Miss Pew laughed a loud ironical laugh, a laugh which froze the blood of all the seventeen-year-old pupils who were not without fear or reproach upon the subject of clandestine glances, little notes, or girlish carryings-on in the flirtation line.
‘Engaged?’ she exclaimed, in her stentorian voice, ‘That is really too good a joke. Engaged? Pray, which Mr. Brian Wendover is it?
‘Mr. Wendover of the Abbey.’
‘Mr. Wendover of the Abbey, the head of the Wendover family?’ cried Miss Pew. ‘And you would wish us to believe that Mr. Wendover, of Wendover Abbey — a gentleman with an estate worth something like seven thousand a year, young ladies — has engaged himself to the youngest of my pupil-teachers, whose acquaintance he has cultivated while trespassing on my meadow? Miss Palliser, when a gentleman of Mr. Wendover’s means and social status wishes to marry a young person in your position — a concatenation which occurs very rarely in the history of the human race — he comes to the hall door. Mr. Wendover no more means to marry you than he means to marry the moon. His views are of quite a different kind, and you know it.’
Ida cast a withering look at her tyrant, and moved quickly from her place.
‘You are a wretch to say such a thing to me,’ she cried passionately; ‘I will not stay another hour under your roof to be so insulted.’
‘No, you will not stay under my roof, Miss Palliser,’ retorted Miss Pew. ‘My mind was made up more than an hour ago on that point. You will not be allowed to stay in this house one minute longer than is needed for the packing up of your clothes, and that, I take it,’ added the schoolmistress, with an insolent laugh, ‘will not be a lengthy operation. You are expelled, Miss Palliser — expelled from this establishment for grossly improper conduct; and I am only sorry for your poor father’s sake that you will have to begin your career as a governess with disgrace attached to your name.’
‘There is no disgrace, except in your own foul mind,’ said Ida. ‘I can imagine that as nobody ever admired you or made love to you when you were young, you may have mistaken ideas as to the nature of lovers and love-making’ — despite the universal awe, this provoked a faint, irrepressible titter—’but it is hard that you should revenge your ignorance upon me. Mr. Wendover has never said a word to me which a gentleman should not say. Fräulein Wolf, who has heard his every word, knows that this is true.’
‘Fräulein will leave this house to-morrow, if she is not careful,’ said Miss Pew, who had, however, no intention of parting with so useful and cheap a teacher.
She could afford to revenge herself upon Ida, whose period of tutelage was nearly over.
‘Fräulein knows that Mr. Wendover speaks of our future as the future of man and wife.’
‘Ja wohl,’ murmured the Fräulein, ‘that is true; ganz und gan.’
‘I will not hear another word!’ cried Miss Pew, swelling with rage, while every thorn and berry on her autumnal cap quivered. ‘Ungrateful, impudent young woman! Leave my house instantly. I will not have these innocent girls perverted by your vile example. In speech and in conduct you are alike detestable.’
‘Good-bye, girls,’ cried Ida, lightly: ‘you all know how much harm my speech and my example have done you. Good-bye, Fräulein; don’t you be afraid of dismissal, — you are too well worth your salt.’
Polly Cobb, the brewer’s daughter, sat near the door by which Ida had to make her exit. She was quite the richest, and perhaps the best-natured girl in the school. She caught hold of Ida’s gown and thrust a little Russia-leather purse into her hand, with a tender squeeze.
‘Take it, dear,’ she whispered; ‘I don’t want it, I can get plenty more. Yes, yes, you must; you shall. I’ll make a row, and get myself into disgrace, if you refuse. You can’t go to France without money.’
‘God bless you, dear. I’ll send it you back,’ answered Ida.
‘Don’t; I shall hate you if you do.’
‘Is that young woman gone?’ demanded Miss Pew’s awful voice.
‘Going, going, gone!’ cried Miss Cobb, forgetting herself in her excitement, as the door closed behind Ida.
‘Who was that?’ roared Miss Pew.
Half a dozen informants pronounced Miss Cobb’s name.
