“You forget,” said his wife, “that old Sir Walter intended everything to be different—that he never meant us to set up an establishment or live in Penton at all.”
“Ah, the question is, did he mean that—wasn’t it merely a plan of Alicia’s? Oh, no, I’ve heard nothing more. But I can’t help thinking my uncle would really have preferred having a family to continue the old name after him, instead of letting it all run into the Russell family, as I suppose it must have done. That reminds me, I have a message for that little Russell girl. Russell Penton will come for her or send for her to-morrow. He made all sorts of pretty speeches about our kindness in taking her in.”
“Dear me, it was not worth talking about. It was Ally’s idea. One little thing more in our house—what does it matter? She is a nice little thing; she gives no trouble,” said Lady Penton, to whom little Mab was of no importance at all.
Sir Edward dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. It was of still less importance to him than it was to his wife. He said, “They are going abroad I believe very soon. Those people to whom money is no object always fly abroad to get quit of every annoyance. When shall you and I be able to run off, Annie, for a rest? Never, I fear.”
“Well, Edward,” she said, quietly, “if we were able in one way we shouldn’t be in another. We couldn’t leave the children, you know. I shouldn’t wonder if the Russell Pentons would willingly change with us—their money against our children. They have the worst of it after all; so much to leave and nobody belonging to them to leave it to. So we must not grumble.”
This view of the case did not appear to give Sir Edward much comfort. He seated himself at his table and drew his writing things toward him. It was only to begin oncemore those inevitable calculations which had a charm yet, did not make anything easier.
“If you have got anything to do,” he said, “I’ll not keep you longer.” He added, as she went toward the door, “Don’t make any fuss about Walter. He ought to understand that this makes no difference;” and again, turning round, calling her, “Annie, don’t forget to tell the little Russell girl.”
She went out into the garden, where the girls were still wandering about in the restlessness of spent excitement. It did not occur to her to keep back her news because of “the little Russell girl.” They all came round her, Mab keeping behind a little, yet following the others. The day was very mild, and Lady Penton had a shawl round her shoulders, but no covering on her head.
“Your father is rather disappointed,” she said. “Your cousin Alicia will not accept what we offered. I am sorry, but we must just make up our minds to it.”
“Make up our minds to Penton!” cried Anne.
“Oh, my dear, so far as that is concerned! but you know how difficult it will be. However, there is something else that will please you very much. You know old Sir Walter at the last took a great fancy to our Wat, and wanted to leave him something. Well, your cousin Alicia felt she ought to carry out her father’s wishes, and she has settled on him a fortune—ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten thousand pounds!” said the girls, in one breath.
“It makes him quite independent. It is a great thing for him at his age; I hope it will not lead him into temptation. And it is very good of your cousin Alicia. She had no need to do it unless she pleased, for it was only a fancy, a dying fancy, which Sir Walter, perhaps, had he got better, might not—We must always be grateful to her, whatever else may happen. Few people, though they might be very civil, would show kindness to that extent.” Lady Penton paused thoughtfully. Cousin Alicia had not been on the whole very civil, and she felt as if the thanks she was according were not enthusiastic enough. “It is a wonderful thing,” she added, warming herself up, “an absolute gift of ten thousand pounds. I don’t think I ever heard of anything like it. It is a splendid gift.”
“And Wat never said a word! I wonder, mother, if he knows.”
“Yes, he knows. I dare say he was overwhelmed by it. He would not know what to say. Where is he? I should like to wish him joy.”
“I know where he is. He has gone to the village to tellher,” said little Mab to herself, and she looked the other way in case Lady Penton might have read it in her eyes. But Lady Penton, in her innocence, never would have divined what those eyes meant. And presently she earned the war, so to speak, into the enemy’s country by turning next to her visitor.
“My dear,” she said, “there is a message for you, too. Mr. Russell Penton is to send for you, or perhaps come for you, to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” cried Mab, taken by surprise. While she was thus keeping back her sheaf of imaginary arrows, here was one which caught herself as it were in the very middle of her shield. “Oh!” she cried again, “and must I go?”
Now she had been no inconsiderable embarrassment to the family at this crisis of its affairs, but the moment she uttered this little plaintive cry all their soft hearts turned to Mab with a bound of tenderness and gratitude, and great compunction for ever having found her in their way. They did not know that part of her reluctance to leave them was in consequence of the investigations which she had entered upon, and was by no means willing to break off.
“My dear,” said Lady Penton, “we have been so out of our ordinary while you have been with us, that I am sure it is very, very sweet of you to care to stay. And we should all like very much to keep you a little longer. I hope Mr. Russell Penton may come for you himself to-morrow, and then perhaps he will consent to let you stay.”
Thesecommunications were interrupted by the sound of carriage-wheels so near that it was not possible to escape the certainty that visitors were approaching. Lady Penton paused for a moment, discussing with herself whether she should say “Not at home,” the day of the funeral wasvery early to receive visitors; but then she reflected that they had all got their mourning—even Martha having her black gown—and that there was therefore no reason why she should not receive, though “they,” whoever they were, would have shown better taste had they postponed their visit. However, in this afternoon of excitement anddésoeuvrement, it was almost a relief to see somebody who was not concerned, and might consequently impart something new—a little change into the atmosphere. The carriage which came wheeling round past the drawing-room windows was new and glistening, and highly effective, much more so than is usually to be met with in the country: and out of it came two ladies, as carefully got-up as their vehicle, wrapped in furs and plush. That peeps were taken at them from the corner where a judicious observer could see without being seen it is almost unnecessary to say.
“No, I don’t know them,” said Anne, shaking her head. “It is none of the Bannister people, nor the Miltons, nor the Durhams, nor anybody I ever saw. They must be from the other side, or else they are Reading people, or—”
“We know no Reading people,” said Lady Penton, with a tone—well, perhaps it was not pride; but certainly it was a tone which would not have come naturally to Mrs. Penton of the Hook one short week before.
“The footman is opening the door—he has such a delightful fur cape on! They’re coming in. Ally, look, look! Did you ever see them before?”
Ally had held back, not liking to show her curiosity before little Mab, that critic and investigator whom she began instinctively to divine. But she made a little soft movement forward now. And when she saw the ladies stepping out of the carriage Ally gave vent to a startled cry, “Oh!” which showed she was not so ignorant as her sister. Lady Penton turned toward her for explanation, but it was already too late. The door was thrown open by Martha with more demonstration than when she was only parlor-maid to Mrs. Penton. The shadow of a title upon her head changed even Martha. She announced “Mrs. Rochford, my lady!” in a voice such as no one in the Hook had ever heard before.
