She received a summons to the library soon after breakfast next morning; and, for the second time in her life, she found herself alone with Lord Ingleshaw. He had heard her story from Bruno. He reproved her gently for her want of candour about Tom Brook.
‘You told me a falsehood’ he said, ‘when truth would have served your purpose much better: and I hardly know whether I ought to believe you now.’
‘You may believe me, my lord’ she answered, looking at him with such pathetic earnestness that he could not find it in his heart to doubt her. ‘Think what a lost ignorant creature I was when I first stood in this room, face to face with you, as I stand to-day. I scarcely knew right from wrong. But since that day your daughter has taught me a great deal. She has taught me to read the Gospel, and to believe in it and love it. She has taught me my duty to God and man.’
‘If you have learned as much as that in less than six months, you have learned more than many of our greatest philosophers have compassed in a lifetime,’ said Lord. Ingleshaw, smiling at her earnestness. ‘Well, Elizabeth, if this husband of yours is a brute, you shall not be forced to live with him; I’ll answer for that. So go about your daily work with a contented spirit, and fear nothing.’
‘Thank you, my lord. I will try to be worthy of your kindness’ the girl answered meekly. ‘But there is one thing I ought to tell you. Tom Brook was in the stable-yard last night, talking to one of the grooms. I saw him as I came in. I don’t know that he had any evil intention; but I thought I ought to tell you.’
‘Quite right. To which of the men was he talking?’
‘I believe it was Compton, my lord.’
‘Very good; I’ll speak to Compton. When you told me this Tom Brook was your sweetheart, you said he was an honest lad, and had never been in prison. Was that true?’
‘Quite true that he was never in prison, my lord, to my knowledge. But he had companions and friends that I didn’t like. Some of them had been in prison. The men who hang about a horse dealer’s yard—’
‘Are not the noblest members of our race,’ interrupted his lordship; ‘I am quite sure of that. But you have no reason to suppose that your husband belonged to the criminal classes — that he had ever been concerned in a burglary?’
‘No, my lord’
‘That will do.’
Elizabeth curtsied and withdrew, and Lord Ingleshaw went out to the stables, inspected his stud, and took occasion, en passant to interrogate Compton, who was either very stupid or very artful, and could give no further account of his interview with Tom Brook than that he had been standing at the yard-gate, and the man had asked him to direct him back to the village. He had lost his way in the park, and did not know how to regain the high-road, which, from the geography of the place, showed a curious lack of intelligence on the part of the inquirer.
Time passed, and nothing more was seen or heard of Tom Brook. Elizabeth pursued her studies — improved herself in a plain English education, and in the use of the needle and sewing-machine — in the peaceful solitude of Tompion’s sitting-room. It ought to have been a life of placid and perfect contentment for one whose earlier years had been full of toil and trouble; but, if Elizabeth May was happy, her physical nature did not thrive upon happiness. Her cheeks grew hollow, and the only colour that ever came into them now was a hectic flush, which glowed and faded with every sudden emotion. Her eyes had a feverish light, and the tall graceful figure, which had rounded to womanly perfection in the summer, had now fallen away to palpable attenuation.
Tompion complained of Elizabeth’s daintiness, and made it an offence in this young person that she had not a better appetite for the liberal fare of Ingleshaw Castle.
‘It’s always the way,’ said Tompion, waxing confidential over the tea-tray in the housekeeper’s room. ‘Set a beggar on horse-back, and we all know where he’ll ride. It makes me angry to see her dinner sent away, just mucked about a bit, but none of it eaten.’
‘Perhaps she is ill,’ suggested Mrs. Prince, the house-keeper, who was a fat kindly creature, and meant well to everybody, so long as no one wanted to dig her out of her armchair.
‘Lor’, no; she’s well enough. It’s nothing but airs and graces,’ retorted Tompion. ‘She’s in the sulks because Lady Lucille don’t take so much notice of her now that she’s got her aunt and Mr. Challoner to occupy her time.’
‘And the poor thing feels being taken up for pastime, and then let drop again,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Well, I don’t much wonder at that; I shouldn’t like it myself.’
