The Children\'s Pilgrimage

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THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE

BY

MRS. L. T. MEADE

THE CHILDREN'S PILGRIMAGE

FIRST PART.

"LOOKING FOR THE GUIDE."

"The night is dark, and I am far from home.
Lead Thou me on"

CHAPTER I.

"THREE ON A DOORSTEP."

In a poor part of London, but not in the very poorest part--two
children sat on a certain autumn evening, side by side on a doorstep.
The eldest might have been ten, the youngest eight. The eldest was a
girl, the youngest a boy. Drawn up in front of these children,
looking into their little faces with hungry, loving, pathetic eyes,
lay a mongrel dog.

The three were alone, for the street in which they sat was a cul-de-sac
--leading nowhere; and at this hour, on this Sunday evening,
seemed quite deserted. The boy and girl were no East End waifs; they
were clean; they looked respectable; and the doorstep which gave them
a temporary resting-place belonged to no far-famed Stepney or Poplar.
It stood in a little, old-fashioned, old-world court, back of
Bloomsbury. They were a foreign-looking little pair--not in their
dress, which was truly English in its clumsiness and want of
picturesque coloring--but their faces were foreign. The contour was
peculiar, the setting of the two pairs of eyes--un-Saxon. They sat
very close together, a grave little couple. Presently the girl threw
her arm round the boy's neck, the boy laid his head on her shoulder.
In this position those who watched could have traced motherly lines
round this little girl's firm mouth. She was a creature to defend and
protect. The evening fell and the court grew dark, but the boy had
found shelter on her breast, and the dog, coming close, laid his head
on her lap.

After a time the boy raised his eyes, looked at her and spoke:

"Will it be soon, Cecile?"

"I think so, Maurice; I think it must be soon now."

"I'm so cold, Cecile, and it's getting so dark."

"Never mind, darling, stepmother will soon wake now, and then you
can come indoors and sit by the fire."

The boy, with a slight impatient sigh, laid his head once more on
her shoulder, and the grave trio sat on as before.

Presently a step was heard approaching inside the house--it came
along the passage, the door was opened, and a gentleman in a plain
black coat came out. He was a doctor and a young man. His smooth,
almost boyish face looked so kind that it could not but be an index
to a charitable heart.

He stopped before the children, looking at them with interest and
pity.

"How is our stepmother, Dr. Austin?" asked Cecile, raising her head
and speaking with alacrity.

"Your stepmother is very ill, my dear--very ill indeed. I stopped
with her to write a letter which she wants me to post. Yes, she is
very ill, but she is awake now; you may go upstairs; you won't
disturb her."

"Oh, come, Cecile," said little Maurice, springing to his feet;
"stepmother is awake, and we may get to the fire. I am so bitter cold."

There was not a particle of anything but a kind of selfish longing
for warmth and comfort on his little face. He ran along the passage
holding out his hand to his sister, but Cecile drew back. She came
out more into the light and looked straight up into the tall doctor's
face:

"Is my stepmother going to be ill very long, Dr. Austin?"

"No, my dear; I don't expect her illness will last much longer."

"Oh, then, she'll be quite well to-morrow."

"Perhaps--in a sense--who knows!" said the doctor, jerking out his
words and speaking queerly. He looked as if he wanted to say more,
but finally nodding to the child, turned on his heel and walked away.

Cecile, satisfied with this answer, and reading no double meaning in
it, followed her brother and the dog upstairs. She entered a
tolerably comfortable sitting-room, where, on a sofa, lay a woman
partly dressed. The woman's cheeks were crimson, and her large eyes,
which were wide open, were very bright. Little Maurice had already
found a seat and a hunch of bread and butter, and was enjoying both
drawn up by a good fire, while the dog Toby crouched at his feet and
snapped at morsels which he threw him. Cecile, scarcely glancing at
the group by the fire, went straight up to the woman on the sofa:

"Stepmother," she said, taking her hand in hers, "Dr. Austin says
you'll be quite well to-morrow."

