I had always understood that Miss Galindo had once been in much better
circumstances, but I had never liked to ask any questions respecting
her. But about this time many things came out respecting her former
life, which I will try and arrange; not, however, in the order in which
I heard them, but rather as they occurred.
Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman in Westmoreland. Her father
was the younger brother of a baronet, his ancestor having been one of
those of James the First’s creation. This baronet-uncle of Miss Galindo
was one of the queer, out-of-the-way people who were bred at that time,
and in that northern district of England. I never heard much of him from
any one, besides this one great fact: that he had early disappeared from
his family, which indeed only consisted of a brother and sister who died
unmarried, and lived no one knew where,--somewhere on the Continent it
was supposed, for he had never returned from the grand tour which he had
been sent to make, according to the general fashion of the day, as soon
as he left Oxford. He corresponded occasionally with his brother the
clergyman; but the letters passed through a banker’s hands; the banker
being pledged to secrecy, and, as he told Mr. Galindo, having the
penalty, if he broke his pledge, of losing the whole profitable
business, and of having the management of the baronet’s affairs taken
out of his hands without any advantage accruing to the inquirer, for Sir
Lawrence had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence
was revealed by them, not only would he cease to bank with them, but
instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to his
whereabouts, by removing to some distant country.
Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money to his brother’s account every
year; but the time of this payment varied, and it was sometimes eighteen
or nineteen months between the deposits; then, again, it would not be
above a quarter of the time, showing that he intended it to be annual,
but, as this intention was never expressed in words, it was impossible
to rely upon it, and a great deal of this money was swallowed up by the
necessity Mr. Galindo felt himself under of living in the large, old,
rambling family mansion, which had been one of Sir Lawrence’s rarely
expressed desires. Mr. and Mrs. Galindo often planned to live upon
their own small fortune and the income derived from the living (a
vicarage, of which the great tithes went to Sir Lawrence as lay
impropriator), so as to put-by the payments made by the baronet, for the
benefit of Laurentia--our Miss Galindo. But I suppose they found it
difficult to live economically in a large house, even though they had it
rent free. They had to keep up with hereditary neighbours and friends,
and could hardly help doing it in the hereditary manner.
One of these neighbours, a Mr. Gibson, had a son a few years older than
Laurentia. The families were sufficiently intimate for the young people
to see a good deal of each other: and I was told that this young Mr.
Mark Gibson was an unusually prepossessing man (he seemed to have
impressed every one who spoke of him to me as being a handsome, manly,
kind-hearted fellow), just what a girl would be sure to find most
agreeable. The parents either forgot that their children were growing up
to man’s and woman’s estate, or thought that the intimacy and probable
attachment would be no bad thing, even if it did lead to a marriage.
Still, nothing was ever said by young Gibson till later on, when it was
too late, as it turned out. He went to and from Oxford; he shot and
fished with Mr. Galindo, or came to the Mere to skate in winter-time;
was asked to accompany Mr. Galindo to the Hall, as the latter returned
to the quiet dinner with his wife and daughter; and so, and so, it went
on, nobody much knew how, until one day, when Mr. Galindo received a
formal letter from his brother’s bankers, announcing Sir Lawrence’s
death, of malaria fever, at Albano, and congratulating Sir Hubert on his
accession to the estates and the baronetcy. The king is dead--“Long live
the king!” as I have since heard that the French express it.
Sir Hubert and his wife were greatly surprised. Sir Lawrence was but two
years older than his brother; and they had never heard of any illness
till they heard of his death. They were sorry; very much shocked; but
still a little elated at the succession to the baronetcy and estates.
