CHAPTER XXXII.THE UNWELCOME VISITOR.
I spent a wakeful night, disturbed by a host of new feelings and strange thoughts, that crowded upon me like a rush of waters. All night long a review of the day’s hunt went forward in my fancy. The brilliant dresses and those strange faces circled me with a sort of fascination. Sometimes they smiled warningly, then they gibed at my torn garments—and foremost of all was the proud face of Lady Catherine. Oh, how I began to hate that woman! It was the bitter antagonism of a life-time striking root deep in my heart.
Toward morning I thought of Turner, with a pang that was punishment enough for the sin of my first disobedience. I knewthat he was not only grieved but plunged into difficulties on my account—that all the evils he had been so anxious to guard against were already brought on by my obstinate self-indulgence.
This reflection made me heart-sick, and I turned away from the soft daylight as it broke through my room, ashamed to receive it on my ungrateful face. With faltering steps I went down stairs and seated myself in the little breakfast-room. Turner was in the garden, but though I had not the cowardice to shrink from encountering him in the house, I could not summon courage to seek him.
He saw me at the window looking sad enough, I dare say, and, coming up, gave me a handful of tiny white roses, which were the glory of a plant that he had never allowed to be touched before. I felt the tears rushing to my eyes, and creeping toward the old man, murmured in the deepest humility,
“Oh, Mr. Turner, why don’t you scold me? Why not punish my wickedness?”
“Because,” he answered, with a miserable shake of the head, “because you will be punished enough, poor thing, before night, or I am mistaken.”
“I hope so—I’m sure it would be a satisfaction to be soundly reprimanded. You break my heart with all this kindness.”
“Here comes one,” said Turner, growing red in the face, “who will not sin in that way, I can answer.”
I followed his look, and saw Lady Catherine Irving coming through the garden, walking rather quickly, and brushing down the autumn flowers with the sweep of her garments. On seeing us she resumed the stateliness usual to her movements, and stooped now and then to gather the snowy flowers of a chrysanthemum, which she seemed to examine curiously while approaching the house.
“Ah, Turner,” she said, drawing toward the window, “what a pretty little nest you have here; and what flowers! I have never seen any thing to compare with these,” and forming a ring with the thumb and fore finger of her left hand, she drewthe white tufts softly through it, as Nero might have trifled on the day of his mother’s murder. “Why, you live here with your little family quite like fairies. No wonder you are so often absent from Greenhurst.”
“I hope that none of the duties my lord left for me to perform are neglected, madam,” answered Turner, with a degree of dignity that charmed me.
“No, no—I do not complain—far from it, good Turner—that I am here is a proof of it. Your child—I hope she was neither frightened nor hurt by the hounds.”
“No, madam,” I answered, leaning through the sash. “It was rather lonesome being left by myself with the poor stag; but the young gentleman”——
“Hush!” said Turner, sternly, glancing toward Lady Catherine, whose cheek flushed with sudden color.
I saw the color and the glitter in her eyes, more expressive still, and even Turner’s caution could not control me. I was determined to let her know that her son had returned to protect me. The remembrance that he had seemed to fear her knowledge of it only urged me on.
“The young gentleman came back and put Jupiter and me into the right path: but for that I don’t know what would have become of us.”
“Your daughter seems a bright, and—forgive me, good Turner—rather forward little thing,” said the lady, lifting the flowers softly to her lips, as she gave him a searching glance. “I am very glad though, that she is unharmed.”
Turner looked at her, and then with a restless movement at me. The color came up among his wrinkles, and his features began to work as if some unfinished resolution had set them in motion. Before he could speak, however, Lady Catherine’s voice broke in again,
“And your wife—my good Turner—really I must have a sight of her and this pretty home of yours—quite abijouin the grounds, truly!”
Placing a richly enamelled glass to her eyes, the lady took aquiet survey of the building before Turner could find words to answer her.
Never had I seen the old man so agitated. The color came and went beneath his wrinkles; his thin lips grew pale and purple by turns; his state of irresolution was painful.
“I will step in and see your wife!” said Lady Catherine, dropping her glass to the full length of its Venetian chain, and looking around for the door.
Now Turner became calm; every muscle and nerve settled down. He stood more firmly on the ground, and looking his tormentor steadily in the face, answered,
“Some one must have been joking at my expense, my lady. I have no wife!”
“No wife!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, with a start that even I could see was premeditated. “No wife—and this child?”
“You are mistaken,” said Turner, “this is not my child. Yourself saw me when I took her up from your own door-stone, or rather the door-stone of Greenhurst, eight years ago.”
