Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe looked up from the housekeeper's book which
she was inspecting with displeased interest, and turned her light blue
eyes upon her husband's niece, as she stood a forlorn yet rigidly
defiant little figure, her back against the closed door. "You may come
in, Jane, and sit down," said Lady Agatha, in precisely the same tone
she would have used to a delinquent housemaid.
Jane advanced and sat down, every line of her face and figure expressing
an exasperating indifference to the stately hauteur of the lady, who on
her part proceeded to concentrate her entire attention upon a bundle of
tradesmen's accounts, which she compared one by one with the entries in
the housekeeper's book.
This went on for some twenty minutes, during which period Jane stared
unremittingly out of the window against which a cold rain was beating.
Then Lady Agatha spoke: "I have purposely detained you in complete
silence, Jane, that you might reflect quietly upon your present position
in life. I trust you have made good use of the opportunity."
Jane made no reply; but she withdrew her eyes from the dripping window
pane and fixed them upon her aunt. In return, Lady Agatha focused her
frozen stare upon the girl. "Is it _possible_ that you had the
_presumption_ to refuse Mr. Towle's offer of marriage last night?" she
asked with an indescribable mixture of unwilling respect and cold
dislike in her voice.
"Yes, Aunt Agatha, I did," said Jane, a faint expression of regret
passing over her face.
"Why?"
"Because I--couldn't--love him."
Lady Agatha scowled. "I _cannot_ understand what attracted the man to
you in the first place," she said disdainfully. "I believe he only saw
you twice."
"Three times," Jane corrected her.
"You are not," said Lady Agatha, pausing to contemplate the girl's face
and figure with the air of one examining a slightly damaged article of
merchandise, "at all attractive. You have neither beauty nor style, and
you are not in the least clever."
Jane appeared to grow smaller in her chair. She sighed deeply.
"Besides all this," went on Lady Agatha mercilessly, "you are
practically penniless. I cannot understand how such a man as Mr. Towle,
exceptionally well connected and very wealthy, _ever_ came to think of
such a thing as marrying _you_! But"--spitefully--"I dare say _you_ know
well enough how it came about."
"I don't know what you mean, Aunt Agatha," stammered poor Jane.
"Have you never met Mr. Towle, quite by accident, we will say, on the
street, or----"
"How can you say such a thing to me, Aunt Agatha!" cried Jane, "as if I
were a--servant, or a--a quite common person. I never saw Mr. Towle
except in this house, and I never spoke three words to him before last
night. And--and I do like him, because he--likes me. But I cannot marry
him on that account."
Lady Agatha shrugged her shoulders with a hateful smile. "Oh, I dare say
Mr. Towle will be very glad of the outcome later on," she said
carelessly. "It is not easy to account for the vagaries of elderly men.
But it was not to speak of this absurd _contretemps_ that I sent for you
this morning, Jane; Gwendolen reported to me what took place in her room
last night, and at first I contemplated referring the whole matter to
your uncle; but----"
Lady Agatha paused to note the gleam of hope which lighted up the girl's
expressive features, only to fade as she went on in her peculiarly
frigid, precise way:
"I finally thought best to settle the question with you. Your proposal
that I should pay you the wages of a servant shocked and grieved
me--_inexpressibly_. Your position in this household is that--er--of--a
relative--an unfortunate relative, it is true; but still a relative.
You bear our name, and as an Aubrey-Blythe you ought to consider what is
due your--er--position. You ought, in short, to fill your humble niche
in the family life cheerfully and uncomplainingly. Do you follow me?"
"Yes, Aunt Agatha," said Jane stonily.
"It is little indeed that you can do for us in return for all the
benefits which are continually heaped upon you," went on Lady Agatha,
with an air of Christian forbearance. "It ought not to be necessary for
me to remind you of this, Jane. I regret that it is so. But I cannot
permit a discordant element to disturb the peace of my home. You are
aware that Percy and Cecil should be required to conduct themselves like
gentlemen. You will see to it that the disgraceful scene of last night
is not repeated. As for Gwendolen, any little service that you are
requested to do for her ought to be gladly performed. Do you know, the
poor, dear child was quite overcome by your rudeness; she thought you
must be ill."
"I shall never put on Gwendolen's stockings and shoes for her again,"
remarked Jane, with disconcerting finality.