The London bankers had managed everything well. There was a large sum of
ready money in their hands, at Sir Hubert’s service, until he should
touch his rents, the rent-roll being eight thousand a-year. And only
Laurentia to inherit it all! Her mother, a poor clergyman’s daughter,
began to plan all sorts of fine marriages for her; nor was her father
much behind his wife in his ambition. They took her up to London, when
they went to buy new carriages, and dresses, and furniture. And it was
then and there she made my lady’s acquaintance. How it was that they
came to take a fancy to each other, I cannot say. My lady was of the old
nobility,--grand, composed, gentle, and stately in her ways. Miss
Galindo must always have been hurried in her manner, and her energy must
have shown itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But
I don’t pretend to account for things: I only narrate them. And the fact
was this:--that the elegant, fastidious Countess was attracted to the
country girl, who on her part almost worshipped my lady. My lady’s
notice of their daughter made her parent’s think, I suppose, that there
was no match that she might not command; she, the heiress of eight
thousand a-year, and visiting about among earls and dukes. So when they
came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, and Mark Gibson rode over to
offer his hand and his heart, and prospective estate of nine hundred
a-year to his old companion and playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and
Lady Galindo made very short work of it. They refused him plumply
themselves, and when he begged to be allowed to speak to Laurentia, they
found some excuse for refusing him the opportunity of so doing, until
they had talked to her themselves, and brought up every argument and
fact in their power to convince her--a plain girl, and conscious of her
plainness--that Mr. Mark Gibson had never thought of her in the way of
marriage till after her father’s accession to his fortune; and that it
was the estate--not the young lady--that he was in love with. I suppose
it will never be known in this world how far this supposition of theirs
was true. My Lady Ludlow had always spoken as if it was; but perhaps
events, which came to her knowledge about this time, altered her
opinion. At any rate, the end of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and
almost broke her heart in doing so. He discovered the suspicions of Sir
Hubert and Lady Galindo, and that they had persuaded their daughter to
share in them. So he flung off with high words, saying that they did not
know a true heart when they met with one; and that, although he had
never offered till after Sir Lawrence’s death, yet that his father knew
all along that he had been attached to Laurentia, only that he, being
the eldest of five children, and having as yet no profession, had had to
conceal, rather than to express, an attachment, which, in those days, he
had believed was reciprocated. He had always meant to study for the bar,
and the end of all he had hoped for had been to earn a moderate income,
which he might ask Laurentia to share. This, or something like it, was
what he said. But his reference to his father cut two ways. Old Mr.
Gibson was known to be very keen about money. It was just as likely
that he would urge Mark to make love to the heiress, now she was an
heiress, as that he would have restrained him previously, as Mark said
he had done. When this was repeated to Mark, he became proudly reserved,
or sullen, and said that Laurentia, at any rate, might have known him
better. He left the country, and went up to London to study law soon
afterwards; and Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo thought they were well rid
of him. But Laurentia never ceased reproaching herself, and never did to
her dying day, as I believe. The words, “she might have known me
better,” told to her by some kind friend or other, rankled in her mind,
and were never forgotten. Her father and mother took her up to London
the next year; but she did not care to visit--dreaded going out even for
a drive, lest she should see Mark Gibson’s reproachful eyes--pined and
lost her health. Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret, and was told
the cause by Lady Galindo, who, of course, gave her own version of
Mark’s conduct and motives. My lady never spoke to Miss Galindo about
it, but tried constantly to interest and please her. It was at this time
that my lady told Miss Galindo so much about her own early life, and
about Hanbury, that Miss Galindo resolved, if ever she could, she would
go and see the old place which her friend loved so well. The end of it
all was, that she came to live there, as we know.
But a great change was to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo
had left London on this, their second visit, they had a letter from the
lawyer, whom they employed, saying that Sir Lawrence had left an heir,
his legitimate child by an Italian woman of low rank; at least, legal
claims to the title and property had been sent into him on the boy’s
behalf. Sir Lawrence had always been a man of adventurous and artistic,
rather than of luxurious tastes; and it was supposed, when all came to
be proved at the trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful
life they lead in Italy, and had married this Neapolitan fisherman’s
daughter, who had people about her shrewd enough to see that the
ceremony was legally performed. She and her husband had wandered about
the shores of the Mediterranean for years, leading a happy, careless,
irresponsible life, unencumbered by any duties except those connected
with a rather numerous family. It was enough for her that they never
wanted money, and that her husband’s love was always continued to her.