The woman gazed hard and hungrily into the sweet eyes of the child;
she held her small hand with almost feverish energy, but she did not
speak, and when Maurice called out from the fire, "Cecile, I want
some more bread and butter," she motioned to her to go and attend to
him.

All his small world did attend to Maurice at once, so Cecile ran to
him, and after supplying him with milk and bread and butter, she took
his hand to lead him to bed. There were only two years between the
children, but Maurice seemed quite a baby, and Cecile a womanly
creature.

When they got into the tiny bedroom, which they shared together,
Cecile helped her little brother to undress, and tucked him up when
he got into bed.

"Now, Toby," she said, addressing the dog, whose watchful eyes had
followed her every movement, "you must lie down by Maurice and keep
him company; and good-night, Maurice, dear."

"Won't you come to bed too, Cecile?"

"Presently, darling; but first I have to see to stepmother. Our
stepmother is very ill, you know, Maurice."

"Very ill, you know," repeated Maurice sleepily, and without
comprehending; then he shut his eyes, and Cecile went back into the
sitting-room.

The sick woman had never stirred during the child's absence, now she
turned round eagerly. The little girl went up to the sofa with a
confident step. Though her stepmother was so ill now, she would be
quite well to-morrow, so the doctor had said, and surely the best way
to bring that desirable end about was to get her to have as much
sleep as possible.

"Stepmother," said Cecile softly, "'tis very late; may I bring in
your night-dress and air it by the fire, and then may I help you to
get into bed, stepmother dear?"

"No, Cecile," replied the sick woman. "I'm not going to stir from
this yere sofa to-night."

"Oh, but then--but then you won't be quite well to-morrow," said the
child, tears springing to her eyes.

"Who said I'd be quite well to-morrow?" asked Cecile's stepmother.

"Dr. Austin, mother; I asked him, and he said, 'Yes,'--at least he
said 'Perhaps,' but I think he was very sure from his look."

"Aye, child, aye; he was very sure, but he was not meaning what you
were meaning. Well, never mind; but what was that you called me just
now, Cecile?"

"I--I----" said Cecile, hesitating and coloring.

"Aye, like enough 'twas a slip of your tongue. But you said,
'Mother'; you said it without the 'step' added on. You don't know
--not that it matters now--but you won't never know how that
'stepmother' hardened my heart against you and Maurice, child."

"'Twas our father," said Cecile; "he couldn't forget our own mother,
and he asked us not to say 'Mother,' and me and Maurice, we could
think of no other way. It wasn't that we--that I--didn't love."

"Aye, child, you're a tender little thing; I'm not blaming you, and
maybe I couldn't have borne the word from your lips, for I didn't
love you, Cecile--neither you nor Maurice--I had none of the mother
about me for either of you little kids. Aye, you were right enough;
your father, Maurice D'Albert, never forgot his Rosalie, as he called
her. I always thought as Frenchmen were fickle, but he worn't not
fickle enough for me. Well, Cecile, I'm no way sleepy, and I've a
deal to say, and no one but you to say it to; I'm more strong now
than I have been for the day, so I'd better say my say while I have
any strength left. You build up the fire, and then come back to me,
child. Build it up big, for I'm not going to bed to-night."

CHAPTER II.

A SOLEMN PROMISE.

When Cecile had built up the fire, she made a cup of tea and brought
it to her stepmother. Mrs. D'Albert drank it off greedily; afterward
she seemed refreshed and she made Cecile put another pillow under her
head and draw her higher on the sofa.

"You're a good, tender-hearted child, Cecile," she said to the
little creature, who was watching her every movement with a kind of
trembling eagerness. Cecile's sensitive face flushed at the words of
praise, and she came very close to the sofa. "Yes, you're a good
child," repeated Mrs. D'Albert; "you're yer father's own child, and
he was very good, though he was a foreigner. For myself I don't much
care for good people, but when you're dying, I don't deny as they're
something of a comfort. Good people are to be depended on, and you're
good, Cecile."

