"I don't know how it is," grumbled the General, "but Enid looks scarcely
any better than she did before this precious engagement of hers. You
made me think that she would be perfectly happy if she had her own way;
but I must say, Flossy, that I see no improvement."
Flossy, lying on a sofa and holding a fan over her eyes, as though to
shut out the sight of her husband's bowed shoulders and venerable white
head, answered languidly--
"You forget that you did only half of what you were expected to do. You
would not consent to a definite engagement until she should be eighteen
years old; she is eighteen now, and yet you are holding back. Suspense
of such a sort is very trying to a girl."
The General, who had been standing beside her, sat down in a large
arm-chair and looked very vexed.
"I don't care," he said obstinately--"I'm not going to have my little
girl disposed of in such a hurry! She shall not be engaged to anybody
just yet; and until she is twenty or twenty-one she sha'nt be married.
Why, she's had no girlhood at all! She's only just out of the schoolroom
now. Eighteen is nothing!"
"Waiting and uncertainty are bad for a girl's spirits," said Mrs. Vane.
"You can do as you please, of course, about her engagement; but you must
not expect her to look delighted over the delay."
The General put his hands on his knees and leaned forward mysteriously.
"Flossy," he said, "I don't wish to make you anxious, dear; but do you
think Hubert really cares for her?"
Flossy lowered her fan; there was a touch of angry color in her face.
"What are you going to say next, General? Why should Hubert have asked
Enid to marry him if he were not in love with her? He had, no doubt,
plenty of opportunities of asking other people."
"Yes--yes; but Enid is very sweet and very lovely, my dear. You don't
often see a more beautiful girl. I should not like her to marry a man
who was not attached to her."
Flossy controlled her anger, and spoke in a careless tone.
"What makes you take such fancies into your head, dear?"
"Well--more than one thing. To begin with, I found Enid wandering up and
down the conservatory just now, looking as pale as a ghost, with tears
in her eyes. I railed her a little, and asked her to tell me what was
the matter; but she would not say. And then I asked if it had anything
to do with Hubert, and whether she had heard from him lately; and, do
you know, Flossy, she has had no letter from him for a fortnight! Now,
in my day, although postage was dearer than it is now, we wouldn't have
waited a fortnight before writing to the woman that we loved."
"Hubert is a very busy man; he has not time for the writing of
love-letters," said Flossy slightly.
"He ought not to be too busy to make her happy."
"You forget too," said Mrs. Vane, "that Hubert has no private fortune.
He is working harder than ever just now--toiling with all his might and
main to gain a competency--not for his own, but for Enid's sake. Poor
boy, he is often harassed on all sides!" She drew a little sigh as if
she were sorrowing for him.
"I'm sure Enid does not harass him," said the General, getting up and
pacing about the room in a hurry; "she is sweetness itself! And, as to
money, why did he propose to her if he hadn't enough to keep her on? Of
course Enid will have a nice little fortune--he needn't doubt that; but
I shall tie it up pretty tightly when she marries, and settle it all
upon herself. You may tell him that from me if you like, with my
compliments!" The General was excited--he was hot and breathing hard.
"He must have an income to put against--that's all; he's not going to
live on his wife's fortune."
"Poor Hubert--I don't suppose he ever thought of such a thing!" said
Flossy, affecting to laugh at her husband's vehemence, but weighing
every word she uttered with scrupulous care. "Indeed, if he had known
that she would have money, I don't suppose he would even have asked her
to marry him. He believed her to be all but penniless."
"And what right had he to believe that?" shouted the General, looking
more apoplectic than ever.
At which Flossy softly sighed, and said, "My nerves, dear!" closed her
eyes, and held a vinaigrette to her nose.
The General was quieted at once.
"I beg your pardon, my dear--I forgot that I must not talk so loudly in
your room," he said apologetically. "But my feelings get the better of
me when I think of my poor little Enid looking so white and mournful.
And so Hubert's working hard for her, is he? Poor lad! Of course I shall
not forget him either in my will--you can tell him so if you like--and
Enid's future is assured; but he must not neglect her--mustn't let her
shed tears and make those pretty blue eyes of hers dim, you know--you
must tell him that."
"The General grows more and more foolish every day," said Flossy to
herself, with disgust--"a garrulous old dotard!" But she spoke very
sweetly.
