IN THE RIVER-MEADOW.
The old hackneyed round of daily life at Mauleverer Manor seemed just a
little worse to Ida Palliser after that happy break of six weeks' pure
and perfect enjoyment. Miss Pew was no less exacting than of old. Miss
Pillby, for whose orphaned and friendless existence there had been no
such thing as a holiday, and who had spent the vacation at Mauleverer
diligently employed in mending the house-linen, resented Ida's visit to
The Knoll as if it were a personal injury, and vented her envy in sneers
and innuendoes of the coarsest character.
'If _I_ were to spoon upon one of the rich pupils, I dare say I could get
invited out for the holidays,' she said, _à propos_ to nothing particular;
'but I am thankful to say I am above such meanness.'
'I never laid myself under an obligation I didn't feel myself able to
return,' said Miss Motley, the English governess, who had spent her
holidays amidst the rank and fashion of Margate. 'When I go to the
sea-side with my sister and her family, I pay my own expenses, and I feel
I've a right to be made comfortable.'
Miss Pillby, who had flattered and toadied every well-to-do pupil, and
laboured desperately to wind herself into the affections of Bessie
Wendover, that warm-hearted young person seeming particularly accessible
to flattery, felt herself absolutely injured by the kindness that had
been lavished upon Ida. She drank in with greedy ears Miss Palliser's
description of The Knoll and its occupants--the picnics, carpet-dances,
afternoon teas; and the thought that all these enjoyments and
festivities, the good things to eat and drink, the pleasant society,
ought to have been hers instead of Ida's, was wormwood.
'When I think of my kindness to Bessie Wendover,' she said to Miss
Motley, in the confidence of that one quiet hour which belonged to the
mistresses after the pupils' curfew-bell had rung youth and hope and
gaiety into retirement, 'when I think of the mustard poultices I have put
upon her chest, and the bronchial troches I have given her when she had
the slightest touch of cold or cough, I am positively appalled at the
ingratitude of the human race.'
'I don't think she likes bronchial troches,' said Miss Motley, a very
matter-of-fact young person who saved money, wore thick boots, and was
never unprovided with an umbrella: 'I have seen her throw them away
directly after you gave them to her.'
'She ought to have liked them,' exclaimed Miss Pillby, sternly. 'They are
very expensive.'
'No doubt she appreciated your kindness,' said Miss Motley, absently,
being just then absorbed in an abstruse calculation as to how many yards
of merino would be required for her winter gown.
'No, she did not,' said Miss Pillby. 'If she had been grateful she would
have invited me to her home. I should not have gone, but the act would
have given me a higher idea of her character.'
'Well, she is gone, and we needn't trouble ourselves any more about her,'
retorted Miss Motley, who hated to be plagued about abstract questions,
being a young woman of an essentially concrete nature, born to consume
and digest three meals a day, and having no views that go beyond that
function.
Miss Pillby sighed at finding herself in communion with so coarse a
nature.
'I don't easily get over a blow of that sort,' she said; 'I am too
tender-hearted.'
'So you are,' acquiesced Miss Motley. 'It doesn't pay in a big
boarding-school, however it may answer in private families.'
Ida, having lost her chief friend and companion, Bessie Wendover, found
life at Mauleverer Manor passing lonely. She even missed the excitement
of her little skirmishes, her passages-at-arms, with Urania Rylance, in
which she had generally got the best of the argument. There had been life
and emotion in these touch-and-go speeches, covert sneers, quick retorts,
innuendoes met and flung back in the very face of the sneerer. Now there
was nothing but dull, dead monotony. Many of the old pupils had departed,
and many new pupils had come, daughters of well-to-do parents,
prosperous, well-dressed, talking largely of the gaieties enjoyed by
their elder sisters, of the wonderful things done by their brothers at
Oxford or Cambridge, and of the grand things which were to happen two or
three years hence, when they themselves should be 'out.' Ida took no
interest in their prattle. It was so apt to sting her with the reminder
of her own poverty, the life of drudgery and dependence that was to be
her portion till the end of her days. She did not, in the Mauleverer
phraseology, 'take to' the new girls. She left them to be courted by Miss
Pillby, and petted by Miss Dulcibella. She felt as lonely as one who has
outlived her generation.
Happily the younger girls in the class which she taught were fond of her,
and when she wanted company she let these juveniles cluster round her in
her garden rambles; but in a general way she preferred loneliness, and to
work at the cracked old piano in the room where she slept. Beethoven and
Chopin, Mozart and Mendelssohn were companions of whom she never grew
weary.
So the slow days wore on till nearly the end of the month, and on one
cool, misty, afternoon, when the river flowed sluggishly under a dull
grey sky she walked alone along that allotted extent of the river-side
path which the mistresses and pupil-teachers were allowed to promenade
without _surveillance_. This river walk skirted a meadow which was in
Miss Pew's occupation, and ranked as a part of the Mauleverer grounds,
although it was divided by the high road from the garden proper.
A green paling, and a little green gate, always padlocked, secured this
meadow from intrusion on the road-side, but it was open to the river. To
be entrusted with the key of this pastoral retreat was a privilege only
accorded to governesses and pupil-teachers.
It was supposed by Miss Pew that no young person in her employment would
be capable of walking quite alone, where it was within the range of
possibility that her solitude might be intruded upon by an unknown member
of the opposite sex. She trusted, as she said afterwards, in the refined
feeling of any person brought into association with her, and, until
rudely awakened by facts, she never would have stooped from the lofty
pinnacle of her own purity to suspect the evil consequences which arose
from the liberty too generously accorded to her dependents.
Ida detested Miss Pillby and despised Miss Motley; and the greatest
relief she knew to the dismal monotony of her days was a lonely walk by
the river, with a shabby Wordsworth or a battered little volume of
Shelley's minor poems for her companions. She possessed so few books that
it was only natural for her to read those she had until love ripened with
familiarity.
On this autumnal afternoon she walked with slow steps, while the river
went murmuring by, and now and then a boat drifted lazily down the
stream. The boating season was over for the most part--the season of
picnics and beanfeasts, and Cockney holiday-making, and noisy revelry,
smart young women, young men in white flannels, with bare arms and
sunburnt noses. It was the dull blank time when everybody who could
afford to wander far from this suburban paradise, was away upon his and
her travels. Only parsons, doctors, schoolmistresses, and poverty stayed
at home. Yet now and then a youth in boating costume glided by, his
shoulders bending slowly to the lazy dip of his oars, his keel now and
then making a rushing sound among long trailing weeds.
Such a youth presently came creeping along the bank, almost at Ida's
feet, but passed her unseen. Her heavy lids were drooping, her eyes
intent upon the familiar page. The young man looked up at her with keen
gray eyes, recognised her, and pushed his boat in among the rushes by the
bank, moored it to a pollard willow, and with light footstep leaped on
shore.
