“Airs?” The housekeeper’s cap-ribbons shook again. “I should think not! Who is she to put on airs, I should like to know? The governess, and a poor piece at that! But it’s not her. It is the Captain what gets me. He that was ever so steady. I’d no more have believed it of him than of old Caesar on the chain there!”
“Ay, ma’am, but that is where the trouble is!” Bowles said. “If the Captain weren’t steady, and I’m sure it’s a wonder he is, and blood thicker than water, there’d be no trouble. It’d arrange itself, Mrs. J.” Mrs. Jemmett frowned. “Bowles! Remember yourself!” she said. “Not in this room if you please. Besides,” she continued, yielding to temptation, “there’s two goes to that, and though it may be only her slyness, I’ll not think as bad of her as that. But her impudence? To think of the likes of her lifting her eyes to the family! Why, it’d be a disgrace to the name as would never be wiped out!”
But Bowles was cynical. “It wouldn’t be the first as we know,” he said. “My lord’s rode the name pretty hard, and not much harm done.”
“That’s a different thing,” the housekeeper replied tartly. “Not that I’m defending him and his creatures, heaven knows! I’d like to see ‘em all tied up and whipped. And if my lady weren’t an angel, and I don’t care who knows it, there’d ha’ been mud thrown before this, enough to—”
“Now, Mrs. J., Mrs. J., you’re taking sides.”
“Well, I do think of the family, Bowles! And I declare I could almost find it in my heart to speak to the man myself!”
“What? My lord! You never mean it!”
“No, drat the man! Nor did I say it. You know what I mean. To the Captain, of course.”
“Well,” he decided thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t if I was you. He’ll hear enough from her ladyship. Did you mind her face last night, leastways this morning? Well, I did, and you may take it from me she no more liked all that rumpus than we liked being called out of our beds. No, ma’am. And I shall be surprised if the young lady is here this day two weeks.”
“But will that turn him, d’you think, Bowles?”
“It depends, ma’am, on how my lady handles him. He’s hard to drive but easy to lead. And if anyone has the length of his foot it’s her ladyship.”
“Well, I’ll never believe the thing till I see it,” Mrs. Jemmett rejoined. “A little mouse of a child with no more about her than a curl-paper! Why, Jane the housemaid is good looks beside her, to say nothing of Miss Froyle, as it’s my belief would have him to-morrow and thankful — and come for the purpose if you ask me. And as fine a figure of a lady as you’d wish to see. I declare I can’t think what the men find to see in this chit! First the tutor, and then the Captain!”
The butler smirked. “Well, ma’am, I’ve looked her over myself. And though she’s slim, I’ve noticed her, and she’s not so thin as she looks, and she’s well shaped about the—”
“Bowles!”
“I was going to say, the figure, ma’am.”
Mrs. Jemmett stared. “Well, I declare! You’ve looked her over, have you, and — well, to be sure! Indeed? But where women are concerned, men are fools and always will be.”
“The sect, Mrs. J., the sect!” Bowles replied with feeling as he eyed her ample proportions. “We’re weak, ma’am. We’re weak! The slaves of fancy.”
“Slaves of fiddle-de-dee! You’ll be looking at Jane next, I suppose. Let me catch you at it, my man! Well, I never! If I let my fancy run away with me like that —— —”
“Does it never run away, Mrs. J.?” the butler asked softly.
Whatever the answer — and a topic so delicate is better abandoned — Bowles was right on one point. If Onions was to be believed, there was no braver man in the service than his master. But when the Captain presented himself some two hours later in my lady’s room, he certainly wore a guilty air which he strove to cover by making the most of some news that had come in by the mail. It was weighty news, but with a good conscience he might not have published the matter with so excessive an air of triumph.
“Kitty, give me joy!” he announced. “Give me joy, my dear! I’ve ‘heard from Whitehall, and by George I’ve got the Polyphemus. The Polyphemus!
