Chavasse. "Humble companion," as my lady takes care to put it. It has
been brought about in this way. Wilkins is slightly improving: but it
will be months before she can resume her duties about Lady Chavasse: and
my lady has at length got this opinion out of me. "Five or six months!"
she exclaimed in dismay. "But it is only what I have lately suspected.
Mr. Duffham, I have been thinking that I must take a companion; and now
this has confirmed it. A humble companion, who will not object to do my
hair on state occasions, and superintend Picker in trimming my dresses,
especially the lace; and who will write notes for me when I desire it,
and read to me when Sir Geoffry's not here; and sit with me if I wish
it. She wouldn't dine with us, of course; but I might sometimes let
her sit down to luncheon. In short, what I want is a well-educated,
lady-like young woman, who will make herself useful. Do you happen to
know of one?"
I mentioned Mary Layne. She has been wishing not to return to the
heavy work and confinement of a school, where she had to sit up late,
night after night, correcting exercises, and touching up drawings by
gas-light. My lady caught at it at once. "Mary Layne! the very thing. I
like the look of the girl much, Mr. Duffham; and of course she won't be
above doing anything required of her: Layne, the apothecary's daughter,
cannot be called a gentlewoman in position, you know."
She forgot I was an apothecary also; I'll give her that credit. But this
is a specimen of the way my lady's exclusive spirit peeps out.
And so it is settled. And if Miss Mary had been suddenly offered a
position in the Royal household, she could not have thought more of it.
"Mr. Duffham, I will try my very best to satisfy Lady Chavasse," says
she to me, in an ecstasy; "I will do anything and everything required of
me: who am I, that I should be above it?" And by the glistening of her
sweet brown eyes, and the rose-blush on her cheeks, it would seem that
she fancies she is going into fairy-land. Well, the Grange is a nice
place: and she is to have thirty guineas a-year. At the last school she
had twenty pounds: at the first ten.
[_End of the Diary for the present._]
Miss Layne entered the Grange with trepidation. She had never been
inside the house, and at first thought it was fairy-land realized and
that she was out of place in it. A broad flight of three or four steps
led up to the wide entrance-door; the brilliant colours from the painted
windows shone on the mosaic pavement of the hall; on the right were the
grand drawing-rooms; on the left the dining-room and Sir Geoffry's
library. Behind the library, going down a step or two was a low, shady
apartment, its glass doors opening to a small grass plat, round which
flowers were planted; and beyond it lay the fragrant herbary. This
little room was called the garden-room; and on the morning of Miss
Layne's arrival, after she had taken off her things, Hester Picker (who
thought almost as much of the old surgeon's daughter as she did of
my lady) curtsyed her into it, and said it was to be Miss Layne's
sitting-room, when she was not with my lady.
Mary Layne looked around. She thought it charming. It had an old Turkey
carpet, and faded red chairs, and a shabby checked cloth on the table,
with other ancient furniture; but the subdued light was grateful after
the garish July sun, and a sweetness came in from the herbs and flowers.
Mary stood, wondering what she had to do first, and not quite daring to
sit down even on one of the old red chairs. The Grange was the Grange,
and my lady was my lady; and they were altogether above the sphere in
which she had been brought up. She had a new lilac muslin dress on,
fresh and simple; her smooth brown hair had a bit of lilac ribbon in it;
and she looked as pretty and ladylike as a girl can look. Standing at
the back, there beyond the able, was she, when Sir Geoffry walked in at
the glass doors, his light summer coat thrown back, and a heap of
small paper packets in his hands, containing seeds. At first he looked
astonished: not remembering her.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up, as he took
off his straw hat. "Miss Mary Layne, I think. I did not know you at the
moment. My mother said she expected you to-day."
He came round to her with outstretched hand, and then put a chair for
her, just as though she had been a duchess--or Lady Rachel Derreston.
Mary did not take the chair: she felt strange in her new home, and as
yet very timid.
"I am not sure what Lady Chavasse would wish me to do," she ventured to
say, believing it might be looked upon as next door to a crime to be
seen idle, in a place where she was to receive thirty guineas a-year.
"There appears to be no work here."
"Get a book, and read!" cried Sir Geoffry. "I'll find you one as soon as
I have put up these seeds. A box of new novels has just come from town.
I hope you will make yourself at home with us, and be happy," he added,
in his kindness.
"Thank you, sir; I am sure I shall."
