by Ellen Wood
Jane showed the letter to her father. He flew into a paroxysm of anger, and sent a harsh message to Clarice, to the effect that she should never return home, and he would never forgive her; a message he compelled Jane to write. It would have the effect of hardening Clarice, as Jane knew; but she could only obey. And from that hour Captain Chesney had forbidden all mention of Clarice by Jane.
But surely Jane had now a right to expect that the change in their position would cause her father to recall Clarice. She was Lady Clarice Chesney now, and the incongruity of a young lady of title being out as a governess must surely strike Lord Oakburn. To hear him thunder out “No!” in answer to her appeal, with the words, “Let Clarice come to her senses,” fell as a leaden weight on Jane’s heart. Her private conviction was, that Clarice, obstinate in spirit and in temper, would never come to her senses of her own accord, unless they made the first move to bring her to them.
But Jane had not time just now to indulge her thoughts or her disappointment. In one week from that day, she and Lucy were to depart from their present home for Chesney Oaks, and there were innumerable things to see to, arrangements to be made. Lord Oakburn had brought with him more than sufficient money to satisfy all outstanding claims, and this he left in Jane’s hands, desiring her to pay them. With what satisfaction Jane gazed at this money, let those who have been unwilling debtors picture to themselves. Ah, the change of position was little — the rank they had stepped into, the titles that must be theirs now for life — these were but little to Jane Chesney, as compared with this happy power to pay the creditors — and to be free from care!
With that delicacy of feeling which I think does in a large measure characterize the greater portion of people, not one creditor had presented himself at the door of Cedar Lodge since the change in Captain Chesney’s fortunes. Of course there was a great deal in knowing that they were now secure. Jane was busy after breakfast giving directions in the house to Judith and the new woman-servant who had been temporarily engaged. Later on, she called Judith into the room that had been Laura’s, to help to collect that young lady’s things together.
“It is surely not worth while putting in these old shoes and boots,” remarked Jane, in the midst of the packing. “She will never wear them again.”
The words were spoken to Judith. Judith, however, did not reply. She was standing at the window, looking out on the road.
“Judith.”
Judith turned. “I beg your pardon, my lady. I was looking at a carriage that has stopped at the gate. There appears to be an old lady in it.”
Lady Jane went to the window. It was the same carriage that had so nearly run over Mr. Carlton; the same that had pulled up at the Red Lion to inquire its way to Cedar Lodge. One glimpse was enough for Jane, and something like dismay mixed with surprise fell over her features.
“Oh, Judith, run! Run to receive her. It is my aunt, the dowager Lady Oakburn.”
Judith did as she was bid. Jane hastily washed her hands, shook out the flounces of the new mourning worn for the late earl, glanced at the glass and smoothed down the braids of her fair hair — which never looked anything but smooth — and was below ere Lady Oakburn had entered the hall door.
She came in with short, quick steps, her high heels clattering on the flags of the hall. Although very stout, she gave one the idea of being a remarkably active woman — and in truth she was so: active in body, active in mind, active in tongue. And those active women wear well. Lady Oakburn with her seventy years, did not look more than sixty.
“And now, where’s your father?” she began, before she had time to receive Jane’s salute; and the sharp tone of her voice caused Jane to know that something had displeased her.
“Papa’s gone to Chesney Oaks, Aunt Oakburn,” answered Jane, meekly waiting to receive the kiss of greeting. “He left us this morning.”
“Yes. Your servant has just told me so,” was Lady Oakburn’s answer. “And I should like to know what business he has to be darting about the country in this uncertain fashion? What took him off again so soon, pray?”
“Papa only came home to tell me of his plans and direct me what I was to do,” replied Jane, in the deprecatory manner that habit, from early childhood, had rendered a matter of course to her. “He stayed here two nights.”
The countess walked straight to an arm-chair in the drawing-room, drew it in front of the fire, sat down, kissed Lucy, who came running up, took off her bonnet, and handed it to Jane to put down. She looked very cross.