Now Miss Cobb’s people were wealthy, and Miss Cobb had younger sisters, all coming on under a homely governess to that critical stage in which they would require the polishing processes of Mauleverer Manor: so Sarah Pew bridled her wrath, and said quietly —
‘Kindly reserve your jocosity for a more appropriate season, Miss Cobb.
Young ladies, you may proceed with your matutinal duties.’
CHAPTER VIII.
AT THE LOCK-HOUSE.
Miss Pew had argued rightly that the process of packing would not be a long one with Ida Palliser. The girl had come to Mauleverer with the smallest number of garments compatible with decency; and her stock had been but tardily and scantily replenished during her residence in that manorial abode. It was to her credit that she had contrived still to be clean, still to be neat, under such adverse conditions; it was Nature’s royal gift that she had looked grandly beautiful in the shabbiest gowns and mantles ever seen at Mauleverer.
She huddled her poor possessions into her solitary trunk — a battered hair trunk which had done duty ever since she came as a child from India. She put a few necessaries into a convenient morocco bag, which the girls in her class had clubbed their pocket-money to present to her on her last birthday; and then she washed the traces of angry tears from her face, put on her hat and jacket, and went downstairs, carrying her bag and umbrella.
One of the housemaids met her in the hall, a buxom, good-natured country girl.
‘Is it true that you are going to leave us, miss?’ she asked.
‘What! you all know it already?’ exclaimed Ida.
‘Everybody is talking about it, miss. The young ladies are all on your side; but they dare not speak up before Miss Pew.’
‘I suppose not. Yes, it is quite true; I am expelled, Eliza; sent out into the world without a character, because I allowed Mr. Wendover to walk and talk with the Fräulein and me for half an hour or so in the river-meadow! Mr. Wendover, my best, my only friend’s first cousin. Rather hard, isn’t it?’
Hard? it’s shameful,’ cried the girl. ‘I should like to see old Pew turning me off for keeping company with my young man. But she daren’t do it. Good servants are hard to get nowadays; or any servants, indeed, for the paltry wages she gives.’
‘And governesses are a drug in the market,’ said Ida, bitterly.
‘Good-bye, Eliza.’
‘Where are you going, miss? Home?’
‘Yes; I suppose so.’
The reckless tone, the careless words alarmed the good-hearted housemaid.
‘Oh, miss, pray go home, straight home — wherever your home is. You are too handsome to be going about alone among strangers. It’s a wicked world, miss — wickeder than you know of, perhaps. Have you got money enough to get you home comfortable?’
‘I’ll see,’ answered Ida, taking out Miss Cobb’s fat little purse and looking into it.
There were two sovereigns and a good deal of silver — a tremendous fortune for a schoolgirl; but then it was said that Cobb Brothers coined money by the useful art of brewing.
‘Yes; I have plenty of money for my journey,’ said Ida.
‘Are you certain sure, now, miss?’ pleaded the housemaid; ‘for if you ain’t, I’ve got a pound laid by in my drawer ready to put in the Post Office Savings Bank, and you’re as welcome to it as flowers in May, if you’ll take it off me.’
‘God bless you, Eliza. If I were in any want of money, I’d gladly borrow your sovereign; but Miss Cobb has lent me more than I want. Good-bye.’
Ida held out her hand, which the housemaid, after wiping her own paw upon her apron, clasped affectionately.
‘God bless you, Miss Palliser,’ she said fervently; ‘I shall miss the sight of your handsome face when I waits at table.’
>
A minute more and Ida stood in the broad carriage sweep, with her back to the stately old mansion which had sheltered her so long, and in which, despite her dependency and her poverty, she had known some light-hearted hours. Now, where was she to go? and what was she to do with her life? She stood with the autumn wind blowing about her — the fallen chestnut leaves drifting to her feet — pondering that question.
Was she or was she not Brian Wendover’s affianced wife? How far was she to trust in him, to lean upon him, in this crucial hour of her life? There had been so much playfulness in their love-making, his tone had been for the most part so light and sportive, that now, when she stood, as it were, face to face with destiny, she hardly knew how to think of him, whether as a rock that she might lean upon, or as a reed that would give way at her touch. Rock or reed, womanly instinct told her that it was not to this fervent admirer she must apply for aid or counsel yet awhile. Her duty was to go home at once — to get across the Channel, if possible, as quickly as Miss Pew’s letter to her father.
