CHAPTER XX

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FREDA'S MYSTERY.

"Miss Lucy," said I next morning at breakfast, "do you know the way to Parson's Green?"

"Parson's Green--let me see. It's somewhere beyond Chelsea, I think."

"What do you want to know for, child?" asked the General.

"I have a sister living there whom I wish very much to see."

"Ah! you'd better go to-day then, for I've to spend a tiresome morning over business. We can meet again in the afternoon, and I'll take you to a theatre in the evening. Perhaps Lucy would come too."

"Not I," said Miss Lucy, good-temperedly. "My theatre-going days are over. I wonder that you, with your convictions, Hugh, would be seen in such places."

"I saw a play once," said the General simply, "called 'The Flag of England'. The hero was a very brave man and a good soldier. I thought that anyone must be the better for seeing it. Of course, I don't know much about theatres, Lucy, but I thought I'd like to show this young lady some gaieties. Perhaps you could advise me where to take her?"

"I was going to offer to take her to the annual meeting of the Society for the Abolition of the British Army."

"No societies please, Lucy," said the General a little gruffly.

"I forgot you were a man of blood," said Miss Lucy, "and didn't mean to be personal, Hugh. But about your theatres, if you'll stick to Shakespeare and Adelphi drama, I think you'll be quite safe. You'd better book seats for Irving in _Henry V_."

"Thank you, Lucy, I will," said the General meekly. And then turning to me: "If you've quite finished breakfast, my dear, you'd better come along. I'll put you on the way for Parson's Green."

I said I had quite finished. I had eaten a little porridge, but found nothing else that I could eat. Eggs were forbidden according to Miss Lucy's creed, and though she had made a concession to my weakness so far as to allow me milk, she ate her own porridge with treacle and drank her coffee black, because, as she said, "she'd feel that she was robbing the innocent offspring of the cow if she were to do as we were doing."

I felt rather hungry as I stood up, but I really couldn't face Miss Lucy's macaroni and haricot beans at a meal which I always like best of all the meals of the day.

When I came downstairs with my outdoor things on, Miss MacNeill looked at me critically.

"What kind of a feather is that you are wearing, my dear?" she asked a little sharply.

"An eagle's feather," I answered.

"I hope they don't tear it from the living bird," she said severely.

"It would be worse for them if they did," said I. "It is a feather the boys found on the side of Brandon which the golden eagle had dropped from his wing."

"Oh, I suppose if he dropped it there can be no wrong to him in your picking it up?"

"I should think not," said the General. "Be easy about Hilda, Lucy. She's as incapable of cruelty as you would be yourself. You won't find her wearing ospreys."

"Oh no, indeed!" I asserted fervently, "I wouldn't if I were to go hatless all my days."

"My sister's a good woman," said the General, as we went down the steps together, "and is right about many things though she does get hold of the wrong end of the stick often. Still, I daresay if I had her convictions I'd act up to them as she does. Aren't you hungry, my dear?"

"I am rather, General."

"So am I. I've been saving myself for breakfast. There is a quiet little hotel near here where we can get fresh eggs and kidneys done to a turn. Mind, my dear, you are never to make yourself ill eating Lucy's messes. Fortunately she's not very observant, dear woman, and you've only to pretend to eat. I'll see that you have all your proper meals, my dear."

We had a very snug little breakfast together, which I enjoyed the more that I had been making up my mind to endure hunger till I got to Freda's. What was to happen if Freda was out after my long journey I would not allow myself to think.

When we sallied into the street again the General accosted a very burly policeman and asked him the best way to get to Parson's Green.

"There's the thrain an' there's the bus," said the policeman, to my surprise, in a brogue that might have walked out of Brandon village yesterday.

"Can we get to it by way of Threadneedle Street?" asked the General, whose business lay that way.

"Ye cud," said the giant with a genial smile that robbed the speech of any suggestion of impertinence, "just the same way as ye'd get to the spot I'm stannin' on be way av Chaney an' Americay. That is, ye'd be turnin' your back on it all the time till ye pulled up straight forenint it. Now, look here, sir," with a change of tone to one of the liveliest concern, "if I was you I wouldn't be putting her in them dirty thrains this fine day. 'Tis an elegant ride a-top o' the bus from Piccadilly Circus."

"Is it too far for a cab ride?" said the General abruptly.

"Not if yez have the money to pay for it. 'Tis half-a-crown be justice, three an' six be fairity."

"We'll have the hansom, then," said the General.

"Ye'll be makin' no mistake, sir," said the policeman, "an' here's the best horse on the rank just trottin' up in the nick of time."

The General put me in carefully, and then pressed something into my hand. I looked down at the gold in my palm.

"I ought to go with you by right, and would if I could, my dear," he said with a face that admitted of no denial. "Remember this little holiday is entirely my affair. Have you silver?"

