Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  In Rachel, least of all, did any change appear. She bent her smooth head over her plate, and her interference with the children was if anything more diffident. But Bowles, bearing in the letter-bag — and with an important face, for the postman had told him what was in it — knew that here was a change and that the little governess whom he had dubbed a daughter of mischief now sat in honour, not the less because it was slightly marked.

  Lord Ellingham opened the bag and spread out the letters. “Hallo! Here’s a Gazette!” he exclaimed, and he selected the paper from the mass and tore it open, while Bowles in the act of leaving the room took the liberty of pausing to hear the news. “Yes, by gad, news at last,” my lord continued. “Eh? Oh, here it is!” as the others turned anxious faces to him. “D’you hear, my lady? London, in Copenhagen Roads” — yes, this is it. ‘Admiral Sir Hyde Parker is pleased to report’ — umph! Umph!” He read in silence, his eyes travelling rapidly down the paper.

  My lady could bear the suspense no longer. “Is he safe?” she asked. “Fred! Tell us! Don’t keep us waiting!”

  “George? Blest if I know!” he answered. “I can’t make out anything. He reports, reports — oh, I see. Begs to refer their lordships to Lord Nelson’s dispatch — there, Nelson again, d — d if the man don’t always come to the top — for the issue of the action. Yes, all right!” His voice rose sharply and betrayed his relief. “He’s all right, Kitty!— ‘Reports with deepest concern the loss of Captains Mosse and Riou’ — so George is all right! Hurrah!”

  “Hurrah!” Bodmin waved arms and legs and knocked down a plate.

  My lady’s relief showed itself in a different fashion. “Thank God!” she said softly. And having risen to her feet in her excitement, she sat down again. “Thank God!” she repeated, and she looked at Rachel. But Rachel was bending over Ann’s hair-ribbon, assiduously re-tying it; and had not my lady marked with a woman’s eye the trembling fingers that fumbled over the task, she might have been deceived.

  “Yes, well done, George,” Lord Ellingham commented. “Lucky chap, isn’t he? Seems to have been a devilish hot business! Ah, here’s Lord Nelson’s story at last. ‘Elephant off Copenhagen. In obedience to your directions to report the proceedings of the squadron named in the margin’ — Lord, the man might be reporting on so many firkins of lard! Good! Good!” His eyes ran on as he read to himself. “But how long-winded these heroes are! Ah! here we have it! ‘Sank, burned and took seventeen sail of the line’ — gad, what a butcher he is!—’ being the whole of the Danish fleet south of the Crown battery’ — wonder he left any to the north of it, must have been on his blind side, I suppose!— ‘Irreparable loss of gallant and good Captain Riou. Acknowledge debt to every Captain, Officer, and Man for their zeal and distinguished bravery on this occasion. With sorrow compelled to place the name of Captain Mosse also on the list of killed, and among the severely wounded—’”

  He stopped abruptly, staring at the paper.

  My lady rose, her eyes wide. “Not — not George?” she gasped.

  “I’m afraid he’s hit,” my lord said slowly.

  Her hands clattered helplessly among the cups and saucers. “What — what does it say?” she muttered. “Tell us, quick!”

  “Come, he’s not killed, my dear.”

  “Read it! Read it! For heaven’s sake, let us know the worst!”

  “Well, he’s badly hit, I’m afraid,” my lord owned reluctantly, looking up at her and then down at the paper. “‘And among the severely wounded the name of Captain Dunstan of the Polyphemus, who showed’” — his voice shook a little—” ‘a noble example of intrepidity and devotion to duty.’”

  The words of praise were too much for my lady’s self-possession. She sat down and burst into tears, covering her face.

  Bowles had garnered the news and fled to spread it, and my lord looked helplessly at the awed children, then at their governess. “Will you get her a glass of water, Miss South?” he said.