But there was only one sentence in these words which Cecile took in.

"When you're dying," she repeated, and every vestige of color
forsook her lips.

"Yes, my dear, when you're dying. I'm dying, Cecile; that was what
the doctor meant when he said I'd he quite well; he meant as I'd lie
straight and stiff, and have my eyes shut, and be put in a long box
and be buried, that was what he meant, Cecile. But look here now,
you're not to cry about it--not at present, I mean; you may as much
as you like by and by, but not now. I'm not crying, and 'tis a deal
worse for me; but there ain't no time for tears, they only weaken and
do no good, and I has a deal to say. Don't you dare shed a tear now,
Cecile; I can't a-bear the sight of tears; you may cry by and by, but
now you has got to listen to me."

"I won't cry," said Cecile; she made a great effort set her lips
firm, and looked hard at her stepmother.

"That's a good, brave girl. Now I can talk in comfort. I want to
talk all I can to you to-night, my dear, for to-morrow I may have the
weakness back again, and besides your Aunt Lydia will be here!"

"Who's my Aunt Lydia?" asked Cecile.

"She ain't rightly your aunt at all, she's my sister; but she's the
person as will have to take care of you and Maurice after I'm dead."

"Oh!" said Cecile; her little face fell, and a bright color came
into her cheeks.

"She's my own sister," continued Mrs. D'Albert, "but I don't like
her much. She's a good woman enough; not up to yer father's standard,
but still fair enough. But she's hard--she is hard ef you like. I
don't profess to have any violent love for you two little tots, but
I'd sooner not leave you to the care o' Aunt Lydia ef I could help it."

"Don't leave us to her care; do find some one kind--some one as 'ull
be kind to me, and Maurice, and Toby--do help it, stepmother," said
Cecile.

"I _can't_ help it, child; and there's no use bothering a dying
woman who's short of breath. You and Maurice have got to go to my
sister, your Aunt Lydia, and ef you'll take a word of advice by and
by, Cecile, from one as 'ull be in her grave, you'll not step-aunt
her--she's short of temper, Aunt Lydia is. Yes," continued the sick
woman, speaking fast, and gasping for breath a little, "you have
got to go to my sister Lydia. I have sent her word, and she'll come
to-morrow--but--never mind that now. I ha' something else I must say
to you, Cecile."

"Yes, stepmother."

"I ha' no one else to say it to, so you listen werry hard. I'm going
to put a great trust on you, little mite as you are--a great, great
trust; you has got to do something solemn, and to promise something
solemn too, Cecile."

"Yes," said Cecile, opening her blue eyes wide.

"Aye, you may well say yes, and open yer eyes big; you're going to
get some'ut on yer shoulders as 'ull make a woman of yer. You mayn't
like it, I don't suppose as you will; but for all that you ha' got to
promise, because I won't die easy, else. Cecile," suddenly bending
forward, and grasping the child's arm almost cruelly, "I can't die at
_all_ till you promise me this solemn and grave, as though it
were yer very last breath."

"I will promise, stepmother," said Cecile. "I'll promise solemn, and
I'll keep it solemn; don't you be fretted, now as you're a-dying. I
don't mind ef it is hard. Father often give me hard things to do, and
I did 'em. Father said I wor werry dependable," continued the little
creature gravely.

To her surprise, her stepmother bent forward and and kissed her. The
kiss she gave was warm, intense, passionate; such a kiss as Cecile
had never before received from those lips.

"You're a good child," she said eagerly; "yes, you're a very good
child; you promise me solemn and true, then I'll die easy and
comforted. Yes, I'll die easy, even though Lovedy ain't with me, even
though I'll never lay my eyes on my Lovedy again."

"Who's Lovedy?" asked Cecile.