“Rochford?” said Lady Penton, with a wondering question in her voice, looking at Ally, who seemed to know. It was not in her nature to be otherwise than polite. Shestepped forward and accepted the visitor’s outstretched hand, and gave her a seat, but without any of the tremulous shyness of former days. She had taken up the rôle of great lady with less difficulty than could have been anticipated. Mrs. Rochford was large and ample in her furs. She would have made three of Lady Penton; and the muff in which one of her hands was folded was worth more than all that the other lady had to wear. Nevertheless, Lady Penton, simple as she sat there, felt herself so entirely Mrs. Rochford’s social superior that this outside splendor of appearance was altogether neutralized. Perhaps the visitor was a little confused by this, for she made another step beyond the mistress of the house and seized upon Ally with both her hands out and a great deal of enthusiasm.
“Dear Miss Penton, how are you after all this agitation?” she said, in the most sympathetic tone, and looked as if she would have kissed Ally, who blushed crimson, and evidently did not know how to respond; and then it was the turn of Miss Rochford, who was effusive and sympathetic too.
“The dear child,” said Mrs. Rochford, seating herself, “looked a little lost at Penton at the ball. She had never been out before, I am sure, without you, Lady Penton—which makes such a difference to a sensitive girl. I quite took it upon me to be her chaperon. And then I think she enjoyed herself.”
“Oh!” said Lady Penton, with a blank look; and then she added, “So much has happened since that I have heard nothing about the ball.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the other, in the most sympathetic tone. “Such wonderful changes in so short a time! and just when we were all thinking that poor dear Sir Walter might live to be a hundred.” Then she remembered that this was not an event which the Pentons at the Hook would naturally have found desirable. “But I always say,” added the lady, “that it is such a comfort when an old gentleman of that age goes out of life in tolerable comfort without suffering. Sometimes they have so much to go through. It seems so mysterious.”
Meanwhile, Miss Rochford, a pretty but much-curled and frizzed girl of the period, seized upon Ally. “Oh, I’ve wanted so much to come and see you. Mamma said weoughtn’t to, that you were much greater people now. But you were so nice at the ball, and looked so pleased to be with us, I felt sure you wouldn’t mind. Wasn’t it a delightful ball? But you who were in the house must have felt all that dreadful business about old Sir Walter dying. It was very dreadful, of course; but what a good thing he waited till the ball was over. Had it happened only a little sooner there would have been no ball. Is that your sister? are they both your sisters? Oh!” This exclamation followed when Mab turned round and revealed to the visitor the features of the heiress who had been pointed out to everybody at the Penton ball.
“This is my sister Anne, but she wasn’t at Penton. And this is Miss Russell,” said Ally, who did not know much about the formulas of introduction, and who was considerably startled by the recollection that the Rochfords had been her protectors at Penton, which even she, simple as she was, felt to be inappropriate now. Mab made the new-comer a very dignified little bow. She knew everything of this kind much better than the others did, and knew very well who the Rochfords were.
“My son has told me so often about your charming family and how kind you were to him; and after meeting Miss Penton, as there seemed then a sort of double connection, I thought I might take it upon me to call.”
“Oh, you are very kind,” Lady Penton said.
“My son does nothing but talk of Penton Hook. He is so charmed with everything here. And he is not easily pleased. He is a great favorite in the county, don’t you know? He is invited everywhere. I told him at his age it is enough to turn his head altogether. But he is very true; he is not led away by finery. I find that he always prefers what is really best.”
“Yes,” said Lady Penton; “we saw Mr. Rochford several times. He used to come about the business which unfortunately was not completed.”
“Do you say unfortunately? He supposed you would rather be pleased.”
“I am not at all pleased,” said Lady Penton, drawing back into the stronghold of her dignity. “It is always a pity when family arrangements can not be carried out.”
“I am sure,” said Mrs. Rochford, in her most ingratiating tones, “the county will like far better to see youthere than Mrs. Russell Penton. Not that there is anything disagreeable in Mrs. Russell Penton. She is everything that is nice; but it is always more or less a false position, don’t you think? and, on the other hand, a young family is always cheerful and popular.”
“I don’t know how that may be. We are really more a nursery-party than anything else.”
“Oh, don’t say so, Lady Penton! with those two charming girls.”
The mother’s eye followed the wave of the visitor’s hand, and she could not but feel that there was truth in this. She had not thought of Ally and Anne from this point of view. They were not beauties, she was aware. Still, looking at them as they were now, a thrill of that satisfaction and complacency which is at once the most entirely unselfish and the most egotistical of sentiments warmed her bosom. She felt, contrasting them with the somewhat artificial neatness of the Rochford young lady, and the bluntness of little Mab on the other hand, that they might very well be called charming girls. She had rarely had creatures of the same species to compare them with.
“They are very young,” she said, “and we have had little opportunity to do anything for them; they are not at all acquainted with the world.”
“And that is such a charm, I always think! When my son brought Miss Penton to us the other night she had that look of wanting her mother which is so sweet. Mrs. Penton of course had all her guests to look to, and the anxiety about her father. I was so happy to take your dear girl under my motherly wing. It is broad enough,” said Mrs. Rochford, raising a little the arm which was clothed in sealskin and beaver, or in something else more costly than these, if there is anything more costly, and which indeed had an air of softness and warmth which was pleasant. She was what is called a motherly woman, large and caressing, and really kind. She might perhaps have found the courage to keep a poor girl at “a proper distance” had her son been in danger, but otherwise in all probability would have been kind to Ally even had she not been Miss Penton of Penton. And in that case would have taken no credit for it, such as in the present she felt it expedient to insist upon.
“You will be going nowhere in your mourning,” saidMiss Rochford to Ally, “it will be so dull for you just at this time of the year. I do so wish you would come to us a little. We don’t give parties, not often; but there is always something going on. Mamma is very good, she never minds the trouble. And Charley is the very best of brothers, he is always trying to keep us amused. Now if you would come there’s nothing he wouldn’t do. We could give you a mount if you hunt. My sister doesn’t ride. I should be so happy to have another girl to go out with me. Oh, do come. And if the frost holds there will be skating. You will have to be quiet, of course, at home for the sake of your mourning, but with us you needn’t mind. Oh, do! It would be so delightful to have you. Charley was very despondent about it. He thought you would be so much too grand for us, who are only Reading people, but I said I was sure you were not one to forget old friends.”
“Too grand!” cried Ally, turning red. “Oh, no, no.” It was not surely that she was too grand. Still there was something—a sentiment of repugnance, a drawing back—which, if it was that, was the meanest sentiment, she thought, in the world.
“No, I am sure not,” said Miss Ethel Rochford. “I knew you were not one to throw over old friends.”
Were they old friends? She was very much puzzled by this question. It seemed so ungracious to make any exception to a claim made with such kindness and enthusiasm. But Ally did not know what answer to make when the ladies at length had rustled away back to their carriage, still very caressing and cordial, but somewhat disappointed, since Lady Penton, with a firmness not at all in keeping with her character, had declined the invitation to Ally.
“Are you such great friends with these people?” asked Anne, before the sealskin had quite swept out of the door; and, “Were you so much with them at the ball?” said Lady Penton, sitting down, and turning her mild eyes upon her daughter with great seriousness. Poor Ally felt as if she were a culprit at the bar.