He landed a few yards in the rear of Ida's slowly moving figure, followed
softly, came close behind her, and read aloud across her shoulder:
'There was a Power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this garden; a ruling grace
Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream,
Was as God is to the starry scheme.'
Ida looked round, first indignant, then laughing.
'How you startled me!' she exclaimed; 'I thought you were some horrid,
impertinent stranger; and yet the voice had a familiar sound. How are
they all at The Knoll? It is nearly a fortnight since Bessie wrote to me.
If she only knew how I hunger for her letters.'
'Very sweet of you,' answered Mr. Wendover, holding the girl's hand with
a lingering pressure, releasing it reluctantly when her rising colour
told him it would be insolent to keep it longer.
How those large dark eyes beamed with pleasure at seeing him! Was it for
his own sake, or for love of her friends at Kingthorpe? The smile was
perhaps too frank to be flattering.
'Very sweet of you to care so much for Bessie's girlish epistles,' he
said lazily; 'they are full of affection, but the style of composition
always recalls our dear Mrs. Nickleby. "Aunt Betsy was asking after you
the other day: and that reminds me that the last litter of black
Hampshires was sixteen--the largest number father ever remembers having.
The vicar and his wife are coming to dinner on Tuesday, and do tell me if
this new picture that everybody is talking about is really better than
the Derby Day," and that sort of thing. Not a very consecutive style,
don't you know.'
'Every word is interesting to me,' said Ida, with a look that told him
she was not one of those young ladies who enjoy a little good-natured
ridicule of their nearest and dearest. 'Is it long since you left
Kingthorpe?'
'Not four-and-twenty hours. I promised Bessie that my very first
occupation on coming to London should be to make my way down here to see
you, in order that I may tell her faithfully and truly whether you are
well and happy. She has a lurking conviction that you are unable to live
without her, that you will incontinently go into a galloping consumption,
and keep the fact concealed from all your friends until they receive a
telegram summoning them to your death-bed. I know that is the picture
Bessie's sentimental fancies have depicted.'
'I did not think Bessie was so morbid,' said Ida, laughing. 'No, I am not
one of those whom the gods love. I am made of very tough material, or I
should hardly have lived till now. I see before me a perspective of
lonely, loveless old age--finishing in a governess' almshouse. I hope
there are almshouses for governesses.
'Nobody will pity your loneliness or lovelessness,' retorted Brian, 'for
they will both be your own fault.'
She blushed, looking dreamily across the dark-gray river to the level
shores beyond--the low meadows--gentle hills in the back-ground--the
wooded slopes of Weybridge and Chertsey. If this speaker, whose voice
dropped to so tender a tone, had been like the Brian of her
imaginings--if he had looked at her with the dark eyes of Sir Tristram's
picture, how differently his speech would have affected her! As it was,
she listened with airy indifference, only blushing girlishly at his
compliment, and wondering a little if he really admired her--he the
owner of that glorious old Abbey--the wealthy head of the house of
Wendover--the golden fish for whom so many pretty fishers must have
angled in days gone by.
'Did you stay at The Knoll all the time,' she inquired, her thoughts
having flown back to Kingthorpe; 'or at the Abbey?'
'At The Knoll. It is ever so much livelier, and my cousins like to have
me with them.'
'Naturally. But I wonder you did not prefer living in that lovely old
house of yours. To occupy it must seem like living in the Middle Ages.'
'Uncommonly. One is twelve miles from a station, and four from
post-office, butcher, and baker. Very like the Middle Ages. There is no
gas even in the offices, and there are as many rats behind the wainscot
as there were Israelites in Egypt. All the rooms are draughty and some
are damp. No servant who has not been born and bred on the estate will
stay more than six months. There is a deficient water supply in dry
summers, and there are three distinct ghosts all the year round.
Extremely like the Middle Ages.'
'I would not mind ghosts, rats, anything, if it were my house' exclaimed
Ida, enthusiastically. 'The house is a poem.'
'Perhaps; but it is not a house; in the modern sense of the word, that is
to say, which implies comfort and convenience.'
Ida sighed, deeply disgusted at this want of appreciation of the romantic
spot where she had dreamed away more than one happy summer noontide,
while the Wendover children played hide-and-seek in the overgrown old
shrubberies.
No doubt life was always thus. The people to whom blind fortune gave such
blessings were unable to appreciate them, and only the hungry outsiders
could imagine the delight of possession.
'Are you living in London now?' she asked, as Mr. Wendover lingered at
her side, and seemed to expect the conversation to be continued
indefinitely.
His boat was safe enough, moving gently up and down among the rushes,
with the gentle flow of the tide. Ida looked at it longingly, thinking
how sweet it would be to step into it and let it carry her--any whither,
so long as it was away from Mauleverer Manor.
'Yes, I am in London for the present.'
'But not for long, I suppose.'
'I hardly know. I have no plans. I won't say with Romeo that I am
fortune's fool--but I am fortune's shuttlecock; and I suppose that means
pretty much the same.'
'It was very kind of you to come to see me,' said Ida.
'Kind to myself, for in coming I indulged the dearest wish of my soul,'
said the young man, looking at her with eyes whose meaning even her
inexperience could not misread.
'Please don't pay me compliments,' she said, hastily, 'or I shall feel
very sorry you came. And now I must hurry back to the house--the tea-bell
will ring in a few minutes. Please tell Bessie I am very well, and only
longing for one of her dear letters. Good-bye.'
She made him a little curtsey, and would have gone without shaking hands,
but he caught her hand and detained her in spite of herself.
'Don't be angry,' he pleaded; 'don't look at me with such cold, proud
eyes. Is it an offence to admire, to love you too quickly? If it is, I
have sinned deeply, and am past hope of pardon. Must one serve an
apprenticeship to mere formal acquaintance first, then rise step by step
to privileged friendship, before one dares to utter the sweet word love?
Remember, at least, that I am your dearest friend's first cousin, and
ought not to appear to you as a stranger.'
'I can remember nothing when you talk so wildly,' said Ida, crimson to
the roots of her hair. Never before had a young lover talked to her of
love. 'Pray let me go. Miss Pew will be angry if I am not at tea.'
'To think that such a creature as you should be under the control of any
such harpy,' exclaimed Brian. 'Well, if I must go, at least tell me I am
forgiven, and that I may exist upon the hope of seeing you again. I
suppose if I were to come to the hall-door, and send in my card, I should
not be allowed to see you?'
'Certainly not. Not if you were my own cousin instead of Bessie's.
Good-bye.'
