Arthur drew nearer to his cousin, and put his arm around her waist. To his surprise again, she pushed his arm gently aside.
"Not now, dear Arthur!" she said, in a soft, clear voice, lifting her blue eyes to his face; "I want you to tell me all about it."
"About what?" said Arthur, somewhat taken aback at the result of his impulsive frankness.
"Your love for Margaret Grey," she said gently, but not without a faint tremor in her voice.
"Did I say Ilovedher, Adèle?" It was Arthur's turn to speak with a trembling voice and flushed face, but these told his tale only too eloquently.
"Not in so many words," replied Adèle; "but, dear, you have revealed your secret, and I am glad. It was like yourself, Arthur—frank and true. I might have guessed it before, for she is beautiful as a dream, like the lady Una; and I can imagine so well how a man's heart would go out to that kind of sadness and helplessness. I wish I had been a man;" Adèle sighed as she spoke; "but, perhaps, as a woman I shall be able to help you more. Strange—isn't it?—I was thinking of her, her face haunted me so, and longing to find out more about her—all for her own sake; now I will do it for yours."
The words were spoken very quietly and with a certain determination, that Arthur found it very difficult to understand.
"But, Adèle," he stammered out, "you forget—"
"That you and I are betrothed in a kind of way—is that what you mean? Thank you for thinking of it; but I should be grieved forthatto stand in your way." She smiled a rather watery smile. "I promised not to be like Vivien, so, rather than make a prison of my spells, I shall cast them all to the winds." Then, more gravely, "We were too young, Arthur—I told my mother so—too young to know our own minds, as people say—at least you were." Here Adèle stopped suddenly; she was on the point of betraying the secret which—brave little maiden!—she thought shehad preserved so well. But her calmness had reassured Arthur.
"You are right, Adèle," he answered gravely—and for the moment, with the unreasoning impulse of womanhood, she hated him for his quick acquiescence—"we were both too young; we had seen too little of the world; and even now I scarcely know how we ought to act. Our engagement has been announced; then my aunt—"
Adèle smiled faintly: "It will be best to say nothing to mamma at present, nor to anybody; we can surely be what we have been to one another—brother and sister; we have never been more—we could not wish to be less."
There was a tinge of bitterness in Adèle's voice as she said the last words, but the ears of very young men, when not quickened by any stronger feeling than brotherly affection, are not swift to catch these slight intonations.
"You must let me be your friend and confidante, Arthur," she continued more gently; "I shall still like to be the first to know everything that nearly concerns you."
Her gentleness touched Arthur. He took one of her hands in his: "You shall always be what you are to me, Adèle—my dearest friend and counsellor. I shall come to you for advice and sympathy."
She rose, and stooping began to collect the fallen flowers—a pretext only, for the tears were beginning to force their way to her eyes, and she was determined to show no weakness in her cousin's presence.
"My poor flowers!" she said lightly, "they have been forgotten: go and fetch another vase from the breakfast-room, like a good old fellow. I have filled all here, and I want these up stairs."
By the time her cousin had returned with the vase Adèle was herself again. Grouping the flowers delicately, with clever fingers well accustomed to this kind of work, she began her gentle catechism: "Have you seen her again, Arthur?"
Perhaps it was a relief to him to unburden himself, to pour out to another the torrent of self-condemnation that had been oppressing him.
"Don't ask me, Adèle," he said, pacing the room excitedly."I am a wretch—a fool—an idiot! I mistookher—think of it! I wonder will she ever be able to bear the sight of me again? I took the advice of a villain, who knows nothing whatever about women like her."
"Whatcanyou mean, Arthur?" broke in Adèle, whose flowers had fallen from her hands in her astonishment.
He did not seem to hear the interruption. "I did knowingly what I knew would offend her," he continued, clenching his fists and drawing his brows together, as though challenging himself for his misconduct.
Adèle sighed: "Iwishyou would explain yourself, dear."
"Explain myself!" Arthur came suddenly down from the heroic with a little laugh: "Ah, yes, by the bye, you don't know, and really it's not a very creditable story. Well—to make a clean breast of it—I went to the Academy yesterday.Shewas there, and I had the happiness of seeing her. She didn't see me, but while I was looking at her with feelings that you can imagine, Captain Mordaunt came up behind me."
"Not at all a good companion for you, dear," interrupted Adèle with the wise air of a little mother, but blushing, girl like, as she spoke, for Captain Mordaunt was an admirer of hers: he had once or twice seized a quiet opportunity of looking into her blue eyes in a way that offended as much as it bewildered her. "Please have nothing to do with him, Arthur," she continued pleadingly.
"Why, Adèle, what have you against Captain Mordaunt? I thought you had only met him once or twice."
"That once or twice was enough. He is one of those men who believe in nothing good, who seem to delight in the wickedness of the world. I always think such people must be particularly bad themselves. But it's no use reasoning about it. I dislike Captain Mordaunt."
"A case, in fact, of 'I do not like you, Doctor Fell,'" put in Arthur provokingly. "I shall send him to you when he wants a character, Adèle; but, do you know, amongst ladies your opinion would be considered rather singular? I certainly have never been able to see what they find to admire in him."
"Nor I, and I must say I pity their taste; he's ugly andconceited. But what did he say about her—Margaret Grey, I mean?"
Arthur's manner grew excited again: "What he said was not so bad as what he implied with his odious hints. I was idiot enough to listen to him, to believe him partially. I disobeyed her, Adèle, and called on her in that wretched place at Islington."
Adèle looked up bewildered: "But I can't see why that should offend her. Of course you were never properly introduced, but then the circumstances were peculiar, and she must have seen that we were tolerably respectable people."
"What a simple, innocent little girl you are, Adèle!" said Arthur rather grandly. "You see what I say is quite true—with all your romantic notions you know nothing whatever of the world. I can't very well explain, as you don't seem to understand; but, anyway, what I did was very stupid and wrong, and she showed me that in a moment. Oh, if I could tell you how she looked—so beautiful, so sad!"
The remembrance was overpowering. Arthur hid his burning face in both his hands, and Adèle was silent. To her pure young heart this passion, which an older and more experienced woman would certainly have laughed to scorn, was a sacred thing.
"She forgave me," he continued after a pause. "She said I would soonforgetthe infatuation."
There was a mournful incredulity in the boy's voice to which the young girl's heart responded. That he could everforgetthe infatuation seemed, for the moment, as impossible to one cousin as to the other.
Neither of them spoke for some minutes, then Adèle raised to her cousin a face that was streaming with tears. "I can't help it, Arthur," she said simply, "and please don't think it's for myself. I have everything to make me happy. I was thinking of you and of her. You know they say women's wits are sharper than men's in these matters. I will try and help you in some way, for youmustmeet her again, dear; but just now everything seems confused. Mamma expects you to dinner, so you had better go home at once and dress. I can easily arrange for a quiet talk in the course of the evening, and then perhaps I shall have thought of some plan, for wemust lose no time, as I know she is only staying temporarily in London."