"Aye, child, we're coming to Lovedy, 'tis about Lovedy you've got to
promise. Lovedy, she's my daughter, Cecile; she ain't no step-child,
but my own, my werry own, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh."

"I never knew as you had a daughter of yer werry own," said Cecile.

"But I had, Cecile. I had as true a child to me as you were to yer
father. My own, my own, my darling! Oh, my bonnie one, 'tis bitter,
bitter to die with her far, far away! Not for four years now have I
seen my girl. Oh, if I could see her face once again!"

Here the poor woman, who was opening up her life-story to the
astonished and frightened child, lost her self-control, and sobbed
hysterically. Cecile fetched water, and gave it to her, and in a few
moments she became calm.

"There now, my dear, sit down and listen. I'll soon be getting weak,
and I must tell everything tonight. Years ago, Cecile, afore ever I
met yer father, I was married. My husband was a sailor, and he died
at sea. But we had one child, one beautiful, bonnie English girl;
nothing foreign about her, bless her! She was big and tall, and fair
as a lily, and her hair, it was that golden that when the sun shone
on it it almost dazzled you. I never seed such hair as my Lovedy's,
never, never; it all fell in curls long below her waist. I _was_
that proud of it I spent hours dressing it and washing it, and
keeping it like any lady's. Then her eyes, they were just two bits of
the blue sky in her head, and her little teeth were like white
pearls, and her lips were always smiling. She had an old-world
English name taken from my mother, but surely it fitted her, for to
look at her was to love her.

"Well, my dear, my girl and me, we lived together till she was near
fifteen, and never a cloud between us. We were very poor; we lived by
my machining and what Lovedy could do to help me. There was never a
cloud between us, until one day I met yer father. I don't say as yer
father loved me much, for his heart was in the grave with your
mother, but he wanted someone to care for you two, and he thought me
a tidy, notable body, and so he asked me to marry him and he seemed
well off, and I thought it 'ud be a good thing for Lovedy. Besides, I
had a real fancy for him; so I promised. I never even guessed as my
girl 'ud mind, and I went home to our one shabby little room, quite
light-hearted like, to tell her. But oh, Cecile, I little knew my
Lovedy! Though I had reared her I did not know her nature. My news
seemed to change her all over.

"From being so sweet and gentle, she seemed to have the very devil
woke up in her. First soft, and trembling and crying, she went down
on her knees and begged me to give yer father up; but I liked him,
and I felt angered with her for taking on what I called foolish, and
I wouldn't yield; and I told her she was real silly, and I was
ashamed of her. They were the bitterest words I ever flung at her,
and they seemed to freeze up her whole heart. She got up off her
knees and walked away with her pretty head in the air, and wouldn't
speak to me for the evening; and the next day she come to me quick
and haughty like, and said that if I gave her a stepfather she would
not live with me; she would go to her Aunt Fanny, and her Aunt Fanny
would take her to Paris, and there she would see life. Fanny was my
youngest sister, and she was married to a traveler for one of the big
shops, and often went about with her husband and had a gay time. She
had no children of her own, and I knew she envied me my Lovedy beyond
words.

"I was so hurt with Lovedy for saying she would leave me for her
Aunt Fanny, that I said, bitter and sharp, she might do as she liked,
and that I did not care.

"Then she turned very red and went away and sat down and wrote a
letter, and I knew she had made up her mind to leave me. Still I
wasn't really frightened. I said to myself, I'll pretend to let her
have her own way, and she'll come round fast enough; and I began to
get ready for my wedding, and took no heed of Lovedy. The night
before I was married she came to me again. She was white as a sheet,
and all the hardness had gone out of her.

"'Mother, mother, mother,' she said, and she put her dear, bonnie
arms round me and clasped me tight to her. 'Mother, give him up, for
Lovedy's sake; it will break my heart, mother. Mother, I am jealous;
I must have you altogether or not at all. Stay at home with your own
Lovedy, for pity's sake, for pity's sake.'