“I reached Great Wennock last night on my way to Chesney Oaks, halted there, and slept. This morning, the first thing, I telegraphed to Chesney Oaks, asking whether the earl was there — your father. An hour ago the answer came back:, ‘The earl is at Cedar Lodge, South Wennock;’ and I ordered a post-carriage at once. And now that I am here, I find him gone!”
“I am very sorry,” said Jane. “Had it been yesterday, aunt, you would have found him.”
“It is necessary that I should see him, Jane. Changes will have to be made at Chesney Oaks, and I intend to have a voice in them. Thoms! Where’s Thoms?”
She suddenly jumped up from her seat, flung open the room door, and her servant came forward. “What have you done with the carriage!” she asked.
“It is at the gate, my lady.
“Good. Let it wait. And now, Jane, if you have a biscuit and a glass of wine to give me, I’ll take it, for I shall go on to Chesney Oaks as quickly as I can. A little bread and butter will do, if you have no biscuits.”
Jane hastily got her the refreshment. “We were so grieved, Aunt Oakburn, to hear of the earl’s death,” she said; “as we had been to hear of the young countess’s. We did not know her; but Lord Oakburn—”
“Stay, Jane” — and the interruption was made in a tone strangely subdued, as contrasted with what had gone before it. “He was my grandson; I loved him for his dead father’s sake; but he is gone, and I don’t yet care to talk of him. He’s gone, he’s gone.”
Jane did not break the silence. But Lady Oakburn was not one to give any time to superfluous emotion. She rapidly ate her biscuit, drank the wine, and called to Lucy to put down the glass.
“What are your father’s plans, Jane? What does he mean to do with Chesney Oaks? He will not be rich enough to live at it.”
“I believe he intends to let it, aunt.”
“Let it! Let Chesney Oaks? That he never shall.”
“What else can he do with it? As you say, aunt, he is not rich enough to live at it, and it would not do to let it lie empty, falling into decay through not being occupied.”
Lady Oakburn lifted her hand. “To think that he should have succeeded after all! Sailor Frank! I never — Jane, I declare to you that I never so much as gave a thought to it, all through my long life.”
“And I can most truthfully say that we did not,” was Jane’s answer.
“What are you going to do? You will not remain here long, I suppose?”
“We quit this for good in a week, and join papa at Chesney Oaks. After that I believe we shall go to London and settle there.”
“Best plan,” said Lady Oakburn, nodding her head. “London’s best, if you can’t live at Chesney Oaks. But Frank shall never let it. What shall you do with this furniture?” she added, looking round at the very plain chairs and tables. “It won’t do for you now.”
“We have the house on our hands for some time longer: it was taken on lease for three years. Papa says he shall let it furnished.”
“And what of Laura?”
Jane’s heart palpitated and her eyelids drooped, as the abrupt question was put to her. It was worse to talk of Laura to Lady Oakburn than to her father.
“It has been a terrible blow to us all,” she breathed.
“Was she mad?”
“She was very foolish,” answered Jane.
“Foolish!” returned the countess in exasperation. “You call an act such as that only foolish! Where did you learn morals and manners, L
ady Jane?”
Jane did not answer.
“What sort of a man is he, that Carlton? A monster?”
“He is not one in appearance, certainly,” replied Jane, and had the subject been less sad she would have smiled. “I did not like him; apart from this unhappy business, I did not like him. They returned last night, and were re-married here this morning, I understand,” she added, dropping her voice. “I fear — I do fear, that Laura will live to regret it.”
“It’s to be hoped she will,” said the countess, in just the same tone that Lord Oakburn might have wished it. “I saw my young lady just now.”
“You saw her, aunt?”
“I did,” said Lady Oakburn, nodding her head; “and she saw me. She was at the window of a house as I passed it; Mr. Carlton’s, I suppose. Mark me, Jane! she will live to repent it; these runaway matches never bring luck with them. Where’s Clarice?”