She said it all in a broken way through the tears she could not keep back. He tried to kiss her then, but she slipped out of his arms.
Poor child! The aching at her heart was too great to be borne any longer. She finished her cry in her own room, but what she had said was true—it was not all for herself.
The beautiful lonely stranger and her cousin's passion, which her woman's insight told her was not very hopeful, had their share in causing her sorrow. She could not indulge long, however, in the luxury of tears. She too had to make her dinner-toilet, and that evening her mother was not the only person at the dinner-table who thought she looked even fairer than usual.
SympathyMust call her in love's name, and then, I know,She rises up and brightens as she should,And lights her smile for comfort, and is slowIn nothing of high-hearted fortitude.
Adèle kept her word. She set her wits to work with such good effect that the next morning found her and her cousin in the carriage, under the conduct of the stately coachman, on their way to that unfashionable locality, the neighborhood of Islington.
They had started, presumably, on a shopping excursion, the delusion being maintained by two or three stoppages in Regent street, after which, by Arthur's direction, they drove to the vicinity of The Angel, where carriage and coachman were left in waiting, the remainder of the way being made on foot for the sake of the preservation of their secret.
It had been agreed between them that Adèle should pay a visit to Margaret, Arthur waiting for her at the entrance of the narrow street where she lodged. The object of her visitwas in the present instance only to inquire after Mrs. Grey's health, to take a kindly interest in her welfare, and to try and persuade her to accept their offer of friendship: it had been decided between them that upon this occasion Arthur's name should not be mentioned. Adèle had taken upon herself the office of simply paving the way for further intercourse—of preventing Mrs. Grey from escaping them altogether. This, with her quiet tact and gentle sympathy, she did not despair of accomplishing, if fate would only be commonly propitious, for Adèle was really in earnest. Putting self out of the way, she had thrown herself heart and soul into her cousin's scheme, and all the more readily, it may be, from the affection which had arisen spontaneously in her own heart at the sight of Margaret's pure, calm beauty.
Adèle was only eighteen, and eighteen is an impressionable age, open not only to accesses of what is called the tender passion, but to feelings perhaps much tenderer and fairer, for the souls of the very young, especially among women, are keenly susceptible to the subtle influences of beauty and grace; it is not uncommon for a young girl to be deeply, jealously enamored of one of her own sex; to experience the delights, the tremors, the anxieties of love itself, and far more palpably than in any of the necessary flirtations that diversify her budding womanhood. Beauty is the embodiment of the young girl's dream, and beauty she finds more visibly in her own sex than in the other.
The first loving emotion of Milton's Eve was for the fair watery image that represented herself in all the radiant charms of female loveliness. It was only afterward that she discovered
"How beauty is excelled by manly grace,And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."
Adèle was in this first stage, and Margaret seemed to her the living embodiment of all that had so often won and fascinated her in poetry and romance. The evident mystery that surrounded the fair stranger, her sadness, her lonely friendless position, all added to the spell.
The first emotion of wounded self-love over, Adèle ceased to wonder at Arthur's desertion, or even to grieve over it, andwas ready to go through fire and water for their common divinity.
In spite of her grand resolutions, however, she felt rather nervous when, Arthur having been left at the top of the dull-looking row of houses, she stood alone on the doorstep of the one indicated by him, inquiring for Mrs. Grey.
Mrs. Grey was at home. The servant-girl threw open the door of the small sitting-room without previous warning, and showed Margaret herself on her knees before an obstinate trunk, which apparently refused to be fastened. At the sound of the opening door she rose in some embarrassment, looked at the card which the girl had thrust into her hand, and then at Adèle, who was standing, with some hesitation in her manner, on the threshold of the room. The card had been an enigma, but Adèle's pleasant girlish face solved it in a moment.
"Come in," she said warmly, going forward to meet her. "It is exceedingly kind of you to have thought of paying me a visit; but you find me in great disorder. Let me see," looking round the room; "I must try and find you an unoccupied chair."
"Forgive me," said Adèle with gentle courtesy. "I know it is too early for a call, but ever since we met the other day I have been so anxious to see you once more, and this is the only time in the day when I can manage to come so far."
She blushed as she spoke, and Margaret was too kind to add to her embarrassment by any expression of surprise at her unexpected visit. She smiled pleasantly, and sat down by her side. "I am only too delighted to see you, my dear Miss Churchill; my visitors are never numerous, and they do not always come on such pleasant errands as yours. You see I am preparing for flight; I can really stand London no longer."
Adèle's sympathetic eyes were fixed on Margaret's face. She gave a little sigh: "Yes, I am sure it must be very lonely for you, living all by yourself here."
"Sometimes it is, I must confess. In my present home, a seaside village, I know most of the country-people, and I have my little Laura to go about with me. Then (at leastthis ismyfeeling) the loneliness of the country is very different from the loneliness of towns."
"I canquiteunderstand that," said Adèle earnestly, "although I have very little experience of loneliness of any kind. I sometimes wish, indeed, to have a little more time to myself. But I must not forget what specially brought me here to-day. My cousin and I have been very anxious about you, Mrs. Grey, for your fainting-fit lasted so long we feared it was the commencement of a serious illness."
Margaret smiled: "Thanks to your timely help, my dear Miss Churchill, I have felt no after ill effects whatever. I scarcely know how it might have been with me had I had to find my way home alone; but it all arose from my own stupidity. The time passed so rapidly in the picture-galleries that I forgot all about lunch. When I reached home I remembered that breakfast had been my only meal that day. My faintness must have been caused by want of food, so you see it was not very interesting after all."
She spoke the words lightly, but Adèle wondered with a sudden pang whether the want of food had anything to do with her poverty, for the interior of the shabby-looking house confirmed her worst fears. To put up with such a miserable place could be the result of nothing but dire necessity.
Her voice was very tender as she spoke again after a little pause, laying her hand affectionately on Margaret's arm and looking up earnestly into her pale, sad face: "Dear Mrs. Grey, you look very delicate, indeed you do; you should take more care of yourself."
Perhaps it was the sympathy that shone out of the young girl's glistening eyes, a human longing for something like this warm young love, that seemed to be offering itself so spontaneously, or a sudden sickness of the self-contained life she had been leading, for Adèle's gentle words and gestures broke the crust of calm reserve with which Margaret had striven to surround herself. "Ah, child," she said, tears in her eyes and in her voice, "it is for the young and happy to take care of themselves; their lives are precious. From mine too much of the sweetness has gone to make it worthy of preservation. How strange it is! I used to live and to enjoy life; now, even pleasures are like apples of Sodom—theyturn to dust and ashes in my mouth. I feel inclined to write 'Vanity of vanities' upon everything." She smiled through her tears: "I should not speak of such things to you."
