HILERIA PULLEN’S ACCOUNT OF CAPTAIN AND MRS. TORQUIL.
“YOU don’t know that family, sir, Captain and Mrs. Torquil?” she began.
“No, I’ve never seen them,” said he.
“After the poor mistress died, sir, the captain came down hot foot to Snedley with his lawyer — his lady, Mrs. Torquil, being named in the will for something-and he took a deal on him, and directed all things; and, not having no copy of the will at the time, which I have one now, I could not gainsay nothing. And he ordered me and the child away to Mrs. Torquil at Guildford.”
“And weren’t you comfortable there?” asked the vicar.
“Yes, sir, well enough in a way, but theie was things against it; comfortable in a manner, but not a house such as quiet folk would like to live in. Captain Torquil was a very nice-spoken gentleman at first, but no one likes him long; and he’s scarce ever at Guildford, always in London. So much the better for them as lives in t’other place. A very violent-tempered, dangerous gentleman.”
“But Mrs. Torquil, you found her kind, I dare say?” said the vicar.
“Mrs. Torquil, sir, is nothing in her own house,” said she.
“Oh! controlled by her husband, I suppose?” he suggested.
“Well, sir, I may mention to you, she’s scarce ever out of her bedroom. The fact is, sir — what I wouldn’t on no account tell to another — the poor lady has her failin’, and it’s come to that she’s scarce ever out of her bed.
“She’s too fond of drinkin’, sir, and has ruined her ‘ealth, which she cannot last very long, sir; and ‘twill not fret them much, I’m afraid, that should fret most. ’Tis a bad world, sir, and a sorrowful; and I’m told, poor lady, if she had bin happier mated she’d a bin very different in many ways.”
“Dear me! poor thing! that’s very sad,” said the clergyman, with something of wonder as well as of pain. “That such things are, who could believe if one didn’t see them? Ah, Mrs. Pullen, in the midst of li fe we are in death — that spiritual death, which is so unspeakably more terrible for us than its awful physical image. It is very sad indeed, Mrs. Pullen, what you tell me.”
“So it is, sir, and he leading such a life they do say — gambling, and every other wickedness-and no servants stops there any length of time; and often not the price of a loaf in that house for days together, and credit hard to get for that house, I can tell you, sir.
“But how did Mrs. Mildmay, of Queen’s Snedley, come to admit him at her house?”
“Law love you, sir, she knew nothing. If she had a knewn what sort he was, or she, poor lady, she’d a’ never left them nothing in hei will, nor suffered him nigh the house. But he had a way with him, and flattered her, poor good lady; she was too simple for such like. It wasn’t till I came to Guildford that I got a copy of the will from Mr. Tute, the lawyer. I have it here, sii, in this bag, by my bed; and I’d be glad, sir, if you’d read it, or get a copy took, since the poor darling child is under your care, which, as you will hear, is the saving of its life, no less, the blessed baby.”
“Pray explain — do, my good friend, explain what you mean.”
“What I mean, sir, please, is just this. The poor mistress has left all she can, except about fifty pounds a year, to her cousin, Mrs. Torquil, which she would as soon have burnt her hand in the fire as have done it, if she had a knewn that the poor lady was always more or less in liquor, and seldom out of her bedroom, or fit to speak to no one, I’m sorry to say, sir.”
The vicar raised his hands and eyes, and shook his head slowly. “She had in her power to leave about a thousand a year, which she has left to the darling child, Miss Laura; and if the dear baby should die unmarried, it is all to go, you will see, sir, when you come to read the will, to her afflicted cousin-little she thought what was afflicting of her — Mrs. Torquil.”
“Is Captain Torquil appointed guardian to the child?”
“Not he, sir.”
“Then he has no more right to the custody of that child than he has to the custody of you or me!” said the vicar. “He has no more right than Mr. Turnbull, the innkeeper here — less in fact; because if anything happened to the child he would have a great accession of fortune. He is, for that reason, the very last person who should have charge of the child; no selection could possibly be more improper.”