'Then I shall happen to be going by in my boat every afternoon for the
next month or so. There is a dear good soul at the lock who lets
lodgings. I shall take up my abode there.'
'Please never land on this pathway again,' said Ida earnestly 'Miss Pew
would be horribly angry if she heard I had spoken to you. And now I must
go.'
She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and ran off across the meadow,
light-footed as Atalanta. Her heart was beating wildly, beating
furiously, when she flew up to her room to take off her hat and jacket
and smooth her disordered hair. Never before had any man, except
middle-aged Dr. Rylance, talked to her of love: and that this man of all
others, this man, sole master of the old mansion she so intensely
admired, her friend's kinsman, owner of a good old Saxon name; this man,
who could lift her in a moment from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to
place and station; that this man should look at her with admiring eyes,
and breathe impassioned words into her ear, was enough to set her heart
beating tumultuously, to bring hot blushes to her cheeks. It was too wild
a dream.
True, that for the man himself, considered apart from his belongings, his
name and race, she cared not at all. But just now, in this tumult of
excited feeling, she was disposed to confuse the man with his
surroundings--to think of him, not as that young man with gray eyes and
thin lips, who had walked with her at The Knoll, who had stood beside her
just now by the river, but as the living embodiment of fortune, pride,
delight.
Perhaps the vision really dominant in her mind was the thought of
herself as mistress of the Abbey, herself as living for ever among the
people she loved, amidst those breezy Hampshire hills, in the odour of
pine-woods--rich, important, honoured, and beloved, doing good to all who
came within the limit of her life. Yes, that was a glorious vision, and
its reflected light shone upon Brian Wendover, and in somewise glorified
him.
She went down to tea with such a triumphant light in her eyes that the
smaller pupils who sat at her end of the table, so as to be under her
_surveillance_ during the meal, exclaimed at her beauty.
'What a colour you've got, Miss Palliser!' said Lucy Dobbs, 'and how your
eyes sparkle! You look as if you'd just had a hamper.'
'I'm not quite so greedy as you, Lucy,' retorted Ida; 'I don't think a
hamper would make my eyes sparkle, even if there were anybody to send me
one.'
'But there is somebody to send you one,' argued Lucy, with her mouth full
of bread and butter; 'your father isn't dead?'
'No.'
'Then he might send you a hamper.'
'He might, if he lived within easy reach of Mauleverer Manor,' replied
Ida; 'but as he lives in France--'
'He could send a post-office order to a confectioner in London, and the
confectioner would send you a big box of cakes, and marmalade, and jam,
and mixed biscuits, and preserved ginger,' said Lucy, her cheeks glowing
with the rapture of her theme. 'That is what my mamma and papa did, when
they were in Switzerland, on my birthday. I never had such a hamper as
that one. I was ill for a week afterwards.'
'And I suppose you were very glad your mother and father were away,' said
Ida, while the other children laughed in chorus.
'It was a splendid hamper,' said Lucy, stolidly. 'I shall never forget
it. So you see your father might send you a hamper,' she went on, for the
sake of argument, 'though he is in France.'
'Certainly,' said Ida, 'if I were not too old to care about cakes and
jam.'
'_We_ are not too old,' persisted Lucy; 'you might share them among us.'
Ida's heart had not stilled its stormy vehemence yet. She talked lightly
to her young companions, and tried to eat a little bread and butter, but
that insipid fare almost choked her. Her mind was overcharged with
thought and wonder.
Could he have meant all or half he said just now?--this young man with
the delicate features, pale complexion, and thin lips. He had seemed
intensely earnest. Those gray eyes of his, somewhat too pale of hue for
absolutely beauty, had glowed with a fire which even Ida's inexperience
recognised as something above and beyond common feeling. His hand had
trembled as it clasped hers. Could there be such a thing as love at first
sight? and was she destined to be the object of that romantic passion?
She had read of the triumphs of beauty, and she knew that she was
handsome. She had been told the fact in too many ways--by praise
sometimes, but much more often by envy--to remain unconscious of her
charms. She was scornful of her beauty, inclined to undervalue the gift
as compared with the blessings of other girls--a prosperous home, the
world's respect, the means to gratify the natural yearnings of youth--but
she knew that she was beautiful. And now it seemed to her all at once
that beauty was a much more valuable gift than she had supposed
hitherto--indeed, a kind of talisman or Aladdin's lamp, which could win
for her all she wanted in this world--Wendover Abbey and the position of
a country squire's wife. It was not a dazzling or giddy height to which
to aspire; but to Ida just now it seemed the topmost pinnacle of social
success.
'Oh, what a wretch I am!' she said to herself presently; 'what a
despicable, mercenary creature! I don't care a straw for this man; and
yet I am already thinking of myself as his wife.'
And then, remembering how she had once openly declared her intention of
marrying for money, she shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.
'Ought I to hesitate when the chance comes to me?' she thought. 'I always
meant to marry for money, if ever such wonderful fortune as a rich
husband fell in my way.'
And yet she had refused Dr. Rylance's offer, without a moment's
hesitation. Was it really as he had said, in the bitterness of his wrath,
because the offer was not good enough, the temptation not large enough?
No, she told herself, she had rejected the smug physician, with his West
End mansion and dainty Hampshire villa, his courtly manners, his perfect
dress, because the man himself was obnoxious to her. Now, she did not
dislike Brian Wendover--indeed, she was rather inclined to like him. She
was only just a little disappointed that he was not the ideal Brian of
her dreams. The dark-browed cavalier, with grave forehead and eagle eyes.
She had a vague recollection of having once heard Blanche say that her
cousin Brian of the Abbey was like Sir Tristram's portrait; but this must
have been a misapprehension upon her part, since no two faces could have
differed more than the pale delicate-featured countenance of the living
man and the dark rugged face in the picture.
She quieted the trouble of her thoughts as well as she could before tea
was over and the evening task of preparation,--the gulfs and straits, the
predicates and noun sentences, rule of three, common denominators, and
all the dry-as-dust machinery was set in motion again.
Helping her pupils through their difficulties, battling with their
stupidities, employed her too closely for any day-dreams of her own. But
when prayers had been read, and the school had dispersed, and the
butterfly-room was hushed into the silence of midnight, Ida Palliser lay
broad awake, wondering at what Fate was doing for her.
'To think that perhaps I am going to be rich after all--honoured, looked
up to, able to help those I love,' she thought, thrilling at the
splendour of her visions.
