Volume One—Chapter Three.Captain Millet’s Brother’s Wife.Plump, blonde Lady Millet uttered an ejaculation and made a gesture of annoyance as she settled herself in a luxurious lounge.“Now, do for goodness’ sake wipe your eyes, Gertrude, and be sensible if you can! I declare it’s enough to worry one to death. Once for all, I tell you I do not like these Huishes, and what your father could have been about to listen to your uncle Robert and bring that young man here I can’t think.”Gertrude Millet forced back her tears, and bent lower over some work upon which she was engaged in the drawing-room of her father’s house in Grosvenor Square.“They are very plebeian sort of people, and they have no money; but because his father was an old friend of your uncle Robert’s when he was a young man, this Mr John Huish must be invited here, and you, you silly child! must let him make eyes at you.”“Really, mamma—”“Now do let me speak, Gertrude,” said Lady Millet severely. “It is as I say, and I will not have it. Sentimentality does very well for low-class people, but we have a position to maintain, and I have other views for you.”“But, mamma, you never thought Frank Morrison plebeian,” said Gertrude, raising her bright grey eyes to bring them to bear on her dignified mother, who was arranging the lace about her plump white throat.“My dear child, comparisons are odious, and at your age you should allow people to think for you. Does it ever occur to you that your mother’s sole wish—the object for which she almost entirely lives—is to see her child happily settled in life? No, no; don’t speak, please: you hurt me. I consented to your sister Renée’s union with Frank for many reasons. Certainly his family is plebeian, but he is a young man whom I am rejoiced to see determined to make use of his wealth to his own elevation—to marry well, and be the founder of a new family of gentry.”“But I’m sure Renée is not happy, mamma.”“Then, in her position, it is her own fault, my dear, of course. I had been married years before I had a second carriage. Once for all, there is no comparison between Frank and this Mr Huish. If it had not been out of commiseration for your uncle Robert—it being his wish—Mr Huish would not have been received here at all.”Gertrude bit her nether lip, and bent lower over her work as sweet and lovable a face as girl of twenty could have.“Your uncle is a most unhappy man; and if he were not so rich people would call him insane, living such an absurd life as he does. I often feel as if I must go and rouse him up, and force him to act like a Christian. By the way, you have not been to see him lately?”“No, mamma.”“Call, then, soon. He must not be neglected. We have our duties to do, and that is one of them. He is always kind to you?”“Always, mamma.”“That is right. You must humour him, for he seems to have taken a most unnatural dislike to Richard.”“Yes, mamma.”“Do you think so?” said Lady Millet sharply.“He forbade Dick to call again after he had importuned him for money.”“Foolish, reckless boy! That’s the way young people always seem to me determined to wreck their prospects. Your uncle Robert has no one else to leave his money to but you children, and yet you persist in running counter to his wishes.”“I, mamma?”“All of you. Do you suppose because he desired your father to take a little more notice of this John Huish that you were to throw yourself at his head?”Gertrude squeezed her eyelids very tightly together, and took three or four stitches in the dark.“I have always found Uncle Robert particularly kind to me.”“And so he would be to Renée and to Richard if they were not so foolish. I declare I don’t know what that boy can possibly do with his money. But, there, I suppose being in a regiment is expensive.”“Do you like Major Malpas, mamma?” said Gertrude suddenly.“Certainly not!” said Lady Millet tartly; “and really, Gertrude, you are a most extraordinary girl! John Huish one moment, Major Malpas the next. Huish was bad enough; now don’t, for goodness’ sake, go throwing yourself at Major Malpas.”“Mamma!”“Will you let me speak, child?” cried Lady Millet angrily. “I don’t know what you girls are thinking about! Why, you are as bad as Renée! If I had not been firm, she would have certainly accepted him, and he is a man of most expensive habits. It was most absurd of Renée. But there: that’s over. But I do rather wonder at Frank making so much of a friend of him. Oh dear me, no, Gertrude! that would be impossible!”“Of course, mamma!”“Then why did you talk in that tone?”“Because I don’t like Major Malpas, and I am sure Renée does not, either.”“Of course she does not. She is a married lady. Surely she can be civil to people without always thinking of liking! It was a curious chance that Richard should be gazetted into the same regiment; and under the circumstances I have been bound to invite him and that other officer, Captain Glen, here, for they can help your brother, no doubt, a great deal. You see, I have to think of everything, for your poor father only thinks now of his dinners and his clubs.”Gertrude sighed and went on with her work, while Lady Millet yawned, got up, looked out of the window, and came back.“Quite time the carriage was round. Then I am to go alone?”“I promised Renée to be in this morning,” said Gertrude quietly.“Ah, well; then I suppose you must stop. I wonder whether Lady Littletown will take any notice of Richard now he is at Hampton Court?”“I should think she would, mamma. She is always most friendly.”“Friendly, but not trustworthy, my dear. A terribly scheming woman, Gertrude. Her sole idea seems to be match-making. But, there, Richard is too young to become her prey!”Gertrude’s brow wrinkled, and she looked wonderingly at her mother, whose face was averted.“I have been looking up the Glens. Not a bad family, but a younger branch. I suppose Richard will accompany his brother officer here one of these days. By the way, my dear, Lord Henry Moorpark seemed rather attentive to you at the Lindleys the other night.”“Yes, mamma,” said Gertrude quietly; “he took me in to supper, and sat and chatted with me a long time.”“Yes; I noticed that he did.”“I like Lord Henry, mamma; he is so kind and gentle and courteous.”“Very, my dear.”“One always feels as if one could confide in him—he is so fatherly, and—”“My dear Gertrude!”“What have I said, mamma?”“Something absurd. Fatherly! What nonsense! Lord Henry is in the prime of life, and you must not talk like that. You girls are so foolish! You think of no one but boys with pink and white faces and nothing to say for themselves. Lord Henry Moorpark is a mostdistinguégentle—I mean a nobleman; and judging from the attentions he began to pay you the other night, I—”“Oh, mamma! surely you cannot think that?”“And pray why not, Gertrude?” said Lady Millet austerely. “Why should not I thinkthat? Do you suppose I wish to see my youngest daughter marry some penniless boy? Do, pray, for goodness’ sake, throw away all that bread-and-butter, schoolgirl, sentimental nonsense. It is quite on the cards that Lord Henry Moorpark may propose for you.”“Oh dear,” thought Gertrude; “and I was talking to him so warmly about John Huish!”Gertrude’s red lips parted, showing her white teeth, and the peachy pink faded out of her cheeks as she sat there with her face contracting, and a cloud seemed to come over her young life, in whose shadow she saw herself, and her future as joyless as that of the sister who had been married about a year earlier to a wealthy young north Yorkshire manufacturer, who was now neglecting her and making her look old before her time.“There, it must be nearly three,” said Lady Millet, rising; “I’ll go and put on my things. I shall not come in again, Gertrude. Give my love to Renée, and if Lord Henry Moorpark does come—but, there, I have perfect faith in your behaving like a sensible girl. By the way, Richard may run up. If he does, try and keep him to dinner. I don’t half like his being at that wretched Hampton Court; it is so terribly suggestive of holiday people and those dreadful vans.”With these words Lady Millet sailed out of the room, thinking to herself that a better managing mother never lived, and a quarter of an hour after she entered her carriage to go and distribute cards at the houses of her dearest friends.
Plump, blonde Lady Millet uttered an ejaculation and made a gesture of annoyance as she settled herself in a luxurious lounge.
“Now, do for goodness’ sake wipe your eyes, Gertrude, and be sensible if you can! I declare it’s enough to worry one to death. Once for all, I tell you I do not like these Huishes, and what your father could have been about to listen to your uncle Robert and bring that young man here I can’t think.”
Gertrude Millet forced back her tears, and bent lower over some work upon which she was engaged in the drawing-room of her father’s house in Grosvenor Square.
“They are very plebeian sort of people, and they have no money; but because his father was an old friend of your uncle Robert’s when he was a young man, this Mr John Huish must be invited here, and you, you silly child! must let him make eyes at you.”
“Really, mamma—”
“Now do let me speak, Gertrude,” said Lady Millet severely. “It is as I say, and I will not have it. Sentimentality does very well for low-class people, but we have a position to maintain, and I have other views for you.”
“But, mamma, you never thought Frank Morrison plebeian,” said Gertrude, raising her bright grey eyes to bring them to bear on her dignified mother, who was arranging the lace about her plump white throat.
“My dear child, comparisons are odious, and at your age you should allow people to think for you. Does it ever occur to you that your mother’s sole wish—the object for which she almost entirely lives—is to see her child happily settled in life? No, no; don’t speak, please: you hurt me. I consented to your sister Renée’s union with Frank for many reasons. Certainly his family is plebeian, but he is a young man whom I am rejoiced to see determined to make use of his wealth to his own elevation—to marry well, and be the founder of a new family of gentry.”
“But I’m sure Renée is not happy, mamma.”
“Then, in her position, it is her own fault, my dear, of course. I had been married years before I had a second carriage. Once for all, there is no comparison between Frank and this Mr Huish. If it had not been out of commiseration for your uncle Robert—it being his wish—Mr Huish would not have been received here at all.”
Gertrude bit her nether lip, and bent lower over her work as sweet and lovable a face as girl of twenty could have.
“Your uncle is a most unhappy man; and if he were not so rich people would call him insane, living such an absurd life as he does. I often feel as if I must go and rouse him up, and force him to act like a Christian. By the way, you have not been to see him lately?”
“No, mamma.”
“Call, then, soon. He must not be neglected. We have our duties to do, and that is one of them. He is always kind to you?”
“Always, mamma.”
“That is right. You must humour him, for he seems to have taken a most unnatural dislike to Richard.”
“Yes, mamma.”
“Do you think so?” said Lady Millet sharply.
“He forbade Dick to call again after he had importuned him for money.”
“Foolish, reckless boy! That’s the way young people always seem to me determined to wreck their prospects. Your uncle Robert has no one else to leave his money to but you children, and yet you persist in running counter to his wishes.”
“I, mamma?”
“All of you. Do you suppose because he desired your father to take a little more notice of this John Huish that you were to throw yourself at his head?”
Gertrude squeezed her eyelids very tightly together, and took three or four stitches in the dark.
“I have always found Uncle Robert particularly kind to me.”
“And so he would be to Renée and to Richard if they were not so foolish. I declare I don’t know what that boy can possibly do with his money. But, there, I suppose being in a regiment is expensive.”
“Do you like Major Malpas, mamma?” said Gertrude suddenly.
“Certainly not!” said Lady Millet tartly; “and really, Gertrude, you are a most extraordinary girl! John Huish one moment, Major Malpas the next. Huish was bad enough; now don’t, for goodness’ sake, go throwing yourself at Major Malpas.”
“Mamma!”
“Will you let me speak, child?” cried Lady Millet angrily. “I don’t know what you girls are thinking about! Why, you are as bad as Renée! If I had not been firm, she would have certainly accepted him, and he is a man of most expensive habits. It was most absurd of Renée. But there: that’s over. But I do rather wonder at Frank making so much of a friend of him. Oh dear me, no, Gertrude! that would be impossible!”
“Of course, mamma!”
“Then why did you talk in that tone?”
“Because I don’t like Major Malpas, and I am sure Renée does not, either.”
“Of course she does not. She is a married lady. Surely she can be civil to people without always thinking of liking! It was a curious chance that Richard should be gazetted into the same regiment; and under the circumstances I have been bound to invite him and that other officer, Captain Glen, here, for they can help your brother, no doubt, a great deal. You see, I have to think of everything, for your poor father only thinks now of his dinners and his clubs.”
Gertrude sighed and went on with her work, while Lady Millet yawned, got up, looked out of the window, and came back.
“Quite time the carriage was round. Then I am to go alone?”
“I promised Renée to be in this morning,” said Gertrude quietly.
“Ah, well; then I suppose you must stop. I wonder whether Lady Littletown will take any notice of Richard now he is at Hampton Court?”
“I should think she would, mamma. She is always most friendly.”
“Friendly, but not trustworthy, my dear. A terribly scheming woman, Gertrude. Her sole idea seems to be match-making. But, there, Richard is too young to become her prey!”
Gertrude’s brow wrinkled, and she looked wonderingly at her mother, whose face was averted.
“I have been looking up the Glens. Not a bad family, but a younger branch. I suppose Richard will accompany his brother officer here one of these days. By the way, my dear, Lord Henry Moorpark seemed rather attentive to you at the Lindleys the other night.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Gertrude quietly; “he took me in to supper, and sat and chatted with me a long time.”
“Yes; I noticed that he did.”
“I like Lord Henry, mamma; he is so kind and gentle and courteous.”
“Very, my dear.”
“One always feels as if one could confide in him—he is so fatherly, and—”
“My dear Gertrude!”
“What have I said, mamma?”