  Rachel had taken herself in a hard grip — what, after all, was he to her? — and she rose and hurried for the water. She dared not pause, for the words “severely wounded” had stamped themselves on her brain, and if she stayed even for a moment to think of him suffering and in pain she knew that she would betray her foolishness. With a steady hand she brought in the glass, glueing her eyes to the margin that she might carry it steadily, her every faculty centred on that one thing. My lord had moved to his wife’s side and was leaning over her. “There, there,” he said, as he took the water, “it will be all right. Cheer up, my dear. You know George is as hard as nails and it will take a lot to knock him over. We shall have him here in a week, and will soon nurse him up again. You’ll see it will be all right.”

  “Will they make him an Admiral, father?” Bodmin asked. He at any rate was ready to look on the bright side.

  “In his turn, my son.”

  My lady looked up with a faint smile. “I’m very foolish,” she said. “We’ll — we’ll all hope for the best, children. But” — she looked round her with a startled face as if she had suddenly remembered something—” where is Miss South?”

  “She went out,” Ann answered. “I suppose she saw that she wasn’t wanted.” Her tone proclaimed a grievance, for, strange to say, Ann had become her governess’s champion.

  The two elders exchanged glances. “Well, you’re not wanted either,” my lord said. “So off you go, children. Your uncle will be all right.”

  They went pretty readily — they too liked to spread the news — and when the door had closed behind them, “Well, there’s no harm done there,” my lord said with meaning. “Didn’t turn a hair, that young lady! And a good job too, only if George is in earnest I shall be sorry if she takes him for other reasons and don’t care for him. I forgot about her in thinking of you, and she was as cool as this glass.”

  My lady smiled through her tears. “She cares,” she said.

  “Does she, begad? Well, I saw no sign of it.”

  “You wouldn’t,” my lady rejoined, speaking out of her superior wisdom. “I am going to her presently.”

  “But — you won’t say anything, Kitty?”

  “To commit George?” My lady wondered at man’s obtuseness. “Heaven forbid! He may have changed his mind. Men do,” she added, her lip trembling.

  My lord, still on his feet, cut himself a morsel from the loaf and ate it slowly. “Not George,” he said. “He’s not of that sort. But I’m afraid he has his troubles before him.”

  My lady was silent.

  He looked hard at the loaf as if he doubted about another slice. It was home-made bread, and of it toast was made such as is unknown to-day. “Yes, I am afraid he has,” he mumbled. “Mine are behind me. I made ‘em myself, but anyway, they are behind me. Do you believe me, Kitty?”

  “He hoped so,” she murmured unsteadily. “But I don’t know that he believed it.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he believed,” my lord said doggedly. “It was the last thing he said to me — if he doesn’t come back. Only he didn’t call them troubles, he called them by a harder word — he was never mealy-mouthed, George, God bless him! However, it is not what he hoped or what he believed that matters. It is what you believe.”

  My lady looked straight before her down the table. She did not speak and apparently she was not moved. But hidden in her lap under the edge of the table her hands were gripping one another so fiercely that the nails were red.

  “You’ve got a good many things to forgive,” my lord continued, with his eyes still fixed on the loaf. “And perhaps you cannot, and I don’t blame you. I never have blamed you in thought — no, nor in word, you’ll do me that justice. Indeed, I’ve thought a great deal of how you have taken it, Kitty — till just the other day — and I have admired you. I would not have had it otherwise. And he that will not when he may — I know all that. But there are the children. They are growing up and will soon know. And what you cannot do for me, you may be able to do for them.”
r />   “No!” my lady said.

  He winced. “I don’t know quite what you mean by that,” he answered. “But I do know this, and I’ll be quite plain. If you can’t forgive freely and fully — and I know it’s hard, but it’s best to be frank — it’s no use. “I’m no saint, as you know very well. I’m a man at any rate, and it must be all or nothing. You understand that?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “It was George’s wish.”

  “I understand that too,” she said. He spoke to me too. He has been my best, my only friend, the truest, staunchest friend. But I wouldn’t do it for that, and I will not. No! No!” She repeated the word firmly. “Neither for George nor for the children — do you think I have no pride, no respect for myself, that I can forget” — she shivered—” so easily? So lightly? No. I will keep up appearances for the children’s sakes. I will continue to do that as I have done it. But no more, even for his sake.”