He was putting up the seeds, when Lady Chavasse entered. She had a way
of taking likes and dislikes, and she never scrupled to show either. On
this first day, it seemed that she did not know how to make enough of
Mary. She chose to forget that she was only to be the humble companion,
and treated her as a guest. She carried her in to take luncheon with
herself and Sir Geoffry; she made her play and sing; she showed her the
drawing-rooms and the flower-gardens, and finally took her out in the
barouche. She certainly did not ask her in to dinner, but said she
should expect her to come to the drawing-room afterwards, and spend the
evening. And Miss Layne, not ignorant of the customs obtaining in great
houses, dressed herself for it in her one evening dress of white spotted
muslin, and changed the lilac ribbon in her hair for blue.
So that, you perceive, the girl was inaugurated at the Grange as a young
lady, almost as an equal, and not as a servant--as Lady Chavasse's true
opinion would have classed her. That was mistake the first. For it led
Sir Geoffry to make a companion of Miss Layne; that is, to treat her as
though she belonged to their order; which otherwise he certainly would
not have done. Had Miss Layne been assigned her true place at first--the
place that Lady Chavasse meant her to fill, that of an inferior and
humble dependent--Sir Geoffry, out of simple respect to the girl and to
his mother, would have kept his distance.
As the time passed on they grew great friends. Lady Chavasse retained
her liking for Mary, and saw no harm in the growing intimacy with Sir
Geoffry. That was mistake the second. Both of them were drifting into
love; but Lady Chavasse dreamt it not. The social gulf that spread
itself between Sir Geoffry Chavasse, of Chavasse Grange, and Mary Layne,
daughter of the late hard-worked village apothecary, was one that Lady
Chavasse would have said (had she been asked to think about it) could
never be bridged over: and for this very reason she saw no danger in the
intercourse. She regarded Mary Layne as of a totally different caste
from themselves, and never supposed but Sir Geoffry did so too.
And so time went on, on the wings of love. There were garden walks
together and moonlight saunterings; meetings in my lady's presence,
meetings without it. Sir Geoffry, going in and out of the garden-parlour
at will, as he had been accustomed to do--for it was where all kinds of
things belonging to him were kept: choice seeds, his fishing-rods, his
collection of butterflies--would linger there by the hour together,
talking to Mary at her work. And, before either of them was conscious of
the danger, they had each passed into a dream that changed everything
about them to Paradise.
Of course, Sir Geoffry, when he awoke to the truth--that it was
love--ought to have gone away, or have contrived to get his mother to
dismiss Miss Layne. He did nothing of the sort. And for this, some
people--Duffham for one--held him even more to blame than for anything
that happened afterwards. But how could he voluntarily blight his new
happiness, and hers? It was so intense as to absorb every other feeling;
it took his common sense away from him. And thus they went dreaming on
together in that one spring-time (of the heart, not of the weather), and
never thought about drifting into shoals and pitfalls.
In the autumn my lady went to the seaside in Cornwall, taking Mary _as
her maid_, and escorted by her son. "Will you do for me what I want
while I am away? I do not care to be troubled with Picker," she
had said; and Mary replied, as in duty bound, that she would. It is
inconvenient to treat a maid as a lady, especially in a strange place,
and Mary found that during this sojourn Lady Chavasse did not attempt
it. To all intents and purposes Mary was the maid now; she did not sit
with her lady, she took her meals apart; she was, in fact, regarded as
the lady's-maid by all, and nothing else. Lady Chavasse even took to
calling her "Layne." This, the sudden dethroning of her social status,
was the third mistake; and this one, as the first, was my lady's. Sir
Geoffry had been led to regard her as a companion; now he saw her but as
a servant. But, servant or no servant, you cannot put love out of the
heart, once it has possession of it.
At the month's end they returned home: and there Mary found that she was
to retain this lower station: never again would she be exalted as she
had been. Lady Chavasse had tired of the new toy, and just carelessly
allowed her to find her own level. Except that Miss Layne sat in the
garden-parlour, and her meals were served there, she was not very much
distinguished from Hester Picker and the other servants; indeed, Picker
sometimes sat in the parlour too, when they had lace, or what not,
to mend for my lady. Geoffry in his heart was grieved at the changed
treatment of Miss Layne; he thought it wrong and unjust; and to make up
for the mistake, was with her a great deal himself.