“Something absurd. Fatherly! What nonsense! Lord Henry is in the prime of life, and you must not talk like that. You girls are so foolish! You think of no one but boys with pink and white faces and nothing to say for themselves. Lord Henry Moorpark is a mostdistinguégentle—I mean a nobleman; and judging from the attentions he began to pay you the other night, I—”
“Oh, mamma! surely you cannot think that?”
“And pray why not, Gertrude?” said Lady Millet austerely. “Why should not I thinkthat? Do you suppose I wish to see my youngest daughter marry some penniless boy? Do, pray, for goodness’ sake, throw away all that bread-and-butter, schoolgirl, sentimental nonsense. It is quite on the cards that Lord Henry Moorpark may propose for you.”
“Oh dear,” thought Gertrude; “and I was talking to him so warmly about John Huish!”
Gertrude’s red lips parted, showing her white teeth, and the peachy pink faded out of her cheeks as she sat there with her face contracting, and a cloud seemed to come over her young life, in whose shadow she saw herself, and her future as joyless as that of the sister who had been married about a year earlier to a wealthy young north Yorkshire manufacturer, who was now neglecting her and making her look old before her time.
“There, it must be nearly three,” said Lady Millet, rising; “I’ll go and put on my things. I shall not come in again, Gertrude. Give my love to Renée, and if Lord Henry Moorpark does come—but, there, I have perfect faith in your behaving like a sensible girl. By the way, Richard may run up. If he does, try and keep him to dinner. I don’t half like his being at that wretched Hampton Court; it is so terribly suggestive of holiday people and those dreadful vans.”
With these words Lady Millet sailed out of the room, thinking to herself that a better managing mother never lived, and a quarter of an hour after she entered her carriage to go and distribute cards at the houses of her dearest friends.
Volume One—Chapter Four.The Remains of a Fall.Gertrude Millet’s anxious look grew deeper as she sat with her work in her lap, thinking of John Huish and certain tender passages which had somehow passed between them; then of Lord Henry Moorpark, the pleasant, elderly nobleman whose attentions had been so pleasant and so innocently received; and as she thought of him a burning blush suffused her cheeks, and she tried to recall the words he had last spoken to her.The consequence was a fit of low spirits, which did not become high when later on Mrs Frank Morrison called, dismissed her carriage, and sat chatting for some time with her sister, Lady Millet being, she said, in the park.“You need not tell me I look well,” said Gertrude, pouting slightly. “I declare you look miserable.”“Oh no, dear, only a little low-spirited to-day. Have you called on Uncle Robert lately?”“Without you? No.”“Then let’s go.”Gertrude jumped at the suggestion, and half an hour later the sisters were making their way along Wimpole Street the gloomy, to stop at last before the most wan-looking of all the dreary houses in that most dreary street. It was a house before which no organ-man ever stopped to play, no street vendor to shout his wares, nor passer-by to examine from top to bottom; the yellow shutters were closed, and the appearance of the place said distinctly “out of town.” The windows were very dirty, but that is rather a fashion in Wimpole Street, where the windows get very dirty in a month, very much dirtier in two months, and as dirty as possible in three. They, of course, never get any worse, for when once they have arrived a this pitch they may go for years, the weather rather improving them, what with the rain’s washing and the sun’s bleaching.The paint of the front door was the worst part about that house, for the sun had raised it in little blisters, which street boys could not bear to see without cracking and picking off in flakes; and the consequence was that the door looked as if it had had a bad attack of some skin disease, and a new cuticle of a paler hue was growing beneath the old.Wimpole Street was then famous for the knockers upon its doors. They were large and resounding. In fact, a clever manipulator could raise a noise that would go rolling on a still night from nearly one end of the street to the other. For, in their wisdom, our ancestors seized the idea of a knocker on that sounding-board, a front door, as a means to warn servants downstairs that someone was waiting, by a deafening noise that appealed to those in quite a different part of the place. But this was not allowed at the house with the blistered front door, for a great staple had been placed over one side for years, and when you had passed the two great iron extinguishers that were never used for links, and under the fantastic ironwork that had never held a lamp since the street had been lit with gas, and, ascending three steps, stood at the door, you could only contrive quite a diminutive kind of knock, such as was given upon that occasion by Renée, for Gertrude was carrying a large bouquet of flowers.The knock was hard enough to bring a little bleached, sparrow-like man, dressed in black, to the door, and his colourless face, made more pallid by a little black silk cap he wore, brightened as he held his head first on one side, then on the other, his triangular nose adding to his sparrow-like appearance, and giving a stranger the idea that he would never kiss anyone, but would peck.“How is my uncle this morning, Vidler?” said Gertrude.“Capital, miss,” said the little man, holding wide the door for the ladies to enter, and closing it quickly, lest, apparently, too much light should enter at the same time.For the place was very gloomy and subdued within. The great leather porter’s chair, the umbrella-stand, and the pictures all looked sombre and black. Even the two classical figures holding lamps, that had not been lighted for a quarter of a century at least, were swarthy, and a stranger would have gone stumbling and feeling his way along; but not so Vidler, Captain Robert Millet’s handy servant. He was as much at home in the gloom as an owl, and in a quick, hurried way that was almost spasmodic he led the visitors upstairs, but only to stop on the first landing.“If I might make so bold, Miss Gertrude,” he said, holding his head on one side. “I don’t often see a flower now.”The girl held up the bouquet, and the little man had a long sniff with a noise as if taking a pinch of snuff, said, “Thank you, miss,” and went on up to the back drawing-room door, which was a little lighter than the staircase, for the top of the shutters of one of the three tall narrow windows was open.A glance round the room showed that it was scrupulously clean. Time had blackened the paint and ceiling, but everything that could be cleaned or polished was in the highest state of perfection.For Valentine Vidler and his wife Salome, being very religious and conscientious people, told themselves and one another nearly every day that as the master never supervised anything it was the more their duty to keep the place in the best of order. For instance, Vidler would say:“I don’t think I shall clean all that plate over this week, Salome. It’s as bright as it can be.”When to him Salome: “Valentine, there’s One above who knows all, and though your master may not know that you have not cleaned the plate, He will.”“That’s very true, Salome,” the little man would say with a sigh, and then set to work in a green baize apron, and was soon be-rouged up to the eyes as he polished away.Another day, perhaps, it would be Salome’s turn; for the temptation, as she called it, would attack her. The weather would be hot, perhaps, and a certain languid feeling, the result of a want of change, would come over her.“Valentine,” she would say, perhaps, “I think the big looking-glass in the drawing-room will do this week; it’s as clean as clean.”“Hah!” would say Valentine, with a sigh, “Satan has got tight hold of you again, my dear little woman. It is your weakness that you ought to resist. Do you think the Lord cannot see those three fly-specks at the bottom corner? Resist the temptation, woman; resist it.”Then little Salome, who was a tiny plump downy woman, who somehow reminded people of a thick potato-shoot that had grown in the dark, would sigh, put on an apron that covered her all over except her face, climb on a pair of steps, and polish the great mirror till it was as clear as hands could make it.She was a pleasant-faced little body, and very neatly dressed. There was a little fair sausage made up of rolled-up hair on each side of her face, two very shiny smooth surfaces of hair over her forehead, and a neat little white line up the centre, the whole being surmounted by one of those quaint high-crowned caps which project over to the front. In fact, there was, in spite of the potato-shoot allusion, a good deal of resemblance in little Mrs Vidler to a plump charity child, especially as she wore an apron with a bib, a white muslin kerchief crossed over her bosom, and a pair of muslin sleeves up to her elbows.The little woman was in the drawing-room armed with a duster as Valentine showed up the young ladies, and she faced round and made two little bobs, quite in the charity-school-child fashion, as taught by those who so carefully make it the first duty of such children to obey their pastors and masters, and order themselves lowly and reverently, and make bobs and bows to—all their betters.“Why, my dears, I am glad you’re come,” she exclaimed. “Miss Renée—there, I beg your pardon—Mrs Morrison, what an age it is since I saw you! And only to think you are a married lady now, when only the other day you two were little things, and I used to bring you one in each hand, looking quite frightened, into this room.”“Ah yes, Salome, times are changed,” said Renée sadly. “How is uncle?”“Very well, my dear,” said the little woman, holding her head on one side to listen in the same birdlike way adopted by her husband. “He’s not in his room yet. But what beautiful flowers!”She, too, inhaled the scent precisely in her husband’s fashion, before fetching a china bowl from a chiffonier, and carefully wiping it inside and out, though it was already the perfection of cleanliness.“A jug of clean water, if you please, Vidler,” she said softly.“Yes, my dear,” said the little man, smiling at the sisters, and giving his hands a rub together, before obeying his wife.“I was so sorry, Miss Renée—there, I must call you so, my dear; it’s so natural—I was so sorry that I did not see you when you came. Only to think of my being out a whole month nursing my poor sister! I hadn’t been away from the place before for twenty years, and poor Vidler was so upset without me. And I don’t think,” she added, nodding, “that master liked it.”“I’m sure he would not,” said Gertrude; and then, the little man coming in very quietly and closing the door after him, water was poured in the china bowl, the flowers duly deposited therein and placed upon a small mahogany bracket in front of a panel in the centre of the room.“There, my dears, I’ll go now. I dare say he will not be long.”The little woman smiled at the sisters, and the little man nodded at them in a satisfied way as if he thought them very pleasant to look upon. Then, taking his wife’s hand, they toddled together out of the room.A quaint, subdued old room—clean, and yet comfortless. Upon a wet day, when a London fog hung over the streets and filled the back yards, no female could have sat in it for an hour without moistening her handkerchief with tears. For it was, in its dim twilight, like a drawing-room of the past, full of sad old memories of the dead and gone, who haunted it and clung to its furniture and chairs. It was impossible to sit there long without peopling the seats with those who once occupied them—without seeing soft, sad faces reflected in the mirrors, or hearing fancied footsteps on the faded carpet.And it was so now, as the sisters sat thinking in silence, Renée with her head resting upon her hand, Gertrude with her eyes closed, half dreaming of what might have been.For Gertrude’s thoughts ran back to a miniature in her father’s desk of a handsome, sun-browned young man in uniform, bright-eyed, keen, and animated; and she thought of what she had heard of his history: how he had loved some fair young girl before his regiment was ordered away to Canada. How he had come back to find that she had become another’s, and then that some terrible struggle had occurred between him and his rival, and the young officer had been maimed for life—turned in one minute from the strong, vigorous man to a misanthrope, who dragged himself about with difficulty, half paralysed in his lower limbs, but bruised more painfully in his heart. For, broken in spirit as in body, he had shut himself up, after his long illness, never seeing a soul, never going out of the closely shuttered rooms that he had chosen for himself in his lonely faded house.Vidler had been a drummer in his regiment, she had heard, and he had devoted himself to the master who had fetched him in when lying wounded under fire; and in due time Vidler had married and brought his little wife to the house, the couple never leaving it except on some emergency, but growing to like the darkness in which they dwelt, and sternly doing their duty by him they served.“Poor uncle!” sighed Gertrude, as she thought of his desolate life, and her own sad position. “I wonder who it was he loved.”As the thought crossed her mind, there was a slight noise in the next room, like the tapping of a stick upon the floor, and Gertrude laid her hand upon her sister’s arm.Then the noise ceased, and the little panel, about a foot square, before which the flowers had been placed, was drawn aside, seeming to run into a groove.The sisters did not move, but waited, knowing from old experience that at a word or movement on their part the panel would be clapped impatiently to, and that their visit would be a fruitless one.A stranger would have thought of rats and the action of one of those rodents in what took place; for now that the panel had been slid back, all remained perfectly still, as if the mover were listening and watching. Then at last a thin, very white hand appeared, lifted the flowers out of the bowl, and they disappeared.There was not even a rustling noise heard for a few minutes, during which the sisters sat patiently waiting.At last there was a faint sigh; and a cold—so to speak, colourless—voice said:“Is Gertrude there?”“Yes, dear uncle,” said the young girl eagerly.“Anyone else?”“I am here too, dear uncle,” said Renée.“Hah! I am glad to hear you, my children—glad to hear you. How is my brother?”“Papa is not very well, uncle,” said Gertrude. “Poor dear, his cough is very troublesome.”“Poor Humphrey! he is so weak,” said the voice, in the same cold, monotonous way that was almost repulsive in its chilling tone. “Tell him, when he is well enough, he can come and talk to me for half an hour. I cannot bear more.”“Yes, dear uncle, I will tell him,” said Renée.Then there was another pause, and at last the thin white hand stole cautiously forth, half covered with a lace frill, and the cold voice said:“Renée!”The young wife left her seat, went forward, took it in her ungloved hand, and kissed it. Then she returned to her place, and the voice said:“Gertrude!”The young girl went through the same performance, and as she loosed it, the hand was passed gently over both her cheeks, and then withdrawn, when Gertrude returned to her seat, and there was again silence.“You are not happy, Renée,” said the voice at last, in its cold measured accents; “there was a tear on my hand.”Renée sighed, but made no reply.“Gertrude, child, I like duty towards parents; but I think a daughter goes too far when, at their wish, she marries a man she does not love.”“Oh, uncle dear,” cried Gertrude hysterically, “pray, pray, do not talk like this!”She made a brave effort to keep back her tears, and partially succeeded, for Renée softly knelt down by her side and drew her head close to her breast.“Poor children!” said the voice again. “I am sorry, but I cannot help you. You must help yourselves.”There was a nervous, querulous tone in the voice now, as if the suppressed sobs that faintly rose troubled the speaker, but it had passed when the voice was heard once more in a quiet way, more like an appeal than a command:“Sing to me.”The sisters rose and went to a very old-fashioned grand piano, opened it, and Gertrude’s fingers swept the wiry jangling chords which sounded quite in keeping with the room; then, subduing the music as much as possible, so that their fresh young voices dominated, rising and falling in a rich harmony that floated through the room, they sang the old, old duet, “Flow on, thou shining river.” Every note seemed to have in it the sadness of age, the mournful blending of the bygone when hope was young and disappointment and care had not crushed with a load of misery a heart once fresh as those of the singers.A deep sigh came from the little panel, unheard, though, by the two girls, and the hand appeared once more for the thin white fingers to tap the wood gently in unison with the music, which was inexpressibly sweet, though sad.For how is it that those melodies of the past, even though major, seemed to acquire a mournful tone that is not minor, but has all its sad sweetness? Take what pathetic air you will of a generation or two back, and see if it has not acquired within your knowledge a power of drawing tears that it had not in the days of old.From the simple duet, first one and then the other glided to the old-fashioned ditties popular thirty or forty years before. “Those evening bells,” “Waters of Elle,” and the like, till, without thinking, Gertrude began “Love not,” her sweet young voice sounding intensely pathetic as she went on, gradually gathering inspiration from the words, till in the midst of the sweetest, most appealing strain, she uttered a cry of misery, and threw herself sobbing into her sister’s arms.“Oh, Gerty, darling, why did you sing that?” whispered Renée, trying to soothe her, as her own tears fell fast, but for a few minutes in vain, till by a brave effort Gertrude got the better of her hysterical feelings, and, hastily wiping her eyes, glanced towards the panel, where the bowl of water stood upon the bracket, but the opening was closed.The sisters looked piteously at one another, and Renée whispered:“Speak to him. Tell him you did not wish to make him angry.”Gertrude glided to the panel, and, stifling a sob, she said softly:“Uncle, dear uncle, do not be cross with me—I am very sorry. I was so miserable.”There was no reply—no sound to indicate that the words had been heard; and after waiting for about a quarter of an hour the two girls crossed to the door, went slowly out, and found that they had had an audience in the shape of Valentine Vidler and his wife, who had been seated upon the stairs.“Thank you, my dears,” said Salome, nodding and smiling. “We like to hear you sing. You have made a very long stay to-day, and his lunch is quite ready.”The sisters were too heartsore to trust themselves to say much, and Vidler opened the door for them, admitting as little light as he could by closing it directly and going to assist his wife.“Renée,” said Gertrude as they reached the square, “do you remember what Uncle Robert said?”“Yes. He could not help us—we must help ourselves.”“Then”—There was a pause.“Yes, dear, what?”“I’m sure mamma is planning for me to marry Lord Henry Moorpark.”“I’m afraid so.”“And I’m sure, Ren dear, he’s a dear, amiable, nice old man; but if he proposes I never will say ‘Yes’.”There was another pause, and then Renée smiled, passed her arm round her handsome sister’s neck, and kissed her lovingly.“Have you got John Huish very bad?” she whispered.Gertrude’s cheeks were crimson, and the colour flushed into her neck as she flung her arms round her sister and hid her face on her breast.