She hated the name of England--wicked, cold, heretic England--and
avoided the mention of any subjects connected with her husband’s early
life. So that, when he died at Albano, she was almost roused out of her
vehement grief to anger with the Italian doctor, who declared that he
must write to a certain address to announce the death of Lawrence
Galindo. For some time, she feared lest English barbarians might come
down upon her, making a claim to the children. She hid herself and them
in the Abruzzi, living upon the sale of what furniture and jewels Sir
Lawrence had died possessed of. When these failed, she returned to
Naples, which she had not visited since her marriage. Her father was
dead; but her brother inherited some of his keenness. He interested the
priests, who made inquiries and found that the Galindo succession was
worth securing to an heir of the true faith. They stirred about it,
obtained advice at the English Embassy; and hence that letter to the
lawyers, calling upon Sir Hubert to relinquish title and property, and
to refund what money he had expended. He was vehement in his opposition
to this claim. He could not bear to think of his brother having married
a foreigner--a papist, a fisherman’s daughter; nay, of his having become
a papist himself. He was in despair at the thought of his ancestral
property going to the issue of such a marriage. He fought tooth and
nail, making enemies of his relations, and losing almost all his own
private property; for he would go on against the lawyer’s advice, long
after every one was convinced except himself and his wife. At last he
was conquered. He gave up his living in gloomy despair. He would have
changed his name if he could, so desirous was he to obliterate all tie
between himself and the mongrel papist baronet and his Italian mother,
and all the succession of children and nurses who came to take
possession of the Hall soon after Mr. Hubert Galindo’s departure, stayed
there one winter, and then flitted back to Naples with gladness and
delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Galindo lived in London. He had obtained a
curacy somewhere in the city. They would have been thankful now if Mr.
Mark Gibson had renewed his offer. No one could accuse him of mercenary
motives if he had done so. Because he did not come forward, as they
wished, they brought his silence up as a justification of what they had
previously attributed to him. I don’t know what Miss Galindo thought
herself; but Lady Ludlow has told me how she shrank from hearing her
parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that he was aware that they were
living in London. His father must have known the fact, and it was
curious if he had never named it to his son. Besides, the name was very
uncommon; and it was unlikely that it should never come across him, in
the advertisements of charity sermons which the new and rather eloquent
curate of Saint Mark’s East was asked to preach. All this time Lady
Ludlow never lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo’s sake. And when the
father and mother died, it was my lady who upheld Miss Galindo in her
determination not to apply for any provision to her cousin, the Italian
baronet, but rather to live upon the hundred a-year which had been
settled on her mother and the children of his son Hubert’s marriage by
the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence.
Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on the
Northern Circuit; but had died unmarried in the lifetime of his father,
a victim (so people said) to intemperance. Doctor Trevor, the physician
who had been called in to Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson, had married a
sister of his. And that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family.
But who was Bessy?
That mystery and secret came out, too, in process of time. Miss Galindo
had been to Warwick, some years before I arrived at Hanbury, on some
kind of business or shopping, which can only be transacted in a county
town. There was an old Westmoreland connection between her and Mrs.
Trevor, though I believe the latter was too young to have been made
aware of her brother’s offer to Miss Galindo at the time when it took
place; and such affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are seldom spoken
about in the gentleman’s family afterwards. But the Gibsons and Galindos
had been county neighbours too long for the connection not to be kept
up between two members settled far away from their early homes. Miss
Galindo always desired her parcels to be sent to Doctor Trevor’s, when
she went to Warwick for shopping purchases. If she were going any
journey, and the coach did not come through Warwick as soon as she
arrived (in my lady’s coach or otherwise) from Hanbury, she went to
Doctor Trevor’s to wait. She was as much expected to sit down to the
household meals as if she had been one of the family; and in after-years
it was Mrs. Trevor who managed her repository business for her.
So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor’s to rest, and
possibly to dine. The post in those times came in at all hours of the
morning; and Doctor Trevor’s letters had not arrived until after his
departure on his morning round. Miss Galindo was sitting down to dinner
with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the Doctor came in. He was
flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as soon as he
decently could. Then (rather feeling Miss Galindo’s presence an
advantage, both as a present restraint on the violence of his wife’s
grief, and as a consoler when he was absent on his afternoon round), he
told Mrs. Trevor of her brother’s death. He had been taken ill on
circuit, and had hurried back to his chambers in London, only to die.
