Red Pottage Part 47

Mr. Gresley wrestled with a very bitter feeling towards his sister, overcame it, and said, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Tell her from me that Regie is not much the worse, and tell her that I--that his mother and I--forgive her."

"Not me, James," sobbed Mrs. Gresley. "It is too soon. I don't. I can't.

If I said I did I should not feel it."

"Hester is not in a condition to receive messages," said the Bishop.

"She would not believe them. Dr. Brown says the only thing we can do for her is to show Regie to her. If she sees him she may believe her own eyes, and this frightful excitement may be got under. I came to take him back with me now in the carriage."

"I will not let him go," said Mrs. Gresley, the mother in her overriding her awe of the Bishop. "I am sorry if Hester is ill. I will"--and Mrs.

Gresley made a superhuman effort--"I will come and nurse her myself, but I won't have Regie frightened a second time."

"He shall not be frightened a second time. But it is very urgent. While we are wasting time talking, Hester's life is ebbing away as surely as if she were bleeding to death. If she were actually bleeding in this room how quickly you two would run to her and bind up the wound. There would be nothing you would not do to relieve her suffering."

"If I would let Regie go," said Mrs. Gresley, "he would not be willing, and we could not have him taken away by force, could we, James?"

The door opened, and Regie appeared, gently pushed from behind by Fraulein's thin hand. Boulou followed. The door was closed again immediately, almost on Boulou's tail.

The Bishop and Regie looked hard at each other.

"I send my love to Auntie Hester," said Regie, in his catechism voice, "and I am quite well."

"I should like to have some conversation with Regie alone," said the Bishop.

Mrs. Gresley wavered, but the Bishop's eye remained fixed on Mr.

Gresley, and the latter led his wife away. The door was left ajar, but the Bishop closed it. Then he sat down by the fire and held out his hand.

Regie went up to him fearlessly, and stood between his knees. The two faces were exactly on the same level. Boulou sat down before the fire, his tail uncurling in the heat.

"Auntie Hester is very sorry," said the Bishop. "She is so sorry that she can't even cry."

"Tell her not to mind," said Regie.

"It's no good telling her. Does your arm hurt much?"

"I don't know. Mother says it does, and Fraulein says it doesn't. But it isn't that."

"What is it, then?"

"It isn't that, or the 'tato being lost, it was only crumbs afterwards; but, Mr. Bishop, _I hadn't done nothing_."

Regie looked into the kind keen eyes, and his own little red ones filled again with tears.

"I had not done nothing," he repeated. "And I'd kept my 'tato for her.

It's that--that--I don't mind about my arm. I'm Christian soldiers about my arm; but it's that--that--"

"That hurts you in your heart," said the Bishop, putting his arm round him.

"Yes," said Regie, producing a tight little ball that had once been a handkerchief. "Auntie Hester and I were such friends. I told her all my secrets, and she told me hers. I knew long before, when she gave father the silver cream-jug, and about Fraulein's m.u.f.f. If it was a mistake, like father treading on my foot at the school-feast, I should not mind, but she did it on purpose."

The Bishop's brow contracted. Time was ebbing away, ebbing away like a life. Yet Dr. Brown's warning remained in his ears. "If the child is frightened of her, and screams when he sees her, I won't answer for the consequences."

"Is that your little dog?" he said, after a moment's thought.

"Yes, that is Boulou."

"Was he ever in a trap?" asked the Bishop, with a vague recollection of the ways of clergymen's dogs, those "little rifts within the lute,"

which so often break the harmony between a sporting squire and his clergyman.

"He was once. Mr. Pratt says he hunts, but father says not, that he could not catch anything if he tried."

"I had a dog once," said the Bishop, "called Jock. And he got in a trap like Boulou did. Now, Jock loved me. He cared for me more than anybody in the world. Yet, as I was letting him out of the trap, he bit me. Do you know why he did that?"

"Why?"

"Because the trap hurt him so dreadfully that he could not help biting something. He did not really mean it. He licked me afterwards. Now, Auntie Hester was like Jock. She was in dreadful, dreadful pain like a trap, and she hit you like Jock bit me. But Jock loved me best in the world all the time. And Auntie Hester loves you, and is your friend she tells secrets to, all the time."

"Mother says she does not love me really. It was only pretence." Regie's voice shook. "Mother says she must never come back, because it might be baby next. She said so to father."

"Mother has made a mistake. I'm so old that I know better even than mother. Auntie Hester loves you, and can't eat any breakfast till you tell her you don't mind. Will you come with me and kiss her, and tell her so? And we'll make up a new secret on the way."

"Yes," said Regie, eagerly, his wan little face turning pink. "But mother?" he said, stopping short.

"Run and get your coat on. I will speak to mother. Quick, Regie."

Regie rushed curveting out of the room. The Bishop followed more slowly, and went into the drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Gresley were sitting by the fireless hearth. The drawing-room fire was never lit till two o'clock.

"Regie goes with me of his own free will," he said; "so that is settled.

He will be quite safe with me, Mrs. Gresley."

"My wife demurs at sending him," said Mr. Gresley.

"No, no, she does not," said the Bishop, gently. "Hester saved Regie's life, and it is only right that Regie should save hers. You will come over this afternoon to take him back," he continued to Mr. Gresley. "I wish to have some conversation with you."

Fraulein appeared breathless, dragging Regie with her.

"He has not got on his new overcoat," said Mrs. Gresley. "Regie, run up and change at once."

Fraulein actually said, "Bozzer ze new coat," and she swept Regie into the carriage, the Bishop following, stumbling over the ruins of the porch.

"Have they had their hot mash?" he said to the coachman, who was tearing off the horses' clothing.

"Yes, my lord."

"Then drive all you know. Put them at the hills at a gallop."

Fraulein pressed a packet of biscuits into the Bishop's hand. "He eat no breakfast," she said.

"Uncle d.i.c.k said the porch would sit down, and it has," said Regie, in an awe-struck voice, as the carriage swayed from side to side of the road. "Father knows a great deal, but sometimes I think Uncle d.i.c.k knows most of all. First gates and flying half-pennies, and now porches."