But tears, real, large, glistening tears, were in Adèle's eyes. "Why not?" she said impetuously. Then, after another pause, for though the young can give tears to sorrow, they are helpless very often to give words (if they only knew it, how much more eloquent those tears are than the after commonplaces with which the world teaches them to treat suffering!), "Oh, Mrs. Grey, I wish I could help you in some way. Will you let me be your friend?"
Margaret smiled: "You have done me good already, dear; your sympathy is very sweet, and especially, I think, to me, for it brings back to my mind a time when sympathy was never wanting. I had a friend once, but she has gone, like other beautiful things, out of my life."
"Tell me about her," said Adèle.
Margaret shook her head: "No, no; enough of miseries for one day. I scarcely know when I have talked so much about myself; and do you know I am the least bit in the world curious?"
"What about, Mrs. Grey?"
"I want you to tell me honestly what brought you here to-day."
Adèle blushed. "Please don't be vexed with me, or think that my visit was from idle curiosity. What I say is really true," her admiration shone out of her eyes as she spoke: "ever since I saw you in the Academy, your face has haunted me. You know one reads of those kinds of attraction. Have you any spells, Mrs. Grey? I could not rest, in fact, until I had seen you once more."
Margaret was sitting near the window, a faint smile, half of pleasure, half of surprise, on her lips as she listened to Adèle's impulsive words, but before she could frame an answer they both became aware by a sudden intuition—the effect of that inexplicable mesmeric power which the human eye possesses—that they were being watched. Instinctively they looked out. A tall, dark-looking man, somewhat of anélégantin his appearance, was leaning quietly on the small ironrailings that skirted the area and kitchen steps. In this position his chin was on a level with the top of the muslin blind; he could have a full view of all that took place in the room.
He was availing himself without stint or scruple of the advantage.
Next a lover—with a dream'Neath his waking eyelids hidden,And a frequent sigh unbidden,And an idlesse all the day,And a silence that is madeOf a word he dares not say.
Adèle gave a little scream. She looked at Margaret. Her face had turned as pale as ashes. She had not generally much color, but this was no ordinary pallor: a gray, livid look seemed to spread itself gradually over her features till even her lips were blanched. For a moment she seemed to be stunned. Then she rose, apparently with difficulty, and leaning forward on the window-sash seized the blind to put it between themselves and the audacious watcher.
He did not wait for it to be drawn down. Turning slowly, he passed away down the quiet street, but before he did so, Adèle saw that his lips curled themselves into a mocking smile. Astonishment and a vague sense of alarm had rendered her helpless for the moment. When the blind was drawn down and the man had gone, she leapt to her feet and threw both her arms round Margaret's waist, for, leaning still as if for support against the window-sash, Adèle saw that her friend was tottering, and that in her widely-opened eyes there was a dazed, bewildered look. She drew her down gently to the nearest seat, then, kneeling by her side, rubbed one of her cold hands in both her own. "Mrs. Grey, what is it?" she cried almost piteously. "Can I do anything for you?"
Her voice seemed to arouse Margaret. She passed one of her hands over her forehead. "Was it a dream?" she said in a faint, low voice. "I thought I saw him; and I hadvowed, sworn that he should never set eyes on me again; and he was smiling, I thought, a mocking, triumphant smile, such as—" Then suddenly she caught sight of the lowered blind: "Why did I draw down the blind? the sun is not on the street. Ah yes," with a heavy sigh, "I remember now. He was standing there—he has tracked me; but, thank God! I am not at home. I am in big, endless London. He shall find out no further; I will leave this place at once. Oh! Maurice, Maurice!"
It might have been the cry of a tormented spirit passed away for ever from hope and peace and joy. The misery of those last words was so deep and poignant that the young girl shuddered.
She could not speak: she knelt helpless by her friend's side, not even attempting consolation, while Margaret, covering her face with both hands, wept hot tears, that streamed through her fingers and on to Adèle's hand, which rested still upon her knees. And so they remained for a few moments—moments that seemed ages to poor Adèle; then, unable to bear it longer, she rose to her feet, and putting her arms round Margaret's neck kissed her on the brow. It was the impulsive movement of a helpless sympathy, a girl-like action. She could not help, but she could comfort.
Mrs. Grey had forgotten her presence. The touch aroused her. She looked up suddenly, and shaking off the flowing tears took the young girl's hands in hers. "Poor child!" she said gently, "it is too bad of me to frighten you like this. I fear I am very selfish and forgetful; but you know nothing—God grant you never may!—of miseries like mine. And now—will you think me ungrateful?—I fear I must ask you to leave me. It is necessary for me to go from here at once. And yet," she continued meditatively, "if youcouldstay till the last; he might return—"
"I shall not think of leaving you till I see you out of this place, Mrs. Grey," said Adèle authoritatively. "Listen," she continued, more rapidly; "I can arrange it all. I told you before of my talent for management, and now it has all come into my head quite suddenly. Ah, I should have made a first-rate diplomatist. You want to escape this rude man, and no wonder. If you do as I say we shall be off in a quarterof an hour. Leave your boxes with their address; I can see to their being sent after you. I see they are nearly packed. My cousin is at the end of the street waiting for me; he will fetch the carriage, which is only a few yards distant, and we can drive you to any station you like to mention. There you can take a ticket—not, if you like, to your own village, but to some place at no great distance, in case this man should follow us, and to-morrow you can go on to your own home."
There was something enlivening in Adèle's energy. Margaret's face brightened, she wiped away the remaining tears, and turning aside renewed the struggle which Adèle's entrance had interrupted with the obstinate trunk.
"Your plan would be perfection but for one thing," she said with the quiet dignity which had characterized her before this excitement had come. "My dear Miss Churchill, forgive me, you are young. I am a total stranger to you. Your mother, your friends—would they not be displeased? Is it right for you to do this?"
"It is, it is," said Adèle eagerly; "indeed, dear Mrs. Grey, mamma allows me to go everywhere with Arthur. She has full confidence in him."
"And Arthur?"
"Is my cousin. You saw him the other day. He is waiting for me now." In spite of herself Adèle blushed as she spoke.
Margaret looked at her in some surprise, but the ingenuous young face told its own tale. In her turn she was filled with admiration and love. She held out her hand. "Thank you," she said. That was all for a moment, as the tears were ready to flow; then after a pause, "What you have seen to-day will tell you more eloquently than I could that neither you nor your friends need have any fear on my account. If Arthur should become unmanageable at any future time, send him to me; I promise to cure him. And now, dear, I suppose we must be setting to work; I will accept your kind offer: it seems, after all, the best course to pursue."
It was done without the slightest awkwardness.
