by Ellen Wood
“You belong to me, now,” he presently said. “I won’t have you turned out like this.”
“I shall be happier at home,” she resumed. “In any case, I must have left shortly, if — if — I mean,” she broke off, stammering and hesitating, for she did not like openly to allude to her new prospects until they were more assured—” I must have left your roof before—”
“Before you re-enter it as my wife,” interposed the earl, calming down. “Be it so. I don’t know but you are right. And when you do enter it, it will be your turn, you know, to lord it over my Lady Jane.” —
Miss Lethwait felt that Lady Jane was not one to allow her or anybody else to “lord” it over her; and a dark shade seemed to rise up in her mind and shadow forth a troubled future. A question from Lord Oakburn interrupted the vision.
“When shall you be ready?”
“In an hour’s time,” she answered. “I have not much luggage to put up.”
“Not for leaving here,” cried the earl, correcting her mistake somewhat hotly. “When shall you be ready for the splicing?”
“The splicing?” she faltered.
“For the marriage. Don’t you understand? In a week?”
“Oh, Lord Oakburn! Putting other and weightier considerations aside, I could not be ready in a week.”
“What are the weighty considerations?”
“The — the seemliness — the fitness of things,” she answered, growing rather nervous. “My preparations would take me some weeks, Lord Oakburn.”
“Preparations take some weeks!” echoed the earl, opening his eyes in astonishment. “What, for a wedding? I never heard of such a thing. Why, I could fit out my sea-chest in a day for a three-years’ cruise! What d’ye mean, Miss Lethwait?”
Miss Lethwait did not feel equal to disputing the outfitting point with him. All that could be settled later. She gave him her father’s address at his country vicarage, Twifford; and Lord Oakburn told her he should be at it almost as soon as she was.
“Then, now that I have told you, I will hasten my departure,” she said, drawing aside the velvet curtain for her exit. “Lady Jane will not be pleased if I linger. Fare you well, Lord Oakburn.”
“Yes, I suppose it’s better that you should go,” acquiesced the earl. “I don’t mean to tell her, you see, until it’s all over. Just come here, my dear.”
She went up to him. She supposed he had something particular to say to her; some direction to tender.
“Just give me a kiss.”
The gallant peer had not risen, and she would have to stoop to his up-turned face. It was certainly reversing the general order of such things. For a single moment her whole spirit rose up in rebellion; the next, she had bent her face passively to his.
With his single kiss upon her lips, with the red blood dyeing her brow, with a choking sob of emotion, she went from his presence and ascended to her chamber. Lucy ran out from the adjoining one ere she could enter it. The child, who had grown fond of her governess in spite of the dreadful German exercises, threw her arms round her.
“Oh, was it not a charming party! I wish we could have one every night! And how good you are, Miss Lethwait, to give me holiday to-day. What are you going to do?”
“Lucy, dear, the holiday is not of my giving. I am going from you. I am not to teach you any longer. I shall have departed in an hour’s time.”
“What’s that for?” exclaimed Lucy in very astonishment.
And then, and not until then, did it recur to Miss Lethwait’s remembrance that Lady Jane had desired her not to see Lucy before she left. The request had brought its sting to Miss Lethwait: had her ladyship feared she would contaminate the child? — but she had never meant to disobey it. There was no help for it now.
“Are you not going to be my governess any longer?” questioned Lucy.
“I am sorry to have mentioned this, Lucy,” she murmured in contrition. “I ought not to have spoken to you. Will you kindly tell Lady Jane that I spoke in inadvertence, not intentionally; and that I am sorry to have done so?”
“But, Miss Lethwait—”
“But I cannot tell you anything,” was the interruption of the governess. “It may chance, my dear, that we shall meet again at some future time. I am not sure. What seems certain one day vanishes the next. But you may believe one thing, Lucy — that I shall always love you.”
She put the pretty arms away from her, and bolted herself into her chamber. Lucy flew to the breakfast-room. It was in the hands of the servants: it had been the supper-room of the previous night.
