by Ellen Wood
“Why, yes, that I do. It’s a lonely life for him at best, the one he leads. I’ve not scrupled to tell him, times and oft, that he ought to bring a mistress home —— Eh, but there he is! That’s his step.”
As before, Anne went into the pretty room that Sir Robert, when alone, mostly sat in. Three or four opened letters lay upon the table, and she wondered whether they related to her.
“No, I have as yet no news for you,” he said, smiling at her eager face, and keeping her hand in his while he spoke. “You will have to come again for it. Sit down.”
“But if — if you have nothing to tell me to-day, I had better not take up your time,” said Anne, not liking to appear intrusive.
“My time! If you knew how slowly time some days seems to pass for me, you would have no scruple about ‘taking it up.’ Sit here. This is a pleasant seat.”
With her eyes fixed on the outer landscape, Anne sat on and listened to him. He talked of various things, and she felt as much at her ease (as she told me that same evening) as though she had been talking with me. Afterwards she felt half afraid she had been too open, for she told him all about her childhood’s home in France and her dear mother. It was growing dusk when she got up to go.
“Will you come again on Monday afternoon?” he asked. “I shall be out in the morning.”
“If I can, sir. Oh yes, if I can. But Mrs. Lewis, who will be at home then, does not want me to take a situation at all, and she may not let me come out.”
“I should come without telling her,” smiled Sir Robert. “Not want you to leave home, eh? Would you like to stay there to make the puddings? Ay, I understand. Well, I shall expect you on Monday. There may be some news, you know.”
And, somehow, Anne took up the notion that there would be news, his tone sounded so hopeful. All the way home her feet seemed to tread on air.
On the Sunday evening, when they were all sitting together at Maythorn Bank, and Anne had no particular duty on hand, she took courage to tell of what she had done, and that Sir Robert Tenby was so good as to interest himself for her. Mrs. Lewis was indignant; the young ladies were pleasantly satirical.
“As nursery governess: you!” mocked Miss Julia. “What shall you teach your pupils? To play at cats’ cradle?”
“Why, you know, Anne, you are not fit for a governess,” said Fanny. “It would be quite — quite wicked of you to make believe to be one. You never learnt a note of music. You can’t draw. You can’t paint.”
“You had better go to school yourself, first,” snapped Mrs. Lewis. “I will not allow you to take such a step: so put all thought of it out of your head.”
Anne leaned her aching brow upon her hand in perplexity. Was she so unfit? Would it be wicked? She determined to put the case fully before her kind friend, Sir Robert Tenby, and ask his opinion.
Providing that she could get to Sir Robert’s. Ask leave to go, she dare not; for she knew the answer would be a point-blank refusal.
But fortune favoured her. Between three and four o’clock on Monday afternoon, Mrs. Lewis and her daughters dressed themselves and sailed away to call on some people at South Crabb; which lay in just the contrary direction to Bellwood. They left Anne a heap of sewing to do: but she left the sewing and went out on her own score. I met her near the Ravine. She told me what she had done, and looked bright and flushed over it.
“Mrs. Lewis is one cat, and they are two other cats, Anne. Tod says so. Good-bye. Good luck to you!”
“Eh, my dear, and I was beginning to think you didna mean to come,” was Mrs. Macbean’s salutation. “But Sir Robert is nae back yet, he has been out on horseback since the morning; and he said you were to wait for him. So just take your bonnet off, and you shall have a cup of tea with me!”
Nothing loth, Anne took off her outdoor things. “They will be home before I am, and find me gone out,” she reflected; “but they can’t quite kill me for it.” The old lady rang her bell for tea, and thought what a nice and pretty young gentlewoman Anne looked in her plain black dress with its white frilling, and the handsome jet necklace that had been her mother’s.
But before the tea could be made, Sir Robert Tenby’s horse trotted up, and they heard him go to his sitting-room. Mrs. Macbean took Anne into his presence, saying at the same time that she had been about to give the young lady a cup of tea.
