Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 33

"We are very near London now," he said--"Can I help you at the station to get your luggage? You might find it confusing at first--"

"Oh, thank you!" she murmured--"But I have no luggage--only this"--and she pointed to the satchel beside her--"I shall get on very well."

Here she folded up the "Morning Post" and returned it to him with a pretty air of courtesy. As he accepted it he smiled.

"You are a very independent little lady!" he said--"But--just in case you ever do want to read a book of mine,--I am going to give you my name and address." Here he took a card from his waistcoat pocket and gave it to her. "That will always find me," he continued--"Don't be afraid to write and ask me anything about London you may wish to know.

It's a very large city--a cruel one!"--and he looked at her with compa.s.sionate kindness--"You mustn't lose yourself in it!"

She read the name on the card--"John Harrington"--and the address was the office of a famous daily journal. Looking up, she gave him a grateful little smile.

"You are very kind!" she said--"And I will not forget you. I don't think I shall lose myself--I'll try not to be so stupid! Yes--when I have read one of your books I will write to you!"

"Do!"--and there was almost a note of eagerness in his voice--"I should like to know what you think"--here a loud and persistent scream from the engine-whistle drowned all possibility of speech as the train rushed past a bewildering wilderness of houses packed close together under bristling black chimneys--then, as the deafening din ceased, he added, quietly, "Here is London."

She looked out of the window,--the sun was s.h.i.+ning, but through a dull brown mist, and nothing but bricks and mortar, building upon building, met her view. After the sweet freshness of the country she had left behind, the scene was appallingly hideous, and her heart sank with a sense of fear and foreboding. Another few minutes and the train stopped.

"This is Paddington," said John Harrington; then, noting her troubled expression--"Let me get a taxi for you and tell the man where to drive."

She submitted in a kind of stunned bewilderment. The address she had found in the "Morning Post" was her rescue--she could go there, she thought, rapidly, even if she had to come away again. Almost before she could realise what had happened in all the noise and bustling to and fro, she found herself in a taxi-cab, and her kind fellow-traveller standing beside it, raising his hat to her courteously in farewell. She gave him the address of the house in Kensington which she had copied from the advertis.e.m.e.nt she had seen in the "Morning Post," and he repeated it to the taxi-driver with a sense of relief and pleasure. It was what is called "a respectable address"--and he was glad the child knew where she was going. In another moment the taxi was off,--a parting smile brightened the wistful expression of her young face, and she waved her little hand to him. And then she was whirled away among the seething crowd of vehicles and lost to sight. Old John Harrington stood for a moment on the railway-platform, lost in thought.

"A sweet little soul!" he mused--"I wonder what will become of her! I must see her again some day. She reminds me of--let me see!--who does she remind me of? By Jove, I have it! Pierce Armitage!--haven't seen him for twenty years at least--and this girl's face has a look of his--just the same eyes and intense expression. Poor old Armitage!--he promised to be a great artist once, but he's gone to the dogs by this time, I suppose. Curious, curious that I should remember him just now!"

And he went his way, thinking and wondering, while Innocent went hers, without any thought at all, in a blind and simple faith that G.o.d would take care of her.

CHAPTER XII

To be whirled along through the crowded streets of London in a taxi-cab for the first time in one's life must needs be a somewhat disconcerting, even alarming experience, and Innocent was the poor little prey of so many nervous fears during her journey to Kensington in this fas.h.i.+on, that she could think of nothing and realise nothing except that at any moment it seemed likely she would be killed. With wide-open, terrified eyes, she watched the huge motor-omnibuses almost bearing down upon the vehicle in which she sat, and s.h.i.+vered at the narrow margin of s.p.a.ce the driver seemed to allow for any sort of escape from instant collision and utter disaster. She only began to breathe naturally again when, turning away out of the greater press of traffic, the cab began to run at a smoother and less noisy pace, till presently, in less time than she could have imagined possible, it drew up at a modestly retreating little door under an arched porch in a quiet little square, where there were some brave and pretty trees doing their best to be green, despite London soot and smoke. Innocent stepped out, and seeing a bell-handle pulled it timidly. The summons was answered by a very neat maid-servant, who looked at her in primly polite enquiry.

"Is Mrs.--or Miss 'Lavinia' at home?" she murmured. "I saw her advertis.e.m.e.nt in the 'Morning Post.'"

The servant's face changed from primness to propitiation.

"Oh yes, miss! Please step in! I'll tell Miss Leigh."

"Thank you. I'll pay the driver."

She thereupon paid for the cab and dismissed it, and then followed the maid into a very small but prettily arranged hall, and from thence into a charming little drawing-room, with French windows set open, showing a tiny garden beyond--a little green lawn, smooth as velvet, and a few miniature flower-beds gay with well-kept blossoms.

"Would you please take a seat, miss?" and the maid placed a chair.

"Miss Leigh is upstairs, but she'll be down directly."