“They were very kind,” she said, with a look of great humility at her mother. “I never saw them except that one time; but they were very kind.”
“You have never told me anything about the ball, there have been so many other things to think of. I ought to have remembered, my poor little Ally, you would be veryforlorn without me or some one; but then I thought your cousin Alicia—Didn’t you have any dancing then? Didn’t you enjoy yourself at all?”
“She danced all the evening,” said Mab; “I saw her. I never could get near her to say a word.”
“Then what does this lady mean?” the mother said.
Poor Ally was very nearly crying with distress and shame, though there was nothing to be ashamed about. Oh, yes! there was cause for shame, and she felt it. She had been very thankful for Mrs. Rochford’s notice. She had been thankful to meethim, to feel herself at once transformed from the neglected little poor relation, whom no one noticed, to the admired and petted little heroine of the other set, who were not the great people, and yet who looked just as well as the great people, and danced as well, and were as well dressed, and so much more kind. And now she felt ashamed of it all—of them andhim, and all the people who had made the evening so pleasant. She did not like to tell her story—how she had been neglected, and how she had been admired, and the comfort the Rochford set had been to her, and now that she was ashamed of them all—for that was the conclusion which she could not disguise from herself. Now that she was Sir Edward Penton’s daughter, now that she herself was to be the first at Penton, she was ashamed to have known nobody but the Rochfords, and she was ashamed of being ashamed. The family solicitor, that was all—a sort of official person, whose duty it was to take a little notice of her, not to let her feel herself neglected, whom she had been so glad to cling to. And now? There was no word of contempt that Ally did not heap upon herself. She was not sure if girls were ever called “snobs,” but this she was sure of, that if so, then a snob was what she was.
“Mother, they’re both true,” she said. “It was—oh, dreadful at first! I didn’t know any one. I knew some of them by sight, but that was all. And nobody spoke to me. I should have liked to go through the floor or run away, but I hadn’t the courage. And then I sawhim—I mean Mr. Rochford, you know, who has been so often here. And he asked me to dance; and when he saw I had no one to go to, took me to his mother. And they were so kind; and I enjoyed myself very much after that. But—” said Ally, and stopped short.
Oh, odious little traitor that she was! But she could not say what was in her heart besides, which was—oh, horrible snobbishness, miserableness, unworthiness!—that she never wished to see these good Samaritans any more.
“When I return her call I must thank her for being so kind to you,” said Lady Penton, with a cloudy countenance.
And this was all she said. Nor was there any further conversation on the subject—none, at least, which Mab heard. She had her own theory on the subject, and formed her little history at once, which was founded on Ally’s faint little emphasis, “I sawhim.” “Him” Mab decided to be a lover, whom, now that the Pentons had risen in the world, the family would no longer permit to be spoken of, but whom Ally favored in secret, and to whom she had given her heart. It was a mistake which was very natural—the most usual thing in the world. Mab decided that it was a great blunder for the mother and sisters to interfere. What could they do? except to put the other party on their guard? Our comprehensions are limited by our experiences. To understand the state of mind in which Ally was—the repugnance she felt toward the people whom she had liked so much, and who had been so kind to her, and her disgust at herself for that other disgust which she could not conquer—was what no one at Penton Hook was the least able to do.
Walterhad darted off to the village as Mab divined; but what was the good? He might get himself talked of, wandering about Crockford’s cottage; but there was no one there who would compromise herself for him. He had to go home again for the evening meal as before, but this time with more impatience than before, with a stronger sense that the bondage was insupportable. Walter would have been furiously indignant had it been said to him that the fact of having or not having money of his own would change his deportment toward his family; but yet it was the case, notwithstanding all he could have said. He felt himself a different being from the docile boy who had to dowhat was decided for him, to go to Oxford or wherever his father pleased. This morning, no further back, that had been all he thought of. There was nothing else possible—to do what was told him—what was arranged and settled, for him—what father and mother after one of their consultations had decided was the best. Walter would no more have thought of resisting that decision at twenty than Horry would at nine. But a day brings so many changes with it. He was not now what he had been when he passed the cottage with his father on his way to Sir Walter’s funeral. Now he was no longer dependent; he could stand by himself. It seemed absurd to him that he should have to be punctual to an hour, that he should be bound by all the customs of the house. Already he had felt the absurdity of going home—home from his romance, from his drama, from love and devotion on a heroic scale—to tea! Now he had gone a little further even than this. He was independent, he had a fortune of his own, no need to depend upon his father for everything as he had been doing. And he had come to an age and to circumstances which not only justified, but made it necessary that he should act for himself. Nevertheless, he was not even now prepared to break the bond of the old habits. He went back as before for the family meal, then escaping, once more hurried through the night to the scene which was ever in his thoughts. The moon was later of rising, the night was not so clear and frosty as on that other evening, when he had surprised her with the other lover, the man who had roused such fury in his breast. Since then they had met every evening, and Walter no longer feared that vulgar rival. They had no secrets from each other now. She had told him everything, or so he thought, about that other; how he had persecuted her to marry him, notwithstanding the opposition of his parents, who were very rich, and did not think her good enough—how she had come here to be out of his reach—and how she feared now that he had discovered her hiding-place he would give her no peace. She had confessed frankly that before she met Walter she had not “minded” the other. He was well off, he could give her a home; and if she had not met Walter she might have been happy enough; but now, never. The boy’s heart was penetrated by this sweet confession; his boyish love sprung up all at once into a chivalrous and generous passion. He hadtalked to her vaguely, splendidly, of what they could do. If, as seemed inevitable, his studies must be accomplished, why then they must be married at once, casting prudence to the winds, and he must find a little nook at Oxford where they could live like babes in the wood—like Rosamond in her bower. Yes, that was it—like Rosamond, with a flowery labyrinth all round her cottage, from whence he should come every morning with his books, and return when his work was over to love and happiness. The picture had been beautiful, but vague, and she had listened and laughed a little, now and then putting a practical question which confused but did not daunt the young man. How were they to live. What was enough for one, would not that be enough for two, he asked? and he cared for nothing, no pleasure, no luxury, but her sweet company. She let him talk, and perhaps enjoyed it; at least it amused her; it was like a fairy tale.
But to-night—to-night! there were other things to say. The foolish boy caught her arm and drew it within his as soon as she appeared. “Are you warm, are you comfortable?” he whispered. “I have so much to tell you; everything is changed. You must not hurry in again in a moment, there is so much to say.”
“What is changed? If you have tired of your romancing that would be the best thing,” she said.
“I shall never tire of my romancing. It is all coming right; everything is clearing up. It will be almost too easy. The course of true love this time will be quite smooth.”
“Ah, that’s what I like,” she cried, “but how is it to be? You don’t mean to say that your father and mother—they would never be such fools—”
“Fools!” he cried, pressing her arm to his side; “they’re not fools, but they know nothing about it; it is something—something that has happened to me.”
