A True Friend: A Novel
by Adeline Sergeant · English · Gutenberg #23797 · 634,128 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A True Friend: A Novel
Author: Adeline Sergeant
Release date: December 10, 2007 [eBook #23797]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRUE FRIEND: A NOVEL ***
Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions
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A TRUE FRIEND.
A NOVEL.
BY ADELINE SERGEANT
_Author of "The Luck of the House," "A Life Sentence," etc., etc._
MONTREAL:
JOHN LOVELL & SON,
23 ST. NICHOLAS STREET.
CONTENTS
I. AN UNSUITABLE FRIENDSHIP
II. LADY CAROLINE'S TACTICS
III. AT HELMSLEY COURT
IV. ON THE ROAD.
V. WYVIS BRAND
VI. JANETTA AT HOME
VII. NORA'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE
VIII. FATHER AND CHILD
IX. CONSULTATION
X. MARGARET
XI. JANETTA'S PROMISES
XII. JANETTA REMONSTRATES
XIII. SHADOWS
XIV. JANETTA'S FAILURE
XV. A BONE OF CONTENTION
XVI. SIR PHILIP'S OPINION
XVII. MARGARET'S FRIENDSHIP
XVIII. A NEW FRIEND
XIX. NORA'S PROCEEDINGS
XX. AN ELDER BROTHER
XXI. CUTHBERT'S ROMANCE
XXII. WYVIS BRAND'S IDEAL
XXIII. FORGET-ME-NOTS
XXIV. LADY ASHLEY'S GARDEN PARTY
XXV. SIR PHILIP'S DECISION
XXVI. "FREE!"
XXVII. A BIG BRIBE
XXVIII. "CHANGES MUST COME."
XXIX. MARGARET'S CONFESSION
XXX. IN REBELLION
XXXI. THE PLOUGHMAN'S SON
XXXII. THE FAILURE OF MARGARET
XXXIII. RETROSPECT
XXXIV. FROM DISTANT LANDS
XXXV. JULIET
XXXVI. THE FRUITS OF A LIE
XXXVII. NIGHT
XXXVIII. THE LAST SCENE
XXXIX. MAKING AMENDS
XL. MY FAITHFUL JANET
A TRUE FRIEND
CHAPTER I.
AN UNSUITABLE FRIENDSHIP.
Janetta was the music governess--a brown little thing of no particular
importance, and Margaret Adair was a beauty and an heiress, and the only
daughter of people who thought themselves very distinguished indeed; so
that the two had not, you might think, very much in common, and were not
likely to be attracted one to the other. Yet, in spite of differing
circumstances, they were close friends and allies; and had been such
ever since they were together at the same fashionable school where Miss
Adair was the petted favorite of all, and Janetta Colwyn was the
pupil-teacher in the shabbiest of frocks, who got all the snubbing and
did most of the hard work. And great offence was given in several
directions by Miss Adair's attachment to poor little Janetta.
"It is an unsuitable friendship," Miss Polehampton, the principal of the
school, observed on more than one occasion, "and I am sure I do not know
how Lady Caroline will like it."
Lady Caroline was, of course, Margaret Adair's mamma.
Miss Polehampton felt her responsibility so keenly in the matter that at
last she resolved to speak "very seriously" to her dear Margaret. She
always talked of "her dear Margaret," Janetta used to say, when she was
going to make herself particularly disagreeable. For "her dear Margaret"
was the pet pupil, the show pupil of the establishment: her air of
perfect breeding gave distinction, Miss Polehampton thought, to the
whole school; and her refinement, her exemplary behavior, her industry,
and her talent formed the theme of many a lecture to less accomplished
and less decorous pupils. For, contrary to all conventional
expectations, Margaret Adair was not stupid, although she was beautiful
and well-behaved. She was an exceedingly intelligent girl; she had an
aptitude for several arts and accomplishments, and she was remarkable
for the delicacy of her taste and the exquisite discrimination of which
she sometimes showed herself capable. At the same time she was not as
clever--("not as _glaringly_ clever," a friend of hers once expressed
it)--as little Janetta Colwyn, whose nimble wits gathered knowledge as a
bee collects honey under the most unfavorable circumstances. Janetta had
to learn her lessons when the other girls had gone to bed, in a little
room under the roof; a room which was like an ice-house in winter and an
oven in summer; she was never able to be in time for her classes, and
she often missed them altogether; but, in spite of these disadvantages,
she generally proved herself the most advanced pupil in her division,
and if pupil-teachers had been allowed to take prizes, would have
carried off every first prize in the school. This, to be sure, was not
allowed. It would not have been "the thing" for the little
governess-pupil to take away the prizes from the girls whose parents
paid between two and three hundred a year for their tuition (the fees
were high, because Miss Polehampton's school was so exceedingly
fashionable); therefore, Janetta's marks were not counted, and her
exercises were put aside and did not come into competition with those of
the other girls, and it was generally understood amongst the teachers
that, if you wished to stand well with Miss Polehampton, it would be
better not to praise Miss Colwyn, but rather to put forward the merits
of some charming Lady Mary or Honorable Adeliza, and leave Janetta in
the obscurity from which (according to Miss Polehampton) she was fated
never to emerge.
Unfortunately for the purposes of the mistress of the school, Janetta
was rather a favorite with the girls. She was not adored, like Margaret;
she was not looked up to and respected, as was the Honorable Edith Gore;
she was nobody's pet, as the little Ladies Blanche and Rose Amberley had
been ever since they set foot in the school; but she was everybody's
friend and comrade, the recipient of everybody's confidences, the sharer
in everybody's joys or woes. The fact was that Janetta had the
inestimable gift of sympathy; she understood the difficulties of people
around her better than many women of twice her age would have done; and
she was so bright and sunny-tempered and quick-witted that her very
presence in a room was enough to dispel gloom and ill-temper. She was,
therefore, deservedly popular, and did more to keep up the character of
Miss Polehampton's school for comfort and cheerfulness than Miss
Polehampton herself was ever likely to be aware. And the girl most
devoted to Janetta was Margaret Adair.
"Remain for a few moments, Margaret; I wish to speak to you," said Miss
Polehampton, majestically, when one evening, directly after prayers, the
show pupil advanced to bid her teachers good-night.
The girls all sat round the room on wooden chairs, and Miss Polehampton
occupied a high-backed, cushioned seat at a centre table while she read
the portion of Scripture with which the day's work concluded. Near her
sat the governesses, English, French and German, with little Janetta
bringing up the rear in the draughtiest place and the most uncomfortable
chair. After prayers, Miss Polehampton and the teachers rose, and their
pupils came to bid them good-night, offering hand and cheek to each in
turn. There was always a great deal of kissing to be got through on
these occasions. Miss Polehampton blandly insisted on kissing all her
thirty pupils every evening; it made them feel more as if they were at
home, she used to say; and her example was, of course, followed by the
teachers and the girls.
Margaret Adair, as one of the oldest and tallest girls in the school,
generally came forward first for that evening salute. When Miss
Polehampton made the observation just recorded, she stepped back to a
position beside her teacher's chair in the demure attitude of a
well-behaved schoolgirl--hands crossed over the wrists, feet in
position, head and shoulders carefully erect, and eyes gently lowered
towards the carpet. Thus standing, she was yet perfectly well aware that
Janetta Colwyn gave her an odd, impish little look of mingled fun and
anxiety behind Miss Polehampton's back; for it was generally known that
a lecture was impending when one of the girls was detained after
prayers, and it was very unusual for Margaret to be lectured! Miss Adair
did not, however, look discomposed. A momentary smile flitted across her
face at Janetta's tiny grimace, but it was instantly succeeded by the
look of simple gravity becoming to the occasion.
When the last of the pupils and the last also of the teachers had filed
out of the room, Miss Polehampton turned and surveyed the waiting girl
with some uncertainty. She was really fond of Margaret Adair. Not only
did she bring credit to the school, but she was a good, nice, lady-like
girl (such were Miss Polehampton's epithets), and very fair to look
upon. Margaret was tall, slender, and exceedingly graceful in her
movements; she was delicately fair, and had hair of the silkiest texture
and palest gold; her eyes, however, were not blue, as one would have
expected them to be; they were hazel brown, and veiled by long brown
lashes--eyes of melting softness and dreaminess, peculiarly sweet in
expression. Her features were a very little too long and thin for
perfect beauty; but they gave her a Madonna-like look of peace and calm
which many were ready enthusiastically to admire. And there was no want
of expression in her face; its faint rose bloom varied almost at a word,
and the thin curved lips were as sensitive to feeling as could be
desired. What was wanting in the face was what gave it its peculiar
maidenly charm--a lack of passion, a little lack, perhaps, of strength.
But at seventeen we look less for these characteristics than for the
sweetness and docility which Margaret certainly possessed. Her dress of
soft, white muslin was quite simple--the ideal dress for a young
girl--and yet it was so beautifully made, so perfectly finished in every
detail, that Miss Polehampton never looked at it without an uneasy
feeling that she was _too_ well-dressed for a schoolgirl. Others wore
muslin dresses of apparently the same cut and texture; but what the
casual eye might fail to observe, the schoolmistress was perfectly well
aware of, namely, that the tiny frills at neck and wrists were of the
costliest Mechlin lace, that the hem of the dress was bordered with the
same material, as if it had been the commonest of things; that the
embroidered white ribbons with which it was trimmed had been woven in
France especially for Miss Adair, and that the little silver buckles at
her waist and on her shoes were so ancient and beautiful as to be of
almost historic importance. The effect was that of simplicity; but it
was the costly simplicity of absolute perfection. Margaret's mother was
never content unless her child was clothed from head to foot in
materials of the softest, finest and best. It was a sort of outward
symbol of what she desired for the girl in all relations of life.
This it was that disturbed Miss Polehampton's mind as she stood and
looked uneasily for a moment at Margaret Adair. Then she took the girl
by the hand.
"Sit down, my dear," she said, in a kind voice, "and let me talk to you
for a few moments. I hope you are not tired with standing so long."
"Oh, no, thank you; not at all," Margaret answered, blushing slightly as
she took a seat at Miss Polehampton's left hand. She was more
intimidated by this unwonted kindness of address than by any imaginable
severity. The schoolmistress was tall and imposing in appearance: her
manner was usually a little pompous, and it did not seem quite natural
to Margaret that she should speak so gently.
"My dear," said Miss Polehampton, "when your dear mamma gave you into my
charge, I am sure she considered me responsible for the influences under
which you were brought, and the friendships that you made under my
roof."
"Mamma knew that I could not be hurt by any friendship that I made
_here_," said Margaret, with the softest flattery. She was quite
sincere: it was natural to her to say "pretty things" to people.
"Quite so," the schoolmistress admitted. "Quite so, dear Margaret, if
you keep within your own grade in society. There is no pupil in this
establishment, I am thankful to say, who is not of suitable family and
prospects to become your friend. You are young yet, and do not
understand the complications in which people sometimes involve
themselves by making friendships out of their own sphere. But _I_
understand, and I wish to caution you."
"I am not aware that I have made any unsuitable friendships," said
Margaret, with a rather proud look in her hazel eyes.
"Well--no, I hope not," said Miss Polehampton with a hesitating little
cough. "You understand, my dear, that in an establishment like mine,
persons must be employed to do certain work who are not quite equal in
position to--to--ourselves. Persons of inferior birth and station, I
mean, to whom the care of the younger girls, and certain menial duties,
must be committed. These persons, my dear, with whom you must
necessarily be brought in contact, and whom I hope you will always treat
with perfect courtesy and consideration, need not, at the same time, be
made your intimate friends."
"I have never made friends with any of the servants," said Margaret,
quietly. Miss Polehampton was somewhat irritated by this remark.
"I do not allude to the servants," she said with momentary sharpness. "I
do not consider Miss Colwyn a servant, or I should not, of course, allow
her to sit at the same table with you. But there is a sort of
familiarity of which I do not altogether approve----"
She paused, and Margaret drew up her head and spoke with unusual
decision.
"Miss Colwyn is my greatest friend."
"Yes, my dear, that is what I complain of. Could you not find a friend
in your own rank of life without making one of Miss Colwyn?"
"She is quite as good as I am," cried Margaret, indignantly. "Quite as
good, far more so, and a great deal cleverer!"
"She has capabilities," said the schoolmistress, with the air of one
making a concession; "and I hope that they will be useful to her in her
calling. She will probably become a nursery governess, or companion to
some lady of superior position. But I cannot believe, my dear that dear
Lady Caroline would approve of your singling her out as your especial
and particular friend."
"I am sure mamma always likes people who are good and clever," said
Margaret. She did not fly into a rage as some girls would have done, but
her face flushed, and her breath came more quickly than usual--signs of
great excitement on her part, which Miss Polehampton was not slow to
observe.
"She likes them in their proper station, my dear. This friendship is not
improving for you, nor for Miss Colwyn. Your positions in life are so
different that your notice of her can but cause discontent and
ill-feeling in her mind. It is exceedingly injudicious, and I cannot
think that your dear mamma would approve of it if she knew the
circumstances."
"But Janetta's family is not at all badly connected," said Margaret,
with some eagerness. "There are cousins of hers living close to us--the
next property belongs to them----"
"Do you know them, my dear?"
"I know _about_ them," answered Margaret, suddenly coloring very deeply,
and looking uncomfortable, "but I don't think I have ever seen them,
they are so much away from home----"
"I know _about_ them, too," said Miss Polehampton, grimly; "and I do not
think that you will ever advance Miss Colwyn's interests by mentioning
her connection with that family. I have heard Lady Caroline speak of
Mrs. Brand and her children. They are not people, my dear Margaret, whom
it is desirable for you to know."
"But Janetta's own people live quite near us," said Margaret, reduced to
a very pleading tone. "I know them at home; they live at Beaminster--not
three miles off."
"And may I ask if Lady Caroline visits them, my dear?" asked Miss
Polehampton, with mild sarcasm, which brought the color again to
Margaret's fair face. The girl could not answer; she knew well enough
that Janetta's stepmother was not at all the sort of person whom Lady
Caroline Adair would willingly speak to, and yet she did not like to say
that her acquaintance with Janetta had only been made at a Beaminster
dancing class. Probably Miss Polehampton divined the fact. "Under the
circumstances," she said, "I think I should be justified in writing to
Lady Caroline and asking her to remonstrate a little with you, my dear
Margaret. Probably she would be better able to make you understand the
impropriety of your behavior than I can do."
The tears rose to Margaret's eyes. She was not used to being rebuked in
this manner.
"But--I don't know, Miss Polehampton, what you want me to do," she said,
more nervously than usual. "I can't give up Janetta; I can't possibly
avoid speaking to her, you know, even if I wanted to----"
"I desire nothing of the sort, Margaret. Be kind and polite to her, as
usual. But let me suggest that you do not make a companion of her in the
garden so constantly--that you do not try to sit beside her in class or
look over the same book. I will speak to Miss Colwyn herself about it. I
think I can make _her_ understand."
"Oh, please do not speak to Janetta! I quite understand already," said
Margaret, growing pale with distress. "You do not know how kind and good
she has always been to me----"
Sobs choked her utterance, rather to Miss Polehampton's alarm. She did
not like to see her girls cry--least of all, Margaret Adair.
"My dear, you have no need to excite yourself. Janetta Colwyn has always
been treated, I hope, with justice and kindness in this house. If you
will endeavor only to make her position in life less instead of more
difficult, you will be doing her the greatest favor in your power. I do
not at all mean that I wish you to be unkind to her. A little more
reserve, a little more caution, in your demeanor, and you will be all
that I have ever wished you to be--a credit to your parents and to the
school which has educated you!"
This sentiment was so effusive that it stopped Margaret's tears out of
sheer amazement; and when she had said good-night and gone to bed, Miss
Polehampton stood for a moment or two quite still, as if to recover from
the unwonted exertion of expressing an affectionate emotion. It was
perhaps a reaction against it that caused her almost immediately to ring
the bell a trifle sharply, and to say--still sharply--to the maid who
appeared in answer.
"Send Miss Colwyn to me."
Five minutes elapsed before Miss Colwyn came, however, and the
schoolmistress had had time to grow impatient.
"Why did you not come at once when I sent for you?" she said, severely,
as soon as Janetta presented herself.
"I was going to bed," said the girl, quickly; "and I had to dress myself
again."
The short, decided accents grated on Miss Polehampton's ear. Miss Colwyn
did not speak half so "nicely," she said to herself, as did dear
Margaret Adair.
"I have been talking to Miss Adair about you," said the schoolmistress,
coldly. "I have been telling her, as I now tell you, that the difference
in your positions makes your present intimacy very undesirable. I wish
you to understand, henceforward, that Miss Adair is not to walk with you
in the garden, not to sit beside you in class, not to associate with
you, as she has hitherto done, on equal terms."
"Why should we not associate on equal terms?" said Janetta. She was a
black-browed girl, with a clear olive skin, and her eyes flashed and her
cheeks glowed with indignation as she spoke.
"You are not equals," said Miss Polehampton, with icy displeasure in her
tone--she had spoken very differently to Margaret. "You have to work for
your bread: there is no disgrace in that, but it puts you on a different
level from that of Miss Margaret Adair, an earl's grand-daughter, and
the only child of one of the richest commoners in England. I have never
before reminded you of the difference in position between yourself and
the young ladies with whom you have hitherto been allowed to associate;
and I really think I shall have to adopt another method--unless you
conduct yourself, Miss Colwyn, with a little more modesty and
propriety."
"May I ask what your other method would be?" asked Miss Colwyn, with
perfect self-possession.
Miss Polehampton looked at her for a moment in silence.
"To begin with," she said, "I could order the meals differently, and
request you to take yours with the younger children, and in other ways
cut you off from the society of the young ladies. And if this failed, I
could signify to your father that our arrangement was not satisfactory,
and that it had better end at the close of this term."
Janetta's eyes fell and her color faded as she heard this threat. It
meant a good deal to her. She answered quickly, but with some
nervousness of tone.
"Of course, that must be as you please, Miss Polehampton. If I do not
satisfy you, I must go."
"You satisfy me very well except in that one respect. However, I do not
ask for any promise from you now. I shall observe your conduct during
the next few days, and be guided by what I see. I have already spoken to
Miss Adair."
Janetta bit her lips. After a pause, she said--
"Is that all? May I go now?"
"You may go," said Miss Polehampton, with majesty; and Janetta softly
and slowly retired.
But as soon as she was outside the door her demeanor changed. She burst
into tears as she sped swiftly up the broad staircase, and her eyes were
so blinded that she did not even see a white figure hovering on the
landing until she found herself suddenly in Margaret's arms. In defiance
of all rules--disobedient for nearly the first time in her
life--Margaret had waited and watched for Janetta's coming; and now,
clasped as closely together as sisters, the two friends held a whispered
colloquy on the stairs.
"Darling," said Margaret, "was she very unkind?"
"She was very horrid, but I suppose she couldn't help it," said Janetta,
with a little laugh mixing itself with her sobs. "We mustn't be friends
any more, Margaret."
"But we will be friends--always, Janetta."
"We must not sit together or walk together----"
"Janetta, I shall behave to you exactly as I have always done." The
gentle Margaret was in revolt.
"She will write to your mother, Margaret, and to my father."
"I shall write to mine, too, and explain," said Margaret with dignity.
And Janetta had not the heart to whisper to her friend that the tone in
which Miss Polehampton would write to Lady Caroline would differ very
widely from the one that she would adopt to Mr. Colwyn.
CHAPTER II.
LADY CAROLINE'S TACTICS.
Helmsley Court was generally considered one of the prettiest houses
about Beaminster; a place which was rich in pretty houses, being a
Cathedral town situated in one of the most beautiful southern counties
of England. The village of Helmsley was a picturesque little group of
black and white cottages, with gardens full of old-fashioned flowers
before them and meadows and woods behind. Helmsley Court was on slightly
higher ground than the village, and its windows commanded an extensive
view of lovely country bounded in the distance by a long low range of
blue hills, beyond which, in clear days, it was said, keen eyes could
catch a glimpse of the shining sea. The house itself was a very fine old
building, with a long terrace stretching before its lower windows, and
flower gardens which were the admiration of half the county. It had a
picture gallery and a magnificent hall with polished floor and stained
windows, and all the accessories of an antique and celebrated mansion;
and it had also all the comfort and luxury that modern civilization
could procure.
It was this latter characteristic that made "the Court," as it was
commonly called, so popular. Picturesque old houses are sometimes
draughty and inconvenient, but no such defects were ever allowed to
exist at the Court. Every thing went smoothly: the servants were
perfectly trained: the latest improvements possible were always
introduced: the house was ideally luxurious. There never seemed to be
any jar or discord: no domestic worry was ever allowed to reach the ears
of the mistress of the household, no cares or troubles seemed able to
exist in that serene atmosphere. You could not even say of it that it
was dull. For the master of the Court was a hospitable man, with many
tastes and whims which he liked to indulge by having down from London
the numerous friends whose fancies matched his own, and his wife was a
little bit of a fine lady who had London friends too, as well as
neighbors, whom she liked to entertain. The house was seldom free from
visitors; and it was partly for that very reason that Lady Caroline
Adair, being in her own way a wise woman, had arranged that two or three
years of her daughter's life should be spent at Miss Polehampton's very
select boarding-school at Brighton. It would be a great drawback to
Margaret, she reflected, if her beauty were familiar to all the world
before she came out; and really, when Mr. Adair would insist on inviting
his friends constantly to the house, it was impossible to keep the girl
so mewed up in the schoolroom that she would not be seen and talked of;
and therefore it was better that she should go away for a time. Mr.