Gertrude Millet’s anxious look grew deeper as she sat with her work in her lap, thinking of John Huish and certain tender passages which had somehow passed between them; then of Lord Henry Moorpark, the pleasant, elderly nobleman whose attentions had been so pleasant and so innocently received; and as she thought of him a burning blush suffused her cheeks, and she tried to recall the words he had last spoken to her.
The consequence was a fit of low spirits, which did not become high when later on Mrs Frank Morrison called, dismissed her carriage, and sat chatting for some time with her sister, Lady Millet being, she said, in the park.
“You need not tell me I look well,” said Gertrude, pouting slightly. “I declare you look miserable.”
“Oh no, dear, only a little low-spirited to-day. Have you called on Uncle Robert lately?”
“Without you? No.”
“Then let’s go.”
Gertrude jumped at the suggestion, and half an hour later the sisters were making their way along Wimpole Street the gloomy, to stop at last before the most wan-looking of all the dreary houses in that most dreary street. It was a house before which no organ-man ever stopped to play, no street vendor to shout his wares, nor passer-by to examine from top to bottom; the yellow shutters were closed, and the appearance of the place said distinctly “out of town.” The windows were very dirty, but that is rather a fashion in Wimpole Street, where the windows get very dirty in a month, very much dirtier in two months, and as dirty as possible in three. They, of course, never get any worse, for when once they have arrived a this pitch they may go for years, the weather rather improving them, what with the rain’s washing and the sun’s bleaching.
The paint of the front door was the worst part about that house, for the sun had raised it in little blisters, which street boys could not bear to see without cracking and picking off in flakes; and the consequence was that the door looked as if it had had a bad attack of some skin disease, and a new cuticle of a paler hue was growing beneath the old.
Wimpole Street was then famous for the knockers upon its doors. They were large and resounding. In fact, a clever manipulator could raise a noise that would go rolling on a still night from nearly one end of the street to the other. For, in their wisdom, our ancestors seized the idea of a knocker on that sounding-board, a front door, as a means to warn servants downstairs that someone was waiting, by a deafening noise that appealed to those in quite a different part of the place. But this was not allowed at the house with the blistered front door, for a great staple had been placed over one side for years, and when you had passed the two great iron extinguishers that were never used for links, and under the fantastic ironwork that had never held a lamp since the street had been lit with gas, and, ascending three steps, stood at the door, you could only contrive quite a diminutive kind of knock, such as was given upon that occasion by Renée, for Gertrude was carrying a large bouquet of flowers.
The knock was hard enough to bring a little bleached, sparrow-like man, dressed in black, to the door, and his colourless face, made more pallid by a little black silk cap he wore, brightened as he held his head first on one side, then on the other, his triangular nose adding to his sparrow-like appearance, and giving a stranger the idea that he would never kiss anyone, but would peck.
“How is my uncle this morning, Vidler?” said Gertrude.
“Capital, miss,” said the little man, holding wide the door for the ladies to enter, and closing it quickly, lest, apparently, too much light should enter at the same time.
For the place was very gloomy and subdued within. The great leather porter’s chair, the umbrella-stand, and the pictures all looked sombre and black. Even the two classical figures holding lamps, that had not been lighted for a quarter of a century at least, were swarthy, and a stranger would have gone stumbling and feeling his way along; but not so Vidler, Captain Robert Millet’s handy servant. He was as much at home in the gloom as an owl, and in a quick, hurried way that was almost spasmodic he led the visitors upstairs, but only to stop on the first landing.
“If I might make so bold, Miss Gertrude,” he said, holding his head on one side. “I don’t often see a flower now.”
The girl held up the bouquet, and the little man had a long sniff with a noise as if taking a pinch of snuff, said, “Thank you, miss,” and went on up to the back drawing-room door, which was a little lighter than the staircase, for the top of the shutters of one of the three tall narrow windows was open.
A glance round the room showed that it was scrupulously clean. Time had blackened the paint and ceiling, but everything that could be cleaned or polished was in the highest state of perfection.
For Valentine Vidler and his wife Salome, being very religious and conscientious people, told themselves and one another nearly every day that as the master never supervised anything it was the more their duty to keep the place in the best of order. For instance, Vidler would say:
“I don’t think I shall clean all that plate over this week, Salome. It’s as bright as it can be.”
When to him Salome: “Valentine, there’s One above who knows all, and though your master may not know that you have not cleaned the plate, He will.”
“That’s very true, Salome,” the little man would say with a sigh, and then set to work in a green baize apron, and was soon be-rouged up to the eyes as he polished away.
Another day, perhaps, it would be Salome’s turn; for the temptation, as she called it, would attack her. The weather would be hot, perhaps, and a certain languid feeling, the result of a want of change, would come over her.
“Valentine,” she would say, perhaps, “I think the big looking-glass in the drawing-room will do this week; it’s as clean as clean.”
“Hah!” would say Valentine, with a sigh, “Satan has got tight hold of you again, my dear little woman. It is your weakness that you ought to resist. Do you think the Lord cannot see those three fly-specks at the bottom corner? Resist the temptation, woman; resist it.”
Then little Salome, who was a tiny plump downy woman, who somehow reminded people of a thick potato-shoot that had grown in the dark, would sigh, put on an apron that covered her all over except her face, climb on a pair of steps, and polish the great mirror till it was as clear as hands could make it.
She was a pleasant-faced little body, and very neatly dressed. There was a little fair sausage made up of rolled-up hair on each side of her face, two very shiny smooth surfaces of hair over her forehead, and a neat little white line up the centre, the whole being surmounted by one of those quaint high-crowned caps which project over to the front. In fact, there was, in spite of the potato-shoot allusion, a good deal of resemblance in little Mrs Vidler to a plump charity child, especially as she wore an apron with a bib, a white muslin kerchief crossed over her bosom, and a pair of muslin sleeves up to her elbows.
The little woman was in the drawing-room armed with a duster as Valentine showed up the young ladies, and she faced round and made two little bobs, quite in the charity-school-child fashion, as taught by those who so carefully make it the first duty of such children to obey their pastors and masters, and order themselves lowly and reverently, and make bobs and bows to—all their betters.
“Why, my dears, I am glad you’re come,” she exclaimed. “Miss Renée—there, I beg your pardon—Mrs Morrison, what an age it is since I saw you! And only to think you are a married lady now, when only the other day you two were little things, and I used to bring you one in each hand, looking quite frightened, into this room.”
“Ah yes, Salome, times are changed,” said Renée sadly. “How is uncle?”
“Very well, my dear,” said the little woman, holding her head on one side to listen in the same birdlike way adopted by her husband. “He’s not in his room yet. But what beautiful flowers!”
She, too, inhaled the scent precisely in her husband’s fashion, before fetching a china bowl from a chiffonier, and carefully wiping it inside and out, though it was already the perfection of cleanliness.
“A jug of clean water, if you please, Vidler,” she said softly.
“Yes, my dear,” said the little man, smiling at the sisters, and giving his hands a rub together, before obeying his wife.
“I was so sorry, Miss Renée—there, I must call you so, my dear; it’s so natural—I was so sorry that I did not see you when you came. Only to think of my being out a whole month nursing my poor sister! I hadn’t been away from the place before for twenty years, and poor Vidler was so upset without me. And I don’t think,” she added, nodding, “that master liked it.”
“I’m sure he would not,” said Gertrude; and then, the little man coming in very quietly and closing the door after him, water was poured in the china bowl, the flowers duly deposited therein and placed upon a small mahogany bracket in front of a panel in the centre of the room.
“There, my dears, I’ll go now. I dare say he will not be long.”
The little woman smiled at the sisters, and the little man nodded at them in a satisfied way as if he thought them very pleasant to look upon. Then, taking his wife’s hand, they toddled together out of the room.
A quaint, subdued old room—clean, and yet comfortless. Upon a wet day, when a London fog hung over the streets and filled the back yards, no female could have sat in it for an hour without moistening her handkerchief with tears. For it was, in its dim twilight, like a drawing-room of the past, full of sad old memories of the dead and gone, who haunted it and clung to its furniture and chairs. It was impossible to sit there long without peopling the seats with those who once occupied them—without seeing soft, sad faces reflected in the mirrors, or hearing fancied footsteps on the faded carpet.
And it was so now, as the sisters sat thinking in silence, Renée with her head resting upon her hand, Gertrude with her eyes closed, half dreaming of what might have been.
For Gertrude’s thoughts ran back to a miniature in her father’s desk of a handsome, sun-browned young man in uniform, bright-eyed, keen, and animated; and she thought of what she had heard of his history: how he had loved some fair young girl before his regiment was ordered away to Canada. How he had come back to find that she had become another’s, and then that some terrible struggle had occurred between him and his rival, and the young officer had been maimed for life—turned in one minute from the strong, vigorous man to a misanthrope, who dragged himself about with difficulty, half paralysed in his lower limbs, but bruised more painfully in his heart. For, broken in spirit as in body, he had shut himself up, after his long illness, never seeing a soul, never going out of the closely shuttered rooms that he had chosen for himself in his lonely faded house.
Vidler had been a drummer in his regiment, she had heard, and he had devoted himself to the master who had fetched him in when lying wounded under fire; and in due time Vidler had married and brought his little wife to the house, the couple never leaving it except on some emergency, but growing to like the darkness in which they dwelt, and sternly doing their duty by him they served.
