Charlotte O'Conor Eccles

“ Of law, of legal procedure, of what a judge could or could not do, Prudence was profoundly ignorant. All that was plain to her was, that she could not produce her sister in the flesh as known to and recognisable by her acquaintances, and that no one would credit her if she produced the baby and said that was Augusta. Even at the best, if no question as to her sister arose, no suspicion of murder, how bad it looked to have smuggled a child away, and given it to such a person as Mrs. Brown to cruelly use. Cold beads of perspiration stood out on the poor woman’s forehead. ”

“ To the dismay of the nurse, she was bending, wriggling, and stretching in her arms.
As the magistrate ceased speaking, there was a sudden sound of rent material, a shower of buttons flew about the heads of the junior counsel, and Augusta’s sloppy workhouse frock and pinafore, that had been gradually tightening to bursting point, split explosively up the back and sleeves.
“Look, look!” cried Prudence, in a fever of anxiety. “It is passing off. I told you so. She is growing older. Oh! wait a little, your worship. Before long perhaps she will be able to speak. ”

“ Augusta kicked, and spilt a portion on the carpet, but at last the meal was got through, though with little satisfaction to either sister.
“Now,” said Prudence, as she finished her task, “I shall have to leave you alone for some time.”
Augusta evidently disliked the idea of being left alone, for she immediately screwed up her face into contortions that announced an outburst of weeping.
“Oh, stop! do stop!” cried her sister exasperated, “they are sure to hear you if you cry. How inconsiderate you are! For goodness sake do be quiet and think a little of someone beside yourself. ”

“ Prudence, as we have said, was a large, soft woman, whose kindly, if feeble, nature and unruffled temper tended to preserve her youthful roundness. In her white combing jacket, her cheeks flushed, and her still abundant nut-brown hair falling on her shoulders, she seemed to her sister to look particularly young. To be sure, there was ten years difference or more in their ages, and Miss Semaphore was always accustomed to look on Prudence as a mere girl, but even allowing for this, to-night she might have passed for thirty. ”

“ If anyone has formed an opinion that another is wily, the simplest speech or action tends to confirm it. In the heart-moving accents of Prudence, Inspector Smith heard only duplicity. In her open, though tear-stained, countenance he read nothing but low cunning.
“It’s quite wonderful,” he said coldly, “to see how easy it is to deceive people when it is to their interests to be deceived; they ask no questions and they are told no lies, and a troublesome baby is got rid of, that’s how it is.” ”

“ Terrible is the wrath of the sheep. Prudence stood at bay in a towering rage.
“Allow me to tell you, madam,” she said, “that you know nothing at all about it. My sister is perfectly well, never better in her life, and I won’t be dictated to by you, or Mrs. Whitley either, as to any course of action I think fit to take.”
“Well, I’m sure,” gasped the medical woman, “this is what one gets for trying to be kind to some people. Come away, my dear Mrs. Whitley, and leave this—person. Far from thanking us for our thoughtfulness to her sister and herself, she only insults us. ”

“ PRUDENCE CALLS AT PLUMMER’S COTTAGES. Next morning Prudence, after a restless night, was up betimes. Never in the past had the placid, good-natured spinster known sleeplessness, except in a very modified form. Since Augusta’s misfortune, however, that was changed. She thought more than she ever had thought in her life, and constant anxiety was making her face look drawn and worn. Her brief triumph at having got her sister safely out of the house had vanished with the unexpected and unwelcome visit of “good Mrs. Brown.” ”

“ Lorimer was not impressed.
“I maintain,” he said, “that this is a free country, and that those ideas are old-fashioned.”
“I assure you that is not the opinion of the Princess Hatzoff, a woman who mixed in the very best society; nor was it the opinion of my dear friend, the ex-Empress of the French, Mr. Lorimer,” replied Mrs. Dumaresq with a lofty air. “However, we will discuss the matter no further. In diplomacy one learns to avoid subjects on which one’s experiences are different from those of other people, and so not likely to agree.” ”