“Where’s Lady Jane?” asked the child, surveying the dibris before her with interest.
The servants did not know, unless her ladyship was in the small drawing-room, and Lucy went to the small drawing-room in search of her.
Jane was there. She had been shut in there quietly with her housekeeping book since the dismissal of the governess; but she had risen now to go to Lord Oakburn.
“Oh, Jane! Is Miss Lethwait really going?”
“Yes,” calmly replied Jane.
“Why? I am so sorry.”
“Hush, Lucy.”
“But you’ll tell me why, Jane? What has she done?”
“You must not ask, my dear. These things do not concern you. I will take your lessons myself until I can find some one to fill Miss Lethwait’s place, more suitable than she is.”
“But Jane—”
“I cannot tell you anything more, Lucy,” was the peremptory answer. “It is enough for you to know that Miss Lethwait is discharged, and that she quits the house to-day. I am very sorry that she ever entered it.”
Leaving the little girl standing there, Jane went down to Lord Oakburn. He was seated in just the same position as when interrupted by Miss Lethwait: himself in a reverie, and the open letter before him.
Jane drew the velvet curtain close, and told him she had been discharging the governess. She found that she was unsuitable for her charge, was all the explanation she gave. Jane had taken her knitting in her hand, and she sat with her eyes bent upon it while she spoke; never raising them; saying as little as she possibly could say. It was terribly unpleasant to Jane to mention that name to her father, after what she had seen in that very room on the previous night.
The earl made no interruption. It may be, that Jane had feared she knew not what of question and objection; but he heard her in silence. He never said a word until she had finished, and then not much.
“It was rather cool of you to dismiss her without warning, my lady. Harsh measures.”
A rosy flush tinged Jane’s delicate features. “I think not, papa.”
“As you please,” returned the earl. “And now what’s to be done about Clarice?”
The question took her by surprise. Lord Oakburn pointed to the open letter.
“I got this letter this morning, Jane. We have been mistaken in supposing that it was Clarice who went to Canada. It was another Miss Beauchamp.”
“Oh yes, papa, I know it,” returned Jane in much distress, as she reverted to the disappointment imparted by Mr. Vaughan. “I begin — I begin to despair of finding her.”
“Then you are a simpleton for your pains,” retorted the earl. “Despair of finding her! What next? She has gone on the Continent with some family, and is put down in their passport as ‘the governess;’ that’s what it is. Despair of finding her, indeed! I shall go off to that governess-agency, and ask what they meant by leading us to believe that it was the same Miss Beauchamp.”
In his hot haste, his impulsive temper, the earl rose and departed there and then, hurling no end of anathemas at the unlucky Pompey, who could not at the first moment, in the general disarrangement, lay his hands on his master’s hat. And ere the sun was high at noon, the governess had quitted the house, as governess, for ever.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AS IRON ENTERING INTO THE SOUL.
THE Earl of Oakburn was in a bustle. The earl was one of those people who always are in a bustl
e when starting upon a journey, be it ever so short a one. He was going on a visit to Sir James Marden at Chesney Oaks, and he was putting himself into commotion over it.
To Jane’s surprise he had announced an intention not to take Pompey. Jane wondered how he would get on without that faithful and brow beaten follower, if only in the light of an object to roar at; and when she asked the earl his reason for not taking him, he had civilly replied that it was no business of hers. Jane felt sorry for the decision, for she believed Pompey to be essential to her father’s comforts; and she knew the earl, with all his temper, liked the old servant, and was glad to have him about him; but otherwise Jane attached no importance to the matter. So the earl was driven to Paddington, and Pompey, after seeing his master and his carpet-bag safely in an express train, returned with the carriage to Portland Place.