She cried terribly; but Doctor Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed
that Miss Galindo cared much about it one way or another. She helped him
to soothe his wife, promised to stay with her all the afternoon instead
of returning to Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while
the Doctor went to attend the funeral. When they heard of the old
love-story between the dead man and Miss Galindo,--brought up by mutual
friends in Westmoreland, in the review which we are all inclined to take
of the events of a man’s life when he comes to die,--they tried to
remember Miss Galindo’s speeches and ways of going on during this visit.
She was a little pale, a little silent; her eyes were sometimes swollen,
and her nose red; but she was at an age when such appearances are
generally attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather than to any more
sentimental reason. They felt towards her as towards an old friend, a
kindly, useful, eccentric old maid. She did not expect more, or wish
them to remember that she might once have had other hopes, and more
youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for staying
with his wife, when he returned home from London (where the funeral had
taken place). He begged Miss Galindo to stay with them, when the
children were gone to bed, and she was preparing to leave the husband
and wife by themselves. He told her and his wife many particulars--then
paused--then went on--
“And Mark has left a child--a little girl----”
“But he never was married,” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.
“A little girl,” continued her husband, “whose mother, I conclude, is
dead. At any rate, the child was in possession of his chambers; she and
an old nurse, who seemed to have the charge of everything, and has
cheated poor Mark, I should fancy, not a little.”
“But the child!” asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breathless with
astonishment. “How do you know it is his?”
“The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of indignation at my
doubting it. I asked the little thing her name, and all I could get was
‘Bessy!’ and a cry of ‘Me wants papa!’ The nurse said the mother was
dead, and she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had engaged her
to take care of the little girl, calling it his child. One or two of his
lawyer friends, whom I met with at the funeral, told me they were aware
of the existence of the child.”
“What is to be done with her?” asked Mrs. Gibson.
“Nay, I don’t know,” replied he. “Mark has hardly left assets enough to
pay his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward.”
That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study, after his wife had gone
to bed, Miss Galindo knocked at his door. She and he had a long
conversation. The result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to town
the next day; that they took possession of the little Bessy, and she was
brought down, and placed at nurse at a farm in the country near Warwick,
Miss Galindo undertaking to pay one-half the expense, and to furnish her
with clothes, and Dr. Trevor undertaking that the remaining half should
be furnished by the Gibson family, or by himself in their default.
Miss Galindo was not fond of children, and I daresay she dreaded taking
this child to live with her for more reasons than one. My Lady Ludlow
could not endure any mention of illegitimate children. It was a
principle of hers that society ought to ignore them. And I believe Miss
Galindo had always agreed with her until now, when the thing came home
to her womanly heart. Still she shrank from having this child of some
strange woman under her roof. She went over to see it from time to time;
she worked at its clothes long after every one thought she was in bed;
and, when the time came for Bessy to be sent to school, Miss Galindo
laboured away more diligently than ever, in order to pay the increased
expense. For the Gibson family had, at first, paid their part of the
compact, but with unwillingness and grudging hearts; then they had left
it off altogether, and it fell hard on Doctor Trevor with his twelve
children; and, latterly, Miss Galindo had taken upon herself almost all
the burden. One can hardly live and labour, and plan and make
sacrifices, for any human creature, without learning to love it. And
Bessy loved Miss Galindo, too, for all the poor girl’s scanty pleasures
came from her, and Miss Galindo had always a kind word, and, latterly,
many a kind caress, for Mark Gibson’s child; whereas, if she went to
Doctor Trevor’s for her holiday, she was overlooked and neglected in
that bustling family, who seemed to think that if she had comfortable
board and lodging under their roof, it was enough.
I am sure, now, that Miss Galindo had often longed to have Bessy to live
with her; but, as long as she could pay for her being at school, she did
not like to take so bold a step as bringing her home, knowing what the
effect of the consequent explanation would be on my lady. And as the
girl was now more than seventeen, and past the age when young ladies are
usually kept at school, and as there was no great demand for governesses
in those days, and as Bessy had never been taught any trade by which to
earn her own living, why I don’t exactly see what could have been done
but for Miss Galindo to bring her to her own home in Hanbury. For,
although the child had grown up lately, in a kind of unexpected manner,
into a young woman, Miss Galindo might have kept her at school for a
year longer, if she could have afforded it; but this was impossible when
she became Mr. Horner’s clerk, and relinquished all the payment of her
repository work; and perhaps, after all, she was not sorry to be
compelled to take the step she was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came
to live with Miss Galindo, in a very few weeks from the time when
Captain James set Miss Galindo free to superintend her own domestic
economy again.
