AT LAST.
Miss Stanley sat in the dining-room making up her accounts. She sat at
a table by the window, with her bills and account books spread in
order before her, and her pen in her hand, waiting to begin--waiting
till the wandering thoughts would come back from their wool-gathering,
and settle down to work. Once and again she advanced so far as to dip
her pen in the ink, but the figures did not come, the page before her
continued white, the ink dried up in her pen. With her elbow on the
table, her cheek upon her hand, she went on thinking--thinking about
her household, though not about her accounts. She had been head of the
family so long, had steered and directed it so many years, and they
had been so happy together; and now, it made her head whirl to think
of the changes that were coming to pass. In the drawing-room, at that
moment, was Muriel with her Gerald--a pair of children, and as
unthinkingly happy. Their clear laughter penetrated through closed
doors, and she heard it where she sat. Matilda was in the morning-room
with Considine, as utterly content, if less obstreperously merry than
her niece. And Penelope sat alone.
The moisture gathered in her eyes as she thought, but promptly was
brushed away as a disloyalty, for if "dear Tilly" had come to love
another more, she was very sure she continued to love her aging sister
none the less. And yet it did seem hard to see that other come in
between. Since her sister had been a very little girl, she had been to
her a mother, watching over and caring for her till they grew to be
companions and friends. They had been all the world to one another,
and while, with a mother's inconsistency, she had wondered at the
blindness of the men, who did not come and marry her sister, she knew
that if they had, she would have hated them for their success. And
now, after all danger seemed over, when they had settled down to grow
old together, when even their adopted daughter was old enough to marry
the man, the devastating man, had come--broken in, to disturb the
repose of their virginal paradise in the hour of coming twilight, and
end the pensive sweetness of their lives.
Yet, and the thought constrained her to admit that it was far from
being the worst thing possible which had befallen, she had extorted
from her intending brother that he should not take her sister quite
away. He was to live with her, and she with them. The house at St.
Euphrase was to be hers--Penelope's--and they were to be her inmates.
Considine would take a house in town, where she should live with them;
and all three parties to the arrangement had professed they saw no
reason why they should not always live together. "Yet, why would those
two marry at all?" she thought; "surely the season when birds select
their mates was past for them. From the things which Considine spoke
of as remembering he must be positively old; and Tilly, her precious
Tilly"--a new-born candour forced her to admit it now, though she had
not thought of it before--"was no longer young. Why could they not
live on as friends, as they had been doing? when Considine's company
had really added flavour to their spinster lives. What would people
say?" Penelope imagined, like the rest of us, that "people" care. It
is a fancy which sticks most pertinaciously, despite its lack of
reason. Why will we not judge "people" by ourselves? And is it not
true that long before our neighbours have grown accustomed to their
affairs themselves they have become a twice-told tale to us? We shrug
our shoulders and pass on, seeking a new diversion somewhere else.
Whatever we may do which pleases ourselves, "people" will cease to
trouble their heads about it long before the nine days are over.
The fear of this notoriety, however, was a tonic thought to Penelope.
Instinctively she bridled to think that any should presume to
criticise a transaction in _her_ family, and at once she ranged
herself in spirit on her sister's side, and began to defend her. "'A
man,'" she thought, "'is no older than he feels.' What eminent person
is it who has written that? It is certainly true of Considine. See how
erect he carries himself! How cheerful he is! and strong. His hair is
white, but as thick as ever. He rides, and swims, and walks, like an
active man of forty. And 'a woman is as young as she looks.' That is
true of our Tilly. How well she wears! Who would fancy she was one age
with Louisa Martindale? And yet I believe she is. What impertinence it
will be if any one presumes to say a word!"
After that turn to her reflections, Penelope felt positively
refreshed, and able to pull herself together. The pen was dipped in
the ink once more, the bills taken up one by one, and the column of
figures extended itself steadily down the page. But her industry was
interrupted ere long. The parlour-maid appeared in some confusion.
What was she to do? She had standing orders not do disturb her
mistress when closeted in the dining-room, and she had been told an
hour ago to show no one into the drawing-room or the parlour, and
there were a lady and a gentleman and a policeman, and some more,
asking to see Miss Stanley.