Seventy-four, French built, the finest lines you ever saw! A perfect duck, as handy as a frigate, and as fast on a wind as half the fourth-rates!”
But my lady was not to be moved. She preserved a provoking calmness. “Well, I’m pleased, George,” she said, “if it pleases you.”
“Pleases me? I should think it does please me! The Polyphemus! Why, half the men between the Hamoaze and Harwich will be wanting to cut my throat! It’s great news, my dear. Splendid news! I’m to commission her at Devonport, rig her out there, and when she’s ready take her round to Spithead, to join Lord Nelson’s squadron — but there!” He stopped abruptly. “That’s secret orders and I shouldn’t have told you, so do you keep a still tongue about that, Kitty. There’s great work afoot, but I mustn’t out with it yet. I’ll wager though we shall give the country something to talk about this time!” Still my lady refused to be carried away. “You will be at sea for some time then?” she asked thoughtfully. She did not seem to be displeased by the prospect.
“Why?” He spoke with a sudden drop in his tone, for he saw her drift. “Do you want to get rid of me? But, lord, to get, of all the craft I know, the Polyphemus. I could kick myself for joy of it!”
“But—”
“Confound it, Kitty,” he said ruefully, “and I thought you would be as pleased as I am!”
“Never mind about the ship for a minute,” my lady said. “I want to speak to you about something else.”
“And I can think of nothing else! But there!” He threw himself into a chair. “Speak on!” He looked uneasy.
“You know, you made an absurd fuss last night,” my lady said. “But that’s a small thing, and I won’t say that I don’t understand your reason. But have you considered — I’m sure that you know very well what I am going to say — how far you are going with that girl? And what is to come of it? It’s no good jumping up and down like that, George! If you are just amusing yourself with her it is bad, and it is unlike you and hard on her. Though,” my lady continued with contempt, “as the little fool has lost her heart once already since she has been here, I don’t know that that matters or that I have much sympathy to spare for her! Still, she seems to have behaved well last night, and I’m willing to think the best of her — to think at any rate that she deserves a better fate than to be played with.”
“I agree.”
“Then—”
“But I’m not playing with her!” He sprang to his feet. “I am going to make her my wife.”
My lady shrugged her shoulders. “I was afraid so,” she said, unmoved by his violence. “I was afraid that you had that in your mind, George. But you haven’t spoken to her?”
“No!”
“Not—”
“Not a word!”
“Then,” she rejoined, with a sigh of relief, and her face cleared, “there is no harm done yet. Thank God for that! She has no claim on you, and I implore you, George,” — my lady’s voice was very serious—” to listen to me before you give her one. I beseech you to look at the thing as if the case were not your own. Can you say that she is a fit wife for you — for a Dunstan? She may be a good girl, I am not saying that she is not, though she is a simpleton. It is not that. But she is not of any family, she is not of our world, and she is not of the class in which you should look for a wife. You do not know even who she is.”
“She is a parson’s daughter.”
“A poor curate’s, I suppose — if her tale be true.
But all governesses are curate’s daughters. It is the common tale, and as often true as their references. But grant it true, she is no wife for you. She is a dependant, almost a servant. And whatever you say — there, it is no good bobbing up and down! — a nobody. You can’t get out of that. And you ought to marry somebody, and somebody — I don’t care wh
ether she has a penny or not — in our class.”
“Charlotte Froyle, I suppose?”
“Why not — if you like her?”
“But,” he exploded, “I don’t like her!”
“Well, at any rate,” she said, rising in defence of her friend, “she was not in love and madly in love — yes, George, it is no good wincing, it’s the truth — with another man a month ago.”