Adair did not like the arrangement; he was very fond of Margaret, and
objected to her leaving home; but Lady Caroline was gently inexorable
and got her own way--as she generally did.
She does not look much like the mother of the tall girl whom we saw at
Brighton, as she sits at the head of her breakfast-table in the
daintiest of morning gowns--a marvelous combination of silk, muslin and
lace and pale pink ribbons--with a tiny white dog reposing in her lap.
She is a much smaller woman than Margaret, and darker in complexion: it
is from her, however, that Margaret inherits the large, appealing hazel
eyes, which look at you with an infinite sweetness, while their owner is
perhaps thinking of the _menu_ or her milliner's bill. Lady Caroline's
face is thin and pointed, but her complexion is still clear, and her
soft brown hair is very prettily arranged. As she sits with her back to
the light, with a rose-colored curtain behind her, just tinting her
delicate cheek (for Lady Caroline is always careful of appearance), she
looks quite a young woman still.
It is Mr. Adair whom Margaret most resembles. He is a tall and
exceedingly handsome man, whose hair and moustache and pointed beard
were as golden once as Margaret's soft tresses, but are now toned down
by a little grey. He has the alert blue eyes that generally go with his
fair complexion, and his long limbs are never still for many minutes
together. His daughter's tranquillity seems to have come from her
mother; certainly it cannot be inherited from the restless Reginald
Adair.
The third person present at the breakfast-table--and, for the time
being, the only visitor in the house--is a young man of seven or
eight-and-twenty, tall, dark, and very spare, with a coal-black beard
trimmed to a point, earnest dark eyes, and a remarkably pleasant and
intelligent expression. He is not exactly handsome, but he has a face
that attracts one; it is the face of a man who has quick perceptions,
great kindliness of heart, and a refined and cultured mind. Nobody is
more popular in that county than young Sir Philip Ashley, although his
neighbors grumble sometimes at his absorption in scientific and
philanthropic objects, and think that it would be more creditable to
them if he went out with the hounds a little oftener or were a rather
better shot. For, being shortsighted, he was never particularly fond
either of sport or of games of skill, and his interest had always
centred on intellectual pursuits to a degree that amazed the more
countrified squires of the neighborhood.
The post-bag was brought in while breakfast was proceeding, and two or
three letters were laid before Lady Caroline, who, with a careless word
of apology, opened and read them in turn. She smiled as she put them
down and looked at her husband.
"This is a novel experience," she said. "For the first time in our
lives, Reginald, here is a formal complaint of our Margaret."
Sir Philip looked up somewhat eagerly, and Mr. Adair elevated his
eyebrows, stirred his coffee, and laughed aloud.
"Wonders will never cease," he said. "It is rather refreshing to hear
that our immaculate Margaret has done something naughty. What is it,
Caroline? Is she habitually late for breakfast? A touch of unpunctuality
is the only fault I ever heard of, and that, I believe, she inherits
from me."
"I should be sorry to think that she was immaculate," said Lady
Caroline, calmly, "it has such an uncomfortable sound. But Margaret is
generally, I must say, a very tractable child."
"Do you mean that her schoolmistress does not find her tractable?" said
Mr. Adair, with amusement. "What has she been doing?"
"Nothing very bad. Making friends with a governess-pupil, or something
of, that sort----"
"Just what a generous-hearted girl would be likely to do!" exclaimed Sir
Philip, with a sudden warm lighting of his dark eyes.
Lady Caroline smiled at him. "The schoolmistress thinks this girl an
unsuitable friend for Margaret, and wants me to interfere," she said.
"Pray do nothing of the sort," said Mr. Adair. "I would trust my Pearl's
instinct anywhere. She would never make an unsuitable friend!"
"Margaret has written to me herself," said Lady Caroline. "She seems
unusually excited about the matter. 'Dear mother,' she writes, 'pray
interpose to prevent Miss Polehampton from doing an unjust and
ungenerous thing. She disapproves of my friendship with dear Janetta
Colwyn, simply because Janetta is poor; and she threatens to punish
Janetta--not me--by sending her home in disgrace. Janetta is a
governess-pupil here, and it would be a great trouble to her if she were
sent away. I hope that you would rather take _me_ away than let such an
injustice be done.'"
"My Pearl hits the nail on the head exactly," said Mr. Adair, with
complacency. He rose as he spoke, and began to walk about the room. "She
is quite old enough to come home, Caroline. It is June now, and the term
ends in July. Fetch her home, and invite the little governess too, and
you will soon see whether or no she is the right sort of friend for
Margaret." He laughed in his mellow, genial way, and leaned against the
mantel-piece, stroking his yellow moustache and glancing at his wife.
"I am not sure that that would be advisable," said Lady Caroline, with
her pretty smile. "Janetta Colwyn: Colwyn? Did not Margaret know her
before she went to school? Are there not some Colwyns at Beaminster? The
doctor--yes, I remember him; don't you, Reginald?"
Mr. Adair shook his head, but Sir Philip looked up hastily.
"I know him--a struggling man with a large family. His first wife was
rather well-connected, I believe: at any rate she was related to the
Brands of Brand Hall. He married a second time after her death."
"Do you call that being well-connected, Philip?" said Lady Caroline,
with gentle reproach; while Mr. Adair laughed and whistled, but caught
himself up immediately and apologized.
"I beg pardon--I forgot where I was: the less any of us have to do with
the Brands of Brand Hall the better, Phil."
"I know nothing of them," said Sir Philip, rather gravely.
"Nor anybody else"--hastily--"they never live at home, you know. So this
girl is a connection of theirs?"
"Perhaps not a very suitable friend: Miss Polehampton may be right,"
said Lady Caroline. "I suppose I must go over to Brighton and see
Margaret."
"Bring her back with you," said Mr. Adair, recklessly. "She has had
quite enough of school by this time: she is nearly eighteen, isn't she?"
But Lady Caroline smilingly refused to decide anything until she had
herself interviewed Miss Polehampton. She asked her husband to order the
carriage for her at once, and retired to summon her maid and array
herself for the journey.
"You won't go to-day, will you, Philip?" said Mr. Adair, almost
appealingly. "I shall be all alone, and my wife will not perhaps return
until to-morrow--there's no saying."
"Thank you, I shall be most pleased to stay," answered Sir Philip,
cordially. After a moment's pause, he added, with something very like a
touch of shyness--"I have not seen--your daughter since she was twelve
years old."
"Haven't you?" said Mr. Adair, with ready interest. "You don't say so!
Pretty little girl she was then! Didn't you think so?"
"I thought her the loveliest child I had ever seen in all my life," said
Sir Philip, with curious devoutness of manner.
He saw Lady Caroline just as she was starting for the train, with man
and maid in attendance, and Mr. Adair handing her into the carriage and
gallantly offering to accompany her if she liked. "Not at all
necessary," said Lady Caroline, with an indulgent smile. "I shall be
home to dinner. Take care of my husband, Philip, and don't let him be
dull."
"If they are making Margaret unhappy, be sure you bring her back with
you," were Mr. Adair's last words. Lady Caroline gave him a kind but
inscrutable little smile and nod as she was whirled away. Sir Philip
thought to himself that she looked like a woman who would take her own
course in spite of advice or recommendation from her husband or anybody
else.
He smiled once or twice as the day passed on at her parting injunction
to him not to let her husband be dull. He had known the Adairs for many
years, and had never known Reginald Adair dull under any circumstances.
He was too full of interests, of "fads," some people called them, ever
to be dull. He took Sir Philip round the picture-gallery, round the
stables, to the kennels, to the flower-garden, to his own studio (where
he painted in oils when he had nothing else to do) with never-flagging
energy and animation. Sir Philip's interests lay in different grooves,
but he was quite capable of sympathizing with Mr. Adair's interests,
too. The day passed pleasantly, and seemed rather short for all that the
two men wanted to pack into it; although from time to time Mr. Adair
would say, half-impatiently, "I wonder how Caroline is getting on!" or
"I hope she'll bring Margaret back with her! But I don't expect it, you
know. Carry was always a great one for education and that sort of
thing."
"Is Miss Adair intellectual--too?" asked Sir Philip, with respect.
Mr. Adair broke into a sudden laugh. "Intellectual? Our Daisy?--our
Pearl?" he said. "Wait until you see her, then ask the question if you
like."
"I am afraid I don't quite understand."
"Of course you don't. It is the partiality of a fond father that speaks,
my dear fellow. I only meant that these young, fresh, pretty girls put
such questions out of one's head."
"She must be very pretty then," said Sir Philip, with a smile.
He had seen a great many beautiful women, and told himself that he did
not care for beauty. Fashionable, talkative women were his abomination.
He had no sisters, but he loved his mother very dearly; and upon her he
had founded a very high ideal of womanhood. He had begun to think
vaguely, of late, that he ought to marry: duty demanded it of him, and
Sir Philip was always attentive, if not obedient, to the voice of duty.
But he was not inclined to marry a girl out of the schoolroom, or a girl
who was accustomed to the enervating luxury (as he considered it) of
Helmsley Court: he wanted an energetic, sensible, large-hearted, and
large-minded woman who would be his right hand, his first minister of
state. Sir Philip was fairly wealthy, but by no means enormously so; and
he had other uses for his wealth than the buying of pictures and keeping
up stables and kennels at an alarming expense. If Miss Adair were so
pretty, he mused, it was just as well that she was not at home, for, of
course, it was possible that he might find a lovely face an attraction:
and much as he liked Lady Caroline, he did not want particularly to
marry Lady Caroline's daughter. That she treated him with great
consideration, and that he had once overheard her speak of him as "the
most eligible _parti_ of the neighborhood," had already put him a little
on his guard. Lady Caroline was no vulgar, match-making mother, he knew
that well enough; but she was in some respects a thoroughly worldly
woman, and Philip Ashley was an essentially unworldly man.
As he went upstairs to dress for dinner that evening, he was struck by
the fact that a door stood open that he had never seen opened before: a
door into a pretty, well-lighted, pink and white room, the ideal
apartment for a young girl. The evening was chilly, and rain had begun
to fall, so a bright little fire was burning in the steel grate, and
casting a cheerful glow over white sheepskin rugs and rose-colored
curtains. A maid seemed to be busying herself with some white
material--all gauze and lace it looked--and another servant was, as Sir
Philip passed, entering with a great white vase filled with red roses.
"Do they expect visitors to-night?" thought the young man, who knew
enough of the house to be aware that the room was not one in general
use. "Adair said nothing about it, but perhaps some people are coming
from town."
A budget of letters was brought to him at that moment, and in reading
and answering them he did not note the sound of carriage-wheels on the
drive, nor the bustle of an arrival in the house. Indeed, he left
himself so little time that he had to dress in extraordinary haste, and
went downstairs at last in the conviction that he was unpardonably late.
But apparently he was wrong.
For the drawing-room was tenanted by one figure only--that of a young
lady in evening dress. Neither Lady Caroline nor Mr. Adair had appeared
upon the scene; but on the hearthrug, by the small crackling
fire--which, in deference to the chilliness of an English June evening,
had been lighted--stood a tall, fair, slender girl, with pale
complexion, and soft, loosely-coiled masses of golden hair. She was
dressed in pure white, a soft loose gown of Indian silk, trimmed with
the most delicate lace: it was high to the milk-white throat, but showed
the rounded curves of the finely-moulded arm to the elbow. She wore no
ornaments, but a white rose was fastened into the lace frill of her
dress at her neck. As she turned her face towards the new comer, Sir
Philip suddenly felt himself abashed. It was not that she was so
beautiful--in those first few moments he scarcely thought her beautiful
at all--but that she produced on him an impression of serious, virginal
grace and innocence which was almost disconcerting. Her pure complexion,
her grave, serene eyes, her graceful way of moving as she advanced a
little to receive him stirred him to more than admiration--to something
not unlike awe. She looked young; but it was youth in perfection: there
was some marvelous finish, delicacy, polish, which one does not usually
associate with extreme youth.
"You are Sir Philip Ashley, I think?" she said, offering him her slim
cool hand without embarrassment.
"You do not remember me, perhaps, but I remember you perfectly well, I
am Margaret Adair."
CHAPTER III.
AT HELMSLEY COURT.
"Lady Caroline has brought you back, then?" said Sir Philip, after his
first pause of astonishment.
"Yes," said Margaret, serenely. "I have been expelled."
"Expelled! _You?_"
"Yes, indeed, I have," said the girl, with a faintly amused little
smile. "And so has my great friend, Janetta Colwyn. Here she is:
Janetta, I am telling Sir Philip Ashley that we have been expelled, and
he will not believe me."
Sir Philip turned in some curiosity to see the girl of whom he had heard
for the first time that morning. He had not noticed before that she was
present. He saw a brown little creature, with eyes that had been swollen
with crying until they were well-nigh invisible, small, unremarkable
features, and a mouth that was inclined to quiver. Margaret might afford
to be serene, but to this girl expulsion from school had evidently been
a sad trouble. He threw all the more kindness and gentleness into his
voice and look as he spoke to her.
Janetta might have felt a little awkward if she had not been so entirely
absorbed by her own woes. She had never set foot before in half so grand
a house as this of Helmsley Court, nor had she ever dined late or spoken
to a gentleman in an evening coat in all her previous life. The size and
the magnificence of the room would perhaps have oppressed her if she had
been fully aware of them. But she was for the moment very much wrapped
up in her own affairs, and scarcely stopped to think of the novel
situation in which she found herself. The only thing that had startled
her was the attention paid to her dress by Margaret and Margaret's maid.
Janetta would have put on her afternoon black cashmere and little silver
brooch, and would have felt herself perfectly well dressed; but
Margaret, after a little consultation with the very grand young person
who condescended to brush Miss Colwyn's hair, had herself brought to
Janetta's room a dress of black lace over cherry-colored silk, and had
begged her to put it on.
"You will feel so hot downstairs if you don't put on something cool,"
Margaret had said. "There is a fire in the drawing-room: papa likes the
rooms warm. My dresses would not have fitted you, I am so much taller
than you; but mamma is just your height, and although you are thinner
perhaps----But I don't know: the dress fits you perfectly. Look in the
glass, Janet; you are quite splendid."
Janetta looked and blushed a little--not because she thought herself at
all splendid, but because the dress showed her neck and arms in a way no
dress had ever done before. "Ought it to be--open--like this?" she said,
vaguely. "Do you wear your dresses like this when you are at home?"
"Mine are high," said Margaret. "I am not 'out,' you know. But you are
older than I, and you used to teach----I think we may consider that you
_are_ 'out,'" she added, with a little laugh. "You look very nice,
Janetta: you have such pretty arms! Now I must go and dress, and I will
call for you when I am ready to go down."
Janetta felt decidedly doubtful as to whether she were not a great deal
too grand for the occasion; but she altered her mind when she saw
Margaret's dainty silk and lace, and Lady Caroline's exquisite brocade;
and she felt herself quite unworthy to take Mr. Adair's offered arm when
dinner was announced and her host politely convoyed her to the
dining-room. She wondered whether he knew that she was only a little
governess-pupil, and whether he was not angry with her for being the
cause of his daughter's abrupt departure from school. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Adair knew her position exactly, and was very much amused by
the whole affair; also, as it had procured him the pleasure of his
daughter's return home, he had an illogical inclination to be pleased
also with Janetta. "As Margaret is so fond of her, there must be
something in her," he said to himself, with a critical glance at the
girl's delicate features and big dark eyes. "I'll draw her out at
dinner."
He tried his best, and made himself so agreeable and amusing that
Janetta lost a good deal of her shyness, and forgot her troubles. She
had a quick tongue of her own, as everybody at Miss Polehampton's was
aware; and she soon found that she had not lost it. She was a good deal
surprised to find that not a word was said at the dinner table about the
cause of Margaret's return: in her own home it would have been the
subject of the evening; it would have been discussed from every point of
view, and she would probably have been reduced to tears before the first
hour was over. But here it was evident that the matter was not
considered of great importance. Margaret looked serene as ever, and
joined quietly in talk which was alarmingly unlike Miss Polehampton's
improving conversation: talk about county gaieties and county magnates:
gossip about neighbors--gossip of a harmless although frivolous type,
for Lady Caroline never allowed any talk at her table that was anything
but harmless, about fashions, about old china, about music and art. Mr.
Adair was passionately fond of music, and when he found that Miss Colwyn
really knew something of it he was in his element. They discoursed of
fugues, sonatas, concertos, quartettes, and trios, until even Lady
Caroline raised her eyebrows a little at the very technical nature of
the conversation; and Sir Philip exchanged a congratulatory smile with
Margaret over her friend's success. For the delight of finding a
congenial spirit had brought the crimson into Janetta's olive cheeks and
the brilliance to her dark eyes: she had looked insignificant when she
went in to dinner; she was splendidly handsome at dessert. Mr. Adair
noticed her flashing, transitory beauty, and said to himself that
Margaret's taste was unimpeachable; it was just like his own; he had
complete confidence in Margaret.
When the ladies went back to the drawing-room, Sir Philip turned with a
look of only half-disguised curiosity to his host. "Lady Caroline
brought her back then?" he said, longing to ask questions, yet hardly
knowing how to frame them aright.
Mr. Adair gave a great laugh. "It's been the oddest thing I ever heard
of," he said, in a tone of enjoyment. "Margaret takes a fancy to that
little black-eyed girl--a nice little thing, too, don't you think?--and
nothing must serve but that her favorite must walk with her, sit by
her, and so on--you know the romantic way girls have? The schoolmistress
interfered, said it was not proper, and so on; forbade it. Miss Colwyn
would have obeyed, it seems, but Margaret took the bit in a quiet way
between her teeth. Miss Colwyn was ordered to take her meals at a side
table: Margaret insisted on taking her meals there too. The school was
thrown into confusion. At last Miss Polehampton decided that the best
way out of the difficulty was first to complain to us, and then to send
Miss Colwyn home, straight away. She would not send _Margaret_ home, you
know!"
"That was very hard on Miss Colwyn," said Sir Philip, gravely.
"Yes, horribly hard. So Margaret, as you heard, appealed to her mother,
and when Lady Caroline arrived, she found that not only were Miss
Colwyn's boxes packed, but Margaret's as well; and that Margaret had
declared that if her friend was sent away for what was after all _her_
fault, she would not stay an hour in the house. Miss Polehampton was
weeping: the girls were in revolt, the teachers in despair, so my wife
thought the best way out of the difficulty was to bring both girls away
at once, and settle it with Miss Colwyn's relations afterwards. The joke
is that Margaret insists on it that she has been 'expelled.'"
"So she told me."
"The schoolmistress said something of that kind, you know. Caroline says
the woman entirely lost her temper and made an exhibition of herself.
Caroline was glad to get our girl away. But, of course, it's all
nonsense about being 'expelled' as a punishment; she was leaving of her
own accord."
"One could hardly imagine punishment in connection with her," said Sir
Philip, warmly.
"No, she's a nice-looking girl, isn't she? and her little friend is a
good foil, poor little thing."
"This affair may prove of some serious inconvenience to Miss Colwyn, I
suppose?"
"Oh, you may depend upon it, she won't be the loser," said Mr. Adair,
hastily. "We'll see about that. Of course she will not suffer any injury
through my daughter's friendship for her."
Sir Philip was not so sure about it. In spite of his intense admiration
for Margaret's beauty, it occurred to him that the romantic partisanship
of the girl with beauty, position, and wealth for her less fortunate
sister had not been attended with very brilliant results. No doubt Miss
Adair, reared in luxury and indulgence, did not in the least realize the
harm done to the poor governess-pupil's future by her summary dismissal
from Miss Polehampton's boarding-school. To Margaret, anything that the
schoolmistress chose to say or do mattered little; to Janetta Colwyn, it
might some day mean prosperity or adversity of a very serious kind. Sir
Philip did not quite believe in the compensation so easily promised by
Mr. Adair. He made a mental note of Miss Colwyn's condition and
prospects, and said to himself that he would not forget her. And this
meant a good deal from a busy man like Sir Philip Ashley.
Meanwhile there had been another conversation going on in the
drawing-room between the three ladies. Margaret put her arm
affectionately round Janetta's waist as they stood by the hearthrug, and
looked at her mother with a smile. Lady Caroline sank into an easy-chair
on the other side of the fireplace, and contemplated the two girls.
"This is better than Claremont House, is it not, Janet?" said Margaret.
"Indeed it is," Janetta answered, gratefully.
"You found the way to papa's heart by your talk about music--did she
not, mamma? And does not this dress suit her beautifully?"
"It wants a little alteration in the sleeve," said Lady Caroline, with
the placidity which Janetta had always attributed to Margaret as a
special virtue, but which she now found was merely characteristic of the
house and family in general, "but Markham can do that to-morrow. There
are some people coming in the evening, and the sleeve will look better
shortened."
The remark sounded a little inconsequent in Janetta's ear, but Margaret
understood and assented. It meant that Lady Caroline was on the whole
pleased with Janetta, and did not object to introducing her to her
friends. Margaret gave her mother a little smile over Janetta's head,
while that young person was gathering up her courage in two hands, so to
speak, before addressing Lady Caroline.