“I should like some tea, too,” said Sir Robert; “Miss Lewis can take it with me. Send it in.”
It came in upon a waiter, and was placed upon the table. Anne, at his request, put sugar and cream into his cup, handed it to him, and then took her own. He was looking very thoughtful; she seemed to fancy he had no good news for her, as he did not speak of it; and her heart went down, down. In a very timid tone, she told him of the depreciating opinion held of her talents at home, and begged him to say what he thought, for she should not like to be guilty of undertaking any duty she was not fully competent to fulfil.
“Will you take some more tea?” was all Sir Robert said in answer.
“No, thank you, sir.”
“Another biscuit? No? We will send the tray away then.”
Ringing the bell, a servant came in and removed the things. Sir Robert, standing at the window, and looking down at Anne as she sat, began to speak.
“I think there might be more difficulty in getting you a situation as governess than we thought for; one that would be quite suited to you, at least. Perhaps another kind of situation would do better for you.”
Her whole face, turned up to him with its gaze of expectancy, changed to sadness; the light in her eyes died away. It seemed so like the knell of all her hopes. Sir Robert only smiled.
“If you could bring yourself to take it — and to like it,” he continued.
“But what situation is it, sir?”
“That of my wife. That of Lady of Bellwood.”
Just for a moment or two she simply stared at him. When his meaning reached her comprehension, her face turned red and white with emotion. Sir Robert took her hand and spoke more fully. He had learnt to like her very very much, to esteem her, and wished her to be his wife.
“I am aware that there is a good deal of difference in our ages, my dear; more than twenty years,” he went on, while she sat in silence. “But I think you might find happiness with me; I will do my very best to insure it. Better be my wife than a nursery governess. What do you say?”
“Oh, sir, I do not know what to say,” she answered, trembling a little. “It is so unexpected — and a great honour — and — and I am overwhelmed.”
“Could you like me?” he gently asked.
“I do like you, sir; very much. But this — this would be different. Perhaps you would let me take until to-morrow to think about it?”
“Of course I will. Bring me your answer then. Bring it yourself, whatever it may be.”
“I will, sir. And I thank you very greatly.”
All night long Anne Lewis lay awake. Should she take this good man for her husband, or should she not? She did like him very much: and what a position it would be for her; and how sheltered she would be henceforth from the frowns of the world! Anne might never have hesitated, but for the remains of her love for Mr. Angerstyne. That was passing away from her heart day by day, as she knew; it would soon have passed entirely. She could never feel that same love again; it was over and done with for ever; but there was surely no reason why she should sacrifice all her future to its remembrance. Yes: she would accept Sir Robert Tenby: and would, by the help of Heaven, make him a true, faithful, good wife.
It was nearly dusk the next afternoon before she could leave the house. Mrs. Lewis had kept her in sight so long that she feared she might not find the opportunity that day. She ran all the way to Bellwood, anxious to keep her promise: she could not bear to seem to trifle, even for a moment, with this good and considerate man. Sir Robert was waiting for her in a glow of firelight. He came forward, took both her hands in his, and looked into her face inquiringly.
“
Well?”
“Yes, sir, if you still wish to take me. I will try to be to you a loving wife; obedient and faithful.”
With a sigh of relief, he sat down on a sofa that was drawn to the fire and placed her beside him, holding her hand still.
“My dear, I thank you: you have made me very happy. You shall never have cause to repent it.”
“It is so strange,” she whispered, “that you should wait all these years, with the world to choose from, and then think of me at last! I can scarcely believe it.”
“Ay, I suppose it is strange. But I must tell you something, Anne. When quite a youth, only one-and-twenty, there was a young lady whom I dearly loved. She was poor, and not of much family, and my father forbade the union. She married some one else, and died. It is for the love of her I have kept single all these years. But I shall not make you the less good husband.”
“And I — I wish to tell you that I once cared for some one,” whispered Anne, in her straightforward honesty. “It is all over and done with; but I did like him very much.”
