He had been kind, oh, he had been kind! But he had also been cruel. And had he been wise?
She saw no one for two days except Priscilla, who waited on her — and the housekeeper. Mrs. Jemmett visited her early, conveyed her ladyship’s orders that she should keep her bed, inquired if she needed the apothecary. But the housekeeper said little and asked no questions, and her silence, her pinched lips and guarded looks warned the girl what she must expect when she rose.
“I shall have to go,” she thought, too weary to rebel. “I shall have to go.” She had no doubt that the Countess would condemn her. For what could be more unbecoming, more dubious, in a governess than what had happened? But with her mind made up to the worst she rose in the end with a firmer courage.
In Lady Ann she met her first trial — an Ann affectionate, but strident, shameless, burning with curiosity, and primed in regions which she was forbidden to visit. “Do tell,” she urged, wreathing herself about her unfortunate preceptress. “You’ll tell me, won’t you? Did you throw yourself out? Really, truly, throw yourself out? And was it — now it’s no good pretending, Southy — was it Mr. Girardot? And did he try to—”
“Ann!” Rachel cried, horrified. “For shame! You should know nothing about such things! Don’t you know how unbecoming—”
“But I do know. I know a lot, and you may as well tell me. Tom told Bodmin, and he—”
“Then Tom ought to be ashamed of himself!” Rachel retorted in a rage. “And you too, Lady Ann. I am surprised at you. You should not talk to the servants. No, I’ll not listen to you. And I am not going to tell you anything about it.”
“Now you are going to be a beast!” Ann decided. “If you don’t tell me, I shall think there’s something shocking! And that’s what they all think. Tom said that he was sure that Mr. Girardot tried to—”
“Ann!” Rachel rose in her wrath.
But the child was not to be silenced. “Well, if you won’t tell me,” she said, “you’ll have to tell mother. She’s going to send for you at twelve o’clock. And Jane expects that it was not all on one side, for she says he’d a voice that would lure a bird off a bush, and she’s sure he—”
Rachel did silence her then — she was furious. But, after all, this was a trifle compared with the ordeal of encountering Lady Ellingham — compared with the moment when the Countess, seated in state in her room, looked up from her needlework and pointed to a chair. “Be so good as to sit there,” she said. “I hope that you are better?” with a glance at the bandaged wrist. “If you do not feel equal to talking to-day, I will see you to-morrow.”
Rachel murmured that she was much better.
My lady, after allowing her eyes to dwell for a moment on the girl’s face, dropped them to her work again. “Then you will perhaps,” she said, in the tone of one sitting in judgment, “tell me what happened. I have heard but a confused story, and I think that in view of your position with us I should know all, Miss South.”
“Certainly,” Rachel assented.
“Will you tell me then?” And as the girl hesitated, uncertain where to begin, the Countess looked up. “You have nothing to conceal, I take it?”
“Nothing!” Rachel said firmly, and with an effort she began her story.
When she came, however, no little confused, to Girardot’s appearance, “Why did you not get out at once?” Lady Ellingham asked.
“I was surprised, and the chaise was moving before I” — she began to stammer—” before I knew who it was, or — or could think what to do.”
“Ah!”
“And when I knew,” the girl continued in evident distress, “I could not get out — in the road, in the dark. He said that he would leave me at the next stage.”
“That was Fordingbridge? Just so. But he did not. Then why did you not get out there?”
Poor Rachel’s face burned. “I tried to get out,” she said, “but he asked me did I want to make a scandal. And he said that he would get out short of Salisbury, and before—”
“Before you did anything,” my lady said, “you were going on?”
“Yes.”
“Along with him? I see.”
Rachel rose. “Lady Ellingham,” she protested, trembling, “if you do not believe me—”
“Be good enough to sit down,” my lady rejoined. “I did not say that I did not believe you. But as I know what had passed, between you and this person, it is not only natural, Miss South, it is right that I should sift your story. It is my duty to you and to myself to do so. You say that this meeting was quite unexpected — on your part?”