“Poor uncle!” sighed Gertrude, as she thought of his desolate life, and her own sad position. “I wonder who it was he loved.”
As the thought crossed her mind, there was a slight noise in the next room, like the tapping of a stick upon the floor, and Gertrude laid her hand upon her sister’s arm.
Then the noise ceased, and the little panel, about a foot square, before which the flowers had been placed, was drawn aside, seeming to run into a groove.
The sisters did not move, but waited, knowing from old experience that at a word or movement on their part the panel would be clapped impatiently to, and that their visit would be a fruitless one.
A stranger would have thought of rats and the action of one of those rodents in what took place; for now that the panel had been slid back, all remained perfectly still, as if the mover were listening and watching. Then at last a thin, very white hand appeared, lifted the flowers out of the bowl, and they disappeared.
There was not even a rustling noise heard for a few minutes, during which the sisters sat patiently waiting.
At last there was a faint sigh; and a cold—so to speak, colourless—voice said:
“Is Gertrude there?”
“Yes, dear uncle,” said the young girl eagerly.
“Anyone else?”
“I am here too, dear uncle,” said Renée.
“Hah! I am glad to hear you, my children—glad to hear you. How is my brother?”
“Papa is not very well, uncle,” said Gertrude. “Poor dear, his cough is very troublesome.”
“Poor Humphrey! he is so weak,” said the voice, in the same cold, monotonous way that was almost repulsive in its chilling tone. “Tell him, when he is well enough, he can come and talk to me for half an hour. I cannot bear more.”
“Yes, dear uncle, I will tell him,” said Renée.
Then there was another pause, and at last the thin white hand stole cautiously forth, half covered with a lace frill, and the cold voice said:
“Renée!”
The young wife left her seat, went forward, took it in her ungloved hand, and kissed it. Then she returned to her place, and the voice said:
“Gertrude!”
The young girl went through the same performance, and as she loosed it, the hand was passed gently over both her cheeks, and then withdrawn, when Gertrude returned to her seat, and there was again silence.
“You are not happy, Renée,” said the voice at last, in its cold measured accents; “there was a tear on my hand.”
Renée sighed, but made no reply.
“Gertrude, child, I like duty towards parents; but I think a daughter goes too far when, at their wish, she marries a man she does not love.”
“Oh, uncle dear,” cried Gertrude hysterically, “pray, pray, do not talk like this!”
She made a brave effort to keep back her tears, and partially succeeded, for Renée softly knelt down by her side and drew her head close to her breast.
“Poor children!” said the voice again. “I am sorry, but I cannot help you. You must help yourselves.”
There was a nervous, querulous tone in the voice now, as if the suppressed sobs that faintly rose troubled the speaker, but it had passed when the voice was heard once more in a quiet way, more like an appeal than a command:
“Sing to me.”
The sisters rose and went to a very old-fashioned grand piano, opened it, and Gertrude’s fingers swept the wiry jangling chords which sounded quite in keeping with the room; then, subduing the music as much as possible, so that their fresh young voices dominated, rising and falling in a rich harmony that floated through the room, they sang the old, old duet, “Flow on, thou shining river.” Every note seemed to have in it the sadness of age, the mournful blending of the bygone when hope was young and disappointment and care had not crushed with a load of misery a heart once fresh as those of the singers.
A deep sigh came from the little panel, unheard, though, by the two girls, and the hand appeared once more for the thin white fingers to tap the wood gently in unison with the music, which was inexpressibly sweet, though sad.
For how is it that those melodies of the past, even though major, seemed to acquire a mournful tone that is not minor, but has all its sad sweetness? Take what pathetic air you will of a generation or two back, and see if it has not acquired within your knowledge a power of drawing tears that it had not in the days of old.
From the simple duet, first one and then the other glided to the old-fashioned ditties popular thirty or forty years before. “Those evening bells,” “Waters of Elle,” and the like, till, without thinking, Gertrude began “Love not,” her sweet young voice sounding intensely pathetic as she went on, gradually gathering inspiration from the words, till in the midst of the sweetest, most appealing strain, she uttered a cry of misery, and threw herself sobbing into her sister’s arms.
“Oh, Gerty, darling, why did you sing that?” whispered Renée, trying to soothe her, as her own tears fell fast, but for a few minutes in vain, till by a brave effort Gertrude got the better of her hysterical feelings, and, hastily wiping her eyes, glanced towards the panel, where the bowl of water stood upon the bracket, but the opening was closed.
The sisters looked piteously at one another, and Renée whispered:
“Speak to him. Tell him you did not wish to make him angry.”
Gertrude glided to the panel, and, stifling a sob, she said softly:
“Uncle, dear uncle, do not be cross with me—I am very sorry. I was so miserable.”
There was no reply—no sound to indicate that the words had been heard; and after waiting for about a quarter of an hour the two girls crossed to the door, went slowly out, and found that they had had an audience in the shape of Valentine Vidler and his wife, who had been seated upon the stairs.
“Thank you, my dears,” said Salome, nodding and smiling. “We like to hear you sing. You have made a very long stay to-day, and his lunch is quite ready.”
The sisters were too heartsore to trust themselves to say much, and Vidler opened the door for them, admitting as little light as he could by closing it directly and going to assist his wife.
“Renée,” said Gertrude as they reached the square, “do you remember what Uncle Robert said?”
“Yes. He could not help us—we must help ourselves.”
“Then”—There was a pause.
“Yes, dear, what?”
“I’m sure mamma is planning for me to marry Lord Henry Moorpark.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And I’m sure, Ren dear, he’s a dear, amiable, nice old man; but if he proposes I never will say ‘Yes’.”
There was another pause, and then Renée smiled, passed her arm round her handsome sister’s neck, and kissed her lovingly.
“Have you got John Huish very bad?” she whispered.
Gertrude’s cheeks were crimson, and the colour flushed into her neck as she flung her arms round her sister and hid her face on her breast.
Volume One—Chapter Five.Dr Stonor’s Patient.“The doctor at home?”This to a quiet, sedate-looking man in livery, who opened the door of one of the serious-looking houses in Finsbury Circus, where, upon a very shiny brass plate, were in Roman letters the words “Dr Stonor.” There was not much in those few black letters, but many a visitor had gone up the carefully-whitened steps, gazed at them, stepped down again with a curious palpitation of the heart, and walked right round the Circus two or three times to gain composure enough before once more ascending the steps and knocking at the door.There had been cases—not a few—where visitors had spent weeks in making up their minds to go to Dr Stonor, and had reached his doorstep only to hurry back home quite unable to face him, and then suffer in secret perhaps for months to come.For what would that interview reveal? That the peculiar sensations or pains were due to some trifling disorganisation that a guinea and a prescription would set right, or that the seeds of some fatal disease had begun to shoot?Daniel, factotum to Dr Stonor, had been standing like a spider watching at the slip of a window beside the door waiting for sick flies to come into the doctor’s net.“Old game!” said Daniel to himself, as he drew back from the window to observe unseen, and without moving a muscle in his face. For it was Daniel’s peculiarity that he never did move the muscles of his face. He would hold a patient for his master during a painful operation, be scolded, badgered, see harrowing scenes, receive vails, hear praise or abuse of the doctor—for these are both applied to medicine men—and all without making a sign, losing his nerve, or being elated. Daniel was always the same—clean, quiet, self-possessed; and he had seen handsome fair-bearded John Huish descend from a cab, walk up to the door, pass by and go slowly and thoughtfully on, passing his hand over his thick golden beard, looking very tall, manly, and unpatientlike, as he passed on round the Circus.“He’ll be back in ten minutes,” said Daniel to himself, as he admitted a regular patient and once more closed the door. It was a quarter of an hour, though, before John Huish came to the house, asked if the doctor was at home, was shown into the waiting-room, and in due course came face to face with the keen, grey, big-headed, clever-looking little practitioner.“Ah, Huish, my dear boy! Glad to see you, John. Sit down. This is kind of you, to look me up. I’ve only just come back from a fishing trip—trouting. Old habit. Down this way?”“Well, no, doctor,” said the young man hesitatingly. “The fact is, I came to consult you.”“Glad of it. I was the first person who ever took hold of your little hand, and the tiny fingers clutched one of mine as if you trusted me. And you always kept it up—eh? I’m very glad.”“Glad, sir?”“Of course I am,” said the doctor, taking out his keys and unlocking a drawer. “What is it, my boy—a little cheque?”“Oh dear no, doctor.”“Nothing serious, I hope.”“I hope not. I thought I would consult you.”“That’s right, my lad. Well, what is it? Going to buy a horse—speculate in the funds—try a yachting trip?”“My dear sir,” said Huish, smiling, “you do not understand me. I am afraid I am ill.”“Ill? You? Ill?” said the doctor, jumping up and laying his hands on the young man’s shoulders as he gazed into his frank, earnest eyes. “Get up, Jack. You were almost my first baby, and I was very proud of you. Finest built little fellow I ever saw. There, put out your tongue”—he was obeyed—“let’s feel your pulse”—this was done—“here, let me listen at your chest. Pull a long, deep breath;” and the doctor listened, made him pull off his coat and clapped his ear to his back, rumpled his shirt-front as he tapped and punched him all over, concluding by giving the visitor a back-handed slap in the chest, and resuming his seat, exclaiming:“Why, you young humbug, what do you mean by coming here with such a cock-and-bull story? Your physique is perfect. You are as sound as a bell. You are somewhere about thirty years old, and you are a deuced good-looking young fellow. What do you want?”“You take my breath away, doctor,” said the young man, smiling. “I want to explain.”“Explain away, then, my dear boy; but, for goodness’ sake, don’t be such an ass as to think the first time you are a bit bilious, or hipped, or melancholy, that you are ill. Oh, by the way, while I think of it, I had a letter from your people yesterday. They want me to have a run down to Shropshire.”“Why not go?”“Again? I can’t. Fifty people want me, and they would swear to a man if I went away that I was indirectly murdering them. But come, I keep on chattering. Now then, I say, what’s the matter? In love?”The colour deepened a little on the white forehead, and the visitor replied quietly:“I should not consult a physician for that ailment. The fact is, that for some while past I have felt as if my memory were going.”“Tut! nonsense!”“At times it seems as if a perfect cloud were drawn between the present and the past. I can’t account for it—I do not understand it; but things I have done one week are totally forgotten by me the next.”“If they are bad things, so much the better.”“You treat it very lightly, sir, but it troubles me a great deal.”“My dear boy, I would not treat it lightly if I thought there was anything in it; but you do not and never have displayed a symptom of brain disease, neither have your father and mother before you. You are not dissipated.”“Oh no! I never—”“You may spare yourself the trouble of talking, John, my boy. I could tell in a moment if you had a bit of vice in you, and I know you have not. But come, my lad: to be serious, what has put this crotchet into your head?”“Crotchet or no,” said the young man sadly, “I have for months past been tormented with fears that I have something wrong in the head—incipient insanity, or idiocy, if you like to call it so.”“I don’t like to call it anything of the kind, John Huish,” said the doctor tartly, “because it’s all nonsense. I have not studied insanity for the last five-and-twenty years without knowing something about it; so you may dismiss that idea from your mind. But come, let’s know something more about this terrible bugbear.”“Bugbear if you like, doctor, but here is the case. Every now and then I have people—friends, acquaintances—reminding me of things I have promised—engagements I have made—and which I have not kept.”“What sort of engagements?” said the doctor.“Well, generally about little bets, or games at cards.”“That you owe money on?”“Yes,” said Huish eagerly. “I have again and again been asked for money that I owe.”“Or are said to owe,” said the doctor drily.“Oh, there is no doubt about it,” said Huish. “About a twelvemonth ago, when this sort of thing began—”“What sort of thing?” said the doctor.“These lapses of memory,” replied Huish. “Oh!”“I used to be annoyed, and denied them, till I began to be scouted by the men I knew; and at last one or two of them brought unimpeachable witnesses to prove that I was in the wrong.”“Oh, John Huish, my dear boy, how can you let yourself be imposed upon so easily!”“There is no imposition, I assure you. I give you the facts.”“Facts! Did you ever know anyone come and tell you that he owed you money, and pay you?”“Yes, half a dozen times over—heavier amounts than I have had to pay.”“Humph! that’s strange,” said the doctor, looking curiously at his visitor.“Strange?—it’s fearful!” cried the young man passionately. “It is getting to be a curse to me, and I cannot shake off the horrible feeling that I am losing my mind—that I am going wrong. And if this be the case, I cannot bear it, especially just now, when—”He checked himself, and gazed piteously at the man to whom he had come for help.“Be cool, boy. Supposing it is as you say, it is only a trifle, perhaps; but it seems to me that there is a great deal of imagination in it.”“Oh no—oh no! I fear I am going, slowly but surely, out of my mind.”“Because you forget things after a certain time, eh? Stuff! Don’t be foolish. Why, you never used to think that your brain was going wrong when you were a schoolboy, and every word of the lesson that you knew perfectly and saidverbatimto a schoolfellow dropped out of your mind.”“No.”“Of course you did not; and as to going mad, why, my dear boy, have you any idea what a lunatic is?”“I cannot say that I have.”“Well, then, you shall have,” said the doctor; “and that will do you more good than all my talking. You shall see for yourself what a diseased mind really is, and that will strengthen you mentally, and show you how ill-advised are your fancies.”“But, doctor, I should not like to be a witness of the sufferings of others.”“Nonsense, my boy. There, pray don’t imagine, because I live at Highgate, and am licenced to have so many insane patients under my care, that you are going to see horrible creatures dressed in straw and grovelling in cells. My dear John, I am going to ask you to a mad dinner-party.”“A mad dinner-party?”“Well, there, to come and dine with my sister, myself, and our patients. No people hung in chains or straw. Perfectly quiet gentlemen, my dear fellow, but each troubled with a craze. You would not know that they had anything wrong if they did not break out now and then upon the particular subject. Come to-night at seven sharp.”The doctor glanced at his watch, rose, and held out his hand; and though John Huish hesitated, the doctor’s eyes seemed to force him to say that he would be there, and he began to feel for his purse.“Look here, sir,” said the doctor, stopping him: “if you are feeling for fees, don’t insult your father’s old friend by trying to offer him one. There, till seven—say half-past six—and I’ll give you a glass of burgundy, my boy, that shall make you forget all these imaginations.”“Thank you, doctor—”“Not another word, sir, butau revoir.”“Au revoir,” said Huish; and he was shown out, to go back to his chambers thinking about his ailment—and Gertrude, while the doctor began to muse.“Strange that I should take so much interest in that boy. Heigho! Some years now since I went fly-fishing, and fished his father out of the pit.”