"Jane, you forget yourself!"
"No, aunt; you are mistaken. I am not forgetting myself; I am
remembering that I am an Aubrey-Blythe."
Lady Agatha stared blankly at the girl for a full minute. Then she
recovered herself. "You are an ungrateful, impertinent girl!" she said
slowly. "If you were younger I should feel it my duty to ferule you
severely. There is one other thing I wish to speak to you about; then
you may go. I have observed that you are far too familiar and presuming
in your manner toward your cousin Reginald. His future position in the
world as my oldest son and his father's heir does not warrant any such
attitude on your part."
"Did Reginald tell you that he tried to kiss me on the stairs last
night, and that I slapped him for it?" inquired Jane, in a businesslike
tone. "It was 'familiar' of me, I admit; but Reginald is such a cub,
you know."
Lady Agatha rose to her full height. "You may go to your room, Jane, and
stay there for the remainder of the day," she said in an awful voice. "I
see that my Christian charity is entirely misplaced in your case. I
shall, after all, be obliged to consult your uncle with regard to some
other disposal of your person. I cannot bear you about me longer. Your
influence on my dear children is _most unfortunate_!"
Jane turned sharply--she already had her hand upon the door. "I hope
uncle will send me away!" she exclaimed passionately. "I hate this house
and everyone in it--except Percy and Susan!"
Lady Agatha, shaken out of her usual icy self-control, darted forward.
She was a tall, big woman and she swept the girl before her in a blast
of cold fury up the stairs--two flights of them--to the little attic
room; there she thrust the slight figure within, and locked the door
upon it.
Jane stood in the middle of the floor and listened to the ugly click of
the key and the sound of Lady Agatha's retreating boot heels on the
uncarpeted corridor.
"Well," said Jane ruefully. "I _have_ made a mess of it!" She had
completely forgotten her prayer of the night before.
Somebody had laid a fire in her rusty little grate. It was Susan, of
course, who was continually going out of her way to be kind to the girl
to whom everyone else was so persistently and pointedly unkind. Jane's
sore heart warmed toward honest Susan, as she hunted for a match in the
ugly little safe on the mantel. "I've a day off, anyway," she told
herself, "and I'll cobble up that old gown of Gwen's so that I can wear
it."
Miss Blythe was well used to cobbling up old gowns and clever at it,
too. She waxed increasingly cheerful as she spread the faded breadths
across her knee and discovered that the wrong side of the fabric was
fresh and bright. Later she congratulated herself upon a stray sheet of
_The Times_, left behind by Susan after laying the fire; it would do
admirably for pattern material. As she spread its crumpled folds upon
her counterpane, preparatory to evolving a wonderful yoke design, her
eye fell upon a line in the column of "Female Help Wanted." It read as
follows:
"A lady about to travel in America wishes to engage intelligent
young female as companion. Good wages. Duties nominal. Apply
mornings to Mrs. Augustus Markle, 10 Belgravia Crescent."
"Oh!" murmured Jane Blythe. She sank down on the edge of her hard little
bed and read the fateful lines again. "A lady about to travel in
America--an intelligent young female as traveling companion. Why, _I_ am
an intelligent young female!" exclaimed Jane, with the air of a
discoverer; "I wonder if I look the part?"
She stared at her young reflection in the dim mirror over her little
dressing table. "I believe I look sufficiently 'intelligent' to perform
'nominal duties' as a companion," she told herself candidly. Then she
hunted for the date of the paper, and was ready to shed tears of
disappointment when she discovered that it was that of the previous day.
"There are so many intelligent young females, and I suppose everyone of
them would like to travel in America," said Jane, still eying the
brown-eyed young person in the glass. "Besides, I'm locked in."
The brown eyes twinkled as they turned toward the one window of the
attic room. More than once, when she was a small girl, Jane had escaped
from durance vile by way of the projecting gutter just outside her
window. It was a perilous feat; but Jane was muscular and agile as a
boy, and of a certain defiant courage withal, born perhaps of her
unhappy lot in life.
"It would vex Aunt Agatha frightfully if I should fall and get killed on
the conservatory roof," murmured Jane, as she pinned up her long skirts
securely, "and it would cost Uncle Robert a whole lot in broken glass
and potted plants and things; but I don't care!"
