by Ellen Wood
“What a commotion!” exclaimed Miss Methold.
I went to the door, and saw an open barouche, with a lady and a little girl inside it, attended by a coachman and footman in livery.
“It is quite a grand carriage, Miss Methold.”
“Oh,” said she, looking over my shoulder: “it is Mrs. Brightman.”
“Very proud and high-and-mighty, is she not?” I rejoined, for the clerks had talked about her.
“She was born proud. Her mother was a nobleman’s daughter, and she’ll be proud to the end,” said the old lady. “Henry keeps up great show and state for her. Of course, that is his affair, not mine.”
“I hear he has a charming place at Clapham, Miss Methold?”
“So do I,” she answered rather bitterly. “I have never seen it.”
“Never seen it?” I echoed in surprise.
“Never,” she answered. “I have not even been invited there by her. Never once, Charles. Mrs. Brightman despises her husband’s profession in her heart; she despises me as belonging to it, I suppose, and as a poor relation. She has never condescended to get out of her carriage to enter the office here, and has never asked to see me, here or there. Henry has invited me down there once or twice when she was away from home, but I have said, No, thank you.”
Mr. Lennard came in. The clerks, one excepted, had gone out to dinner. “Do you know whether it will be long before Mr. Brightman comes in, or where he has gone to?” he said to Miss Methold.
“Indeed, I do not,” she answered rather shortly. “I only knew he was out by his not appearing now at luncheon.”
“Charles, go to the carriage and tell Mrs. Brightman that we don’t know how long it may be before Mr. Brightman comes in,” said he.
I rather wondered why he could not go himself as I took out the message to Mrs. Brightman.
She had a fair proud face, and her air was cold and haughty as she listened to me.
“Let this be given to him as soon as he comes in,” she said, handing me a sealed note. “Regent Street; Carbonell’s,” she added to the footman.
As the carriage turned and bowled away, I caught the child’s pretty face, a smile on her rosy lips and in her laughing brown eyes.
I may as well say here that young Lake had struck up an acquaintanceship with me. The reader may remember that I saw him at the chambers of Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar. I grew to like him greatly. His faults were all on the surface; his heart was in the right place. Boy though he was, he was thrown upon himself in the world. I don’t mean as to money, but as to a home; and he steered his course unscathed through its shoals. The few friends he had lived in the country. He had neither father nor mother. His lodgings were in Norfolk Street, very near to us. Miss Methold would sometimes have him in to spend Sunday with me; and now and then, but very rarely, he and I were invited for that day to dine with Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar.
The Serjeant lived in Russell Square, in one of its handsomest houses. But he kept, so to say, no establishment; just two or three servants and a modest little brougham. He must have been making a great deal of money at that time, and I suppose he put it by.
“Ah! you don’t know, Charley,” Lake said to me one evening when I was in Norfolk Street, and we began talking of him. “It is said his money went in that same precious bank which devoured yours; and it is thought that he lives in this quiet manner, eschewing pomps and vanities, to be able to help friends who were quite ruined by it. Old Jones knows a little, and I’ve heard him drop a word or two.”
“I am sure my uncle is singularly good and kind. Those simple-minded men generally are.”
Lake nodded. “Few men, I should say, come up to Serjeant Stillingfar.”
A trouble had come to me in the early spring. I thought it a great one, and grieved over it. Major Carlen gave up his house in Gloucester Place, letting it furnished for a long term, and went abroad with his wife. He might have gone to the end of the world for ever and a day, but she was like my second mother, and indeed was so, and I felt lost without her. They took up their abode at Brussels. It would be good for Blanche’s education, Mrs. Carlen wrote to me. Other people said that the Major had considerably out-run the constable, and went there to economise. Tom Heriot was down at Portsmouth with his regiment.
I think that is all I need say of this part of my life. I liked my profession very much indeed, and got on well in it and with Mr. Brightman and the clerks, and with good old Miss Methold. And so the years passed on.