"I am very much obliged to you," she said at last, with a thrill of
gratitude in her sweet voice which was very pleasant to the ear. "But--I
was thinking--what time would be the most convenient for me to go home
to-morrow?"
"Home? To Beaminster?" said Margaret. "But you need not go, dear; you
can write a note and tell them that you are staying here."
"Yes, my dear; I am sure Margaret cannot part with you yet," said Lady
Caroline, amiably.
"Thank you; it is most kind of you," Janetta answered, her voice
shaking. "But I must ask my father whether I can stay--and hear what he
says; Miss Polehampton will have written to him, and----"
"And he will be very glad that we have rescued you from her clutches,"
said Margaret, with a soft triumphant little laugh. "My poor Janetta!
What we suffered at her hands!"
Lady Caroline lying back in her easy chair, with the candle light
gleaming upon her silvery grey and white brocade with its touches of
soft pink, and the diamonds flashing on her white hands, so calmly
crossed upon the handle of her ivory fan, did not feel quite so tranquil
as she looked. It crossed her mind that Margaret was acting
inconsiderately. This little Miss Colwyn had her living to earn; it
would be no kindness to unfit her for her profession. So, when she spoke
it was with a shade more decision than usual in her tones.
"We will drive you over to Beaminster to-morrow, my dear Miss Colwyn,
and you can then see your family, and ask your father if you may spend a
few days with Margaret. I do not think that Mr. Colwyn will refuse us,"
she said, graciously. "I wonder when those men are coming, Margaret.
Suppose you open the piano and let us have a little music. You sing, do
you not?"
"Yes, a little," said Janetta.
"A little!" exclaimed Margaret, with contempt. "She has a delightful
voice, mamma. Come and sing at once, Janetta, darling, and astonish
mamma."
Lady Caroline smiled. She had heard a great many singers in her day, and
did not expect to be astonished. A little governess-pupil, an
under-teacher in a boarding-school! Dear Margaret's enthusiasm certainly
carried her away.
But when Janetta sang, Lady Caroline was, after all, rather surprised.
The girl had a remarkably sweet and rich contralto voice, and it had
been well trained; and, moreover, she sang with feeling and passion
which were somewhat unusual in one so young. It seemed as if some hidden
power, some latent characteristic came out in her singing because it
found no other way of expressing itself. Neither Lady Caroline nor
Margaret understood why Janetta's voice moved them so much; Sir Philip,
who came in with his host while the music was going on, heard and was
charmed also without quite knowing why; it was Mr. Adair alone whose
musical knowledge and experience of the world enabled him,
feather-headed as in some respects he was, to lay his finger directly on
the salient features of Janetta's singing.
"It's not her voice altogether, you know," he said afterwards to Philip
Ashley, in a moment of confidence; "it's soul. She's got more of that
commodity than is good for a woman. It makes her singing lovely, you
know--brings tears into one's eyes, and all that sort of thing--but upon
my honor I'm thankful that Margaret hasn't got a voice like that! It's
women of that kind that are either heroines of virtue--or go to the
devil. They are always in extremes."
"Then we may promise ourselves some excitement in watching Miss Colwyn's
career," said Sir Philip, dryly.
After Janetta, Margaret sang; she had a sweet mezzo-soprano voice, of no
great strength or compass, but perfectly trained and very pleasing to
the ear. The sort of voice, Sir Philip thought, that would be soothing
to the nerves of a tired man in his own house. Whereas, Janetta's
singing had something impassioned in it which disturbed and excited
instead of soothing. But he was quite ready to admire when Margaret
called on him for admiration. They were sitting together on a sofa, and
Janetta, who had just finished one of her songs, was talking to, or
being talked to, by Mr. Adair. Lady Caroline had taken up a review.
"Is not Miss Colwyn's voice perfectly lovely?" Margaret asked, with
shining eyes.
"It is very sweet."
"Don't you think she looks very nice?"--Margaret was hungering for
admiration of her friend.
"She is a very pretty girl. You are very fond of each other?"
"Oh, yes, devoted. I am so glad I succeeded!" said the girl, with a
great sigh.
"In getting her away from the school?"
"Yes."
"You think it was for her good?"
Margaret opened her lovely eyes.
"For her good?--to come here instead of staying in that close
uncomfortable house to give music lessons, and bear Miss Polehampton's
snubs?----" It had evidently never occurred to her that the change could
be anything but beneficial to Janetta.
"It is very pleasant for her, no doubt," said Sir Philip, smiling in
spite of his disapproval. "I only wondered whether it was a good
preparation for the life of hard work which probably lies before her."
He saw that Margaret colored, and wondered whether she would be offended
by his suggestion. After a moment's pause, she answered, gravely, but
quite gently--
"I never thought of it in that way before, exactly. I want to keep her
here, so that she should never have to work hard at all."
"Would she consent to that?"
"Why not?" said Margaret.
Sir Philip smiled and said no more. It was curious, he said to himself,
to see how little conception Margaret had of lives unlike and outside
her own. And Janetta's brave but sensitive little face, with its
resolute brows and lips and brilliant eyes, gave promise of a
determination and an originality which, he felt convinced, would never
allow her to become a mere plaything or appendage of a wealthy
household, as Margaret Adair seemed to expect. But his words had made an
impression. At night, when Lady Caroline and her daughter were standing
in the charming little room which had always been appropriated to
Margaret's use, she spoke, with the unconscious habit of saying frankly
anything that had occurred to her, of Sir Philip's remarks.
"It was so odd," she said; "Sir Philip seemed to think that it would be
bad for Janetta to stay here, mamma. Why should it be bad for her,
mamma, dear?"
"I don't think it will be at all bad for her to spend a day or two with
us, darling," said Lady Caroline, keeping somewhat careful watch on
Margaret's face as she spoke. "But perhaps it had better be by-and-bye.
You know she wants to go home to-morrow, and we must not keep her away
from her duties or her own sphere of life."
"No," Margaret answered, "but her duties will not always keep her at
home, you know, mamma, dear."
"I suppose not, my dearest," said Lady Caroline, vaguely, but in the
caressing tone to which Margaret was accustomed. "Go to bed, my sweetest
one, and we will talk of all these things to-morrow."
Meanwhile Janetta was wondering at the luxury of the room which had been
allotted to her, and thinking over the events of the past day. When a
tap at the door announced Margaret's appearance to say good-night,
Janetta was standing before the long looking-glass, apparently
inspecting herself by the light of the rose-tinted wax candles in silver
sconces which were fixed on either side of the mirror. She was in her
dressing-gown, and her long and abundant hair fell over her shoulder in
a great curly mass.
"Oh, Miss Vanity!" cried Margaret, with more gaiety of tone than was
usual with her, "are you admiring your pretty hair?"
"I was thinking," said Janetta, with the intensity which often
characterized her speech, "that _now_ I understood you--now I know why
you were so different from other girls, so sweet, so calm and beautiful!
You have lived in this lovely place all your life! It is like a fairy
palace--a dream-house--to me; and you are the queen of it, Margaret--a
princess of dreams!"
"I hope I shall have something more than dreams to reign over some day,"
said Margaret, putting her arms round her friend's neck. "And whatever I
am queen over, you must share my queendom, Janet. You know how fond I am
of you--how I want you to stay with me always and be my friend."
"I shall always be your friend--always, to the last day of my life!"
said Janetta, with fervor. The two made a pretty picture, reflected in
the long mirror; the tall, fair Margaret, still in her soft white silk
frock, with her arm round the smaller figure of the dark girl whose
curly masses of hair half covered her pink cotton dressing-gown, and
whose brown face was upturned so lovingly to her friend's.
"And I am sure it will be good for you to stay with me," said Margaret,
answering an unspoken objection in her mind.
"Good for me? It is delicious--it is lovely!" cried Janetta,
rapturously. "I have never had anything so nice in my whole life. Dear
Margaret, you are so good and so kind--if there were only anything that
I could do for you in return! Perhaps some day I shall have the chance,
and if ever I have--_then_ you shall see whether I am true to my friend
or not!"
Margaret kissed her, with a little smile at Janetta's enthusiasm, which
was so far different from the modes of expression customary at Helmsley
Court, as to be almost amusing.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE ROAD.
Miss Polehampton had, of course, written to Mr. and Mrs. Colwyn when she
made up her mind that Janetta was to be removed from school; and two or
three letters had been interchanged before that eventful day on which
Margaret declared that if Janetta went she should go too. Margaret had
been purposely kept in the dark until almost the last moment, for Miss
Polehampton did not in the least wish to make a scandal, and annoyed as
she was by Miss Adair's avowed preference for Janetta, she had arranged
a neat little plan by which Miss Colwyn was to go away "for change of
air," and be transferred to a school at Worthing kept by a relation of
her own at the beginning of the following term. These plans had been
upset by a foolish and ill-judged letter from Mrs. Colwyn to her
stepdaughter, which Janetta had not been able to keep from Margaret's
eyes. This letter was full of reproaches to Janetta for giving so much
trouble to her friends; "for, of course," Mrs. Colwyn wrote, "Miss
Polehampton's concern for your health is all a blind in order to get you
away: and if it hadn't been for Miss Adair taking you up, she would have
been only too glad to keep you. But knowing Miss Adair's position, she
sees very clearly that it isn't fit for you to be friends with her, and
so she wants to send you away."
This was in the main true, but Janetta, in the blithe confidence of
youth, would never have discovered it but for that letter. Together she
and Margaret consulted over it, for when Margaret saw Janetta crying,
she almost forced the letter from her hand; and then it was that Miss
Adair vindicated her claim to social superiority. She went straight to
Miss Polehampton and demanded that Janetta should remain; and when the
schoolmistress refused to alter her decision, she calmly replied that in
that case _she_ should go home too. Miss Polehampton was an obstinate
woman, and would not concede the point; and Lady Caroline, on learning
the state of affairs, at once perceived that it was impossible to leave
Margaret at the school where open warfare had been declared. She
accordingly brought both girls away with her, arranging to send Janetta
to her own home next morning.
"You will stay to luncheon, dear, and I will drive you over to
Beaminster at three o'clock," she said to Janetta at breakfast. "No
doubt you are anxious to see your own people."
Janetta looked as if she might find it difficult to reply, but Margaret
interposed a remark--as usual at the right moment.
"We will practice our duets this morning--if Janetta likes, that is; and
we can have a walk in the garden too. Shall we have the landau, mamma?"
"The victoria, I think, dear," said Lady Caroline, placidly. "Your
father wants you to ride with him this afternoon, so I shall have the
pleasure of Miss Colwyn's society in my drive."
Margaret assented; but Janetta became suddenly aware, by a flash of keen
feminine intuition, that Lady Caroline had some reason for wishing to go
with her alone, and that she had purposely made the arrangement that she
spoke of. However, there was nothing to displease her in this, for Lady
Caroline had been most kind and considerate to her, so far, and she was
innocently disposed to believe in the cordiality and sincerity of every
one who behaved with common civility.
So she spent a pleasant morning, singing with Margaret, loitering about
the garden with Mr. Adair, while Margaret and Sir Philip gathered
roses, and enjoying to the full all the sweet influences of peace,
refinement, and prosperity by which she was surrounded.
Margaret left her in the afternoon with rather a hasty kiss, and an
assurance that she would see her again at dinner. Janetta tried to
remind her that by that time she would have left the Court, but Margaret
did not or would not hear. The tears came into the girl's eyes as her
friend disappeared.
"Never mind, dear," said Lady Caroline, who was observing her closely,
"Margaret has forgotten at what hour you were going and I would not
remind her--it would spoil her pleasure in her ride. We will arrange for
you to come to us another day when you have seen your friends at home."
"Thank you," said Janetta. "It was only that she did not seem to
remember that I was going--I had meant to say good-bye."
"Exactly. She thinks that I am going to bring you back this afternoon.
We will talk about it as we go, dear. Suppose you were to put on your
hat now. The carriage will be here in ten minutes."
Janetta prepared for her departure in a somewhat bewildered spirit. She
did not know precisely what Lady Caroline meant. She even felt a little
nervous as she took her place in the victoria and cast a last look at
the stately house in which she had spent some nineteen or twenty
pleasant hours. It was Lady Caroline who spoke first.
"We shall miss your singing to-night," she said, amiably. "Mr. Adair was
looking forward to some more duets. Another time, perhaps----"
"I am always pleased to sing," said Janetta, brightening at this
address.
"Yes--ye--es," said Lady Caroline, with a doubtful little drawl. "No
doubt: one always likes to do what one can do so well; but--I confess I
am not so musical as my husband or my daughter. I must explain why dear
Margaret did not say good bye to you, Miss Colwyn. I allowed her to
remain in the belief that she was to see you again to-night, in order
that she might not be depressed during her ride by the thought of
parting with you. It is always my principle to make the lives of those
dear to me as happy as possible," said Margaret's mother, piously.
"And if Margaret had been depressed during her ride, Mr. Adair and Sir
Philip might have suffered some depression also, and that would be a
great pity."
"Oh, yes," said Janetta. But she felt chilled, without knowing why.
"I must take you into my confidence," said Lady Caroline, in her softest
voice. "Mr. Adair has plans for our dear Margaret. Sir Philip Ashley's
property adjoins our own: he is of good principles, kind-hearted, and
intellectual: he is well off, nice-looking, and of a suitable age--he
admires Margaret very much. I need say no more, I am sure."
Again she looked keenly at Janetta's face, but she read there nothing
but interest and surprise.
"Oh--does Margaret know?" she asked.
"She feels more than she knows," said Lady Caroline, discreetly. "She is
in the first stage of--of--emotion. I did not want the afternoon's
arrangements to be interfered with."
"Oh, no! especially on _my_ account," said Janetta, sincerely.
"When I go home I shall talk quietly to Margaret," pursued Lady
Caroline, "and tell her that you will come back another day, that your
duties called you home--they do, I am sure, dear Miss Colwyn--and that
you could not return with me when you were so much wanted."
"I'm afraid I am not much wanted," said Janetta, with a sigh; "but I
daresay it is my duty to go home----"
"I am sure it is," Lady Caroline declared; "and duty is so high and holy
a thing, dear, that you will never regret the performance of it."
It occurred dimly to Janetta at that point that Lady Caroline's views of
duty might possibly differ from her own; but she did not venture to say
so.
"And, of course, you will never repeat to Margaret----"
Lady Caroline did not complete her sentence. The coachman suddenly
checked the horses' speed: for some unknown reason he actually stopped
short in the very middle of the country road between Helmsley Court and
Beaminster. His mistress uttered a little cry of alarm.
"What is the matter, Steel?"
The footman dismounted and touched his hat.
"I'm afraid there has been an accident, my lady," he said, as
apologetically, as if he were responsible for the accident.
"Oh! Nothing horrible, I hope!" said Lady Caroline, drawing out her
smelling-bottle.
"It's a carriage accident, my lady. Leastways, a cab. The 'orse is lying
right across the road, my lady."
"Speak to the people, Steel," said her ladyship, with great dignity.
"They must not be allowed to block up the road in this way."
"May I get out?" said Janetta, eagerly. "There is a lady lying on the
path, and some people bathing her face. Now they are lifting her up--I
am sure they ought not to lift her up in that way--oh, please, I must go
just for one minute!" And, without waiting for a reply, she stepped, out
of the victoria and sped to the side of the woman who had been hurt.
"Very impulsive and undisciplined," said Lady Caroline to herself, as
she leaned back and held the smelling-bottle to her own delicate nose.
"I am glad I have got her out of the house so soon. Those men were wild
about her singing. Sir Philip disapproved of her presence, but he was
charmed by her voice, I could see that; and poor, dear Reginald was
positively absurd about her voice. And dear Margaret does _not_ sing so
well--it is no use pretending that she does--and Sir Philip is trembling
on the verge--oh, yes, I am sure that I have been very wise. What is
that girl doing now?"
The victoria moved forward a little, so that Lady Caroline could obtain
a clearer view of what was going on. The vehicle which caused the
obstruction--evidently a hired fly from an inn--was uninjured, but the
horse had fallen between the shafts and would never rise again. The
occupants of the fly--a lady, and a much younger man, perhaps her
son--had got out, and the lady had then turned faint, Lady Caroline
heard, but was not in any way hurt. Janetta was kneeling by the side of
the lady--kneeling in the dust, without any regard to the freshness of
her cotton frock, by the way--and had already placed her in the right
position, and was ordering the half-dozen people who had collected to
stand back and give her air. Lady Caroline watched her movements and
gestures with placid amusement, and went so far as to send Steel with
the offer of her smelling salts; but as this offer was rejected she
felt that nothing else could be done. So she sat and looked on
critically.
The woman--Lady Caroline was hardly inclined to call her a lady,
although she did not exactly know why--was at present of a ghastly
paleness, but her features were finely cut, and showed traces of former
beauty. Her hair was grey, with rebellious waves in it, but her eyebrows
were still dark. She was dressed in black, with a good deal of lace
about her; and on her ungloved hand Lady Caroline's keen sight enabled
her to distinguish some very handsome diamond rings. The effect of the
costume was a little spoiled by a large gaudy fan, of violent rainbow
hues, which hung at her side; and perhaps it was this article of
adornment which decided Lady Caroline in her opinion of the woman's
social status. But about the man she was equally positive in a different
way. He _was_ a gentleman: there could be no doubt of that. She put up
her eye-glass and gazed at him with interest. She almost thought that
she had seen him somewhere before.
A handsome man, indeed, and a gentleman; but, oh, what an ill-tempered
one, apparently! He was dark, with fine features, and black hair with a
slight inclination to wave or curl (as far at least as could be judged
when the extremely well-cropped state of his head was taken into
consideration); and from these indications Lady Caroline judged him to
be "the woman's" son. He was tall, muscular, and active looking: it was
the way in which his black eyebrows were bent above his eyes which made
the observer think him ill-tempered, for his manner and his words
expressed anxiety, not anger. But that frown, which must have been
habitual, gave him a distinctly ill-humored look.
At last the lady opened her eyes, and drank a little water, and sat up.
Janetta rose from her knees, and turned to the young man with a smile.
"She will soon be better now," she said. "I am afraid there is nothing
else that I can do--and I think I must go on."
"I am very much obliged to you for your kind assistance," said the
gentleman, but without any abatement of the gloom of his expression. He
gave Janetta a keen look--almost a bold look--Lady Caroline thought, and
then smiled a little, not very pleasantly. "Allow me to take you to your
carriage."
Janetta blushed, as if she were minded to say that it was not her
carriage; but returned to the victoria, and was handed to her seat by
the young man, who then raised his hat with an elaborate flourish which
was not exactly English. Indeed, it occurred to Lady Caroline at once
that there was something French about both the travelers. The lady with
the frizzled grey hair, the black lace dress and mantel, the gaudy blue
and scarlet fan, was quite foreign in appearance; the young man with the
perfectly fitting frock-coat, the tall hat, the flower in his
button-hole, was--in spite of his perfectly English accent--foreign too.
Lady Caroline was cosmopolitan enough to feel an access of greater
interest in the pair in consequence.
"They have sent to the nearest inn for a horse," said Janetta, as the
carriage moved on; "and I dare say they will not have long to wait."
"Was the lady hurt?"
"No, only shaken. She is subject to fainting fits, and the accident
quite upset her nerves, her son said."
"Her son?"
"The gentleman called her mother."
"Oh! You did not hear their name, I suppose?"
"No. There was a big B on their traveling bag."
"B--B--?" said Lady Caroline, thoughtfully. "I don't know any one in
this neighborhood whose name begins with B, except the Bevans. They must
have been merely passing through; and yet the young man's face seemed
familiar to me."
Janetta shook her head. "I never saw them before," she said.
"He has a very bold and unpleasant expression," Lady Caroline remarked,
decidedly. "It spoils him entirely: otherwise he is a handsome man."
The girl made no answer. She knew, as well as Lady Caroline, that she
had been stared at in a manner that was not quite agreeable to her, and
yet she did not like to endorse that lady's condemnation of the
stranger. For he was certainly very nice-looking--and he had been so
kind to his mother that he could not be entirely bad--and to her also
his face was vaguely familiar. Could he belong to Beaminster?
As she sat and meditated, the tall spires of Beaminster Cathedral came
into sight, and a few minutes brought the carriage across the grey
stone bridge and down the principal street of the quaint old place which
called itself a city, but was really neither more nor less than a quiet
country town. Here Lady Caroline turned to her young guest with a
question--"You live in Gwynne Street, I believe, my dear?"
"Yes, at number ten, Gwynne Street," said Janetta, suddenly starting and
feeling a little uncomfortable. The coachman evidently knew the address
already, for at that moment he turned the horse's heads to the left, and
the carriage rolled down a narrow side-street, where the tall red brick
houses had a mean and shabby aspect, and seemed as if constructed to
keep out sun and air as much as possible.
Janetta always felt the closeness and the shabbiness a little when she
first came home, even from school, but when she came from Helmsley Court
they struck her with redoubled force. She had never thought before how
dull the street was, nor noticed that the railings were broken down in
front of the door with the brass-plate that bore her father's name, nor
that the window-curtains were torn and the windows sadly in need of
washing. The little flight of stone steps that led from the iron gate to
the door was also very dirty; and the servant girl, whose head appeared
against the area railings as the carriage drove up, was more untidy,
more unkempt, in appearance than ever Janetta could have expected. "We
can't be rich, but we might be _clean_!" she said to herself in a
subdued frenzy of impatience, as she fancied (quite unjustly) that she
saw a faint smile pass over Lady Caroline's delicate, impassive face. "No
wonder she thinks me an unfit friend for dear Margaret. But--oh, there
is my dear, darling father! Well, nobody can say anything against him at
any rate!" And Janetta's face beamed with sudden joy as she saw Mr.