Intent on doing this, she walked along the dusty high road by the river, in the direction of the railway station. This station was more than two miles distant, a long, straight walk by the river, and then a mile or so across fields and by narrow lanes to an arid spot, where some newly-built houses were arising round a hopeless-looking little loop-line station in a desert of agricultural land.
She had walked about three-quarters of a mile, when she heard the rapid dip of oars, as if in pursuit of her, and a familiar voice calling to her.
It was Brian, who almost lived in his boat, and who had caught sight of her in the distance, and followed at racing speed.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, coming up close to the bank, and standing up in his boat. ‘Where are you going at such a pace? I don’t think I ever saw a woman walk so fast.’
‘Was I walking fast?’ she asked, unconscious of the impetus which excitement had given to her movements.
She knew in her heart of hearts that she did not love him — that love — the passion which she had read of in prose and poetry was still a stranger to her soul: but just at this Moment, galled and stung by Miss Pew’s unkindness, heart-sick at her own absolute desolation, the sound of his voice was sweet in her ears, the look of the tall slim figure, the friendly face turned towards her, was pleasant to her eyes. No, he was not a reed, he was a rock. She felt protected and comforted by his presence.
‘Were you walking fast! Galloping like a three-year-old — quæ velut latis equa trima campis,’ quoted Brian. ‘Are you running away from Mauleverer Manor?’
‘I am going away,’ she answered calmly. ‘I have been expelled.’
‘Ex — what?’ roared Brian.
‘I have been expelled — sent away at a minute’s notice — for the impropriety of my conduct in allowing you to talk to me in the river-meadow.’
Brian had been fastening his boat to a pollard willow as he talked. He leapt on to the bank, and came close to Ida’s side.
‘My darling, my dearest love, what a burning shame! What a villainous old hag that Pew woman must be! Bessie told me she was a Tartar, but this beats everything. Expelled! Your conduct impeached because you let me talk to you — I, Bessie’s cousin, a man who at the worst has some claim to be considered a gentleman, while you have the highest claim to be considered a lady. It is beyond all measure infamous.’
‘It was rather hard, was it not?’ said Ida quietly.
‘Abominable, insufferable! I — well. I’ll call upon the lady this afternoon, and make her acquainted with my sentiments upon the subject. The wicked old harridan.’
‘Please don’t,’ urged Ida, smiling at his wrath; ‘it doesn’t give me any consolation to hear you call her horrid names.’
‘Did you tell her that I had asked you to be my wife?’
‘I said something to that effect — in self-defence — not from any wish to commit you: and she told me that a man in your position, who intended to marry a girl in my position, would act in a very different manner from the way in which you have acted.’
‘Did she? She is a wise judge of human nature — and of a lover’s nature, above all. Well, Ida, dearest, we have only one course open to us, and that is to give her the lie at once — by our conduct. Deeds, not words, shall be our argument. You do care for me — just a little — don’t you, pet? just well enough to marry me? All the rest will come after?’
‘Whom else have I to care for?’ faltered Ida, with downcast eyes and passionately throbbing heart. ‘Who else has ever cared for me?’
‘I am answered. So long as I am the only one I will confide all the rest to Fate. We will be married to-morrow.’
‘To-morrow! No, no, no.’
‘Yes, yes, yes. What is there to hinder our immediate marriage? And what can be such a crushing answer to that old Jezebel! We will be married at the little church where I saw you last Sunday night, looking like St. Cecilia when you joined in the Psalms. We have been both living in the same parish for the last fortnight. I will run up to Doctors’ Commons this afternoon, bring back the licence, interview the parson, and have everything arranged for our being married at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.’
‘No, no, not for the world.’
For some time the girl was firm in her refusal of such a hasty union. She would not marry her lover except in the face of the world, with the full consent of his friends and her own. Her duty was to go by the first train and boat that would convey her to Dieppe, and to place herself in her father’s care.
‘Do you think your father would object to our marriage?’ asked Brian.