Margaret might have been a queen accepting a favor from one of her courtiers, and it was in this light that Adèlethought of the service she was rendering to her friend, for Margaret was, in her young, inexperienced eyes, a very queen by means of her beauty and charm. And then they set themselves to work without further delay. In a very few moments Margaret's hasty toilette was complete—a black shawl, the little close bonnet, a crape veil, the bright Indian scarf, from which she did not seem to care to separate herself, a tiny morocco-leather case, which might contain valuables of some kind, and a carpet-bag, which by Adèle's aid had been hastily filled with a few necessaries,—these were all; then the boxes were locked and labelled, the landlady's account was settled, and orders given to her to keep the boxes until they should be called for, Adèle promising that Arthur should perform this little service. It did not take very long. Adèle had scarcely been half an hour in the house when they left it together, Margaret closely veiled and not venturing to look around, Adèle gazing right and left to assure herself that they were not followed. Not a person was in sight on either side of the way, and she breathed more freely.
Arthur meanwhile had been pacing the thoroughfare upon which the street in which Mrs. Grey had been lodging opened out. He was not very impatient, for his head had been full of Margaret; he had been forming and reforming, always unsuccessfully to himself, her image in his brain, and dreaming all kinds of mad dreams about the services he would render her in the future, and the sweet returns of love and gratitude he might be blest enough to gain. Adèle's concurrence in his plans was, he felt, a grand step in the right direction; thenceforth everything would go swimmingly, for it was not possible that she could set aside Adèle's offered friendship—indeed, the very length of time that was elapsing was a favorable sign.
But, not even in his wildest dreams, had he imagined that he should see her again that very day, that the means of doing her a service would immediately be put into his hands; when, therefore, he saw two ladies instead of one emerging from —— street, he was beyond measure astonished.
They stopped to let him reach them, and, rather embarrassed through all his delight, he offered his greetingto Margaret Grey. She was herself calm and quiet, only the heightened color in her beautiful face betraying in any way a sign of her recent emotion.
Adèle was by far the more excited of the two. "Fetch the carriage, Arthur," she said, "as quickly as ever you can. We shall follow slowly to the place where we left it; you can come back with it to meet us. Don't stop to ask why, like a good old fellow. There's no time to lose."
It was evidently for Margaret, so Arthur started off at such headlong speed that many of the foot-passengers stood still to look after him, wondering at his excitement. If some of his languid friends in that other world, London of the West, could have seen him, I greatly fear he would have been degraded for ever in their estimation; undue activity or a public display of ultra eagerness is not among the list of fashionable failings; in fact, it is bad form. But Arthur did not think at the moment of his position in the world of fashion, and it was not likely that any of his friends would have been benighted enough to put such a space as that which separates Islington from Hyde Park between themselves and their daily haunts.
Breathless he hailed the coachman, who crossed the street with unusual alacrity. He could only imagine from Mr. Arthur's state of excitement that Miss Adèle had fallen down in a fit or that some similar misfortune had happened. He was an old servant, and took, as he often said in the servants' hall, "a deep hinterest in the family."
"Nothing wrong sir, I 'ope," he said, stooping down confidentially from his exalted position on the top of the coach-box.
"No," replied Arthur impatiently. "Drive me along this road until I tell you to stop."
He jumped in, and the mystified coachman obeyed, stopping instinctively at the sight of his young mistress with a person carrying a carpet-bag. Even if Arthur had not used the check-string vigorously, astonishment would have brought the worthy man to a stand-still. Imagination was not his strong point, and it was difficult for him even to conceive what all this meant.
"The Great Northern Station, and then home," said Adèle,not wishing to mystify him too far; "andpleasedrive quickly."
He obeyed, and as easily and rapidly they drove along the streets Margaret leant back among the cushions, closed her eyes and sighed deeply. It was a sigh of intense relief. "To-morrow," she said—"to-morrow I shall be at home."
Very little more passed between the three until the carriage stopped before the station; there Adèle held out her hand very reluctantly. "I am afraid I must say good-bye," she said gently; "I ought to be at home. Mamma will be expecting me. I shall leave Arthur to take care of you and see you into your carriage." With a glance Margaret thanked Adèle for her noble trustfulness.
"We shall meet again?" said the young girl earnestly.
"I trust so, dear; you know my address. If anything should bring you in my direction I shall be only too delighted to see you; but," and her voice grew low and tender, "if we never should meet again, remember this—I shallnevercease to thank you in my heart for the way in which you have acted to-day."
She had got out of the carriage and was standing near the door, one hand still in Adèle's, who seemed to wish to retain it to the last moment. Arthur was beside them, looking interested but helpless, and once more tempted to indulge in that very vain and foolish wish that Providence had made him a woman.
Here was his cousin already Margaret Grey's dear friend: he was nothing to her—a lacquey who might be permitted to see after luggage, to get her ticket, to wait upon her. Nothing! Was that nothing? he asked himself suddenly as Adèle closed the carriage door, waved her last farewell and left him alone with Margaret in the busy station. Alone and in a crowd, he her protector, she dependent upon him, he was a man at once, gentle, thoughtful, considerate, ready for any emergency. Only there was one drawback. All his attentions were received so pleasantly, in such a matter-of-fact way—not as a something that was offered personally, a tribute of homage to her whom he admired above all other women, but as the most commonplace thing in the world, a lady's rightfrom the gentleman who has taken upon himself the task of helping her.
The fact was that Margaret Grey knew more of the world than her shabby black dress and general want of style might have seemed to indicate. Certain it is that she had hit upon the very best method of keeping her young knight in his true place.
His heart was burning to show in some way the enthusiasm that devoured him as he stood by her side on the platform, only venturing to glance at her furtively from time to time, but abundantly laden with her small items of property, of all of which she had allowed him to possess himself without the smallest demur. None of this did he dare to show. He could feel in anticipation the look of quiet surprise with which she would greet any presumptuous speech.
Curious glances were cast on them by those who were not too busy in the important stages of arrival and departure to give a thought to anything but their own concerns, for Margaret was one of those women who always attract notice, and once or twice, when she became conscious of such observation, Arthur saw that she started painfully and turned to scan the watcher. He cast his scowls to the right hand and to the left, being quite ready to pick a quarrel with any one for the sake of his divinity; but his scowls were shed abroad in vain; they did not seem to have the slightest effect upon the situation, and at last all necessity for such exercise of his faculties was over. The train, longed for so eagerly by the one, dreaded by the other of these two companions of an hour, came slowly, with majestic quiet, into the station; porters, with anything but majestic quiet, began to bundle and bustle the unfortunate luggage into the vans, lady passengers rushed madly from various corners of the station, gentlemen passengers walked leisurely with a defiant look at the engine (it could not start without them) from the refreshment-rooms, where they had been taking in a stock of strength that might enable them to live through the ennui of a six hours' journey; parties that were about to part gathered woefully together, tears in the eyes of some, an appearance of put-on sadness, covering satisfaction, in the faces of others, and soundingalong the line came the voice of the stately guard, "Take your places, ladies and gentlemen."
Then Margaret put out her hand. They had stopped together before a second-class carriage, in which, with all the deference of a young courtier, Arthur had taken her seat, arranged her parcels, placed everything she might need within her reach, even to the little packet of delicate ham sandwiches, flask of sherry and magazine of light reading which he had obtained surreptitiously to add to her comfort during the journey.