  He stared moodily at the loaf. After an unhappy pause, “Kitty,” he said, “I thought — I hoped that you were kinder.”

  “No!” she retorted sharply. “You mean that you thought I was weaker. But there is a little pride, a little self-respect left to me still, though God knows that it has been dragged in the dust. I will sit at your table and entertain your guests. I will make no stir. I will continue to do my duty as I see it, if I have strength enough. But” — she turned her face to him, and for the first time looked at him—” for forgiveness complete and perfect, Fred, there is only one price. I will not prostitute myself. I will only be my husband’s wife, if he loves me.”

  “God bless you, Kitty!” he cried. He held out his arms to her and fairly broke down.

  But she drew back. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure, Fred? For God’s sake,” she said, and her voice trembled, “do not deceive me and yourself. It is for always. You know — you know there can be no second time.”

  Then it seemed that she saw what she wished to see in his face, for a moment later, “God bless you, Kitty!” he repeated. “You are too good for me.”

  “God bless George, sir!” she replied, blushing like a girl, as she patted her hair into place. Her eyes were shining.

  “Shall I promise you again?”

  “No,” she said, smiling through her tears. “It is all in that — if you love me and want me.”

  CHAPTER XXXV

  THE BETTER PART OF COURAGE

  AN hour later Lady Ellingham went slowly up the stairs. The sunbeams entering by a window on the landing shone athwart the sloping line of ancestors, full-length and in heavy gilt frames, that gave to the wide stairway its stately, sombre air. She passed upward beneath one after another — the beauty leaning on an urn who had waited on Queen Caroline and shared her painful secrets, the Dunstan with the secretive face who had been minister and all but sovereign at Naples, the soldier in the flowing Steinkerke who waved a futile sword against a background of smoke. There had been days, many days, when they had seemed to frown on her.

  But to-day they smiled. At the window on the landing she stood and looked out, savouring with moist eyes the possession and the consciousness of happiness; and all the tall waving forest without, all the world of trees that had for months closed their buds against winter’s nip, waved a welcome, greeting with bursting leaves the sunshine and the birds’ carols that found an echo in her full heart.

  But her errand lay higher, and tearing herself away she passed up barer stairs and narrower ways — decked, these, with Italian prints, faded and damp-stained, in maple frames; the Forum at Rome, the Mole of Hadrian, a Lucretia with the dagger in her bosom. She passed through the swing-door that squeaked, she reached the governess’s room. She would fain have all happy this blissful day. She knocked.

  “Miss South?”

  “Oh!” in a startled tone. A bed creaked, but no movement towards the door declared itself.

  My lady drew her conclusions. “I’ve come to tell you that there is better news, Miss South,” she announced. “There was a letter in the bag — Lord Ellingham found it later — from Captain Otway, who brought over the dispatches. Captain Dunstan has lost his arm, but he is doing well and is believed to be out of danger.”

  An exclamation, an inarticulate word!

  “He will be with us in a week or ten days. Don’t trouble, my dear,” for now there was a reluctant movement within, “to come out. We thought that you would like to know.”

  Without waiting for more Lady Ellingham turned and went through the swing-door and down the stairs. “There,” she thought, but not without a pang, for she was a woman, “George cannot say that I have not played him fair. I see it is to be, but it is a pity after all.”

  Lord Ellingham was waiting for her in the hall, and her cheek bloomed and her eyes fell, as she turned the carved newel-post and saw him. “Well?” he asked eagerly. “What did she say, Kitty?”

  “Nothing,” my lady replied with a smile.

  “Come, then, how did she look?”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  He was disappointed. “Well, I thought that you would have found out something.”

  She looked at him, laying a shy hand on his arm — for the sake of touching him. “I found out all, sir.”

  “Then she—”

  My lady nodded. “Yes, it is as I thought,” she said soberly.

  “But how could you tell, my dear?”

  Her eyes laughed. “Did I tell you?” she murmured.

  He looked at her. “Lord, what a fool I have been!” he said. And to hide something else, “Let us go out, my dear. It is a glorious morning.”

