“Answer me one question,” said Ada. “The child, I heard you say, you came to London to save. Was its name Gray?”
“Gray—Gray. Who is Gray?”
“There is hope even,” sighed Ada, “in the want of confirmation of a terrible doubt. If I am the child she raves so strangely of, she knows me not by that most hateful name.”
“Will you hear my dream?” said Maud, endeavouring to rise from the cold stones.
Ada saw that blood was trickling from her head, but whether she had struck it in falling, or the man who had attempted her destruction had inflicted the wound, was doubtful. Ada, however, assisted her to her feet, and as she did so she heard the tread of the watchman as he returned slowly from his pursuit.
“He’s off,” cried the man. “Hilloa!—Ain’t the woman dead?”
“Dead!” shrieked Maud, suddenly confronting the watchman, “is Andrew Britton dead?”
“Who?”
“Andrew Britton, the savage smith; because he is to die before me. Ha! Ha! Yes, Andrew Britton will die before I do.”
With wild laughter she flew rather than ran across the bridge in the direction of Lambeth, and her voice echoed in the still morning air, as she shrieked—
“Andrew Britton—Andrew Britton—I am not dead!—Not dead yet!”
The watchman stared after her in amazement, and Ada took the opportunity, while he was thus fully engaged, of walking quickly onwards until she had cleared the bridge and the solemn spires of Westminster Abbey came upon her sight.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Ada’s Wanderings.—The Pearl Necklace.—A Kind Heart.—The Park.—A Joyous Meeting.—The Arrangement.
Cold and hunger now began to exercise a sensible influence upon the fragile frame of Ada. Her step became languid and slow, and she began to feel that her strength was fast deserting her. Her dislike to return to Jacob Gray was very great, and yet where else in that great city could she find a place whereon to lay her aching limbs? The sense of her own extreme destitution came vividly across her imagination, and had it not been for the curious gaze of the early passengers she met, she could have wept freely in her bitterness of heart. Listlessly she walked onwards, and thought, from its very intensity, became at last a positive pain. Money she had none; and, in fact, so secluded from the world had she been kept by the fears of Jacob Gray, that she would not have known how to procure the means of supporting life, even had she possessed valuable property about her.
A cold, glaring winter’s sun shone forth from a clear sky, mocking the earth with an appearance of warmth, which made the sharp wind that whistled round the corners of the streets seem doubly keen and piercing.
“Must I return to that dismal house?” thought Ada—“must I again throw myself on the mercy of that man who calls himself my father?”
She paused in doubt and irresolution, and no one who passed could fail to mark the air of deep dejection which sat upon the pale anxious face of the young girl.
It so chanced that she stopped opposite to the shop-door of a jeweller and dealer in precious stones, in Parliament-street, and as she clung to the little wooden rail that guarded the window, she saw the keen, sparkling eyes of an old man fixed on her from within. His beard and general appearance proclaimed him a Jew, and scarcely had Ada shrank from his gaze, and paused a step or two onwards, when she heard a voice behind her saying—
“My dear, will you sell that necklace?”
Ada turned quickly. The old man from the shop stood before her, and repeated his question.
“Will you sell that necklace?”
“Necklace?” said Ada.
“Yes; the little necklace you have round your pretty little neck, my dear.”
Ada now recollected that among her female attire she had found the necklace; and hastily clasped it on when dressing, to elude the search of Jacob Gray’s furious visitors.
“I am tired and hungry,” said Ada.
“Are you indeed. Bless me!” cried the old man. “Walk into my shop. You see I am an old man. Walk in—do walk in.”
Ada suffered herself to be led into the little shop, and unclasping the necklace, she said—
“Will it fetch me a meal?”
“A meal?” said the jeweller, and his eyes sparkled as he took the necklace. “A meal? Why it’s real—no, I mean mock—mock pearls—”
“And valueless?” said Ada.
“No—no—not quite—not quite, my dear. Here is a new guinea—a bright new guinea!”
Ada took the coin, and said, languidly—
“Alas! I am so strange here, I know not even how to dispose of this to procure me food.”
“Indeed?” said the jeweller. “Do you know nobody? Have you no friends?”
“Do you—can you,” said Ada, and a radiant blush suffused her cheeks as she spoke—“can you tell me, if you know where a Sir Seyton lives?”
“Does he know you had a necklace?” said the Jew.
“No, I scarcely knew it myself.”
“Indeed!” cried the jeweller, lifting up his eyes and hands. “My dear, I don’t know the gentleman you mention.”
“I thank you,” said Ada, rising.
She left the shop, and looking back after she had gone a few paces, she could not derive how it was that the Jew was putting up his shutters with nervous haste. She little knew that her necklace was of Indian pearls, and worth a very large sum indeed.
To her joy, after she had proceeded a few paces further, she saw that the second house, down a small turning to her left, was a little dairy—and immediately entering, she requested of the old woman who served, a draft of milk.
It was handed to her, and she drank it off with great pleasure and laid on the little counter her guinea.
“Would you like the rest, miss?” said the old woman; “you do seem tired, to be sure.”
“I am tired,” said Ada, “and would gladly rest myself, if I am not in your way.”
“Dear heart, no,” said the old woman. “Come in here, it’s warmer than the shop. What weather we do have to be sure.”
Ada accompanied, the woman to the little parlour at the back of the shop, and the good dame placed before her some rolls and more milk, of which the wearied girl partook with more pleasure than she ever made breakfast with before.
“You are too young to be out by yourself,” said the dame; “and a great deal too pretty too.”
Ada shook her head, as she said—
“Do you know where resides a Mr. Seyton?”
“No,” replied the woman. “This London is such an immense place, that it’s like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay to find anybody.”
“If I could find him,” sighed Ada, “he would be my friend. Is there a gentleman named Sir Francis Hartleton?”
“Indeed there is; and if you want him, he lives close at hand. He is a magistrate, and as good a man as ever breathed.”