Hazel Thorne's illness came like a shock to Plumton All Saints, and the
opposing members of the committee, who had been instrumental in gaining
her dismissal, looked angrily one at the other, as if that other one was
specially to blame. The Reverend Henry Lambent sent down messengers to
know how Miss Thorne was progressing, and later on sent the same
messengers to the Burges' for news.
"Will you not go down and see Mrs Thorne, Rebecca--Beatrice?" he said,
one day, appealingly. "This is a troublous time."
"We had already felt it to be a duty, Henry, and we will run all risks
in such a cause."
There was not the slightest risk in going to the schoolmistress's
cottage, and the sisters went down, to find Mrs Thorne weak and almost
prostrate with illness and anxiety, but ready to draw herself up stiffly
to receive her visitors.
"Cissy, Mabel, place chairs for these ladies," she said. "Miss Lambent
will perhaps excuse my rising. I am an invalid."
Rebecca bowed and glanced at her sister, who made her a sign to proceed.
"We have called, Mrs Thorne, knowing you to be in so sad a state of
affliction--"
"To offer a few words of condolence," said Mrs Thorne, interrupting
her. "It is very neighbourly and kind, I am sure I am sorry poor Hazel
is too unwell to be here to receive you as well."
"What insolence!" muttered Beatrice.
"Condolence is hardly the word," said Rebecca stiffly. "We are very
much grieved about Miss Thorne, especially as her illness has come
almost like a chastisement for her weakness in her discharge of her
scholastic trust."
"Oh! You are alluding to the school trifle she did not pay over to the
collector at the time," said Mrs Thorne haughtily. "It is a pity that
so much should have been made of so trivial a matter."
"Trivial, Mrs Thorne! Your daughter's conduct--"
"Has always been that of a lady, Miss Lambent. Ah! you single ladies
don't know, and of course never will know, the necessities of
housekeeping."
Beatrice winced.
"I used that money as I would small change, and I must say I am
surprised at Mr Lambent or his sisters, or the school committee, or
whoever it is, being so absurdly particular."
"Particular, Mrs Thorne!" cried Rebecca, aghast.
"Yes; it is very absurd. By-the-way, I may as well observe that I have
this morning received a letter from my late husband's solicitor, telling
me that fifteen hundred pounds, the result of some business arrangement
of his, are now lying at my disposal at the bank; and if you will send
the properly authorised person down I will give him a cheque."
"Mrs Thorne!" exclaimed Rebecca, whom this assumption of perfect
equality--at times even of superiority--galled terribly, "we came down
here to give you a little good advice--to say a few words of sympathy,
and to bring you two or three books to read, and ponder over their
contents. I am surprised and grieved that you should have taken such a
tone."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Lambent," retorted Mrs Thorne, who was very
pale and much excited; "allow me to tell you that you are making a
mistake. I am not in the habit of receiving parochial visits. They may
be very acceptable to the poor of your district, but, as a lady, when
another lady calls upon me, I look upon it as a visit of ceremony. You
will excuse me, but I am not well. My daughter's illness--my own--
rather tells upon me. You will excuse my rising. I beg your pardon,
you are forgetting your little books."
She picked them up from the table, and held them out; the top one was
"The Dairyman's Daughter," in paper cover.
The Lambent sisters had risen, and were darting indignant looks at
Hazel's mother before she drew their attention to the books they were
leaving upon the table; now their anger was hot indeed.
"We brought them for you to read," cried Rebecca indignantly. "They
were for your good. Mrs Thorne, your conduct is insolent in the
extreme."
"Insolent in the extreme," assented Beatrice.
"I am too unwell to argue with you, ladies," said Mrs Thorne loftily.
"Cissy, my child, take those into the kitchen, and give them to one of
the school children as they come by. Mabel, my dear, bring mamma a
glass of water."
She took not the slightest further notice of her visitors, who looked at
one another for a few moments, and then left the house, marching by the
window with stately stride, while Mrs Thorne leant back in her chair,
saying to herself--
"Next time they call I hope they will remember that I am a lady."
That same evening, as she sat alone, she drew the letter of which she
had spoken from her pocket, and read it through again, the second
perusal giving her fresh strength and increasing dignity.
"I shall certainly insist now," she said musingly, as she refolded the
letter and tapped her left forefinger with the edge, "upon Hazel
entering into a matrimonial alliance with Edward Geringer. He is older,
certainly; but what of that? He is rich and loves her, and will make
her an admirable husband; and when, by-and-by he leaves her, she will
still be young and handsome, and, what is better, rich, and not left, as
I have been, at the mercy of the world--Lambents and people of that
class. Yes, I am in a position now to insist, and I shall write to
Edward Geringer at once. Perhaps his coming would have a favourable
effect upon Hazel's illness--a foolish, weak girl, to persist in going
to that house when I so strongly advised her not."
Mrs Thorne sat musing and building her _chateaux en Espagne_, while the
children amused themselves in the garden.
"Yes," she continued, "I am once more, I am thankful to say, no longer
dependent upon charity, nor yet upon poor Hazel--weak, foolish child!
It is a pity she should have grown so conceited and arbitrary on finding
herself at the head of affairs. Ah, these young people--these young
people! But I will not blame her, for a great deal was due to the
teachings of that training institution. I noticed the change in her
directly. It did so put me in mind of young Penton, when he received
his commission of ensign in the 200th Foot. He had just the same short,
sharp, haughty way that my Hazel assumed, poor child! Ah, well! we have
nearly got to the end of the school teaching, and it will be a lesson
for us all. It was against my wishes that she took it up--that I will
say; and it has been very hard upon me to bring me down to the
companionship of such a woman as Mrs Chute. I wish I had never seen
her, for I should never have thought of using those school pence if it
had not been for her."
Mrs Thorne smoothed down her black silk apron, and sat thinking for
some time before exclaiming--
"Yes, I will write a cheque for the amount and send it in a note, with
my compliments, to Mr Lambent. It will be the most ladylike way of
proceeding. The children shall put on their best hats and take it up.
It will be better than trusting the money to the school children or the
post. I will do it at once."
The poor, weak woman smiled with satisfaction as she took out the thin
oblong book that had been sent to her that morning, and wrote out a
cheque for the amount due for the children's school pence, carefully
blotting and folding it, and placing it in a sheet of note-paper
inscribed, "With Mrs Thorne's compliments."
"Of course it ought to go to Mr Piper; but I shall send it to the
vicar, and he must pay it himself. Good gracious!"
She had just directed the envelope to the Reverend Henry Lambent, when
she saw him pass the window; and as she sat listening, her heart beating
heavily the while, there was a gentle tap at the door, which was
standing open, and the vicar's voice said softly--"May I come in?"
"Yes; I--that is--Yes, pray come--in, Mr Lambent; but if you have
called on account of your sisters' visit to me this morning, I--"
"My visit was to you alone, Mrs Thorne," said the vicar gravely.
"But I must protest against any such visits as your sisters'!"
"My dear Mrs Thorne," said the vicar sadly, "I have come to you, a lady
who has known great trouble, as a friend. My dear madam, I have a very
painful communication to make. Your daughter--"
"Not worse, Mr Lambent?" cried Mrs Thorne piteously. "Don't say she's
worse!"
There was a painful silence, and then the vicar sighed heavily as he
said--
"Her state is very dangerous indeed."