The concluding question was asked quite as abruptly as the one had been regarding Laura. Jane lifted her eyes, and the flush of excitement stole into her cheek.
“She is where she was, I conclude, Aunt Oakburn.”
“And where’s that? You may tell me all you know of her proceedings since she left home.”
It was certainly condescending of the dowager to allow this, considering that, since the departure of Clarice from her home, she had never permitted Jane to mention her in any one of her letters.
“The ‘all’ is not much,” said Jane. “You know that she sent us word she had entered on a situation in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park—”
“And that she had assumed a false name,” interrupted the countess with acidity. “Yes, I know so much. Go on.”
“That she had changed her name,” said Jane, wincing at the plain statement of the case. “But she desired her letters to be addressed ‘Miss Chesney;’ therefore I cannot see how she can have wholly dropped it.”
“Who would write to her, pray?”
“I did,” said Jane. “I thought it well that we should not all abandon her—”
“Abandon her!” again interposed the countess. “I think it was she who abandoned us.”
“Well — yes, of course it was — but you know what I mean, aunt. I wrote to her occasionally, and I had a few letters from her. Papa never forbade that.”
“And what did she say in her letters?”
“Not much; they were generally short. I expect they were written just to tell me that she was well and safe. She gave scarcely any particulars of the family she was with, but she said she was as comfortable there, on the whole, she supposed, as she could expect to be. But I have not heard from her since the beginning of the year, and I am getting uneasy about it. My two last letters have brought forth no reply: and they were letters that required one.”
“She’s coming home,” said the countess. “You’ll see.”
“I wish I could think so,” returned Jane. “But when I remember her proud spirit, a conviction comes over me that she will never make the first move. She will expect papa to do it.”
“Then she should expect, for me, were I her father,” tartly returned the dowager, as she rose and put on her bonnet. “If she has no more sense of what is due to the Earl of Oakburn, and to herself as Lady Clarice Chesney, than to be out in the world teaching children, I’d let her remain out until her senses came to her.”
Almost the same words as those used by the earl not many hours before. And the old Countess of Oakburn reiterated them again, as she said adieu to her grandnieces, and departed as abruptly as she had arrived.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MISS LETHWAIT.
IN a magnificent reception-room in Portland Place sat the Earl of Oakburn and Lady Jane Chesney. It was the middle of June, and the London season was at its height. The whole of May, Lord Oakburn and his daughters had stayed at Chesney Oaks; he had now taken this house, furnished, for three months. Chesney Oaks was in the market to be let: to be let to any one who would take it and pay rent for it; and the countess dowager had worked herself into a fume and a fret when she first saw the advertisement, and had come down upon the earl with a burst of indignation, demanding to know what he meant by disgracing the family. The earl answered her: he was quite capable of doing it; and a hot, wordy war waged for some minutes between them, and neither would give way. The earl had reason on his side, though; if his means were not sufficient to keep up Chesney Oaks, better that he should let it than allow it to go to ruin.
So Chesney Oaks was in the market, and old Lady Oakburn told her sailor nephew that he deserved to have his ears boxed, that she should never forgive him, and then she withdrew in dudgeon to her house in Kensington Gardens. And the earl devoutly wished she might never come out of it to torment him again.
Indeed there was scarcely a poorer peer in England than the new Earl of Oakburn; but to him and to Jane this poverty was as riches. His net revenue would be little, if any, more than three thousand per annum; as to the rent he expected to get from the letting of Chesney Oaks, it would nearly all go in keeping the place in repair. Chesney Oaks had no broad lands attaching to it; the house was good, and the gardens were good; but these things do not yield large revenues. The furniture of Chesney Oaks was the private property of the late earl; it reverted to his grandmother, the old countess. Had the present earl pleased her — that is, had he not offended her by advertising the place — she would very probably have made him a present of it, for she was capable of generosity when it suited her; but when she found the house was irrevocably to be let, she, in a fit of temper, gave orders for it to be taken out, and it was now in course of removal. “I’ll not leave stick or stone in the place,” she had said to Lord Oakburn in the stormy interview alluded to above. “I wouldn’t use them if you did,” retorted the exasperated earl, “and the sooner the things are out, the better.” For one thing, the house was in admirable repair; the young earl had had it put into complete order twelve months before, on the occasion of his, marriage. So the furniture passed out of Lord Oakburn’s hands, when perhaps with a little diplomacy, which he was utterly incapable of exercising, it might have remained his; and the dowager was distributing it amidst her married daughters — who were too well off to care for it.