“The doctor at home?”
This to a quiet, sedate-looking man in livery, who opened the door of one of the serious-looking houses in Finsbury Circus, where, upon a very shiny brass plate, were in Roman letters the words “Dr Stonor.” There was not much in those few black letters, but many a visitor had gone up the carefully-whitened steps, gazed at them, stepped down again with a curious palpitation of the heart, and walked right round the Circus two or three times to gain composure enough before once more ascending the steps and knocking at the door.
There had been cases—not a few—where visitors had spent weeks in making up their minds to go to Dr Stonor, and had reached his doorstep only to hurry back home quite unable to face him, and then suffer in secret perhaps for months to come.
For what would that interview reveal? That the peculiar sensations or pains were due to some trifling disorganisation that a guinea and a prescription would set right, or that the seeds of some fatal disease had begun to shoot?
Daniel, factotum to Dr Stonor, had been standing like a spider watching at the slip of a window beside the door waiting for sick flies to come into the doctor’s net.
“Old game!” said Daniel to himself, as he drew back from the window to observe unseen, and without moving a muscle in his face. For it was Daniel’s peculiarity that he never did move the muscles of his face. He would hold a patient for his master during a painful operation, be scolded, badgered, see harrowing scenes, receive vails, hear praise or abuse of the doctor—for these are both applied to medicine men—and all without making a sign, losing his nerve, or being elated. Daniel was always the same—clean, quiet, self-possessed; and he had seen handsome fair-bearded John Huish descend from a cab, walk up to the door, pass by and go slowly and thoughtfully on, passing his hand over his thick golden beard, looking very tall, manly, and unpatientlike, as he passed on round the Circus.
“He’ll be back in ten minutes,” said Daniel to himself, as he admitted a regular patient and once more closed the door. It was a quarter of an hour, though, before John Huish came to the house, asked if the doctor was at home, was shown into the waiting-room, and in due course came face to face with the keen, grey, big-headed, clever-looking little practitioner.
“Ah, Huish, my dear boy! Glad to see you, John. Sit down. This is kind of you, to look me up. I’ve only just come back from a fishing trip—trouting. Old habit. Down this way?”
“Well, no, doctor,” said the young man hesitatingly. “The fact is, I came to consult you.”
“Glad of it. I was the first person who ever took hold of your little hand, and the tiny fingers clutched one of mine as if you trusted me. And you always kept it up—eh? I’m very glad.”
“Glad, sir?”
“Of course I am,” said the doctor, taking out his keys and unlocking a drawer. “What is it, my boy—a little cheque?”
“Oh dear no, doctor.”
“Nothing serious, I hope.”
“I hope not. I thought I would consult you.”
“That’s right, my lad. Well, what is it? Going to buy a horse—speculate in the funds—try a yachting trip?”
“My dear sir,” said Huish, smiling, “you do not understand me. I am afraid I am ill.”
“Ill? You? Ill?” said the doctor, jumping up and laying his hands on the young man’s shoulders as he gazed into his frank, earnest eyes. “Get up, Jack. You were almost my first baby, and I was very proud of you. Finest built little fellow I ever saw. There, put out your tongue”—he was obeyed—“let’s feel your pulse”—this was done—“here, let me listen at your chest. Pull a long, deep breath;” and the doctor listened, made him pull off his coat and clapped his ear to his back, rumpled his shirt-front as he tapped and punched him all over, concluding by giving the visitor a back-handed slap in the chest, and resuming his seat, exclaiming:
“Why, you young humbug, what do you mean by coming here with such a cock-and-bull story? Your physique is perfect. You are as sound as a bell. You are somewhere about thirty years old, and you are a deuced good-looking young fellow. What do you want?”
“You take my breath away, doctor,” said the young man, smiling. “I want to explain.”
“Explain away, then, my dear boy; but, for goodness’ sake, don’t be such an ass as to think the first time you are a bit bilious, or hipped, or melancholy, that you are ill. Oh, by the way, while I think of it, I had a letter from your people yesterday. They want me to have a run down to Shropshire.”
“Why not go?”
“Again? I can’t. Fifty people want me, and they would swear to a man if I went away that I was indirectly murdering them. But come, I keep on chattering. Now then, I say, what’s the matter? In love?”
The colour deepened a little on the white forehead, and the visitor replied quietly:
“I should not consult a physician for that ailment. The fact is, that for some while past I have felt as if my memory were going.”
“Tut! nonsense!”
“At times it seems as if a perfect cloud were drawn between the present and the past. I can’t account for it—I do not understand it; but things I have done one week are totally forgotten by me the next.”
“If they are bad things, so much the better.”
“You treat it very lightly, sir, but it troubles me a great deal.”
“My dear boy, I would not treat it lightly if I thought there was anything in it; but you do not and never have displayed a symptom of brain disease, neither have your father and mother before you. You are not dissipated.”
“Oh no! I never—”
“You may spare yourself the trouble of talking, John, my boy. I could tell in a moment if you had a bit of vice in you, and I know you have not. But come, my lad: to be serious, what has put this crotchet into your head?”
“Crotchet or no,” said the young man sadly, “I have for months past been tormented with fears that I have something wrong in the head—incipient insanity, or idiocy, if you like to call it so.”
“I don’t like to call it anything of the kind, John Huish,” said the doctor tartly, “because it’s all nonsense. I have not studied insanity for the last five-and-twenty years without knowing something about it; so you may dismiss that idea from your mind. But come, let’s know something more about this terrible bugbear.”
“Bugbear if you like, doctor, but here is the case. Every now and then I have people—friends, acquaintances—reminding me of things I have promised—engagements I have made—and which I have not kept.”
“What sort of engagements?” said the doctor.
“Well, generally about little bets, or games at cards.”
“That you owe money on?”
“Yes,” said Huish eagerly. “I have again and again been asked for money that I owe.”
“Or are said to owe,” said the doctor drily.
“Oh, there is no doubt about it,” said Huish. “About a twelvemonth ago, when this sort of thing began—”
“What sort of thing?” said the doctor.
“These lapses of memory,” replied Huish. “Oh!”
“I used to be annoyed, and denied them, till I began to be scouted by the men I knew; and at last one or two of them brought unimpeachable witnesses to prove that I was in the wrong.”
“Oh, John Huish, my dear boy, how can you let yourself be imposed upon so easily!”
“There is no imposition, I assure you. I give you the facts.”
“Facts! Did you ever know anyone come and tell you that he owed you money, and pay you?”
“Yes, half a dozen times over—heavier amounts than I have had to pay.”
“Humph! that’s strange,” said the doctor, looking curiously at his visitor.
“Strange?—it’s fearful!” cried the young man passionately. “It is getting to be a curse to me, and I cannot shake off the horrible feeling that I am losing my mind—that I am going wrong. And if this be the case, I cannot bear it, especially just now, when—”
He checked himself, and gazed piteously at the man to whom he had come for help.
“Be cool, boy. Supposing it is as you say, it is only a trifle, perhaps; but it seems to me that there is a great deal of imagination in it.”
“Oh no—oh no! I fear I am going, slowly but surely, out of my mind.”
“Because you forget things after a certain time, eh? Stuff! Don’t be foolish. Why, you never used to think that your brain was going wrong when you were a schoolboy, and every word of the lesson that you knew perfectly and saidverbatimto a schoolfellow dropped out of your mind.”
“No.”
“Of course you did not; and as to going mad, why, my dear boy, have you any idea what a lunatic is?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“Well, then, you shall have,” said the doctor; “and that will do you more good than all my talking. You shall see for yourself what a diseased mind really is, and that will strengthen you mentally, and show you how ill-advised are your fancies.”
“But, doctor, I should not like to be a witness of the sufferings of others.”
“Nonsense, my boy. There, pray don’t imagine, because I live at Highgate, and am licenced to have so many insane patients under my care, that you are going to see horrible creatures dressed in straw and grovelling in cells. My dear John, I am going to ask you to a mad dinner-party.”
“A mad dinner-party?”
“Well, there, to come and dine with my sister, myself, and our patients. No people hung in chains or straw. Perfectly quiet gentlemen, my dear fellow, but each troubled with a craze. You would not know that they had anything wrong if they did not break out now and then upon the particular subject. Come to-night at seven sharp.”
The doctor glanced at his watch, rose, and held out his hand; and though John Huish hesitated, the doctor’s eyes seemed to force him to say that he would be there, and he began to feel for his purse.
“Look here, sir,” said the doctor, stopping him: “if you are feeling for fees, don’t insult your father’s old friend by trying to offer him one. There, till seven—say half-past six—and I’ll give you a glass of burgundy, my boy, that shall make you forget all these imaginations.”
“Thank you, doctor—”
“Not another word, sir, butau revoir.”
“Au revoir,” said Huish; and he was shown out, to go back to his chambers thinking about his ailment—and Gertrude, while the doctor began to muse.
“Strange that I should take so much interest in that boy. Heigho! Some years now since I went fly-fishing, and fished his father out of the pit.”