Things were in this position when Lady Chavasse was summoned to Bath:
her sister, Lady Derreston, was taken ill. Sir Geoffry escorted her
thither. Picker was taken, not Miss Layne. In the countess's small
household, Mary, in her anomalous position--for she could not be
altogether put with the servants--would have been an inconvenience; and
my lady bade her make herself happy at the Grange, and left her a lot of
fine needlework to get through.
Leaving his mother in Bath, Sir Geoffry went to London, stayed a week
or so, and then came back to the Grange. Another week or two, and he
returned to Bath to bring his mother home. And so the winter set in, and
wore on. And now all that has to be told to the paper's end is taken
from diaries, Duffham's and others. But for convenience' sake, I put it
as though the words were my own, instead of copying them literally.
* * * * *
Spring came in early. February was not quite at an end, and the trees
were beginning to show their green. All the month it had been warm
weather; but people said it was too relaxing for the season, and they
and the trees should suffer for it later. A good deal of sickness was
going about; and, amongst others who had to give in for a time, was
Duffham himself. He had inflammation of the lungs. His brother Luke, who
was partner in a medical firm elsewhere, came to Church Dykely for a
week or two, to take the patients. Luke was a plain-speaking man of
forty, with rough hair and a good heart.
The afternoon after he arrived, an applicant came into the surgery with
her daughter. It was Mrs. Layne, but the temporary doctor did not know
her. Mrs. Layne never did look like a lady, and he did not mistake her
for one: he thought it some respectable countrywoman: she had flung a
very ancient cloak over her worn morning gown. She expressed herself
disappointed at not seeing Mr. Duffham, but opened the consultation with
the brother instead. Mrs. Layne took it for granted she was known, and
talked accordingly.
Her daughter, whom she kept calling Mary, and nothing else, had been
ailing lately; she, Mrs. Layne, could not think what was the matter with
her, unless it was the unusually warm spring. She grew thinner and
weaker daily; her cheeks were pale, her eyes seemed to have no life in
them: she was very low in spirits; yet, in spite of all this, Mary had
kept on saying it was "nothing." My Lady Chavasse--returning home from
London yesterday, whither she had accompanied her son a week or two
ago, and whom she had left there--was so much struck with the change she
saw in Mary, who lived with her as humble companion, Mrs. Layne added,
in a parenthesis, that she insisted on her seeing Dr. Duffham, that he
might prescribe some tonics. And accordingly Mary had walked to her
mother's this afternoon.
Mr. Luke Duffham listened to all this with one ear, as it were. He
supposed it might be the warm spring, as suggested. However, he took
Mary into the patients' room, and examined her; felt her pulse, looked
at her tongue, sounded her chest, with all the rest of it that doctors
treat their clients to; and asked her this, that, and the other--about
five-and-twenty questions, when perhaps five might have done. The upshot
of it all was that Mary Layne went off in a dead faint.
"What on earth can be the matter with her?" cried the alarmed mother,
when they had brought her round.
Mr. Luke Duffham, going back to the surgery with Mrs. Layne, shut the
doors, and told her what he thought it was. It so startled the old lady
that she backed against the counter and upset the scales.
"How dare you say so, sir!"
"But I am sure of it," returned Mr. Luke.
"Lord be good to me!" gasped Mrs. Layne, looking like one terrified
out of her seven senses. "The worst I feared was that it might be
consumption. A sister of mine died of it."
"Where shall I send the medicine to?" inquired the doctor.
"Anywhere. Over the way, if you like," continued Mrs. Layne, in her
perturbation.
"Certainly. Where to, over the way?"
"To my house. Don't you know me? I am the widow of your brother's late
partner. This unhappy child is the one he was fondest of; she is only
nineteen, much younger than the rest."
"Mrs. Layne!" thought Luke Duffham, in surprise, "I wish I had known; I
might have hesitated before speaking plainly. But where would have been
the good?"
The first thing Mrs. Layne did, was to shut her own door against Mary,
and send her back to the Grange in a shower of anger. She was an honest
old lady, of most irreproachable character; never needing, as she
phrased it, to have had a blush on her cheek, for herself or any one
belonging to her. In her indignation, she could have crushed Mary to
the earth. Whatever it might be that the poor girl had done, robbed a
church, or shot its parson, her mother deemed that she deserved hanging.
Mary Layne walked back to the Grange: where else had she to go?