“I am glad,” she said, composedly, “that you have not told them; it would be a wild thing to do. And I know what young men’s parents are; they will sometimes pretend to consent to set you against it—they think that if there is no opposition it will die away of itself.”
“It will never die away,” he said, “opposition or no opposition; but, Emmy, it isn’t a penniless fellow thatyou’re going to marry. We sha’n’t have to live on my little bit of an allowance—I’ve got—money of my own.”
She gave a little suppressed scream of pleasure.
“Money of your own!”
“Yes; that has nothing to do with my father; that nobody can interfere with. It comes from my old relative, old Sir Walter. He has left me ten thousand pounds.”
“Ten thousand pounds!” she repeated, with a quickly drawn breath, then paused a little; “that is a very nice sum of money. I am very glad you’ve got all that. How much will it bring in by the year?”
He was a little checked in his enthusiasm by this inquiry; and, to tell the truth, it was not a question he had considered or knew very well how to answer.
“You might get five hundred a year for it if you were very very lucky; but I don’t think,” she said, “you will get so much as that.”
“At all events,” he said, somewhat sobered, “it will be my own; it will be something I can spend as I please, and with which nobody will have any right to interfere. We could have existed perhaps on my allowance; but it would have been hard upon my darling cooping her up in a small cottage, with scarcely money enough to live upon—”
He thought perhaps she would interrupt him here, and cry out, as he himself would have done, what did that matter, so long as they were together? But she did not do this. She was quite silent, waiting for him to go on.
“But now,” he continued, “it will be different. We can enjoy ourselves a little. I don’t suppose we shall be rich even now.”
“No,” she said, quietly, “you will not be rich.”
He turned and looked into her face, but in the darkness he could see nothing. And then he was used to these little prudential ways she had, and the superior knowledge which she claimed of the world.
“Perhaps not rich, but well off, don’t you think?” he said, with a little timidity, “to begin upon; and then there would be Penton in the distance. Penton is a noble place. All the time of the ball I was thinking of you, how you would have liked it, and how much more beautiful it would have been had you been there. We must give a ball some time, when we come home—”
“You mean,” she said, for he made a pause, “whenyou succeed; but your father is not an old man, and that may be a long, long time.”
“I hope so,” said Walter, fervently; “loving you makes me love everybody else better. I hope it may be a long, long time.”
Again she made no remark—which she might have done, perhaps saying she hoped so too; but no doubt she thought it unnecessary to say what was so certain and evident.
“But,” he cried, pressing her arm again closer to his side, “I didn’t mean anything so lugubrious, I meant when I brought you home. That will be a triumph, darling! They will put up arches for us, and come out to meet us. It shall be a summer evening, not cold like this. We shall have a pair of white horses lit for a bride, though you will be a little more than a bride by that time, Emmy?”
“Shall I?” she said, with a tone of mockery in her laugh.
“Why, of course,” he cried, bending over her, “since it is winter now! You don’t suppose it is to be put off so long. Why, you say yourself you are a will-o’-the-wisp. You would have disappeared by that time if I left you to yourself.”
“That’s true enough,” she said, with another soft suppressed laugh, which made him turn and look at her again, for there seemed a meaning in it more than met the ear.
“Don’t laugh so,” he said, softly. “It sounds as if you would like to wring my heart, only for the fun of it; but it would be no fun to me.”
“Did I?” said she. “No, it is you who are making fun.”
“It is not a thing to laugh about,” cried the boy. “It is tremendous beautiful earnest to me. But I was talking of the coming home. My people would never say a word when they knew it was done, Emmy, and that you and I were one. They might object perhaps before, not knowing you. I am not even sure of that when they knew how I cared for you. Father might; but mother would be on my side.”
“No,” she said, “don’t tell me that; I am sure they are not so silly, your mother, above all.”
“Do you call that silly? Well, I think she is silly then, dear old mother!” cried the young man, with his voice alittle unsteady. Walter felt to the bottom of his heart what he had said to his unresponsive companion, that in loving her he loved them all so much better. The faculty of loving seemed to have expanded in him. He had not an unkind feeling to any one in the world, except perhaps to that fellow—no, not even to him, poor beggar, who was losing her. To lose her was such a misfortune as made even that cad an object of pity to gods and men.
“And how is all this to come about?” she said, after a pause. “It’s easy talking about what’s to happen in summer, and coming home to Penton, and all that sort of thing—but in the meantime there are a few things to be done. How is it all to come about?”
“Our marriage?” he said.
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s the first step,” she answered.
“That is the easiest thing in the world,” said Wat. “I shall go to town and arrange all the preliminaries. Why, what did you tell me that fellow wanted to do? Do you think I’m less fit to manage it than he is?”
“Well,” she said, “for one thing, he’s older than you are; he has more freedom than you have. He knows his way about the world. Will they let you go to London by yourself, for one thing?” she asked, with again that mocking sound in her voice.
Walter caught her arm to his side with a kind of fond fury, and cried, “Emmy!” in an indignant voice.
“I shouldn’t if I were your people,” she continued, with a laugh; “I should feel sure you would be up to some mischief. But, supposing you get off from them, and get to London, what will you do then?”
“I shall do—whatever is the right thing to do. I am not so foolish as you think me. There is a license to be got, I know—a special license.”
“Oh,” she cried, “but that costs money! You will want money.”
“Of course I shall want money,” said Walter, with a certain dignity, though his heart grew cold at the thought.
“You have not much confidence in me, Emmy; but I am not so ignorant as you think.”
There was something like a tone of indignation in his voice, and she pressed his arm with her hand.
“I am sure you have the courage for anything,” she said.
“Courage! Well, that is not precisely the quality that is needed.” He thought it was his turn to laugh now. “I am not afraid.”
“I know you are not afraid of fighting or—anything of that kind. But to walk into an office, and face a man who is grinning at you all the time, and ask for a marriage license—”
“Well,” he said, “I am capable of that.”
“And of all the questions that will be asked you? You will have to answer a great many questions—all about me, which you don’t know, and all about yourself.”
“I know that, I hope. And I shall know the other, for you will tell me.”
“And first of all—goodness!” she cried suddenly, pushing him slightly away from her, gazing at him in the darkness; “a thing I never thought of—are you of age?”
“Of age?”
He stood facing her, motionless. He had put out his hand to take hers again, to draw it through his arm once more. But this question startled him, and his hand dropped by his side. Each stood a dark shadow to the other in the dark, staring into each other’s faces, seeing nothing; and Walter’s heart gave a jump that seemed to take it out of his breast.
“Yes, of age. Oh, you fool! oh, you pretender! oh, you boy trying to be a man! You have known it all along, but you have not told me. You are not of age?”
