During those quiet days of Lucille’s convalescence, the girl whom she has rescued from ignorance and destitution was almost always in her company. It was in vain that Miss Marjoram prophesied dismally upon the evil consequences of this familiarity. The girl behaved so well that it was difficult to object to her presence. She was so eager to learn, that it would have seemed in the last degree illiberal to withhold knowledge. And it was the higher order of knowledge for which this virgin mind thirsted. When Lucille read passages of Milton or Shakespeare, Elizabeth listened enthralled. That story of Hamlet — that passionate tragedy of Romeo and Juliet — how deep was the magic of these to the listener, whose imagination, for the first time, beheld that awful picture of Hamlet and the Ghost, or glowed with delight at the image of Juliet bending from her balcony to whisper to her lover in. the sweet silence of the Italian midnight! To be eighteen, intelligent, of an impassioned temperament, and to hear those stories for the first time! What could surpass that rapture? To hear them, seated in an Italian garden, steeped in the perfume of countless roses, warmed to the very heart’s core by the sunshine of July! And a few weeks ago this girl had lived in a loathsome alley, polluted with unspeakable foulness, clamorous with rough riot and vilest speech.
Against these Shakesperean studies, this introduction of the gutter-bred girl to the sublimest heights of imaginative literature, Miss Marjoram protested vehemently.
‘What do you mean to make of her?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you see that you are spoiling her for domestic service by trying to give her these elevated tastes?’
‘I am not trying,’ answered Lucille. ‘Elevated taste is as natural to her as his song is to the thrush. Can’t you see that God created her full of imagination and cleverness, and that she has only been waiting the opportunity of development? She need not spend her life in domestic service. She takes so kindly to education that I shall teach her all I can; and I know you will help me, dear Marjy, and by-and-by we shall find plenty of use for her intelligence. It you will only take her in hand, she may some day earn her living by teaching others, as honourably as you have done for the last twenty years.’
This argument was unanswerable, and the softened Marjorum replied gently,
‘You forget, my dear, that it is not every one who has the teacher’s capacity. The power to impart information is a peculiar gift. This girl may be quick in picking up ideas, in a superficial sort of way; but I doubt if she possesses any of the solid qualities which go to make a competent instructress of youth.’
‘Only try your hand upon her, Marjy dear. I’m sure you could make something out of a black girl from Otaheite.’
Marjoram, thus flattered and caressed into compliance by the pupil whom she fondly loved, and in whose married home she hoped by-and-by to make her nest, allowed her prejudices to be lulled to sleep. She took Elizabeth in hand, and put her through a severe educational process for a space of three hours daily; and once having put her hand to the plough, Miss Marjorum drove her furrow vigorously. She was glad to have an occasion for the bringing forth of that educational machinery which Lucille had outgrown and done with. The equator, Lindley Murray, latitude and longitude, the sidereal heavens, the earth’s formation, the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, were all brought into play. Elizabeth laboured and learned obediently, indefatigably. It was dryasdust work; but her benefactress wished her so to learn; and she never faltered, any more than she had faltered when Tompion introduced her to the feminine art of needlework by making her sew interminable seams in the stiffest calico.
When her morning studies were over Elizabeth had her reward in an afternoon and evening given to music, art, and poetry. Her mind grew and widened under this double tuition. The knowledge of dry hard facts helped her to a higher appreciation of poetry. Never, perhaps, did education proceed so quickly.
And now Lucille was so far recovered that the doctor declared she needed only a change to sea air to become as strong and well as she had been before that fatal May morning; so Miss Marjorum was despatched to Weymouth, attended by the under-butler, to find a furnished house facing the sea; and having selected one particular house, distinguishable only by its superior freshness and purity of furniture and. decoration, from a terrace of houses all exactly alike, Miss Marjorum telegraphed the accomplishment of her mission; whereupon Lord Ingleshaw himself escorted his daughter to Weymouth, attended by Tompion and Eliza beth May, who travelled together in a second-class carriage, an opportunity which Tompion improved by various remarks upon favourites, flatterers, and sycophants in the abstract, and of the brief tenure of favour usually enjoyed by such persons; all of which sententious utterances Elizabeth heard with the calm smile of scorn, feeling herself as much superior to Tompion as she knew herself inferior to Lady Lucille.
Lord Ingleshaw spent a few days with his daughter, who was now in such perfect health and spirits that this change of air prescribed by the doctor seemed a mere formula. They drove about the shady rustic roads, sailed on the summer sea, explored the arid heights of Portland, drank of the Wishing-well, admired the White Horse, and thoroughly enjoyed life in this calm restful fashion. And then Lord Ingleshaw departed on a visit to a friend in the North, where there was to be great slaughter of grouse a little later on.
‘I daresay Bruno will be running down to have a peep at you,’ he said on the morning he left Weymouth. ‘I have give him permission to come.’