Colwyn coming down the dirty steps to the ricketty little iron gate, and
Lady Caroline, who knew the surgeon by sight, nodded to him with
friendly condescension.
"How are you, Mr. Colwyn?" she said, graciously. "I have brought your
daughter home, you see, and I hope you will not scold her for what has
been _my_ daughter's fault--not your's."
"I am very glad to see Janetta, under any circumstances," said Mr.
Colwyn, gravely, as he raised his hat. He was a tall spare man, in a
shabby coat, with a careworn aspect, and kindly, melancholy eyes.
Janetta noticed with a pang that his hair was greyer than it had been
when last she went back to school.
"We shall be glad to see her again at Helmsley Court," said Lady
Caroline. "No, I won't get out, thank you. I have to get back to tea.
Your daughter's box is in front. I was to tell you from Miss
Polehampton, Mr. Colwyn, that her friend at Worthing would be glad of
Miss Colwyn's services after the holidays."
"I am much obliged to your ladyship," said Mr. Colwyn, with grave
formality. "I am not sure that I shall let my daughter go."
"Won't you? Oh, but she ought to have all possible advantages! And can
you tell me, Mr. Colwyn, by any chance, _who_ are the people whom we
passed on the road to Beaminster--an oldish lady in black and a young
man with very dark hair and eyes? They had B on their luggage, I
believe."
Mr. Colwyn looked surprised.
"I think I can tell you," he said, quietly. "They were on their way from
Beaminster to Brand Hall. The young man was a cousin of my wife's: his
name is Wyvis Brand, and the lady in black was his mother. They have
come home after an absence of nearly four-and-twenty years."
Lady Caroline was too polite to say what she really felt--that she was
sorry to hear it.
CHAPTER V.
WYVIS BRAND.
On the evening of the day on which Lady Caroline drove with Janetta
Colwyn to Beaminster, the lady who had fainted by the wayside was
sitting in a rather gloomy-looking room at Brand Hall--a room known in
the household as the Blue Drawing-room. It had not the look of a
drawing-room exactly: it was paneled in oak, which had grown black with
age, as had also the great oak beams that crossed the ceiling and the
polished floor. The furniture also was of oak, and the hangings of dark
but faded blue, while the blue velvet of the chairs and the square of
Oriental carpet, in which blue tints also preponderated, did not add
cheerfulness to the scene. One or two great blue vases set on the carved
oak mantel-piece, and some smaller blue ornaments on a sideboard,
matched the furniture in tint; but it was remarkable that on a day when
country gardens were overflowing with blossom, there was not a single
flower or green leaf in any of the vases. No smaller and lighter
ornaments, no scrap of woman's handiwork--lace or embroidery--enlivened
the place: no books were set upon the table. A fire would not have been
out of season, for the evenings were chilly, and it would have had a
cheery look; but there was no attempt at cheeriness. The woman who sat
in one of the high-backed chairs was pale and sad: her folded hands lay
listlessly clasped together on her lap, and the sombre garb that she
wore was as unrelieved by any gleam of brightness as the room itself. In
the gathering gloom of a chilly summer evening, even the rings upon her
fingers could not flash. Her white face, in its setting of rough, wavy
grey hair, over which she wore a covering of black lace, looked almost
statuesque in its profound tranquillity. But it was not the tranquillity
of comfort and prosperity that had settled on that pale, worn,
high-featured face--it was rather the tranquillity that comes of
accepted sorrow and inextinguishable despair.
She had sat thus for fully half an hour when the door was roughly
opened, and the young man whom Mr. Colwyn had named as Wyvis Brand came
lounging into the room. He had been dining, but he was not in evening
dress, and there was something unrestful and reckless in his way of
moving round the room and throwing himself in the chair nearest his
mother's, which roused Mrs. Brand's attention. She turned slightly
towards him, and became conscious at once of the fumes of wine and
strong tobacco with which her son had made her only too familiar. She
looked at him for a moment, then clasped her hands tightly together and
resumed her former position, with her sad face turned to the window. She
may have breathed a sigh as she did so, but Wyvis Brand did not hear it,
and if he had heard it, would not perhaps have very greatly cared.
"Why do you sit in the dark?" he said at last, in a vexed tone.
"I will ring for lights," Mrs. Brand answered quietly.
"Do as you like: I am not going to stay: I am going out," said the young
man.
The hand that his mother had stretched out towards the bell fell to her
side: she was a submissive woman, used to taking her son at his word.
"You are lonely here," she ventured to remark, after a short silence:
"you will be glad when Cuthbert comes down."
"It's a beastly hole," said her son, gloomily. "I would advise Cuthbert
to stay in Paris. What he will do with himself here, I can't imagine."
"He is happy anywhere," said the mother, with a stifled sigh.
Wyvis uttered a short, harsh laugh.
"That can't be said of us, can it?" he exclaimed, putting his hand on
his mother's knee in a rough sort of caress. "We are generally in the
shadow while Cuthbert is in the sunshine, eh? The influence of this old
place makes me poetical, you see."
"_You_ need not be in the shadow," said Mrs. Brand. But she said it with
an effort.
"Needn't I?" said Wyvis. He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned
back in his chair with another laugh. "I have such a lot to make me
cheerful, haven't I?"
His mother turned her eyes upon him with a look of yearning tenderness
which, even if the room had been less dimly lighted, he would not have
seen. He was not much in the habit of looking for sympathy in other
people's faces.
"Is the place worse than you expected?" she asked, with a tremor in her
voice.
"It is mouldier--and smaller," he replied, curtly. "One's childish
impressions don't go for much. And it is in a miserable state--roof out
of repair--fences falling down--drainage imperfect. It has been allowed
to go to rack and ruin while we were away."
"Wyvis, Wyvis," said his mother, in a tone of pain, "I kept you away for
your own sake. I thought you would be happier abroad."
"Oh--happier!" said the young man, rather scornfully. "Happiness isn't
meant for me: it isn't in my line. It makes no difference to me whether
I am here or in Paris. I should have been here long ago if I had had
any idea that things were going wrong in this way."
"I suppose," said Mrs. Brand, carefully controlling her voice, "that you
will not have the visitors you spoke of if the house is in so bad a
state."
"Not have visitors? Of course I shall have visitors. What else is there
for me to do with myself? We shall get the house put pretty straight by
the 12th. Not that there will be any shooting worth speaking of on _my_
place."
"If nobody comes before the 12th, I think we can make the house
habitable. I will do my best, Wyvis."
Wyvis laughed again, but in a softer key. "You!" he said. "You can't do
much, mother. It isn't the sort of thing you care about. You stay in
your own rooms and do your needle-work; I'll see to the house. Some men
are coming long before the 12th--the day after to-morrow, I believe."
"Who?"
"Oh, Dering and St. John and Ponsonby, I expect. I don't know whether
they will bring any one else."
"The worst men of the worst set you know!" sighed his mother, under her
breath. "Could not you have left them behind?"
She felt rather than saw how he frowned--how his hand twitched with
impatience.
"What sort of friends am I likely to have?" he said. "Why not those that
amuse me most?"
Then he rose and went over to the window, where he stood for some time
looking out. Turning round at last, he perceived from a slight familiar
movement of his mother's hand over her eyes that she was weeping, and it
seemed as if his heart smote him at the sight.
"Come, mother," he said, kindly, "don't take what I say and do so much
to heart. You know I'm no good, and never shall do anything in the
world. You have Cuthbert to comfort you--"
"Cuthbert is nothing to me--_nothing_--compared with you, Wyvis."
The young man came to her side and put his hand on her shoulder. The
passionate tone had touched him.
"Poor mother!" he said, softly. "You've suffered a good deal through me,
haven't you? I wish I could make you forget all the past--but perhaps
you wouldn't thank me if I could."
"No," she said, leaning forward so as to rest her forehead against his
arm. "No. For there has been brightness in the past, but I see little
brightness in the future either for you or for me."
"Well, that is my own fault," said Wyvis, lightly but bitterly. "If it
had not been for my own youthful folly I shouldn't be burdened as I am
now. I have no one but myself to thank."
"Yes, yes, it was my fault. I pressed you to do it--to tie yourself for
life to the woman who has made you miserable!" said Mrs. Brand, in a
tone of despairing self-accusation. "I fancied--then--that we were doing
right."
"I suppose we were doing right," said Wyvis Brand sternly, but not as if
the thought gave him any consolation. "It was better perhaps that I
should marry the woman whom I thought I loved--instead of leaving her or
wronging her--but I wish to God that I had never seen her face!"
"And to think that I persuaded you into marrying her," moaned the
mother, rocking herself backward and forward in the extremity of her
regretful anguish; "I--who ought to have been wiser--who might have
interfered----"
"You couldn't have interfered to much purpose. I was mad about her at
the time," said her son, beginning to walk about the room in a restless,
aimless manner. "I wish, mother, that you would cease to talk about the
past. It seems to me sometimes like a dream; if you would but let it lie
still, I think that I could fancy it was a dream. Remember that I do not
blame you. When I rage against the bond, I am perfectly well aware that
it was one of my own making. No remonstrance, no command would have
availed with me for a moment. I was determined to go my own way, and I
went."
It was curious to remark that the roughness and harshness of his first
manner had dropped away from him as it did drop now and then. He spoke
with the polished utterance of an educated man. It was almost as though
he at times put on a certain boorishness of demeanor, feeling it in some
way demanded of him by circumstances--but not natural to him after all.
"I will try not to vex you, Wyvis," said his mother, wistfully.
"You do not vex me exactly," he answered, "but you stir my old memories
too often. I want to forget the past. Why else did I come down here,
where I have never been since I was a child? where Juliet never set
foot, and where I have no association with that miserable passage in my
life?"
"Then why do you bring those men down, Wyvis? For _they_ know the past:
_they_ will recall old associations----"
"They amuse me. I cannot be without companions. I do not pretend to cut
myself off from the whole world."
As he spoke thus briefly and coldly, he stopped to strike a match, and
then lighted the wax candles that stood on the black sideboard. By this
act he meant perhaps to put a stop to the conversation of which he was
heartily tired. But Mrs. Brand, in the half-bewildered condition of mind
to which long anxiety and sorrow had reduced her, did not know the
virtue of silence, and did not possess the magic quality of tact.
"You might find companions down here," she said, pertinaciously, "people
suited to your position--old friends of your father's, perhaps----"
"Will they be so willing to make friends with my father's son?" Wyvis
burst out bitterly. Then, seeing from her white and stricken face that
he had hurt her, he came to her side and kissed her penitently. "Forgive
me, mother," he said, "if I say what you don't like. I've been hearing
about my father ever since I came to Beaminster two days ago. I have
heard nothing but what confirmed my previous idea about his character.
Even poor old Colwyn couldn't say any good of him. He went to the devil
as fast as ever he could go, and his son seems likely to follow in his
footsteps. That's the general opinion, and, by George, I think I shall
soon do something to justify it."
"You need not live as your father did, Wyvis," said his mother, whose
tears were flowing fast.
"If I don't, nobody will believe it," said the young man, moodily.
"There is no fighting against fate. The Brands are doomed, mother: we
shall die out and be forgotten--all the better for the world, too. It is
time we were done with: we are a bad lot."
"Cuthbert is not bad. And you--Wyvis, you have your child."
"Have I? A child that I have not seen since it was six months old!
Brought up by its mother--a woman without heart or principle or anything
that is good! Much comfort the child is likely to be to me when I get
hold of it."
"When will that be?" said Mrs. Brand, as if speaking to herself rather
than to him. But Wyvis replied:
"When she is tired of it--not before. I do not know where she is."
"Does she not draw her allowance?"
"Not regularly. And she refused her address when she last appeared at
Kirby's. I suppose she wants to keep the child away from me. She need
not trouble. The last thing I want is her brat to bring up."
"Wyvis!"
But to his mother's remonstrating exclamation Wyvis paid no attention in
the least: his mood was fitful, and he was glad to step out of the
ill-lighted room into the hall, and thence to the silence and solitude
of the grounds about the house.
Brand Hall had been practically deserted for the last few years. A
tenant or two had occupied it for a little time soon after its late
master's withdrawal from the country; but the house was inconvenient and
remote from towns, and it was said, moreover, to be damp and unhealthy.
A caretaker and his wife had, therefore, been its only inhabitants of
late, and a great deal of preparation had been required to make it fit
for its owner when he at last wrote to his agents in Beaminster to
intimate his intention of settling at the Hall.
The Brands had for many a long year been renowned as the most unlucky
family in the neighborhood. They had once possessed a great property in
the county; but gambling losses and speculation had greatly reduced
their wealth, and even in the time of Wyvis Brand's grandfather the
prestige of the family had sunk very low. In the days of Mark Brand, the
father of Wyvis, it sank lower still. Mark Brand was not only "wild,"
but weak: not only weak, but wicked. His career was one of riotous
dissipation, culminating in what was generally spoken of as "a low
marriage"--with the barmaid of a Beaminster public-house. Mary Wyvis had
never been at all like the typical barmaid of fiction or real life: she
was always pale, quiet, and refined-looking, and it was not difficult to
see how she had developed into the sorrowful, careworn woman whom Wyvis
Brand called mother; but she came of a thoroughly bad stock, and was not
untouched in reputation. The county people cut Mark Brand after his
marriage, and never took any notice of his wife; and they were horrified
when he insisted on naming his eldest son after his wife's family, as if
he gloried in the lowliness of her origin. But when Wyvis was a small
boy, his father resolved that neither he nor his children should be
flouted and jeered at by county magnates any longer. He went abroad, and
remained abroad until his death, when Wyvis was twenty years of age and
Cuthbert, the younger son, was barely twelve. Some people said that the
discovery of some particularly disgraceful deed was imminent when he
left his native shores, and that it was for this reason that he had
never returned to England; but Mark Brand himself always spoke as if his
health were too weak, his nerves too delicate, to bear the rough breezes
of his own country and the brusque manners of his compatriots. He had
brought up his son according to his own ideas; and the result did not
seem entirely satisfactory. Vague rumors occasionally reached Beaminster
of scrapes and scandals in which the young Brands figured; it was said
that Wyvis was a particularly black sheep, and that he did his best to
corrupt his younger brother Cuthbert. The news that he was coming back
to Brand Hall was not received with enthusiasm by those who heard it.
Wyvis' own story had been a sad one--perhaps more sad than scandalous;
but it was a story that the Beaminster people were never to hear aright.
Few knew it, and most of those who knew it had agreed to keep it secret.
That his wife and child were living, many persons in Paris were aware;
that they had separated was also known, but the reason of that
separation was to most persons a secret. And Wyvis, who had a great
dislike to chatterers, made up his mind when he came to Beaminster that
he would tell to nobody the history of the past few years. Had it not
been for his mother's sad face, he fancied that he could have put it out
of his mind altogether. He half resented the pertinacity with which she
seemed to brood upon it. The fact that she had forwarded--had almost
insisted upon--the unfortunate marriage, weighed heavily upon her mind.
There had been a point at which Wyvis would have given it up. But his
mother had espoused the side of the girl, persuaded the young man to
fulfill his promises to her--and repented it ever since. Mrs. Wyvis
Brand had developed an uncontrollable love for strong drink, as well as
a temper that made her at times more like a mad woman than an ordinary
human being; and when she one day disappeared from her husband's home,
carrying his child with her, and announcing in a subsequent letter that
she did not mean to return, it could hardly be wondered at if Wyvis drew
a long breath of relief, and hoped that she never would.
CHAPTER VI.
JANETTA AT HOME.
When Lady Caroline drove away from Gwynne Street, Janetta was left by
the tumble-down iron gate with her father, in whose hand she had laid
both her own. He looked at her interrogatively, smiled a little and
said--"Well, my dear?" with a softening of his whole face which made him
positively beautiful in Janetta's eyes.
"Dear, dearest father!" said the girl, with an irrepressible little sob.
"I am so glad to see you again!"
"Come in, my dear," said Mr. Colwyn, who was not an emotional man,
although a sympathetic one. "We have been expecting you all day. We did
not think that they would keep you so long at the Court."
"I'll tell you all about it when I get in," said Janetta, trying to
speak cheerily, with an instinctive remembrance of the demands usually
made upon her fortitude in her own home. "Is mamma in?" She always spoke
of the present Mrs. Colwyn, as "mamma," to distinguish her from her own
mother. "I don't see any of the children."
"Frightened away by the grand carriage, I expect," said Mr. Colwyn, with
a grim smile. "I see a head or two at the window. Here, Joey, Georgie,
Tiny--where are you all? Come and help to carry your sister's things
upstairs." He went to the front door and called again; whereupon a side
door opened, and from it issued a slip-shod, untidy-looking woman in a
shawl, while over her shoulder and under her arm appeared a little
troop of children in various stages of growth and untidiness. Mrs.
Colwyn had the peculiarity of never being ready for any engagement, much
less for any emergency: she had been expecting Janetta all day, and with
Janetta some of the Court party; but she was nevertheless in a state of
semi-undress, which she tried to conceal underneath her shawl; and on
the first intimation of the approach of Lady Caroline's carriage she had
shut herself and the children into a back room, and declared her
intention of fainting on the spot if Lady Caroline entered the front
door.
"Well, Janetta," she said, as she advanced towards her stepdaughter and
presented one faded cheek to be kissed, "so your grand friends have
brought you home! Of course they wouldn't come in; I did not expect
them, I am sure. Come into the front room--and children, don't crowd so;
your sister will speak to you by-and-bye."
"Oh, no, let me kiss them now," said Janetta, who was receiving a series
of affectionate hugs that went far to blind her eyes to the general
deficiency of orderliness and beauty in the house to which she had come.
"Oh, darlings, I am so glad to see you again! Joey, how you have grown!
And Tiny isn't Tiny any longer! Georgie, you have been plaiting your
hair! And here are Curly and Jinks! But where is Nora?"
"Upstairs, curling her hair," shouted the child who was known by the
name of Jinks. While Georgie, a well-grown girl of thirteen, added in a
lower tone,
"She would not come down until the Court people had gone. She said _she_
didn't want to be patronized."
Janetta colored, and turned away. Meanwhile Mrs. Colwyn had dropped into
the nearest arm-chair, and Mr. Colwyn strayed in and out of the room
with the expression of a dog that has lost its master. Georgie hung upon
Janetta's arm, and the younger children either clung to their elder
sister, or stared at her with round eyes and their fingers in their
mouths. Janetta felt uncomfortably conscious of being more than usually
interesting to them all. Joe, the eldest boy, a dusty lad of fourteen,
all legs and arms, favored her with a broad grin expressive of delight,
which his sister did not understand. It was Tiny, the most gentle and
delicate of the tribe, who let in a little light on the subject.
"Did they send you away from school for being naughty?" she asked, with
a grave look into Janetta's face.
A chuckle from Joey, and a giggle from Georgie, were instantly repressed
by Mr. Colwyn's frown and Mrs. Colwyn's acid remonstrance.
"What are you thinking of, children? Sister is never naughty. We do not
yet quite understand why she has left Miss Polehampton's so suddenly,
but of course she has some good reason. She'll explain it, no doubt, to
her papa and me. Miss Polehampton has been a great deal put out about it
all, and has written a long letter to your papa, Janetta; and, indeed,
it seems to _me_ as if it would have been more becoming if you had kept
to your own place and not tried to make friends with those above
you----"
"Who are those above her, I should like to know?" broke in the
grey-haired surgeon with some heat. "My Janet's as good as the best of
them any day. The Adairs are not such grand people as Miss Polehampton
makes out--I never heard of such insulting distinctions!"
"Fancy Janetta being sent away--regularly expelled!" muttered Joey, with
another chuckle.
"You are very unkind to talk in that way!" said Janetta, addressing him,
because at that moment she could not bear to look at Mr. Colwyn. "It was
not _that_ that made Miss Polehampton angry. It was what she called
insubordination. Miss Adair did not like to see me having meals at a
side-table--though I didn't mind one single bit!--and she left her own
place and sat by me--and then Miss Polehampton was vexed--and everything
followed naturally. It was not just my being friends with Miss Adair
that made her send me away."
"It seems to me," said Mr. Colwyn, "that Miss Adair was very
inconsiderate."
"It was all her love and friendship, father," pleaded Janetta. "And she
had always had her own way; and of course she did not think that Miss
Polehampton really meant----"
Her weak little excuses were cut short by a scornful laugh from her
stepmother.
"It's easy to see that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," she
said. "Miss Adair was tired of school, and took the opportunity of
making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress and get
sent away. It does not matter to her, of course: _she_ hasn't got her
living to earn. And if you lose your teaching, and Miss Polehampton's
recommendations by it, it doesn't affect her. Oh, I understand these
fine ladies and their ways."