Jane Chesney was a little busy on her own score just now, for she was seeking a governess to replace Miss Lethwait; one who should prove to be a more desirable inmate than that lady had been. Jane blamed herself greatly for not having inquired more minutely into Miss Lethwait’s antecedents. She had been, as she thought now, too much prepossessed in her favour at first sight, had taken her too entirely upon trust. That Jane would not err again on that score, her present occupation was proving — that of searching out the smallest details in connection with the lady now recommended to her, a Miss Snow. Not many days yet had Miss Lethwait quitted the house, but Jane had forcibly put her out of remembrance. Never, willingly, would she think again upon one, whose conduct in that one particular, the episode to which Jane had been a witness the night of the party, had been so entirely unseemly.
Lord Oakburn was whirled along that desirable line for travellers, the Great Western. In the opposite corner of the comfortable carriage there happened to be another old naval commander sitting, and the terms that the two got upon were so good, that his lordship could not believe his eyes when he saw the well-known station at Pembury, or believe that they had already reached it.
He had, however, to part with his new acquaintance, for Pembury station was his alighting point. He found Sir James Marden’s carriage waiting for him, a sort of mail phaeton, Sir James himself, a little man with a yellow face, seated on the box-seat. The earl and his carpet-bag were duly installed in it, and Sir James drove out of the station.
As they were proceeding up the street to take the avenue for Chesney Oaks, — the pleasant avenue, less green now than it had been in spring, which wound through the park to the house, — a small carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful ponies, came rapidly down upon them. Not more beautiful in their way, those ponies, than were the ladies seated in the carriage. Two gay, lovely ladies, laughing and talking with each other, their veils and their streamers and their other furbelows, flying behind them in the wind. The one, driving, was Colonel Marden’s wife, and she was about to rein in and greet Sir James, when her companion, with a half-smothered cry and a sudden paleness displacing the rich bloom on her cheeks, seized the reins and sent the ponies onward at a gallop. It was Lady Laura Carlton.
“Holloa!” exclaimed Sir James, “what was that for?”
Lord Oakburn, in his surprise, had started up in the phaeton. About the last person he had been thinking of was Laura, and Pembury was about the last place he would have expected to see her in. The fact was, Laura had recently met Mrs. Marden at a friend’s house near Great Wennock; the two ladies had struck up a sudden friendship, and Laura had come back with her for a few days’ visit.
“She was evidently scared at the sight of one of us, and I’m sure I never met her before to my knowledge,” cried Sir James, alluding to the lady seated with Mrs. Marden. “Do you know her, Lord Oakburn?”
“Know her!” repeated the earl rather explosively. “I’m sorry to say I do know her, sir. She is an ungrateful daughter of mine, who ran away from home to be married to a fellow, and never asked my leave.”
“It must be Lady Laura Carlton!” quickly exclaimed Sir James Marden.
“It is,” said the earl. “And I assure you I’d give a great deal out of my pocket if she were Lady Laura Anybody-else.”
“You’ll have to forgive her, I suppose. What a handsome girl she is!”
“No, I shan’t have to forgive her,” returned the earl, much offended at the suggestion. “I don’t intend to forgive her.”
Brave words, no doubt. But who knows what would have come of the interview had that pony-carriage been allowed to stop? It might have been a turning-point in Laura’s life, might have led to a reconciliation — for Lord Oakburn’s bark was worse than his bite, and he loved his children. But Laura Carlton, in her startled fear at seeing him so close to her, had herself given the check and the impetus, and the opportunity was gone for ever.
“What brings her at Pembury?” growled the earl, as they drove through the park.
“I can’t tell,” replied Sir James. “I conclude she must be visiting at my brother’s.”
“I didn’t know she was acquainted with them,” was the earl’s comment. “Forgive a clandestine marriage! No, never!”
Brave words again of Lord Oakburn’s! Clandestine marriages are not good in themselves, and they often work incalculable evil, entailing embarrassing consequences on more than one generation. But the condemnation would have come with better grace from another than Lord Oakburn, seeing that he was contemplating something of the sort on his own account.