I said I had.

"Well, then, hansom back; remember I shall have you on my mind till I see you again. But your sister will put you in a cab."

The cab journey seemed to me interminably long, and yet there was no sign of green fields. At first our way lay through very fine streets, with beautiful shops, and crowded with such traffic as I had never dreamt of. I found the hansom more exhilarating than any form of progression I have ever known since I used to ride Pat Maloney's colt barebacked in the old days; and I felt very much excited about going to see Freda and her dear little boy. Despite an occasional qualm of doubt about Freda, my affection for her was as strong as ever, and from sheer excitement I felt myself turning hot and cold.

Still, I thought it must be a long long way to Parson's Green yet, for we were now going through miles of mean little streets full of tiny pea-soup-coloured houses all exactly alike and indescribably monotonous. I was amusing myself by trying to discover what it was those wonderful costers were shouting, when suddenly the hansom pulled up before one of a hundred little houses, and the man shouted down on the top of my head:

"Now, Miss, Magnoliar Cottage. 'Ere you are!"

"Oh!" cried I, "are you quite sure? Is this Grove Avenue? It isn't at all the kind of place I meant. Are you quite sure this is Parson's Green?"

"All right, Miss!" he replied stolidly, "Magnoliar Cottage, Grove Avenue, Parson's Green. See it wrote up there on the corner of the road."

I looked and saw a plate with "Grove Avenue" inscribed on it, and above the door of the house, in ridiculous stucco work, I read "Magnolia Cottage". I descended, bewildered and doubtful, and let the cab go half unwillingly. There must be another Parson's Green, and when I had discovered my mistake how should I ever find another cab in this wilderness of shabby little houses?

However, the man drove off, and I knocked at the door. It was opened by a little maid of about fifteen, quite neat, with her white cap and apron, and quite unconscious of the large smut on her little perked-up nose.

"Oh, please," said I, in a voice which was, I am sure, full of distress, "does Mrs. Hazeldine live here?"

"She do, miss," said the little maid, in a most sympathetic voice. "Please to walk in. I'm expectin' of her shortly, an' Mrs. Vincent too, that 'as gone to take Master Jacky a walk on the Common. You've 'ad 'ard work, I expec', to find the 'ouse. Most people 'as."

She ushered me into a little room, quite pretty and refined, though there wasn't an article of substantial furniture in it except a piano. However, with frilled muslin curtains, and a few water-colours on the wall, low chintz-covered chairs, and a hanging-shelf of books, to say nothing of a canary singing in the window and a bow-pot of autumn leaves, it was surprising what cheerful results were obtainable. There was the tiniest spark of fire in the grate, but it was burning briskly, for the morning had a touch of frost. Still, the place was very, very poor, though anyone could see that it belonged to ladies. I began to guess dimly that our dear, loving, foolish Freda had been deceiving us all those years since Jim's death.

Presently there was the click of a latch-key outside, and in came Freda herself, looking so tired and worn, and rather shabbily dressed. She cried out when she saw me, and we flew into each other's arms. When she released me at last, she looked at me with a mixture of shamefacedness and fun in her expression, which recalled the old happy Freda of long ago.

"Well, darling," she said, "and what do you think of Magnolia Cottage?"

"Oh, Freda, you bad girl!" I answered, "why did you deceive us all like this?"

"It was rather silly, I acknowledge, for I was sure to be found out some time. Still, I certainly did not inaugurate the deception. Aline chose to believe me a rich woman, and since the belief seemed a comfort to her, I let it stand; I thought it would be a blow to her if I were to undeceive her, and she would fret about us, and want Jacky and me at Brandon, where already, as I well know, there is little enough to spare."

"No," I said; "now I think of it, you never did contribute a brick to our air-built castle. The only thing was that you seemed to stay in fine houses, and meet fine people, and all that."

"In some houses even the governess is allowed to meet the guests,--not in all, though."

"Still, I think Aline will be hurt, Freda. You should have trusted her."

"Ah! well, if I did wrong I was punished. I have felt often and often that you must all think me such a mean wretch, rolling in riches, and never doing anything for any of you. I often felt inclined to throw it up and confess. Perhaps I distrusted myself, for there have been times when I grew tired of the struggle, and if Aline had known and had said 'Come', I would have been spiritless enough to come, and to stay. Still, the times have not been many," she said more brightly. "The world has not been bad to me, as a whole, and I had always my dear old friend to come to, and she kept my boy for me, more tenderly than I could myself."

"This room is really pretty, Freda."

"The rooms are all pretty, I think, because a woman like Mary Vincent dwells in them, and imparts something of the fragrance of herself to them. In Magnolia Cottage it is possible to forget Grove Avenue."