"Indeed," said Janetta, in distress, "you quite misunderstand Miss
Adair, mamma. Besides, it has not deprived me of my teaching: Miss
Polehampton had told me that I might go to her sister's school at
Worthing if I liked; and she only let me go yesterday because she became
irritated at--at--some of the things that were said----"
"Yes, but I shall not let you go to Worthing," said Mr. Colwyn, with
sudden decisiveness. "You shall not be exposed to insolence of this kind
any longer. Miss Polehampton had no right to treat you as she did, and I
shall write and tell her so."
"And if Janetta stays at home," said his wife complainingly, "what is to
become of her career as a music-teacher? She can't get lessons here, and
there's the expense----"
"I hope I can afford to keep my daughter as long as I am alive," said
Mr. Colwyn with some vehemence. "There, don't be vexed, my dear child,"
and he laid his hand tenderly on Janetta's shoulder, "nobody blames you;
and your friend erred perhaps from over-affection; but Miss
Polehampton"--with energy--"is a vulgar, self-seeking, foolish old
woman, and I won't have you enter into relations with her again."
And then he left the room, and Janetta, forcing back the tears in her
eyes, did her best to smile when Georgie and Tiny hugged her
simultaneously and Jinks beat a tattoo upon her knee.
"Well," said Mrs. Colwyn, lugubriously, "I hope everything will turn out
for the best; but it is not at all nice, Janetta, to think that Miss
Adair has been expelled for your sake, or that you are thrown out of
work without a character, so to speak. I should think the Adairs would
see that, and would make some compensation. If they don't offer to do
so, your papa might suggest it----"
"I'm sure father would never suggest anything of the kind," Janetta
flashed out; but before Mrs. Colwyn could protest, a diversion was
effected by the entrance of the missing Nora, and all discussion was
postponed to a more fitting moment.
For to look at Nora was to forget discussion. She was the eldest of the
second Mrs. Colwyn's children--a girl just seventeen, taller than
Janetta and thinner, with the thinness of immature girlhood, but with a
fair skin and a mop of golden-brown hair, which curled so naturally that
her younger brother's statement concerning those fair locks must surely
have been a libel. She had a vivacious, narrow, little face, with large
eyes like a child's--that is to say, they had the transparent look that
one sees in some children's eyes, as if the color had been laid on in a
single wash without any shadows. They were very pretty eyes, and gave
light and expression to a set of rather small features, which might have
been insignificant if they had belonged to an insignificant person. But
Nora Colwyn was anything but insignificant.
"Have your fine friends gone?" she said, peeping into the room in
pretended alarm. "Then I may come in. How are you, Janetta, after your
sojourn in the halls of dazzling light?"
"Don't be absurd, Nora," said her sister, with a sudden backward dart of
remembrance to the tranquil beauty of the rooms at Helmsley Court and
the silver accents of Lady Caroline. "Why didn't you come down before?"
"My dear, I thought the nobility and gentry were blocking the door,"
said Nora, kissing her. "But since they are gone, you might as well come
upstairs with me and take off your things. Then we can have tea."
Obediently Janetta followed her sister to the little room which they
always shared when Janetta was at home. It might have looked very bare
and desolate to ordinary eyes, but the girl felt the thrill of pleasure
that all young creatures feel to anything that bears the name of home,
and became aware of a satisfaction such as she had not experienced in
her luxurious bedroom at Helmsley Court. Nora helped her to take off her
hat and cloak, and to unpack her box, insisting meanwhile on a detailed
relation of all the events that had led to Janetta's return three weeks
before the end of the term, and shrieking with laughter over what she
called "Miss Poley's defeat."
"But, seriously, Nora, what shall I do with myself, if father will not
let me go to Worthing?"
"Teach the children at home," said Nora, briskly; "and save me the
trouble of looking after them. I should like that. Or get some pupils in
the town. Surely the Adairs will recommend you!"
This constant reference to possible aid from the Adairs troubled Janetta
not a little, and it was with some notion of combatting the idea that
she repaired to the surgery after tea, in order to get a few words on
the subject with her father. But his first remark was on quite a
different matter.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish, Janet! The Brands are back again!"
"So I heard you say to Lady Caroline."
"Mark Brand was a cousin of your mother's," said Mr. Colwyn, abruptly;
"and a bad lot. As for these sons of his, I know nothing about
them--absolutely nothing. But their mother----" he shook his head
significantly.
"We saw them to day," said Janetta.
"Ah, an accident of that kind would be a shock to her: she does not look
strong. They wrote to me from the 'Clown,' where they had stayed for the
last two days; some question relative to the drainage of Brand Hall. I
went to the 'Crown' and saw them. He's a fine-looking man."
"He has not altogether a pleasant expression," remarked Janetta,
thinking of Lady Caroline's strictures; "but I--liked--his face."
"He looks ill-tempered," said her father. "And I can't say that he
showed me much civility. He did not even know that your poor mother was
dead. Never asked whether she had left any family or anything."
"Did you tell him?" asked Janetta, after a pause.
"No. I did not think it worth while. I am not anxious to cultivate his
acquaintance."
"After all, what does it matter?" said the girl coaxingly, for she
thought she saw a shadow of disappointment upon his face.
"No, what does it matter?" said her father, brightening up at once. "As
long as we are happy with each other, these outside people need not
disturb us, need they?"
"Not a bit," said Janetta. "And--you are not angry with me, are you,
father, dear?"
"Why should I be, my Janet? You have done nothing wrong that I know of.
If there is any blame it attaches to Miss Adair, not to you."
"But I do not want you to think so, father. Miss Adair is the greatest
friend that I have in all the world."
And she found a good many opportunities of repeating; this conviction of
hers during the next few days, for Mrs. Colwyn and Nora were not slow to
repeat the sentiment with which they had greeted her--that the Adairs
were "stuck-up" fine people, and that they did not mean to take any
further notice of her now that they had got what they desired.
Janetta stood up gallantly for her friend, but she did feel it a little
hard that Margaret had not written or come to see her since her return
home. She conjectured--and in the conjecture she was nearly right--that
Lady Caroline had sacrificed her a little in order to smooth over things
with her daughter: that she had represented Janetta as resolved upon
going, resolved upon neglecting Margaret and not complying with her
requests; and that Margaret was a little offended with her in
consequence. She wrote an affectionate note of excuse to her friend, but
Margaret made no reply.
In the first ardor of a youthful friendship, Janetta's heart ached over
this silence, and she meditated much as she lay nights upon her little
white bed in Nora's attic (for she had not time to meditate during the
day) upon the smoothness of life which seemed necessary to the Adairs
and the means they took for securing it. On the whole, their life seemed
to her too artificial, too much like the life of delicate hot-house
flowers under glass; and she came to the conclusion that she preferred
her own mode of existence--troublous and hurried and common as it might
seem in the eyes of the world to be. After all, was it not pleasant to
know that while she was at home, there was a little more comfort than
usual for her over-worked, hardly-driven, careworn father; she could see
that his meals were properly cooked and served when he came in from long
and weary expeditions into the country or amongst the poor of
Beaminster; she could help Joey and Georgie in the evenings with their
respective lessons; she could teach and care for the younger children
all day long. To her stepmother she did not feel that she was very
useful; but she could at any rate make new caps for her, new lace
fichus and bows, which caused Mrs. Colwyn occasionally to remark with
some complacency that Janetta had been quite _wasted_ at Miss
Polehampton's school: her proper destiny was evidently to be a milliner.
Nora was the one person of the family who did not seem to want Janetta's
help. Indirectly, however, the elder sister was more useful to her than
she knew; for the two went out together and were companions. Hitherto
Nora had walked alone, and had made one or two undesirable girl
acquaintances. But these were dropped when she had Janetta to talk to,
dropped quietly, without a word, much to their indignation, and without
Janetta's knowing of their existence.
It became a common thing for the two girls to go out together in the
long summer evenings, when the work of the day was over, and stroll
along the country roads, or venture into the cool shadow of the
Beaminster woods. Sometimes the children went with them: sometimes
Janetta and Nora went alone. And it was when they were alone one evening
that a somewhat unexpected incident came to pass.
The Beaminster woods ran for some distance in a northerly direction
beyond Beaminster, and there was a point where only a wire fence divided
them from the grounds of Brand Hall. Near this fence Janetta and her
sister found themselves one evening--not that they had purposed to reach
the boundary, but that they had strayed a little from the beaten path.
As they neared the fence they looked at each other and laughed.
"I did not know that we were so near the lordly dwelling of your
relations!" said Nora, who loved to tease, and knew that she could
always rouse Janetta's indignation by a reference to her "fine friends."
"I did not know either," returned Janetta, good-humoredly. "We can see
the house a little. Look at the great red chimneys."
"I have been over it," said Nora, contemptuously. "It's a poor little
place, after all--saving your presence, Netta! I wonder if the Brands
mean to acknowledge your existence? They----"
She stopped short, for her foot had caught on something, and she nearly
stumbled. Janetta stopped also, and the two sisters uttered a sudden
cry of surprise. For what Nora had stumbled over was a wooden horse--a
child's broken toy--and deep in the bracken before them, with one hand
beneath his flushed and dimpled cheek, there lay the loveliest of all
objects--a sleeping child.
CHAPTER VII.
NORA'S NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
"He must have lost his way," said Janetta, bending over him. "Poor
little fellow!"
"He's a pretty little boy," said Nora, carelessly. "His nurse or his
mother or somebody will be near, I dare say--perhaps gone up to the
house. Shall I look about?"
"Wait a minute--he is awake--he will tell us who he is."
The child, roused by the sound of voices, turned a little, stretched
himself, then opened his great dark eyes, and fixed them full on
Janetta's face. What he saw there must have reassured him, for a dreamy
smile came to his lips, and he stretched out his little hands to her.
"You darling!" cried Janetta. "Where did you come from, dear? What is
your name?"
The boy raised himself and looked about him. He looked about five years
old, and was a remarkably fine and handsome child. It was in perfectly
clear and distinct English--almost free from any trace of baby
dialect--that he replied--
"Mammy brought me. She said I should find my father here. I don't want
my father," he remarked, decidedly.
"Who is your father? What is your name?" Nora asked.
"My name is Julian Wyvis Brand," said the little fellow, sturdily; "and
I want to know where my father lives, if you please, 'cause it'll soon
be my bed-time, and I'm getting very hungry."
Janetta and her sister exchanged glances.
"Is your father's name Wyvis Brand, too?" asked Janetta.
"Yes, same as mine," said the boy, nodding. He stood erect now, and she
noticed that his clothes, originally of fashionable cut and costly
material, were torn and stained and shabby. He had a little bundle
beside him, tied up in a gaudy shawl; and the broken toy-horse seemed to
have fallen out of it.
"But where is your mother?"
"Mammy's gone away. She told me to go and find my father at the big red
house there. I did go once; but they thought I was a beggar, and they
sent me away. I don't know what to do, I don't. I wish mammy would
come."
"Will she come soon?"
"She said no. Never, never, never. She's gone over the sea again," said
the boy, with the abstracted, meditative look which children sometimes
assume when they are concocting a romance, and which Janetta was quick
to remark. "I think she's gone right off to America or London. But she
said that I was to tell my father that she would never come back."
"What are we to do?" said Nora, in an under tone.
"We must take him to Brand Hall," Janetta answered, "and ask to see
either Mrs. Brand or Mr. Wyvis Brand."
"Won't it be rather dreadful?"
Janetta turned hastily on her sister. "Yes," she said, with decision,
"it is very awkward, indeed, and it may be much better that you should
not be mixed up in the matter at all. You must stay here while I go up
to the house."
"But, Janetta, wouldn't you rather have some one with you?"
"I think it will be easier alone," Janetta answered. "You see, I have
seen Mrs. Brand and her son already, and I feel as if I knew what they
would be like. Wait for me here: I daresay I shall not be ten minutes.
Come, dear, will you go with me to see if we can find your father?"
"Yes," said the boy, promptly putting his hand in hers.
"Are these your things in the bundle?"
"Yes; mammy put them there. There's my Sunday suit, and my book of
'Jack, the Giantkiller,' you know. And my wooden horse; but it's broke.
Will you carry the horse for me?--and I'll carry the bundle."
"Isn't it too heavy for you?"
"Not a bit," and the little fellow grasped it by both bands, and swung
it about triumphantly.
"Come along, then," said Janetta, with a smile. "Wait for me here, Nora,
dear: I shall then find you easily when I come back."
She marched off, the boy stumping after her with his burden. Nora
noticed that after a few minutes' walk her sister gently relieved him of
the load and carried it herself.
"Just like Janetta," she soliloquized, as the two figures disappeared
behind a clump of tall trees; "she was afraid of spoiling the moral if
she did not let him _try_ at least to carry the bundle. She always is
afraid of spoiling the moral: I never knew such a conscientious person
in my life. I am sure, as mamma says, she sets an excellent example."
And then Nora balanced herself on the loose wire of the fence, which
made an excellent swing, and poising herself upon it she took off her
hat, and resigned herself to waiting for Janetta's return. Naturally,
perhaps, her meditations turned upon Janetta's character.
"I wish I were like her," she said to herself. "Wherever she is she
seems to find work to do, and makes herself necessary and useful. Now, I
am of no use to anybody. I don't think I was ever meant to be of use. I
was meant to be ornamental!" She struck the wire with the point of her
little shoe, and looked at it regretfully. "I have no talent, mamma
says. I can look nice, I believe, and that is all. If I were Margaret
Adair I am sure I should be very much admired! But being only Nora
Colwyn, the doctor's daughter, I must mend socks and make puddings, and
eat cold mutton and wear old frocks to the end of the chapter! What a
mercy I am taller than Janetta! My old dresses are cut down for her, but
she can't leave me _her_ cast-off ones. That little wretch, Georgie,
will soon be as tall as I am, I believe. Thank goodness, she will never
be as pretty." And Miss Nora, who was really excessively vain, drew out
of her pocket a small looking-glass, and began studying her features as
therein reflected: first her eyes, when she pulled out her eyelashes and
stroked her eyebrows; then her nose, which she pinched a little to make
longer; then her mouth, of which she bit the lips in order to increase
the color and judge of the effect. Then she took some geranium petals
from the flowers in her belt and rubbed them on her cheeks: the red
stain became her mightily, she thought, and was almost as good as rouge.
Thus engaged, she did not hear steps on the pathway by which she and
Janetta had come. A man, young and slim, with a stoop and a slight halt
in his walk, with bright, curling hair, worn rather longer than
Englishmen usually wear it, with thin but expressive features, and very
brilliant blue eyes--this was the personage who now appeared upon the
scene. He stopped short rather suddenly when he became aware of the
presence of a young lady upon the fence--perhaps it was to him a
somewhat startling one: then, when he noted how she was engaged, a smile
broke gradually over his countenance. He once made a movement to
advance, then restrained himself and waited; but some involuntary rustle
of the branches above him or twigs under his feet revealed him. Nora
gave a little involuntary cry, dropped her looking-glass, and colored
crimson with vexation at finding that some one was watching her.
"What ought I to do, I wonder?" Such was the thought that flashed
through the young man's mind. He was remarkably quick in receiving
impressions and in drawing conclusions. "She is not a French girl, thank
goodness, fresh from a convent, and afraid to open her lips! Neither is
she the conventional young English lady, or she would not sit on a fence
and look at herself in a pocket looking-glass. At least, I suppose she
would not: how should I know what English girls would do? At any rate,
here goes for addressing her."
All these ideas passed through his mind in the course of the second or
two which elapsed while he courteously raised his hat, and advanced to
pick up the fallen hand-glass. But Nora was too quick for him. She had
slipped off the fence and secured her mirror before he could reach it;
and then, with a look of quite unnecessary scorn and anger, she almost
turned her back upon him, and stood looking at the one angle of the
house which she could see.
The young man brushed his moustache to conceal a smile, and ventured on
the remark that he had been waiting to make.
"I beg your pardon; I trust that I did not startle you."
"Not at all," said Nora, with dignity. But she did not turn round.
"If you are looking for the gate into the grounds," he resumed, with
great considerateness of manner, "you will find it about twenty yards
further to your left. Can I have the pleasure of showing you the way?"
"No, thank you," said Miss Nora, very ungraciously. "I am waiting for my
sister." She felt that some explanation was necessary to account for the
fact that she did not immediately walk away.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said the young man once more, but this time in
a rather disappointed tone. Then, brightening--"But if your sister has
gone up to our house why won't you come in too?"
"_Your_ house?" said Nora, unceremoniously, and facing him with an air
of fearless incredulity, which amused him immensely. "But _you_ are not
Mr. Brand?"
"My name is Brand," said the young fellow, smiling the sunniest smile in
the world, and again raising his hat, with what Nora now noticed to be a
rather foreign kind of grace: "and if you know it, I feel that it is
honored already."
Nora knitted her brows. "I don't know what you mean," she said,
impatiently, "but you are not Mr. Brand of the Hall, are you?"
"I live at the Hall, certainly, and my name is Brand--Cuthbert Brand, at
your service."
"Oh, I see. Not Wyvis Brand?" said Nora impulsively. "Not the father of
the dear little boy that we found here just now?"
Cuthbert Brand's fair face colored. He looked excessively surprised.
"The father--a little boy? I am afraid," he said, with some
embarrassment of manner, "that I do not exactly know what you mean----"
"It is just this," said Nora, losing her contemptuous manner and coming
closer to the speaker; "when my sister and I were walking this way we
saw a little boy lying here fast asleep. He woke up and told us that his
name was Julian Wyvis Brand, and that his mother had left him here, and
told him to find his father, who lived at that red house."
"Good heavens! And the woman--what became of her?"
"The boy said she had gone away and would not come back."
"I trust she may not," muttered Cuthbert angrily to himself. A red
flush colored his brow as he went on. "My brother's wife," he said
formally, "is not--at present--on very friendly terms with him; we did
not know that she intended to bring the child home in this manner: we
thought that she desired to keep it--where is the boy, by the way?"
"My sister has taken him up to the Hall. She said that she would see Mr.
Brand."
Cuthbert raised his eyebrows. "See my brother?" he repeated as if
involuntarily. "My brother!"
"She is his second cousin, you know: I suppose that gives her courage,"
said Nora smiling at the tone of horror which she fancied must be
simulated for the occasion. But Cuthbert was in earnest--he knew Wyvis
Brand's temper too well to anticipate anything but a rough reception for
any one who seemed inclined to meddle with his private affairs. And if
Nora's sister were like herself! For Nora did not look like a person who
would bear roughness or rudeness from any one.
"Then are you my cousin, too?" he asked, suddenly struck by an idea that
sent a gleam of pleasure to his eye.
"Oh, no," said Nora, demurely. "I'm no relation. It is only Janetta--her
mother was Mr. Brand's father's cousin. But that was not my
mother--Janetta and I are stepsisters."
"Surely that makes a relationship, however," said Cuthbert,
courageously. "If your stepsister is my second cousin, you must be a
sort of step-second-cousin to me. Will you not condescend to acknowledge
the connection?"
"Isn't the condescension all on your side?" said Nora coolly. "It may be
a connection, but it certainly isn't a relationship."
"I am only too glad to hear you call it a connection," said Cuthbert,
with gravity. And then the two laughed--Nora rather against her
will--Cuthbert out of amusement at the situation, and both out of sheer
light-heartedness. And when they had laughed the ice seemed to be
broken, and they felt as if they were old friends.
"I did not know that any of our relations were living in Beaminster," he
resumed, after a moment's pause.
"I suppose you never even heard our name," said Nora, saucily.
"I don't--know----" he began, in some confusion.
"Of course you don't. Your father had a cousin and she married a
doctor--a poor country surgeon, and so of course you forgot all about
her existence. She was not _my_ mother, so I can speak out, you know.
Your father never spoke to her again after she married _my_ father."
"More shame to him! I remember now. Your father is James Colwyn."
Nora nodded. "I think it was a very great shame," she said.
"And so do I," said Cuthbert, heartily.
"It was all the worse," Nora went on, quite forgetting in her eagerness
whom she was talking to, "because Mr. Brand was not himself so very much
thought of, you know--people did not think--oh, I forgot! I beg your
pardon!" she suddenly ejaculated, turning crimson as she remembered that
the man to whom she was speaking was the son of the much-abused Mr.
Brand, who had been considered the black sheep of the county.
"Don't apologize, pray," said Cuthbert, lightly. "I'm quite accustomed
to hearing my relations spoken ill of. What was it that people did not
think?"
"Oh," said Nora, now covered with confusion, "of course I could not tell
you."
"It was so very bad, was it?" said the young man, laughing. "You need
not be afraid. Really and seriously, I have been told that my poor
father was not very popular about here, and I don't much wonder at it,
for although he was a good father to us he was rather short in manner,
and, perhaps, I may add, in temper. Wyvis is like him exactly, I
believe."
"And are you?" asked Nora.
Cuthbert raised his hat and gave it a tremendous flourish.
"Mademoiselle, I have not that honor," he replied.
"I suppose I ought not to have asked," said Nora to herself, but this
time she restrained herself and did not say it aloud. "I wonder where
Janetta is?" she murmured after a moment's silence. "I did not think
that she would be so long."
If Cuthbert thought the remark ungracious, as he might well have done,
he made no sign of discomfiture. "Can I do anything?" he asked. "Shall I
go to the house and find out whether she has seen my brother? But then I
shall have to leave you."
"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Nora, innocently.
"Doesn't it? But I hardly like the idea of leaving you all alone. There
might be tramps about. If you are like all the other young ladies I have
known, you will have an objection to tramps."