"I will talk to him if you like, dear; but I do not think that he means
to hurt or neglect poor Enid. He is coming down to-morrow to spend
Easter with us; that will please her, will it not? I have been keeping
it a secret from her; I wanted to give her a surprise. It will bring the
color back to her pale cheeks--will it not, you kind, sympathetic old
dear!"
Flossy's white hand was laid caressingly on the General's arm. The old
soldier rose to the bait. He raised it at once to his mouth, and kissed
it as devoutly as ever he had saluted the hand of his Queen.
"My dear," he said, "you are always right; you are a wonderful woman--so
clever, so beautiful, so good!" Did she not shiver as she heard the
words? "I will leave it in your hands--you know how to manage every
one!"
"Dear Richard," said Flossy, with a faint smile, "all that I do is for
your sake."
And with these words she dismissed him radiantly happy.
Left to her own meditations, the expression of her face changed at once;
it grew stern, hard, and cold; there was an unyielding look about the
lines of her features which reminded one of the fixity of a mask or a
marble statue. She lay perfectly motionless for a time, her eyes fixed
on the wall before her; then she put out her hand and touched a bell at
her side.
Almost immediately the door opened to admit her maid--a thin, upright
woman with dark eyes, and curly dark hair, disposed so as to hide the
tell-tale wrinkles on her brow and the crow's-feet at the corners of her
eyes. She wore pink bows and a smart little cap and apron of youthful
style; but it would have been evident to the eye of a keen observer that
she was no longer young. She closed the door behind her and came to her
mistress' side.
Florence paused for a minute or two, then spoke in a voice of so harsh
and metallic a quality that her husband would scarcely have recognised
it as hers.
"You have been neglecting your duty. You have not made any report to me
for nearly a week."
"You have not asked me for one, ma'am."
"I do not expect to have to ask you. You are to come to me whenever
there is anything to say."
The woman stood silent; but there was a protest in her very bearing, in
the pose of her hands, the expression of her mouth and eyebrows. Flossy
looked at her once, then turned her head away and said--
"Go on."
"There is nothing of importance to tell you, ma'am."
"How do you know what is important and what is not? For instance, Miss
Enid was found by the General crying in the conservatory this morning. I
want to know why she cried."
The maid--whose name was Parker--sniffed significantly as she replied--
"It's not easy to tell why young ladies cry, ma'am. The wind's in the
east--perhaps that has something to do with it."
"Oh, very well!" said Mrs. Vane coldly. "If the wind is in the east, and
that is all, Parker, you had better find some position in the world in
which your talents will be of more use to you than they are to me. I
will give you a month's pay instead of the usual notice, and you can
leave Beechfield to-night."
The maid's face turned a little pale.
"I'm sure I beg pardon, ma'am," she said rather hurriedly; "I didn't
mean that I had nothing to say. I--I've served you as well as I could,
ma'am, ever since I came." There was something not unlike a tear in her
beady black eyes.
"Have you?" said her mistress indifferently. "Then let me hear what you
have been doing during the last few days. If your notes are not worth
hearing"--she made a long pause, which Parker felt to be ominous, and
then continued calmly--"there is a train to London to-night, and no
doubt your mother will be glad to see you, character or no character."
"Oh, ma'am, you wouldn't go for to be so cruel, would you?" cried Parker
the unwise, evidently on the verge of a flood of tears. "Without a
character, ma'am, I'm sure I couldn't get a good place; and you know my
mother has only what I earn to live upon. You wouldn't turn me off at a
moment's notice for----"
"You are wasting a great deal of time," said Flossy coldly. "Say what
you have to say, and I will be the judge as to whether you have or have
not obeyed my orders. Where are your notes?"
Smothering a sob, Parker drew from her pocket a little black book, from
which she proceeded to read aloud. But her voice was so thick, her
articulation so indistinct by reason of her half-suppressed emotion,
that presently, with an exclamation of impatience, Mrs. Vane turned and
took the book straight out of her hands.
"You read abominably, Parker?" she said. "Where is it? Let me see.
'Sunday'--oh, yes, I know all about Sunday!--'Church, Sunday-school,
church'--as usual. What's this? 'Mr. Evandale walked home with Miss E.
from afternoon school.' I never heard of that! Where were you?"
