by Ellen Wood
“Why can’t she dine with us?” asked Miss Deveen.
“Better not,” said Cattledon. “She does not expect it; and with so many at table — —”
“Nonsense!” came Miss Deveen’s quick, decisive interruption. “Many at table! There are sufficient servants to wait on us, and I suppose you have sufficient dinner. Go and bring her down.”
Miss Deveen came back, holding out her hand to me as she crossed the room. The gong sounded as we went down to the drawing-room. They all came crowding in, Tod last; and we went in to dinner.
Miss Deveen, with her fresh, handsome face and her snow-white hair, took the head of the table. Cattledon, at the foot, a green velvet ribbon round her genteel throat, helped the soup. William Whitney sat on Miss Deveen’s right, I on her left. Janet Carey sat next to him — and this brought her nearly opposite me.
She had an old black silk on, with a white frill at the throat — very poor and plain as contrasted with the light gleaming silks of Helen and Anna. But she had nice eyes; their colour a light hazel, their expression honest and sweet. It was a pity she could not get some colour into her wan face, and a little courage into her manner.
After coffee we sat down in the drawing-room to a round game at cards, and then had some music; Helen playing first. Janet Carey was at the table, looking at a view in an album. I went up to her.
Had I caught her staring at some native Indians tarred and feathered, she could not have given a worse jump. It might have been fancy, but I thought her face turned white.
“Did I startle you, Miss Carey? I am very sorry.”
“Oh, thank you — no. Every one is very kind. The truth is” — pausing a moment and looking at the view— “I knew the place in early life, and was lost in old memories. Past times and events connected with it came back to me. I recognized the place at once, though I was only ten years old when I left it.”
“Places do linger on the memory in a singularly vivid manner sometimes. Especially those we have known when young.”
“I can recognize every spot in this,” she said, gazing still at the album. “And I have not seen it for fifteen years.”
“Fifteen. I — I understood you to say you were ten years old when you left it.”
“So I was. I am twenty-five now.”
So much as that! So much older than any of us! I could hardly believe it.
“I should not have taken you for more than seventeen, Miss Carey.”
“At seventeen I went out to earn my own living,” she said, in a sad tone, but with a candour that I liked. “That is eight years ago.”
Helen’s music ceased with a crash. Miss Deveen came up to Janet Carey.
“My dear, I hear you can sing: your aunt tells me so. Will you sing a song, to please me?”
She was like a startled fawn: looking here, looking there, and turning white and red. But she rose at once.
“I will sing if you wish it, madam. But my singing is only plain singing: just a few old songs. I have never learnt to sing.”
“The old songs are the best,” said Miss Deveen. “Can you sing that sweet song of all songs— ‘Blow, blow, thou wintry wind’?”
She went to the piano, struck the chords quietly, without any flourish or prelude, and began the first note.
Oh the soft, sweet, musical voice that broke upon us! Not a powerful voice, that astounds the nerves like an electric machine; but one of that intense, thrilling, plaintive harmony which brings a mist to the eye and a throb to the heart. Tod backed against the wall to look at her; Bill, who had taken up the cat, let it drop through his knees.
You might have heard a pin drop when the last words died away: “As friends remembering not.” Miss Deveen broke the silence: praising her and telling her to go on again. The girl did not seem to have the least notion of refusing: she appeared to have lived under submission. I think Miss Deveen would have liked her to go on for ever.
“The wonder to me is that you can remember the accompaniment to so many songs without your notes,” cried Helen Whitney.
“I do not know my notes. I cannot play.”
“Not know your notes!”
“I never learnt them. I never learnt music. I just play some few chords by ear that will harmonize with the songs. That is why my singing is so poor, so different from other people’s. Where I have been living they say it is not worth listening to.”
She spoke in a meek, deprecating manner. I had heard of self-depreciation: this was an instance of it. Janet Carey was one of the humble ones.
The next day was Good Friday. We went to church under lowering clouds, and came home again to luncheon. Cattledon’s face was all vinegar when we sat down to it.