Ah! if this thing were verily to come to pass, how kind, how good she
would be to others! She would have them all at the Abbey,--the shabby old
half-pay father, shabby no longer in those glorious days; the vulgar
little stepmother, improved into elegance; the five-year old brother,
that loveliest and dearest of created beings. How lovely to see him
rioting in the luxuriance of those dear old gardens, rolling on that
velvet sward, racing his favourite dogs round and round the grand old
cedars! What a pony he should ride! His daily raiment should be Genoa
velvet and old point lace. He should be the admiration and delight of
half the county. And Bessie--how kind she could be to Bessie, repaying
in some small measure that which never could be fully repaid--the
kindness shown by the prosperous girl to the poor dependent. And above
all,--vision sweeter even than the thought of doing good,--how she would
trample on Urania Rylance--how the serpentine coils of that damsel's
malice and pride could be trodden under foot! Not a ball, not a dinner,
not a garden-party given at the Abbey that would not be a thorn in
Urania's side, a nail in Urania's coffin.
So ran her fancies--in a very fever--all through the troubled night; but
when the first streak of the autumn dawn glimmered coldly in the east,
dismal presage of the discordant dressing-bell, then she turned upon her
pillow with a weary sigh, and muttered to herself:--
'After all I daresay Mr. Wendover is only fooling me. Perhaps it is his
habit to make love to every decent-looking girl he meets.'
The next day Ida walked on the same riverside path, but this time
not alone. Her natural modesty shrank from the possibility of a second
_tête-à-tête_ with her admirer, and she stooped from her solitary state
to ask Fräulein Wolf to accompany her in her afternoon walk.
Fräulein was delighted, honoured even, by the request. She was a
wishy-washy person, sentimental, vapourish, altogether feeble, and she
intensely admired Ida Palliser's vigorous young beauty.
The day was bright and sunny, the air deliciously mild, the river simply
divine. The two young women paced the path slowly, talking of German
poetry. The Fräulein knew her Schiller by heart, having expounded him
daily for the last four years, and she fondly believed that after
Shakespeare Schiller was the greatest poet who had ever trodden this
globe.
'And if God had spared him for twenty more years, who knows if he would
not have been greater than Shakespeare? inquired the Fräulein, blandly.
She talked of Schiller's idea of friendship, as represented by the
Marquis of Posa.
'Ah,' sighed Ida, 'I doubt if there is any such friendship as that out of
a book.'
'I could be like the marquis,' said the Fräulein, smiling tenderly.' Oh,
Ida, you don't know what I would do for anyone I loved--for a dear and
valued friend, like you for instance, if you would only let me love you;
but you have always held me at arm's length.'
'I did not mean to do so,' answered Ida, frankly; 'but perhaps I am not
particularly warm-hearted. It is not in my nature to have many friends. I
was very fond of Bessie Wendover, but then she is such a dear clinging
thing, like a chubby child that puts its fat arms round your neck--an
irresistible creature. She made me love her in spite of myself.'
'Why cannot I make you love me?' asked the fair Gertrude, with a
languishing look.
Ida could have alleged several reasons, but they would have been
unflattering, so she only said feebly,--
'Oh, I really like you very much, and I enjoy talking about German
literature with you. Tell me more about Schiller--you know his poetry so
well--and Jean Paul. I never can quite understand the German idolatry of
him. He is too much in the clouds for me.'
'Too philosophic, you mean,' said Fräulein. 'I love philosophy.'
'"Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, it helps not, it avails not,"'
said a manly voice from the river close by, and Brian Wendover shot his
boat in against the bank and leapt up from among the rushes like a
river-god.
Miss Palliser blushed crimson, but it hardly needed her blushes to
convince Fräulein Wolf that this young stranger was a lover. Her
sentimental soul thrilled at the idea of having plunged into the very
midst of an intrigue.
Ida's heart throbbed heavily, not so much with emotion at beholding her
admirer as at the recollection of her visions last night. She tried to
look calm and indifferent.
'How do you do?' she said, shaking hands with him. 'Mr. Wendover--Miss
Wolf, our German mistress.'
The Fräulein blushed, sniggered, and curtseyed.
'This gentleman is Bessie Wendover's first cousin, Fräulein,' said Ida,
with an explanatory air. 'He was staying at The Knoll during the last
part of my visit.'
'Yes, and you saw much of each other, and you became heart-friends,'
gushed Miss Wolf, beaming benevolently at Brian with her pale green orbs.
Brian answered in very fair German, sinking his voice a little so as only
to be heard by the Fräulein, who was in raptures with this young
stranger. So good-looking, so elegant, and speaking Hanoverian German. He
told her that he had seen only too little of Ida at The Knoll, but enough
to know that she was his 'Schicksal'; and then he took the Fräulein's
hand and pressed it gently.
'I know you are our friend,' he said.
'Bis den Tod,' gasped Gertrude.
After this no one felt any more restraint. The Fräulein dropped into her
place of confidante as easily as possible.
'What brings you here again this afternoon, Mr. Wendover?' asked Ida,
trying to sustain the idea of being unconcerned in the matter.
'My load-star; the same that drew me here yesterday, and will draw me
here to-morrow.'
'You had better not come here any more; you have no idea what a terrible
person Miss Pew is. These river-side fields are her own particular
property. Didn't you see the board, "Trespassers will be prosecuted"?'
'Let her prosecute. If her wrath were deadly, I would risk it. You know
what Romeo says--
"Wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I would adventure for such merchandize"
And shall I be afraid of Miss Pew, when the path to my paradise lies so
near?'
'Please don't talk such nonsense,' pleaded Ida; 'Fräulein will think you
a very absurd person.'
But Miss Wolf protested that she would think nothing of the sort.
Sentiment of that kind was her idea of common sense.
'I am established at Penton Hook,' said Brian. 'I live on the water, and
my only thought in life is to be near you. I shall know every stump of
willow--every bulrush before I am a month older.'
'But surely you are not going to stay at Penton Hook for a month!'
exclaimed Ida, 'buried alive in that little lock-house?'
'I shall have my daily resurrection when I see you.'
'But you cannot imagine that I shall walk upon this path every afternoon,
in order that you may land and talk nonsense?' protested Ida.
'I only imagine that this path is your daily walk, and that you would not
be so heartless as to change your habits in order to deprive me of the
sunshine of your presence,' replied Brian, gazing at her tenderly, as if
Miss Wolf counted for nothing, and they two were standing alone among the
reeds and willows.
'You will simply make this walk impossible for me. It is quite out of the
question that I should come here again so long as you are likely to be
lying in wait for me. Is it not so, Fräulein? You know Miss Pew's way of
thinking, and how she would regard such conduct.'
Fräulein shook her head dolefully, and admitted that in Miss Pew's
social code such a derogation from maiden dignity would be, in a manner,
death--an offence beyond all hope of pardon.