"I am sure," said Nora, with confidence, "that I am not at all like the
other young ladies you know; but at the same time I must confess that I
don't like tramps."
"I knew it. And I saw a tramp--I am sure I did--a little while ago in
this very wood. He was ragged and dirty, but picturesque. I sketched
him, but I think he would not be a pleasant companion for you."
"Do you sketch?" said Nora quickly.
"Oh, yes, I sketch a little," he answered in a careless sort of way--for
what was the use of telling this little girl that his pictures had been
hung in the Salon and the Academy, or that he had hopes of one day
rising to fame and fortune in his recently adopted profession? He was
not given to boasting of his own success, and besides, this child--with
her saucy face and guileless eyes--would not understand either his
ambitions or his achievements.
But Nora's one talent was for drawing, and although the instruction she
had received was by no means of the best, she had good taste and a great
desire to improve her skill. So Cuthbert's admission excited her
interest at once.
"Have you been sketching now?" she asked. "Oh, do let me see what you
have done?"
Cuthbert's portfolio was under his arm. He laughed, hesitated, then
dropped on one knee beside her and began to exhibit his sketches. It was
thus--side by side, with heads very close together--that Janetta, much
to her amazement, found them on her return.
CHAPTER VIII.
FATHER AND CHILD.
Janetta had set off on her expedition to Brand Hall out of an impulse of
mingled pity and indignation--pity for the little boy, indignation
against the mother who could desert him, perhaps against the father
too. This feeling prevented her from realizing all at once the difficult
position in which she was now placing herself; the awkwardness in which
she would be involved if Mr. Brand declared that he knew nothing of the
child, or would have nothing to do with it. "In that case," she said to
herself, with an admiring glance at the lovely little boy, "I shall have
to adopt him, I think! I wonder what poor mamma would say!"
She found her way without difficulty to the front-door of the long, low,
rambling red house which was dignified by the name of Brand Hall. The
place had a desolate look still, in spite of its being inhabited.
Scarcely a window was open, and no white blinds or pretty curtains could
be seen at the casements. The door was also shut; and as it was one of
those wide oaken doors, mantled with creepers, and flanked with seats,
which look as if they should always stand hospitably open, it gave the
stranger a sense of coldness and aloofness to stand before it. And,
also, there was neither bell nor a knocker--a fact which showed that few
visitors ever made their appearance at Brand Hall. Janetta looked about
her in dismay, and then tapped at the door with her fingers, while the
child followed her every movement with his great wondering eyes, and
finally said, gravely--
"I think they have all gone to sleep in this house, like the people in
the 'Sleeping Beauty' story."
"Then you must be the Fairy Prince to wake them all up," said Janetta,
laughingly.
The boy looked at her as if he understood; then, suddenly stooping, he
picked up a fallen stick and proceeded to give the door several smart
raps upon its oaken panels.
This summons procured a response. The door was opened, after a good deal
of ineffectual fumbling at bolts and rattling of chains, by an old,
white-haired serving man, who looked as if he had stepped out of the
story to which Julian had alluded. He was very deaf, and it was some
time before Janetta could make him understand that she wanted to see
Mrs. Brand. Evidently Mrs. Brand was not in the habit of receiving
visitors. At last he conducted her to the dark little drawing-room where
the mistress of the house usually sat, and here Janetta was received by
the pale, grey-haired woman whom she had seen fainting on the
Beaminster road. It was curious to notice the agitation of this elderly
lady on Janetta's appearance. She stood up, crushed her handkerchief
between her trembling fingers, took a step towards her visitor, and then
stood still, looking at her with such extraordinary anxiety that Janetta
was quite confused and puzzled by it. Seeing that her hostess could not
in any way assist her out of her difficulty, she faced it boldly by
introducing herself.
"My name is Janetta Colwyn," she began. "I believe that my mother was a
relation of Mr. Brand's--a cousin----"
"Yes, a first cousin," said Mrs. Brand, nervously. "I often heard him
speak of her--I never saw her----"
She paused, looked suspiciously at Janetta, and colored all over her
thin face. Janetta paused also, being taken somewhat by surprise.
"No, I don't suppose you ever saw her," she said, "but then you went
abroad, and my dear mother died soon after I was born. Otherwise, I
daresay you would have known her."
Mrs. Brand gave her a strange look. "You think so?" she said. "But
no--you are wrong: she always looked down on me. She never would have
been friendly with me if she had lived."
"Indeed," said Janetta, very much astonished. "I always heard that it
was the other way--that Mr. Brand was angry with _her_ for marrying a
poor country surgeon, and would not speak to her again."
"That is what they may have said to you. But you were too young to be
told the truth," said the sad-faced woman, beginning to tremble all over
as she spoke. "No, your mother would not have been friends with me. I
was not her equal--and she knew I was not."
"Oh, indeed, you make a mistake: I am sure you do," cried Janetta,
becoming genuinely distressed as this view of her mother's character and
conduct was fixed upon her. "My mother was always gentle and kind, they
tell me; I am sure she would have been your friend--as I will be, if you
will let me." She held out her hands and drew those of the trembling
woman into her warm young clasp. "I am a cousin too," she said, blushing
a little as she asserted herself in this way, "and I hope you will let
me come to see you sometimes and make you less lonely."
"I am always lonely, and I always shall be lonely to the end of time,"
said Mrs. Brand, slowly and bitterly. "However"--with an evident attempt
to recover her self-possession--"I shall always be pleased to see you.
Did--did--your father send you here to-night?"
"No," said Janetta, remembering her errand. "He does not know----"
"Does not know?" The pale woman again looked distressed. "Oh," she said,
turning away with a sigh and biting her lip, "then I shall not see you
again."
"Indeed you will," said Janetta, warmly. "My father would never keep me
away from any one who wanted me--and one of my mother's relations too.
But I came to-night because I found this dear little boy outside your
grounds. He tells me that his name is Julian Wyvis Brand, and that he is
your son's little boy."
For the first time Mrs. Brand turned her eyes upon the child. Hitherto
she had not noticed him much, evidently thinking that he belonged to
Janetta, and was also a visitor. But when she saw the boy's sweet little
face and large dark eyes, she turned pale, and made a gesture as of
warning or dislike.
"Take him away! take him away," she said. "Yes, I can see that it is
_her_ child--and his child too. She must be here too, and she has been
the ruin of my boy's life!" And then she sank into a chair and burst
into an agony of tears.
Janetta felt, with an inexpressible pang, that she had set foot in the
midst of some domestic tragedy, the like of which had never come within
her ken before. She was conscious of a little recoil from it, such as is
natural to a young girl who has not learnt by experience the meaning of
sorrow; but the recoil was followed by a rush of that sympathy for which
she had always shown a great capacity. Her instinct led her instantly to
comfort and console. She knelt down beside the weeping woman and put one
arm round her, drawing the little boy forward with her left hand as she
spoke.
"Oh, don't cry--don't cry!" she murmured. "He has come to be a joy and a
comfort to you, and he wants you to love him too."
"Won't you love me, grandmamma?" said the sweet childish voice. And
Julian laid his hand on the poor woman's shaking knee. "Don't cry,
grandmamma."
It was this scene which met the eyes of Wyvis Brand when he turned the
handle of the drawing-room door and walked into the room. His mother
weeping, with a child before her, and a dark-haired girl on her knees
with one arm round the weeping woman and one round the lovely child. It
was a pretty picture, and Wyvis Brand was not insensible to its beauty.
He stood, looking prom one to another of the group.
"What does all this mean?" he asked, in somewhat harsh tones.
His mother cried aloud and caught the child to her breast.
"Oh, Wyvis, be kind--be merciful," she gasped. "This is your child--your
child. You will not drive him away. She has left him at our door."
Wyvis walked into the room, shut the door behind him, and leaned against
it.
"Upon my word," he said, sarcastically, "you will give this lady--whose
name I haven't the pleasure of knowing--a very fine idea of our domestic
relations. I am not such a brute, I hope, as to drive away my own child
from my door; but I certainly should like to know first whether it is my
child; and more particularly whether it is my son and heir, as I have no
doubt that this young gentleman is endeavoring to persuade you. Did
_you_ bring the child here?" he said, turning sharply to Janetta.
"I brought him into the house, certainly," she said, rising from her
knees and facing him. "I found him outside your fence; and he told me
that his name was Julian Wyvis Brand."
"Pretty evidence," said Mr. Brand, very rudely, as Janetta thought. "Who
can tell whether the child is not some beggar's brat that has nothing to
do with me?"
"Don't you know your own little boy when you see him?" Janetta demanded,
indignantly.
"Not I. I have not set eyes on him since he was a baby. Turn round,
youngster, and let me have a look at you."
The child faced him instantly, much as Janetta herself had done. There
was a fearless look in the baby face, an innocent, guileless courage in
the large dark eyes, which must surely, thought Janetta, touch a
father's heart. But Wyvis Brand looked as if it would take a great deal
to move him.
"Where do you come from?" said Mr. Brand, sternly.
"From over the sea."
"That's no answer. Where from?--what place?"
The boy looked at him without answering.
"Are you dumb?" said Wyvis Brand, harshly. "Or have you not been taught
what to say to that question? Where do you come from, I say?"
Mrs. Brand murmured an inarticulate remonstrance; Janetta's eyes flashed
an indignant protest. Both women thought that the boy would be dismayed
and frightened. But he, standing steady and erect, did not flinch. His
color rose and his hands clenched themselves at his side, but he did not
take his eyes from his father's face as he replied.
"I come with mammy from Paris."
"And pray where is your mother?"
"Gone back again. She told me to find my father. Are you my father?"
said the child, with the utmost fearlessness.
"What is your name?" asked Wyvis, utterly disregarding the question.
"Julian Wyvis Brand."
"He's got the name pat enough," said Wyvis, with a sardonic laugh.
"Well, where did you live in Paris? What sort of a house had you?"
"It was near the church," said the little boy, gravely. "The church with
the big pillars round it. There was a bonnet shop under our rooms, and
the rooms were all pink and white and gold--prettier than this," he
said, wistfully surveying the gloomy room in which he stood.
"And who took care of you when your mother was out?" asked Mr. Brand.
Even Janetta could see, by the swift, subtle change that had passed over
his face, that he recognized the description of the room.
"Susan. She was my nurse and mammy's maid as well. She was English."
The man nodded and set his lips. "He knows what to say," he remarked.
"Oh, Wyvis!" exclaimed his mother, as if she could repress her feelings
no longer; "don't you see how like he is to you!--don't you _feel_ that
he is your own child?"
"I confess the paternal feelings are not very strong in me," said her
son, dryly, "but I have a fancy the boy is mine for all that. Haven't
you a letter or a remembrance of some sort to give me, young man?"
The boy shook his head.
"There may be something amongst his things--some book or trinket that
you would remember," said Janetta, speaking with timidity. Mr. Brand
gave her a keen look, and Mrs. Brand accepted the suggestion with
eagerness.
"Oh, yes, yes, let us look. Have you a box, my dear, or a bag?--oh, a
bundle, only: give it me, and let me see what is inside."
"It is unnecessary, mother," said Wyvis, coldly. "I am as convinced as
you can wish me to be that this is Juliet's child."
But Mrs. Brand, with trembling fingers and parted lips, was helping
Janetta to unfasten the knots of the big handkerchief in which the
child's worldly goods were wrapped up. Wyvis Brand stood silently beside
the two women, while little Julian pressed closer and pointed out his
various treasures as they were one by one disclosed.
"That's my book," he said; "and that's my best suit. And that's--oh, I
don't know what _that_ is. I don't know why mammy put it in."
"_I_ know," said Wyvis Brand, half under his breath.
The object that called forth this remark was a small morocco box,
loosely wrapped in tissue-paper. Wyvis took it out of his mother's hand,
opened it, and stood silently gazing at its contents. It held a ring, as
Janetta could easily see--a hoop of gold in which were three opals--not
a very large or costly-looking trinket, but one which seemed to have
memories or associations connected with it--to judge, at least, by the
look on Wyvis Brand's dark face. The women involuntarily held their
breath as they glanced at him.
At last with a short laugh, he slipped the little case into his pocket,
and turned upon his heel.
"I suppose that this is evidence enough," he said. "It is a ring I once
gave her--our engagement ring. Not one of much value, or you may be sure
that she would never have sent it back."
"Then you are convinced--you are certain----" His mother did not finish
the sentence, but her son knew what she meant.
"That he is my son? my wife's child? Oh, yes, I am pretty sure of that.
He had better be put to bed," said Wyvis, carelessly. "You can find a
room for him somewhere, I dare say."
"There is the old nursery," said Mrs. Brand, in breathless eagerness. "I
looked into it yesterday; it is a nice, cheerful room--but it has not
been used for a long time----"
"Do as you like; don't consult me," said her son. "I know nothing about
the matter." And he turned to the door, without another look towards his
son.
But little Julian was not minded to be treated in this way. His large
eyes had been fixed upon his father with a puzzled and rather wistful
expression. He now suddenly started from his position at Mrs. Brand's
knee, and pursued his father to the door.
"Say good-night, please," he said, pulling at Mr. Brand's coat with a
fearlessness which amused Janetta and startled Mrs. Brand.
Wyvis looked down at him with a curious and indescribable expression.
"You're not shy, at any rate," he said, drily. "Well, good-night, young
man. What?"--the boy had held up his face to be kissed.
The father hesitated. Then a better and softer feeling seemed to pass
over his face. He stooped down and let the child put his arms round his
neck, and press a warm kiss on his cheek. A short laugh then escaped his
lips, as if he were half-ashamed of his own action. He went out of the
room and shut the door behind him without looking round, and little
Julian returned to his grandmother's knee, looking well satisfied with
himself.
Janetta felt that she ought to go, and yet that she hardly liked
trusting the child to the sole care of Mrs. Brand, who was evidently so
much unnerved as to be of little use in deciding what was to be done
with him. And at the first hint of departure grandmother and child both
clung to her as if they felt her to be their sheet-anchor in storm. She
was not allowed to go until she had inspected the nursery and pronounced
it too damp for Julian's use, and seen a little bed made up for the
child in Mrs. Brand's own room, where a fire was lighted, and everything
looked cosey and bright. Poor little Julian was by this time half-dead
with sleep; and Janetta could not after all make up her mind to leave
him until she had seen him tucked up and fast asleep. Then she
bethought herself of Nora, and turned to go. Mrs. Brand, melted out of
her coldness and shy reserve, caught her by the hand.
"My dear," she said, "what should we have done without you?"
"I don't think that I have done very much," said Janetta, smiling.
"You have done more than I could ever do. If I had brought that child to
my son he would never have acknowledged it."
"He does not look so hard," said the girl involuntarily.
"He _is_ hard, my dear--hard in his way--but he is a good son for all
that--and he has had sore trouble, which has made him seem harder and
sterner than he is. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done
to-day."
"Oh, Mrs. Brand, I have done nothing," said Janetta, blushing at the
elder woman's praise. "But may I come to see you and little Julian
again? I should like so much to know how he gets on."
"You may come, dear, if your father will let you," said Mrs. Brand, with
rather a troubled look. "It would be a blessing--a charity--to me: but I
don't know whether it would be right to let you--your father must
decide."
And then Janetta took her leave.
She was surprised to find that Mr. Brand was lounging about the hall as
she came out, and that he not only opened the door for her but
accompanied her to the garden gate. He did not speak for a minute or
two, and Janetta, not seeing her way clear to any remarks of her own,
wondered whether they were to walk side by side to the gate in utter
silence. Presently, however, he said, abruptly.
"I have not yet heard to whom I am indebted for the appearance of that
little boy in my house."
"I am not exactly responsible," said Janetta, "I only found him outside
and brought him in to make inquiries. My name is Janetta Colwyn."
"Colwyn? What? the doctor's daughter?"
"Yes, the doctor's daughter," said Janetta, smiling frankly at him, "and
your second cousin."
Wyvis Brand's hand went up to his hat, which he lifted ceremoniously.
"I wish I had had the introduction earlier," he said, in a much
pleasanter tone.
Janetta could not exactly echo the sentiment, and therefore maintained a
discreet silence.
"You must have thought me a great brute," said Wyvis, with some
sensitiveness in his tone.
"Oh, no: I quite saw how difficult it was for you to understand who I
was, and how it had all come about."
"You saw a great deal, then."
"Oh, I know that it sounds impertinent to say so," Janetta answered,
blushing a little and walking a trifle faster, "but I did not mean it
rudely, I assure you."
He seemed to take no notice. He was looking straight before him, with a
somewhat sombre expression in his fine dark eyes.
"What you could not see," he said, perhaps more to himself than to her,
"was what no one will ever guess. Nobody knows what the last few years
have been to me. My mother has seen more of it than any one else, but
even to her my life has been something of a mystery--a sealed book. You
should remember this--remember all that I have passed through--before
you blame me for the way in which I received that child to-day."
"I did not blame you," said Janetta, eagerly. "I only felt that there
was a great deal which I could not understand."
He turned his gloomy eyes upon her. "Just so," he said. "You cannot
understand. And it is useless for you to try."
"I am very sorry," Janetta faltered, scarcely knowing why she said so.
Wyvis laughed. "Don't trouble to be sorry over my affairs," he said.
"They are not worth sorrow, I assure you. But--if I may make one
request--will you kindly keep silence (except, of course, to your
parents) about this episode? I do not want people to begin gossiping
about that unhappy woman who has the right, unfortunately, to call
herself my wife."
Janetta promised, and with her promise the garden gate was reached, and
the interview came to an end.
CHAPTER IX.
CONSULTATION.
Janetta was rather surprised that Mr. Wyvis Brand did not offer to
accompany her for at least part of her way homewards, but she set down
his remissness to absorption in his own rather complicated affairs. In
this she was not mistaken. Wyvis was far more depressed, and far more
deeply buried in the contemplation of his difficulties, than anybody
knew, and it completely escaped his memory until afterwards that he
ought to have offered Miss Colwyn an escort. Janetta, however, was well
used to going about the world alone, and she proceeded briskly to the
spot where she had left Nora, and was much astonished to find that young
person deep in conversation with a strange young man.
But the young man had such an attractive face, such pleasant eyes, so
courteous a manner, that she melted towards him before he had got
through his first sentence. Nora, of course, ought to have introduced
him; but she was by no means well versed in the conventionalities of
society, and therefore left him to do what he pleased, and to introduce
himself.
"I find that I am richer than I thought," said Cuthbert Brand, "in
possessing a relative whom I never heard of before! Miss Colwyn, are we
not cousins? My name is Brand--Cuthbert Brand."
Janetta's face lighted up. "I have just seen Mrs. Brand and your
brother," she said, offering him her hand.
"And, oh, Janetta!" cried Nora at once, "do tell us what happened. Have
you left the little boy at Brand Hall? And is it really Mr. Brand's
little boy?"
"Yes, it is, and I have left him with his father," said Janetta,
gravely. "As it is getting late, Nora, we had better make the best of
our way home."
"You will let me accompany you?" said Cuthbert, eagerly, while Nora
looked a little bit inclined to pout at her sister's serious tone. "It
is, as you say, rather late; and you have a long walk before you."
"Thank you, but I could not think of troubling you. My sister and I are
quite accustomed to going about by ourselves. We escort each other,"
said Janetta, smiling, so that he should not set her down as utterly
ungracious.
"I am a good walker," said Cuthbert, coloring a little. He was half
afraid that they thought his lameness a disqualification for
accompanying them. "I do my twenty miles a day quite easily."
"Thank you," Janetta said again. "But I could not think of troubling
you. Besides, Nora and I are so well used to these woods, and to the
road between them and Beaminster, that we really do not require an
escort."
A compromise was finally effected. Cuthbert walked with them to the end
of the wood, and the girls were to be allowed to pursue their way
together along the Beaminster road. He made himself very agreeable in
their walk through the wood, and did not leave them, without a hope that
he might be allowed one day to call upon his newly-discovered cousins.
"He has adopted us, apparently, as well as yourself," said Nora, as the
two girls tramped briskly along the Beaminster road. "He seems to forget
that _we_ are not his relations."
"He is very pleasant and friendly," said Janetta.
"But why did you say he might call?" pursued Nora. "I thought that you
would say that we did not have visitors--or something of that sort."
"My dear Nora! But we do have visitors."
"Yes; but not of that kind."
"Don't you want him to come?" said Janetta, in some wonderment; for it
had struck her that Nora had shown an unusual amount of friendliness to
Mr. Cuthbert Brand.
"No, I don't," said Nora, almost passionately. "I _don't_ want to see
him down in our shabby, untidy little drawing-room, to hear mamma talk
about her expenses and papa's difficulties--to see all that tribe of
children in their old frocks--to see the muddle in which we live! I
don't want him there at all."
"Dear Nora, I don't think that the Brands have been accustomed to live
in any very grand way. I am sure the rooms I went into this evening were
quite shabby--nearly as shabby as ours, and much gloomier. What does it
matter?"
"It does not matter to you," said Nora; "because you are their relation.
It is different for us. You belong to them and we don't."
"I think you are quite wrong to talk in that way. It is nothing so very
great and grand to be related to the Brands."
"They are '_County_' people," said Nora, with a scornful little emphasis
on the word. "They are like your grand Adairs: they would look down on a
country doctor and his family, except just now and then when they could
make them useful."