Broken-hearted, humiliated, weak almost unto death, she was as a reed
in her mother's hands, yielding herself to any command given; and only
wishing she might die. Lady Chavasse, compassionating her evident
suffering, brought her a glass of wine with her own hand, and inquired
what Mr. Duffham said, and whether he was going to give her tonics.
Instead of answering, Mary went into another faint: and my lady thought
she had overwalked herself. "I wish I had sent her in the carriage,"
said she kindly. And while the wish was yet upon her lips, Mrs. Layne
arrived at the Grange, to request an audience of her ladyship.
Then was commotion. My lady talked and stormed, Mrs. Layne talked and
cried. Both were united in one thing--heaping reproaches on Mary. They
were in the grand drawing-room--where my lady had been sitting when Mrs.
Layne was shown in. Lady Chavasse sat back, furious and scornful, in
her pink velvet chair; Mrs. Layne stood; Mary had sunk on the carpet
kneeling, her face bent, her clasped hands raised as if imploring mercy.
This group was suddenly broken in upon by Sir Geoffry--who had but then
reached the Grange from town. They were too noisy to notice him. Halting
in dismay he had the pleasure of catching a sentence or two addressed to
the unhappy Mary.
"The best thing you can do is to find refuge in the workhouse," stormed
Lady Chavasse. "Out of my house you turn this hour."
"The best thing you can do is to go on the tramp, where you won't
be known," amended Mrs. Layne, who was nearly beside herself with
conflicting emotions. "Never again shall you enter the home that was
your poor dead father's. You wicked girl!--and you hardly twenty years
old yet! But, my lady, I can but think--though I know we are humble
people, as compared with you, and perhaps I've no right to say it--that
Sir Geoffry has not behaved like a gentleman."
"Hold your tongue, woman," said her ladyship. "Sir Geoffry----"
"Sir Geoffry is at least enough of a gentleman to take his evil deeds on
himself, and not shift them on to others," spoke the baronet, stepping
forward--and the unexpected interruption was startling to them all. My
lady pointed imperatively to the door, but he stood his ground.
It was no doubt a bitter moment for him; bringing home to him an awful
amount of self-humiliation: for throughout his life he had striven to do
right instead of wrong. And when these better men yield to temptation
instead of fleeing from it, the reacting sting is of the sharpest. The
wisest and strongest sometimes fall: and find too late that, though the
fall was so easy, the picking-up is of all things most difficult. Sir
Geoffry's face was white as death.
"Get up, Mary," he said gently, taking her hand to help her in all
respect. "Mrs. Layne," he added, turning to face the others; "my dear
mother--if I may dare still to call you so--suffer me to say a word. For
all that has taken place, I am alone to blame; on me only must it rest,
The fault----"
"Sin, sir," interrupted Mrs. Layne.
"Yes. Thank you. Sin. The sin lies with me, not with Mary. In my
presence reproach shall not be visited on her. She has enough trouble
to bear without that. I wish to Heaven that I had never--Mrs. Layne,
believe me," he resumed, after the pause, "no one can feel this more
keenly than I. And, if circumstances permit me to make reparation, I
will make it!"
Sir Geoffry wanted (circumstances permitting, as he shortly put it) to
marry Mary Layne; he _wished_ to do it. Taking his mother into another
room he told her this. Lady Chavasse simply thought him mad. She grew a
little afraid of him, lest he should set her and all high rules of
propriety at nought, and do it.
But trouble like this cannot be settled in an hour. Lady Chavasse, in
her great fear, conciliated just a little: she did not turn Miss Layne
out at once, as threatened, but suffered her to remain at the Grange for
the night.
"In any case, whatever may be the ending of this, it is not from my
family that risk of exposure must come," spoke Sir Geoffry, in a tone
of firmness. "It might leave me no alternative."
"No alternative?" repeated Lady Chavasse. "How?"
"Between my duty to you, and my duty to her," said Sir Geoffry. And my
lady's heart fainted within her at the suggested fear.
* * * * *
They were together in the library at Chavasse Grange, Lady Chavasse
and her only son Geoffry. It was early morning; they had sat in the
breakfast-room making a show of partaking of the morning meal, each of
them with that bitter trouble at the heart that had been known only--to
my lady, at least--since the previous day. But the farce of speaking in
monosyllables to one another could not be kept up--the trouble had to
be dealt with, and without delay; and when the poor meal could not be
prolonged by any artifice, Sir Geoffry held open the door for his mother
to pass through, and crossed the hall with her to the library. Shut
within its walls they could discuss the secret in safety; no eye to see
them, no ear to hear.