'Hang Miss Pew!' exclaimed Brian. 'If Miss Pew were Minerva, with all the
weight and influence of her father, the Thunderer, to back her up, I
would defy her. Confess now, dear Fräulein--liebste Fräulein'--how tender
his accents sounded in German!--'_you_ do not think it wrong for me to
see the lady of my love for a few all-too-happy moments once a day?'
The Fräulein declared that it was the most natural thing in the world for
them thus to meet, and that she for her part would be enchanted to play
propriety, and to be her dearest Ida's companion on all such occasions,
nor would thumbscrew or rack extort from her the secret of their loves.
'Nonsense!' exclaimed Ida, 'in future I shall always walk in the kitchen
garden; the walls are ten feet high, and unless you had a horse that
could fly, like Perseus, you would never be able to get at me.'
'I will get a flying horse,' answered Brian. 'Don't defy me. Remember
there are things that have been heard of before now in love-stories,
called ladders.'
After this their conversation became as light and airy as that dandelion
seed which every breath of summer blows across the land. They were all
three young, happy in health and hope despite of fortune. Ida began to
think that Brian Wendover, if in nowise resembling her ideal, was a very
agreeable young man. He was full of life and spirits; he spoke German
admirably. He had the Fräulein's idolized Schiller on the tip of his
tongue. He quoted Heine's tenderest love songs. Altogether his society
was much more intellectual and more agreeable than any to be had at
Mauleverer Manor. Miss Wolf parted from him reluctantly, and thought that
Ida was unreasonably urgent when she insisted on leaving him at the end
of half an hour's dawdling walk up and down the river path.
'Ach, how he is handsome! how he is clever! What for a man!' exclaimed
Miss Wolf, as they went back to the Manor grounds, across the dusty
high-road, the mere passage over which had a faint flavour of excitement,
as a momentary escape into the outside world. 'How proud you must be of
his devotion to you!'
'Indeed I am not,' answered Ida, frankly. 'I only wonder at it. We have
seen so little of each other; we have known each other so short a time.'
'I don't think time counts for lovers,' argued the romantic Gertrude.
'One sees a face which is one's fate, and only wonders how one can have
lived until that moment, since life must have been so empty without
_him_.'
'Have you done that sort of thing often?' asked Ida, with rather a
cynical air. 'You talk as if it were a common experience of yours.'
Fräulein Wolf blushed and simpered.
'There was one,' she murmured, 'when I was very young. He was to me as a
bright particular star. His father kept a shop, but, oh, his soul would
have harmonized with the loftiest rank in the land. He was in the
Landwehr. If you had seen him in his uniform--ach, Himmel! He went away
to the Franco-Prussian war. I wept for him; I thought of him as Leonora
of her Wilhelm. He came back. Ach!'
'Was he a ghost? Did he carry you off to the churchyard?'
'Neither to churchyard nor church,' sighed Gertrude. 'He was false! He
married his father's cook--a fat, rosy-cheeked Swabian. All that was
delicate and refined in his nature, every poetical yearning of his soul,
had been trampled out of him in that hellish war!'
'I dare say he was hungry after a prolonged existence upon wurst,' said
Ida, 'and that instinct drew him to the cook-maid.'
After this there came many afternoons on which the Fräulein and Ida
walked in the meadow path by the river, and walk there when they would,
the light wherry always came glancing along the tide, and shot in among
the reeds, and Miss Palliser's faithful swain was in attendance upon her.
On doubtful afternoons, when Ida was inclined to stay indoors, the
sentimental Fräulein was always at her side to urge her to take the
accustomed walk. Not only was Mr. Wendover's society agreeable to her
poetic soul, but he occasionally brought some tender offering in the
shape of hothouse grapes or Jersey pears, which were still more welcome
to the fair German.
The governesses, Miss Motley, Miss Pillby, and Mademoiselle were always
on duty on fine afternoons, in attendance upon the pupils' regulation
walks--long dusty perambulations of dull high roads; and thus it happened
that Ida and the Fräulein had the meadow path to themselves.
Nothing occurred during the space of a fortnight to disturb their sense
of security. The river-side seemed a kind of Paradise, without the
possibility of a serpent. Ida's lover had not yet made her any
categorical and formal offer of marriage. Indeed, he had never been one
minute alone with her since their first meeting; but he talked as if it
was a settled thing that they two were to be man and wife in the days to
come. He did not speak as if their marriage were an event in the near
future; and at this Ida wondered a little, seeing that the owner of
Wendover Abbey could have no need to wait for a wife--to consider ways
and means--and to be prudently patient, as struggling professional youth
must be. This was curious; for that he loved her passionately there could
be little doubt. Every look, every tone told her as much a hundred times
in an hour. Nor did she make any protest when he spoke of her as one
pledged to him, though no formal covenant had been entered upon. She
allowed him to talk as he pleased about their future; and her only wonder
was, that in all his conversation he spoke so little of the house in
which he was born, and indeed of his belongings generally.
Once she expatiated to Fräulein Wolf in Brian's presence upon the
picturesque beauties of the Abbey.
'It is the dearest, noblest old house you can conceive,' she said; 'and
the old, old gardens and park are something too lovely: but I believe Mr.
Wendover does not care a straw about the place.'
'You know what comes of familiarity,' answered Brian, carelessly. 'I have
seen too much of the Abbey to be moved to rapture by its Gothic charms
every time I see it after the agony of separation.'
'But you would like to live there?'
'I would infinitely prefer living anywhere else. The place is too remote
from civilization. A spot one might enjoy, perhaps, on the downhill side
of sixty; but in youth or active middle age every sensible man should
shun seclusion. A man has to fight against an inherent tendency to lapse
into a vegetable.'
'Fox did not become a vegetable,' said Ida; 'yet how he adored St. Ann's
Hill!'
'Fox was a hard drinker and a fast liver,' answered Brian. 'If he had
not let the clock run down now and then, the works would have worn out
sooner than they did.'
'But do you never feel the need of rest?' asked Ida.
Brian stifled a yawn.
'No; I'm afraid I have never worked hard enough for that. The need will
come, perhaps, later--when the work comes.'
On more than one occasion when Ida talked of the Abbey, Mr. Wendover
replied in the same tone. It was evident that he was indifferent to the
family seat, or that he even disliked it. He had no pride in surroundings
which might have inspired another man.
'One would think you had been frightened by the family ghost,' Ida said
laughingly, 'you so studiously avoid talking about the Abbey.'
'I have not been frightened by the ghost--I am too modern to believe in
ghosts.'
'Oh, but it is modern to believe in everything
impossible--spirit-rapping, thought-reading.'
'Perhaps; but I am not of that temper.' And then, with a graver look than
Ida had ever seen in his face, he said, 'You are full of enthusiasm about
that old place among the hills, Ida. I hope you do not care more for the
Abbey than for me.'