“ One or two of the oldest, including Major Jones, and a Mr. Batley, who was young, but a new-comer and unacquainted with the ways of the house, advanced into what seemed to be looked on as the women’s end.
Miss Prudence Semaphore moved her skirts slightly, so as to give a chance to anyone wishing to sit beside her. No one came. Pretty Miss Fastleigh and her sister, with an unconsciousness born of experience, had thoughtfully taken places as near the men as possible. Soon they were deep in conversation with the more courageous of the advanced guard. ”

“ The cause of the disturbance was Miss Semaphore’s dog. Miss Semaphore’s dog was a mongrel, a snappish little brute called Toutou. Its brown hair was flecked with grey, for it was old, fat, and scant of breath. Toutou had been the cause of more unpleasantness at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, than any other inmate. If, in the quarrels of men, cherchez la femme holds good, in the quarrels of idle women who live in boarding-houses one may not unfrequently look for the dog. To-night, unfortunately for herself, Miss Belcher, one of the younger women, trod on its tail. ”

“ THE WATER OF YOUTH. Usually the fond imaginations of the night wear a different aspect in the dawn; but the visions of the Misses Semaphore had lost none of their attractiveness by morning. Though, as before said, they tried now and then to check their super-abounding joy by the cold reflection that perhaps the explorer’s widow was a humbug, and the Water of Youth liquid drawn from the nearest well, they had much ado to keep their excitement within bounds. ”

“ Advancing towards her, but as yet unconscious of her presence, was old Major Jones, who had just stepped out of a tobacconist’s shop, and was smoking a postprandial cigar. Prudence darted across the road, turned down a side street, and terrified of meeting someone else who knew her, ran all the way to South Kensington Station.
There was no one in the first-class ladies’ waiting-room at London Bridge Station when Prudence arrived with her charge, except an elderly person on guard in a battered black bonnet and a woollen crochet shoulder shawl. ”

“ A DETECTIVE ON THE TRACK. Boarding-house life tends to make one selfish; “each for himself and God for us all,” is the boarders’ motto. Where people come and go, drifting in and out like weeds upon the tide, deep interests or affections are rare, but even in boarding-houses men are sometimes thoughtful, and women sympathetic. This is especially true in cases of illness. The medical lady and Mrs. Dumaresq rushed to the assistance of Prudence when she stumbled off the sofa in a dead faint. ”

“ No one who has hitherto tried the Water has returned to infancy, so your sister’s is a very exceptional and awkward position, especially, as you tell me, you are living at a boarding-house. You may be thankful that your sister did not take a little more, or she would probably have vanished for ever, and your circumstances would be even more painful than they are. It is most probable that she retains her adult memory and understanding unimpaired, remaining a woman in mind though not in body. I regret, dear madam, that I cannot be more helpful, and am, yours faithfully,
Sophie Geldheraus. ”

“ The workhouse matron deposed to their condition when admitted.
Finally, it was announced that the names and addresses of parents or other relatives of the children had been found, some of them people of good position, and that they would be brought forward to swear to their condition when delivered over to the prisoner.
There was a thrill of excitement in court, anticipative of scandals. People of good position do not hand over babies to a Sal Brown without strong reason. To the rustle and stir succeeded a strained silence as the usher called the name of “Prudence Semaphore.” ”

“ Brown’s last lengthy and rapid speech, “I never allows no payments to be more than a week in arrears.”
What could she mean by that? It really sounded as if she were familiar with transactions of the kind, but surely no respectable married woman, so nice in appearance too, even though her grammar was not faultless, would need more than one child to adopt; so, telling herself she had misunderstood, Prudence paid down the twenty pounds, kissed Augusta, saw Mrs. Brown and that infant into the train, and then relieved, yet with many cares on her mind, made her way back to Beaconsfield Gardens. ”