“No,” said the poor boy, humbly. For the first moment he felt no sensation of anger or disappointment, but only the consternation of one who feels the very sky thundering down upon his head, the pillars of the earth falling. “Fool!” did she call him—“pretender!” What did she mean by fool? What did she mean by that tone of sudden indignation—almost fury? He felt beaten down by the sudden storm. Then the instinct of self-defense woke in him. “What have I done?” he said. “I have concealed nothing from you. No, I am not of age—not till October. What has that to do with it;—age can not be counted by mere years.”
“It is, though, in Doctors’ Commons,” she said, with a mocking laugh. “We might have saved ourselves a great deal of trouble and talking nonsense if you had said so at once. Didn’t I tell you you were too young to know whatwas wanted? Do you think they will give any kind of license to a boy who is under age!”
“I am not a boy,” said Walter, feeling as if she had struck him upon the naked heart, which was throbbing so wildly. “Perhaps I might be before I knew you, but not now, not now! And do you mean to tell me that for a mere punctilio like that—”
“Well, it is a punctilio,” she said, taking his arm suddenly again, her voice dropping into its softer tone. “That is true; nobody thinks anything of it, it is merely a matter of form. Even if you are found out they never do anything to you.”
“Found out in what?”
“In saying you are twenty-one when you are not; for that is what people have to do. It is just a punctilio, as you say. Nobody thinks anything of it. It is only a matter of form.”
“Why, it is perjury!” he cried, confused, not knowing what he said.
“If you like to call it so; but nobody minds. No one is harsh to a fib of that sort. Everything’s fair, don’t you know, in love?—or so they say.”
Walter’s head seemed going round and round. He could not feel the ground under his feet. He seemed to be lifted away from his firm and solid footing and plunged into a dark and whirling abyss. He could feel her leaning almost heavily upon his arm—all her weight upon him, both her hands clasping that support. That palpable touch seemed the only reality left in earth and heaven. He seemed to himself for a long time unable to speak; and when his voice came forth at last it was not his voice at all—it was a hoarse outburst of sound such as he had never heard before. Nor was it he who said the words. He heard them as if some one else had said them, hoarse, harsh, like the cry of an animal.
“Should you like me to do that?” the question was asked by some one, in that horrible way, in the midst of the chilled but heavenly stillness of the night.
He heard the question, but he was not conscious of any answer to it; nor did he know any more till he found himself, or rather heard himself, stumbling down the steep road to the Hook, almost falling over the stones in the way, making a noise which seemed to echo all about. Heknew the way well enough, and where the stony places were, and generally ran up and down as lightly as a bird, his rapid elastic steps making the least possible sound as he skimmed along. But this evening it was very different. He stumbled against every obstacle in his way, and sent the stones whirling down the road in advance of him as though he had been a drunken man. He felt indeed as if that were what he was, intoxicated in a way that had no pleasure in it, but only a wild and stupefied confusion, which made a chaos all around—a noisy chaos full of the crash of external sounds—full of voices, conversations, in none of which he took any part, though he heard things said that seemed to come from himself flitting across the surface of his dream.
Thebreakfast-table at the Hook was not a particularly quiet scene. The children were all in high spirits in the freshness of the morning, and the toys and Christmas presents, though not very fine or expensive, had still novelty to recommend them. Little Molly, before she was lifted up to her high-chair, working away conscientiously and gravely with a large rattle, held at the length of her little arm, while her next little brother drew over the carpet a cart fitted up with some kind of mechanism which called itself music; and Horry flogged his big wooden horse, and little Dick added a boom upon his drum, made a combination of noises which might well have shut out all external sounds. This tumult, indeed, calmed when father came in, when the ringleaders were lifted up on their chairs, and another kind of commotion, the sound of spoons and babble of little voices, began. What other noise could be heard through it? Mab did not think she could have heard anything, scarcely the approach of an army. But the ears of the family were used to it, and had large capabilities. When Martha came in with a fresh supply of milk and a countenance more ruddy than usual, her mistress put the question directly which so much embarrassed the young woman.
“Martha, was that your father’s voice I heard? Is there anything wrong at home?”
“No, ma’am—my lady,” said Martha, in her confusion stumbling over the new title which she was in fact more particular about than its possessor.
“What does he want, then, so early in the morning? I hope your mother is not ill?”
“Oh, no, my lady.” Martha grew redder and redder, and lingered like a messenger who does not know how to deliver a disagreeable commission, turning her tray round and round in her hands.
“It is me, no doubt, that Crockford wants. If it’s nothing very particular he can come here.”
“Oh, no, sir; oh, please, Sir Edward, no, it ain’t you—”
“Then who is it, Martha? some one here it must be.”
“Please, Sir Edward!—please, my lady—I don’t think as it’s no one here at all; it’s only a fancy as he’s took in his head. Oh,” cried the girl, her eyes moist with excitement, her plump cheeks crimson, “don’t listen to him, don’t give any heed to him! it’s all just fancy what he says.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Martha? has John Baker got into trouble? Edward, go and see what is wrong,” said Lady Penton, placidly. She was very kind, but after all, Molly’s bread and milk, and the egg which was ordered for little Jack because he was delicate, were of more immediate importance than Martha’s love-affairs. Sir Edward was perhaps even more amiable in this respect than his wife. Old Crockford was a favorite in his way, and had often amused a weary afternoon when the horizon at the Hook was very limited and very dull. And now even Mab could hear, through the chatter of the children, the sound of some one talking, loud but indistinct, outside. At that moment, with the usual cruelty of fate, a pause took place in the domestic murmur, and suddenly Walter’s voice became audible, crying,
“Hush! Don’t speak so loud.”
The door had been left ajar by Martha, and these words, so unexpected, so incomprehensible, fell into the simple warm interior, unconscious of evil, like a stone into the water.
“Go and see what it is, Edward,” Lady Penton repeated, growing a little pale. The family to which for so long a time nothing had happened had got to a crisis, when anything might happen, and new events were the order of the day.
Sir Edward, who had been going with great composure, hurried his steps a little, and, what was more, closed the door behind him; but it can not be said that he anticipated anything disagreeable. When he got out into the hall, however, he was startled by the sight of Walter, who was pushing Crockford into the book-room, and repeating in a half whisper,
“Hush, I tell you. Be quiet. What good can it do you to let everybody know?”
“It’s right, Mr. Walter, as your father should know.”
“Not if I satisfy you,” said the boy. “Come in here. They are all at breakfast. Quick. Whatever it is, I am the person—”
Walter’s voice broke off short, and his under-lip dropped with a shock of sudden horror. His father’s hand, preventing the closing of it, was laid upon the book-room door.
“If it is anything that concerns you, Wat, it must concern me too,” Sir Edward said. He did not even now think any more of Walter’s possibilities of ill-doing than of Horry’s. They were still on about the same level to the father’s eyes. He supposed it was some innocent piece of mischief, some practical joke, or, at the worst, some piece of boyish negligence, of which Crockford had come to complain. He followed the two into the room with the suspicion of a smile at the corners of his mouth. He did not quite understand of what mischief his son might have been guilty, but there could be nothing very serious in the matter when old Crockford was the complainant.