The first change came when I was close upon twenty years of age: came in the death of Miss Methold. After that, I left Essex Street as a residence, for there was no longer anyone to rule it, and went into Lake’s lodgings in Norfolk Street, sharing his sitting-room and securing a bedroom. And still a little more time rolled on.
* * * * *
It was Easter-tide. On Easter Eve, it happened that I had remained in the office after the other clerks had left, to finish some work in hand. In these days Saturday afternoon has become a general holiday; in those days we had to work all the harder. On Saturdays a holiday was unknown.
Writing steadily, I finished my task, and was locking up my desk, which stood near the far window in the front room on the ground floor, when Mr. Brightman, who had also remained late, came downstairs from his private room, and looked in.
“Not gone yet, Charley!”
“I am going now, sir. I have only just finished my work.”
“Some of the clerks are coming on Monday, I believe,” continued Mr. Brightman. “Are you one of them?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Lennard told me I might take holiday, but I did not care about it. As I have no friends to spend it with, it would not be much of a holiday to me. Arthur Lake is out of town.”
“And Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar on circuit,” added Mr. Brightman.
He paused and looked at me, as he stood near the door. I was gathering the pens together.
“Have you no friends to dine with, to-morrow — Easter Day?”
“No, sir. At least, I have not been asked anywhere. I think I shall go for a blow up the river.”
“A blow up the river!” he repeated doubtfully. “Don’t you go to church?”
“Always. I go to the Temple. I meant in the afternoon, sir.”
“Well, if you have no friends to dine with, you may come and dine with me,” said Mr. Brightman, after a moment’s consideration. “Come down when service is over. You will find an omnibus at Charing Cross.”
The invitation pleased me. Some of the clerks would have given their ears for it. Of course I mean the gentlemen clerks; not one of whom had ever been so favoured. I had sometimes wondered that he never asked me, considering his intimacy with my uncle. But, I suppose, to have invited me to his house and left out Miss Methold would have been rather too pointed a slight upon her.
It was a fine day. The Temple service was beautiful, as usual; the anthem, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Afterwards I went forth to keep my engagement, and in due time reached the entrance-gates of Mr. Brightman’s residence.
It was a large, handsome villa, enclosed in fine pleasure-grounds, near Clapham. They lived in a good deal of style, kept seven or eight servants and two carriages: a large barouche, and a brougham in which he sometimes came to town. A well-appointed house, full of comfort and luxury. Mr. Brightman was on the lawn when I reached it.
“Well, Charles! I began to think you were late.”
“I walked down, sir. The first two omnibuses were full, and I would not wait for a third.”
“Rather a long walk,” he remarked with a smile. “But it is what I should have done at your age. Dinner will be ready soon. We dine at three o’clock on Sundays. It allows ourselves and the servants to attend evening as well as morning service.”
He had walked towards the house as he spoke, and we went in. The drawing-room and dining-room opened on either side a large hall. In the former room sat Mrs. Brightman. I had seen her occasionally at the office door in her carriage, but
had never spoken to her except that first time. She was considerably younger than Mr. Brightman, who must have been then getting towards fifty. A proud woman she looked as she sat there; her hair light and silky, her blue eyes disdainful, her dress a rich purple silk, with fine white lace about it.
“Here is Charles Strange at last,” Mr. Brightman said to her, and she replied by a slight bend of the head. She did not offer to shake hands with me.
“I have heard of you as living in Essex Street,” she condescended to observe, as I sat down. “Your relatives do not, I presume, live in London?”
“I have not any near relatives,” was my answer. “My great-uncle lives in London, but he is away just now.”
“You were speaking of that great civil cause, Emma, lately tried in the country; and of the ability of the defendants’ counsel, Serjeant Stillingfar,” put in Mr. Brightman. “It is Serjeant Stillingfar, if you remember, who is Charles’s uncle.”
“Oh, indeed,” she said; and I thought her manner became rather more gracious. And ah, what a gracious, charming lady she could be when she pleased! — when she was amongst people whom she considered of her own rank and degree.