“There’s that woman downstairs again! — that Ness!” she exclaimed with acrimony. “Making herself at home with the servants!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” smiled Miss Deveen. “She’ll get some dinner, poor thing.”
Cattledon sniffed. “It’s not a month since she was here before.”
“And I’m sure if she came every week she’d be welcome to a meal,” spoke Miss Deveen. “Ah now, young ladies,” she went on in a joking tone, “if you wanted your fortunes told, Mrs. Ness is the one to do it.”
“Does she tell truth?” asked Helen eagerly.
“Oh, very true, of course,” laughed Miss Deveen. “She’ll promise you a rich husband apiece. Dame Ness is a good woman, and has had many misfortunes. I have known her through all of them.”
“And helped her too,” resentfully put in Cattledon.
“But does she really tell fortunes?” pursued Helen.
“She thinks she does,” laughed Miss Deveen. “She told mine once — many a year ago.”
“And did it come true?”
“Well, as far as I remember, she candidly confessed that there was not much to tell — that my life would be prosperous but uneventful.”
“I don’t think, begging your pardon, Miss Deveen, that it is quite a proper subject for young people,” struck in Cattledon, drawing up her thin red neck.
“Dear me, no,” replied Miss Deveen, still laughing a little. And the subject dropped, and we finished luncheon.
The rain had come on, a regular downpour. We went into the breakfast-room: though why it was called that, I don’t know, since breakfast was never taken there. It was a fair-sized, square room, built out at the back, and gained by a few stairs down from the hall and a passage. Somehow people prefer plain rooms to grand ones for everyday use: perhaps that was why we all took a liking to this room, for it was plain enough. An old carpet on the floor, chairs covered with tumbled chintz, and always a good blazing fire in the grate. Miss Deveen would go in there to write her business letters — when she had any to write; or to cut out sewing with Cattledon for the housemaids. An old-fashioned secretary stood against the wall, in which receipts and other papers were kept. The French window opened to the garden.
“Pour, pour, pour! It’s going to be wet for the rest of the day,” said Tod gloomily.
Cattledon came in, equipped for church in a long brown cloak, a pair of clogs in her hand. Did none of us intend to go, she asked. Nobody answered. The weather outside was not tempting.
“You must come, Janet Carey,” she said very tartly, angry with us all, I expect. “Go and put on your things.”
“No,” interposed Miss Deveen. “It would not be prudent for your niece to venture out in this rain, Jemima.”
“The church is only over the way.”
“But consider the illness she has only just recovered from. Let her stay indoors.”
Cattledon went off without further opposition, Janet kneeling down unasked, to put on her clogs, and then opening her umbrella for her in the hall. Janet did not come in again. Miss Deveen went out to sit with a sick neighbour: so we were alone.
“What a cranky old thing that Cattledon is!” cried Bill, throwing down his newspaper. “She’d have walked that girl off in the wet, you see.”
“How o
ld is Cattledon?” asked Tod. “Sixty?”
“Oh, you stupid fellow!” exclaimed Helen, looking up from the stool on the hearthrug, where she was sitting, nursing her knees. “Cattledon sixty! Why, she can’t be above forty-five.”
It was disrespectful no doubt, but we all called her plain “Cattledon” behind her back.
“That’s rather a queer girl, that niece,” said Tod. “She won’t speak to one: she’s like a frightened hare.”
“I like her,” said Anna. “I feel very sorry for her. She gives one the idea of having been always put upon: and she looks dreadfully ill.”
“I should say she has been kept in some Blue Beard’s cupboard, amongst a lot of hanging wives that have permanently scared her,” remarked Bill.
“It’s Cattledon,” said Tod; “it’s not the wives. She puts upon the girl and frightens her senses out of her. Cattledon’s a cross-grained, two-edged — —”
He had to shut up: Janet Carey was coming in again. For about five minutes no one spoke. There seemed to be nothing to say. Bill played at ball with Miss Deveen’s red penwiper: Anna began turning over the periodicals: Helen gave the cat a box when it would have jumped on her knee.
