My Lady Ludlow (26 page)

But a great change was to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo
had left London on this, their second visit, they had a letter from the
lawyer, whom they employed, saying that Sir Lawrence had left an heir,
his legitimate child by an Italian woman of low rank; at least, legal
claims to the title and property had been sent into him on the boy's
behalf. Sir Lawrence had always been a man of adventurous and artistic,
rather than of luxurious tastes; and it was supposed, when all came to be
proved at the trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful life
they lead in Italy, and had married this Neapolitan fisherman's daughter,
who had people about her shrewd enough to see that the ceremony was
legally performed. She and her husband had wandered about the shores of
the Mediterranean for years, leading a happy, careless, irresponsible
life, unencumbered by any duties except those connected with a rather
numerous family. It was enough for her that they never wanted money, and
that her husband's love was always continued to her. She hated the name
of England—wicked, cold, heretic England—and avoided the mention of any
subjects connected with her husband's early life. So that, when he died
at Albano, she was almost roused out of her vehement grief to anger with
the Italian doctor, who declared that he must write to a certain address
to announce the death of Lawrence Galindo. For some time, she feared
lest English barbarians might come down upon her, making a claim to the
children. She hid herself and them in the Abruzzi, living upon the sale
of what furniture and jewels Sir Lawrence had died possessed of. When
these failed, she returned to Naples, which she had not visited since her
marriage. Her father was dead; but her brother inherited some of his
keenness. He interested the priests, who made inquiries and found that
the Galindo succession was worth securing to an heir of the true faith.
They stirred about it, obtained advice at the English Embassy; and hence
that letter to the lawyers, calling upon Sir Hubert to relinquish title
and property, and to refund what money he had expended. He was vehement
in his opposition to this claim. He could not bear to think of his
brother having married a foreigner—a papist, a fisherman's daughter;
nay, of his having become a papist himself. He was in despair at the
thought of his ancestral property going to the issue of such a marriage.
He fought tooth and nail, making enemies of his relations, and losing
almost all his own private property; for he would go on against the
lawyer's advice, long after every one was convinced except himself and
his wife. At last he was conquered. He gave up his living in gloomy
despair. He would have changed his name if he could, so desirous was he
to obliterate all tie between himself and the mongrel papist baronet and
his Italian mother, and all the succession of children and nurses who
came to take possession of the Hall soon after Mr. Hubert Galindo's
departure, stayed there one winter, and then flitted back to Naples with
gladness and delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Galindo lived in London. He
had obtained a curacy somewhere in the city. They would have been
thankful now if Mr. Mark Gibson had renewed his offer. No one could
accuse him of mercenary motives if he had done so. Because he did not
come forward, as they wished, they brought his silence up as a
justification of what they had previously attributed to him. I don't
know what Miss Galindo thought herself; but Lady Ludlow has told me how
she shrank from hearing her parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that
he was aware that they were living in London. His father must have known
the fact, and it was curious if he had never named it to his son.
Besides, the name was very uncommon; and it was unlikely that it should
never come across him, in the advertisements of charity sermons which the
new and rather eloquent curate of Saint Mark's East was asked to preach.
All this time Lady Ludlow never lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo's
sake. And when the father and mother died, it was my lady who upheld
Miss Galindo in her determination not to apply for any provision to her
cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather to live upon the hundred a-year
which had been settled on her mother and the children of his son Hubert's
marriage by the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence.

Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on the Northern
Circuit, but had died unmarried in the lifetime of his father, a victim
(so people said) to intemperance. Doctor Trevor, the physician who had
been called in to Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson, had married a sister of
his. And that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family. But who was
Bessy?

That mystery and secret came out, too, in process of time. Miss Galindo
had been to Warwick, some years before I arrived at Hanbury, on some kind
of business or shopping, which can only be transacted in a county town.
There was an old Westmoreland connection between her and Mrs. Trevor,
though I believe the latter was too young to have been made aware of her
brother's offer to Miss Galindo at the time when it took place; and such
affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are seldom spoken about in the
gentleman's family afterwards. But the Gibsons and Galindos had been
county neighbours too long for the connection not to be kept up between
two members settled far away from their early homes. Miss Galindo always
desired her parcels to be sent to Dr. Trevor's, when she went to Warwick
for shopping purchases. If she were going any journey, and the coach did
not come through Warwick as soon as she arrived (in my lady's coach or
otherwise) from Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor's to wait. She was as
much expected to sit down to the household meals as if she had been one
of the family: and in after-years it was Mrs. Trevor who managed her
repository business for her.

So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor's to rest, and
possibly to dine. The post in those times, came in at all hours of the
morning: and Doctor Trevor's letters had not arrived until after his
departure on his morning round. Miss Galindo was sitting down to dinner
with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the Doctor came in. He was
flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as soon as he
decently could. Then (rather feeling Miss Galindo's presence an
advantage, both as a present restraint on the violence of his wife's
grief, and as a consoler when he was absent on his afternoon round), he
told Mrs. Trevor of her brother's death. He had been taken ill on
circuit, and had hurried back to his chambers in London only to die. She
cried terribly; but Doctor Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed that
Miss Galindo cared much about it one way or another. She helped him to
soothe his wife, promised to stay with her all the afternoon instead of
returning to Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while the
Doctor went to attend the funeral. When they heard of the old love-story
between the dead man and Miss Galindo,—brought up by mutual friends in
Westmoreland, in the review which we are all inclined to take of the
events of a man's life when he comes to die,—they tried to remember Miss
Galindo's speeches and ways of going on during this visit. She was a
little pale, a little silent; her eyes were sometimes swollen, and her
nose red; but she was at an age when such appearances are generally
attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather than to any more sentimental
reason. They felt towards her as towards an old friend, a kindly,
useful, eccentric old maid. She did not expect more, or wish them to
remember that she might once have had other hopes, and more youthful
feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for staying with his
wife, when he returned home from London (where the funeral had taken
place). He begged Miss Galindo to stay with them, when the children were
gone to bed, and she was preparing to leave the husband and wife by
themselves. He told her and his wife many particulars—then paused—then
went on—"And Mark has left a child—a little girl—

