Sir Robert's Fortune: A NovelOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
Sir Robert's Fortune: A Novel
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction
“We must find her, that is all,” said Lily, as they turned away, Beenie
trembling and miserable, with subdued sniffs coming from under her deep
bonnet. Her mistress, in the petulance which neither anxiety nor trouble
could quench, gave her “a shake” with her arm, which still leaned upon
hers, though Lily for the moment was the more vigorous of the two. “We
must find her, that is all! She must be clever indeed if she can hide
herself in Edinburgh and you and me not find her, Beenie! We must search
every street till we find her!” Lily cried. The color had come back to
her cheeks and the light to her eyes. That blessed assurance that,
wherever Marg’ret might be, the baby was safe, doubly safe in her
skilled and experienced hands, was to the young mother like wine. The
horror of the disappointment seemed to be disguised, almost to pass
away, in that unpremeditated testimony. If it was for to-morrow rather
than for to-day so long as he was so safe, so well, so assured against
all harm, as that! “We have only to find her,” Lily said, dragging
Beenie back to the hackney coach, in which they immediately drove to the
place where Marg’ret, now to be spoken of as Mistress Bland, had been
supposed to place her furniture. But this was no more than a warehouse,
where the person in charge allowed disdainfully that twa-three auld
sticks o’ furniture in that name were in his charge, but knew nothing
more of the wumman than just that they were hers, and that that was her
name. Lily, however, was not discouraged. She drove about all day in her
hackney coach, catching at every clue. She went to the hospitals, where
Mrs. Bland was known but supposed to be still with the lady in the North
who had secured her services in the summer.
“If you know where she’s to be heard of,” one of the matrons said, “I
will be too thankful, for there is another place waiting for her or
somebody like her.”
“And is she such a good nurse as that?” cried Lily, glowing with
eagerness all in a moment, though her face had relapsed into pallor and
anxiety.
“She is one of the best nurses we have; and especially happy with
delicate children,” the matron answered with some astonishment. And she
tapped Beenie on the shoulder and said an indignant word in her ear.
“Woman!” she said, “are you mad to let your mistress wander about like
this, when it’s well to be seen she’s just out of her bed, and in my
opinion not long past her time?”
“My mistress,” said Beenie, with a gasp, “is just a young lady--in from
the country.”
“Just you get her back as fast as you can,” said the experienced woman,
“or you’ll have her worse than ever on your hands again.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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