‘You wouldn’t, of course, Mrs. Prince; no more should I,’ replied Tompion, with a dignified air; ‘but such dirt as that oughtn’t to be particular. She ought never to have been brought into such a house as this; but, being brought in through my young lady’s mistaken kindness, she ought to be too thankful for all that’s done for her. Nursery governess, indeed! a pretty kind of person to teach gentlefolks’ children! You should have seen the rags I took off her back the day Lady Lucille found her.’
‘They were clean,’ said the housekeeper; that’s something to her credit. And I must say she has a natural gentility about her that has often made me wonder — and that quick at learning! Miss Marjorum says she never met her equal.’
‘Miss Marjorum is an old fool,’ protested Tompion, purple with jealousy, ‘and so fond of teaching that she would teach a cow, if there was nothing else in the way to be taught.’
‘She never taught you, Tompion,’ said the chief butler, grinning.
‘I should think not, indeed!’ ejaculated the damsel, with a contemptuous toss of her head; ‘I should like to see her take such a liberty! Old Marjorum knows her place better than that.’
Elizabeth, disliked by the servants, and left to her own resources by Lady Lucille, led a life that was passing lonely; and it is not in solitude that weak humanity can best cure these inward fevers which fret the nerves and. consume the soul. In Byron’s familiar phrase, Elizabeth was eating her own heart in that dull and placid life at Ingleshaw. On many an October afternoon, as she wandered far afield in her solitary walk, she had thought it would have been better for her to be toiling with yonder rough and noisy hop pickers, resting after the long day’s labour amongst that rough herd under the stars, with a stone for her pillow, like Jacob, than to live in the lap of luxury at Ingleshaw Castle.
Yet there were moments when she felt a thrill of pride and delight at realising the change in herself, physical, mental, moral, remembering what she had been, and seeing what she was. Once, when she had dusted the china and arranged the flowers in Lady Lucille’s dressing-room, she paused for a minute, startled by her own reflection in the cheval-glass — the tall slim figure, the neatly-fitting gown, the refined look, the graceful carriage.
‘I don’t think any one would know I had been picked op out of the dirt,’ she said to herself, proud of her own beauty, which had acquired the crowning charm of refinement. And yet the glory of freshness and color was gone, and it looked a fragile fading beauty, as of one doomed to an early grave.
One day Lucille was struck by the change in her protégée, and questioned her closely about her health. Elizabeth would not admit that she was ill. She owned to feeling tired sometimes, and to sleeping badly; and that was all Lucille was kinder to her, more friendly and familiar, that day than she had been for a long time.
‘Mrs. Raymond is going to Brighton with her children soon after Christmas,’ said Lucille. ‘It would be nice for you to go with her, and get accustomed to the family and to your new duties. The change of air would do you good. I believe it is change you want.’
Mr. Raymond was the wife of Lord Ingleshaw’s land steward — a bright pleasant little woman, who had shown some interest in Elizabeth’s history, and had volunteered, knowing that history, to take her as nursery governess for her young brood, so soon as Elizabeth should be competent for the post.
‘I am not a bit afraid of her antecedents,’ said.Mrs. Raymond, ‘for, as my children and their
governess are hardly ever out of my sight, I cannot very well be taken in. I shall he able to read Elizabeth like an open book before she has been with me a fortnight.’
Elizabeth accepted this future engagement with Mrs. Raymond as her fate, allotted to her by the benefactress to whom she owed everything. She had been introduced to Mrs. Raymond’s three chubby daughters and one chubby son, the youngest of the brood, and talked of everywhere emphatically as ‘ the baby,’ a proud distinction which he merited in somewise by being the fattest and healthiest two-year-old infant in the parish of Ingleshaw. Elizabeth was not fond of children; but she was constrained to admit that, as children go, Mrs. Raymond’s offspring were favourable specimens. They were pictures of health and cleanliness, always prettily and sensibly clad, amiable and sociable in their manners, and with more than the average amount of intelligence. Elizabeth felt that if her life was to be spent with children, it could hardly be better spent than in the Raymond nursery. Mrs. Raymond had always treated her with particular friendliness; while Mr. Raymond was one of those delightful and easy-going husbands who are only at home at meal-times. He passed his days in a light dog-cart, driving about the Ingleshaw estate, or going journeys in quest of prize cattle.