For a long time, I knew nothing about this new inhabitant of Hanbury. My
lady never mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with Lady
Ludlow’s well-known principles. She neither saw nor heard, nor was in
any way cognisant of the existence of those who had no legal right to
exist at all. If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception made in
Bessy’s favour, she was mistaken. My lady sent a note inviting Miss
Galindo herself to tea one evening, about a month after Bessy came; but
Miss Galindo “had a cold and could not come.” The next time she was
invited, she “had an engagement at home”--a step nearer to the absolute
truth. And the third time, she “had a young friend staying with her whom
she was unable to leave.” My lady accepted every excuse as bonâ fide,
and took no further notice. I missed Miss Galindo very much; we all
did; for, in the days when she was clerk, she was sure to come in and
find the opportunity of saying something amusing to some of us before
she went away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from natural tendency,
was particularly fond of little bits of village gossip. There was no Mr.
Horner--he even had come in, now and then, with formal, stately pieces
of intelligence--and there was no Miss Galindo, in these days. I missed
her much. And so did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her quiet, sedate
manner, I am certain her heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss
Galindo, who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the Hall
now Bessy was come.
Captain James might be very sensible, and all that; but not even my lady
could call him a substitute for the old familiar friends. He was a
thorough sailor, as sailors were in those days--swore a good deal, drank
a good deal (without its ever affecting him in the least), and was very
prompt and kind-hearted in all his actions; but he was not accustomed to
women, as my lady once said, and would judge in all things for himself.
My lady had expected, I think, to find some one who would take his
notions on the management of her estate from her ladyship’s own self;
but he spoke as if he were responsible for the good management of the
whole, and must, consequently, be allowed full liberty of action. He had
been too long in command over men at sea to like to be directed by a
woman in anything he undertook, even though that woman was my lady. I
suppose this was the common-sense my lady spoke of; but when
common-sense goes against us, I don’t think we value it quite so much as
we ought to do.
Lady Ludlow was proud of her personal superintendence of her own estate.
She liked to tell us how her father used to take her with him in his
rides, and bid her observe this and that, and on no account to allow
such and such things to be done. But I have heard that the first time
she told all this to Captain James, he told her point-blank that he had
heard from Mr. Smithson that the farms were much neglected and the rents
sadly behind-hand, and that he meant to set to in good earnest and study
agriculture, and see how he could remedy the state of things. My lady
would, I am sure, be greatly surprised, but what could she do? Here was
the very man she had chosen herself, setting to with all his energy to
conquer the defect of ignorance, which was all that those who had
presumed to offer her ladyship advice had ever had to say against him.
Captain James read Arthur Young’s ‘Tours’ in all his spare time, as long
as he was an invalid; and shook his head at my lady’s accounts as to
how the land had been cropped or left fallow from time immemorial. Then
he set to, and tried too many new experiments at once. My lady looked on
in dignified silence; but all the farmers and tenants were in an uproar,
and prophesied a hundred failures. Perhaps fifty did occur; they were
only half as many as Lady Ludlow had feared; but they were twice as
many, four, eight times as many as the captain had anticipated. His
openly-expressed disappointment made him popular again. The rough
country people could not have understood silent and dignified regret at
the failure of his plans; but they sympathised with a man who swore at
his ill success--sympathised, even while they chuckled over his
discomfiture. Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman, did not cease blaming
him for not succeeding, and for swearing. “But what could you expect
from a sailor?” Mr. Brooke asked, even in my lady’s hearing; though he
might have known Captain James was my lady’s own personal choice, from
the old friendship Mr. Urian had always shown for him. I think it was
this speech of the Birmingham baker’s that made my lady determine to
stand by Captain James, and encourage him to try again. For she would
not allow that her choice had been an unwise one, at the bidding (as it
were) of a Dissenting tradesman; the only person in the neighbourhood,
too, who had flaunted about in coloured clothes, when all the world was
in mourning for my lady’s only son.