“ Geldheraus now? Does she know you? Can she give any evidence as to your mental condition?”
“Alas!” said Prudence, weeping profusely, though even the prisoner at the bar wore an incredulous grin, “she has gone away to Paris. She was on the point of leaving London when my sister called on her.”
The counsel for the prosecution looked triumphantly at the magistrate. The woman was an absolute Bedlamite. No mere liar would invent so lame, so preposterous a story. ”

“ Guilty people usually have a certain hardness of nature that makes them indifferent to the opinion of others, while Prudence, with all her woes upon her head, was a timid, unsheltered, soft-hearted body, to whom an angry or contemptuous glance was as bad as a blow. ”

“ As usual, they were split into two factions, those who abused the proprietress and those who did not.
The drawing-room in which they nightly assembled was a spacious apartment. A Brussels carpet of pronounced pattern, red Utrecht velvet chairs—solid, as befitted furniture destined to much wear and tear—and gilt-framed mirrors, gave the apartment an early Victorian aspect. The light and airy found no place in this salon, for in boarding-houses everything breakable is broken, and nobody owns to the mischief. ”

“ Geldheraus fails me, I shall enquire everywhere for some good, kind woman who will take care of you till you grow a little older, for of course you must see how impossible it would be for me to go about with a baby of your age. This evening, after dinner, when it is dark, I will try to smuggle you out unobserved to the woman, if I can find one suitable, then give warning, and go to some quiet place where nobody knows us, and where I can perhaps have you back to live with me. ”

“ There is an opinion afloat, this time not merely in the mind of Prudence herself, but in the minds of the boarders at Beaconsfield Gardens, that the younger Miss Semaphore will before long be requested to change her name. Since her painful experience, her character has developed. She is more self-reliant, steadier, less unduly girlish in her ways and dress, and seems likely, if her mature love affair runs smooth, to make an excellent wife for the Major. ”

“ She was always ready to fall in love, but lacked opportunity. Her little airs, graces, and stratagems were as transparent as the day. She had difficulty in realising that she was grown-up, and would have called anyone who forced the truth on her “a horrid thing.” Her strong-minded sister’s dominion over her and her affairs tended to strengthen the delusion. Miss Semaphore managed the property and investments from which their income was derived, and seldom referred to Prudence in such matters, save when her signature was required. ”

“ Dumaresq. “A handsome woman is only the age she looks.”
Miss Semaphore sighed. She had carefully examined her face before dinner and discovered a new wrinkle. It was borne in on her that she scarcely looked as young as she felt, but she made an effort to seem as if eight-and-twenty, or, at most, two-and-thirty, was still before her.
“It must be dreadful to grow old,” said Mrs. Whitley affectedly.
18“There are so many aids to beauty nowadays,” said Mr. Dumaresq, “that no lady need look a day older than she likes.” ”

“ Wilcox, “the Lord make us truly thankful.”
With a creak and a rustle, some five-and-thirty boarders drew in their chairs. The covers were removed, and a ripple of prosy talk began.
As usual, it started with polite enquiries as to each other’s health. In boarding-houses it generally does. No one cares a button for you or your ailments, but they ask after them all the same with exasperating regularity and take no interest in the answer.
“How is your cold, Major Jones?”
“Better, thank you, Mrs. Dumaresq—and your neuralgia?” ”

“ When dinner was over, and the feminine boarders had filed upstairs as usual, a fresh shock awaited poor Prudence. There was sudden great excitement in the street. A dozen newsboys, with stentorian lungs, bellowed up and down Beaconsfield Gardens the words, “Extry Speschul—’orrible case—Re-volting details,” alone being distinctly audible.
The women crowded to the window trying to hear, and speculating what the sensation might be. Major Jones went to the front door and bought a copy of The Star, which he kindly brought up to the drawing-room for the benefit of the ladies. ”

“ Even the lady who sold the Water of Youth had never heard of a case of a grown, an elderly person, being transformed into a baby by its effects. She foresaw that it would be generally believed that she had got rid of Augusta, and that the baby was—but who or what the baby might be considered was a point on which she absolutely refused to speculate. ”