"Look down on father? What are you thinking of?" cried Janetta, warmly.
"Nobody looks down on father, because he does good, honest work in the
world, and everybody respects him; but I am afraid that a good many
people look down on the Brands. You know that as well as I do, Nora; for
you have heard people talk about them. They are not at all well thought
of in this neighborhood. I don't suppose there is much honor and glory
to be gained by relationship to them."
In which Janetta was quite right, and showed her excellent sense. But
Nora was not inclined to be influenced by her more sagacious sister.
"You may say what you like," she observed; "but I know very well that it
is a great advantage to be related to 'the County.' Poor papa has no
connections worth speaking of, and mamma's friends are either
shopkeepers or farmers; but your mother was the Brands' cousin, and see
how the Adairs took you up! They would never have made a fuss over
_me_."
"What nonsense you talk, Nora!" said Janetta, in a disgusted tone.
"Nonsense or not, it is true," said Nora, doggedly; "and as long as
people look down upon us, I don't want any of your fine friends and
relations in Gwynne Street."
Janetta did not condescend to argue the point; she contented herself
with telling her sister of Wyvis Brand's desire that the story of his
wife's separation from him should not be known, and the two girls agreed
that it would be better to mention their evening's adventure only to
their father.
It was quite dark when they reached home, and they entered the house in
much trepidation, fearing a volley of angry words from Mrs. Colwyn. But
to their surprise and relief Mrs. Colwyn was not at home. The children
explained that an invitation to supper had come to her from a neighbor,
and that "after a great deal of fuss," as one of them expressed it, she
had accepted it and gone, leaving word that she should not be back until
eleven o'clock, and that the children were to go to bed at their usual
hour. It was past the younger children's hour already, and they of
course were jubilant.
The elder sisters set to work instantly to get the young ones into their
beds, but this was a matter of some difficulty. A general inclination to
uproariousness prevailed in Mrs. Colwyn's absence, and it must be
confessed that neither Janetta nor Nora tried very hard to repress the
little ones' noise. It was a comfort to be able, for once, to enjoy
themselves without fear of Mrs. Colwyn's perpetual snarl and grumble. A
most exciting pillow-fight was going on in the upstairs regions, and
here Janetta was holding her own as boldly as the boldest, when the
sound of an opening door made the combatants pause in their mad career.
"What's that? The front door? It's mamma!" cried Georgie, with
conviction.
"Get into bed, Tiny!" shouted Joey. Tiny began to cry.
"Nonsense, children," said Nora, with an air of authority. "You know
that it can't be mamma. It is papa, of course, coming in for his supper.
And one of us must go down."
"I'll go," said Janetta, hurriedly. "I want a little talk with him, you
know."
There was a general chorus of "Oh, don't go, Janetta!" "Do stay!" "It
will be no fun when you are gone!" which stimulated Nora to a retort.
"Well, I must say you are all very polite," she said. "One would think
that I was not here at all!"
"You are not half such good fun as Janetta," said Joey. "You don't throw
yourself into everything as she does."
"I must throw myself into giving father his supper, I'm afraid," said
Janetta, laughing, "so good-night, children, and do go to bed quietly
now, for I don't think father will like such a dreadful noise."
She was nearly choked by the fervent embraces they all bestowed upon her
before she went downstairs. Nora, who stood by, rolling up the ribbon
that she had taken from Tiny's hair, felt a little pang of jealousy. Why
was it that everyone loved Janetta and valued her so much? Not for what
she did, because her share of household duty was not greater than that
of Nora, but for the way in which she did it. It always seemed such a
pleasure to her to do anything for any one--to serve another: never a
toil, never a hardship, always a deep and lasting pleasure. To Nora it
was often a troublesome matter to help her sister or her schoolboy
brother, to attend on her mother, or to be thoughtful of her father's
requirements; but it was never troublesome to Janetta. And as Nora
thought of all this, the tears came involuntarily to her eyes. It seemed
so _easy_ to Janetta to be good, she thought! But perhaps it was no
easier to Janetta than to other people.
Janetta ran down to the dining-room, where she found her father
surveying with a rather dissatisfied air the cold and scanty repast
which was spread out for him. Mr. Colwyn was so much out that his meals
had to be irregular, and he ate them just when he had a spare half hour.
On this occasion he had been out since two o'clock in the afternoon, and
had not had time even for a cup of tea. He had been attending a hopeless
case, moreover, and one about which he had been anxious for some weeks.
Fagged, chilled, and dispirited, it was no wonder that he had returned
home in not the best of tempers, and that he was a little disposed to
find fault when Janetta made her appearance.
"Where is mamma?" he began. "Out, I suppose, or the children would not
be making such a racket overhead."
"They are going to be quiet now, dear father," said his daughter,
kissing him, "and mamma has gone out to supper at Mrs. Maitland's. I am
going to have mine with you if you will let me."
"And is this what you are going to have for your supper?" said Mr.
Colwyn, half ruefully, half jestingly, as he glanced again at the table,
where some crusts of bread reposed peacefully on one dish, and a scrag
of cold mutton on another. "After your sojourn at Miss Polehampton's and
among the Adairs, I suppose you don't know how to cook, Jenny?"
"Indeed I do, father, and I'm going to scramble some eggs, and make some
coffee this very minute. I am sorry the table is not better arranged,
but I have been out, and was just having a little game with the children
before they went to bed. If you will sit down by the fire, I shall be
ready in a very few minutes, and then I can tell you about a wonderful
adventure that Nora and I had this evening in the Beaminster wood."
"You should not roam about those woods so much by yourselves; they are
too lonely," said Mr. Colwyn; but he said it very mildly, and dropped
with an air of weariness into the arm-chair that Janetta had wheeled
forward for him. "Well, well! don't hurry yourself, child. I shall be
glad of a few minutes' rest before I begin my supper."
Janetta in a big white apron, Janetta flitting backwards and forwards
between kitchen and dining-room, with flushed cheeks and brightly
shining eyes, was a pretty sight--"a sight to make an old man young,"
thought Mr. Colwyn, as he watched her furtively from beneath his
half-closed eyelids. She looked so trim, so neat, so happy in her work,
that he would be hard to satisfy who did not admire her, even though she
was not what the world calls strictly beautiful. She succeeded so well
in her cooking operations, with which she would not allow the servant to
intermeddle, that in a very short time a couple of dainty dishes and
some coffee smoked upon the board; and Janetta bidding her father come
to the table, placed herself near him, and smilingly dispensed the
savory concoction.
She would not enter upon any account of her evening's work until she
felt sure that the wants of her father's inner man were satisfied; but
when supper was over, and his evening pipe--the one luxury in the day he
allowed himself--alight, she drew up a hassock beside his chair and
prepared for what she called "a good long chat."
Opportunities for such a chat with her father were rather rare in that
household, and Janetta meant to make the most of this one. Nora had
good-naturedly volunteered to stay away from the dining-room, so as to
give Janetta the chance that she wished for; and as it was now barely
ten o'clock, Janetta knew that she might perhaps have an hour of her
father's companionship--if, at least, he were not sent for before eleven
o'clock. At eleven he would probably go to Mrs. Maitland's to fetch his
wife home.
"Well, Janet, and what have you to tell me?" he said kindly, as he
stretched out his slippered feet to the blaze, and took down his pipe
from the mantel-piece. The lines had cleared away from his face as if by
magic; there was a look of rest and peace upon his face that his
daughter liked to see. She laid her hand on his knee and kept it there
while she told him of her experiences that evening at Brand Hall.
Mr. Colwyn's eyebrows went up as he listened. His face expressed
astonishment, and something very like perplexity. But he heard the whole
story out before he said a word.
"Well, you have put your head into the lion's den!" he said at last, in
a half-humorous tone.
"What I want to know is," said Janetta, "why it is thought to be a
lion's den! I don't mean that I have heard the expression before, but I
have gathered in different ways an impression that people avoid the
house----"
"The family, not the house, Janet!"
"Of course I _mean_ the family, father, dear. What have they done that
they should be shunned?"
"There is a good deal against them in the eyes of the world. Your poor
mother, Janetta, always stood up for them, and said that they were more
sinned against than sinning."
"_They?_ But these young men were not grown up then?"
"No; it was their father and----"
Mr. Colwyn stopped short and seemed as if he did not like to go on.
"Tell me, father," said Janetta, coaxingly.
"Well, child, I don't know that you ought to hear old scandals. But you
are too wise to let them harm you. Brand, the father of these two young
fellows, married a barmaid, the daughter of a low publican in the
neighborhood."
"What! The Mrs. Brand that I saw to-day? _She_ a barmaid--that quiet,
pale, subdued-looking woman?"
"She has had trouble enough to make her look subdued, poor soul! She was
a handsome girl then; and I daresay the world would have overlooked the
marriage in time if her character had been untarnished. But stories
which I need not repeat were afloat; and from what I have lately heard
they are not yet forgotten."
"After all these years! Oh, that does seem hard," said Janetta,
sympathetically.
"Well--there are some things that the world does not forgive, Janet. I
have no doubt that the poor woman is much more worthy of respect and
kindness than her wild sons; and yet the fact remains that if Wyvis
Brand had come here with his brother alone, he would have been received
everywhere, and entertained and visited and honored like any other young
man of property and tolerable repute; but as he has brought his mother
with him, I am very much afraid that many of the nicest people in the
county mean to 'cut' him."
"It is very unfair, surely."
"Yes, it is unfair; but it is the way of the world, Janetta. If a
woman's reputation is ever so slightly blackened, she can never get it
fair and white again. Hence, my dear, I am a little doubtful as to
whether you must go to Brand Hall again, as long as poor Mrs. Brand is
there."
"Oh, father, and I promised to go!"
"You must not make rash promises another time, my child."
"But she wants me, father--she is so lonely and so sad?"
"I am sorry, my Janet, but I don't know----"
"Oh, do let me, father. I shall not be harmed; and I don't mind what the
world says."
"But perhaps _I_ mind," said Mr. Colwyn, quaintly.
CHAPTER X.
MARGARET.
Janetta looked so rueful at this remark that her father laughed a little
and pulled her ear.
"I am not given to taking much notice of what the world says," he told
her, "and if I thought it right for you to go to Brand Hall I should
take no notice of town talk; but I think that I can't decide this matter
without seeing Mrs. Brand for myself."
"I thought you had seen her, father?"
"For ten minutes or so, only. They wanted to ask me a question about the
healthiness of Brand Hall, drains, and all that kind of thing. That
young Brand struck me as a very sullen-looking fellow."
"His face lightens up when he talks," said Janetta, coloring and feeling
hurt for a moment, she could not have told why.
"He did not talk to me," said her father, drily. "I am told that the
other son has pleasanter manners."
"Cuthbert? Oh, yes," Janetta said, quickly. "He is much more amiable at
first sight; he made himself very agreeable to Nora and me." And
forthwith she related how the second son had made acquaintance with her
sister and herself.
Mr. Colwyn did not look altogether pleased.
"H'm!--they seem very ready to cultivate us," he said, with a slight
contraction of the brow. "Their father used not to know that I existed.
Janet, I don't care for Nora to see much of them. You I can trust; but
she is a bit of a featherbrain, and one never knows what may happen.
Look to it."
"I will, father."
"And I will call on Mrs. Brand and have a chat with her. Poor soul! I
daresay she has suffered. Still that does not make her a fit companion
for my girls."
"If I could be of any use to her, father----"
"I know that's all you think of, Janet. You are a good child--always
wanting to help others. But we must not let the spirit of self-sacrifice
run away with you, you know."
He pinched her cheek softly as he spoke, and his daughter carried the
long supple fingers of his hand to her lips and kissed them tenderly.
"Which reminds me," he went on rather inconsequently, "that I saw
another of your friends to-day. A friend whom you have not mentioned for
some time, Janetta."
"Who was that?" asked Janetta, a little puzzled by his tone.
"Another friend whom I don't quite approve of," said her father, in the
same half-quizzical way, "though from a different reason. If poor Mrs.
Brand is not respectable enough, this friend of yours, Janet, is more
than respectable; ultra-respectable--aristocratic even----"
"Margaret Adair!" cried Janetta, flushing to the very roots of her hair.
"Did you see her, father? Has she quite forgotten me?" And the tears
stood in her eyes.
"I did not see Miss Margaret Adair, my dear," said her father kindly. "I
saw her mother, Lady Caroline."
"Did you speak to her, father?"
"She stopped her ponies and spoke to me in the High Street, Janet. She
certainly has very winning manners."
"Oh, has she not, father!" Janetta's cheeks glowed. "She is perfectly
charming, I think. I do not believe that she could do anything
disagreeable or unkind."
Mr. Colwyn shook his head, with a little smile. "I am not so sure of
that, Janetta. These fine ladies sometimes do very cold and cruel things
with a perfectly gracious manner."
"But Lady Caroline would not," said Janetta, coaxingly. "She was quite
kind and sweet to me all the time that I stayed at her house,
although----"
"Although afterwards," said Mr. Colwyn, shrewdly, "she could let you
stay here for weeks without seeming to remember you, or coming near you
for an hour!"
Janetta's cheeks crimsoned, but she did not reply. Loyal as she was to
her friend, she felt that there was not much to be said for her at that
moment.
"You are a good friend," said her father, in a half-teasing,
half-affectionate tone. "You don't like me to say anything bad of her,
do you? Well, my dear, for your comfort I must tell you that she did her
best to-day to make up for past omissions. She spoke very pleasantly
about you."
"Did she say why--why----" Janetta could not complete the sentence.
"Why they had not written or called? Well, she gave some sort of an
explanation. Miss Adair had been unwell--she had had a cold or something
which looked as if it might turn to fever, and they did not like to
write until she was better."
"I knew there was some good reason!" said Janetta fervently.
"It is well to take a charitable view of things," returned her father,
rather drily; but, seeing her look of protest, he changed his tone.
"Well, Lady Caroline spoke very kindly, my dear, I must acknowledge
that. She wants you to go over to Helmsley Court to-morrow."
"Can I go, father?"
Mr. Colwyn made a grimace. "Between your disreputable friends and your
aristocratic ones, I'm in a difficulty, Janet."
"Don't say so, father dear!"
"Well, I consented," said Mr. Colwyn, in rather a grudging tone. "She
said that she would send her carriage for you to-morrow at noon, and
that she would send you back again between six and seven. Her daughter
was most anxious to see you, she said."
Janetta lifted up a happy face. "I knew that Margaret would be true to
me. I never doubted her."
Mr. Colwyn watched her silently for a moment, then he put his hand upon
her head, and began smoothing the thick black locks. "You have a very
faithful nature, my Janet," he said, tenderly, "and I am afraid that it
will suffer a great many shocks in this work-a-day world of ours. Don't
let it lead you astray, my child. Remember there is a point at which
faithfulness may degenerate into sheer obstinacy."
"I don't think it will ever do so with me."
"Well, perhaps not, for you have a clear head on those young shoulders
of yours. But you must be careful."
"And I may go to Lady Caroline's, father?"
"Yes, my dear, you may. And now I must go: my time is up. I have had a
very pleasant hour, my Janet."
As she raised herself to receive her father's kiss, she felt a glow of
pleasure at his words. It was not often that he spoke so warmly. He was
a man of little speech on ordinary occasions: only when he was alone
with his best-loved daughter, Janetta, did he ever break forth into
expressions of affection. His second marriage had been in some respects
a failure; and it did not seem as if he regarded his younger children
with anything approaching the tenderness which he bestowed upon Janetta.
Good-humored tolerance was all that he gave to them: a deep and almost
passionate love had descended from her mother to Janetta.
He went out to fetch his wife home from her supper-party; and Janetta
hastened up to her room, not being anxious to meet her stepmother on her
return, in the state of rampant vanity and over-excitement to which an
assembly of her friends usually brought her. It could not be said that
Mrs. Colwyn actually drank too much wine or beer or whisky; and yet
there was often a sensation abroad that she had taken just a little more
than she could bear; and her stepdaughter was sensitively aware of the
fact. From Nora's slighting tone when she had lately spoken of her
mother, Janetta conjectured that the sad truth of Mrs. Colwyn's danger
had dawned upon the girl's mind also, and it certainly accounted for
some new lines in Mr. Colwyn's face, and for some additional streaks of
white in his silvering hair. Not a word had been said on the subject
amongst the members of the family, but Janetta had an uneasy feeling
that there were possibly rocks ahead.
At this moment, however, the prospect of seeing her dear Margaret again
completely obliterated any thought of her stepmother from Janetta's
mind; and when she was snugly ensconced in her own little, white bed,
she could not help shedding a few tears of relief and joy. For
Margaret's apparent fickleness had weighed heavily on Janetta's mind;
and she now felt proud of the friend in whom she had believed in spite
of appearances, and of whose faithfulness she had steadily refused to
hear a doubt. These feelings enabled her to bear with cheerfulness some
small unpleasantnesses next morning from her stepmother on the subject
of her visit. "Of course you'll be too grand to do a hand's turn about
the house when you come back again from Helmsley Court!" said Mrs.
Colwyn, snappishly.
"Dear mamma, when I am only going for half a day!"
"Oh, I know the ways of girls. Because Miss Adair, your fine friend,
does nothing but sit in a drawing-room all day, you'll be sure to think
that you must needs follow her example!"
"I hope Margaret will do something beside sit in a drawing-room," said
Janetta, with her cheery laugh; "because I am afraid that she might find
that a little dull."
But in spite of her cheeriness her spirits were perceptibly lowered when
she set foot in the victoria that was sent for her at noon. Her
stepmother's way of begrudging her the friendship which school-life had
bestowed upon Janetta was as distasteful to her as Miss Polehampton's
conviction of its unsuitability had been. And for one moment the tears
of vexation gathered in her brown eyes as she was driving away from the
shabby little house in Gwynne Street; and she had resolutely to drive
away unwelcome thoughts before she could resign herself to enjoyment of
her visit.
The day was hot and close, and the narrow streets of old Beaminster were
peculiarly oppressive. It was delightful to bowl swiftly along the
smooth high road, and to enter the cool green shades of the park round
Helmsley Court. "How pleasant for Margaret to live here always!" Janetta
said to herself with generous satisfaction in her friend's good fortune.
"I wonder what she would do in Gwynne Street!" And then Janetta laughed,
and felt that what suited _her_ would be very inappropriate to Margaret
Adair.
Janetta's unselfish admiration for her friend was as simple as it was
true, and it was never alloyed by envy or toadyism. She would have been
just as pleased to see Margaret in a garret as in a palace, supposing
that Margaret were pleased with the garret. And it was with almost
passionate delight that she at length flung herself into her friend's
arms, and felt Margaret's soft lips pressed to her brown flushed cheeks.
"Margaret! Oh, it is delightful to see you again!" she exclaimed.
"You poor darling: did you think that we were never going to meet?" said
Margaret. "I have been so sorry, dear----"
"I knew that you would come to see me, or send for me as soon as you
could," said Janetta quickly. "I trusted you, Margaret."
"I have had such a bad cold," Margaret went on, still excusing herself a
little, as it seemed to Janetta. "I have had to stay in two rooms for
nearly a fortnight, and I went down to the drawing-room only last
night."
"I wish I could have nursed you! Don't you remember how I nursed you
through one of your bad colds at school?"
"Yes, indeed. I wish you could have nursed me now; but mamma was afraid
that I had caught measles or scarlet fever or something, and she said it
would not be right to send for you."
Janetta was almost pained by the accent of continued excuse.
"Of course, dear, I understand," she said, pressing her friend's arm
caressingly. "I am so sorry you have been ill. You look quite pale,
Margaret."
The two girls were standing in Margaret's sitting-room, adjoining her
bedroom. Margaret was dressed completely in white, with long white
ribbons floating amongst the dainty folds of her attire; but the white
dress, exquisitely as it was fashioned, was less becoming to her than
usual, for her face had lost a little of its shell-like bloom. She
turned at Janetta's words and surveyed herself a little anxiously in a
long glass at her side.
"I do look pale in this dress," she said. "Shall I change it, Janetta?"
"Oh, no, dear," Janetta answered, in some surprise. "It is a charming
dress."
"But I do not like to look so pale," said Margaret, gravely. "I think I
will ring for Villars."
"You could not look nicer--to me--in any dress!" exclaimed her ardent
admirer.
"You dear--oh, yes; but there may be visitors at luncheon."
"I thought you would be alone," faltered Janetta, with a momentary
glance at her own neat and clean, but plain, little cotton frock.
"Well, perhaps there will be only one person beside yourself," said
Margaret, turning aside her long neck to catch a glimpse of the shining
coils behind. "And I don't know that it matters--it is only Sir Philip
Ashley."
"Oh, I remember him. He was here when we came back from Brighton."
"He is often here."
"What lovely flowers!" Janetta exclaimed, rather to break a pause that
followed than because she had looked particularly at a bouquet that
filled a large white vase on a table. But the flowers really were
lovely, and Margaret's face expressed some satisfaction. "Did they come
out of your garden?"
"No, Sir Philip sent them."
"Oh, how nice!" said Janetta. But she was a little surprised too. Had
not the Adairs plenty of flowers without receiving contributions from
Sir Philip's conservatories?
"And you have a dog, Margaret?"--as a pretty little white Esquimaux dog
came trotting into the room. "What a darling! with a silver collar,
too!"