“Well,” he said, “old friend, what has my boy done?”
But the sight of Sir Edward and this smiling accost seemed to take the power of speech from Crockford, as well as from Walter. The old man opened his mouth and his eyes; the color faded as far as that was possible out of the streaky and broken red of his cheeks. He began to hook his fingers together, changing them from one twist to another as he turned his face from the father to the son. It was evident that, notwithstanding his half threat to Walter, the presence of Walter’s father was as bewildering to him as to the young man.
“Well, sir,” he said, instinctively putting up his hand to his head and disordering the scanty white locks which weredrawn over his bald crown, “I’m one as is lookin’ ahead, so being as I’m an old man, and has a deal of time to think; my occypation’s in the open air, and things goes through of my head that mightn’t go through of another man’s.”
“That is all very well,” said Sir Edward, still with his half smile. “I have heard you say as much a great many times, Crockford, but it generally was followed by something less abstract. What has your occupation and your habit of thought to say to my boy?”
Upon this Crockford scratched his head more and more.
“I was observin’ to Mr. Walter, sir, as a young gentleman don’t think of them things, but as how it’s a good thing to take care; for you never knows what way trouble’s a-going to come. The storm may be in the big black cloud as covers the whole sky, or it may be in one that’s no bigger nor a man’s hand.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Sir Edward, impatiently; “I tell you I’ve heard you say that sort of thing a hundred times. Come to the point. What is there between Walter and you?”
“There’s nothing, father—nothing whatever. I haven’t seen Crockford for ages, except on the road. He has done nothing to me nor I to him.”
“Then you’d better be off to your breakfast, and leave him to me,” said the father, calmly.
His mind was as composed as his looks. He felt no alarm about his son, but with a little amusement cast about in his mind how he was to draw out of the old road-mender the probably very small and unimportant thread of complaint or remonstrance that was in him. But Walter showed no inclination to budge. He did not, it would appear, care for his breakfast. He stood with his head cast down, but his eye upon Crockford, not losing a single movement he made. Sir Edward began to feel a faint misgiving, and old Crockford took his colored handkerchief out of his breast and began to mop his forehead with it. It was a cold morning, not the kind of season to affect a man so. What did it all mean?
“Look here,” said Sir Edward, “this can’t go on all day. Crockford, you have some sense on ordinary occasions. Don’t think to put me off with clouds and storms, etc., which you know have not the least effect upon me;but tell me straight off, what has Walter to do with it? and what do you mean?”
“Father,” said Walter, “it’s something about a lodger he has. There is a—young lady living there. I’ve seen her two or three times. She has spoken to me even, thinking, I suppose, that I was a gentleman who would not take any advantage. But the old man doesn’t think so; he thinks I’m likely to do something dishonorable—to be a cad, or—I don’t know what. You know whether I’m likely to be anything of the sort. If you have any confidence in me you will send him away—”
“A young lady!” Sir Edward exclaimed, with amazement.
“And that’s not just the whole of it, sir, as Mr. Walter tells you,” said Crockford, put on his mettle. “I’m not one as calls a young gentleman names; cad and such-like isn’t words as come nat’ral to the likes of me. But as for being a lady, there ain’t no ladies live in cottages like mine. I don’t go against ladies—nor lasses neither, when they’re good uns.”
“What does all this mean? I think you are going out of your senses, Wat—both Crockford and you. Have you been rude to any one?—do you think he has been rude to any one? Hold your tongue, Wat! Come, my man, speak out. I must know what this means.”
“It means that he is trying to make mischief—”
“It means, sir,” said Crockford, in his slow, rural way, taking the words out of Walter’s mouth—“I beg your pardon, Sir Edward. I don’t know as I’m giving you the respect as is your due, though there’s none—I’m bold to say it, be the other who he may—as feels more respect. It means just this, Sir Edward,” he went on, advertised by an impatient nod that he must not lose more time, “as there’s mischief done, or will be, if you don’t look into it, between this young gentleman—as is a gentleman born, sir, and your heir—and a little—a—a—” (Walter’s fiery eye, and a certain threatening of his attitude, as if he might spring upon the accuser, changed Crockford’s phraseology, even when the words were in his mouth)—“a young person,” he said, more quickly, “as is not his equal, and never can be; as belongs to me, sir, and is no more a lady nor—nor my Martha, nor half as good a girl.”
Surprise made Sir Edward slow of understanding—surprise and an absence of all alarm, for to his thinking Walter was a boy, and this talk of ladies, or young persons, was unintelligible in such a connection.
He said, “There is surely some strange mistake here. Walter’s—why, Walter is—too young for any nonsense of this kind. You’re—why, you must be—dreaming, Crockford! You might as well tell me that Horry—”
Here Sir Edward’s eyes turned, quite involuntarily, unintentionally upon Walter, standing up by the mantel-piece with his hands in his pockets, his face burning with a dull heat, his eyes cast down, yet watching under the eyelids every action of both his companions—a nameless air about him that spoke of guilt. He stopped short at the sight: everything in Walter’s aspect breathed guilt—the furtive watch he kept, the dull red of anger and shame burning like a fire in his face; the attitude—his hands in his pockets, clinched as if ready for a blow. The first look made Sir Edward stop bewildered, the second carried to his mind a strange, painful, unpleasant, discovery. Walter was no longer a boy! He had parted company from his father, and from all his father knew of him. This perception flashed across his mind like a sudden light. He gasped, and could say no more.
Crockford took advantage of the pause. “If I may make so bold, sir,” he said, “it’s you as hasn’t taken note of the passage of time. It ain’t wonderful. One moment your child here’s a boy at your knee, the next his heart’s set on getting married—or wuss. That’s how it goes. I’ve had a many children myself, and seen ’em grow up and buried most on ’em. Martha, she’s my youngest, she’s a good lass. As for the lads, ye can’t tell where ye are; one day it’s a peg-top and the next it’s a woman. If I may make so bold, I’ve known you man and boy for something like forty years; and I’m sorry for you, Sir Edward, that I am.”
Sir Edward heard as if he heard it not, thebourdonnementof this raw rustic voice in his ears, and scarcely knew what it meant. He turned to his son without taking any notice. “Walter,” he said, with something keen, penetrating, unlike itself in his voice, “what is this? what is this? I don’t seem to understand it.” He was going to be angry presently, very angry; but in the first place it was necessary that he should know.
“I won’t deceive you, father,” said Walter. “From his point of view I suppose he’s right enough—but that is not my point of view.”
“Mr. Walter,” old Crockford said, beginning one of his speeches. The old man in his patched coat of an indescribable color, the color of the woods and hedgerows, with his red handkerchief in a wisp round his neck, the lock of thin gray hair smoothed over his bald crown, his hat in his old knotted rugged hands, all knuckles and protrusions, came into Sir Edward’s mind, as the companion figure leaning on the mantel-piece had done, like a picture all full of meaning; but he stopped the old man’s slow discourse with a wave of his hand, and turned to his son, impatiently. He had not voice enough in his bewilderment to say, “Go on”—he said it with his hand.