“Well, this is lively!” cried Tod. “Nothing on earth to do; I wonder why the rain couldn’t have kept off till to-morrow?”
“I say,” whispered Helen, treason sparkling from her bright eyes, “let us have up that old fortune-teller! I’ll go and ask Lettice.”
She whirled out of the room, shutting the tail of her black silk dress in the door, and called Lettice. A few minutes, and Mrs. Ness came in, curtsying. A stout old lady in a cotton shawl and broad-bordered cap with a big red bow tied in front.
“I say, Mrs. Ness, can you tell our fortunes?” cried Bill.
“Bless you, young gentlefolks, I’ve told a many in my time. I’ll tell yours, if you like to bid me, sir.”
“Do the cards tell true?”
“I believe they does, sir. I’ve knowed ’em to tell over true now and again — more’s the pity!”
“Why do you say more’s the pity?” asked Anna.
“When they’ve fortelled bad things, my sweet, pretty young lady. Death, and what not.”
“But how it must frighten the people who are having them told!” cried Anna.
“Well, to speak the truth, young gentlefolks, when it’s very bad, I generally softens it over to ’em — say the cards is cloudy, or some’at o’ that,” was the old woman’s candid answer. “It don’t do to make folks uneasy.”
“Look here,” said Helen, who had been to find the cards, “I should not like to hear it if it’s anything bad.”
“Ah, my dear young lady, I don’t think you need fear any but a good fortune, with that handsome face and them bright eyes of yours,” returned the old dame — who really seemed to speak, not in flattery, but from the bottom of her heart. “I don’t know what the young lords ‘ud be about, to pass you by.”
Helen liked that; she was just as vain as a peacock, and thought no little of herself. “Who’ll begin?” asked she.
“Begin yourself, Helen,” said Tod. “It’s sure to be something good.”
So she shuffled and cut the cards as directed: and the old woman, sitting at the table, spread them out before her, talking a little bit to herself, and pointing with her finger here and there.
“You’ve been upon a journey lately,” she said, “and you’ll soon be going upon another.” I give only the substance of what the old lady said, but it was interspersed freely with her own remarks. “You’ll have a present before many days is gone; and you’ll — stay, there’s that black card — you’ll hear of somebody that’s sick. And — dear me! there’s an offer for you — an offer of marriage, — but it won’t come to anything. Well, now, shuffle and cut again, please.”
Helen did so. This was repeated three times in all. But, so far as we could understand it, her future seemed to be very uneventful — to have nothing in it — something like Miss Deveen’s.
“It’s a brave fortune, as I thought, young lady,” cried Mrs. Ness. “No trouble or care in store for you.”
“But there’s nothing,” said Helen, too intently earnest to mind any of us. “When am I to be married?”
“Well, my dear, the cards haven’t told so much this time. There’ll be an offer, as I said — and I think a bit of trouble over it; but — —”
“But you said it would not come to anything,” interrupted Helen.
“Well, and no more it won’t: leastways, it seemed so by the cards; and it seemed to bring a bother with it — old folks pulling one way maybe, and young ‘uns the other. You’ll have to wait a bit for the right gentleman, my pretty miss.”
“What stupid cards they are!” cried Helen, in dudgeon. “I dare say it’s all rubbish.”
“Any ways, you’ve had nothing bad,” said the old woman. “And that’s a priceless consolation.”
“It’s your turn now, Anna.”
“I won’t have mine told,” said Anna. “I’m afraid.”
“Oh, you senseless donkey!” cried Bill. “Afraid of a pack of cards!” So Anna laughed, and began.
“Ah, there’s more here,” said the old woman as she laid them out. “You are going through some great ceremony not long first. See here — crowds of people — and show. Is it a great ball, I wonder?”
“It may be my presentation,” said Anna.
“And here’s the wedding-ring! — and there’s the gentleman! See! he’s turning towards you; a dark man it is; and he’ll be very fond of you, too! — and — —”
“Oh, don’t go on,” cried Anna, in terrible confusion as she heard all this, and caught Tod’s eye, and saw Bill on the broad laugh. “Don’t, pray don’t; it must be all nonsense,” she went on, blushing redder than a rose.