She smiled when she got in and saw what he had done. "Thank you," she said, still in the same easy, pleasant way, a queen addressing her subject; "I chose my knight well; and now good-bye. Tell your cousin that I will send her a few lines to let her know of my safe arrival."
Arthur pressed the hand she held out to him. He could not resist it, and then, shriek! puff! the waving of a flag, and the train was gone, carrying her away from his lingering gaze. He turned aside with a sigh and a singular contraction of heart; she, looking round at his thoughtful arrangements, smiled faintly, then, leaning back on the hard seat, closed her eyes and murmured almost audibly, "Thank God! escaped!"
Her thanksgiving, perhaps, was premature, for in her late dwelling-place this was what was happening in the mean time.
She and Adèle had scarcely reached the top of —— street before the landlady, anxious to lose no time, ordered "Apartments" to be hoisted in its usual place, the front-parlor window.
A tall, dark-looking man, who was walking in a leisurely manner down the street with a cigar in his mouth, stopped suddenly and looked at it with some attention. From below the landlady looked at him, and feeling his earnestness prophetic arrayed herself hastily in clean cap and apron, and smoothed from her brow the unquiet look which Betsy's awkwardness had caused. She did not get herself up in vain; he rang the bell and asked to see her rooms.
The landlady dropped a curtsey. This was a grand-looking gentleman in her opinion, with a fine commanding manner—"looked a militairyhofficer retired," she said afterward to a neighbor, describing the interview. "They're not in the bestof horder, sir," she said deprecatingly—"not for a gentleman the likes of you to see; but there," fearful of losing a lodger, "ithain'tall gold as glitters, and if so be has you'll make hallowances, the lady—quite a lady and lived very quiet, not gone above half an hour—says she, a going out of that door, and a givin' me of her hand—"
"Show me the rooms as they are," broke in the gentleman, frowning with impatience; but even this did not check the flow of the landlady's eloquence.
"The lady as has gone—" she began.
"Show me the rooms, woman, without any more jabber," interrupted he so fiercely that, as Mrs. Jones said afterward to a neighbor, "she was all of a tremble, and her feet as nigh as possible giv' way under her from fright."
She did not hazard another remark, but threw open the door of Margaret's sitting-room, still warm, as it were, with the evidences of her presence. The sight appeared to excite the gentleman; he breathed hard and his eyes sparkled; then, not appearing to notice the landlady, who stood respectfully in the doorway, he cast round the room one searching glance.
It seemed to satisfy him. He turned to the landlady, took out his pocket-book and pencil, as if to make a note of her answers, and asked, "Your name, Mrs.—"
"Jones, sir, at your service," she answered, curtseying.
"Mrs. Jones? ah!" He wrote down something in his pocket-book, then looked at her again: "Your rent?"
"Thirty shillin'shandhextras," she replied, audaciously clapping on ten shillings for the military appearance.
"Ah!" he answered once more, nothing else; no bargaining, as Mrs. Jones informed her next-door neighbor, nothing of the kind; he only shut up his pocket-book with a snap and turned aside, apparently quite satisfied. Mrs. Jones flattered herself that his satisfaction arose from prepossession with her rooms and her personal appearance. Quite other was the consideration that caused the prospective lodger such a pleasant glow of satisfaction.
Something indeed was written down in his note-book by that busy-looking pencil. It was not Mrs. Jones's name and address, nor even her exceedingly moderate terms.
If the solitary lady who was leaving London that day to hide her sorrow and loneliness could only have known what was written there, her satisfaction would have flown, for she had left her secret behind her, tacked in large letters to the boxes that were to follow her the next day, and the secret had been transferred to the pocket-book of the man she thought she had escaped.
Poor Adèle's diplomacy! It had given way at only one point, but unhappily that point was all important.
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart;They were dangerous guides, the feelings: she herself was not exempt.
"Well, Adèle, what have you done with Arthur?"
The speaker was a comely, elderly lady who had sailed, in the full magnificence of brocade and lace, into the dining-room of her handsome house. A substantial lunch was on the table, an obsequious butler was in waiting, a fair-haired girl was seated in one of the arm-chairs, her head resting on her hand.
At the sound of her mother's voice she looked up. "Dropped himen route, mamma," she said pleasantly.
"And why did you not bring him in?"
"He had business, I believe, in town."
"Business, indeed! You should be his first business. Mark my words, Adèle—though it seems impossible to instill worldly wisdom intoyourbrain—boys are volatile and require keeping in hand. A girl ought to be tolerablyexigeanteif she would either make or keep a conquest, especially when a boy of Arthur's age and character is in question." Then to the butler: "Take the covers, James; after that you can go down stairs. Miss Churchill and I will wait upon ourselves to-day. One always forgets James," she continued as he retired, "he is so quiet and unobtrusive; but then—faithfulcreature!—I feel very surehecould make no mischief of anything he hears."
"I wish, all the same, mamma," said Adèle rather fretfully, "that you would not always talk of my affairs and Arthur's before the servants. Burton, James, Elizabeth, it seems not to matter at all before which of them you speak."
"My dear Adèle, you are a child. These people know your character and mine, and are pretty well acquainted with all our affairs, without our taking the trouble of informing them. I wonder who leaves Arthur's letters about sometimes."
"Arthur's letters?" Adèle shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly. "All the world is at liberty to see them."
"There it is again, my dear; we return to the subject we were discussing a few minutes ago. When do you intend to make a lover of your cousin? You know you cannot possibly remain in this brother-and-sisterly stage. You must give him one or two lessons or he'll slip through your fingers yet."
Adèle was accustomed to her mother's style of conversation, so it did not particularly shock her; she only smiled rather strangely: "Arthur wants no lessons fromme, mamma."
"Ah! then you are further advanced than I thought; but really, Adèle, you have been brought up so simply I wonder sometimes if you know at all what it means to have a lover.Iwas very different withmyfirst lover, a cousin too, though we didn't marry after all. A very good thing; he was poor and idle: I should have been a wretched woman. Now, Arthur is well off, and not at all extravagant; no strong tastes either; just the kind of man whom a woman can mould to her will; but then she must know how, and I fear, Adèle, you are a sad baby in these matters."
"It's not for want of instruction, mamma," said Adèle rather maliciously.
But the good-natured Mrs. Churchill scarcely saw the point of her daughter's satire. "You are right," she said. "I have done my very best to instill into your mind some knowledge of the world you live in, Adèle. I considered it a duty," she sighed faintly. "Had your poor father been alive, the case might have been different. Women who are thrown ontheir own resources, like you and me, my child,mustbe equal to the task of taking care of themselves."
It was a task in which, apparently, Mrs. Churchill had never failed: she did not certainly look the worse for care and anxiety. She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes—a habit, simply, for not the faintest moisture was there to remove, but to mention the departed Mr. Churchill without paying this tribute of regard to his dear memory would have been most unseemly. A pause for this trivial operation then Mrs. Churchill continued: "I have wished for some time to speak to you about this matter, Adèle. I have managed for you so far; I can do so no further."