She left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Innocent sat still, satchel in hand, looking wistfully about her. The room appealed to her taste in its extreme simplicity--and it instinctively suggested to her mind resigned poverty making the best of itself. There were one or two old miniatures on little velvet stands set on the mantelpiece--these were beautiful, and of value; some engravings of famous pictures adorned the walls, all well chosen; the quaint china bowl on the centre table was full of roses carefully arranged--and there was a very ancient harpsichord in one corner which apparently served only as a stand for the portrait of a man's strikingly handsome face, near which was placed a vase containing a stem of Madonna lilies. Innocent found herself looking at this portrait now and again--there was something familiar in its expression which had a curious fascination for her. But her thoughts revolved chiefly round a difficulty which had just presented itself--she had no real name.

What name could she take to be known by for the moment? She would not call herself "Jocelyn"--she felt she had no right to do so. "Ena" might pa.s.s muster for an abbreviation of "Innocent"--she decided to make use of that as a Christian name--but a surname that would be appropriately fitted to her ultimate intentions she could not at once select. Then she suddenly thought of the man who had been her father and had brought her as a helpless babe to Briar Farm. Pierce Armitage was his name--and he was dead. Surely she might call herself Armitage? While she was still puzzling her mind over the question the door opened and a little old lady entered--a soft-eyed, pale, pretty old lady, as dainty and delicate as the fairy-G.o.dmother of a child's dream, with white hair bunched on either side of her face, and a wistful, rather plaintive expression of mingled hope and enquiry.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," she began--then paused in a kind of embarra.s.sment. The two looked at each other. Innocent spoke, a little shyly:

"I saw your advertis.e.m.e.nt in the 'Morning Post,'" she said, "and I thought perhaps--I thought that I might come to you as a paying guest.

I have to live in London, and I shall be very busy studying all day, so I should not give you much trouble."

"Pray do not mention it!" said the old lady, with a quaint air of old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy. "Trouble would not be considered! But you are a much younger person than I expected or wished to accommodate."

"You said in the advertis.e.m.e.nt that it would be suitable for a person studying art, or for a scholars.h.i.+p," put in Innocent, quickly. "And I am studying for literature."

"Are you indeed?" and the old lady waved a little hand in courteous deprecation of all unnecessary explanation--a hand which Innocent noticed had a delicate lace mitten on it and one or two sparkling rings. "Well, let us sit down together and talk it over. I have two spare rooms--a bedroom and a sitting-room--they are small but very comfortable, and for these I have been told I should ask three guineas a week, including board. I feel it a little difficult"--and the old lady heaved a sigh--"I have never done this kind of thing before--I don't know what my poor father, Major Leigh, would have said--he was a very proud man--very proud--!"

While she thus talked, Innocent had been making a rapid calculation in her own mind. Three guineas a week! It was more than she had meant to pay, but she was instinctively wise enough to realise the advantage of safety and shelter in this charming little home of one who was evidently a lady, gentle, kindly, and well-mannered. She had plenty of money to go on with--and in the future she hoped to make more. So she spoke out bravely.

"I will pay the three guineas a week gladly," she said. "May I see the rooms?"

The old lady meanwhile had been studying her with great intentness, and now asked abruptly--

"Are you an English girl?"

Innocent flushed a sudden rosy red.

"Yes. I was brought up in the country, but all my people are dead now.

I have no friends, but I have a little money left to me--and for the rest--I must earn my own living."

"Well, my dear, that won't hurt you!" and an encouraging smile brightened Miss Leigh's pleasantly wrinkled face. "You shall see the rooms. But you have not told me your name yet."

Again Innocent blushed.

"My name is Armitage," she said, in a low, hesitating tone--"Ena Armitage."

"Armitage!"--Miss Leigh repeated the name with a kind of wondering accent--"Armitage? Are you any relative of the painter, Pierce Armitage?"

The girl's heart beat quickly--for a moment the little drawing-room seemed to whirl round her--then she collected her forces with a strong effort and answered--"No!"

The old lady's wistful blue eyes, dimmed with age, yet retaining a beautiful tenderness of expression, rested upon her anxiously.

"You are quite sure?"

Repressing the feeling that prompted her to cry out--"He was my father!" she replied--

"I am quite sure!"

Lavinia Leigh raised her little mittened hand and pointed to the portrait standing on the harpsichord:

"That was Pierce Armitage!" she said. "He was a dear friend of mine"--her voice trembled a little--"and I should have been glad if you had been in any way connected with him."

As she spoke Innocent turned and looked steadily at the portrait, and it seemed to her excited fancy that its eyes gave her glance for glance. She could hardly breathe--the threatening tears half choked her. What strange fate was it, she thought, that had led her to a house where she looked upon her own father's likeness for the first time!

"He was a very fine man," continued Miss Leigh in the same half-tremulous voice--"very gifted--very clever! He would have been a great artist, I think--"