In another minute she had crawled out of her little window and
commenced her dangerous journey to a neighboring window, which, luckily
for the bold adventuress, stood wide open. Twice the girl's cautious
feet slipped unsteadily on a bit of ice, and once the gutter itself
cracked ominously under her weight; but at last she gained the window,
climbed in, and sank white and shaken to the floor.
"Jane Blythe, you must be losing your nerve," she told herself sternly,
when she had gathered sufficient strength to stumble dizzily to her
feet; "the last time you tried that you didn't turn a hair!"
The rest was easy, and in less than an hour's time Miss Blythe found
herself ringing the bell at 10 Belgravia Crescent. The slatternly maid,
distinguished by the traditional smudge over one eye, informed her that
Mrs. Markle was within, and in the same breath that she was "clean wore
out with interviewin' young females."
Jane's heart sank; nevertheless she bestowed a sixpence upon the dingy
maid with an air of regal unconcern, and was straightway ushered into
the presence of Mrs. Augustus Markle, with a flourish of the dingy one's
plaided pinafore and the brief announcement: "'Ere's another of 'em,
ma'am!"
The stout lady, solidly enthroned upon a sofa before the dispirited
fire, did not turn her elaborately coiffured head.
"Ze young woman may come in," intoned a full, rich, foreign-sounding
voice which somewhat prepared Jane for the large, dark, highly colored
visage, flanked with dubious diamond eardrops, which Mrs. Markle turned
upon her visitor.
"You wis' to inquire about ze situation--eh?" pursued this individual,
without any token of impatience. "I haf already seen feefty of ze London
demoiselles _ce matin_."
"Oh, if you have already engaged some one, I will not trouble you!"
stammered Jane, edging toward the door.
"Not so fast--not so fast, madmoiselle; it iss true I haf already
engage; but-- Ah, zis iss bettaire! More _chic--oui_. Your name, _s'il
vous plait_?"
"Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe," murmured the girl.
"An' you wis' to go to ze ozzer side--to America--_oui_?"
"I wish to leave London; yes."
"To-morrow evenin', zen, I go by ze train. Zen I sail on ze so gra-a-nd
ship. You go wiz me--eh?"
Jane stared at the woman with some astonishment. "What would be my--my
duties?" she asked.
"Your duties? Why, to go wiz me--my _compagnon de voyage_--_comprenez_?
Nossing else, I assure you; I wait on myself. But I am--what you call
it--lone-some--see? An' I require a nize, young lady to go wiz me."
Mrs. Markle smiled affably, revealing a double row of glistening white
teeth. She looked very kind and good-natured, and Jane drew a quick
breath.
"I will go," she said decidedly.
The final arrangements were quickly concluded, and Jane presently found
herself walking down the street, her cheeks flushed, her brown eyes
blazing with excitement.
"I am going to America to-morrow--to-morrow!" she told herself. "I shall
travel! I shall see the world! I shall never--never come back!"
The girl was so absorbed in her thoughts, which had for the moment flown
quite across seas to the America of her imaginings, that she failed to
see the tall, square-shouldered person who had turned the corner and was
approaching her at a leisurely pace. She became aware of his presence
when he spoke, and flushed an indignant scarlet as Lady Agatha's
insinuating words recurred to her mind. "Yes," she returned vague answer
to his greetings, "it is very pleasant to-day."
"But you," said Mr. Towle, smiling down at the little figure, "seem to
be in great haste about something. You are quite out of breath. Suppose
we go into this little park and sit down quietly and rest a bit. Your
face is uncomfortably flushed."
"I can't help my color," murmured Jane confusedly; "it isn't because I
was walking fast, but only----"
"Is it because you are vexed at seeing me?" Mr. Towle wanted to know.
"We agreed to be friends last night, remember."
"I know it," said Jane, glancing up at him quickly. He looked much
younger in his hat, she reflected, and he really had very nice eyes.
"But I am going out of town directly," she made haste to add, "so we
shall not see each other again--at least not for a long time."
"You are going away?" said Mr. Towle blankly. "Where--if I may ask
without seeming impertinent?"