Sir Geoffry mechanically stirred the fire, and placed a chair for his
mother near it. The weather appeared to be changing. Instead of the
unseasonable relaxing warmth that had been upon the earth up to the
previous day, a cold north-east wind had set in, enough to freeze
people's marrow. The skies were grey and lowering; the trees shook and
moaned: winter was taking up his place again.
So much the better. Blue skies and brightness would hardly have
accorded with Sir Geoffry's spirit. He might have to endure many cruel
visitations ere he died, but never a one so cruel as this. No evil
that Heaven can send upon us, or man inflict, is so hard to bear as
self-reproach.
If ever a son had idolized a mother, it had surely been Geoffry
Chavasse. They had been knit together in the strongest bonds of filial
love. His whole thought from his boyhood had been her comfort: to have
sacrificed himself for her, if needs must, would have been a cheerful
task. When he came of age, not yet so very many months ago, he had
resolved that his whole future life should be devoted to promote her
happiness--as her life had been devoted to him in the days of his sickly
boyhood. Her wishes were his; her word his law; he would have died
rather than cause her a moment's pain.
And how had he, even thus early, fulfilled this? Look at him, as he
leans against the heavy framework of the window, drawn back from it that
the light may not fall on his subdued face. The brow is bent in grievous
doubt; the dark-blue eyes, generally so honestly clear, are hot with
trouble; the bright hair hangs limp. Yes; he would have died rather than
bring his mother pain: that was his true creed and belief; but, like
many another whose resolves are made in all good faith, he had signally
failed, even while he was thinking it, and brought pain to her in a
crushing heap. He hated himself as he looked at her pale countenance; at
the traces of tears in her heavy eyes. Never a minute's sleep had she
had the previous night, it was plainly to be seen; and, as for him, he
had paced his chamber until morning, not attempting to go to rest.
But there was a task close before him, heavier than any that had gone
before; heavier even than this silent repentance--the deciding _what_
was to be done in the calamity; and Sir Geoffry knew that his duty to
his mother and his duty to another would clash with each other. All the
past night he had been earnestly trying to decide which of the two might
be evaded with the least sin--and he thought he saw which.
Lady Chavasse had taken the chair he placed for her; sitting upright in
it, and waiting for him to speak. She knew, as well as he, that this
next hour would decide their fate in life: whether they should still
be together a loving mother and son; or whether they should become
estranged and separate for ever. He crossed to the fireplace and put his
elbow on the mantelpiece, shielding his eyes with his hand. Just a few
words, he said, of his sense of shame and sorrow; of regret that he
should have brought this dishonour on himself and his mother's home; of
hope that he might be permitted, by Heaven and circumstances, to work
out his repentance, in endeavouring daily, hourly constantly, to atone
to her for it--to her, his greatly-loved mother. And then--lifting his
face from the hand that had partially hidden it--he asked her to be
patient, and to hear him without interruption a little further. And Lady
Chavasse bowed her head in acquiescence.
"Nothing remains for me but to marry Miss Layne," he began: and my lady,
as she heard the expected avowal, bit her compressed lips "It is the
only course open to me; unless I would forfeit every claim to honour,
and to the respect of upright men. If you will give your consent to
this, the evil may be in a degree repaired; nothing need ever be known;
Mary's good name may be saved--mine, too, if it comes to that--and
eventually we may be all happy together----"
"Do not try me too much, Geoffry," came the low interruption.
"Mother, you signified that you would hear me to the end. I will not
try you more than I can help; but it is necessary that I should speak
fully. All last night I was walking about my room in self-commune;
deliberating what way was open, if any, that it would be practicable
to take--and I saw but this one. Let me marry her. It will be easy of
accomplishment--speaking in reference to appearances and the world.
She might go for a week or two to her mother's; for a month or two,
if it were thought better and less suspicious; there is no pressing
hurry. We could then be married quietly, and go abroad for a year or
so, or for longer; and come back together to the Grange, and be your
dutiful and loving children always, just as it was intended I and
Rachel should be. But that you have liked Mary Layne very much, I
might have felt more difficulty in proposing this."
"I have liked her as my servant," said Lady Chavasse, scornfully.