A cold smile curled Lady Catherine’s lip. She lifted her glass again and eyed me through it. “I remember the circumstance,” she said, and the hateful smile deepened—“I remember, too, that a child disappeared very mysteriously but a short time before from this nest—two children in fact—if my people told me aright.”
“They did tell you aright, lady,” said Turner, sternly—but she interrupted him.
“One, the elder, went out to service, I fancy. This one dropped, miraculously, on my door-step. Well, well, my good Turner, no one thinks of quarrelling with this fanciful way of adopting your own children; but her mother—unless you are really married to this woman, she must go. I cannot answer it to society—to Lord Clare, the most particular man on earth—if she is allowed to remain on the estate a day longer.”
“Madam,” said Turner, “I have said but the truth; Zana,there, is no more my daughter than her Spanish bonne is my wife!”
“Who is her—her father?—who is her mother then?” asked Lady Catherine.
I remarked that her voice faltered in putting this question, and she could not look in Turner’s face.
Turner regarded her firmly, and a faint smile stirred his lip. Lady Catherine saw it, and once more there arose a shade of color in her cheek.
“Lady, I can answer these questions no more than yourself, for you were present when I found the poor child.”
“And had you never seen her before?” questioned the lady.
Turner hesitated and seemed to reflect; but at last he answered firmly enough.
“It is impossible for me to say yes or no.”
The lady played with her flowers awhile, and then spoke again very softly, and with a degree of persuasion in her voice.
“Well, Turner, we will not press you too hard. I cannot forget that you were my brother’s favorite and oldest servant, and now his agent—that he trusted you.”
“He did indeed,” cried the old man, casting a glance full of affection at me.
“I am sure you would do nothing that could cast reproach on him,” continued the lady, placing a strong emphasis on the pronoun.
“Not for the universe,” ejaculated Turner.
“Yet, while you live thus—while there is a doubt left regarding this child, cannot you see that even my noble brother may be condemned as—as sanctioning—you understand—this species of immorality—on his estates?”
“But how am I to prevent this?” exclaimed Turner, after a moment of perplexed thought, during which he gazed on Lady Catherine, as if searching for some meaning in her words which they did not wholly convey.
“Let me tell you—for I have been thinking on this subject agood deal—she is a fine-spirited girl that, a little wild and gipsyish; but many of our guests were struck with her.”
“No wonder!” exclaimed Turner, with his face all in a glow. “Who could help it?”
“So they inquired a good deal about her, and when it came out that she lived here under your protection, of course, it led to questions and old things—nonsensical gossip about by-gone times that quite made me nervous—you understand, good Turner. So I told them what I am sure is the truth even yet—that the Spanish woman here is her mother, that she is your own child—that you are married.”
Turner shook his head.
“Then it will be so,” persisted the lady, “or as I said before, both woman and child must leave the estate.”
“You cannot be in earnest!” said Turner.
“Does it seem like earnest when you find me here at this hour of the morning?” replied the lady.
“But it was Lord Clare’s desire—his command—that I hold authority in this house until his return,” persisted Turner.
“He mentions nothing of this in his letters to us. Besides, you cannot mean to say that he has made such provisions for these females.”
“No, Zana was not here at the time; but I know, I am sure”——
“Be sure of nothing!” exclaimed Lady Catherine, with more energy than she had yet exhibited—“be sure of nothing, if you love your master, but that you canservehim best by silencing this subject of public gossip at once. Marry the woman with whom you have been so long domesticated!”
“Marry!” exclaimed Turner, with a terrible twist of the face, as if the word had not really come home to his heart till then, “marry at this time of life, and a Spanish woman. Wouldn’t it do as well, my lady, if they set me in the pillory for an hour or so!”
“It might not do so well for the girl, perhaps,” was the stern reply.
“For her sake I would do anything!”
“It is a great pity to keep the poor thing caged up here: and what is to become of her in the end? As your daughter she can come up to the house and see something of society.”
“What, a servant, madam?” cried Turner, reddening fiercely.
“Nothing of the kind; you are no common man, Turner; and certainly that child, with her wild, arch, nay, haughty style, might pass anywhere. She shall come to the Hurst and obtain some accomplishments. I should fancy her greatly about the house. She might pick up a little education from my son’s tutor, who will be down in a week or two, and become quite an ornament to the establishment.”
“She would be an ornament to any place,” said Turner, proudly.
“Yes,” replied the lady, smiling upon me, “any man might be proud of her for a daughter. I dare say we shall be excellent friends soon—meantime think of what I have said. This is a charming place, it would be a pity for the child to leave it. To-morrow let me have your answer.”
She moved proudly away, holding up her dress, and winding carefully through the flower-beds, as if her errand had been the commonest thing in the world.