“Well, sir?” said the lad, “I don’t know what I have to say; there are things one man doesn’t tell another, even if it’s his father. There’s nothing in me that is dishonorable, if that is what you mean. If there were, it ishereye I should shrink from first of all.”
Her eye! The father stood confounded, not able to believe his ears. He made one more attempt at a question, not with words, but with a half-stupefied look, again silencing Crockford with his hand.
“I tell you, father,” cried Walter, with irritation, “there are things one man doesn’t tell another, not even if—” He was pleased, poor boy, with that phrase; but the examination, the discovery was intolerable to him. He gave a wave of his hand toward Crockford, as if saying, “Question him—hear him—hear the worst of me!” with a sort of contemptuous indignation; then shot between the two other men like an arrow, and was gone.
“Things one man doesn’t tell to another, even if it’s his father.” One man to another! was it laughable, was it tragical? Sir Edward, in the confusion of his soul, could not tell. He looked at Crockford, but not for information; was it for sympathy? though the old stone-breaker was at one extremity of the world and he at the other. He felt himself shaking his head in a sort of intercommunion with old Crockford, and then stopped himself with a kind of angry dismay.
“If you’ve anything to say on this subject, let me have it at once,” he said.
“I can talk more freely, sir, now as he’s gone. That young gentleman is that fiery, and that deceived. The young uns is like that. Sir Edward; us as is older should make allowances, though now and again a body forgets. I’m one that makes a deal of allowances myself, being a great thinker, Sir Edward, in my poor way. Well, sir, it’s this, sir—and glad I am as you’re by yourself and I can speak free. She’s nobody no more nor I am. She’s a little baggage, that’s what she is. How she come to me was this. A brother of mine, as has been no better than what you may call a rollin’ stone all his life, and has done a many foolish things, what does he do at last but marry a woman as had been a play-actress, and I don’t know what. They say as she was always respectable—I don’t know. And she had a daughter, this little baggage as is here, as was her daughter, not his, nor belonging to none of us. But her mother, she bothered me to ’ave ’er, to take her out of some man’s way as wanted to marry her, but his friends wouldn’t hear of it. And that’s how it is. How she came across Mr. Walter is more than I can tell. That’s just how things happens, that is. You or me, Sir Edward, begging your pardon, sir, it’s a thing that don’t occur to the likes of us; but when a young gentleman is young and tender-hearted, and don’t know the world—The ways of Providence is past explaining,” Crockford said.
Sir Edward stood with that habitual look in his face of a man injured and aggrieved, and full of a troubled yet mild remonstrance with fate, and listened to all this only half hearing it. He heard enough to understand in a dull sort of way what it was which had happened to his boy, a thing which produced upon him perhaps a heavier effect than it need have done by reason of the vagueness in which it was wrapped, the blurred and misty outlines of the facts making it so much more considerable. It was not what Crockford said it was, not the mere discovery that his son had got into a foolish “entanglement,” as so many have done before him, with some village girl, that produced this effect upon him. It was Walter’s words so strangely dislocating the connection between them, cutting the ground from under his feet, changing the very foundations of life; “things one man doesn’t tell to another”—one man!—to another. He kept saying it over in his mind with a bewilderment that kept growing, a confusion which he couldnot get right—one man, to another. It was this he was thinking of, and not what Crockford had said, when he went back to the dining-room, where all the children had finished breakfast, and his wife met him with a look so full of surprise. “What has kept you, Edward? everything is cold. Have you sent Wat out for anything? Has anything happened?” she said.
“Youhad better send the children off to play, and never mind if everything is cold. It’s my own fault; it’s the fault of circumstances.” He seated himself at table as he spoke and helped himself to some of the cold bacon, which was not appetizing; nor had he much appetite. His face was full of care as he swallowed his cup of tea, keeping an eye uneasily upon the children as they were gradually coaxed and led and pushed away. When the door closed upon the last of them there was still a moment of silence. Sir Edward trifled with his cold bacon, he crumbled his roll, he swallowed his tea in large abstract gulps; but said nothing, his mind being so full, yet so confused and out of gear. And it was not till his wife repeated her question, this time with a tone of anxiety, that he replied,
“What is it? It’s something that has taken me all aback, as you see. It’s—something about a woman.”
“Something about a woman!” she repeated with the utmost astonishment; but had he said “something about a cabbage,” Lady Penton could not have been less alarmed.
“Living at old Crockford’s,” he went on. “I don’t understand the story. The old man talked and talked, and Walter—”
“What has Walter to do with it, Edward? He has gone out without any breakfast. Have you sent him to see after anything? Where has he gone?”
“Gone! is he gone? Why, he’s gone toher, I suppose; that’s the amusing thing. He says ‘there’s things one man doesn’t tell to another;’ one man!—that’s how Wat speaks to me, Annie.” He gave a laugh which was far from joyful. “I think the boy’s gone off his head.”
“Wat says—I don’t know what you mean, Edward.”
“No more do I; it’s past understanding. It’s the sort of thing people talk of, but I never thought it would come in our way. It’s an entanglement with some girl in the village. Don’t you know what that means?”
“Edward!” cried the mother; and a flash of color like a flame passed over her face. She was confounded, and unable to make any comment even in her thoughts.
“You can’t take it in, and I don’t wonder; neither can I, that know more of the world than you can do. Our Wat, that has never seemed anything but a school-boy! Why, Horry will be saying presently, ‘There are some things that one man doesn’t tell to—’ I don’t know what the world is coming to,” he cried, sharply. When Sir Edward himself was taken by surprise he felt by instinct that something sudden and unexpected must have occurred to the world.
Lady Penton was perhaps still more taken by surprise than her husband. But she did not make any observations against the world. The sudden flush faded from her face as she sat opposite to him, her astonished eyes still fixed upon him, her hands crossed in her lap. But a whole panorama instantly revealed itself before her mind. How could she have been so blind? Walter had been absent continually, whenever he could get an opportunity of stealing away. The reading in the evening, and a hundred little kindly offices which he had been in the habit of performing for his sisters, and with them, had all dropped, as she suddenly perceived. For weeks past he had been with them very little, taking little interest in the small family events, abstracted and dreamy, wrapped in a world of his own. She saw it all now as by a sudden flash of enlightenment. “Some things a man doesn’t tell to another man”—oh, no, not even to another woman, not to his mother! How strange, bewildering, full of confusion, and yet somehow how natural! This was not her husband’s point of view. To him it was monstrous, a thing that never used to happen, an instance of the decay and degradation of the world. Lady Penton, though the most innocent of women, did not feel this. To her, with a curious burst of understanding, as if a new world had opened at her feet, it seemed natural, something which she ought to have expected, something that expanded and widened out her own world of consciousness. Walter, then, her boy, lovedsomebody. It brought a renewed, fainter flush to her cheek, and a wonderfully tender light to her eyes. She thought of that first, before it occurred to her to think (all being the work of a moment) who it was who had opened this new chapter in her boy’s life, and made Walter a man, the equal of his father. Oh, that he should have become the equal of his father, a man, loving, drawing to himself the life of another, he who was only a boy! This wonder, though it might have an acute touch in it, had also a curious sweetness. For Lady Penton was not the hungering jealous mother of one child, but the soft expansive parent of many, and never had shut herself up in the hope of retaining them altogether for her own.