Lucille blushed and sparkled, and kissed her father by way of answer. She had been longing to see her lover for the last month. He had written to her daily, but she had been. forbidden to answer his letters, which seemed a hard thing. He had sent her books, music, trifles of every kind calculated to beguile the tedium of illness, and she had only been allowed to thank him through that stately medium, Miss Marjorum. She had not been allowed to look at the letter which conveyed her gratitude, lest scarlet fever should be transmitted by a look.
And now he was coming, he was coming! She could have shouted for joy. Tremulous with hope and gladness, she stood on the balcony overhanging the bright picturesque bay, and looked along the parade for that gracious fly which should convey Mr. Challoner and his portmanteau from the station. The Italian band was playing Don Giovanni below her windows — melodies brimming over with joyous love, like that which filled her soul.
‘Surely, my dear Lucille, you are going for a walk or a drive this delightful morning!’ said Marjorum, coning in from the back drawing-room, where Elizabeth sat meekly writing out a page of grammatical analysis, with the laborious slowness of one to whom penmanship and grammar were new arts.
‘No, Marjy dearest, not to-day. I am watching for Bruno,’ answered Lucille from the balcony.
‘Deh, vieni alla finestra,’ played the band below, while the happy bathers splashed and bounded in the blue water beyond that crescent of yellow sand.
‘But, my dear Lucille, you have no justification for expecting him this morning, or even to-day,’ expostulated Miss Marjorum. ‘His lordship merely stated, as a general fact, that Mr. Challoner was now at liberty to pay you a visit.’
‘And do you think he will not come directly he is free? ‘exclaimed Lucille. ‘Would I not go to him — like an arrow from a bow — if I were told I might go? I expect him this instant.’
‘You will, at least, allow that he can hardly come until the train bring him, and there is none due till half-past three.’
‘How horribly matter-of-fact you are!’ cried Lucille. No, I suppose he would come by train. Post-horses would be slower, and balloons are so erratic. Please give me the time-table.’
She ran rapidly over that bewildering document.
‘No, I can’t make out anything. My brain is in a whirl. The trains seem to go everywhere except to this place. Yes, here is the column at last. Weymouth — Weymouth! No; not till half-past three. How horrible!’
‘Had you not better go for a nice country drive?’ suggested Miss Marjorum.’ It would divert your mind.’
‘Nothing les
s than an earthquake would divert my mind,’ retorted Lucille impatiently.’ I don’t believe in your time-table. I’ll go and sit on the beach, if you like; but I shall be expecting Bruno every instant. Has Elizabeth finished her lessons?’
Miss Marjorum inspected the page of analysis in the stiff newly-acquired round-hand, looking down at the exercise majestically over Elizabeth’s shoulder.
‘Yes, she has just finished.’
‘Then she can come with me,’ said Lucille, putting on her hat and gloves, and taking up a volume of Shakespeare. Bring your work, Lizzie, and come and sit on the beach.’
Elizabeth ran off to put on her hat, and returned in two minutes, the image of propriety, in her neat-fitting black cashmere gown, linen collar, and small black straw hat. She carried a basket containing an antimacassar, for she had already advanced from endless calico seams to high-art needlework.
The two girls tripped lightly down to the beach, away whom the bathers and the children, to a spot that was almost secluded, though the confined limits of the bay do not give much opportunity for seclusion. They found an empty boat which helped to screen them from the rest of the world, and, seated in its shadow, Lucille opened her Shakespeare.
‘I am going to read to you, Lizzie. Shall it be Romeo and Juliet?’
‘Whatever you like, Lady Lucille.’
Lucille began at the ballroom scene, the dawn of Juliet’s love, and went on, skipping a scene here and there, to the balcony scene. She had nearly finished this when there came a step upon the loose pebbles of the beach, and she dropped the book suddenly, and rose to her feet.
Yes, it was Bruno. She would have known his step among a, thousand. Another moment, and she was clasped to his breast, still sheltered by that friendly boat, while Elizabeth walked away discreetly, leaving the lovers to themselves for a little while. There is a universal etiquette in these thing, founded upon the universality of human nature, which prevails from Mayfair to Whitechapel.
‘My darling, how more than happy I am to be with you!’ exclaimed Bruno. ‘I never thought that I should live to consider it my greatest misfortune not to have had scarlet fever. My own one, do not think that it was my vile cowardice which parted us all this time. I had no fear of the fever. I would have watched by your pillow day and night, if I had been allowed. But I could not rebel against your father. I best proved my love of his daughter by obedience to him.’
‘I know, Bruno. I have never doubted your unselfishness or your love. But it has been a long parting. I did not think it possible days and hours could seem so long,’ said Lucille naïvely.
‘Be assured, they have not seemed longer to you than they have been to me, love. And now let us sit side by side, and you shall tell me all you have to tell, Thank God you are well again — the very image of blooming health — and lovelier than ever!’
‘But how did you get here, Bruno? Marjy and I examined the time-table; there was no train due till half-past three.’
