confessed. I sat in terror when I knew that the boy was at her death-bed. I thought that when Sir Humphrey died, and the boy succeeded, she might have confessed. But she did not. Good woman, and true! Never by a word, or by a look, or by a sigh, did she let me know that she remembered."
She breathed deeply, as if relieved from a great anxiety.
"I have thought it all over, day after day. There is nothing that can be found out now. The doctor would not recognize me. I suppose he is still slaving at Birmingham; he did not know my name. The mother never saw me. At last, I am free from danger! After all these years, I have no longer any fear."
Over the mantel hung a portrait of her late husband.
"Humphrey," she said, talking to it familiarly, "I did it for your sake. I could not bear that you should lose your boy. All for your sake – all for your sake I screened the child from you. At least you never knew that there is not – there has never been – the least touch of your nobility in the gutter child. He is mean; he is selfish. He has never done a kind action, or said a generous word. He has no friends, only companions. He has already all the vices, but is never carried away; he will become a sensualist, a cold and heartless sensualist. I am sorry, Humphrey, truly sorry, my most noble and honourable husband, that I have given you so unworthy a successor. Yet he is careful; he will cause no scandal. So far, my husband, your name is safe."
CHAPTER III.
THE THREE COUSINS
"Is it possible?" they repeated, gazing each upon each in the triangular fashion.
Every incident in life is a coincident. That is to say, nothing happens as one expects. The reason is that no one considers the outside forces, which are unseen; very few, indeed, take into consideration the inside forces, which are obvious. The trade of prophet has fallen into decay, because we no longer believe in him; we know that he cannot really prophesy the coincidence: to him, as to us, the future is the unexpected. Wise folk, therefore, go about prepared for anything: they carry an umbrella in July; they build more ships when peace is most profound. The unexpected, the coincidence, gives to life its chief charm: it relieves the monotony; it breaks the week, so to speak. Formerly it might take the form of invasion, a descent upon the coast: dwellers by the seaside enjoyed, therefore, the most exciting lives possible. To-day it comes by telegraph, by post, by postal express. The philosopher of tears says that the unexpected is always disagreeable; he of smiles says that, on the whole, he has received more good gifts unexpectedly than thwacks. Mostly however, the opinion of the multitude, which is always right, is summed up in the words of the itinerant merchant – the man with the barrow and the oranges. "We expex a shilling," he says, "and we gits tuppence."
"Is it possible?"
These three people had arisen and gone forth that morning expecting nothing, and lo! a miracle! For they were enriched, suddenly, and without the least expectation, by the discovery that they were all three of common kin. Imagine the boundless possibilities of newly recovered cousinship! No one knows what may come out of it – an augmentation of family pride, an increase of family griefs, the addition of sympathy with the lowly, the shame and honour of ancient scandals, more money perhaps, more influence perhaps. It may be a most fortunate event. On the other hand – But for the moment, these three had not begun to consider the other side.
"Is it possible?" Well, it is sometimes best to answer a question by repeating it. The place was a country churchyard; the time, a forenoon in July. In the churchyard was a group of four. They were all young, and two of them were of one sex, and two were of the other.
The girls were the first to arrive. They entered by a gate opening into the churchyard from a small coppice on the north side.
One of the girls, evidently the leader, had in her face, her form, her carriage, something of Pallas Athênê. She was grave – the goddess, I believe, seldom laughed; she was one of those girls who can smile readily and pleasantly, but are not anxious to hear good stories, like the frivolous man at his club, and really saw very little to laugh at even in the unexpectedness of men – nothing, of course, in the ways of women. Her seriousness was sweet in the eyes of those who loved her – that is to say, of all who had the privilege of knowing her. Her head was large and shapely – a shapely head is a very lovely thing in woman. Her figure matched her head in being large and full. Her features were regular, her cheek was ample, like that of a certain bronze Venus in the Museum. Her hair was light in colour, and abundant, not