Captain James would have thrown the agency up at once, if my lady had
not felt herself bound to justify the wisdom of her choice, by urging
him to stay. He was much touched by her confidence in him, and swore a
great oath, that the next year he would make the land such as it had
never been before for produce. It was not my lady’s way to repeat
anything she had heard, especially to another person’s disadvantage. So
I don’t think she ever told Captain James of Mr. Brooke’s speech about a
sailor’s being likely to mismanage the property; and the captain was too
anxious to succeed in this, the second year of his trial, to be above
going to the flourishing, shrewd Mr. Brooke, and asking for his advice
as to the best method of working the estate. I dare say, if Miss Galindo
had been as intimate as formerly at the Hall, we should all of us have
heard of this new acquaintance of the agent’s long before we did. As it
was, I am sure my lady never dreamed that the captain, who held opinions
that were even more Church and King than her own, could ever have made
friends with a Baptist baker from Birmingham, even to serve her
ladyship’s own interests in the most loyal manner.
We heard of it first from Mr. Gray, who came now often to see my lady,
for neither he nor she could forget the solemn tie which the fact of his
being the person to acquaint her with my lord’s death had created
between them. For true and holy words spoken at that time, though having
no reference to aught below the solemn subjects of life and death, had
made her withdraw her opposition to Mr. Gray’s wish about establishing a
village school. She had sighed a little, it is true, and was even yet
more apprehensive than hopeful as to the result; but, almost as if as a
memorial to my lord, she had allowed a kind of rough school-house to be
built on the green, just by the church; and had gently used the power
she undoubtedly had, in expressing her strong wish that the boys might
only be taught to read and write, and the first four rules of
arithmetic; while the girls were only to learn to read, and to add up in
their heads, and the rest of the time to work at mending their own
clothes, knitting stockings and spinning. My lady presented the school
with more spinning-wheels than there were girls, and requested that
there might be a rule that they should have spun so many hanks of flax,
and knitted so many pairs of stockings, before they ever were taught to
read at all. After all, it was but making the best of a bad job with my
poor lady--but life was not what it had been to her. I remember well
the day that Mr. Gray pulled some delicately fine yarn (and I was a good
judge of those things) out of his pocket, and laid it and a capital pair
of knitted stockings before my lady, as the first-fruits, so to say, of
his school. I recollect seeing her put on her spectacles, and carefully
examine both productions. Then she passed them to me.
“This is well, Mr. Gray. I am much pleased. You are fortunate in your
schoolmistress. She has had both proper knowledge of womanly things and
much patience. Who is she? One out of our village?”
“My lady,” said Mr. Gray, stammering and colouring in his old fashion,
“Miss Bessy is so very kind as to teach all those sorts of things--Miss
Bessy, and Miss Galindo, sometimes.”
My lady looked at him over her spectacles: but she only repeated the
words “Miss Bessy,” and paused, as if trying to remember who such a
person could be; and he, if he had then intended to say more, was
quelled by her manner, and dropped the subject. He went on to say, that
he had thought it his duty to decline the subscription to his school
offered by Mr. Brooke, because he was a Dissenter; that he (Mr. Gray)
feared that Captain James, through whom Mr. Brooke’s offer of money had
been made, was offended at his refusing to accept it from a man who
held heterodox opinions; nay, whom Mr. Gray suspected of being infected
by Dodwell’s heresy.
“I think there must be some mistake,” said my lady, “or I have
misunderstood you. Captain James would never be sufficiently with a
schismatic to be employed by that man Brooke in distributing his
charities. I should have doubted, until now, if Captain James knew him.”
“Indeed, my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate with him, I
regret to say. I have repeatedly seen the captain and Mr. Brooke walking
together; going through the fields together; and people do say----”
My lady looked up in interrogation at Mr. Gray’s pause.
“I disapprove of gossip, and it may be untrue; but people do say that
Captain James is very attentive to Miss Brooke.”
“Impossible!” said my lady, indignantly. “Captain James is a loyal and
religious man. I beg your pardon, Mr. Gray, but it is impossible.”