“Well, sir, I’ll tell you just what happened; but please, sir, you’ll promise not to get me into no trouble for speaking so plain; for, indeed, sir, except to show you how the matter really is, and what a sin it would be in the sight of God to give the child back to that bad man, I would not open my lips to no one on the matter.”
“I see what you mean — that is, I can understand why Captain Torquil, as I have said, should, on consideration, most gladly rid himself of all responsibility about the child.”
“Ah! sir, that ain’t what the captain wants. But I don’t like it no ways, and I could not stay no longer at Guildford, at no price. I could not allow him to take to doctoring the baby, sir.” And she looked darkly at the vicar, and nodded.
“Eh? I don’t quite understand,” hesitated the good man.
“This was it, you must know, sir. He didn’t trouble us out at Guildford much with his company, no more than his money, and he never paid a shilling nowhere without disputing and fighting over it like a dog and cat; but that’s neither here nor there. He did come out to Guildford about ten days after we got there, and he spoke me fair, and made me a present, and for all that there was something about him I did not like, and I could not know myself what it was, only there was. What I then saw first against him was the way he used to walk into poor Mrs. Torquil’s room; just shove open the door and walk in, as if ’twas a stable, and look at her as if he’d like to strangle her; and never a good morning, nor how do you do; and she all of a tremble while he was there, and no word, I am sorry to say, sir, too bad to call her. And whatever she may be, poor lady, it isn’t for him to call her them dreadful names — before servants more especially, when ’twas his own bad treatment that brought her to it; and she there with never a word, nothing but just crying and sobbing, poor thing, as if her heart would break; and whatever money there was, everyone knew ’twas with her it came. Well, he never stayed long, I must say, in her room, only to rummage about for her letters, and reading every scrap ôf paper he could find.
“Well, sir, the first time Captain Torquil came out I did not know him so well, and he walked upstairs right to the nursery — a queer place for a gentleman to be poking into-and he was very nice-spoken and smiling, and he asked how I was, and hoped I was comfortable, and told me to ask for whatever I wanted. And he said he heard the child had a cold. And I said it had, but was getting better; and he said smiling, ‘You know, nurse, I’m a great doctor,’ which I told him I did not know it before.
‘Yes,’ said he. ‘Would you mind putting it to bed, and I’ll have it quite well by to-morrow. It is feverish, and till that is right it can’t get better.’
“Well, sir, it was only wrapped round with its flannels and my quilted shawl, and the little cot all ready, so I did as he bid me; and said he, ‘The thing it wants is James’s powder, and you know how to manage it.’
“And then he went down-stairs, and came back, and divided the powder he brought, with him in two; and he said he’d come back and see how it did. And I gave it that powder-he standing by — and it never was the same since.”
“H’m!” said the vicar, with his eyes fixed on a knot in the floor.
And a little silence followed.
“Well, sir, you see, he was angry when I refused to give the child the t’other half of the powder; and when he frowns, and laughs, and turns white, as he does when he’s vexed, he looks very bad, and I could not get his face out of my head, although he did not stay long, nor make much of the matter. But lately he’s bin coming up again to the nursery, and he says the child isn’t thriving with me, which I know well what it was as disagreed with the darling infant, and he wanted me to give it a bottle he had made up in his coat pocket, and I said I’d rayther not, and he pulled off the wrapper and showed me the label with ‘Daffy’s Elixir’ on it, and the name of the apothecary; and he said, ‘You must give it the medicine, the child will die else;’ and I said, ‘I won’t give it no physic, except what the doctor over the way orders and makes up;’ and with that he laughed and called me a fool, and slapt his hand down on the table, and told me to be ready to quit the house and give up the child to a new nurse the next morning; and he gave me a look that frighted me, and I heard him laughing very angry as he ran down the stairs.
“Now, if that stuff in the bottle was really ‘Daffy’s Elixir’ and nothing mixed in it, why mightn’t he a’ left it where he had put it, on the table, instead of taking it away again in his pocket? Mind ye, sir, I don’t say nothing, but I know what I thought. I was as cold as lead, and trembling all over, and I think I’d a took a fit, only I looked at the poor darling little baby, and I burst out a-cryin,’ and that I think saved me.”
Here Hileria Pullen paused, and the vicar said what is told in the next chapter.