"Of course I soothed her and petted her, and I think--I do think now
--that she, poor darling, had a kind of notion I was going to yield,
and that night she slept in my arms.

"The next morning I put on my neat new dress and bonnet, and went
into her room.

"'Lovedy, will you come to church to see your mother married?'

"I never forgot--never, never, the look she gave me. She went white
as marble, and her eyes blazed at me and then grew hard, and she put
her head down on her hands, and, do all in my power, I could not get
a word out of her.

"Well, Cecile, yer father and I were married, and when we came back
Lovedy was gone. There was just a little bit of a note, all blotted
with tears, on the table. Cecile, I have got that little note, and
you must put it in my coffin. These words were writ on it by my poor
girl: "'Mother, you had no pity, so your Lovedy is gone. Good-by,
mother.'

"Yes, Cecile, that was the note, and what it said was true. My
Lovedy was gone. She had disappeared, and so had her Aunt Fanny, and
never, never from that hour have I heard one single word of Lovedy."

Mrs. D'Albert paused here. The telling of her tale seemed to have
changed her. In talking of her child the hard look had left her face,
an expression almost beautiful in its love and longing filled her
poor dim eyes, and when Cecile, in her sympathy, slipped her little
hand into hers, she did not resist the pressure.

"Yes, Cecile," she continued, turning to the little girl, "I lost
Lovedy--more surely than if she was dead, was she torn from me. I
never got one clew to her. Yer father did all he could for me; he was
more than kind, he did pity me, and he made every inquiry for my girl
and advertised for her, but her aunt had taken her out of England,
and I never heard--I never heard of my Lovedy from the day I married
yer father, Cecile. It changed me, child; it changed me most bitter.
I grew hard, and I never could love you nor Maurice, no, nor even yer
good father, very much after that. I always looked upon you three as
the people who took by bonnie girl away. It was unfair of me. Now, as
I'm dying, I'll allow as it was real unfair, but the pain and hunger
in my heart was most awful to bear. You'll forgive me for never
loving you, when you think of all the pain I had to bear, Cecile."

"Yes, poor stepmother," answered the little girl, stooping down and
kissing her hand. "And, oh!" continued Cecile with fervor, "I wish--I
wish I could find Lovedy for you again."

"Why, Cecile, that's just what you've got to do," said her
stepmother; "you've got to look for Lovedy: you're a very young
girl; you're only a child; but you've got to go on looking, _always
--always_ until you find her. The finding of my Lovedy is to be yer
life-work, Cecile. I don't want you to begin now, not till you're
older and have got more sense; but you has to keep it firm in yer
head, and in two or three years' time you must begin. You must go on
looking until you find my Lovedy. That is what you have to promise me
before I die."

"Yes, stepmother."

"Look me full in the face, Cecile, and make the promise as solemn as
though it were yer werry last breath--look me in the face, Cecile,
and say after me, 'I promise to find Lovedy again.'"

"I promise to find Lovedy again," repeated Cecile.

"Now kiss me, child."

Cecile did so.

"That kiss is a seal," continued her stepmother; "ef you break yer
promise, you'll remember as you kissed the lips of her who is dead,
and the feel 'ull haunt you, and you'll never know a moment's
happiness. But you're a good girl, Cecile--a good, dependable child,
and I'm not afeared for you. And now, my dear, you has made the
promise, and I has got to give you directions. Cecile, did you ever
wonder why your stepmother worked so hard?"

"I thought we must be very poor," said Cecile.

"No, my dear, yer father had that little bit of money coming in from
France every year. It will come in for four or five years more, and
it will be enough to pay Aunt Lydia for taking care on you both. No,
Cecile, I did not work for myself, nor for you and Maurice--I worked
for Lovedy. All that beautiful church embroidery as I sat up so late
at night over, the money I got for it was for my girl; every lily I
worked, and every passion-flower, and every leaf, took a little drop
of my heart's blood, I think; but 'twas done for her. Now, Cecile,
put yer hand under my pillow--there's a purse there."

