The Admirable Tinker | Page 5

didn't get a chance, and came back to London by the last train, not knowing as you was in it, till I came out of Victoria, and saw you getting into a cab and heard you tell the cabman to drive here. And I made up my mind to come and see you here, though I know it's a liberty I'm taking. But I can't help it,"--and her voice suddenly grew fierce,--"it's about the boy."
"The boy! My boy!" cried Sir Tancred.
"Yes, sir. You see I was his nurse from the first. Poor Miss Pamela--I mean Lady Beauleigh, sir--gave him to me to take care of before she died--leastways, she didn't give him to me, she was too weak, poor dear; but she told me to take care of him, as I wrote to you, sir."
"As you wrote? Yes; go on."
"And I did take care of him till Mr. Vane died. And oh, he was such a dear baby! Then, when the young lawyer came with Mrs. Bostock and told me as how you had arranged for her to have charge of him, and I had to give him over to her, it nearly broke my heart. But it isn't about myself I came to talk, but about him. I know it's troubling you, sir--and a gentleman has his pleasures, and they take up his time. But, after all, he's your own son, sir, and if you'd only come and see him for yourself, you wouldn't let him be treated like he is----"
"You know where he is!" Sir Tancred almost shouted.
"Why, of course, sir. I told you in my letters. He's living with them Bostocks, out Catford way."
"You must take me to him at once!" cried Sir Tancred; and he rushed into his bedroom, and came out with a hat and stick.
"Look here, old chap," said Lord Crosland. "I'm going to clear out for a few days. You'd like the kid to yourself at first. Then I'll come back and share the rooms if you like."
"Oh, no; it'll be all right," said Sir Tancred, and he hurried Selina from the room to the lift, from the lift to a cab.
They were no sooner settled in it, and the driver was getting quickly through the traffic under the stimulus of a promise of treble his fare, than Sir Tancred turned to Selina, and said quickly: "What do you mean by saying that I would not let the child be treated as he is? How's he treated?"
"I mean that he's starved and beaten, that's what I mean, sir," said Selina. "Just what I said in my letters."
"But I was told he was in the hands of respectable people."
"Respectable!" exclaimed Selina: "but I told you in my letters all about them, sir."
"When did you write to me?" said Sir Tancred.
"First when Miss Pamela died; and then when Mr. Vane died,"--Sir Tancred saw how his stepmother had obtained the information which enabled her to get possession of the child,--"and three times since October."
"Since October!" cried Sir Tancred; he had never dreamed that the suppression of his letters had continued after his recovery.
"I only found the boy in October," said Selina.
"Look here," said Sir Tancred, "you'd better tell me the whole story from the beginning. I didn't get your letters."
"You didn't get them?" said Selina, and her face cleared. "I thought you couldn't have, sir. I knew you wasn't the one to take no notice of them. Well, it was like this, sir. When Mrs. Bostock took the boy away, I began to worry and worry about him; I kind of pined for him. Then I thought if I could see him sometimes, I should feel better; and I never liked the looks of Mrs. Bostock. She looked like a drinker; though all the time she was in Jersey with the lawyer she kept sober enough. I had got another place in St. Hellers, but I couldn't stand worrying about him, and wondering if he was well treated. And I didn't like the way she wouldn't tell me where she lived. I had my savings, too; so I gave up my place, and came to London to look for her. I knew she lived in South London from something she let drop; and I took a room in Lambeth and looked for her in neighbourhoods which would be likely for her to live in. But it's a large place, sir, and I was months and months doing it, moving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. I used to trapse and trapse about all day, and at night I used to go into Publics, the saloon bars as well as the common bars, for I didn't know which class she really belonged to. I went into hundreds of Publics, but I never set eyes on her. Then, last October,