The last words seemed to astonish the young girl. She looked up: "Youhave managed, mamma? Whatcanyou mean?"
"Why, little goose! to whom do you think you owe your lover? Not to Arthur, certainly. He would have gone on droning about the house for ever, without the slightest consideration for your feelings or mine, engrossing you and shutting out others. I brought him to book and showed him his duty." (The fond mother showed her white teeth at the remembrance.) "When they were all laying themselves out to entrap him, too! Lady Lacy and her pretty nieces, Mrs. Campbell and her ugly daughters; even gaunt Mr. Godolphin, with that extensive motherless child of his. Ha! ha! it wastoogood!"
But Adèle did not seem to join in her mother's mirth. She had dropped her knife and fork in a kind of despair, while a sudden pallor, quickly succeeded by a vivid flush, showed her distress.
"Good gracious, child! what is wrong?" cried her mother.
Her answer was given through a flood of tears: "Oh, mamma! mamma! how could you? And I was so happy, and I thought he liked me a little—only a very little—and that, in spite of everything, it might be all right some day? Now—now—"
The last part of the sentence was lost in the folds of her pocket-handkerchief.
Poor Adèle was rather upset with the events of the morning, following as they did upon the knowledge of what shelooked upon as Arthur's desertion; to hear now that even their engagement, in which she had rejoiced as a proof of his real affection for her, as a kind of pledge for his return, was due not to his own unbiassed freedom of choice, but to her mother's machinations,—this was a kind of finishing-stroke to her misfortunes. She continued to sob, somewhat to her mother's annoyance.
"What a perfect baby you are still, Adèle!" she said; "it's well, after all, that I sent James out of the room. Come, dry up your eyes, and tell me what is the meaning of this. To say that anything I told you just now could have caused such an outburst is perfectly absurd. What has Arthur been saying or doing?Ishall have to take him in hand."
Adèle lifted up her glistening eyes and carmine cheeks from the grateful shade of her pocket-handkerchief. "You must do nothing of the kind, mamma," she said indignantly—she was quite unlike herself for the moment—"you have done mischief enough already."
"Mischief enough!" Mrs. Churchill's glass paused half-way between the table and her lips; she was absolutely petrified with surprise. Adèle was an only daughter, and something of a spoilt child; but hitherto she had always been gentle and obedient, for she was naturally docile; then she and her mother had such different tastes that their wills very seldom clashed. This vigorous assertion of personality was a new thing, and for the moment clever, good-natured Mrs. Churchill, with all the knowledge of human nature upon which she plumed herself, scarcely knew how to treat it.
"This is what comes of romantic notions," she said severely. "I always thought the poetry-reading bad; if this kind of thing goes on I shall have to put a stop to it altogether. Now-a-days it seems to be the idea for young ladies and gentlemen to fall desperately in love, indulge in pretty poetic love-scenes and do a little wasting away for the benefit of one another. I suppose something of this has got into your silly little head, Adèle. You and Arthur should have been moved spontaneously to fall into one another's arms, like the hero and heroine of a play. Bah, child! there's a behind-the-scenes to life as well as the stage, and lovers aregenerally only puppets; theyactthe drama and other people pull the strings. Don't look so very woebegone: I tell you more than half the marriages in the world would never have taken place without some such helping hand as mine. You ought to be grateful instead of indignant."
Adèle had dried her eyes. She was rather ashamed of her outburst; she ought to have known long ago that her mother's matter-of-fact nature and keen common sense would never chime in with her own ultra-refined, high-flown notions of life and action; and hers, after all, were the ideas of a young girl to whom the great world was still a land of visions and dreams; her mother's were those of a woman who knew something of the world, who had passed through very varied experiences, who, with all her good-nature—for Mrs. Churchill was what might have been called a comfortable matron—had grown a little hard and unsympathetic by reason of the rubs and raps she had encountered, making some of her fine gold dim.
"We need not discuss the matter," said Adèle; "what is doneisdone, and after all perhaps it makes very little difference in the end. I am sorry if I was rude to you, mamma, as no doubt you do what you think best for me; but in these matters I do wish that you would let me havesomevoice. If I had known Arthur's proposal was brought about by you, I should have certainly refused him without any hesitation."
"So I supposed, my dear; therefore I was wise enough not to let either of the wise young people see my hand. Why, you romantic child! without me you would soon float on to misery. Grand notions are all very well in their way, but they can scarcely carry one through the world with any satisfaction to one's self, Adèle; you'll find that out sooner or later. But come, enough of worldly wisdom for one day. Wash your eyes and make yourself look nice; I want you to pay some visits with me this afternoon."
Poor little Adèle! she obeyed, but it was with a languid step. A few days before her life had been all sunshine; her love, her pleasant tastes, her bright hopes—everything had combined to make her happy; now, a change seemed impending—unreality was around her; what she had thoughtto be a firm standing-point turned out only shifting quicksands; the love was departing, and the revelation of how it had come robbed its past of all charm; even her pleasant tastes seemed deceptive, for if her mother's views of life were correct, farewell to theFaërie Queene, farewell to poetic imagery: it was the mirage that betrays the unwary soul, and in spite of the poet's vision the sad knowledge which that day's glimpse of another life had brought showed too clearly that beauty and joy were only too often divorced.
Adèle appeared in the drawing-room in the course of half an hour dressed in pale silk, a rose-colored bonnet crowning her fair hair and pink-tinted gloves on her small hands, but nothing for the moment could remove the gloomy veil through which she viewed life and its surroundings.
Her mother was obliged to reprove her a little sharply. "My dear Adèle," she said as they left one of the houses to which they had been bound, "you must really make an effort to be more agreeable and sprightly; melancholy does not suit you. Dark girls, with chiselled features and creamy complexions, may be allowed to move through society like beautiful mutes, but with golden hair and bright blue eyes like yours vivacity, let me tell you, is the only rôle. Sulking makes you look absolutely plain."
No girl likes to look "absolutely plain," and although Adèle loudly disclaimed any sort of regard for what would or would not suit her style, she made an effort, and that evening Arthur, who came back, pale and exhausted, from the parting scene at the station, and who looked to Adèle for sympathy, was rather hurt with what he was pleased to term her frivolity. Young men are so selfish!
Mrs. Churchill saw the little by-play—Adèle's forced gayety, Arthur's sentimental-looking eyes following her inquiringly, and somewhat reproachfully, round the room. She congratulated herself on the success of her lesson.
Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth,Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks,Or to be trailed along the soiling earth—A gem that glitters while it lives.