"Show them in here," Penelope said, wondering what was the matter. The
mention of a policeman troubled her. Had it anything to do with the
Herkimer bankruptcy?--Gerald being then in the house. The newspapers
had been full of his father's doings of late, and they had had much
trouble to keep them from Muriel's eyes. "Poor child," she ejaculated,
"I hope it is nothing to distress her," and then the visitors walked
in. Mrs. Selby and her husband--she had called on Mrs. Selby, and was
glad to find in one of the visitors a person whom she knew--a
policeman leading in a squaw, and Betsey Bunce--the "atrocity," as she
called her in her mind. "How dared she enter there, after the passage
which had taken place between them at the rectory as to Muriel's
parentage?" Yet it was Betsey who came to the front now, seeing Selby
look confused, and in doubt how to begin. "I can see by your face,"
said Betsey, "you ain't half well pleased, Cousin Penelope, to see me
here, after me speaking my mind about what Aunt Judy and me fished out
of your woman Annette. But it's that very same story has brought us
all here to-day, and a good thing it was that I got hold of it, or
goodness knows what would have come to these poor Selbys. You know
from the papers all about their losing their little girl long ago. You
know, too, that the squaw was taken up last week who ran away with
her. Look at her! There she stands, beside the policeman, and not a
bit ashamed of herself, as far as I can see. Could you believe that so
much artfulness-you've read about it in the papers (the changing
clothes and burying boxes, and running away, is what I allude to)--and
so much wickedness--wringing two loving hearts (I'm sure that's the
kind Mr. and Mrs. Selby have got, for I stayed with them last winter
and found them real kind). Look at her, Miss Penelope, and say if you
could have believed that so much artfulness, and wickedness, and
brazen effrontery--she don't blink an eye even--could be tied up in
one blanket."
"Yes, Betsey," said Penelope, opening her eyes, and looking partly
offended and partly confused; "and what after that? Mr. and Mrs. Selby
and the rest scarcely allowed you to bring them up here, merely to
afford you the pleasure of playing showman!"
"You interrupted me, Miss Penelope, or rather I got carried away with
having so much to tell all at once; and then I stuck fast. However, as
I was saying, that's the squaw! The Selbys are the parents, and you've
got the baby in this house! You needn't look at me, cousin, as if I
was crazy, for I ain't. It's Muriel--your Muriel--that I mean. Ask
Annette Bruneau--by rights she should have been here, too, to make the
thing complete, and to speak for herself; but, as I have spoken for
all the rest, I may say for her that she would not let herself be
brought. She ran upstairs and locked herself into her room, so we had
to come along without her. Why don't you send for Muriel to see her
mother. Miss Penelope? and Matildy should be here, too. She spoke very
harsh to me the last time we met; but she was mad, then, so I bear no
grudge. She'll be better friends now. And she _should_ be here, too,
to see the meeting of the long-lost child and her parents. It'll be
real touching, and she deserves to see it, for she has been like a
mother to Muriel--I'll allow that, for all that she said to me some
weeks back."
Penelope fetched Muriel and Matilda, and the explanations were long
and confused, mingled with embraces and many tears. Even Considine
blew his nose, and the policeman passed his sleeve across his eyes;
only the squaw looked on unmoved. "If all these whites were happy, as
they said they were, why did they shed tears?"
The rush of words grew slower and more fitful after a while. Emotion
is exhausting, whether it be grief or joy. Mary Selby sat with her
arms round her daughter's waist, and her face buried in her bosom,
while Matilda, half-jealous, and feeling half-bereaved, held the
girl's hand.
Betsey stood up and surveyed the scene. It seemed her own handiwork,
for had she not brought these people together? The emotional silence,
when every one was filled with the same idea, made her think of the
closing tableau in a pantomime, and to feel herself the beneficent
spirit who had brought about the happy _dénouement_. She could not
refrain from holding out her parasol over so many bowed heads. It
seemed to her to have become a magic wand, tipped with a sparkling
star. She could fancy, too, that her gown had transformed itself into
tinsel and transparent draperies, and that she was being slowly
carried up through the ceiling to the sound of plaintive music.
Much could have been done with Betsey, I verily believe, if she had
been caught early and submitted to culture. But "Tollover's Circus"
had been her only introduction to the world of plastic imagination,
scenic, or pictorial art; saving always "Godey's Magazine of the
Fashions," which instructed her in a variety of knowledge she would
have been better without, the knowledge, not very accurately stated,
of how women with ten times her fortune, if she should ever come to
have any, wear their clothes.