"And just think, Freda; we took your house, from the extreme rurality of its title, to be situated in a delicious country place."

"We rather run to rural titles in our London slums. See, over there is the 'Daisies', and next door the 'Grass-plot', yonder the 'Hawthorns' and the 'Laburnums' face each other."

"Who lives in them?"

"Usually working-men and their very large families. We're considered guilty of sinful waste, so Polly, our handmaiden, tells us, because we don't let lodgings. But come upstairs and see the rest of the domicile. You'll take off your hat and cloak and stay for a good long day. Oh, by the way, you haven't told me yet how you come to be here!"

I told her, as I was taking off my hat and washing my hands,--which I was surprised to find seemed to require constant washing in London,--about the General, and his business and my business, and that I had not to meet him till six o'clock.

"How lucky I was at home!" she cried. "We are going to have such a long long gossip, for though Aline's so faithful a letter-writer there are a thousand-and-one things that never get into letters. Yet, if you had come last week you would have found only Mrs. Vincent and Jacky. I have just left a place, and am going on to another next week."

"You poor dear!" said I. "The last must have been a very nasty place, to make you look so tired as you did when you came in."

"It was rather nasty," she said, "but the next is going to be much nicer. It is in a lovely part of Devonshire too, and I shall like the lady to whom I am going."

When we had left the pretty little chintz-hung bedroom and were seated at the fire downstairs, I asked Freda how it was she came to be so poor.

"Jim had saved nothing," she said. "He always meant to, poor love, but he was so generous, and then he never could have feared that his wife and boy would want. You know his parents are extremely wealthy, and he was their favourite son."

"Yet they let you want."

"They didn't know. I must do them that much justice. They thought I was left comfortably. But they must have had a strange opinion of me, for they offered to adopt my Jacky and make him heir to all their money. I took the suggestion as an insult, and walked out of the house. I have never heard of them since, and I am sure Jacky and I have disappeared as effectually from their ken as if the sea had opened and swallowed us."

"What horrid people!" cried I impulsively.

"They are very good people in their own way," answered Freda quietly. "But they are bitterly prejudiced, Lady Hazeldine especially. It was a great blow to her when Jim married a wild Irish girl. Especially as she had wanted him to marry a great pet of hers, a city heiress named Cicely Lambton. She had wished for it almost from the babyhood of both, for she and Mrs. Lambton were school-friends. I believe she thought that if Jim had married an English girl he would not have died."

"Stupid woman!" said I, not knowing how to express my indignation against Jim's mother to Jim's widow. "Why, she ought to have loved you a thousand times better because you loved Jim and he loved you, and you both have lost him."

"That doesn't always follow, little Hilda. Perhaps I shall not love the woman who will, one day, step into the first place in Jacky's heart and evict me."

"Tell me, Freda," said I, "have you had horrible times? Is it so bad for her 'who fareth up and down another's stairs'?"

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I have met hard and unkind, as well as gentle and kind people. Yet, on the whole, I am not sorry that I have had to work. It would have been worse if I had had to sit down with folded hands and look at the wreck of my life,--worse surely amid the Hazeldine luxury, worse even at dear Brandon. Ah, no, no! work has made it possible for me to live."

Her face had assumed a very tragic expression, the face now of a woman of many sorrows.

"It has been sweet too," she went on, her tense expression relaxing a little, "to help to keep up this little home. Always, if things grew too hard for me, there were peace and love waiting for me here. Ah, the poor women without such a spot on earth!--how I pity them! And then there was always saving up for me a delicious thing that I looked at in my moments of leisure, the thought of coming home to Jacky."

Her face softened, and went back into the little roundnesses and dimples I remembered. Then she laughed, and it was like the sun coming out.

"Why, here is Jacky!" she cried out; and I saw a sweet-faced elderly woman and a swaggering small sailor pass the little bow-window.

She ran out and opened the door, and with a word to her friend came back, proudly leading her son.

[Illustration: "FREDA CAME BACK, PROUDLY LEADING HER SON."]

"Hullo!" said he, with the free manner of a born son of Neptune, "you're a pretty girl, but you aren't half as pretty as my Muddie!"

"Oh Jacky, Jacky, you rude boy! and you silly boy as well! This is your dear pretty Auntie Hilda come to see you. Go up and say 'How d'ye do?' nicely, and kiss her."

"How d'ye do?" he said, swaggering up to me with his hands in both pockets. "I'll tell you what I'd like very much. A guinea-pig, or else a white rat. You don't happen to have thought of bringin' one? Hey?"

Freda burst out laughing even while she tried to stiffen her features to an expression of rebuke. I looked from her to the curly golden head and blue eyes of the boy. Ah, well! Freda is a happier woman than most, though she is a widow indeed.

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