Volume One—Chapter Six.Aunt Philippa on Matrimony.“Will you speak, Isabella, or shall I?”“If you please, Philippa, will you?” said her sister with frigid politeness.The Honourable Miss Dymcox motioned to her nieces to seat themselves, and they sat down.Then there was a sharp premonitory “Hem!” and a long pause, during which the thoughts of the young ladies went astray.“I wonder what that officer’s name is,” thought Clotilde, “and whether that good-looking boy is his squire?”Rather a romantic notion this, by the way, and it gave Marcus Glen in the young lady’s ideas the position of knight; but it was excusable, for her life had been secluded in the extreme.“What a very handsome man that dark officer was that we nearly met! but I don’t like his looks,” mused Marie; and then, as Ruth was thinking that she would rather be getting on with some of the needlework that fell to her share than listening to her aunt’s lecture—one of the periodical discourses it was their fate to hear—there was another sharp “Hem!”“Marriage,” said the Honourable Miss Dymcox, “is an institution that has existed from the earliest ages of the world.”Had a bomb-shell suddenly fallen into the chilly, meanly-furnished drawing-room, where every second article seemed to wear a brown-holland pinafore, and the frame of the old-fashioned mirror was tightly draped in yellow canvas, the young ladies could not have looked more astonished.In their virgin innocency the word “marriage” had been tabooed to them, and consequently was never mentioned, being a subject held to be unholy for the young people’s ears.Certainly there were times when the wedding of some lady they knew was canvassed; but it was with extreme delicacy, and not in the downright fashion of Miss Philippa’s present speech.“Ages of the world,” assented the Honourable Isabella, opening a pale drab fan, and using it gently, as if the subject made her warm.“And,” continued Miss Philippa, “I think it right to speak to you children, now that you are verging upon womanhood, because it is possible that some day or another you might either of you receive a proposal.”“That sun-browned officer with the heavy moustache,” thought Clotilde, whose cheeks began to glow. “She thinks he may try to be introduced. Oh, I wish he may!”“When your poor—I say it with tears, Isabella.”“Yes, sister, with tears,” assented that lady.“I am addressing you, Clotilde and Marie,” continued Miss Philippa. “You, Ruth, of course cannot be answerable for the stroke of fate which placed you in our hands, an adopted child.”“An adopted child,” said Miss Isabella, closing her fan, for the moral atmosphere seemed cooler.“When your poor mother, your poor, weak mamma, children, wantonly and recklessly, and in opposition to the wishes of all her relatives, insisted upon marrying Mr Julian Riversley, who was never even acknowledged by any member of our family—”“I remember papa as being very handsome, and with dark hair,” said Marie.“Marie!” exclaimed the Honourable Misses Dymcox in a breath. “I am surprised at you!”“Tray be silent, child,” added Miss Philippa.“Yes, aunt.”“I say your poor mamma must have known that she was degrading the whole family—degrading us, Isabella.”“Yes, sister, degrading us,” assented that lady.“By marrying a penniless man of absolutely no birth.”“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.“As I have often told you, children, it was during the corrupting times of the Commonwealth that the lineal descendants of Sir Guy Dymcoques—thesnot sounded, my dears—allowed the family name to be altered into Dymcox, which by letters patent was made imperative, and the proper patronymic has never been restored to its primitive orthography. It is a blot on our family history to which I will no more allude.”Miss Isabella allowed the fan to fall into her lap, and accentuated the hollowness of her thin cheek by pressing it in with one pointed finger.“To resume,” said Miss Philippa, while her nieces watched her with wondering eyes: “our dear sister Delia, your poor mamma, repented bitterly for her weakness in marrying a poor man—your papa, children—and being taken away to a dreary place in Central France, where your papa had the management of a very leaden silver-mine, which only produced poverty. The sufferings to which Mr Julian Riversley exposed your poor mamma were dreadful, my dears. And,” continued Miss Philippa, dotting each eye with her handkerchief, which was not moistened, “your poor mamma died. She was killed, I might say, by the treatment of your papa; but ‘De mortuis,’ Isabella?”“‘Nil nisi bonum,’” sighed the Honourable Isabella.“Exactly, sister,” continued the Honourable Philippa—“died like several of your unfortunate baby brothers and sisters, my dears; and shortly after—four years exactly, was it not, Isabella?”“Three years and eleven months, sister.”“Thank you, Isabella. Mr Julian Riversley either fell down that lead-mine or threw himself there in remorse for having deluded a female scion of the ancient house of Dymcoques to follow his fortunes into a far-off land. He was much like you in physique, my dears, but I am glad to say not in disposition—thanks to our training and that of your mamma’s spiritual instructor, Mr Paul Montaigne, to whom dearest Delia entrusted you, and to whom your repentant—I hope—papa gave the sacred charge of bringing you to England to share the calmness of our peaceful home.”“Peaceful home,” assented Miss Isabella.“I need hardly tell you, children, that the Riversleys were, or are, nobodies of whom we know nothing—never can know anything.”“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.“To us they do not exist—neither will they for you, my dears. We believe that Mr Julian had a sister who married a Mr Huish; that is all we know.”“All we know,” assented Miss Isabella.“I will say nothing of the tax it has been upon us in connection with our limited income. A grateful country, recognising the services of papa, placed these apartments at our disposal. In consideration of the thoughtfulness of the offer, we accepted these apartments—thirty-five years ago, I think, Isabella?”“Thirty-five years and a half, sister.”“Exactly; and we have been here ever since, so that we have been spared the unpleasantry of paying a rent. But I need not continue that branch of my subject. What I wish to impress upon you, children, is the fact that in spite of your poor mamma’smésalliance, you are of the family of Dymcoques, and that it is your duty to endeavour to raise, and not degrade, our noble house. I think I am following out the proper line of argument, Isabella?”“Most accurately, sister.”“In the event, then, of either of you—at a future time, of course—receiving a proposal of marriage—”Miss Isabella reopened her fan, and began to use it in a quick, agitated manner.“It would be your duty to study the interest of your family, children, and to endeavour to regain that which your poor mamma lost. To a lady, marriage—”Miss Isabella’s fan raised quite a draught in the chilly room, and the white tissue-paper chimney-apron rustled in the breeze.“Marriage is the means by which we may recover the steps lost by those who have gone before; and I would have you to remember that our position, our family, our claims to a high descent, warrant our demanding as a right that we might mate with the noblest of the land.”For a moment a curious idea crossed Clotilde’s brain—that her aunts had some thought of entering the married state; but it passed away on the instant at the next words.“Your aunt Isabella and myself might at various times have entered into alliance with others—”Miss Isabella’s fan went rather slowly now. “But we knew what was due to our family, and we said ‘No!’ We sacrificed ourselves in the cause of duty, and we demand, children, in obedience to our teaching, that you do the same.”“Yes, aunt,” said Clotilde demurely.“An impecunious, poverty-stricken alliance,” continued Miss Philippa, “is at best a crime, one of which no true woman would be guilty; while an alliance that brings to her family wealthandposition is one of which she might be proud. You understand, my children?”“Yes, aunt,” in chorus.“We—your aunt Isabella and I—of course care little for such things; but we consider that young people of birth and position should, as a matter of duty, look forward to having diamonds, a town house, carriages and servants, pin-money. These are social necessities, children. Plebeians may perhaps consider that they are superfluities, but such democratic notions are the offspring of ignorance. Your grandfather devoted himself to the upholding of Church and State; he was considered worthy of the trust of the Premier of his day; and it is our duty, as his descendants, to hold his name in reverence, and to add to its lustre.”Marie, as her aunt stopped for breath, wondered in what way her grandfather had benefited his country, and could not help wishing that he had done more to benefit his heirs. Then she half wondered that she had ventured to harbour such a thought, and just then Miss Philippa said blandly:“I think that will do, Isabella?”“Yes, I think that will do,” said that lady, dropping her fan.“You may retire to the schoolroom, then, my dears,” continued Miss Philippa. “Clotilde, come here.”The dark girl, with an unusual flush beneath her creamy skin, crossed the room to her aunt, who laid her hands upon her shoulder, gazed wistfully in her eyes, and then kissed her upon either cheek.“Wonderfully like your papa, my child,” she said, and she passed her on to Miss Isabella. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”“Ah, yes! wonderfully like your papa,” sighed Miss Isabella, and she, too, kissed Clotilde upon either cheek. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”“Marie,” said Miss Philippa, “come here, child.”Marie rose from her chair, crossed to her aunt, received a hand upon each shoulder and a kiss upon either cheek.“Yes, your papa’s lineaments,” sighed Miss Philippa, passing her on also to Miss Isabella.“Wonderfully like indeed,” assented Miss Isabella sadly.“You may retire now, children,” said Miss Philippa. “You had better resume your practice and studies in the schoolroom. Well, Ruth, why do you not go?”Poor Ruth had been expecting a similar proceeding towards her, but it did not come about, and she followed her cousins out of the room after each had made a formal curtsey, which was acknowledged by their aunts as if they were sovereigns at a state reception.“It will cost a great deal, Isabella,” said Miss Philippa, as soon as they were gone. “Yes, dear; but, as Lady Littletown says, it is an absolute necessity; and it is time they left the schoolroom for a more enlarged sphere.”The young ladies went straight to the apartment, where they had passed the greater part of their lives, in company with a green-baize-covered table, a case of unentertaining works of an educational cast, written in that delightfully pompous didactic style considered necessary by our grandfathers for the formation of the youthful mind. There were also selections from Steele and Addison, with Johnson to the extent of “Rasselas.” Mangnall was there, side by side with Goldsmith, and a goodly array of those speckled-covered school books that used to have such a peculiar smell of size. On a side-table covered with a washed-out red and grey table-cover of that charming draughtboard pattern and cotton fabric, where the grey was red on the opposite side, and in other squares the reds and greys seemed to have married and had neutral offspring, stood a couple of battered and chipped twelve-inch globes, one of which was supposed to be celestial, and the other terrestrial; but time and mildew had joined hand in hand to paint these representations of the spheres with entirely fresh designs, till the terrestrial globe was studded with little dark, damp spots or stars of its own, and fungoid continents had formed themselves on the other amid seas of stain, where nothing but aerial space and constellations should have been.Ruth entered the schoolroom last, to cross over to where stood on its thin, decrepit legs the harp of other days, in the shape of a most unmusical little piano, which, when opened, looked like some fossil old-world monster of the toad nature, squeezed square and squatting there in a high-shouldered fashion, gaping wide-mouthed, and showing a row of hideous old yellow teeth, the teeth upon which for many a weary hour the girls had practised the “Battle of Prague,” “Herz Quadrilles,” and the overture to “Masaniello,” classical strains that were rather out of tune, and in unwonted guise, consequent upon so many notes being dumb, while what seemed like a row of little imps with round, flat hats performed a kind of excited automatic danceà la Blondinupon the wire in the entrails of the fossil toad.As Ruth crossed and stood leaning with one hand upon the old piano, with her eyelids drooping, and the great tears gathering slowly beneath the heavily-fringed lids, a deep sigh struggled for exit. It was not much to have missed that cold display of something like affection just shown by the ladies to her cousins; but she felt the neglect most sorely, for her tender young heart was hungry for love, and all these many sad years that she had passed in the cheerless schoolroom, whose one window looked out upon the dismal fountain in the gloomy court, she had known so little of what real affection meant.If she could only have received one word of sympathy just then she would have been relieved, but she was roused from her sad reverie by a sharp pat upon the cheek from Clotilde.“Tears? Why, you’re jealous! Here, Rie, the stupid thing is crying because she was not kissed.”“Goose!” exclaimed Marie. “She missed a deal! Ugh! It’s very horrid.”“Yes,” cried Clotilde. “Bella’s teeth-spring squeaked, and I thought Pip meant to bite. Here, Ruthy, come and kiss the places and take off the nasty taste.”She held out one of her cheeks, and Ruth, whose face still tingled with the smack she had received, came forward smiling, threw her arms round her cousin, and kissed her cheeks again and again.“Ah, I feel sweeter now!” said Clotilde, pushing Ruth away. “Make her do you, Rie.”Marie laughed unpleasantly as, without being asked, Ruth, smiling, crossed to her chair and kissed her affectionately again and again, her bright young face lighting up with almost childish pleasure, for she was of that nature of womankind whose greatest satisfaction is to give rather than receive.“There, that will do, baby,” cried Marie, laughing. “What a gushing girl you are, Ruth!” but she kissed her in return all the same, with the effect that a couple of tears stole from the girl’s eyes. “Mind you don’t spoil my lovely dress. Now then, Clo, what does all this mean?”“Mean?” cried her sister, placing one hand upon the table and vaulting upon it in a sitting position. “It means—here, Ruth, go down on your knees by the door, and keep your ear by the keyhole. If you let that old hyaena Markes, or either of those wicked old cats, come and hear what we say, I’ll buy a sixpenny packet of pins and come and stick them in all over you when you’re in bed.”Ruth ran to the door, knelt down, and placed her ear as she was ordered to do, while her cousin went on:“It means that the wicked old things are obliged to own at last that we have grown into women, and they want to get us married. Whoop! Lucky for them they do. If they didn’t, I’d run away with one of the soldiers. I say, Rie, wasn’t that big officer nice?”“I don’t know,” said her sister pettishly. “I didn’t taste him.”“Who said you did, pig? Diamonds, and carriages, and servants, Rie. I’d have a box at the opera, too, and one at all the theatres. Oh, Rie! wait till I get my chance. I’ll keep up the dignity of the family; but when my turn does come, oh! won’t I serve those two old creatures out.”“Dignity of the family, indeed!” cried Marie angrily. “How dare they speak like they did of poor dear papa, even if he was a Riversley!”“And the wicked old thing boasting all the time about her Norman descent, and Sir Guyfawkes de Dymcoques. I dare say he was one of the Conqueror’s tag-rags, who came to see what he could get.”