Margaret was at home. In a little village on the coast of Yorkshire, far from any town, not fashionable even in the season, and somewhat dull at all times, was the cottage to be found which she fondly looked upon as home. The village consisted of one street running up into the land, where butcher and baker and grocer, who all of them sold a medley of articles, displayed their small wares; a collection of fisher-huts on the coast, and some few respectable little houses, whitewashed and green-shuttered, which were only tenanted in the summer months. It was not even a particularly pretty place. Of course there was the sea, the grand wide ocean, stretching its interminable breadths away to the horizon, and it crept up upon yellow sands that were a perfect delight to the eye and to the feet, they were so bright and clean and smooth. But for this the scenery was somewhat monotonous; no mountains or hilly grounds were to be seen far or near, save, indeed, the few sand-cliffs that rose up gradually from the borders of the sea to a vast table-land of moor and meadow, stretching into the distance with scarcely a tree to break the line. A few huge boulders carved by time and water into fantastic shapes, a little scanty herbage on the sandhills, some stunted shrubs and trailing yellow flowers,—these were all that broke the monotony of sea and moor; in fact, it was a desolate place, but its desolation in no way resembled that of a city like London, the dreary monotony of a human desert. It was Nature's desolation, grand and weird, and, to the soul that could understand, full of ever-varied mystery and charm.
The sunrise over the moor when, itself purple with the rich tints of autumn coloring, it blushed into mistlike dreamy splendor; the mellower sunset over the ocean, and after thesunset the pale streaks of horizon-light and the broad ribbons of silvery moonbeams; the black mystery of a winter night, space above, space around, space infinite on every side; the clash and flash of foam-crowned waves shining through the darkness,—these were some of the charms this little seaside village possessed, these were what Margaret had missed in her miserable visit to great, lonely London. She slept at a hotel in York on the first night after leaving town. On the next day, partly by rail, partly by carriage, she reached her own home.
They did not expect her. She wondered plaintively as she drove in the little chaise, hired at the nearest station, along the low road that skirted the sea, whether her little Laura would be pleased to see her again—would have found the time long without her. Laura was not so dear to her mother as she might have been, but she was her only tie to life, the one creature who was dependent on her, to whom she was, in a certain sense, a necessity. In the course of that long drive Margaret began to reproach herself for having loved her child so little. Her heart yearned over the tiny creature whose fate was bound up with her own, fatherless, or worse than fatherless, in the tender dawning of life—mysteries around her that her poor little soul might perhaps already be trying to fathom, and trying in vain; for, as Margaret recalled with a sudden pang, it was not an ordinary child's soul that had looked at her once or twice out of Laura's dark, pensive eye. It was a soul upon which the shadow seemed to have fallen—the shadow that so early falls upon some, chilling their life in its first glad spring. Margaret had shrunk from looking into this mystery; she had answered the inquiring earnestness with which her little daughter had seemed to look into her sadness by sweetmeats, toys and diversions, and the child had gone back upon herself, dreaming her dreams alone.
Perhaps it is little known in the wise, busy world of grown-up people how keen and sensitive are the sympathies and feelings of a child, how easily the little soul can be driven in upon itself, and in some cases, rare it may be, how great the suffering that follows.
Margaret had a vague consciousness of all this, but there was something so bitter in her sadness that it shrank evenfrom the light touch of her child, and then the dark, pensive eyes that sometimes looked so melancholy under their deep fringe veiled a memory—a memory that cut and wounded, and that in some moods she felt herself absolutely powerless to bear. So had another pair of eyes, dark too, and wistful and infinitely sad, looked out at her on a stormy night long ago—the night when her trouble had begun. Long ago—it looked long ago, yet as mortals reckon time perhaps it could only have been said to be short—one, two, three, four, long years. The remembrance of that strange sadness in her little daughter's face had brought Margaret to this again, as what did not? She reckoned the time and marvelled at its flight.
As she pondered the little chaise progressed, with abundant clacking of the whip and plunges forward and vigorous shouts from the boy-driver, and scarcely a corresponding rate of speed, for Middlethorpe was an out-of-the-way village, and no very stately vehicle of the hired species would have been permitted, under some very large gratuity, to explore its wilds. Evening was beginning to fall before the outskirts of the village had been sighted, and between the jolting of the carriage, the energy of the driver and the haunting thoughts that tormented her, Margaret began to feel that any change would be a relief.
Her little cottage was rather out of the village. It lay at some little distance, near the edge of one of the sandhills. When they entered the village she stopped her driver and told him to take on her carpet-bag; she would do the remainder of the way on foot. The boy listened to her directions, nodded his head good-humoredly, and leaving her upon the sands, started off in the direction indicated—to a little white point at some distance reached by a road winding up through the village. Margaret proceeded leisurely along the coast toward a narrow path that led up the cliff to her cottage by a nearer way.
She gazed over the wide sea, for the gray which had been its abiding characteristic through the not very brilliant May day was blushing gradually into golden brightness under the magic touch of sunset, and Margaret paused in the full enjoyment of its rich coloring. Then, with the light still in her eyes, she looked landward on to the sandhills.
There was a little figure crouching under one of them, evidently that of a child, and a child in sorrow, for the face was hidden by a pair of tiny hands and the little frame was shaken with sobs. It looked like a blot in the dazzle the sunset radiance had cast over Margaret's sight. But the child was at her feet; her heart was moved for its little trouble. She stooped to ask about the sorrow, and with a sudden shock recognized in the weeping little one her own Laura. The child's dress was in disorder; the pretty, fair hair was uncovered by hat or bonnet and flying wildly over her face and neck; her cheeks were stained with tears which seemed to have been flowing abundantly; her little hands were red and sore.
She looked up, and a faint smile came into her weary little face as she recognized her mother. "I thought you were never coming back, mamma," she said in a voice so sad and low that it pierced her mother's heart. "I am glad you're come, because now perhaps I sha'n't always be naughty."
"Naughty! my little Laura naughty? Who says so?" The tears were in Margaret's eyes, and a passion of penitence and love was welling up in her heart. It was like the opening of a sealed-up fountain. All the sweet motherliness that untoward circumstances seemed to have stifled in Margaret's heart awoke suddenly at the sight of her daughter's sorrow. She kissed the little flushed face, smoothed back the disordered hair, and lulled the child to rest in her arms with the pretty baby-language that mothers know. And at first the little Laura looked surprised, then her tears ceased, she clasped her arms round her mother's neck, and into the dark, wide-open, pensive eyes there came a look of rest.
So they remained for a few moments—the mother and the child, with the soft, cool yellow sand around them and the westering seas before them; Margaret thinking only of these little clinging arms, of this sweet child-love—of the blessing that was still left her; the little one rejoicing, with the unreasonable delight of childhood, in the soft pressure of her mother's arms. She had always been given a morning and evening kiss, but this warm, protecting tenderness was, she could not tell why, something new to her.
She looked up languidly at last from her mother's breastwhere her head had been resting. "Jane says I've been very naughty, mamma," she murmured; "she whipped me for telling a story, but I know I didn't take the sugar."