She crimsoned and looked down. The question touched her weakness too
nearly.
'Oh, no,' she faltered; 'what are cedars and limestone as compared with
humanity?'
'And if I were without the Abbey--if the Abbey and I were nothing to each
other--should I be nobody in your sight?'
'It is difficult to dissociate a man from his surroundings,' she
answered; 'but I suppose you would be just the same person?'
'I hope so,' said Brian. '"The rank is but the guinea stamp, the man's a
man for a' that." But the guinea stamp is an uncommonly good thing in its
way, I admit.'
These afternoon promenades between four and five o'clock, while the rest
of the school was out walking, had been going on for a fortnight, and no
harm to Ida had come of her indiscretion. Perhaps she hardly considered
how wrong a thing she was doing in violating Miss Pew's confidence by
conduct so entirely averse from Miss Pew's ideas of good behaviour. The
confidence had been so grudgingly given, Miss Pew had been so
systematically unkind, that the girl may be forgiven for detesting her,
nay, even for glorying in the notion of acting in a manner which would
shock all Miss Pew's dearest prejudices. Her meeting with her lover could
scarcely be called clandestine, for she took very little pains to conceal
the fact. If the affair had gone on secretly for so long, it was because
of no artifice on her part.
But that any act of any member of the Mauleverer household could remain
long unknown was almost an impossibility. If there had been but one pair
of eyes in the establishment, and those the eyes of Miss Pillby, the
thing would have been discovered; for those pale unlovely orbs were as
the eyes of Argus himself in their manifold power to spy out the
proceedings of other people--more especially of any person whom their
owner disliked.
Now Miss Pillby had never loved Ida Palliser, objecting to her on broad
grounds as a person whose beauty and talents were an indirect injury to
mediocre people. Since Ida's visit to The Knoll her angry feeling had
intensified with every mention of the pleasures and comforts of that
abode. Miss Pillby, who never opened a book for her own pleasure, who
cared nothing for music, and whose highest notion of art was all
blacklead pencil and bread-crumbs, had plenty of vacant space in her
mind for other people's business. She was a sharp observer of the
fiddle-faddle of daily life; she had a keen scent for evil motives
underlying simple actions. Thus when she perceived the intimacy which had
newly arisen between the Fräulein and Miss Palliser, she told herself
that there must be some occult reason for the fact. Why did those two
always walk together? What hidden charm had they discovered in the
river-meadow?
For this question, looked at from Miss Pillby's point of view, there
could be only one answer. The attraction was masculine. One or other of
the damsels must have an admirer whom she contrived to see somehow, or to
correspond with somehow, during her meadow walk. That the thing had gone
so far as it really had gone, that any young lady at Mauleverer could
dare to walk and talk with an unlicensed man in the broad light of day,
was more than Miss Pillby's imagination could conceive. But she
speculated upon some transient glimpse of a man on the opposite bank, or
in the middle distance of the river--a handkerchief waved, a signal
given, perhaps a love-letter hidden in a hollow tree. This was about the
culminating point to which any intrigue at Mauleverer had ever reached
hitherto. Beyond this Miss Pillby's fancy ventured not.
It was on the second Sunday in October, when the Mauleverer pupils were
beginning to look forward, almost hopefully, to the Christmas vacation,
that a flood of light streamed suddenly upon Miss Pillby's troubled mind.
The revelation happened in this wise. Evening service at a smart little
newly-built church, where the function was Anglican to the verge of
Ritualism, was a privilege reserved for the elder and more favoured of
the Mauleverer flock. All the girls liked this evening service at St.
Dunstan's. It had a flavour of dissipation. The lamps, the music, the
gaily decorated altar, the Saint's-day banners and processional hymn,
were faintly suggestive of the opera. The change from the darkness of the
country road to the glow and glitter of the tabernacle was thrilling.
Evening service at St. Dunstan's was the most exciting event of the week.
There was a curate who intoned exquisitely, with that melodious snuffle
so dear to modern congregations, and whose voice had a dying fall when he
gave out a hymn which almost moved girl-worshippers to tears. He was
thought to be in a consumption--had a little dry hacking cough, actually
caused by relaxed tonsils, but painfully recalling her of the camelias.
The Mauleverer girls called him interesting, and hoped that he would
never marry, but live and die like St. Francis de Sales. On this
particular Sunday, Miss Pew--vulgarly Old Pew--happened to be unusually
amiable. That morning's post had brought her the promise of three new
pupils, daughters of a mighty sheep farmer lately returned from
Australia, and supposed to be a millionaire. He was a widower, and wanted
motherly care for his orphans. They were to be clothed as well as fed at
Mauleverer; they were to have all those tender cares and indulgences
which a loving mother could give them. This kind of transaction was
eminently profitable to the Miss Pews. Maternal care meant a tremendous
list of extra charges--treats, medical attendance, little comforts of all
kinds, from old port to lamb's-wool sleeping-socks. Orphans of this kind
were the pigeons whose tender breasts furnished the down with which that
experienced crow, Miss Pew, feathered her nest. She had read the
Australian's letter over three times before evening service, and she was
inclined to think kindly of the human race; so when Miss Palliser asked
if she too--she, the Pariah, might go to St. Dunstan's--she, whose
general duty of a Sunday evening was to hear the little ones their
catechism, or keep them quiet by reading aloud to them 'Pilgrim's
Progress' or 'Agathos,' perhaps--Miss Pew said, loftily, 'I do not see
any objection.'
There was no kindness, no indulgence in her tone, but she said she saw no
objection, and Ida flew off to put on her bonnet,--that poor little black
lace bonnet with yellow rosebuds which had done duty for so many
services.
It was a relief to get a way from school, and its dull monotony, even for
a couple of hours; and then there was the music. Ida loved music too
passionately to be indifferent to the harmony of village voices,
carefully trained to sing her favourite hymns to the sound of a small but
excellent organ.
The little church was somewhat poorly attended on this fine autumn
evening, when the hunter's moon hung like a big golden shield above the
river, glorifying the dipping willows, the narrow eyots, haunts of swan
and cygnet, and the distant woodlands of Surrey. It was a night which
tempted the free to wander in the cool shadowy river-side paths, rather
than to worship in the warm little temple.
The Mauleverer girls made a solid block of humanity on one side of the
nave, but on the other side the congregation was scattered thinly in the
open oaken seats.
Miss Pillby, perusing those figures within her view, as she stood in the
back row of the school seats, perceived a stranger--a stranger of elegant
and pleasing appearance, who was evidently casting stolen glances at the
lambs of the Mauleverer fold. Nor was Miss Pillby's keen eye slow to
discover for which lamb those ardent looks were intended. The object of
the stranger's admiration was evidently Ida Palliser.