“Absolutely.” Rachel was almost in tears.
“And unwelcome?”
“Hateful!”
“Very well. Then be so good as to go on.”
Rachel did so with an effort, but when she came with hot cheeks to the climax and to the moment when Girardot put his arm round her and she threw herself out of the carriage, the Countess’s hands fell on her lap and she looked up. “You might have been killed!” she said.
“I — I did not hurt myself much. I fell on the grass, I think. I did not feel it.”
My lady measured the speaker with frowning eyes. She seemed to be considering whether she was really telling the truth. “And what then?”
The girl, relieved that the worst was over, described how she had hidden in the thicket, watched the search, seen the carriage at last move off. Finally, how with only one shoe she had trudged along the dark road, espied the light, reached the farm.
“With one shoe?”
“I had lost the other in the ditch.”
“Which one was it?”
“The right.”
“Then will you be good enough to let me see that foot?”
For a moment the girl’s face flamed. She hesitated. “I think,” my lady said coldly, “you will be well advised to let me see it.” Then, “Do not be a fool, girl,” she continued. “I suppose you wish the truth to be known.”
Unwillingly Rachel removed the stocking. The slender white foot was bruised and blistered, covered with scratches, with here and there the black mark of a thorn.
Lady Ellingham nodded. “I see,” she said. “Put on your stocking, child. Facts, you know, speak for themselves. And then I understand Captain Dunstan found you at the farm — I shall see Mrs. Mew — and brought you down to Fordingbridge on Medea.”
“Yes,” Rachel said, thankful that the tale was told.
“Have you been in the habit of riding?”
“I have never ridden before.”
“Ah!” my lady said, her eyes on her work. A long pause. “Well, while you are here, Coker might give you a lesson or two. Lady Ann’s skirt would fit you, I dare say.”
Rachel could hardly believe her ears. Then there was to be no question of her going. Impulsively she put her thought into words. “Then I am not to go?” she faltered.
My lady smiled. “Not on account of this,” she said. “If — if your conscience is clear, Miss South.”
“It is!” Rachel cried. “But I feared that you might think that I was to blame.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Rachel owned meekly, “I had been so foolish before.”
“But there is an end of that now, I presume?”
“Oh, yes!”
The Countess, bending over her work, seemed to be lost in thought. Presently, “It was fortunate that Captain Dunstan followed you,” she observed.
The girl did not answer, and my lady looking up saw that there were tears in her eyes. “I was saying,” she repeated, “that it was fortunate that Captain Dunstan followed you.”
“It was so very, very kind of him,” Rachel said, her lips quivering. “If you would please to thank him.”
“I am afraid I cannot do that. He left this morning to take over a ship at Plymouth. Do you know,” the Countess continued with a sharp look, “I think it was good of him, Miss South. But I am not surprised, for I know no one who has a kinder heart, though he does not wea
r it on his sleeve.” She waited for Rachel to say something, but Rachel was silent, and the Countess drew a conclusion the opposite of that which some would have drawn. “You know, I suppose,” she continued, “that he is a very distinguished officer. Lord Nelson thinks highly of him, and it is at his request that he is to be attached to his squadron.”
“It was very wonderful of him,” Rachel murmured.
“Of Lord Nelson?”
“No, that he should think of me,” Rachel explained with a simplicity that my lady at first distrusted and then, after a glance at the girl’s face, accepted.
“I think it was. But he has his reward for his unselfishness, for he has got the ship that he wanted and sails for St. Helen’s within a week or ten days. But I wish he were safe ashore. I fear there will be danger if what I hear is true. You know, I suppose, that he has been twice wounded?”
“No, I did not know.”
“No? Then he has not told you?”
“Oh, no,” Rachel exclaimed in surprise at the question.
“He has not talked to you much?”
“No.”
“Not as you came back from Whitsbury?”
“Oh, no. I was too tired. And no doubt he was thinking of his ship.”