Laura's tears began to break out afresh at the remembrance, but her little simple story had aroused her mother, and indignation began to mingle with sorrow in her heart. She started up: "Whowhipped you, Laura? Jane? How could she have dared to do such a thing? There! there! my sweet," for her vehemence had alarmed the child, "dry your eyes. Mamma will never leave her little darling again; no one else shall have anything to do with Laura."
Laura's tears gave place to a smile of contentment. "Yes, mamma dear, it will be nice. I cried the day you went to London, a long time ago, and Jane said it was naughty, and she locked the door and left me by myself—oh,sucha long time! And she said you had gone away because I was tiresome, and you didn't love me one little bit; and I thought"—Laura wound her arms tightly round her mother's neck—"I thought perhaps you'd never come back, and I was always to stay with Jane. And oh, mamma, I was looking at the sea to-night—you know gardener's little boy fell in, and when he came out I saw him; he was white and quite cold, and they put him in the churchyard—and I thought it would be better to fall in like poor little Jimmy than to live with Jane."
"Poor little darling!" Margaret's tears were flowing fast. She rose from her seat, but she would not loosen the pressure of those tiny arms.
Laura put her hand up to her mother's face: "Mamma,you'recrying now. Is it about Jane? Poor mamma! never mind."
"Mamma is crying because they told her little daughter such dreadful things," said Margaret as quietly as she could. "Listen, my child: you mustneverbelieve them. I love my Laura more than I can say. You areallthat is left me, dear. It was for you I went to London, that you might grow up wise and good, and learn like other little girls; and I was going to such a wretched, miserable place or I would have taken my child with me; but I will never leave her behind again, wherever I may go."
Perfectly satisfied and with a little sigh of full content,Laura put down her head again, and so they went back to the house, the child in her mother's arms.
Jane Rodgers met them on the threshold of the front door. She had looked forward to something like this when the boy had arrived with the carpet-bag, notifying that the mistress was to follow, and she blamed herself severely for her short-sightedness, which had arisen in this way.
She had been shrewd enough to see that although Mrs. Grey never neglected her daughter, yet there was none of that warm devotion which mothers so often cherish for an only child; in fact, that the very presence of her little one was sometimes a burden to her. The circumstances of her lodger being peculiar and utterly unknown, so far as she could learn, to any of her neighbors, Jane had come to certain conclusions not very creditable to her ordinary good sense or knowledge of human nature. When, therefore, for three weeks Mrs. Grey had remained absent from her daughter, although her rent was fully paid up, and amply sufficient had been left for the little Laura's maintenance, Jane Rodgers, acting on her previous supposition, had come to this conclusion: "The mother had left her child altogether. It would fall to her" (Jane Rodgers's) "lot to take care of her and bring her up."
Now, Jane was by no means a cruel woman. Had any one told her that even under such untoward circumstances she could have been absolutely unkind to any child of seven years old, she would have indignantly repelled the accusation. But Jane was a scrupulously conscientious woman (that is, she thought herself so); she was unmarried, and hard by nature. She had been a fine-looking girl in her youth—had been disappointed in love, and as a domestic servant had perhaps had her full share of the temptations incident to her position. She had preserved her respectability, saved her money, and some years before the time when my story opens had returned to her native village, the owner of a small furnished house. Her living she was given in return for the service she rendered, and the rent of the house was ample to keep her in clothes and pocket-money, with a small sum accumulating year by year at the savings bank.
Jane was a highly respectable person, and in this consisted her pride. How people could ever be brought into the world the wrong way, or how the hundred and one wicked actions so common in all societies, high and low, could ever come to be committed, she professed herself wholly unable to understand.Shehad no sympathy for the tempted: her theory was, that if they suffered in consequence of error, so much the better—it served them right.
When, therefore, the little Laura was left on her hands—for Mrs. Grey had scarcely been gone a week before Jane had made up her mind that she would never return—a strict and stern course of education was begun. That evil was very specially rooted in the heart of her self-imposed charge was Jane's theory—that no indulgence should ever be permitted her was the fit corrective. Laura very naturally resented this treatment. She had been allowed to wander about as she liked; she had never in her life been struck, and seldom punished. When she found herself watched, corrected and snapped-up—her little sayings, that had been admired and thought clever, snubbed and reproved—Laura became first very angry, and then very miserable. The anger was punished by whipping and bed—such perfectly new experiences to the lonely child that her little heart throbbed with the agony of humiliation; the misery was treated as sulkiness, and at last poor little Laura began to think it was all true. As she plaintively said to her mother, she was always naughty.
Jane had done it in good faith. She thought she was acting well, taking a mother's part with the child—that when the evil in her heart had been rooted out by strict discipline, she might in spite of her pretty face and form, and the bad precedent of a mother whose antecedents were not precisely known, turn out a good woman and a useful member of society.
In the mean time she took the child into her own part of the house, cleaned out Mrs. Grey's apartments, and was ready to offer them in the summer time on moderate terms to that portion of the bathing public who might find Middlethorpe a desirable watering-place.
These being her plans and ideas, the arrival of the boyand carpet-bag on this May evening was somewhat disconcerting to Jane Rodgers. The child was out sulking. She was ready with a rod in pickle, as she would have said, to chastise her for running away without hat or bonnet after she had been ordered to her room; but Mrs. Grey, should she find her on the sands, might probably fail to take Jane's view of matters.
There would be time for revelations too, and Jane could scarcely explain to her lodger all the reasons that had moved her to the mode of treatment she had employed with her daughter in her absence. However, matters being so, it was best to put a bold face on them. Jane prided herself on her independence. Mrs. Grey was certainly a yearly lodger—a rare kind of article at the seaside, and especially at Middlethorpe; still, if she should choose to take offence she might go.
None of these latter reflections appeared in her face as she went forward to meet Mrs. Grey, white-capped and aproned, the very picture of quiet respectability.
"Glad to see you back, ma'am," she said respectfully, "and sorry you should find Miss Laura in such a plight. She run out when my back was turned. I was in such a fidget about putting on my bonnet to look after her, when—"
"That will do, Jane," said Margaret quietly. "Bring up our tea and pay the boy. When I have put Miss Laura to bed I will speak to you in the parlor."
"As you please, ma'am."
Jane turned away with a slight toss of the head, quite determined to let her lodger go. She was not a servant, she said to herself, to be treated in such a way. But the sight of her comfortable kitchen and the hour of delay brought calmer and more prudent thoughts to Jane's mind. Instinctively she recalled the fate of Mrs. Brown and Miss Simpson, two ladies of her calling, who, after trying in vain to make a living out of their houses, had been obliged finally to sell their furniture and take to service again; Mrs. Short, who let, indeed, in the summer, but generally to large families, and had her things knocked about in such a way that no charge for breakages could cover the necessary outlay which followed their departure; Mrs. Dodd, who had taken in unaware a lady recoveringfrom the small-pox, and whose servant had taken the disease, thus necessitating a general turn-out and white-washing before her rooms could be considered habitable.