“Then, my dear, we shall be even,” he said, with a merry smile. “The one cannot reproach the other. And now — this is the beginning of April; before the month shall have closed you had better come to me. We have nothing to wait for; and I do not like, now that you belong to me, to leave you one moment longer than is needful with that lady whom you are forced to call stepmother.”
How Anne reached home that late afternoon she hardly knew: she knew still less how to bring the news out. In the course of the following morning she tried to do so, and made a bungle of it.
“Sir Robert not going to get you a situation as governess!” interrupted Julia, before Anne had half finished. “Of course he is not. He knows you are not capable of taking one. I thought how much he was intending to help you. You must have had plenty of cheek, Anne, to trouble him.”
“I am going to be his wife instead,” said poor Anne, meekly. “He has asked me to be. And — and it is to be very soon; and he is coming to see Mrs. Lewis this morning.”
Mrs. Lewis, sitting back in an easy-chair, her feet on the fender, dropped the book she was reading to stare at Anne. Julia burst into a laugh of incredulity. Her mother echoed it, and spoke ——
“You poor infatuated girl! This comes of being brought up on French soup. But Sir Robert Tenby has no right to play jokes upon you. I shall write and tell him so.”
“I — think — he is there,” stammered Anne.
There he was. A handsome carriage was drawing up to the gate, the baronet’s badge upon its panels. Sir Robert sat inside. A footman came up the path and thundered at the door.
Not very long afterwards — it was in the month of June — Anne and her husband were guests at a London crush in Berkeley Square. It was too crowded to be pleasant. Anne began to look tired, and Sir Robert whispered to her that if she had had enough of it, they would go home. “Very gladly,” she answered, and turned to say good-night to her hostess.
“Anne! How are you?”
The unexpected interruption, in a voice she knew quite well, and which sent a thrill through her, even yet, arrested Anne in her course. There stood Henry Angerstyne, his hand held out in greeting, a confident smile, as if assuming she could only receive him joyfully, on his handsome face.
“I am so much surprised to see you here; so delighted to meet you once again, Miss Lewis.”
“You mistake, sir,” replied Anne, in a cold, proud tone, drawing her head a little up. “I am Lady Tenby.”
Walking forward, she put her arm within her husband’s, who waited for her. Mr. Angerstyne understood it at once; it needed not the almost bridal robes of white silk and lace to enlighten him. She was not altered. She looked just the same single-minded, honest-hearted girl as ever, with a pleasant word for all — except just in the moment when she had spoken to him.
“I am glad of it: she deserves her good fortune,” he thought heartily. With all his faults, few men could be more generously just than Henry Angerstyne.
XV.
THE KEY OF THE CHURCH.
“Johnny, you will have to take the organ on Sunday.”
The words gave me a surprise. I turned short round on the music-stool, wondering whether Mrs. Todhetley spoke in jest or earnest. But her face was quite serious, as she sat, her hands on her lap, and her lame finger — the fore-finger of the left hand — stretched out.
“I take the organ, good mother! What’s that for?”
“Because I was to have taken it, Johnny, and this accident to my finger will prevent it.”
We had just got home to Dyke Manor from school for the Michaelmas holidays. Not a week of them: for this was Wednesday afternoon, and we should go back the following Monday. Mrs. Todhetley had cut her finger very seriously in carving some cold beef on the previous day. Old Duffham had put it into splints.
“Where’s Mr. Richards?” I asked, alluding to the church organist.
“Well, it is rather a long tale, Johnny. A good deal of dissatisfaction has existed, as you know, between him and the congregation.”
“Through his loud playing.”
“Just so. And now he has resigned in a huff. Mr. Holland called yesterday morning to ask if I would help them at the pinch by taking the organ for a Sunday or two, until matters were smoothed with Richards, or some fresh organist was found; and I promised him I would. In the evening, this accident happened to my finger. So you must take it in my place, Johnny.”
“And if I break down?”
“Not you. Why should you?”
“I am out of practice.”