“She wasn’t in love with him last night!” he retorted. “I don’t think you quite grasp what she did. She risked her life — and never in all my time, boarding or cutting out, have I run greater risk — to escape from him! If she don’t bear the marks of it to-day I’m a liar! She threw herself out when it was just odd or even whether she broke her neck or no! I tell you, Kitty,” he continued, beginning to stride the room in his excitement, “that girl is one in a thousand and she’s the girl for me. She has a spirit and a courage in that little body — that dear little body, yes, I’ll say it, damme, and not be faced down by you — that would not shame a Nelson! That would shrink from nothing and count no cost if duty led her that way! I’ve seen her tried three times and — not worthy? not of my class? I tell you there never was a woman more fit to be the wife of a seaman and bear a seaman’s children! And the wife of a sailor and the mother of my children she shall be, God willing — if she will have me!”
“If?” my lady cried in equal wrath and contempt — but in truth she was touched, and her anger, if not her scorn, was forced. “If? Are you fool enough to suppose that she would refuse you?”
“To-day? Yes. Did you not say a moment ago that she was in love with another man a month back?”
“Yes, the little fool! And probably is to-day for all this fuss and outcry! But if you think that with all you have to offer she will not jump at you—”
“I do think so,” he insisted. “If she is the girl I take her for, yes I do. My dear, you don’t know her. You are on the quarter-deck and she is forward and she keeps her distance and behaves according! You don’t know what a brave heart she has, what a spirit, what a courage!”
“I tell you what it is, George!” my lady said viciously. “I am sick of hearing of her courage. Her courage? You talk of nothing else, while I know that ever since she has been here she has been a cause of trouble. First that wretched man and then you! Oh, George, it is impossible — impossible that you can be such a silly! And when I look at you and see you tired and no more than the shadow of yourself this morning and think that she is the cause of it, and that she has come between you and me — oh, I wish to heaven,” my lady cried with passion, “that I had never seen her! Wasn’t it enough that she must risk your life in that wretched duel?”
“She?”
“Well, didn’t she? Don’t look at me like that. What — what is the matter? Wasn’t she the cause?”
“Of the duel? No, by G — d, she wasn’t! Did you think that, Kitty? She had nothing in the world to do with it! Not a jot except that she tried to stop it.”
“Then who—” but even before she finished the sentence, fear leapt into her eyes.
“Who? Another person. It doesn’t matter who. It is over and done with. Hang the duel. Let’s hear no more about it. I’m sick of it!”
“But — no,” she said with decision, “you must tell me, George!” She breathed quickly, a hand pressed to her breast. “If it was not about this girl you fought, who — oh! You don’t mean that it was — about me?”
“Confound it, Kitty!” Impatiently he put the thing away with his hand. “What does it matter if it was? It is over and done with. And it was no fault of yours. The blackguard said something that he should not have said. That was all.”
“About me?”
He nodded sulkily. “Well, in a way. And I wish to heaven that I had lamed him for it.”
“And I didn’t know!” My lady spoke softly, and there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, George, my best, best friend, what shall I say to you? What shall I — and now,” she continued, with a sob half suppressed, “I am going to lose you. She has stolen you from me — and I hate her for it!”
George shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He abhorred a scene. “Well, you can do this,” he said earnestly. “You can be a friend to her, my dear. She needs one, and will need one. More, I want you to promise to keep her here till I come back. I look to be away three months, and how am I to keep her safe till I come back? Or find her if she is not here?”
My lady looked at him, and there were doubt and trouble in her gaze. “If I thought it was for your good,” she said with a sigh, “I would do far, far more for you than that. But I don’t, oh, George, I don’t. I can’t. She may be all you say, and good. And yet she may be quite unfit to be your wife. There are only Fred’s life and the boy’s between you — and the Folly and all this. And you ought to consider that. You may think her this or that here, where there is no one to compare with her; but if you saw her in town? What figure would she make in town — in the Square? She has neither presence, nor birth, nor training. She has never learned the way of it, she could never hold her own. You would see her beside others—”
“Charlotte Froyle, I suppose!” he cried. “You would have me marry her? That doll? That pattern of primness and propriety? Why, you are only a simpleton after all, or you are blind, my lady! Or you would see that this girl would fill, and has the spirit to fill, any station she is called to, and fill it so that those about her will know that she is there! Ay, any station — though God forbid, God forbid, indeed, that she should ever take yours! She is quarter-deck right through, my girl, and will send ‘em to leeward fast enough when there is occasion. I know, I know, I tell you.”
