And all this time a little young grey-eyed woman was making her
way,--not towards him, but towards the dead son, whom as yet she
believed to be her living husband. She knew she was acting in
defiance of his expressed wish; but he had never dismayed her with
any expression of his own fears about his health; and she, bright
with life, had never contemplated death coming to fetch away one so
beloved. He was ill--very ill, the letter from the strange girl said
that; but Aimée had nursed her parents, and knew what illness was.
The French doctor had praised her skill and neat-handedness as a
nurse, and even if she had been the clumsiest of women, was he not
her husband--her all? And was she not his wife, whose place was by
his pillow? So, without even as much reasoning as has been here
given, Aimée made her preparations, swallowing down the tears that
would overflow her eyes, and drop into the little trunk she was
packing so neatly. And by her side, on the ground, sate the child,
now nearly two years old; and for him Aimée had always a smile and a
cheerful word. Her servant loved her and trusted her; and the woman
was of an age to have had experience of humankind. Aimée had told
her that her husband was ill, and the servant had known enough of
the household history to be aware that as yet Aimée was not his
acknowledged wife. But she sympathized with the prompt decision of
her mistress to go to him directly, wherever he was. Caution comes
from education of one kind or another, and Aimée was not dismayed by
warnings; only the woman pleaded hard for the child to be left. "He
was such company," she said; "and he would so tire his mother in her
journeyings; and maybe his father would be too ill to see him." To
which Aimée replied, "Good company for you, but better for me. A
woman is never tired with carrying her own child" (which was not
true; but there was sufficient truth in it to make it believed by
both mistress and servant), "and if Monsieur could care for anything,
he would rejoice to hear the babble of his little son." So Aimée
caught the evening coach to London at the nearest cross-road, Martha
standing by as chaperon and friend to see her off, and handing her
in the large lusty child, already crowing with delight at the sight
of the horses. There was a "lingerie" shop, kept by a Frenchwoman,
whose acquaintance Aimée had made in the days when she was a London
nursemaid, and thither she betook herself, rather than to an hotel,
to spend the few night-hours that intervened before the Birmingham
coach started at early morning. She slept or watched on a sofa in
the parlour, for spare-bed there was none; but Madame Pauline came
in betimes with a good cup of coffee for the mother, and of "soupe
blanche" for the boy; and they went off again into the wide world,
only thinking of, only seeking the "him," who was everything human
to both. Aimée remembered the sound of the name of the village where
Osborne had often told her that he alighted from the coach to walk
home; and though she could never have spelt the strange uncouth word,
yet she spoke it with pretty slow distinctness to the guard, asking
him in her broken English when they should arrive there? Not till
four o'clock. Alas! and what might happen before then! Once with him
she would have no fear; she was sure that she could bring him round;
but what might not happen before he was in her tender care? She was
a very capable person in many ways, though so childish and innocent
in others. She made up her mind to the course she should pursue when
the coach set her down at Feversham. She asked for a man to carry her
trunk, and show her the way to Hamley Hall.