“Where is Annabel?” asked Mr. Brightman.
“She has gone dancing off somewhere,” was Mrs. Brightman’s reply. “I never saw such a child. She is never five minutes together in one place.”
Presently she danced in. A graceful, pretty child, apparently about twelve, in a light-blue silk frock. She wore her soft brown hair in curls round her head, and they flew about as she flew, and a bright colour rose to her cheeks with every word she spoke, and her eyes were like her father’s — dark, tender, expressive. Not any resemblance could I trace to her mother, unless it lay in the same delicately-formed features.
We had a plain dinner; a quarter of lamb, pastry and creams. Mr. Brightman did not exactly apologize for it, but explained that on Sundays they had as little cooking as possible. But it was handsomely served, and there were several sorts of wine. Three servants waited at table, two in livery and the butler in plain clothes.
Some little time after it was over, Mr. Brightman left the room, and Mrs. Brightman, without the least ceremony, leaned back in an easy-chair and closed her eyes. I said something to the child. She did not answer, but came to me on tiptoe.
“If we talk, mamma will be angry,” she whispered. “She never lets me make a noise while she goes to sleep. Would you like to come out on the lawn? We may talk there.”
I nodded, and Annabel silently opened and passed out at one of the French windows, holding it back for me. I as silently closed it.
“Take care that it is quite shut,” she said, “or the draught may get to mamma. Papa has gone to his room to smoke his cigar,” she continued; “and we shall have coffee when mamma awakes. We do not take tea until after church. Shall you go to church with us?”
“I dare say I shall. Do you go?”
“Of course I do. My governess tells me never to miss attending church twice on Sundays, unless there is very good cause for doing so, and then things will go well with me in the week. But if I wished to stay at home, papa would not let me. Once, do you know, I made an excuse to stay away from morning service: I said my head ached badly, though it did not. It was to read a book that had been lent me, ‘The Old English Baron.’ I feared my governess would not let me read it, if she saw it, because it was about ghosts, so that I had only the Sunday to read it in. Well, do you know, that next week nothing went right with me; my lessons were turned back, my drawing was spoilt, and my French mistress tore my translation in two. Oh, dear! it was nothing but scolding and crossness. So at last, on the Saturday, I burst into tears and told Miss Shelley about staying away from church and the false excuse I had made. But she was very kind, and would not punish me, for she said I had already had a whole week of punishment.”
Of all the little chatterboxes! “Is Miss Shelley your governess now?” I asked her.
“Yes. But her mother is an invalid, so mamma allows her to go home every Saturday night and come back on Monday morning. Mamma says it is pleasant to have Sunday to ourselves. But I like Miss Shelley very much, and should be dull without her if papa were not at home. I do love Sundays, because papa’s here. Did you ever read ‘The Old English Baron’?”
“No.”
“Shall I lend it you to take home?” continued Annabel, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling with good-nature. “I have it for my own now. It is a very nice book. Have your sisters read it? Perhaps you have no sisters?”
“I have no real sisters, and my father and mother are dead. I have—”
“Oh dear, how sad!” interrupted Annabel, clasping her hands. “Not to have a father and mother! Was it” — after a pause— “you who lived with Miss Methold?”
“Yes. Did you know her?”
“I knew her; and I liked her — oh, very much. Papa used to take me to see her sometimes. With whom do you live now?”
“I live in lodgings.”
She stood looking at me with her earnest eyes — thoughtful eyes just then.
“Then who sews the buttons on your shirts?”
I burst into laughter: the reader may have done the same. “My landlady professes to sew them on, Annabel, but the shirts often go without buttons. Sometimes I sew one on myself.”
“If you had one off now, and it was not Sunday, I would sew it on for you,” said Annabel. “Why do you laugh?”
“At your concern about my domestic affairs, my dear little girl.”