For a fortnight or more after Chesney Oaks was advertised, no one had applied for it. Then an applicant came forward. It was Sir James Marden, a gentleman who was returning to Europe after a long sojourn in the East, and who had commissioned his brother, Colonel Marden, to engage for him a suitable residence. It was natural that the colonel should wish to secure one in the vicinity of his own house; he lived at Pembury, and Chesney Oaks appeared to be the very thing, of all others. And the negotiations were proceeding satisfactorily.
The earl was talking to Jane about it now. He was no hard-bargainer. Generous by nature, he could not haggle, and stand out for pence, shillings, and pounds, as so many do. All he did, any transaction he might engage in, was set about in the most simple manner imaginable. It would have occurred to most people to employ an agent to conduct this business; it did not occur to the earl. He wrote the advertisements out with his own hand, and added to them his own name and address in full, as to where applications might be made. One or two interviews had taken place between him and Colonel Marden, who was staying with his family in town; and on the previous day to this morning on which the earl and his daughter were sitting together, Mrs. Marden had made her first call on Lady Jane, and they had grown in that short call quite intimate. Jane was now telling her father that she had promised to accompany Mrs. Marden to a morning concert that very day.
Jane was attired in mourning; a handsome black dress of a thin gauzy texture, ample and flowing. She was quiet and unpretending as ever, but there was a look of rest in her face now, that told of a heart at peace. The present life was a very haven to the careworn Jane, nearly tired out, as she had been, with household contrivings, with the economies and embarrassments of former days. All Jane Chesney’s longing visions seemed more than realiz
ed; visions which had been indulged for her father, not for herself; and they had been realized in a manner and to a degree that Jane had never dreamt of. He was at ease for the rest of his days, and she had nothing left to wish for. Into society Jane determined to go very little. To be her father’s constant companion, except when he was at his club or at the House, was her aim. Formerly, household duties and Lucy’s education called her perpetually from his side: it should not be so now. No attractions of society, of pleasure, of the gay world without, should lure away Jane Chesney. She would remain her dear father’s companion from henceforth, rendering his hours pleasant to him, taking care that things were well ordered in his home. Never perhaps has father been loved and revered as was this one by Jane Chesney; and as mistress of his plentiful home, as mistress of her own time, which she would dedicate to him, she seemed to have realized her Utopia.
Though talking with her father on the subject of Chesney Oaks and Sir James Marden’s probable tenancy, an undercurrent of ideas was floating in Jane’s mind. She was about to engage a governess for Lucy; that is, she was looking out for one; and on the previous day Mrs. Marden had mentioned a lady to her who was in search of a situation — one whom Jane thought would be likely to suit.
“You are quite sure, papa, that you have overcome your objection to our taking a resident governess?” Jane said to him, passing from the other subject. For it should be made known that the earl had declared, when Jane had first broached the matter, that he would have no strange women in his house, putting him out of his way: and he had very grumblingly conceded the point, upon Jane’s assuring him that no governess should be allowed to do that in the remotest degree.
“Didn’t I say so?” testily returned the earl, who had lost none of his abrupt manner. “Why do you ask me?”
“Because Mrs. Marden mentioned one to me, who is about to leave her present situation. By the description, I thought she appeared to be just the person we want for Lucy. If you have no objection, papa, I will inquire further about her.”