He slept one night at Chesney Oaks, and then concluded his visit. Sir James Marden was surprised and vexed at the abrupt termination. He set it down to the unwelcome presence of the earl’s rebellious daughter at Pembury, and pressed Lord Oakburn’s hand at parting, and begged him to come again shortly, at a more convenient season.
But most likely Lord Oakburn had never intended a longer stay. The probabilities were — it’s hard, you know, to have to write it of a middle-aged earl, a member of the sedate and honourable Upper House — that he had only taken Chesney Oaks as a blind to his daughters on his way to Miss Lethwait. For his real visit was to her.
Chesney Oaks was situated in quite an opposite part of the kingdom to Twifford Vicarage, but by taking advantage of cross lines, Lord Oakburn contrived to reach Twifford late that same night. He did not intrude on them until the following morning. The house, a low one, covered with ivy, was small and unpretending, but exceedingly picturesque; its garden was beautiful, and the birds made their nests and sang in the clustering trees that surrounded the lawn and flowers.
In features they were very much alike, but in figure no two could be much more dissimilar than the father and daughter. The Vicar was a little shrunken man, particularly timid in manner; his daughter magnificent as a queen. If she had looked queenly in the handsomely proportioned rooms of the earl’s town house, how much more did she appear so in the miniature little parlour of the Vicarage.
Lord Oakburn entered upon his business in his usual blunt fashion. He had come down, he said, to make acquaintance with Mr. Lethwait, and to know when the wedding was to be.
The Vicar replied by stating that Eliza had told him all. And he, the father, was deeply sensible of the honour done her by the Earl of Oakburn, and that he himself should be proud and pleased to see her his wife; but that he felt scruples upon the point, as did Eliza. He felt that her entrance into the family might be very objectionable to the earl’s daughters.
And, knowing what you do know of the earl, you may be sure that that speech was the signal for an outburst. He poured forth a torrent of angry eloquence in his peculiar manner, so completely annihilating every argument but his own, that the timid clergyman never dared to utter another word of objection. The earl must have it his own way: as it had been pretty sure from the first he would have it.
“Eliza has been a good and dutiful daughter, my lord,” said the Vicar, who in his retired life, his humble home, had hardly ever been brought into contact with one of the earl’s social degree. “My living has been very small, and my expenses have been inevitabl
y large — that is, large for one in my position. The last years of my wife’s life were years of illness; she suffered from a complaint that required constant medical attendance and expensive nourishment, and Eliza was to us throughout almost as a guardian angel. Every penny she could spare from her own absolute expenses, she sent to us. She has put up with undesirable places, where discomforts were great, the insults hard to be borne, and would not throw herself out, lest we might suffer. She has been a good daughter,” he emphatically added; “she will, I hesitate not to say it, make a good wife. And if only your lordship’s daughters will—”
Another interrupting burst from his lordship: his daughters had nothing to do with it, and he did not intend that they should have. And the Vicar was finally silenced.
The earl did things like nobody else. He had spent the best part of his life at sea, and shore ideas and proprieties were still almost to him as a closed book. In discussing the arrangements of the marriage with Miss Lethwait — for he compelled her to discuss them, and he did it in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, just as he might have discussed a debate in the Lords — she found herself obliged to hint, as he did not, that a tour, long or short, inland or foreign, as might be agreeable, was usually deemed necessary on that auspicious occasion. The earl could not be brought to see it; did not understand it. What on earth was the matter with his house at home that they could not proceed direct to it on their wedding-day? he demanded. Were there a brig at hand they might enjoy a month’s cruise in her, and he’d say something to it, or even a well-built yacht; but he hated land travelling, and was not going to encounter it.
Miss Lethwait thought of the horrors of sea-sickness, and left the brig and the yacht to drop into abeyance. Neither dared she, in the timidity of her new position, urge the tour further upon him; but she did shrink from being taken home to the midst of his daughters on the marriage day.
On the following day the earl went back to town, Miss Lethwait having succeeded in postponing the period of their marriage until October.