MRS. TRENT'S STORY.
"I never heard of such an extraordinary thing," said Lesley.
"Then that shows how little you know of the world," said Doctor Sophy,
amicably. "I've heard of a hundred cases of the kind."
"Well, there are some elements of oddity in this case," remarked Caspar
Brooke, striking in with unexpected readiness to defend his daughter's
views. "Kingston was not a giddy young girl, who would go off with any
man who made love to her. Indeed, I can't quite fancy any man making
love to her at all. She was remarkably plain, poor woman."
"She had beautiful eyes," said Lesley. "And she was so nice and quiet
and kind. And I really thought that she was--fond of me." She paused
before she uttered the last three words, being a little afraid that they
would be thought sentimental. And indeed Miss Brooke did give a
contemptuous snort, but Caspar smiled kindly, and patted his daughter's
hand.
"Don't take it to heart," he said. "'Fondness' is a very indeterminate
term, and one that you must not scrutinize too closely. This little
black beast, for instance"--caressing, as he spoke, the head of the
ebony-hued cat which sat upon the arm of his chair--"which I picked up
half-starving in the street when it was a kitten, is fond of me because
I feed it: but suppose that I were too poor to give it milk and
chicken-bones, do you think it would retain any affection for me? A
sublimated cupboard-love is all that we can expect now-a-days from
cats--and servants."
"When you can write as you do about love," said Lesley, who was coming
to know her father well enough to tease him now and then, "I wonder that
you dare venture to express yourself in this cold-blooded way in our
hearing!"
"Ah, but, my dear, I was not talking about love," said Caspar, lightly.
"I was talking about 'fondness,' which is a very different matter. You
did not say that your maid, Kingston, _loved_ you--I suppose she was
hardly likely to go that length--you said that she was fond of you. Very
probably. But fondness has its limits."
Lesley smiled in reply, and did not utter the thought that occurred to
her. What she really believed was that Kingston was not only "fond" of
her, after the instinctive fashion of a dumb creature that one feeds,
but loved her, as one woman loves another. Although her democratic
feelings came to her through her father's teaching, or by inheritance
from him, she did not quite like to say this to him: he might think it
foolish to believe that a servant whom she had not known for very many
weeks actually loved her; and yet she had the conviction that Kingston's
attachment was deeper and more sincere than that of many a woman who
claimed to be her friend. And she was both grieved and puzzled by
Kingston's disappearance.
For this was on Monday morning, and the woman had not come back to Mr.
Brooke's. Great had been the astonishment of every one in the house when
it was found that the quiet, well-spoken, well-behaved Mary Kingston,
who had hitherto proved herself so trustworthy and so conscientious, had
gone away--disappeared utterly and entirely, without leaving a word of
explanation behind. She had last been seen on the pavement, shortly
before midnight, assisting a lady to get into a hansom. Nobody had seen
her re-enter the house. It seemed as if she had been spirited away. She
had gone without a bonnet or shawl, in her plain black dress and white
cap and apron, as if she meant to return in a minute or two, and she had
not appeared again. The shawl that she had taken with her was not
missed, for Miss Brooke continued for some time under the impression
that it had been lent to one of the visitors.
The conversation recorded above took place at Mr. Brooke's
luncheon-table. It was not often that he was present at this meal, but
on this occasion he had joined his sister and daughter, and questioned
them with considerable interest about Kingston. After lunch, he put his
hand gently on Lesley's arm, just as she was leaving the dining-room,
and said, in a tone where sympathy was veiled with banter--
"Never mind, my dear. We will get you another maid, who will be _less_
fond of you, and then perhaps she will stay."
"I don't want another maid, thank you, papa. And, indeed, I do think
Kingston was fond of me," said Lesley earnestly.
Mr. Brooke shrugged his shoulders. "Verily," he said, "the credulity of
some women----"
"But it isn't credulity," said Lesley, with something between a smile
and a sigh, "it is faith. And I can't altogether disbelieve in poor
Kingston--even now."
Mr. Brooke shook his head, but made no rejoinder. Privately he thought
Lesley foolishly mistaken, but believed that time would do its usual
office in correcting the mistakes of the young.
His own incredulity received a considerable shock somewhat later in the
day. About four o'clock a knock came to his study, and the knock was
followed by the appearance of the sour-visaged Sarah.
"If you please, sir, there's that woman herself wants to see you."
"What woman, Sarah?" said Caspar, carelessly. He was writing and
smoking, and did not look up from his work.
"The woman, Kingston, that ran away," said Sarah, indignantly. "I nearly
shut the door in her face, sir, I did."