Cecile drew out an old, worn Russia-leather purse.

"Lovedy 'ud recognize that purse," said her mother, "it belonged to
her own father. She and I always kept our little earnings in it, in
the old happy days. Now open the purse, Cecile; you must know what is
inside it."

Cecile pressed the spring and took out a little bundle of notes.

"There, child, you open them--see, there are four notes--four Bank
of England notes for ten pounds each--that's forty pounds--forty
pounds as her mother earned for my girl. You give her those notes in
the old purse, Cecile. You give them into her own hands, and you say,
'Your mother sent you those. Your mother is dead, but she broke her
heart for you, she never forgot your voice when you said for pity's
sake, and she asks you now for pity's sake to forgive her.' That's
the message as you has to take to Lovedy, Cecile."

"Yes, stepmother, I'll take her that message--very faithful; very,
very faithful, stepmother."

"And now put yer hand into the purse again, Cecile; there's more
money in the purse--see! there's fifteen pounds all in gold. I had
that money all in gold, for I knew as it 'ud be easier for you--that
fifteen pounds is for you, Cecile, to spend in looking for Lovedy;
you must not waste it, and you must spend it on nothing else. I guess
you'll have to go to France to find my Lovedy; but ef you're very
careful, that money ought to last till you find her."

"There'll be heaps and heaps of money here," said Cecile, looking at
the little pile of gold with almost awe.

"Yes, child, but there won't, not unless you're _very_ saving,
and ask all sensible questions about how to go and how best to find
Lovedy. You must walk as much as you can, Cecile, and live very
plain, for you may have to go a power of miles--yes, a power, before
you find my girl; and ef you're starving, you must not touch those
four notes of money, only the fifteen pounds. Remember, only that;
and when you get to the little villages away in France, you may go to
the inns and ask there ef an English girl wor ever seen about the
place. You describe her, Cecile--tall, a tall, fair English girl,
with hair like the sun; you say as her name is Lovedy--Lovedy Joy.
You must get a deal o' sense to do this business proper, Cecile; but
ef you has sense and patience, why you will find my girl."

"There's only one thing, stepmother," said Cecile; "I'll do
everything as you tells me, every single thing; I'll be as careful as
possible, and I'll save every penny; but I can't go to look for your
Lovedy without Maurice, for I promised father afore ever I promised
you as I'd never lose sight on Maurice till he grew up, and it 'ud be
too long to put off looking for Lovedy till Maurice was grown up,
stepmother."

"I suppose it would," answered Cecile's stepmother; "'tis a pity,
for he'll spend some of the money. But there, it can't be helped, and
you'll do your best. I'll trust you to do yer werry best, Cecile."

"My werry, werry best," said Cecile earnestly.

"Well, child, there's only one thing more. All this as I'm telling
you is a secret, a solemn, solemn secret. Ef yer Aunt Lydia gets wind
on it, or ef she ever even guesses as you have all that money,
everything 'ull be ruined. Yer aunt is hard and saving, and she do
hanker sore for money, she always did--did Lydia, and not all the
stories you could tell her 'ud make her leave you that money; she 'ud
take it away, she 'ud be quite cruel enough to take the money away
that I worked myself into my grave to save, and then it 'ud be all up
with Lovedy. No, Cecile, you must take the purse o' money away with
you this very night, hide it in yer dress, or anywhere, for Aunt
Lydia may be here early in the morning, and the weakness may be on me
then. Yes, Cecile, you has charge on that money, fifty-five pounds in
all; fifteen pounds for you to spend, and forty to give to Lovedy.
Wherever you go, you must hide it so safe that no one 'ull ever guess
as a poor little girl like you has money, for anyone might rob you,
child; but the one as I'm fearing the most is yer Aunt Lydia."

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