"But he never was married!" exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.

"A little girl," continued her husband, "whose mother, I conclude, is
dead. At any rate, the child was in possession of his chambers; she and
an old nurse, who seemed to have the charge of everything, and has
cheated poor Mark, I should fancy, not a little."

"But the child!" asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breathless with
astonishment. "How do you know it is his?"

"The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of indignation at my
doubting it. I asked the little thing her name, and all I could get was
'Bessy!' and a cry of 'Me wants papa!' The nurse said the mother was
dead, and she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had engaged her
to take care of the little girl, calling it his child. One or two of his
lawyer friends, whom I met with at the funeral, told me they were aware
of the existence of the child."

"What is to be done with her?" asked Mrs. Gibson.

"Nay, I don't know," replied he. "Mark has hardly left assets enough to
pay his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward."

That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study, after his wife had gone to
bed, Miss Galindo knocked at his door. She and he had a long
conversation. The result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to town
the next day; that they took possession of the little Bessy, and she was
brought down, and placed at nurse at a farm in the country near Warwick,
Miss Galindo undertaking to pay one-half of the expense, and to furnish
her with clothes, and Dr. Trevor undertaking that the remaining half
should be furnished by the Gibson family, or by himself in their default.

Miss Galindo was not fond of children; and I dare say she dreaded taking
this child to live with her for more reasons than one. My Lady Ludlow
could not endure any mention of illegitimate children. It was a
principle of hers that society ought to ignore them. And I believe Miss
Galindo had always agreed with her until now, when the thing came home to
her womanly heart. Still she shrank from having this child of some
strange woman under her roof. She went over to see it from time to time;
she worked at its clothes long after every one thought she was in bed;
and, when the time came for Bessy to be sent to school, Miss Galindo
laboured away more diligently than ever, in order to pay the increased
expense. For the Gibson family had, at first, paid their part of the
compact, but with unwillingness and grudging hearts; then they had left
it off altogether, and it fell hard on Dr. Trevor with his twelve
children; and, latterly, Miss Galindo had taken upon herself almost all
the burden. One can hardly live and labour, and plan and make
sacrifices, for any human creature, without learning to love it. And
Bessy loved Miss Galindo, too, for all the poor girl's scanty pleasures
came from her, and Miss Galindo had always a kind word, and, latterly,
many a kind caress, for Mark Gibson's child; whereas, if she went to Dr.
Trevor's for her holiday, she was overlooked and neglected in that
bustling family, who seemed to think that if she had comfortable board
and lodging under their roof, it was enough.

I am sure, now, that Miss Galindo had often longed to have Bessy to live
with her; but, as long as she could pay for her being at school, she did
not like to take so bold a step as bringing her home, knowing what the
effect of the consequent explanation would be on my lady. And as the
girl was now more than seventeen, and past the age when young ladies are
usually kept at school, and as there was no great demand for governesses
in those days, and as Bessy had never been taught any trade by which to
earn her own living, why I don't exactly see what could have been done
but for Miss Galindo to bring her to her own home in Hanbury. For,
although the child had grown up lately, in a kind of unexpected manner,
into a young woman, Miss Galindo might have kept her at school for a year
longer, if she could have afforded it; but this was impossible when she
became Mr. Horner's clerk, and relinquished all the payment of her
repository work; and perhaps, after all, she was not sorry to be
compelled to take the step she was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came
to live with Miss Galindo, in a very few weeks from the time when Captain
James set Miss Galindo free to superintend her own domestic economy
again.

For a long time, I knew nothing about this new inhabitant of Hanbury. My
lady never mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with Lady
Ludlow's well-known principles. She neither saw nor heard, nor was in
any way cognisant of the existence of those who had no legal right to
exist at all. If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception made in
Bessy's favour, she was mistaken. My lady sent a note inviting Miss
Galindo herself to tea one evening, about a month after Bessy came; but
Miss Galindo "had a cold and could not come." The next time she was
invited, she "had an engagement at home"—a step nearer to the absolute
truth. And the third time, she "had a young friend staying with her whom
she was unable to leave." My lady accepted every excuse as bona fide,
and took no further notice. I missed Miss Galindo very much; we all did;
for, in the days when she was clerk, she was sure to come in and find the
opportunity of saying something amusing to some of us before she went
away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from natural tendency, was
particularly fond of little bits of village gossip. There was no Mr.
Horner—he even had come in, now and then, with formal, stately pieces of
intelligence—and there was no Miss Galindo in these days. I missed her
much. And so did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her quiet, sedate
manner, I am certain her heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss
Galindo, who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the Hall now
Bessy was come.