Elizabeth was touched by Lady Lucille’s interest in her health; but the idea of a change to Brighton had no exhilarating effect upon her,
‘ You’d like to go, wouldn’t you?’ asked Lucille, vexed at her indifference.’ Brighton is a charming winter place — so gay and smart, and with such lovely shops. You have never seen anything like it. Wouldn’t you be pleased if Mrs. Raymond could manage to take you?’
‘I don’t care about it — much,’ faltered Elizabeth.’ But of course I would go if you wished it, Lady Lucille.’
‘What wish can I have about it, except for your sake?’ exclaimed Lucille, provoked at a coldness which seemed in explicable:’ you seem to care for nothing, to be interested in nothing.’
‘Yes, yes, I do care for something, with all my heart,’ cried Elizabeth eagerly, falling on her knees and clasping Lucille’s hands and kissing them passionately.’ I care for you. I want you to love me and trust me as you did once — before—’
‘Before what?’ asked Lucille, looking down at her with intent questioning eyes.
The two women looked into each other’s faces, as if their two souls were giving up their secrets, each to each.
‘Before that night on the yacht, when I was weak and wicked, and complained to Mr. Challoner of my fate — I who had so much reason to be grateful to Providence and to you. I have grown wiser since then, Lady Lucille. I have learned to govern my jealous temper, to be thankful for the blessings of my life; and when I am with Mrs. Raymond I mean to work very hard, and to be one of the best governesses children ever had.’
‘I believe it is in your power to be anything you like,’ said Lucille, touched by her earnestness, and ready to repent of that half-defined suspicion which had turned her heart from Elizabeth.
She raised the girl from her knees and kissed her, for the first time in her life.
‘If ever I forget that kiss or am unworthy of it, let me be remembered as Judas was remembered,’ said Elizabeth; and from this time her intercourse with Lady Lucille resumed much of its original friendliness, to Tompion’s inexpressible disgust.
This happened in December, when the park and chase were white with snow and the drifts were lying deep in all the hollows. Inside the Castle all was warmth and brightness, wood-fires glowing on the wide old hearthstones, and the brazen dogs glittering and flashing in the firelight, while the odours of hot-house flowers, roses, mignonette, hyacinths, lilies of the valley, were intensified by the warmth of the rooms.
‘The last snow I remember changed to mud and slush half an hour after it fell’ sad Elizabeth, ‘ and the last cold winds I remember seemed to blow straight at my bones. Winter means quite a different thing for the rich from what it means for the poor.
‘The poor were not forgotten by Lucille in that hard weather. She was full of thought for them, full of anxiety to help them. She made Elizabeth her assistant in all her charities, and the girl’s knowledge of the needs of the poor, their ways, their prejudices even, was of much use to her young mistress. Elizabeth was indefatigable in trudging from cottage to cottage, in visiting the sick. She sat up for several nights with a girl who was dying of consumption, and nursed, her as if she had been a sister. Her conduct was so excellent at this period that Lucille put aside that old painful suspicion as an unworthy doubt, and gave Elizabeth her complete confidence. Bruno was absent at this time on an electioneering expedition to a borough in the North of England, with Lord Ingleshaw, and Lucille had leisure to devote herself to the care of her poor. She had cared for them and ministered to them from her childhood upwards; but just now, at the approach of Christmas she had special duties to perform. And she wished this particular Christmastide to be a golden memory for all the poor in Ingleshaw parish, inasmuch as her own cup of joy was full to overflowing.
Nothing had been heard of Tom Brook since that October twilight, and Elizabeth began to think of her interview with him almost as if it had been a bad dream. It belonged to the past, and had brought no evil consequences.