“There’s plenty of time to get up your practice between now and Sunday. Don’t make objections, my dear. We should all do what little we can to help others in a time of need.”
I said no more. As she observed, there was plenty of time between now and Sunday. And, not to lose time, I went off there and then.
The church stood in a lonely spot, as I think you know, and I took the way across the fields to it. Whistling softly, I went along, fixing in my mind upon the chants and hymns. Ours was rather a primitive service. The organ repertoire included only about a dozen chants and double that number of hymns. It had this advantage — that they were all familiar to the congregation, who could join in the singing at will, and the singers had no need to practise. Mr. Richards had lately introduced a different style of music, and it was not liked.
“Let me see: I’ll make it just the opposite of Richards’s. For the morning we will have the thirty-seventh psalm, ‘Depend on God:’ there’s real music in that; and ‘Jerusalem the Golden.’ And for the afternoon, ‘Abide with me,’ and the Evening Hymn. Mornington’s Chant; and the Grand Chant; and the —— Halloa, Fred! Is it you?”
A lithe, straight-limbed young fellow was turning out of the little valley: on his way (as I guessed) from the Parsonage. It was Fred Westerbrook: old Westerbrook’s nephew at the Narrow Dyke Farm — or, as we abbreviated it, the N. D. Farm.
“How are you, Johnny?”
His face and voice were alike subdued as he shook hands. I asked after Mr. and Mrs. Westerbrook.
“They are both well, for anything I know,” he answered. “The N. D. Farm is no longer my home, Johnny.”
Had he told me the Manor was no longer mine, I could not have been more surprised.
“Why, how is that, Fred?”
“They have turned me out of it.”
“What — this morning?”
“This morning — no. Two months ago.”
“And why? I never thought it would come to that.”
“Because they wanted to get rid of me, that’s why. Gisby has been the prime mover in it — the chief snake in the grass. He is worse than she is.”
“And what are you doing?”
“Nothing: except knocking about. I’d be off to America to-morrow and try my luck there if I had a fifty-pound note in my pocket. I went up to the farm last week, and made an appeal to my uncle to help me to it, and be rid of me
— —”
“And would he?” I interrupted, too eager to let him finish.
“Would he!” repeated Fred, savagely. “He bade me go to a place unmentionable. He threatened to drive me off the premises if ever I put foot on them again.”
“I am very sorry. What shall you do?” I asked.
“Heaven knows! Perhaps turn poacher.”
“Nonsense, Fred!”
“Is it nonsense!” he retorted, taking off his low-crowned hat and passing his hand passionately over his wavy, auburn hair — about the nicest hair I ever saw. People said Fred was proud of it. He was a good-looking young fellow altogether; with a clear, fresh face, and steady grey eyes.
“You don’t know what it is to be goaded, Johnny,” he said. “I can tell you I am ripe for any mischief. And a man must live. But for one thing, I swear I wouldn’t keep straight.”
I knew what thing he meant quite well. “What does she say about it?” I asked.
“What can she say? My uncle has insulted her to her face, and made me out at the Parsonage to be a downright scamp. Oh, I go in for all that’s bad, according to him, I assure you, Johnny Ludlow.”
“Do you never see her?”
“It is chiefly by chance if I do. I have just been up there now, sitting for half-an-hour with her in the old study. There was no opportunity for a private word, though; the young ones were dodging around, playing at ‘Salt Fish’ — if you know the delectable game. Good-bye, Johnny lad.”
He strode off with an angry fire in his eye. I felt very sorry for him. We all liked Fred Westerbrook. He had his faults, I suppose, but he was one of the most open-natured fellows in the world.
Dashing in at Clerk Bumford’s for the key of the church, I sat down to the organ: an antiquated instrument, whose bellows were worked by the player’s feet, as are some of the modern harmoniums; but, as far as tone went, it was not bad — rather rich and sweet. All through the practice my mind was running on Fred Westerbrook and his uncle. The parish had said long ago they would come to a blow-up some time.