"Walking behind them, ma'am."
"Could you hear anything? What do your notes say? H'm!" They walked very
slow and spoke soft--could not hear a word. At the Park gates Mr. E.
took her hand and held it while he talked. Miss E. seemed to be crying.
The last thing he said was, "You know you may always trust me." Then he
went down the road again, and Miss E. came home. Monday.--Miss E. very
pale and down-like. Indoors all morning teaching Master D. Walked up to
the village with him after his dinner; went to the schools; saw Mr. E.
and walked along the lane with him. Mr. E. seemed more cheerful, and
made her laugh several times. The rest of the day Miss E. spent indoors.
Tuesday.--Miss E. teaching Master Dick till twelve. Riding with the
master till two. Lunch and needlework till four. Mr. Evandale came to
call. "Why was I never told that Mr. Evandale came to call?" said
Flossy, starting up a little, and fixing her eyes, bright with a
wrathful red gleam in their brown depths, upon the shrinking maid.
"I don't know, ma'am. I thought that you had been told."
Flossy sank back amongst her cushions, biting her lip; but she resumed
her reading without further comment.
"'Stayed an hour, part of the time with Miss E. alone, then with the
master. Little Master Dick in and out most of the time. Nothing special,
as far as I could tell. Wednesday.--Miss E. walked with Master Dick to
the village after lessons. Went into Miss Meldreth's shop to buy sweets,
but did not stay more than a few minutes. Passed the Rectory gate; Mr.
E. came running after them with a book. I was near enough to see Miss E.
color up beautiful at the sight of him. They did not talk much together.
In the afternoon Miss E. rode over to Whitminster with the General.
After tea---- ' Yes, I see," said Mrs. Vane, suddenly stopping
short--"there is nothing more of any importance."
She lay silent for a time, with her finger between the pages of the
note-book. Parker waited, trembling, not daring to speak until she was
spoken to.
"Take your book," said Mrs. Vane at last, "and be careful. No, you need,
not go into ecstasies"--seeing from Parker's clasped hands that she was
about to utter a word of gratitude. "I shall keep you no longer than you
are useful to me--do you understand? Go on following Miss Vane; I want
to know whom she sees, where she goes, what she does--if possible, what
she talks about. Does she get letters--letters, I mean beside those that
come in the post-bag?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"Make it your business to know, then. You can go;" and Flossy turned
away her face, so as not to see Parker's rather blundering exit.
"The woman is a fool," she said to herself contemptuously, when Parker
had gone; "but I think she is--so far--a faithful fool. These women who
have made a muddle of their lives are admirable tools; they are always
so afraid of being found out;" and Flossy smiled cynically, although at
the same moment she was conscious that she shared the peculiarity of the
woman of whom she spoke--she also was afraid of being found out.
She had come across Parker before her marriage, when she was in
Scotland. The woman had then been detected in theft and in an intrigue
with one of the grooms, and had been ignominiously dismissed from
service; but Flossy had chosen to seek her out and befriend her--not
from any charitable motive, but because she saw in the discarded maid a
person whom it might be useful to have at beck and call. Parker's
bedridden mother was dependent upon her; and her one fear in life was
that this mother should get to know her true story and be deprived of
support. Upon this fear Mrs. Vane traded very skilfully; and, having
installed Parker in the place of lady's-maid to herself and her
husband's niece, she obtained accurate information concerning Enid's
movements and actions, supplied from a source which Enid never even
suspected.
Such knowledge was generally very useful to Flossy, but at present she
was puzzled by certain items of news brought to her by Parker. "What
does this constant meeting with Mr. Evandale mean?" she asked herself.
Then her thoughts went back to the day of Mrs. Meldreth's death--a day
which she never remembered without a shudder. She knew very well that
the poor old woman had bitterly repented of her share in a deed to which
her daughter Sabina and Mrs. Vane had urged her; it had been as much as
Mrs. Vane and Sabina, by their united efforts, could do to make her hold
her tongue. No fear of the General's vengeance, of Sabina's disgrace, of
punishment of any kind, would have ensured her silence very much longer.