She seemed happier — nay, she was happier — now than she had been for a long time. Restored to her benefactress’s favour, and able to make herself useful as Lucille’s almoner, winning many a blessing from the sick and the aged whom her daily visits cheered and comforted, she no longer felt that life was blank and empty. Bruno’s absence was a relief to her. She was no longer troubled by the dread of meeting him suddenly in the corridor or in the garden; she was no longer startled by the sound of his voice in the distance. Her life was more peaceful without that disturbing element. But he was to return for Christmas, and Christmas was drawing near.
Lady Carlyon had departed to another of her happy hunting-grounds — a fine old abbey in the Midlands, at which Christmas was kept in a much more fashionable and festive manner than at Ingleshaw; where the greatest excitement provided for that season was the. tea for the mothers, aunts, and school-children, and the supper for the men and youths in the great mediæval hall. At the Abbey there were to be amateur theatricals and a fancy ball. Lady Carlyon was full of plans for her costume for the ball—”which was to be wonderfully effective, and to cost a mere nothing — and she had an idea of performing in one of the plays, if people were very pressing. She went away in the highest spirits, pledging herself to return at least a week before the wedding.
‘Every detail of your trousseau is arranged,’ she said. ‘I can leave with an easy conscience.’
When she was gone Lucille resumed all her old girlish habits, read Italian with Miss Marjorum, practised a great deal, rambled in the park, visited in the village, and made a companion of Elizabeth. Mrs. Raymond and her babies came to afternoon tea in the old schoolroom, in order that Elizabeth — Miss May, as the steward’s wife called her — might get used to her future charges. Altogether, it was a social and happy time; and when Elizabeth thought of her position and her surroundings a year ago, and of the drunken brawling which was the only distinguishing mark of the Christmas season in Ramshackle Court, she lifted up her heart in thankfulness for the blessed change.
‘There is something very sweet about that girl,’ said Mrs. Raymond to Lucille, after tea, when Elizabeth had retired to the corridor to play hide-and-seek with Dotty, Totty, Lotty, and the fat baby. ‘I really think you found, a pearl that day in the wood, Lady Lucille.’
‘Yes, answered Lucille, with a faint sigh; ‘I know that she has a noble nature. She is so self-sacrificing, so good to the poor. And yet then is a mystery about her which sometimes worries me. I can’t quite understand her.
‘Dear Lady Lucille, the noblest natures are apt to have hidden depths,’ answered.Mrs. Raymond; ‘and one must consider this girl’s bringing up. I daresay there are times when the memory of old unhappiness weighs her down — makes her irritable, perhaps. An
d then she has not a relative in the world. She may feel her loneliness more than we suppose, seeing other people with so many ties. I shall do my best to make her happy when she comes to me; but it will be a great change from the Castle to the Dower House.’
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond occupied a charming old house near the park-gates, which in former days had been the portion of the dowagers of Ingleshaw; but which the more frisky dowagers of the present era would have voted tin: abomination of desolation, It was a roomy, rambling, half-timbered edifice, smothered with roses planted by an old-world dowager, and Bet in the midst an idyllic garden and orchard.
‘I think Elizabeth will be ever so much happier at the Dower House than she is here,’ said Lucille. ‘She will have more to do, and a more settled position.’
‘Well, here I grant she is a little like Mahomet’s coffin, suspended between heaven and earth,’ assented Mrs. Raymond laughingly. ‘She will have a livelier life with us; for Totty, Dotty, and Lotty are most amusing children. They really do say such extraordinary things that one can never feel dull in their company,’ pursued the fond parent. ‘They are so witty that I sometimes catch myself wondering that I can he their mother. And I’m sure they don’t inherit then comic ideas from George, for one has to go over a joke three times to make him understand it.’
Being so well disposed towards Elizabeth, Mrs. Raymond readily consented to take her to Brighton with the children, when they went there for their winter holiday; so it was settled that Miss May’s duties were to begin at that time, and her association with Ingleshaw Castle, save as an occasional visitor to her benefactress, would then come to an end.
Bruno and Lucille were to be married on the 20th of January, at which time Mrs Raymond and her family would be still at Brighton. The Raymonds had not been invited to the wedding, which was to be attended by none but relations, with the single exception of Miss Marjorum, who almost ranked as a relation.
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