“But there’s a gentleman who lives in lodgings and comes here sometimes to dine with papa — he is older than you — and he says it is the worst trouble of life to have no one to sew his buttons on. Who takes care of you if you are ill?” she added, after another pause.
“As there is no one to take care of me, I cannot afford to be ill, Annabel. I am generally quite well.”
“I am glad of that. Was your father a lawyer, like papa?”
“No. He was a clergyman.”
“Oh, don’t turn,” she cried; “I want to show you my birds. We have an aviary, and they are beautiful. Papa lets me call them mine; and some of them are mine in reality, for they were bought for me. Mamma does not care for birds.”
Presently I asked Annabel her age.
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” I exclaimed in surprise.
“I was fourteen in January. Mamma says I ought not to tell people my age, for they will only think me more childish; but papa says I may tell everyone.”
She was in truth a child for her years; especially as age is now considered. She ran about, showing me everything, her frock, her curls, her eyes dancing: from the aviary to the fowls, from the fowls to the flowers: all innocent objects of her daily pleasures, innocent and guileless as she herself.
A smart-looking maid, with red ringlets flowing about her red cheeks, and wide cap-strings flowing behind them, came up.
“Why, here you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been looking all about for you, Miss Annabel. Your mamma says you are to come in.”
“We are coming, Hatch; we were turning at that moment,” answered the child. “Is coffee ready?”
“Yes, Miss Annabel, and waiting.”
In the evening we went to church, the servants following at some distance. Afterwards we had tea, and then I rose to depart. Mr. Brightman walked with me across the lawn, and we had almost reached the iron gates when there came a sound of swift steps behind us.
“Papa! papa! Is he gone? Is Mr. Strange gone?”
“What is the matter now?” asked Mr. Brightman.
“I promised to lend Mr. Strange this: it is ‘The Old English Baron.’ He has never read it.”
“There, run back,” said Mr. Brightman, as I turned and took the book from her. “You will catch cold, Annabel.”
“What a charming child she is, sir!” I could not help exclaiming.
“She is that,” he replied. “A true child of nature, knowing no harm and
thinking none. Mrs. Brightman complains that her ideas and manners are unformed; no style about her, she says, no reserve. In my opinion that ought to constitute a child’s chief charm. All Annabel’s parts are good. Of sense, intellect, talent, she possesses her full share; and I am thankful that they are not prematurely developed. I am thankful,” he repeated with emphasis, “that she is not a forward child. In my young days, girls were girls, but now there is not such a thing to be found. They are all women. I do not admire the forcing system myself; forced vegetables, forced fruit, forced children: they are good for little. A genuine child, such as Annabel, is a treasure rarely met with.”
I thought so too.
CHAPTER V.
WATTS’S WIFE.
Leaving the omnibus at Charing Cross, I was hastening along the Strand on my way home, when I ran against a gentleman, who was swaggering along in a handsome, capacious cloak as if all the street belonged to him.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, in apology. “I — —” And there I broke off to stare, for I thought I recognised him in the gaslight.
“Why! It is Major Carlen!”
“Just so. And it is Charles. How are you, Charles?”
“Have you lately come from Brussels?” I asked, as we shook hands. “And how did you leave mamma and Blanche?”
“They are in Gloucester Place,” he answered. “We all came over last Wednesday.”
“I wonder they did not let me know it.”
“Plenty of time, young man. They will not be going away in a hurry. We are settling down here again. You can come up when you like.”
“That will be to-morrow then. Good-night, sir.”
But it was not until Monday evening that I could get away. Mr. Lennard went out in the afternoon on some private matter of his own, and desired me to remain in to see a client, who had sent us word he should call, although it was Easter Monday. Mr. Brightman did not come to town that day.
Six o’clock was striking when I reached Gloucester Place. Blanche ran to meet me in the passage, and we had a spell of kissing. I think she was then about fourteen; perhaps fifteen. A fair, upright, beautiful girl, with the haughty blue eyes of her childhood, and a shower of golden curls.