"That wouldn't have been legal," said Mr. Brooke. "Why doesn't she see
Miss Brooke or Miss Lesley? I am busy."
"I expect she thinks she can get round you more easy," said Sarah, who
was a very old servant, and occasionally took liberties with her master
and mistress.
"She won't do that, Sarah," said Caspar, laughing a little in spite of
himself. "Show her in."
He laid down his pen and his pipe with a rather weary air. Really, he
was becoming involved in no end of domestic worries, and with few
compensations for his trouble! Such was his silent thought. Lesley
would, shortly leave him: Alice had refused to come back to his house.
Well, it would be but for a short time. He had almost made up his mind
that when Lesley was gone he would give up a house altogether, establish
his sister in a flat, throw journalism to the winds, and go abroad. The
life that he had led so long, the life of London offices and streets, of
the study and the committee-room, had become distasteful to him. As he
thrust away from him the manuscript at which he had been busy, his lips
were, half unconsciously, murmuring a very well-worn quotation--
"For I will see before I die,
The palms and temples of the South."
And from this passing day-dream he was roused by the entrance of a woman
whom he knew only as his daughter's maid.
He was struck at once by some indefinable change that had passed over
her since he had seen her last. He had noticed her, as he noticed
everybody that came within his ken; and he had remarked the mechanical
precision of her demeanor, the dull sadness of her lifeless eyes. There
was a light in her face now, a tremulous quiver of her lips, a slight
color in her thin cheeks. She looked like a creature who could feel and
think: not an automaton, worked by ingenious machinery.
He noted the change, but did not estimate it at its true worth. He
thought she was simply excited by the consciousness of her misdemeanor,
and by the prospect of an interview with him. He put on his most
magisterial manner as he spoke to her.
"Well, Kingston," he said, "I hope you have come to explain the cause of
the great inconvenience you have brought upon Miss Brooke and my
daughter."
"That is exactly what I have come to do, sir," said Kingston, looking
him full in the face, and speaking in clear, decided tones, such as he
had never heard from her before. She generally spoke in a muffled sort
of way, as though she did not care to exert herself--as though she did
not want her true voice to be heard.
"Sit down," said Mr. Brooke, more kindly. He had the true gentleman's
instinct; he could not bear to see a woman stand while he was seated,
although she was only his daughter's maid, and--presumably--a culprit
awaiting condemnation. "Now tell me all about it."
"Thank you, sir, I'd prefer to stand," said Kingston, quietly. "At any
rate, until I've told you one or two things about myself. To begin
with: my name was Kingston before my marriage, but it's not Kingston
now."
"Do you mean that you have got married since Saturday?" asked Caspar,
quietly.
The woman uttered a short, gasping sort of laugh. "Since Saturday? Oh,
no, sir. I've been married for the last six years, or more. I am Francis
Trent's wife--Francis the brother of Mr. Oliver Trent, who was here last
Saturday night."
And then, overcome with her confession, or with the look of mute
astonishment--which he could not repress--on Caspar Brooke's
countenance, she dropped into the chair that he had offered her, covered
her face with her hands and sobbed aloud. It took her hearer some
seconds before he could adjust his mind to this new revelation.
"Do you mean," he said at last, "that brother of Mr. Trent's"--he had
nearly said "of Mrs. Romaine's"--"who--who----" He paused, feeling
unable to put into words the question that was in his mind.
"That got into trouble some years ago, you mean," said Mrs. Trent,
lifting her face from her hands, and trying to control her trembling
voice. "Yes, I mean him. I know all about the story. He got into
trouble, and he's gone from bad to worse ever since. I've done my best
for him, but it doesn't seem as if I could do much more now."
"Why?"
"He's been ill--I think he's had an accident--but I don't rightly know
what's been the matter with him. Mr. Brooke, sir, I hope you'll believe
me in what I say. When I came here first I didn't know that you were
friends with his sister and his brother, or I wouldn't have come near
the place. And when I found it out I'd got fond of Miss Lesley, and
thought it would be no harm to stay."
"But what--what on earth--made you take a situation as ladies'-maid at
all?" cried Caspar, pulling his beard in his perplexity, as he listened
to her story.
"I wanted to earn money. _He_ could not work--and I could not bear to
see him want."
"_Could_ not work? Was it not a matter of the will? He could have worked
if he had wished to work," said Mr. Brooke, rather sternly. "That
Francis Trent should let his wife go out as----"
"Oh, well, it was work I was used to," said Francis Trent's wife,
patiently. "I'd been in service when I was a girl, and knew something
about it. And it was honest work. There's plenty of ways of earning
money which are worse than being a servant in your house, and to Miss
Lesley, too."