“He did not know of it then. But he is not a person who talks much, or likes to be thanked. Indeed, I should like to know what he said when you thanked him.”
“I did not,” Rachel confessed. “I did not think—” She stopped.
“What?”
“That he would care about it, Lady Ellingham. I thought that—”
“That it was a small matter perhaps?”
“Well — to him.”
“I do not think that Lord Ellingham thought that it was a small matter — to Medea! There, you need not look so frightened! Medea is none the worse.
But—” Lady Ellingham paused — had she not been generous enough, foolish enough? Had she not paid her debt to him? Surely he could expect no more. Then she relented. “But I think you are mistaken in one thing. Captain Dunstan thought a good deal of — of your safety. He inquired after you every morning until he left.”
Rachel did not answer, but my lady saw that her eyes were wet. And, “There, silly, silly woman I am!” she thought. “I have not only not crossed his hawse, as he calls it, but I am sending this child away to brood over him and his generosity — when I do believe that she had not a thought of him before.” She paused awhile, and then aloud, “Your father was in orders, was he not?” she asked.
“Yes,” Rachel replied in surprise at the sudden change of subject. Lady Ellingham was certainly very odd this morning.
“Had he a cure?”
“He was Vicar of Alden in Devonshire. He was a great-nephew,” the girl explained with modest pride, “of Dr. South, who was Chaplain to King Charles the Martyr.”
Lady Ellingham’s needle hung suspended. “Indeed?” she said. “I have read his sermons. I think there is one in the Tatler. And what brothers and sisters have you?”
“Only one sister, who is younger.”
“Ah! Well” — unconsciously the Countess expressed her thoughts aloud—” that is to the good.”
Rachel stared, but did not understand and ventured on no comment.
“I will speak to Coker about your riding,” Lady Ellingham continued. “It will be good for Ann to have a companion, as I cannot often go out with her. And she is rather troublesome at breakfast now that we have company. I think it will be well for you to come down with her for a time. She may be less in the way perhaps if you are with her. You seem to have gained some control over her. I think — that is all now, Miss South.”
Rachel rose. She hesitated. “I think you are very kind to me,” she said timidly.
“Yes,” Lady Ellingham was on the point of answering, “I am, you simpleton! Kinder than you think, and kinder to you than to myself!” But she contented herself with a good-humoured nod of dismissal.
When the girl was gone, however, she rose, cast her work aside, and moving to a mirror surveyed herself in it. “Oh, you fool, you!” she murmured. “Cutting your own throat and helping your best, your only friend to lower himself! And all because you are too soft-hearted and he has taken a fancy to that child’s baby face and pleading eyes! When you ought instead to be choking her. Kitty, Kitty, I don’t know which is the bigger fool, you or he!”
CHAPTER XXX
RIDING LESSONS
“HALLO, Ann!” Lord Robert exclaimed next morning, looking up from his plate. “Who has curry-combed that tangle of yours so early?” Then, “Oh, crikey!” he added in a different tone, and he scrambled with a beaming smile to his feet.
It had been Rachel’s plan to be seated before the party began to come down, and to be gone, were it possible, before all were at table; for she regarded this first appearance as a formidable thing. But she had reckoned without Ann, who, usually early, chose on this morning to be late, and moreover she had not remembered that it was a hunting morning. When she made her entrance, therefore, shyly following her pupil, three of the men were already in possession. Sir Austin was warming his tightly breeched old knees before the fire and did not see her. The chaplain was at the side-table, taking a morning draught of ale. The beau alone therefore saw the unusual. Rachel’s adventure had shed a halo of romance about the girl, her seclusion had heightened this, and Lord Robert saw a chance of sport.
“Splendid!” he said with ready geniality. “You are mending Ann’s manners already, Miss South. She’s only early when she isn’t wanted. And begad, getting up early suits you. Blooming this morning! Do you sit here.” He dragged back the chair beside his own.