The old woman had said again and again that she could not bear--in her
own words--"to see Miss Enid kep' out of her own." She used to come to
Flossy's boudoir and sit there, crying and entreating that she might be
allowed to tell the General the truth. She did not seem to care when she
was reminded that she herself would probably be punished, and that
Sabina and Mrs. Vane had nothing but ruin before them if the truth were
known. She had the fear of death on her soul--the fear that her sin
would bring her eternal misery.
"You are a wickedly selfish woman!" Flossy once said to her, with as
near an approach to passion as her temperament would allow. "You think
of nothing but your own salvation. Our ruin, body and soul, does not
matter to you."
And indeed this was true. The terrors of the law had gotten hold of Mrs.
Meldreth's conscience. The avenging sword, carried by a religion in
which she believed, had pierced her heart. She would have given
everything she had in the world to be able to follow the advice given in
her Prayer-book, to go to a "discreet and learned minister of God's
Word"--Mr. Evandale, for instance--and quiet her conscience by opening
her grief to him. But both Sabina and Mrs. Vane were prepared to go to
almost any length before they would give her the chance of doing this.
Mrs. Vane was of course the leading spirit of the three. Where Sabina
only raved and stormed, Mrs. Vane mocked and persuaded. She argued,
threatened, coaxed, bribed, in turns; she gave Mrs. Meldreth as much
money as she could spare, and promised more for the future; but the poor
woman--at first open to persuasion--grew more and more difficult to
restrain, and became at last almost imbecile from the pressure of her
secret upon her mind. Flossy had begun seriously to consider the
expediency of inducing Sabina to consign her mother to a lunatic asylum,
or even to employ violent means for the shortening of her days on
earth--there was nothing at which her soul would have revolted if her
own prosperity could have been secured by it; but Mrs. Meldreth's
natural illness and death removed all necessity for extreme measures.
Nothing indeed would have been more fortunate for Flossy and her
accomplice than Mrs. Meldreth's death, had it not been for the
circumstance that the dying woman had seen both Enid Vane and Mr.
Evandale during her last moments. Flossy wondered angrily why Sabina had
been so foolish as to admit them. She had heard nothing from Enid, who
had kept her room for a couple of days after her return from Mrs.
Meldreth's death-bed; but she was certain that something was now known
to the girl which had not been known before. Flossy had tried to
question her, to reprove her even for going into the houses of the sick
poor; but there had been a look in the girl's eyes, a frozen defiance
and horror in her face, which made Mrs. Vane shrink back aghast. Though
silent and not very demonstrative in manner, Enid had hitherto never
shown any dislike to Flossy, and had been as scrupulously attentive to
her wishes as if she were still a child; but these days of passive
obedience were past. Enid now quietly did what she chose. She seldom
spoke to Florence at all; and on several occasions she had maintained
her own purpose and choice with a calmness and steadfastness which had
almost terrified Mrs. Vane. Who would have thought that Enid had a
character? The girl had emancipated herself from all control, without
words, without open rebellion; she had looked Flossy straight in the
face once or twice, and Flossy had been compelled to yield.
Yes, Enid knew something--she was sure of that; how much she could not
tell. She had never questioned Sabina Meldreth in person about the scene
at her mother's death-bed--on principle, Flossy spared herself all
painful and exciting interviews; but she had had a few lines from
Sabina--sent to Beechfield Hall on the day of her mother's funeral.
"Miss Vane knows something--I don't know how much," Sabina had written.
"The parson wanted to know, but couldn't get to hear. Maybe Miss Vane
has told him. If she has, the parish won't hold you nor me."
"Abominably brusque and rude!" Flossy said to herself, as she drew the
scrap of paper from its hiding-place. "But one cannot mould clay without
soiling one's fingers, I suppose. It is months since Mrs. Meldreth died;
and evidently Enid knows less than I supposed, or has made up her mind
to keep the secret. But what do these meetings with Mr. Evandale mean?
Is she confiding her troubles to him then? The little fool! I must see
Sabina Meldreth, and Hubert too. What a good thing I had written to him
to come--though not for the sake of pleasing Miss Enid, as the General
fondly supposes! I must send for Sabina."
But the wish seemed to have brought about its own fulfilment. At that
very moment Parker knocked at her mistress' door.
"Will you see Miss Meldreth, ma'am? She says she would like a few words
with you, if you can see her. She's down-stairs."
"Bring Sabina Meldreth to me," said Mrs. Vane.