‘Perhaps you only looked at one time-table. I came by the Great Western.’
‘What, are there two railways? How sweet of the Great Western to bring you ever so much sooner than I hoped!’
And then they gave themselves up to lovers’ talk, which must seem mere drivel, sheer imbecility, if set down formally in black and white, but which was full of deepest meaning for these two. They sat under the hull of the big lubberly fishing-boat, and told each other all they had thought, and. felt, and suffered during the weary time of severance.
Elizabeth strolled upon the beach a little way off, within call, should she be wanted. She looked back now and then at those two figures under the boat, but they gave no indication of wanting her, though she had been strolling up and down that stretch of sand and pebble for one slow sunny hour. For the first time since she had been at Weymouth she felt inexpressibly lonely; for the first time since she had seen the place, the beauty of that southern bay, shut in from the outer world by green headlands on one side and by Portland’s bold peninsula on the other, began to pall upon her. In a moment, as it were, her soul grew weary of blue sea and yellow sands, summer sky, undulating green hills, and all the glory and freshness of the summer day. What was it all to her, or to any lonely uncared-for creature, more than a picture on a wall — a thing in which she had no part?
‘Better to be in Ramshackle Court, where I had plenty of people of my own kind to talk to,’ she thought sullenly, when the second hour had begun, and the lovers still sat, absorbed, their heads bent towards each other, like flowers inclining on their stems. An hour ago she had been Lucille’s companion, and life had seemed full of interest. Now she was Lucille’s servant, a being quite remote from the young lady’s existence.
Nature had given this child of the gutter warm feelings — some good, some bad. Among the latter was jealousy, of which she had more than the common share. She almost hated Bruno for having banished her from Lady Lucille’s company. Yes, even Bruno, that demi-god, whose voice had tones which moved her almost to tears — whose eyes had glances that made her shrink and tremble.
Better to be among her own people, amidst filth and squalor, evil ways and evil language? No, that was a lunatic’s impulse. Could she, who had escaped from that pandemonium into the paradise of refinement and clean living, calmly contemplate the possibility of being flung back into that gulf of horror? No; a thousand times no. And yet, without sympathy, without the company of some one she loved and admired, the placid luxury of her present life was hateful to her. She had grown fastidious in this new atmosphere. Food and raiment, air and sunshine, comfort and shelter, were no longer all-sufficient for her. Heretofore in a life of perpetual want and difficulty the cravings of physical nature had been paramount. Now the spiritual nature predominated. The sharper pangs of heart hunger had begun.
At last, when she had grown as weary of that smiling summer scene as ever she had felt of those wet windy streets, along which she had toiled, drabbled and muddy, with her basket of sickly flowers, in the days of her slavery, Lucille and her lover rose and walked slowly across the sands towards that lonely figure.
‘We are going home, Elizabeth,’ said the lady. ‘It must be nearly time for luncheon.’
‘Nearly!’ exclaimed Bess. ‘It is half-past two. I heard the clock strike ever so long ago.’
‘Poor thing, why did you wait for me? I daresay you have been longing to go to your dinner,’ said Lucille compassionately. ‘I don’t care a straw about dinner,’ answered Bess contemptuously; ‘only — only I don’t like to be left and forgotten — as if — as if I was an umbrella.’
The delicate face flushed deepest carnation, and the large dark eyes sparkled with an angry fire, as the girl spoke. Bruno burst out laughing, moved by the absurdity of this outbreak of temper in a brand snatched from the burning.
‘I am sorry I forgot you,’ said Lucille gently, but with a gravity which reminded Bess of the gulf between them. ‘Mr. Challoner and I are going to luncheon. Take the books and the basket, please, and make haste back to your dinner.’
Lucille and her lover walked slowly towards the parade, leaving Bess to gather up the books and work-basket from under the lee of the boat.
‘A decided exhibition of the cloven foot,’ said Bruno, smiling. ‘I begin to think you’ve caught a Tartar, Lucille.’
‘She was never impertinent or ill-tempered before. I don’t understand it in the least.’
‘I’m afraid I do. You’ve heard the vulgar proverb about setting a beggar on horseback. You have been rather too indulgent with that young person, and she is beginning to give herself airs. May I inquire what is the position which she occupies in your household? Is she your companion, or your maid?’
‘She will be my maid by-and-by, when Tompion marries; and, in the meantime, Marjy and I are trying to educate her. She is so quick and intelligent that it is a pleasure to teach her.’
‘Is there not a fear that you may make her too clever for her place? Tompion never struck me as an intellectual
prodigy.’
‘Poor Tompion! she is very dull.’
‘Exactly, but an efficient servant.’
‘An excellent servant,’ admitted Lucille.
‘Which I fear this young person will never become under your present process. My darling, your sweetness is spoiling her. You have made her insolent already; and the next thing will be the necessity of her dismissal.’
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1107