Since she had grown older, she had taken pleasure in dusting them and arranging them, admiring the toys of old silver, and the carved ivories and trifles of all kinds, from the ends of the earth. It was her great pleasure on the Sunday afternoons, when her father was with her, to open the drawers of the cabinet and bring out the sheets of the herbarium so carefully arranged and classified. Her knowledge, perhaps, was not very scientific, but it was accurate in detail, and in what may be called locality in the highest degree. She knew what family abode in what drawer, and all its ramifications. These were more like neighbours to Dora, lodged in surrounding houses, than specimens in drawers. She knew all about them, where they came from, and their genealogy, and which were the grandparents, and which the children; and, still more interesting, in what jungle or marsh her father had found them, and which of them came from the African deserts in which he had once been lost.
By degrees she had found out much about that wonderful episode in his life, and had become vaguely aware, which was the greatest discovery of all, that it contained many things which she had not found out, and perhaps never would. She knew even how to lead him to talk about it, which had to be very skilfully done—for he was shy of the subject when assailed openly, and often shrank from the very name of Africa as if it stung him; while on other occasions, led on by some train of thought in his own mind, he would fall into long lines of recollections, and tell her of the fever attacks, one after another, which had laid him low, and how the time had gone over him like a dream, so that he never knew till long after how many months, and even years, he had lost.
Where was the mother all this time, it may be asked? Dora knew no more of this part of her history than if she had come into the world without need of any such medium, like Minerva from her father’s head.
It is difficult to find out from the veiled being of a little child what it thinks upon such a subject, or if it is aware at all, when it has never been used to any other state of affairs, of the strange vacancy in its own life. Dora never put a single question to her father on this point; and he had often asked himself whether her mind was dead to all that side of life which she had never known, or whether some instinct kept her silent; and had satisfied himself at last that, as she knew scarcely any other children, the want in her own life had not struck her imagination. Indeed, the grandchildren of Mrs. Simcox, the landlady, were almost the only children Dora had ever known familiarly, and they, like herself, had no mother, they had granny; and Dora had inquired of her father about her own granny, who was dead long ago.
“You have only me, my poor little girl,” he had said. But Dora had been quite satisfied.
“Janie and Molly have no papa,” she answered, with a little pride. It was a great superiority, and made up for everything, and she inquired no more. Nature, Mr. Mannering knew, was by no means so infallible as we think her. He did not know, however, what is a still more recondite and profound knowledge, what secret things are in a child’s heart.
I have known a widowed mother who wondered sadly for years why her children showed so little interest and asked no questions about their father; and then found out, from the lips of one grown into full manhood, what visions had been wrapt about that unknown image, and how his portrait had been the confidant of many a little secret trouble hidden even from herself. But Dora had not even a portrait to give embodiment to any wistful thoughts. Perhaps it was to her not merely that her mother was dead, but that she had never been. Perhaps—but who knows the questions that arise in that depth profound, the heart of a child?
It was not till Dora was fifteen that she received the great shock, yet revelation, of discovering the portrait of a lady in her father’s room.
Was it her mother? She could not tell. It was the portrait of a young lady, which is not a child’s ideal of a mother. It was hidden away in a secret drawer of which she had discovered the existence only by a chance in the course of some unauthorised investigations among Mr. Mannering’s private properties.
He had lost something which Dora was intent on surprising him by finding; and this was what led her to these investigations. It was in a second Italian cabinet which was in his bedroom, an inferior specimen to that in the drawing-room, but one more private, about which her curiosity had never been awakened. He kept handkerchiefs, neckties, uninteresting items of personal use in it, which Dora was somewhat carelessly turning over, when by accident the secret spring was touched, and the drawer flew open. In this there was a miniature case which presented a very strange spectacle when Dora, a little excited, opened it. There seemed to be nothing but a blank at first, until, on further examination, Dora found that the miniature had been turned face downwards in its case. It may be imagined with what eager curiosity she continued her investigations.
The picture, as has been said, was that of a young lady—quite a young lady, not much older, Dora thought, than herself. Who could this girl be? Her mother? But that girlish face could not belong to any girl’s mother. It was not beautiful to Dora’s eyes; but yet full of vivacity and interest, a face that had much to say if one only knew its language; with dark, bright eyes, and a tremulous smile about the lips. Who was it; oh, who was it? Was it that little sister of papa’s who was dead, whose name had been Dora too? Was it –
Dora did not know what to think, or how to explain the little shock which was given her by this discovery. She shut up the drawer hastily, but she had not the heart to turn the portrait again as it had been turned, face downwards. It seemed too unkind, cruel almost. Why should her face be turned downwards, that living, smiling face? “I will ask papa,” Dora said to herself; but she could not tell why it was, any more than she could explain her other sensations on the subject, that when the appropriate moment came to do so, she had not the courage to ask papa.
CHAPTER III
There was one remarkable thing in Dora Mannering’s life which I have omitted to mention, which is, that she was in the habit of receiving periodically, though at very uncertain intervals, out of that vast but vague universe surrounding England, which we call generally “abroad,” a box. No one knew where it came from, or who it came from; at least, no light was ever thrown to Dora upon that mystery. It was despatched now from one place, now from another; and not a name, or a card, or a scrap of paper was ever found to identify the sender.
This box contained always a store of delights for the recipient, who, though she was in a manner monarch of all she surveyed, was without many of the more familiar pleasures of childhood. It had contained toys and pretty knick-knacks of many quaint foreign kinds when she was quite a child; but as she grew older, the mind of her unknown friend seemed to follow her growth with the strangest certainty of what would please these advancing youthful years.
The foundation of the box, if that word may be employed, was always a store of the daintiest underclothing, delicately made, which followed Dora’s needs and growth, growing longer as she grew taller; so that underneath her frocks, which were not always lovely, the texture, form, and colour being chiefly decided by the dressmaker who had “made” for her as long as she could remember, Dora was clothed like a princess; and thus accustomed from her childhood to the most delicate and dainty accessories—fine linen, fine wool, silk stockings, handkerchiefs good enough for any fine lady. Her father had not, at first, liked to see these fine things; he had pushed them away when she spread them out to show him her treasures, and turned his back upon her, bidding her carry off her trumpery.
It was so seldom, so very seldom, that Mr. Mannering had an objection to anything done by Dora, that this little exhibition of temper had an extraordinary effect; but the interval between one arrival and another was long enough to sweep any such recollection out of the mind of a child; and as she grew older, more intelligent to note what he meant, and, above all, more curious about everything that happened, he had changed his tone. But he had a look which Dora classified in her own mind as “the face father puts on when my box comes".
This is a sort of thing which imprints itself very clearly upon the mind of the juvenile spectator and critic. Dora knew it as well as she knew the clothes her father