"I don't know exactly," replied Jane, with a provoking smile. "I am
going to travel." Then she bit her tongue till it hurt. "Really, now you
will see why I must hurry home at once. And--and, please don't mention
what I have said to--to Aunt Agatha or Uncle Robert."
Mr. Towle regarded her in puzzled silence. "I beg your pardon," he said
stiffly. "You were referring to what passed between us last night? I
have already told your--ah--guardians the result of my proposals, and
they----"
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" cried Jane. "How could you think so? I meant--
Oh, _won't_ you go away and not talk to me any more about it! You
oughtn't to have liked me anyway. Aunt Agatha said so. She told me this
morning that I was not at all attractive, and I am poor, too--perhaps
you didn't know that--and--and--I am not at all clever; you can't help
seeing that for yourself. I hope you will forget that you ever saw me
those three times at Uncle Robert's."
"One time would have been enough for me," said Mr. Towle earnestly; "but
as a matter of fact I have seen you more than three times. I never
counted the occasions, but I saw you as often as possible, as for
example when you went out with the two little boys in the governess
cart, and when you walked with them in the Park, and twice in the
Museum. Do you remember the day you showed them the mummies? You were
telling them a long story about a little Egyptian princess; then you
showed them the toys found in her tomb, and the mummy itself wrapped in
browned linen, a withered lotus flower stuck in the bandages."
Jane stared at him meditatively. "I didn't see you anywhere about," she
said.
"No; I took good care that you should not," Mr. Towle observed. "Now I
am sorry for it."
"Why?" asked Jane; then bit her tongue again in her confusion. "I--I
mean it would have been very--nice. I should have said I----"
"I was a bally idiot," pursued Mr. Towle steadily, "not to have taken
the pains to become acquainted with you in any way, however
unconventional. If I had, perhaps you would not have disliked me so."
"Oh, but I do not dislike you in the least!" protested Jane.
"If you could like me a very little," he said eagerly, "perhaps in time
you could--Jane, if you are fond of travel I would take you all over the
world. You should see everything. I thought I was done with happiness
till I saw you. I had nothing to look forward to. I had seen everything,
tested everything, and found everything empty and hateful, but with
_you_ at my side-- Won't you try to like me, Jane?"
What Jane would have replied, had she not glanced up on the instant, she
never afterwards felt entirely sure. But glance up she did to meet
Gwendolen's scornful eyes fixed full upon her as she whirled past them
in the Aubrey-Blythe victoria, with a great show of Aubrey-Blythe
liveries on the box.
Instantly the forlorn little shoot of gratitude which was trying its
feeble best to masquerade as sentiment in Jane's lonely heart withered
and died under the icy blast of impotent anger and fear which passed
over her. "She will tell Aunt Agatha," thought poor Jane, "and Aunt
Agatha will think I have lied to her about seeing Mr. Towle on the
street."
By some untoward psychological process, quite unperceived by herself,
the full torrent of Miss Blythe's wrath was instantly turned upon the
man at her side.
"I think I must say good morning, Mr. Towle," she said coldly. "I am
really very much occupied to-day. I am sure I thank you for thinking of
me so kindly--" She stopped determinedly and held out her hand.
And the Hon. Wipplinger Towle, feeling himself to be dismissed in all
the harrowing length and breadth of the word, took his leave of her
instantly, with a courteous lifting of his hat which afforded Jane a
parting glimpse of his prematurely bald head.
"It must be dreadful to be bald," reflected Jane, with vague contrition,
as she walked away; "but I can't help it." The correlation of these two
ideas being more intimate and profound than appears in a cursory reading
of them.
The door of Lady Agatha's morning room stood open as Jane attempted to
slip past it like a guilty shadow. Gwendolen, still attired in her hat
and jacket, evidently saw her and apprised her mother of the fact, for
Lady Agatha's pursuing voice arrested the girl in full flight toward her
own room.
"You will, perhaps, be good enough to inform me, Jane, how you came to
be on the street after I had locked you into your own room for the day,"
intoned Lady Agatha, in a terrible voice. "_Deceitful, ungrateful,
vulgar_ girl, that you are!"
"I saw you, sly-boots; so you needn't deny it," put in Gwendolen, with a
spiteful laugh. "It was passing strange how our demure Jane chanced to
have a proposal, was it not? Do you know, mamma, Ethel Brantwood told me
this morning that _that man_ had been seen tagging Jane all over London.