Lesley's words came back to Caspar's mind. She had had "faith" in
Kingston's attachment, and her faith seemed now to be justified. Women's
instincts, as Caspar acknowledged to himself, are in some ways certainly
juster than those of men.
"Is he not strong? Is there no sort of work that he can do?" he
demanded, with asperity. "If you had come to me at the beginning and
told me who you were, I might have found something for him. It is not
right that his wife should be waiting upon my daughter. Tell me what he
can do."
"I don't think he can do much now," was Mary Trent's answer. "He's very
much broken down. I daresay you wouldn't know him if you saw him. I
don't think he _could_ do a day's work, so there's all the more reason
that I should work for both."
She spoke truly enough as regarded the present; but, by a suppression of
the truth which was almost heroic she concealed the fact that for many
years Francis had been able but unwilling to work. Now, certainly, he
was incapacitated, and she spoke as if he had been an invalid for years.
Thus Caspar Brooke understood her, and his next words were uttered in a
gentler tone.
"I am very sorry that you should have been brought into these straits,
Mrs. Trent. Will you give me your address, and let me think over the
matter? Mrs. Romaine or Mr. Oliver Trent----"
"I'd rather not have anything to do with them," said Mrs. Trent,
quietly, but with an involuntary lifting of her head. "Mrs. Romaine
knows I am his wife, but she won't speak to me or see me." Caspar moved
uneasily in his chair. This account of Rosalind's behavior did not
coincide with his own idea of her softness and gentleness. "And Oliver
Trent is the man who has brought more misery on me than any other man in
the world."
"But if I promise--as I will do--not to give your address to Mrs.
Romaine or Mr. Trent, will you not let me know where you live?" said
Caspar, with the gentle intonation that had often won him his way in
spite of greater obstacles than poor Mary Trent's obstinate will.
She gave him her address, after a little hesitation. It was in a
Whitechapel slum. Then, seeing in his face that he would have liked to
ask more questions, she went on hurriedly--
"But I have not come here to take up your time. I only wanted to explain
to you why I left your house on Saturday--which I'm very sorry to have
been obliged to do. And one other thing--but I'll tell you that
afterwards."
"Well? Why did you go on Saturday, Mrs. Trent?" said Mr. Brooke, more
curious than he would have liked to allow. But she did not reply as
directly to his question as he wanted her to do.
"I was only a poor girl when Francis married me," she said, "but I loved
him as true as any one could have loved, and I would have worked my
fingers to the bone for him. And he was good to me, in his way. He got
to depend upon me and trust to me; and I used to feel--especially when
he'd had a little more than he ought to have--as if he was more of a
child to me than a husband. It was to provide for him that I came here.
And then--one day when I'd been here a little while--I went to his
lodgings to give him some money I'd been saving up for him--and I found
him gone--gone--without a word--without a message--disappeared, so to
speak, and me left behind to be miserable."
Caspar ejaculated "Scoundrel!" behind his hand, but Mrs. Trent heard and
caught up the word.
"No, you're wrong, sir, he was no scoundrel," she said calmly. "He'd met
with an accident and been taken to an hospital. He was there for weeks
and weeks, not able to give an account of himself, or, as far as I can
make out, even to give his name. He came out last week, and made his
way, by sort of instinct, to your house, where he knew I was living. I
came out on the steps and saw him there--my husband that I'd given up
for lost. I ran up to him--you'd have done the same in my place--and
went with him without thinking of anybody else."
"I see. But why did you not leave a word of explanation behind."
"I daren't quit hold of him for a moment, sir. He was so dazed and
stupid, he didn't even know me at the first. That was why I say it was
instinct, not knowledge, that guided him to the place. If I had left him
to speak to any one in the house, he might have gone off, and I never
seen him again. That was why I felt obliged to go sir, and am very sorry
for the inconvenience I know I must have caused."
Caspar nodded gravely. "I see," he said. "Of course it _was_
inconvenient, and we were anxious--there's no denying that. But I can
see the matter from your point of view. Would you like to see Miss
Lesley and explain it to her?"
"I'd rather leave it in your hands, sir," said Mary Trent. "Because
there's one thing more I've got to mention before I go. And Miss Lesley
may not thank me for mentioning it, although I do it to save her--poor
lamb--and to save you too, sir, from a great trouble and sorrow and
disgrace that hangs over you all just now."
Caspar flushed. "Disgrace?" he said, almost angrily.
And Mrs. Trent looked at him full in the face and nodded gravely, as she
answered--
"Yes, sir, disgrace."