But the chaplain also thought the occasion good.
He too bustled forward. “Hate a jealous rider, don’t you, Miss South?” be said. “Take this chair.” He drew back another. “Not afraid to face the light, I’ll wager. None the worse, I hope — ha! ha! — for your little adventure?”
“Now don’t come thrusting in, parson,” Lord Robert retorted. “Miss South is going to make my tea.”
“La, Bobbie,” Ann drawled, her quick eyes at work. “How funny you are! You never ask me to make your tea!”
“No, my dear, not since you left a sample of your mane in my cup! And I’m not drawn by beauty with a horse-hair, as the poet says. When your head is as neat as Miss South’s you shall. Oh, come, Miss South, you are not going to be so cruel as to sit down there!”
“Thank you,” Rachel replied with composure, though she was anything but grateful for his attentions. “I prefer to be farther from the fire.”
“Too hot? Well, perhaps it is. I think I’ll move down too.”
“Lady Ann,” Rachel said firmly, “sit here, if you please.”
The chaplain grinned. “Beware of all, but most beware of men!” he hummed sotto voce. “A little pork-pie, Miss South? May I help you?”
“Donkey!” the unabashed Bobbie struck in. “Do you think that Miss South lives on pork meat? A little dew, a butterfly’s wing and a flake of honey! Allow me — the honey!”
“La, Bobbie, you are funny!” Ann drawled.
“No, no honey, thank you,” Rachel said. The beau meant no harm, he meant at worst a little amusement. But the chaplain’s grin put an unpleasant point on his attentions, and unused to persiflage Rachel was thankful when the door opened. But it opened only to admit Lord Ellingham, and her heart sank. Another man! And, she feared, another tormentor!
But my lord, who with his boyish smile had done more mischief in three years than Bobbie would do in his whole life, seemed nevertheless to bring a fresher air into the room. “Hallo!” he exclaimed, nodding pleasantly. “Miss South here? Glad to see you about again. Quite recovered? That’s well. My lady in no end of a flutter about you. Gad!” as he turned to Sir Austin, “there’ll be a burning scent when the sun is up and the frost is off the grass.”
It was a part of his charm — and how much had he exercised it! — that knack of putting others at th
eir ease, of addressing them as equals, of taking for granted their interest in all that concerned him. Rachel felt the attraction, and was grateful to him; and perhaps owned the attraction not the less because in his hunting dress he made a gallant show. He drew off the others’ attention — that too was a part of his tact — and she was able to take her meal in peace. A few minutes later Lady Ellingham appeared, followed by the handsome, languid Charlotte. The Countess greeted her dependant with a pleasant word, and as she passed re-tied Ann’s hair-riband. But over Miss Froyle’s face a cloud fell. The addition to the party was not to her mind.
They fell to talking about the prospects of the day, then passed to a matter that in a twinkling riveted Rachel’s attention. In that house interest in the subject was natural, apart from George’s share in it, for the neighbourhood of Portsmouth and Southampton gave a naval tone to their thoughts. St. Helen’s Roads and Spithead were household words, and admirals were among their nearest neighbours. But indeed many were the houses from one end of England to the other in which the chances of the Baltic expedition were being discussed that morning; many the hearts it set fluttering. Its object — to detach Denmark from Napoleon’s interest — was no longer a secret; the Gazette of the day before had announced it, and not a few troubled not only for the safety of those whom they loved, but for the issue. A disaster must much increase the danger of an invasion.
To Rachel it was all new, all enlightenment. She had not been in the way of hearing such things debated by those who were behind the scenes, and it was with painful interest that she listened. Why painful, she could hardly say, nor why her colour ebbed. She told herself that it was the risk that so many gallant men were running that moved her, and not the risk that the one she knew was running. For kind as he had been to her, he stood so far from her that it seemed presumption to feel an anxiety on his behalf which those nearest to him affected to disclaim.
“George thought,” his brother said presently, “that they should have given the command to Nelson.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 735