It is quite the common talk."
"Oh!" cried Jane, wringing her hands. "What _shall_ I do?"
"Do not attempt to hoodwink me longer, unhappy girl," pursued Lady
Agatha. "Your deceit, ingratitude, and _vulgar intrigues_ are all laid
bare. I have not decided what I shall do with you. It
appears"--dramatically--"that locks and bars are no barriers to _you_.
My commands you defy, my counsels you ignore, my affections you trample
under foot!"
"Stop, Aunt Agatha!" cried Jane. "I did climb out of the window after
you had locked me in--I wish now that I had fallen on the conservatory
roof and killed myself; you wouldn't have minded anything but the broken
glass--but you _must_ believe that I never saw Mr. Towle on the street
before. He _has_ followed me about; he told me so this morning. But he
never spoke to me once, and I did not know it. I never have thought of
seeing him."
"How extremely ingenuous and naive!" put in Gwendolen, with an ugly
titter; "quite after the pattern of a cheap variety actress, indeed! I
wonder, mamma, that Mr. Towle took the pains to propose marriage to Jane
in the dull, old-fashioned way. He might as well have eloped without
ceremony."
Jane stared at her cousin, her face slowly whitening. "Do you realize
what you have said to me, Gwendolen?" she asked in a stifled voice.
"Yes. I see that you do. If you were a man I should--_kill_ you. But you
are only _you_, so I shall content myself by never speaking to you
again."
"Gwendolen, my _love_, will you kindly leave us for a few minutes," said
Lady Agatha, very calm and stately. "I cannot permit your young ears to
be sullied by this mad talk. Really, I fear that the unfortunate girl's
reason has been--" She paused significantly and touched her forehead. "I
am told there has always been a marked weakness in her mother's family.
Go, my love, go!"
"I shall go, too," said Jane bitterly. "I have nothing more to say to
you, Aunt Agatha. I have told you the exact truth, and you may believe
it or not as you like." She turned and followed Gwendolen out of the
room.
That young lady, hearing the step behind her, fled with a hysterical
shriek to the shelter of her mother's room. "What do you think, mamma,
the creature was actually pursuing me!" Jane heard her say.
Then Jane went slowly up the stairs to her own room, where she remained
quite alone and undisturbed for the remainder of the day. At intervals,
during the course of the dreary afternoon, she could hear faint sounds
of opening and shutting doors below stairs. Once Percy's loud voice and
the clatter of his stout little shoes appeared to be approaching her
room; then some one called him in a subdued voice; there was a short
altercation carried on at a gradually increasing distance; then silence
again.
A horrible sense of disgrace and isolation gradually descended upon the
girl. She sobbed wildly as she looked over her few cherished possessions
preparatory to packing them in the box she dragged in from the attic;
her mother's watch, a locket containing her father's picture, a ring or
two, her shabby little gowns and meager toilet things. By the time she
had locked and strapped the box with shaking fingers she was shivering
with cold and faint with hunger.
The latter primal urge finally drove her forth and down the rear
stairways to the kitchen, where she found the servants in full tide of
preparation for dinner.
"Lud ha' mussy, Miss Jane Evelyn!" cried Susan. "Where 'ave you be'n to
look that white an' done hup?"
"In my room," said Jane shortly. "Will you give me some tea and bread,
Susan? I'll take it up myself. No; please don't follow me. I wish to be
alone."
"Somethink's hup wi' 'er," observed cook sagaciously, as Jane
disappeared with a brace of thick sandwiches cut by the zealous Susan.
"They'd orto be 'shamed o' theirsels; that they 'ad, a-puttin' upon a
sweet young lady like Miss Jane Evelyn," opined Susan. "I'd like to give
'em all a piece o' my mind; it 'ud do me good. It would so!"
"You're a goose, Susan," laughed cook. "An' so is she, if all I 'ear is
c'rrect. Tummas says as 'ow that military-appearin' gent wot comes 'ere
is crazy to marry 'er. An 'e's rich's cream!"
"Oh, lud!" sniffed Susan, her nose in the air, "'e may be rich, but 'e's
bald as a happle! She'd never 'ave 'im; I'll bet me hown 'air an' me
combin's to boot."