“You foolish, foolish man!” my lady said. And sighed and smiled.
“Not a bit of it! You’ll see. But you haven’t promised me yet. You must promise me you will keep her, Kitty. I shall be miserable if I don’t know that she is with you, and safe.”
“But George,” she protested, “it is the most absurd thing! I am to keep her whether I will or no. And what if she won’t have you after all?”
“That is my business.”
“Or suppose you change your mind?”
“Well, that is my business too.”
“You are not going to speak to her now?”
“No,” he owned gloomily. “It would be useless or I would — within the hour. She is not ready for it, and I’m not such a puppy, I don’t think so well of myself — Fred has told me often enough that I am a bear — as to believe that I can carry a girl by storm; nor so ill of her as to believe that she will take me to-day if she was in love with another man yesterday. One foot on board and one on shore — she’s not of that kind. No, I must give her time. But when I come ashore again and have made her know what I want — well, she may not take me then. But at any rate I shall have saved her from that scoundrel. You will promise me, Kitty?”
“Well,” she said at last, unwillingly and with averted eyes. “I will promise, George.” After all, she reflected, the future might hold many chances. The girl might see another, or he might change his mind.
He was not quite satisfied. “And you’ll play fair, Kitty? You’ll not cross my hawse?”
“You dear silly man,” she cried, “with your hawses! I suppose that you mean that I am not to set her against you?”
“Well, about that.”
“Well, I won’t then. There! I won’t even—”
She looked at him half quizzically, half tenderly. “You know, George, you are very, very simple after all.”
“And what then?” he asked suspiciously. “You won’t what, eh?”
“I won’t do what nine women out of ten would do, stupid man. I won’t tell her that if she marries you she will ruin you. Though if she is what you think her, that would checkmate you, if anything would!”
He stared. “Lord!” he exclaimed in amazement. “What women are, the best of them!”
“Ay!” she replied with venom. “You will find that out some day, ev
en if she is all you think! She’ll surprise you, my man! I know she’s an angel now! She is all smiles and syrup! She has no faults, no tempers, no whims, no tricks, no will of her own — she’s perfect! Because you love her!”
He nodded, smiling foolishly.
My lady stamped her foot with passion. “And I hate her! I hate her, for with her big eyes and her silly child’s face she has robbed me of my brother! And I am to bear with her and hug her and fondle her! Oh, George,” my lady continued, and there were angry tears in her eyes, “you are a monster!”
“But if you gain a sister?” said foolish George.
“Gain a sister?” she retorted passionately. “Gain a fiddlestick! Go away, go away, and let me cry by myself!”
CHAPTER XXIX
HER SOFTER SIDE
THE high may steal a horse where the low may not look over the wall; which in this connection means that about a governess there must be no scandal. Rachel thought often of this as she lay by during the next two days, thankful for the prostration that, while it privileged her to hide herself, dulled to some extent the sharpness of recollection. That she had escaped from a peril, the very thought of which and of the struggle that had attended it wrung her nerves — for this, as she lay in the darkened room, she was deeply, most deeply grateful. And while the memory of the lover who had not scrupled to plot her ruin now awoke in her only fear and abhorrence, the man who had saved her, and to save her had not spared himself, came in, it is certain, for a full share in her thoughts.
He had saved her, or she had saved herself. She had escaped from the snare so cunningly laid for her. And so far well. But, alas, the matter did not end there. The incidents that had attended her adventure forced themselves again and again on her mind, and she saw herself the butt of a hundred shafts, of a hundred hateful surmises. She recalled the disapproving face with which the Countess had greeted her, and the servants’ wonder. She reflected in how serious, how odious a light scandal would set the whole matter; and a score of times she stifled a groan as she sank lower in the bed, thankful for the few hours that intervened before she must face the censorious eyes that awaited her.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 734