‘No, I am sure he would not object,’ she answered, smiling within herself at the question.
As if Captain Palliser, living upon his half-pay, and the occasional benefactions of a rich kinsman, could by any possibility object to a match that would make his daughter mistress of Wendover Abbey!
‘Then why delay our marriage, in order to formally obtain a consent which you are sure of beforehand! As for my friends, Bessie’s people are the nearest and dearest, and you know what their feelings are on your behalf.’
‘Bessie likes me as her friend. I don’t know how she might like me as her cousin’s wife,’ said Ida.
‘Then I will settle your doubts by telling you a little secret. Bessie sent me here to try and win you for my wife. It was her desire as well as mine.’
More arguments followed, and against the lover’s ardent pleading there was only a vague idea of duty in the girl’s mind, somewhat weakened by an instinctive notion that her father would think her an arrant fool for delaying so grand a triumph as her marriage with a man of fortune and position. Had he not often spoken to her wistfully of her beauty, and the dim hope that her handsome face might some day win her a rich husband?
‘It’s a poor chance at the best,’ he told her. ‘The days of the Miss Gunnings have gone by. The world has grown commercial. Nowadays money marries money.’
And this chance, which her father had speculated upon despondently as a remote contingency, was now at her feet. Was she to spurn it, and then go back to the shabby little villa near Dieppe, and expect to be praised for her filial duty?
While she wavered, Brian urged every argument which a lover could bring to aid his suit. To-morrow they might be married, and in the meanwhile Ida could be safely and comfortably housed with the good woman at the lock-house. Brian would give up his lodgings to her, and would stay at the hotel at Chertsey. Ida listened, and hesitated: before her lay the dry, dusty road, the solitary journey by land and sea, the doubtful welcome at home. And here by her side stood the wealthy lover, the very embodiment of protecting power — is not every girl’s first lover in her eyes as Olympian Jove? — eager to take upon himself the burden of her life, to make her footsteps easy.
‘Step into the boat, dearest,’ he said; ‘I know your heart has decided for me. You are not afraid to trust me, Ida?’
‘Afraid? no,’ she answered, frank
ly, looking at him with heavenly confidence in her large dark eyes; ‘I am only afraid of doing wrong.’
‘You can do no wrong with me by your side, your husband to-morrow, responsible for all the rest of your existence.’
‘True, after to-morrow I shall be accountable to no one but you,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘How strange it seems!’
‘At the worst, I hope you will find me better than old Pew,’ answered
Brian, lightly.
‘You are too good — too generous,’ she said; ‘but I am afraid you are acting too much from impulse. Have you considered what you are going to do? have you thought what it is to marry a penniless girl, who can give you none of the things which the world cares for in exchange for your devotion?’
‘I have thought what it is to marry the woman I fondly love, the loveliest girl these eyes ever looked upon. Step into my boat, Ida; I must row you up to the lock, and then start for London by the first train I can catch. I don’t know how early the licence-shop closes.’
She obeyed him, and sank into a seat in the stern of the cockle-shell craft, exhausted, mentally and physically, by the agitation of the last two hours, She felt an unspeakable relief in sitting quietly in the boat, the water rippling gently past, like a lullaby, the rushes and willows waving in the mild western breeze. Henceforth she had little to do in life but to be cared for and cherished by an all-powerful lord and master. Wealth to her mind meant power; and this devoted lover was rich. Fate had been infinitely kind to her.
It was a lovely October morning, warm and bright as August. The river banks still seemed to wear their summer green, the blue bright water reflected the cloudless blue above. The bells were ringing for a saint’s-day service as Brian’s boat shot past the water-side village, with its old square-towered church. All the world had a happy look, as if it smiled at Ida and her choice.
They moved with an easy motion past the pastoral banks, here and there a villa garden, here and there a rustic inn, and so beneath Chertsey’s wooded heights to the level fields beyond, and to a spot where the Thames and the Abbey River made a loop round a verdant little marshy island; and here was the silvery weir, brawling noisily in its ceaseless fall, and the lockhouse, where Mr. Wendover had lodgings.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 801