A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Volume 3. Henty George Alfred
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doing. She told me that from what you said she believed that you intended teaching again. Now will you excuse me if I say, that although, under other circumstances, such a plan might have its advantages, yet that I think, that with a young baby, whom you would be obliged to leave without you the whole day, it would be attended by great inconveniences. Besides, there is no occasion why you should do so. My proposition is, that you should continue to do as you have hitherto done. I can leave the papers, letters, and such information as you require, here of a day, without coming in to disturb you. If I were to see you, say once a week at present, while it is the slack time, it would, I should think, be sufficient. By the time the busy season comes on, you will, I hope, be so far recovered as to be able to see me for half an hour or so every day. Of course, the remuneration will be the same as it has been up to this time. I do not think you could earn more at your teaching, and you will be able to have baby with you all day. There is another thing I should wish to say. It was through – through my late partner's capital and assistance, that we managed to do as well as we did, and it has laid the foundation for a first-rate business this year. There is at present £150 only in the bank, half of which is your property. Should you choose to let that remain in the business, I will give you, as I think would be fair, an interest in it – say one-fifth of the profits at the end of the year."
"But I have no right to that, have I, Mr. Fielding? For I know that I heard Robert say that any man would be ready to put £1,000 into the business for a third of the profits."
"That is right enough, Mrs. Gregory, and I do not disguise from you that the fifth of the business is worth a great deal more than £75, even for a sleeping partner; but that is not the question: it is not for the money, but for your interest and partnership, as it were, that I think it fair that you should still have a share in it."
"But I have no absolute right to any share, Mr. Fielding?"
"Well, not actually a right, Mrs. Gregory. You see we never drew up any deed of partnership when we began; but it was, of course, an understood thing that if anything should happen to either of us that his representatives should have some sort of interest or pull out of the affair."
"And about the writing, Mr. Fielding? Are you sure that my work is worth what you pay me?"
"Quite sure," he said, in a far less hesitating and undecided way than he had before spoken in. "I can assure you that I could not get any one on whom I could rely to do the work for less money, and that I should be very sorry for any one else to know all my affairs as you do."
"Then in that case I accept with many thanks," Sophy said, gratefully; "and I feel that you are acting with great kindness, for the £75 is no equivalent for my share of the profits. You have, indeed, taken a great weight off my mind, for I have been very troubled, wondering what I should do with baby while I was out."
"That is settled, then," Mr. Fielding said, cheerfully, as if greatly relieved that the matter had been so arranged. "I will send you the papers and letters to-morrow, when the post comes in. I can assure you it will be quite a relief to me; for although work is slack now, I have got into such a muddle that I hardly know which letters I have answered and which I have not. I have all this week's lot here." And he took a large bundle of letters from his pocket. "I believe I have answered all the others, but I have not touched one of these. I will leave them with you to clear up. And now, good bye. I will call again this day week."
And so Sophy, very joyful that she should be always with her baby, again set to at her old work of making out lists, and answering correspondents, and sending out the names of winning horses; and busied in these pursuits, and in the nursing and fondling of baby, her thoughts ceased to dwell on her project for the recovery of the will, and her eyes recovered their former expression. Not that she had given up her idea, but she had postponed it for a fitting season; the only step she took towards it being to write to her foster-mother, the woman who had brought her up, to ask her to send an account of Miss Harmer's state of health every three months, and to let her know at once if she should be taken ill.
As time went on, the first faint gleams of consciousness came into baby's eyes, and then it came to know her, and to hold out its arms, and struggle and cry to come to her, and Sophy began to feel that life might have some happiness for her yet, for she had something to love and work for, something which loved her in return.
And so a year passed, and now the little child was able just to toddle across the room, to Sophy's delight and terror, and to call her "mammy," and to utter other sounds, perfectly unintelligible to any one, but which she persisted was talking; and Sophy was able to toss him and play with him almost as gleefully as she would have done years before. She looked far younger than she had done eighteen months back, for she had now no care on her mind. Sometimes, indeed, of an evening, when her work was all done, and the child in bed, she would sit by the hour musing over her plans for the recovery of the will; but her eyes had not the fixed, strange look they used to wear when thinking it over; for then she had thought of it as a duty, as a something which she had to do; but now that it was for her darling's sake, it was a pleasure; and her eyes would lighten as she thought over what she would do when she had succeeded, and she and her boy were rich.
She was comfortably off now; for the firm was doing well, and James Fielding was a member of Tattersall's and began to stand high in the ring. His drawings had risen from five pounds to ten pounds a week. He told Sophy so, and said that he considered this five pounds had been payment for his work, in the same way that her two pounds was of hers, but this additional five pounds he looked upon as a weekly division of profits, and consequently she was entitled to another one pound a week also. So she had now three pounds a week and was very comfortable. At the end of the season he showed her his banker's book, and there was nearly £2,000 standing to his credit; and he said that next year, having so good a capital, he should be able to bet more heavily, and had no question that he should do much better.
All through that winter although business was very slack, and there was no occasion for his so doing, James Fielding used to come over three times a week to see her. And indeed all along his kindness had been very great, sending her little presents of game and poultry, and bringing baskets of choice fruit from Covent Garden.
It was not for a year after Robert Gregory's death that Sophy thought anything of all this. James Fielding had been very kind to her, and she had learned to think of him as a true friend; but absorbed as she was in her child, and with her spare thoughts so fixed on that other purpose of hers, she had never thought more on the subject. At length one day, something he said, some tone of his voice came upon her like a revelation. She started, looked hurriedly and anxiously at him and saw that it was indeed so. With an exclamation almost of pain she rose —
"James Fielding," she said, "don't say it to me. Never think of it again. Do not take away the last friend I have in the world from me. You are the only one I have to rely upon, do not make it impossible for me ever to receive a kindness from you again. I shall never marry again; do not, do not speak of it."
"I know, Sophy, I am not worthy of you," James Fielding began slowly, and then – as with an imploring gesture, she tried to silence him – "Let me speak, Sophy, I will never allude to it again."
"No, no, no," Sophy cried, passionately; "I will not hear you! If you once tell me you love me, you can never be to me what you have been before. I cannot be your wife; pray, pray, do not ask me."
"And can it never be, Sophy? Not in a long, long time?"
"Never, James, never! Think of me as a dear friend, as a sister. Shake hands, James. You will be my friend as you have been before, will you not? And the friend of my child?"
"I will, Sophy," he said, sorrowfully but earnestly. "I will, so help me God!"
It was a great blow to him; for he had come to love his late partner's pale young widow very truly, with her grave, sedate face when at business, and her pretty winning ways when he had come in sometimes and found her romping with her baby.
However, he saw at once that it was not to be, and very sorrowfully determined that at all events she should not find any change in his manner or way, and that she should be able to look on him as a brother. Had he thought that time could have made any change in his favour he would have been content to wait and hope; but he saw that there was none, and as he said to himself on his way home,