"Yes, I like a white dog," said Margaret, tranquilly. "Mamma's poodle
snaps at strangers, so Sir Philip thought that it would be better for me
to have a dog of my own."
Sir Philip again! Janetta felt as if she must ask another question or
two, especially when she saw that her friend's white eyelids had been
lowered, and that a delicate flush was mantling the whiteness of her
cheek; but she paused, scarcely knowing how to begin; and in the pause,
the gong for luncheon sounded, and she was (somewhat hastily, she
fancied) led downstairs.
Lady Caroline and Mr. Adair received their visitor with great civility.
Sir Philip came forward to give her a very kindly greeting. Their
behavior was so cordial that Janetta could hardly believe that she had
doubted their liking for her. She was not experienced enough as yet to
see that all this apparent friendliness did not mean anything but the
world's way of making things pleasant all round. She accepted her host's
attentions with simple pleasure, and responded to his airy talk so
brightly that he lost no time in assuring his wife after luncheon that
his daughter's friend was really "a very nice little girl."
After luncheon, Janetta thought at first that she was again going to be
defrauded of a talk with her friend. Margaret was taken possession of by
Sir Philip, and walked away with him into a conservatory to gather a
flower; Mr. Adair disappeared, and Janetta was left for a few moments'
conversation with Lady Caroline. Needless to remark, Lady Caroline had
planned this little interview; she had one or two things that she wanted
to say to Miss Colwyn. And she really did feel kindly towards the girl,
because--after all--she was Margaret's friend, and the mother was ready
to allow Margaret her own way to a very great extent.
"Dear Miss Colwyn," she began, "I have been so sorry that we could not
see more of you while our poor Margaret was ill. _Now_ I hope things
will be different."
Janetta remarked that Lady Caroline was very kind.
"I have been thinking of a method by which I hoped to bring you together
a little more--after the holidays. Of course we are going away very soon
now--to Scotland; and we shall probably not return until October; but
when that time comes--my dear Miss Colwyn, I am sure you will not be
offended by the question I am going to ask?"
"Oh, no," said Janetta, hastily.
"Are you intending to give any singing or music lessons in the
neighborhood?"
"If I can get any pupils, I shall be only too glad to do so."
"Then _will_ you begin with dear Margaret?"
"Margaret?" said Janetta, in some astonishment. "But Margaret has had
the same teaching that I have had, exactly!"
"She needs somebody to help her. She has not your talent or your
perseverance. And she would so much enjoy singing with you. I trust that
you will not refuse us, Miss Colwyn."
"I shall be very glad to do anything that I can for Margaret," said
Janetta, flushing.
"Thank you so much. Once a week then--when we come back again. And about
terms----"
"Oh, Lady Caroline, I shall be only too glad to sing with Margaret at
any time without----"
"Without any talk about terms?" said Lady Caroline, with a charming
smile of comprehension. "But that, my dear, I could not possibly
allow. No, we must conduct the matter on strictly business-like
principles, or Mr. Adair would be very much displeased with me. Suppose
we say----" And she went on to suggest terms which Janetta was too much
confused to consider very attentively, and agreed to at once. It was only
afterwards that she discovered that they were lower than any which she
should ever have thought of suggesting for herself, and that she should
have to blush for Lady Caroline's meanness in mentioning them to her
father! But at present she saw nothing amiss.
Lady Caroline went on smoothly. "I want her to make the most of her
time, because she may not be able to study up by-and-bye. She will come
out this winter, and I shall take her to town in the spring. I do not
suppose that I shall ever have another opportunity--if, at least, she
marries as early as she seems likely to do."
"Margaret! Marry!" ejaculated Janetta. She had scarcely thought of such
a possibility.
"It is exceedingly probable," said Lady Caroline, rather coldly, "that
she will marry Sir Philip Ashley. It is a perfectly suitable alliance."
It sounded as if she spoke of a royal marriage!
CHAPTER XI.
JANETTA'S PROMISES.
"But please," Lady Caroline proceeded, "do not mention what I have said
to anyone, least of all to Margaret. She is so sensitive that I should
not like her to know what I have said."
"I will not say anything," said Janetta.
And then Lady Caroline's desire for conversation seemed to cease. She
proposed that they should go in search of her daughter, and Janetta
followed her to the conservatory in some trouble and perplexity of mind.
It struck her that Margaret was not looking very well pleased when they
arrived--perhaps, she thought, because of their appearance--and that Sir
Philip had a very lover-like air. He was bending forward a little to
take a white flower from Margaret's hand, and Janetta could not help a
momentary smile when she saw the expression of his face. The earnest
dark eyes were full of tenderness, which possibly he did not wish to
conceal. Janetta could never doubt but that he loved her "rare pale
Margaret" from the very bottom of his heart.
The two moved apart as Lady Caroline and Janetta came in. Lady Caroline
advanced to Sir Philip and walked away with him, while Margaret laid her
hand on Janetta's arm and led her off to her own sitting-room. She
scarcely spoke until they were safely ensconced there together and then,
with a half-pouting, mutinous expression on her softly flushed face--
"Janetta," she began, "there is something I must tell you."
"Yes, dear?"
"You saw Sir Philip in the conservatory?"
"Yes."
"I can't think why he is so foolish," said Margaret; "but actually,
Janetta--he wants to marry me."
"Am I to call him foolish for that?"
"Yes, certainly. I am too young. I want to see a little more of the
world. He is not at all the sort of man that I want to marry."
"Why not?" said Janetta, after waiting a little while.
"Oh," said Margaret, with an intonation that--for her--was almost
petulant; "he is so absurdly suitable!"
"_Absurdly_ suitable, dear Margaret?"
"Yes. Everything is so neatly arranged for us. He is the right age, he
has the right income, the right views, the right character--he is
even"--said Margaret, with increasing indignation--"even the right
_height_! It is absurd. I am not to have any will of my own in the
matter, because it is all so beautifully suitable. I am to be disposed
of like a slave!"
Here was indeed a new note of rebellion.
"Your father and mother would never make you marry a man whom you did
not like," said Janetta, a little doubtfully.
"I don't know. Papa would not; but mamma!----I am afraid mamma will try.
And it is very hard to do what mamma does not like."
"But you could explain to her----"
"I have nothing to explain," said Margaret, arching her delicate brows.
"I like Sir Philip very well. I respect him very much. I think his house
and his position would suit me exceedingly well; and yet I do not want
to marry him. It is so unreasonable of me, mamma says. And I feel that
it is; and yet--what can I do?"
"There is--nobody--else?" hazarded Janetta.
Margaret opened her lovely eyes to their fullest extent.
"Dearest Janetta, who else could there be? Who else have I seen? I have
been kept in the schoolroom until now--when I am to be married to this
most suitable man! Now, confess, Janetta, would you like it? Do your
people want to marry you to anybody?"
"No, indeed," said Janetta, smiling. "Nobody has expressed any desire
that way. But really I don't know what to say, Margaret; because Sir
Philip does seem so perfectly suitable--and you say you like him?"
"Yes, but I only like him; I don't love him." Margaret leaned back in
her chair, crossed her hands behind her golden head, and looked dreamily
at the opposite wall. "You know I think one ought to love the man one
marries--don't you think so? I have always thought of loving once and
once only--like Paul and Virginia, you know, or even Romeo and
Juliet--and of giving _all_ for love! That would be beautiful!"
"Yes, it would. But it would be very hard too," said Janetta, thinking
how lovely Margaret looked, and what a heroine of romance--what a
princess of dreams--she would surely be some day. And she, poor, plain,
brown, little Janetta! There was probably no romance in store for her at
all.
But Life holds many secrets in her hand; and perhaps it was Janetta and
not Margaret for whom a romance was yet in store.
"Hard? Do you call it hard?" Margaret asked, with a curiously exalted
expression, like that of a saint absorbed in mystic joys. "It would be
most easy, Janetta, to give up everything for love."
"I don't know," said Janetta--for once unsympathetic. "Giving up
everything means a great deal. Would you like to go away from Helmsley
Court, for instance, and live in a dingy street with no lady's
maid--only a servant of all-work--on three hundred a year?"
"I think I could do anything for a man whom I loved," sighed Margaret;
"but I cannot feel as if I should ever care enough for Sir Philip Ashley
to do it for him."
"What sort of a man would you prefer for a husband, then?" asked
Janetta.
"Oh, a man with a history. A man about whom there hung a melancholy
interest--a man like Rochester in 'Jane Eyre'----"
"Not a very good-tempered person, I'm afraid!"
"Oh, who cares about good temper?"
"I do, for one. Really, Margaret, you draw a picture which is just like
my cousin, Wyvis Brand."
Janetta was sorry when she had said the words. Margaret's arms came down
from behind her head, and her eyes were turned to her friend's face with
an immediate awakening of interest.
"Mr. Brand, of Brand Hall, you mean? I remember you told me that he was
your cousin. So you have met him? And he is like Rochester?"
"I did not say that exactly," said Janetta, becoming provoked with
herself. "I only said that you spoke of a rather melancholy sort of
man, with a bad temper, and I thought that the description applied very
well to Mr. Brand."
"What is he like? Dark?"
"Yes."
"Handsome?"
"I suppose so. I do not like any face, however handsome, that is
disfigured by a scowl."
"Oh, Janetta, how charming! Tell me some more about him; I am so much
interested."
"Margaret, don't be silly! Wyvis Brand is a very disagreeable man--not a
good man either, I believe--and I hope you will never know him."
"On the contrary," said Margaret, with a new wilful light in her eyes,
"I intend mamma to call."
"Lady Caroline will be too wise."
"Why should people not call upon the Brands? I hear the same story
everywhere--'Oh, no, we do not intend to call.' Is there really anything
wrong about them?"
Janetta felt some embarrassment. Had not she put nearly the same
question to her own father the night before? But she could not tell
Margaret Adair what her father had said to her.
"If there were--and I do not know that there is--you could hardly expect
me to talk about it, Margaret," she said, with some dignity.
Margaret's good breeding came to her aid at once. "I beg your pardon,
dear Janetta. I was talking carelessly. I will say no more about the
Brands. But I must remark that it was _you_ who piqued my curiosity.
Otherwise there is nothing extraordinary in the fact of two young men
settling down with their mother in a country house, is there?"
"Nothing at all."
"And I am not likely to see anything of them. But, Janetta," said
Margaret, reverting to her own affairs, "you do not sympathize with me
as I thought you would. Would not you think it wrong to marry where you
did not love? Seriously, Janetta?"
"Yes, seriously, I should," said Janetta, her face growing graver, and
her eyes lighting up. "It is a profanation of marriage to take for your
husband a man whom you don't love with your whole heart. Oh, yes,
Margaret, you are quite, quite right in that--but I am sorry too,
because Sir Philip seems so nice."
"And, Janetta, dear, you will help me, will you not?"
"Whenever I can, Margaret? But what can I do for you?"
"You can help me in many ways, Janetta. You don't know how hard it is
sometimes"--and Margaret's face resumed a wistful, troubled look. "Mamma
is so kind; but she wants me sometimes to do things that I do not like,
and she is so _surprised_ when I do not wish to do them."
"You will make her understand in time," said Janetta, almost
reverentially. Her ardent soul was thrilled with the conception of the
true state of things as she imagined it; of Margaret's pure, sweet
nature being dragged down to Lady Caroline's level of artificial
worldliness. For, notwithstanding all Lady Caroline's gentleness of
manner, Janetta was beginning to find her out. She began to see that
this extreme softness and suavity covered a very persistent will, and
that it was Lady Caroline who ruled the house and the family with an
iron hand in a velvet glove.
"I am afraid not," said Margaret, submissively. "She is so much more
determined than I am. Neither papa nor I could ever do anything against
her. And in most things I like her to manage for me. But not my
marriage!"
"No, indeed."
"Will you stand by me, Janetta, dear?"
"Always, Margaret."
"You will always be my friend?"
"Always dear."
"You make me feel strong when you say 'always' so earnestly, Janetta."
"Because I believe," said Janetta, quickly, "that friendship is as
strong a tie as any in the world. I don't think it ought to be any less
binding than the tie between sisters, between parents and child,
even"--and her voice dropped a little--"even between husband and wife. I
have heard it suggested that there should be a ceremony--a sort of
form--for the making of a friendship as there is for other relations in
life; a vow of truth and fidelity which two friends could promise to
observe. Don't you think that it would be rather a useless thing, even
if the thought is a pretty one? Because we make and keep or break our
vows in our own heart, and no promise would bind us more than our own
hearts can do."
"I hope yours binds you to me, Janetta?" said Margaret, half playfully,
half sadly.
"It does, indeed."
And then the two girls kissed each other after the manner of impulsive
and affectionate girls, and Margaret wiped away a tear that had gathered
in the corner of her eye. Her face soon became as tranquil as ever; but
Janetta's brow remained grave, her lips firmly pressed together long
after Margaret seemed to have forgotten what had been said.
Things went deeper with Janetta than with Margaret. Girlish and
unpractical as some of their speeches may appear, they were spoken or
listened to by Janetta with the utmost seriousness. She was not of a
nature to take things lightly. And during the pause that followed the
conversation about friendship, she was mentally registering a very
serious and earnest resolution, worthy indeed of being ranked as the
promise or the vow of which she spoke, that she would always remain
Margaret's true and faithful friend, in spite of all the chances and
changes of this transitory world. A youthful foolish thing to do,
perhaps; but the world is so constituted that the things done or said by
very young and even very foolish persons sometimes dominate the whole
lives of much older and wiser persons. And more came out of that silent
vow of Janetta's than even she anticipated.
The rest of the day was very delightful to her. She and Margaret were
left almost entirely to themselves, and they formed a dozen plans for
the winter when Margaret should be back again and could resume her
musical studies. Janetta tried to express her natural reluctance at the
thought of giving lessons to her old school-companion, but Margaret
laughed her to scorn. "As if you could not teach me?" she said. "Why, I
know nothing about the theory of music--nothing at all. And you were far
ahead of anybody at Miss Polehampton's! You will soon have dozens of
pupils, Janetta. I expect all Beaminster to be flocking to you before
long."
She did not say, but it crossed her mind that the fact of _her_ taking
lessons from Janetta would probably serve as a very good advertisement.
For Miss Adair was herself fairly proficient in the worldly wisdom which
did not at all gratify her when exhibited by her mother.
Janetta was sent home in the gathering twilight with a delightfully
satisfied feeling. She was sure that Margaret's friendship was as
faithful as her own. And why should there not be two women as faithful
to each other in friendship as ever Damon and Pythias, David and
Jonathan, had been of old? "Margaret will always be her own sweet,
high-souled self," Janetta mused. "It is I who may perhaps fall away
from my ideal--I hope not; oh, I hope not! I hope that I shall always be
faithful and true!"
There was a very tender look upon her face as she sat in Lady Caroline's
victoria, her hands clasped together upon her lap, her mouth firmly
closed, her eyes wistful. The expression was so lovely that it
beautified the whole of her face, which was not in itself strictly
handsome, but capable of as many changes as an April day. She was so
deeply absorbed in thought that she did not see a gentleman lift his hat
to her in passing. It was Cuthbert Brand, and when the carriage had
passed him he stood still for a moment and looked back at it.
"I should like to paint that girl's face," he said to himself. "There is
soul in it--character--passion. Her sister is prettier by far; but I
doubt whether she is capable of so much."
But the exalted beauty had faded away by the time Janetta reached her
home, and when she entered the house she was again the bright, sensible,
energetic, and affectionate sister and daughter that they all knew and
loved: no great beauty, no genius, no saint, but a generous-hearted
English girl, who tried to do her duty and to love her neighbor as
herself.
Her father met her in the hall.
"Here you are," he said. "I hardly expected you home as yet. Everybody
is out, so you must tell _me_ your experiences and adventures if you
have any to tell."
"I have not many," said Janetta, brightly. "Only everybody has been
very, very kind."
"I'm glad to hear of it; but I should be surprised if people were not
kind to my Janet."
"Nobody is half so kind as you are," said Janetta, fondly. "Have you
been very busy to-day, father?"
"Very, dear. And I have been to Brand Hall."
He drew her inside his consulting-room as he spoke. It was a little room
near the hall-door, opposite the dining-room. Janetta did not often go
there, and felt as if some rather serious communication were to be made.
"Did you see the little boy, father?"
"Yes--and his grandmother."
"And may I go to see Mrs. Brand?"
Mr. Colwyn paused for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was broken
by some emotion. "If you can do anything to help and comfort that poor
woman, my Janet," he said at length, "God forbid that I should ever
hinder you! I will not heed what the world says in face of sorrow such
as she has known. Do what you can for her."
"I will, father; I promise you I will."
"It is the second promise that I have made to-day," said Janetta, rather
thoughtfully, as she was undressing herself that night; "and each of
them turns on the same subject--on being a friend to some one who needs
friendship. The vocation of some women is to be a loving daughter, a
true wife, or a good mother; mine, perhaps, is to be above everything
else a true friend. I don't think my promises will be hard to keep!"
But even Janetta, in her wisdom, could not foresee what was yet to come.
CHAPTER XII.
JANETTA REMONSTRATES.
It was with a beating heart that Janetta, a few days later, crossed once
more the threshold of her cousin's house. Her father's words about Mrs.
Brand had impressed her rather painfully, and she felt some shyness and
constraint at the thought of the reason which he had given her for
coming. How she was to set about helping or comforting Mrs. Brand she
had not the least idea.
These thoughts were, however, put to flight by an un-looked-for scene,
which broke upon her sight as she entered the hall. This hall had to be
crossed before any of the other rooms could be reached; it was
low-ceiled, paneled in oak, and lighted by rather small windows, with
stained glass in the lower panes. Like most rooms in the house it had a
gloomy look, which was not relieved by the square of faded Turkey
carpet in the centre of the black polished boards of the floor, or by
the half-dozen dusky portraits in oak frames which garnished the walls.
When Janetta was ushered in she found this ante-room or entrance chamber
occupied by three persons and a child. These, as she speedily found,
consisted of Wyvis Brand and his little boy, and two gentlemen, one of
whom was laughing immoderately, while the other was leaning over the
back of the chair and addressing little Julian.
Janetta halted for a moment, for the old servant who had admitted her
seemed to think that his work was done when he had uttered her name, and
had already retreated; and his voice being exceedingly feeble, the
announcement had passed unnoticed by the majority of the persons
present, if not by all. Wyvis Brand had perhaps seen her, for his eyes
were keen, and the shadow in which she stood was not likely to veil her
from his sight; but he gave no sign of being conscious of her presence.
He was standing with his back to the mantel-piece, his arms crossed
behind his head; there was a curious expression on his face, half-smile,
half-sneer, but it was evident that he was merely looking and listening,
not interfering with what was going on.
It needed only a glance to see that little Julian was in a state of
extraordinary excitement. His face was crimson, his eyes were sparkling
and yet full of tears; his legs were planted sturdily apart, and his
hands were clenched. His head was drawn back, and his whole body also
seemed as if it wanted to recoil, but placed as he was against a strong
oaken table he could evidently go back no further. The gentleman on the
chair was offering him something--Janetta could not at first see
what--and the boy was vehemently resisting.
"I won't have it! I won't have it!" he was crying, with the whole force
of his lungs. "I won't touch it! Take the nasty stuff away!"
Janetta wondered whether it were medicine he was refusing, and why his
father did not insist upon obedience. But Wyvis Brand, still standing by
the mantel-piece, only laughed aloud.
"No shirking! Drink it up!" said the strange gentleman, in what Janetta
thought a curiously unpleasant voice. "Come, come, it will make a man of
you----"
"I don't want to be made a man of! I won't touch it! I promised I never
would! You can't make me!"
"You must be taught not to make rash promises," said the man, laughing.
"Come now----"
But little Julian had suddenly caught sight of Janetta's figure at the
door, and with a great bound he escaped from his tormentor and flung
himself upon her, burying his face in her dress, and clutching its folds
as if he would never let them go.
"It's the lady! the lady!" he gasped out. "Oh, please don't let them
make me drink it! Indeed, I promised not."
Janetta came forward a little, and at her appearance every one looked
more or less discomfited. The gentleman on the chair she recognized as a
Mr. Strangways, a man of notoriously evil life, who had a house near
Beaminster, and was generally shunned by respectable people in the
neighborhood. He started up, and looked at her with what she felt to be
a rather insolent gaze. Wyvis Brand stood erect, and looked sullen. The
other gentleman, who was a stranger, rose from his chair in a civiller
manner than his friend had done.
Janetta put her arms round the little fellow, and turned a rather
bewildered face towards Mr. Brand. "Was it--was it--medicine?" she
asked.
"Of a kind," said Wyvis, with a laugh.
"It was brandy--_eau-de-vie_--horrid hot stuff that _maman_ used to
drink," said little Julian, with a burst of angry sobs, "and I promised
not--I promised old Susan that I never would!"
"It was only a joke," said the master of the house, coming forward now,
and anxious perhaps to avert the storm threatened by a sudden indignant
flash of Janetta's great dark eyes. "We were not in earnest of course."
(A smothered laugh and ejaculation from Mr. Strangways passed without
notice.) "The boy does not know how to take a joke--he's a milksop."
"I'm not! I'm not!" said little Julian, still struggling with violent
sobs. "I'm not a milksop! Oh, say that I'm not! Do tell father that I'm
not--not---
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