“It is very strange,” she said, after a pause, “it takes a good time to accustom one’s self to such an idea” (which was not the case, for she had done it in the flash of a moment). “It would be quite nice—and agreeable,” she added, with some timidity, “if it was a—right person; but did you say, Edward—whatdid you say?”
“Nice!” he cried, with an explosion like thunder, or so it seemed to his wife’s ears, a little nervous with all that had happened. “You can’t have listened to what I have been saying. I told you plainly enough. A girl that has been living at old Crockford’s, a girl out of the village—no, worse, much worse, sent down from London, to be out of some one’s way—”
Lady Penton had sprung to her feet, and came toward him with her hands clasped, as if praying for mercy. “Oh! Edward, no, no, no; don’t say all that, Edward,” she cried.
“What am I to say? It’s all true so far as I know. You can ask Martha about her. Perhaps that’s the best way; trust one woman to tell you the worst that’s to be said of another. Yes, I think on the whole that’s the best way. Have her up and let us hear—”
“What!” said Lady Penton, “call up Martha, and question her about a thing that Walter’s mixed up in? let her know that we are in trouble about our boy? make her talk about—about that sort of thing—beforeyou? I don’t know what sort of a woman you take me for, Edward. At all events, that is not what you would ever get me to do.”
He stared at her, only partially understanding—perhaps indeed not understanding at all, but feeling an obstaclevaguely shape itself in his path. “Annie,” he said, “there’s no room for sentiment here; whatever the girl is, she’s not a person that should ever have come in Walter’s way.”
Upon which his mother, without any warning, began suddenly to cry, a thing which was still more confusing to her husband; exclaiming by intervals, “Oh! my Wat!” “Oh! my poor boy! What did you say to him? You must have been harsh, Edward; oh, you must have been harsh; and to think he should have rushed out without any breakfast!” Lady Penton sobbed and cried.
It was not very long, however, before the mistress of the house, returning to the routine of domestic matters and with no trace of tears about her, though there was a new and unaccustomed look of anxiety in her eyes, found Martha in the pantry, where she was cleaning the silver, and lingered to give her a few orders, especially in respect to the plate. Lady Penton pointed out to her that she was using too much plate-powder, that she was not sufficiently careful with the chasings and the raised silver of the edges, with various other important pieces of advice, which Martha took with some courtesies but not much satisfaction. Lady Penton then made several remarks about the crystal which it would be impertinent to quote; and then she smoothed matters by asking Martha how her mother was. “I have not seen her for some time; I suppose she doesn’t go out in this cold weather, which is good for no one,” said Lady Penton.
“Oh, my lady, there’s worse things than the bad weather,” cried Martha. She was her father’s child, and apt, like him, to moralize.
“That is very true: but the bad weather is at the bottom of a great deal of rheumatism and bronchitis as well as many other things.”
“Yes, my lady, but there’s things as you can’t have the doctor to, and them’s the worst of all.”
“I hope none of your brothers are a trouble to her, Martha; I thought they were all doing so well?”
“Oh, it ain’t none of the boys, my lady. It’s one as is nothing to us, not a blood relation at all. Father was telling master—or at least he come up a purpose to tell master, but I begged him not,” said the young woman,rubbing with redoubled energy. “I said, ‘father, what’s the good?’”
“You are very right there, Martha; Sir Edward is only annoyed with complaints from the village; he can’t do anything. It is much better in such a case to come to me.”
“Yes, my lady; I didn’t want them to trouble you neither. I told ’em her ladyship had a deal to think of. You see, my lady, mother’s deaf, and things might go on—oh, they might go on to any length afore she’d hear.”
“I know she is deaf, poor thing,” Lady Penton said.
“That was why I didn’t want her to take a lodger at all, my lady. But Emmy’s not a lodger after all. She’s a kind of relation. She’s Uncle Sam’s wife’s daughter, and she didn’t look like one as would give trouble. She’s just as nice spoken as any one could be, and said she was to help mother; and so she does, and always kind. Whatever father says she’s always been kind—and that handy, turning an old gown to look like new, and telling you how things is worn, and all what you can see in the shops, and as good-natured with it all—”
“Of whom are you speaking, Martha? Emmy, did you say? who is Emmy? I have never heard of her before.”
“She’s the young woman, my lady; oh! she’s the one—she’s the young person, she’s—it was her as father came to speak of, and wouldn’t hold his tongue or listen to me.”
“What is there to say about her? Sir Edward, I am afraid, did not understand. He has a great many things to think of. It would have been much better if your father had come to me. Who is she, and what has she done?”
Lady Penton spoke with a calm and composure that was almost too complete; but Martha was absorbed in her own distress and suspected nothing of this.
“Please, my lady,” she cried, with a courtesy, “she have done nothing. She’s dreadful taking, that’s all. When she gets talking, you could just stop there forever. It’s a great waste of time when you’ve a deal to do, but it ain’t no fault of hers. She makes you laugh, and she makes you cry, and though she don’t give herself no airs, she can talk as nice as any of the quality, as if she was every bit a lady—and the next moment the same as mother or like me.”
“She must be very clever,” said Lady Penton. “Is she pretty, too?”
“I don’t know as I should have taken no notice of her looks but for other folks a-talking of them,” said Martha, “I don’t know as I sees her any different from other folks; but as for good nature and making things pleasant, there ain’t none like her high nor low.”
“And what is she doing here? and why did your father come to Sir Edward about her?” said Lady Penton, in her magisterial calm.
“Oh, my lady, you’ll not be pleased; I’d rather not tell you. When father does notice a thing he’sthatsuspicious! I’d rather not—oh, I’d rather not!”
“This is nonsense, Martha—you had much better tell me. What has this girl been doing that Sir Edward ought to know?”
Martha twisted her fingers together in overwhelming embarrassment.
“Oh, my lady, don’t ask me! I could not bear to tell you—and you’d not be pleased.”
“What have I to do with it, my good girl?” said Walter’s mother, as steadily as if she had been made of marble; and then she added, “but after hearing so much I must know. You had better tell me. I may perhaps be of use to her, poor thing!”
“Oh, my lady, Sir Edward’ll tell you. Oh, what have I got to do pushing into it! Oh, if you’re that kind, my lady, and not angry!” Here Martha paused, and took a supreme resolution. “It’s all father’s doing, though I say it as shouldn’t. He thinks as Mr. Walter—oh, my lady, Mr. Walter’s like your ladyship—he’s that civil and kind!”