'I thought as much,' mused Miss Pillby, as she listened, or seemed to
listen, to the trials and triumphs of the children of Israel, chanted by
fresh young voices with a decidedly rural twang; 'this explains
everything.'
When they left the church, Miss Pillby was perfectly aware of the
stranger following the Mauleverer flock, evidently in the hope of getting
speech with Miss Palliser. He hung on the pathway near them, he shot
ahead of them, and then turned and strolled slowly back. All in vain. Ida
was too closely hemmed in and guarded for him to get speech of her; and
the maiden procession passed on without any violation of the proprieties.
'Did you see that underbred young man following us as we came home?'
asked Miss Pillby, with a disgusted air, as she shared an invigorating
repast of bread and butter and toast and water with the pupils who had
been to church. 'Some London shopman, no doubt, by his bad manners.' She
stole a look at Ida, who flushed ever so slightly at hearing Brian
Wendover thus maligned.
Fräulein Wolf slept in the room occupied by Miss Pillby and Miss
Motley--three narrow iron bedsteads in a particularly inconvenient room,
always devoted to governesses, and supposed to be a temple of learning.
While Miss Motley was saying her prayers, Miss Pillby wriggled up to the
Fräulein, who was calmly brushing her flaxen tresses, and whispered
impetuously, 'I have seen him! I know all about it!'
'Ach, Himmel,' cried the Fräulein. 'Thou wouldst not betray?'
'Not for the world.'
'Is he not handsome, godlike?' demanded the Fräulein, still in German.
'Yes, he is very nice-looking. Don't tell Palliser that I know anything
about him. She mightn't like it.'
The Fräulein shook her head, and put her finger to her lips, just as Miss
Motley rose from her knees, remarking that it was impossible for anybody
to pray in a proper business-like manner with such whispering and
chattering going on.
Next day Miss Pillby contrived to get a walk in the garden before the
early dinner. Here among the asparagus beds she had a brief conversation
with a small boy employed in the kitchen-garden, a youth whose mother
washed for the school, and had frequent encounters with Miss Pillby, that
lady having charge of the linen, and being, in the laundress's eye, a
power in the establishment. Miss Pillby had furthermore been what she
called 'kind' to the laundress's hope. She had insisted upon his learning
his catechism, and attending church twice every Sunday, and she had
knitted him a comforter, the material being that harsh and scrubby
worsted which makes the word comforter a sound of derision.
Strong in the sense of these favours, Miss Pillby put it upon the boy as
a duty which he owed to her and to society to watch Ida Palliser's
proceedings in the river-meadow. She also promised him sixpence if he
found out anything bad.
The influence of the Church Catechism, learned by rote, parrot fashion,
had not awakened in the laundress's boy any keen sense of honour. He had
a dim feeling that it was a shabby service which he was called upon to
perform; but then of course Miss Pillby, who taught the young ladies, and
who was no doubt a wise and discreet personage, knew best; and a possible
sixpence was a great temptation.
'Them rushes and weeds down by the bank wants cutting. Gar'ner told me
about it last week,' said the astute youth. 'I'll do 'em this very
afternoon.'
'Do, Sam. Be there between four and five. Keep out of sight as much as
you can, but be well within hearing. I want you to tell me all that goes
on.'
'And when shall I see you agen, miss?'
'Let me see. That's rather difficult. I'm afraid it can't be managed till
to-morrow. You are in the house at six every morning to clean the boots?'
'Yes, miss.'
'Then I'll come down to the boot-room at half-past six to-morrow morning
and hear what you've got to tell me.'
'Lor, miss, it's such a mucky place--all among the coal-cellars.'
'I don't mind,' said Miss Pillby; which was quite true. There was no
amount of muckiness Miss Pillby would not have endured in order to injure
a person she disliked.
'I have never shrunk from my duty, however painful it might be, Sam!' she
said, and left the youth impressed by the idea of her virtues.
In the duskiness of the October dawn Miss Pillby stole stealthily down by
back stairs and obscure passages to the boot-room, where she found Sam
hard at work with brushes and blacking, by the light of a tallow candle,
in an atmosphere flavoured with coals.
'Well, Sam?' asked the vestal, eagerly.
'Well, miss, I seed 'em and I heerd 'em,' answered the boy; 'such goin's
on. Orful!'
'What kind of thing, Sam?'
'Love-makin,' miss; keepin' company. The young ladies hadn't been there
five minutes when a boat dashes up to the bank, and a young gent jumps
ashore. My, how he went on! I was down among the rushes, right under his
feet, as you may say, most of the time, and I heerd him beautiful. How he
did talk; like a poetry book!'
'Did he kiss her?'
'Yes, miss, just one as they parted company. She was very stand-offish
with him, but he catched hold of her just as she was wishing of him
good-bye. He gave her a squeedge like, and took her unawares. It was only
one kiss, yer know, miss, but he made it last as long as he could. The
foreigner looked the other way.'
'Shameful creatures, both of them!' exclaimed Miss Pillby. 'There's your
sixpence, Sam, and don't say a word to anybody about what you've seen,
till I tell you. I may want you to repeat it all to Miss Pew. If I do,
I'll give you another sixpence.'
'Lawks, miss, that would be cheap at a shilling,' said the boy. 'It would
freeze my blood to have to stand up to talk before Miss Pew.'
'Nonsense, Sam, you will be only telling the truth, and there can be
nothing to frighten you. However, I dare say she will be satisfied with
my statement. She won't want confirmation from you.'
'Confirmation from me,' muttered Sam, as Miss Pillby left his den. 'No, I
should think not. Why, that's what the bishops do. Fancy old Pew being
confirmed too--old Pew in a white frock and a veil. That is a good'un,'
and Sam exploded over his blacking-brush at the preposterous idea.
It was Miss Pew's habit to take a cup of tea and a square of buttered
toast every morning at seven, before she left her pillow; in order to
fortify herself for the effort of getting up and dressing, so as to be in
her place, at the head of the chief table in the school dining-room, when
eight o'clock struck. Had Miss Pew consulted her own inclination she
would have reposed until a much later hour; but the maintenance of
discipline compelled that she should be the head and front of all
virtuous movements at Mauleverer Manor. How could she inveigh with due
force against the sin of sloth if she were herself a slug-a-bed?
Therefore did Miss Pew vanquish the weakness of the flesh, and rise at a
quarter past seven, summer and winter. But this struggle between duty and
inclination made the lady's temper somewhat critical in the morning
hours.