“But it’s true,” steadily urged the old lady. “There the wedding is. I don’t say it’ll be soon; perhaps not for some years; but come it will in its proper time. And you’ll live in a fine big house; and — stay a bit — you’ll — —”
Anna, half laughing, half crying, pushed the cards together. “I won’t be told any more,” she said; “it must be all a pack of nonsense.”
“Of course it is,” added Helen decisively. “And why couldn’t you have told me all that, Mrs. Ness?”
“Why, my dear, sweet young lady, it isn’t me that tells; it’s the cards.”
“I don’t believe it. But it does to while away a wet and wretched afternoon. Now, Miss Carey.”
Miss Carey looked up from her book with a start. “Oh, not me! Please, not me!”
“Not you! — the idea!” cried Helen. “Why, of course you must. I and my sister have had our turn, and you must take yours.”
As if further objection were out of the question, Miss Carey stood timidly up by the table and shuffled the cards that Dame Ness handed to her. When they were spread out, the old woman looked at the cards longer than she had looked for either Helen or Anna, then at the girl, then at the cards again.
“There has been sickness and trouble; — and distress,” she said at length, “And — and— ‘tain’t over yet. I see a dark lady and a fair man: they’ve been in it, somehow. Seems to ha’ been a great trouble” — putting the tips of her forefingers upon two cards. “Here you are, you see, right among it,” — pointing to the Queen of Hearts. “I don’t like the look of it. And there’s money mixed up in the sorrow — —”
A low, shuddering cry. I happened to be looking from the window at the moment, and turned to see Janet Carey with hands uplifted and a face of imploring terror. The cry came from her.
“Oh don’t, don’t! don’t tell any more!” she implored. “I — was — not — guilty.”
Down went her voice by little and little, down fell her hands; and down dropped she on the chair behind her. The next moment she was crying and sobbing. We stood round like so many helpless simpletons, quite put down by this unexpected interlude. Old Dame Ness stared, slowly shuffling
the cards from hand to hand, and could not make it out.
“Here, I’ll have my fortune told next, Mother Ness,” said Bill Whitney, really out of good nature to the girl, that she might be left unobserved to recover herself. “Mind you promise me a good one.”
“And so I will then, young gentleman, if the cards ‘ll let me,” was the hearty answer. “Please shuffle ’em well, sir, and then cut ’em into three.”
Bill was shuffling with all his might when we heard the front-door open, and Cattledon’s voice in the hall. “Oh, by George, I say, what’s to be done?” cried he. “She’ll be fit to smother us. That old parson can’t have given them a sermon.”
Fortunately she stayed on the door-mat to take off her clogs. Dame Ness was smuggled down the kitchen stairs, and Bill hid the cards away in his pocket.
And until then it had not occurred to us that it might not be quite the right thing to go in for fortune-telling on Good Friday.
II.
On Easter Tuesday William Whitney and Tod went off to Whitney Hall for a few days: Sir John wrote for them. In the afternoon Miss Deveen took Helen in the carriage to make calls; and the rest of us went to the Colosseum, in the Regent’s Park. Cattledon rather fought against the expedition, but Miss Deveen did not listen to her. None of us — except herself — had seen it before: and I know that I, for one, was delighted with it.
The last scene of the performance was over. If I remember rightly, at this distance of time, it was the representation of the falling of an avalanche on a Swiss village, to bury it for ever in the snow; and we saw the little lighted church to which the terrified inhabitants were flying for succour, and heard the tinkling of its alarm bell. As we pushed out with the crowd, a policeman appeared in our way, facing us, a tall, big, fierce-looking man; not to impede the advance of the throng, but to direct its movements. Janet Carey seized my arm, and I turned to look at her. She stood something like a block of stone; her face white with terror, her eyes fixed on the policeman. I could not get her on, and we were stopping those behind. Naturally the man’s eyes fell on her; and with evident recognition.
“Oh, it’s you here, is it, Miss Carey!”