“I know poor papa was very handsome.”“Just like you, Rie,” laughed Clotilde.“No, he was more like you, Clo,” said her sister quietly. “I don’t see anything to laugh at. Do you suppose I don’t know that we are both very beautiful women?”Clotilde’s eyes flashed, and her cheeks began to glow as she saw her sister, in her shabby gingham morning dress, place her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers and leaning sidewise in an attitude full of natural, unstudied grace. She looked down at kneeling Ruth.“We are both handsome girls now, aren’t we, Ruth?” she said imperiously.“Yes, dear, very—very,” said the girl, flushing as she spoke. “I think you lovely with your beautiful dark eyes, and soft, warm complexions; and you both have such splendid figures and magnificent hair.”Marie’s eyes half closed in a dreamy way, as if some dawning love fancy were there, and an arch smile curled her rich red lip.She was quite satisfied, and accepted the girl’s admiration as her due, hardly moving as Clotilde bounded from the table to the door, listened for a moment, and then, seizing Ruth by the pink, shelly little ear, half dragged her into the room. Her hot blood showed in her vindictive, fierce way, as she stood threateningly over the kneeling girl.“Lying little pig,” she hissed, “how dare you say such things! It’s your mean-spirited, cringing, favour-currying way. You think we are both as ugly as sin.”“I don’t indeed, indeed I don’t!” cried the girl, stung by the charge into indignant remonstrance. “I think you are both the most beautiful girls I ever saw. Oh, Clotilde! you know what lovely eyes and hair you have.”“I haven’t; my eyes are dark and my hair is long and coarse.”“It’s beautiful!” cried Ruth, “isn’t it, Marie? Why, see how everyone turns to look at you both when you are out, in spite of your being so badly dressed.”“Go back to the door. No, stop,” cried Clotilde, pushing the poor girl’s head to and fro as she retained her ear.“Clotilde dear, you hurt me very much,” sobbed Ruth.“I’m trying to hurt you,” said Clotilde, showing her white glistening teeth.“Let her be, Clo.”“Shan’t. Mind your own business.”“Let her be, I say,” cried Marie, flashing into excitement. “If you don’t loose her I’ll scratch you.”“You daren’t,” cried Clotilde, and as her sister’s face turned red her own grew pale. “Go back to the door and listen, little fibster.”“I dare,” said Marie, relapsing into her half-dreamy way. “Come here, Ruthy; I won’t have you hurt. It’s truth, isn’t it? We are beautiful?”“Yes,” said Ruth, starting to her feet, and joyfully nestling in the arms held out for her, while Marie kissed her with some show of affection. “Yes, you are both beautiful, and Clotilde knows I would not tell her a story.”The gratified look had spread by this time to the elder sisters face, and she returned to her position upon the table, where she sat swinging one leg to and fro.“Go back and listen, Ruthy,” said Marie quietly. “You are quite right, dear—we are both handsome; and so are you.”“I?” laughed Ruth, with a merry, innocent look brightening her face; “oh no!”“Yes, you are,” said Marie, smoothing her own dark hair. “You are very nice, and pretty, and sweet, and when I’m married and away from this wicked old poverty-stricken workhouse, you shall come and live with me.”“Shall I, Marie?” cried the girl, with the eagerness of a child.“Yes, dear; and you shall have a handsome husband of your own.”Ruth laughed merrily.“What should I do with a husband?”“Hold your tongue, Rie, and don’t stuff the child’s head with such nonsense.”“Child, indeed! why, she is only a year younger than I. Oh! it has been abominable; we have been treated like babies, and I feel sometimes now as if I were only a little girl. But only wait.”“Yes,” cried Clotilde with a curious laugh, “only wait.”“Someone coming,” whispered Ruth, leaping up from the floor where she had been listening, and the childlike obedience to the stern authority in which they had been trained resumed its sway.Clotilde bounded to the piano, and began to practise a singing lesson, her rich contralto voice rising and falling as she ran up an arpeggio, trying to make it accord with five notes struck together out of tune; Marie darted to a chair, and snatched up a quill pen, inked her forefinger, and bent over a partly written exercise on composition—a letter addressed to a lady of title, to be written in the style of Steele; and Ruth snatched up a piece of needlework, and began to sew. Then the door opened, and Markes, the nurse, appeared.“Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie to come to the dining-room directly.”“What for, Markes?” cried Clotilde, pausing in the middle of a rich-toned run full of delicious melody.“Come and see. There, I’ll tell you—may as well, I suppose. Dressmaker to measure you for some new frocks.”“La—ra—ra—ra—ra—ra—ra—rah!” sang Clotilde in a powerful crescendo, as she swung round upon the music-stool and then leaped up, while Marie rose slowly, with a quiet, natural grace.“Am—am I to come, too?” said Ruth.“You? No. It’s them,” said Markes grimly. “Fine goings on, ’pon my word.”“What are fine goings on, Markes?” cried Clotilde.“Why, ordering new dresses. Better buy a new carpet for one of the bedrooms, and spend a little more money on the living. I’m getting sick of the pinching and griping ways.”“I say, Markes, what’s for dinner to-day?” exclaimed Marie, on finding the woman in a more communicative mood than usual.“Cold boiled mutton.”“Ugh!” ejaculated Clotilde. “I hate cold mutton. Is there no pudding?”“Yes; it’s pudding day.”“That’s better. What pudding is it?”Markes shook her head.“Tell me, and I’ll give you a kiss,” said Clotilde.“If your aunts was to hear you talk like that they’d have fits,” grumbled the woman. “It’s rice-pudding.”“Baked?”“No.”“Boiled in milk?”“No—plain boiled.”“Sauce or jam with it?”“Sauce or jam!” said the woman, in tones of disgust. “Neither on ’em, but sugar and a bit o’ butter; and think yourselves lucky to get that. New dresses, indeed! It’s shameful; and us in the kitchen half-starved!”“Well, we can’t help it,” said Marie. “I’m sure we don’t live any too well.”“No, you don’t,” said the woman, grinning. “But it does seem a shame to go spending money as they seem to mean to do on you two. I ’spose you’re going to be married, ain’t you?”“I don’t know,” said Clotilde. “Are we?”“There, don’t ask me. I don’t know nothing at all about it, and I shan’t speak a word. I only know what I heard them say.”“Do tell us, Marky dear, there’s a dear, good old nursey, and we’ll do just as you tell us,” said Clotilde, in a wheedling way.“You both make haste down, or you’ll both have double lessons to get off, so I tell you.”“But tell us,” said Marie, “and we’ll both give you a kiss.”“You keep your kisses for your rich husbands, my dears, and I hope you’ll like giving ’em—that’s all I can say. I told you so: there goes the bell.”
“Will you speak, Isabella, or shall I?”
“If you please, Philippa, will you?” said her sister with frigid politeness.
The Honourable Miss Dymcox motioned to her nieces to seat themselves, and they sat down.
Then there was a sharp premonitory “Hem!” and a long pause, during which the thoughts of the young ladies went astray.
“I wonder what that officer’s name is,” thought Clotilde, “and whether that good-looking boy is his squire?”
Rather a romantic notion this, by the way, and it gave Marcus Glen in the young lady’s ideas the position of knight; but it was excusable, for her life had been secluded in the extreme.
“What a very handsome man that dark officer was that we nearly met! but I don’t like his looks,” mused Marie; and then, as Ruth was thinking that she would rather be getting on with some of the needlework that fell to her share than listening to her aunt’s lecture—one of the periodical discourses it was their fate to hear—there was another sharp “Hem!”
“Marriage,” said the Honourable Miss Dymcox, “is an institution that has existed from the earliest ages of the world.”
Had a bomb-shell suddenly fallen into the chilly, meanly-furnished drawing-room, where every second article seemed to wear a brown-holland pinafore, and the frame of the old-fashioned mirror was tightly draped in yellow canvas, the young ladies could not have looked more astonished.
In their virgin innocency the word “marriage” had been tabooed to them, and consequently was never mentioned, being a subject held to be unholy for the young people’s ears.
Certainly there were times when the wedding of some lady they knew was canvassed; but it was with extreme delicacy, and not in the downright fashion of Miss Philippa’s present speech.
“Ages of the world,” assented the Honourable Isabella, opening a pale drab fan, and using it gently, as if the subject made her warm.
“And,” continued Miss Philippa, “I think it right to speak to you children, now that you are verging upon womanhood, because it is possible that some day or another you might either of you receive a proposal.”
“That sun-browned officer with the heavy moustache,” thought Clotilde, whose cheeks began to glow. “She thinks he may try to be introduced. Oh, I wish he may!”
“When your poor—I say it with tears, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, with tears,” assented that lady.
“I am addressing you, Clotilde and Marie,” continued Miss Philippa. “You, Ruth, of course cannot be answerable for the stroke of fate which placed you in our hands, an adopted child.”
“An adopted child,” said Miss Isabella, closing her fan, for the moral atmosphere seemed cooler.
“When your poor mother, your poor, weak mamma, children, wantonly and recklessly, and in opposition to the wishes of all her relatives, insisted upon marrying Mr Julian Riversley, who was never even acknowledged by any member of our family—”
“I remember papa as being very handsome, and with dark hair,” said Marie.
“Marie!” exclaimed the Honourable Misses Dymcox in a breath. “I am surprised at you!”
“Tray be silent, child,” added Miss Philippa.
“Yes, aunt.”
“I say your poor mamma must have known that she was degrading the whole family—degrading us, Isabella.”
“Yes, sister, degrading us,” assented that lady.
“By marrying a penniless man of absolutely no birth.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“As I have often told you, children, it was during the corrupting times of the Commonwealth that the lineal descendants of Sir Guy Dymcoques—thesnot sounded, my dears—allowed the family name to be altered into Dymcox, which by letters patent was made imperative, and the proper patronymic has never been restored to its primitive orthography. It is a blot on our family history to which I will no more allude.”
Miss Isabella allowed the fan to fall into her lap, and accentuated the hollowness of her thin cheek by pressing it in with one pointed finger.
“To resume,” said Miss Philippa, while her nieces watched her with wondering eyes: “our dear sister Delia, your poor mamma, repented bitterly for her weakness in marrying a poor man—your papa, children—and being taken away to a dreary place in Central France, where your papa had the management of a very leaden silver-mine, which only produced poverty. The sufferings to which Mr Julian Riversley exposed your poor mamma were dreadful, my dears. And,” continued Miss Philippa, dotting each eye with her handkerchief, which was not moistened, “your poor mamma died. She was killed, I might say, by the treatment of your papa; but ‘De mortuis,’ Isabella?”
“‘Nil nisi bonum,’” sighed the Honourable Isabella.
“Exactly, sister,” continued the Honourable Philippa—“died like several of your unfortunate baby brothers and sisters, my dears; and shortly after—four years exactly, was it not, Isabella?”
“Three years and eleven months, sister.”
“Thank you, Isabella. Mr Julian Riversley either fell down that lead-mine or threw himself there in remorse for having deluded a female scion of the ancient house of Dymcoques to follow his fortunes into a far-off land. He was much like you in physique, my dears, but I am glad to say not in disposition—thanks to our training and that of your mamma’s spiritual instructor, Mr Paul Montaigne, to whom dearest Delia entrusted you, and to whom your repentant—I hope—papa gave the sacred charge of bringing you to England to share the calmness of our peaceful home.”
“Peaceful home,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I need hardly tell you, children, that the Riversleys were, or are, nobodies of whom we know nothing—never can know anything.”
“Whatever,” assented Miss Isabella.
“To us they do not exist—neither will they for you, my dears. We believe that Mr Julian had a sister who married a Mr Huish; that is all we know.”
“All we know,” assented Miss Isabella.
“I will say nothing of the tax it has been upon us in connection with our limited income. A grateful country, recognising the services of papa, placed these apartments at our disposal. In consideration of the thoughtfulness of the offer, we accepted these apartments—thirty-five years ago, I think, Isabella?”
“Thirty-five years and a half, sister.”
“Exactly; and we have been here ever since, so that we have been spared the unpleasantry of paying a rent. But I need not continue that branch of my subject. What I wish to impress upon you, children, is the fact that in spite of your poor mamma’smésalliance, you are of the family of Dymcoques, and that it is your duty to endeavour to raise, and not degrade, our noble house. I think I am following out the proper line of argument, Isabella?”
“Most accurately, sister.”
“In the event, then, of either of you—at a future time, of course—receiving a proposal of marriage—”
Miss Isabella reopened her fan, and began to use it in a quick, agitated manner.
“It would be your duty to study the interest of your family, children, and to endeavour to regain that which your poor mamma lost. To a lady, marriage—”
Miss Isabella’s fan raised quite a draught in the chilly room, and the white tissue-paper chimney-apron rustled in the breeze.
“Marriage is the means by which we may recover the steps lost by those who have gone before; and I would have you to remember that our position, our family, our claims to a high descent, warrant our demanding as a right that we might mate with the noblest of the land.”
For a moment a curious idea crossed Clotilde’s brain—that her aunts had some thought of entering the married state; but it passed away on the instant at the next words.
“Your aunt Isabella and myself might at various times have entered into alliance with others—”
Miss Isabella’s fan went rather slowly now. “But we knew what was due to our family, and we said ‘No!’ We sacrificed ourselves in the cause of duty, and we demand, children, in obedience to our teaching, that you do the same.”
“Yes, aunt,” said Clotilde demurely.
“An impecunious, poverty-stricken alliance,” continued Miss Philippa, “is at best a crime, one of which no true woman would be guilty; while an alliance that brings to her family wealthandposition is one of which she might be proud. You understand, my children?”
“Yes, aunt,” in chorus.
“We—your aunt Isabella and I—of course care little for such things; but we consider that young people of birth and position should, as a matter of duty, look forward to having diamonds, a town house, carriages and servants, pin-money. These are social necessities, children. Plebeians may perhaps consider that they are superfluities, but such democratic notions are the offspring of ignorance. Your grandfather devoted himself to the upholding of Church and State; he was considered worthy of the trust of the Premier of his day; and it is our duty, as his descendants, to hold his name in reverence, and to add to its lustre.”
Marie, as her aunt stopped for breath, wondered in what way her grandfather had benefited his country, and could not help wishing that he had done more to benefit his heirs. Then she half wondered that she had ventured to harbour such a thought, and just then Miss Philippa said blandly:
“I think that will do, Isabella?”