  But the spring brings showers as well as sunshine. And though the brightness of my lady’s eyes was no longer dimmed by a cloud, and she had often to lower them that she might not betray herself to the very servants who waited on her, the outer world was grey and the trees dripped on a morning three days later, when Rachel knocked at the door of the Countess’s room. Bidden to come in, the girl entered. Her face was grave and her lips were set in an unnatural line.

  My lady put aside her work. “Well, my dear?” she said. “What is it? Has Ann been misbehaving again?”

  “No. She is wonderfully good — for her. I have come,” Rachel was clearly and manifestly nervous, “to ask — Would you — I am sorry to inconvenience you, but would you — please to release me?”

  The Countess stared. “Release you, my dear?” she exclaimed. “Why? Do you mean that you want to go? To leave us?”

  “If you please.”

  “Do you mean now — at once?”

  “If you please.”

  “But why? Why?” Lady Ellingham turned herself so as to face the governess more squarely. “What in the world do you mean? What has happened? Is your mother ill?”

  “No. But — but I wish to go.”

  “I never heard of such a thing!” my lady cried. “What has happened? If it is not Ann — has anyone been rude to you? If so, I will very soon—” She broke off as another idea occurred to her and brought the colour to her face. “Or is it — surely, surely you are not so foolish! You don’t mean, child, that you are going back to what I said a fortnight ago, when — when something had put me out. I was not well, and, my dear, if you are bringing that up again, if you are so silly after all that has happened, I shall have — indeed I shall have a poor opinion of you.”

  “It is not that!”

  “But—”

  “Indeed, indeed it is not that!” For a moment the girl’s distress broke through her resolved air. “But — I am not happy here, and — I wish to go.” She twisted and untwisted her fingers.

  “Silly girl, you would be no happier elsewhere. I am sure of that, and I shall not let you go. Where shall I find anyone to manage Ann as well as you do? There, my dear,” my lady put the matter aside and turned to her work, “run away and put this foolish idea out of your head.”

  But Rachel held her ground. “I must go,” she said in a low voice. “I have written to my mother that
— that I am coming.”

  “Then you had no right to do so. And you must write again and tell her that you are not coming. Come, run away. That is settled.”

  But Rachel persisted. “I must go,” she said. “I want to go.”

  “Without notice?”

  Rachel’s lips trembled. “I am sure that you are too kind to keep me against my will,” she faltered. “I want to go! I want to go!” she repeated, clasping her hands. “I am not happy here.”

  My lady considered her in silence. “Miss South,” she said at last in an altered tone. “I hope — I hope that it is not as I begin to suspect. I do trust that it is not Mr. Girardot that you are unhappy about? If I thought that it was that, I should write to your mother—”

  “Oh, don’t do that!” Rachel exclaimed, her cheeks flaming. “It is an insult to suppose that!” — she stopped, and in a moment her whole aspect changed, and lowering her eyes she traced a pattern on the carpet with her toe—” that I am thinking of him! But perhaps — it has something to do with that. I met him here, and as long as I am here I am unhappy. I am very unhappy,” she repeated in a piteous voice, “and, if you please, I must go.”

  “Oh, dear, dear,” my lady said, and her face was grave. “Yet you know, you must know that he is not worthy of you! That he is not worthy of a single thought. He deceived you, and—”

  “But we cannot always — we are not always able—” Rachel’s faltering voice trickled into silence, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  “I am very, very sorry,” the Countess said, and her face bore out her words. “This is sad. Don’t you think that time, my dear—”

  “Not here,” Rachel murmured.

  “Oh, dear, dear,” my lady repeated. She looked really upset. “And you want to go at once?”

  “To-morrow — if I may. Oh, Lady Ellingham, please let me go to-morrow.”

  The Countess sighed. “Very well,” she said, at last. “It shall be as you wish. But you will remember, my dear, that wherever you are, we are your friends. That you can never be as others to us. You know that we owe our boy’s life to you, and perhaps in a few months — But I shall write to your mother.”