“Yes, I think that will do,” said that lady, dropping her fan.
“You may retire to the schoolroom, then, my dears,” continued Miss Philippa. “Clotilde, come here.”
The dark girl, with an unusual flush beneath her creamy skin, crossed the room to her aunt, who laid her hands upon her shoulder, gazed wistfully in her eyes, and then kissed her upon either cheek.
“Wonderfully like your papa, my child,” she said, and she passed her on to Miss Isabella. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”
“Ah, yes! wonderfully like your papa,” sighed Miss Isabella, and she, too, kissed Clotilde upon either cheek. “But the Dymcoques’ carriage.”
“Marie,” said Miss Philippa, “come here, child.”
Marie rose from her chair, crossed to her aunt, received a hand upon each shoulder and a kiss upon either cheek.
“Yes, your papa’s lineaments,” sighed Miss Philippa, passing her on also to Miss Isabella.
“Wonderfully like indeed,” assented Miss Isabella sadly.
“You may retire now, children,” said Miss Philippa. “You had better resume your practice and studies in the schoolroom. Well, Ruth, why do you not go?”
Poor Ruth had been expecting a similar proceeding towards her, but it did not come about, and she followed her cousins out of the room after each had made a formal curtsey, which was acknowledged by their aunts as if they were sovereigns at a state reception.
“It will cost a great deal, Isabella,” said Miss Philippa, as soon as they were gone. “Yes, dear; but, as Lady Littletown says, it is an absolute necessity; and it is time they left the schoolroom for a more enlarged sphere.”
The young ladies went straight to the apartment, where they had passed the greater part of their lives, in company with a green-baize-covered table, a case of unentertaining works of an educational cast, written in that delightfully pompous didactic style considered necessary by our grandfathers for the formation of the youthful mind. There were also selections from Steele and Addison, with Johnson to the extent of “Rasselas.” Mangnall was there, side by side with Goldsmith, and a goodly array of those speckled-covered school books that used to have such a peculiar smell of size. On a side-table covered with a washed-out red and grey table-cover of that charming draughtboard pattern and cotton fabric, where the grey was red on the opposite side, and in other squares the reds and greys seemed to have married and had neutral offspring, stood a couple of battered and chipped twelve-inch globes, one of which was supposed to be celestial, and the other terrestrial; but time and mildew had joined hand in hand to paint these representations of the spheres with entirely fresh designs, till the terrestrial globe was studded with little dark, damp spots or stars of its own, and fungoid continents had formed themselves on the other amid seas of stain, where nothing but aerial space and constellations should have been.
Ruth entered the schoolroom last, to cross over to where stood on its thin, decrepit legs the harp of other days, in the shape of a most unmusical little piano, which, when opened, looked like some fossil old-world monster of the toad nature, squeezed square and squatting there in a high-shouldered fashion, gaping wide-mouthed, and showing a row of hideous old yellow teeth, the teeth upon which for many a weary hour the girls had practised the “Battle of Prague,” “Herz Quadrilles,” and the overture to “Masaniello,” classical strains that were rather out of tune, and in unwonted guise, consequent upon so many notes being dumb, while what seemed like a row of little imps with round, flat hats performed a kind of excited automatic danceà la Blondinupon the wire in the entrails of the fossil toad.
As Ruth crossed and stood leaning with one hand upon the old piano, with her eyelids drooping, and the great tears gathering slowly beneath the heavily-fringed lids, a deep sigh struggled for exit. It was not much to have missed that cold display of something like affection just shown by the ladies to her cousins; but she felt the neglect most sorely, for her tender young heart was hungry for love, and all these many sad years that she had passed in the cheerless schoolroom, whose one window looked out upon the dismal fountain in the gloomy court, she had known so little of what real affection meant.
If she could only have received one word of sympathy just then she would have been relieved, but she was roused from her sad reverie by a sharp pat upon the cheek from Clotilde.
“Tears? Why, you’re jealous! Here, Rie, the stupid thing is crying because she was not kissed.”
“Goose!” exclaimed Marie. “She missed a deal! Ugh! It’s very horrid.”
“Yes,” cried Clotilde. “Bella’s teeth-spring squeaked, and I thought Pip meant to bite. Here, Ruthy, come and kiss the places and take off the nasty taste.”
She held out one of her cheeks, and Ruth, whose face still tingled with the smack she had received, came forward smiling, threw her arms round her cousin, and kissed her cheeks again and again.
“Ah, I feel sweeter now!” said Clotilde, pushing Ruth away. “Make her do you, Rie.”
Marie laughed unpleasantly as, without being asked, Ruth, smiling, crossed to her chair and kissed her affectionately again and again, her bright young face lighting up with almost childish pleasure, for she was of that nature of womankind whose greatest satisfaction is to give rather than receive.
“There, that will do, baby,” cried Marie, laughing. “What a gushing girl you are, Ruth!” but she kissed her in return all the same, with the effect that a couple of tears stole from the girl’s eyes. “Mind you don’t spoil my lovely dress. Now then, Clo, what does all this mean?”
“Mean?” cried her sister, placing one hand upon the table and vaulting upon it in a sitting position. “It means—here, Ruth, go down on your knees by the door, and keep your ear by the keyhole. If you let that old hyaena Markes, or either of those wicked old cats, come and hear what we say, I’ll buy a sixpenny packet of pins and come and stick them in all over you when you’re in bed.”
Ruth ran to the door, knelt down, and placed her ear as she was ordered to do, while her cousin went on:
“It means that the wicked old things are obliged to own at last that we have grown into women, and they want to get us married. Whoop! Lucky for them they do. If they didn’t, I’d run away with one of the soldiers. I say, Rie, wasn’t that big officer nice?”
“I don’t know,” said her sister pettishly. “I didn’t taste him.”
“Who said you did, pig? Diamonds, and carriages, and servants, Rie. I’d have a box at the opera, too, and one at all the theatres. Oh, Rie! wait till I get my chance. I’ll keep up the dignity of the family; but when my turn does come, oh! won’t I serve those two old creatures out.”
“Dignity of the family, indeed!” cried Marie angrily. “How dare they speak like they did of poor dear papa, even if he was a Riversley!”
“And the wicked old thing boasting all the time about her Norman descent, and Sir Guyfawkes de Dymcoques. I dare say he was one of the Conqueror’s tag-rags, who came to see what he could get.”
“I know poor papa was very handsome.”
“Just like you, Rie,” laughed Clotilde.
“No, he was more like you, Clo,” said her sister quietly. “I don’t see anything to laugh at. Do you suppose I don’t know that we are both very beautiful women?”
Clotilde’s eyes flashed, and her cheeks began to glow as she saw her sister, in her shabby gingham morning dress, place her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers and leaning sidewise in an attitude full of natural, unstudied grace. She looked down at kneeling Ruth.
“We are both handsome girls now, aren’t we, Ruth?” she said imperiously.
“Yes, dear, very—very,” said the girl, flushing as she spoke. “I think you lovely with your beautiful dark eyes, and soft, warm complexions; and you both have such splendid figures and magnificent hair.”
Marie’s eyes half closed in a dreamy way, as if some dawning love fancy were there, and an arch smile curled her rich red lip.
She was quite satisfied, and accepted the girl’s admiration as her due, hardly moving as Clotilde bounded from the table to the door, listened for a moment, and then, seizing Ruth by the pink, shelly little ear, half dragged her into the room. Her hot blood showed in her vindictive, fierce way, as she stood threateningly over the kneeling girl.
“Lying little pig,” she hissed, “how dare you say such things! It’s your mean-spirited, cringing, favour-currying way. You think we are both as ugly as sin.”
“I don’t indeed, indeed I don’t!” cried the girl, stung by the charge into indignant remonstrance. “I think you are both the most beautiful girls I ever saw. Oh, Clotilde! you know what lovely eyes and hair you have.”
“I haven’t; my eyes are dark and my hair is long and coarse.”
“It’s beautiful!” cried Ruth, “isn’t it, Marie? Why, see how everyone turns to look at you both when you are out, in spite of your being so badly dressed.”
“Go back to the door. No, stop,” cried Clotilde, pushing the poor girl’s head to and fro as she retained her ear.
“Clotilde dear, you hurt me very much,” sobbed Ruth.
“I’m trying to hurt you,” said Clotilde, showing her white glistening teeth.
“Let her be, Clo.”
“Shan’t. Mind your own business.”
“Let her be, I say,” cried Marie, flashing into excitement. “If you don’t loose her I’ll scratch you.”
“You daren’t,” cried Clotilde, and as her sister’s face turned red her own grew pale. “Go back to the door and listen, little fibster.”
“I dare,” said Marie, relapsing into her half-dreamy way. “Come here, Ruthy; I won’t have you hurt. It’s truth, isn’t it? We are beautiful?”
“Yes,” said Ruth, starting to her feet, and joyfully nestling in the arms held out for her, while Marie kissed her with some show of affection. “Yes, you are both beautiful, and Clotilde knows I would not tell her a story.”
The gratified look had spread by this time to the elder sisters face, and she returned to her position upon the table, where she sat swinging one leg to and fro.
“Go back and listen, Ruthy,” said Marie quietly. “You are quite right, dear—we are both handsome; and so are you.”
“I?” laughed Ruth, with a merry, innocent look brightening her face; “oh no!”
“Yes, you are,” said Marie, smoothing her own dark hair. “You are very nice, and pretty, and sweet, and when I’m married and away from this wicked old poverty-stricken workhouse, you shall come and live with me.”
“Shall I, Marie?” cried the girl, with the eagerness of a child.
“Yes, dear; and you shall have a handsome husband of your own.”
Ruth laughed merrily.
“What should I do with a husband?”
“Hold your tongue, Rie, and don’t stuff the child’s head with such nonsense.”
“Child, indeed! why, she is only a year younger than I. Oh! it has been abominable; we have been treated like babies, and I feel sometimes now as if I were only a little girl. But only wait.”
“Yes,” cried Clotilde with a curious laugh, “only wait.”
“Someone coming,” whispered Ruth, leaping up from the floor where she had been listening, and the childlike obedience to the stern authority in which they had been trained resumed its sway.
Clotilde bounded to the piano, and began to practise a singing lesson, her rich contralto voice rising and falling as she ran up an arpeggio, trying to make it accord with five notes struck together out of tune; Marie darted to a chair, and snatched up a quill pen, inked her forefinger, and bent over a partly written exercise on composition—a letter addressed to a lady of title, to be written in the style of Steele; and Ruth snatched up a piece of needlework, and began to sew. Then the door opened, and Markes, the nurse, appeared.
“Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie to come to the dining-room directly.”
“What for, Markes?” cried Clotilde, pausing in the middle of a rich-toned run full of delicious melody.
“Come and see. There, I’ll tell you—may as well, I suppose. Dressmaker to measure you for some new frocks.”
“La—ra—ra—ra—ra—ra—ra—rah!” sang Clotilde in a powerful crescendo, as she swung round upon the music-stool and then leaped up, while Marie rose slowly, with a quiet, natural grace.
“Am—am I to come, too?” said Ruth.
“You? No. It’s them,” said Markes grimly. “Fine goings on, ’pon my word.”
“What are fine goings on, Markes?” cried Clotilde.
“Why, ordering new dresses. Better buy a new carpet for one of the bedrooms, and spend a little more money on the living. I’m getting sick of the pinching and griping ways.”
“I say, Markes, what’s for dinner to-day?” exclaimed Marie, on finding the woman in a more communicative mood than usual.
“Cold boiled mutton.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated Clotilde. “I hate cold mutton. Is there no pudding?”
“Yes; it’s pudding day.”
“That’s better. What pudding is it?”
Markes shook her head.
“Tell me, and I’ll give you a kiss,” said Clotilde.
“If your aunts was to hear you talk like that they’d have fits,” grumbled the woman. “It’s rice-pudding.”
“Baked?”
“No.”
“Boiled in milk?”
“No—plain boiled.”
“Sauce or jam with it?”
“Sauce or jam!” said the woman, in tones of disgust. “Neither on ’em, but sugar and a bit o’ butter; and think yourselves lucky to get that. New dresses, indeed! It’s shameful; and us in the kitchen half-starved!”
“Well, we can’t help it,” said Marie. “I’m sure we don’t live any too well.”
“No, you don’t,” said the woman, grinning. “But it does seem a shame to go spending money as they seem to mean to do on you two. I ’spose you’re going to be married, ain’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Clotilde. “Are we?”
“There, don’t ask me. I don’t know nothing at all about it, and I shan’t speak a word. I only know what I heard them say.”
“Do tell us, Marky dear, there’s a dear, good old nursey, and we’ll do just as you tell us,” said Clotilde, in a wheedling way.
“You both make haste down, or you’ll both have double lessons to get off, so I tell you.”
“But tell us,” said Marie, “and we’ll both give you a kiss.”
“You keep your kisses for your rich husbands, my dears, and I hope you’ll like giving ’em—that’s all I can say. I told you so: there goes the bell.”