Now it was the custom for one of the mistresses to carry Miss Pew's
tea-tray, and to attend at her bedside while she sipped her bohea and
munched her toast. It was a delicate attention, a recognition of her
dignity, which Miss Pew liked. It was the _lever du roi_ upon a small
scale. And this afforded an opportunity for the mistress on duty to
inform her principal of any small fact in connection with the school or
household which it was well for Miss Pew to know. Not for worlds would
Sarah Pew have encouraged a spy, according to her own view of her own
character; but she liked people with keen eyes, who could tell her
everything that was going on under her roof.
'Good morning, Pillby,' said Miss Pew, sitting up against a massive
background of pillows, like a female Jove upon a bank of clouds, an awful
figure in frilled white raiment, with an eye able to command, but hardly
to flatter; 'what kind of a day is it?'
'Dull and heavy,' answered Miss Pillby; 'I shouldn't wonder if there was
a thunderstorm.'
'Don't talk nonsense, child; it's too late in the year for thunder. We
shall have the equinoctial gales soon, I dare say.'
'No doubt,' replied Miss Pillby, who had heard about the equinox and its
carryings on all her life without having arrived at any clear idea of its
nature and properties. 'We shall have it very equinoctial before the end
of the month, I've no doubt.'
'Well, is there anything going on? Any of the girls bilious? One of my
black draughts wanted anywhere?'
Miss Pew was not highly intellectual, but she was a great hand at
finance, household economies, and domestic medicine. She compounded most
of the doses taken at Mauleverer with her own fair hands, and her black
draughts were a feature in the school. The pupils never forgot them.
However faint became the memory of youthful joys in after years, the
flavour of Miss Pew's jalap and senna was never obliterated.
'No; there's nobody ill this morning,' answered Miss Pillby, with a faint
groan.
'Ah, you may well sigh,' retorted her principal; 'the way those girls ate
veal and ham yesterday was enough to have turned the school into a
hospital--and with raspberry jam tart after, too.'
Veal with ham was the Sunday dinner at Mauleverer, a banquet upon which
Miss Pew prided herself, as an instance of luxurious living rarely to be
met with in boarding-schools. If the girls were ill after it, that was
their look out.
'There's something wrong, I can see by your face, said Miss Pew, after
she had sipped half her tea and enjoyed the whole of her toast; 'is it
the servants or the pupils?'
Strange to say, Miss Pew did not look grateful to the bearer of evil
tidings. This was one of her idiosyncrasies. She insisted upon being kept
informed of all that went wrong in her establishment, but she was apt to
be out of temper with the informant.
'Neither,' answered Miss Pillby, with an awful shake of her sandy locks;
'I don't believe there is a servant in this house who would so far forget
herself. And as to the pupils--'
'We know what they are,' snapped Miss Pew; 'I never heard of anything bad
enough to be beyond their reach. Who is it?'
'Your clever pupil teacher, Ida Palliser.'
'Ah,' grunted Miss Pew, setting down her cup; 'I can believe anything of
her. That girl was born to be troublesome. What has she done now?'
Miss Pillby related the circumstances of Miss Palliser's crime setting
forth her own cleverness in the course of her narrative--how her
misgivings had been excited by the unwonted familiarity between Ida and
the Fräulein--a young person always open to suspicion as a stranger in
the land--how her fears had been confirmed by the conduct of an unknown
man in the church; and how, urged by her keen sense of duty, she had
employed Mrs. Jones's boy to watch the delinquents.
'I'll make an example of her,' said Miss Pew, flinging back the
bed-clothes with a tragic air as she rose from her couch. 'That will do,
Pillby. I want no further details. I'll wring the rest out of that
bold-faced minx in the face of all the school. You can go.'
And without any word of praise or thanks from her principal, Miss Pillby
retired: yet she knew in her heart that for this piece of ill news Miss
Pew was not ungrateful.
Never had Sarah Pew looked more awful than she appeared that morning at
the breakfast table, clad in sombre robes of olive green merino, and a
cap bristling with olive-green berries and brambly twigs--a cap which to
the more advanced of the pupils suggested the head-gear of Medusa.
Miss Dulcibella, gentle, limp, sea-greeny, looked at her stronger-minded
sister, and was so disturbed by the gloom upon that imperial brow as to
be unable to eat her customary rasher. Not a word did Miss Pew speak to
sister or mistresses during that brief but awful meal; but when the delft
breakfast cups were empty, and the stacks of thick bread and butter had
diminished to nothingness, and the girls were about to rise and disperse
for their morning studies, Miss Pew's voice arose suddenly amidst them
like the sound of thunder.
'Keep your seats, if you please, young ladies. I am about to make an
example; and I hope what I have to say and do may be for the general
good. Miss Palliser, stand up.'
Ida rose in her place, at that end of the table where she was supposed to
exercise a corrective influence upon the younger pupils. She stood up
where all the rest were seated, a tall and perfect figure, a beautiful
statuesque head, supported by a neck like a marble column. She stood up
among all those other girls the handsomest of them all, pale, with
flashing eyes, feeling very sure that she was going to be ill-treated.
'Pray, Miss Palliser, who is the person whom it is your daily habit to
meet and converse with in my grounds? Who is the man who has dared to
trespass on my meadow at your invitation?'
'Not at my invitation,' answered Ida, as calm as marble 'The gentleman
came of his own accord. His name is Brian Wendover, and he and I are
engaged to be married.'
Miss Pew laughed a loud ironical laugh, a laugh which froze the blood of
all the seventeen-year-old pupils who were not without fear or reproach
upon the subject of clandestine glances, little notes, or girlish
carryings-on in the flirtation line.
'Engaged?' she exclaimed, in her stentorian voice, 'That is really too
good a joke. Engaged? Pray, which Mr. Brian Wendover is it?
'Mr. Wendover of the Abbey.'
'Mr. Wendover of the Abbey, the head of the Wendover family?' cried Miss
Pew. 'And you would wish us to believe that Mr. Wendover, of Wendover
Abbey--a gentleman with an estate worth something like seven thousand
a year, young ladies--has engaged himself to the youngest of my
pupil-teachers, whose acquaintance he has cultivated while trespassing on
my meadow? Miss Palliser, when a gentleman of Mr. Wendover's means and
social status wishes to marry a young person in your position--a
concatenation which occurs very rarely in the history of the human
race--he comes to the hall door. Mr. Wendover no more means to marry you
than he means to marry the moon. His views are of quite a different kind,
and you know it.'
Ida cast a withering look at her tyrant, and moved quickly from her
place.
'You are a wretch to say such a thing to me,' she cried passionately; 'I
will not stay another hour under your roof to be so insulted.'
'No, you will not stay under my roof, Miss Palliser,' retorted Miss Pew.
'My mind was made up more than an hour ago on that point. You will not be
allowed to stay in this house one minute longer than is needed for the
packing up of your clothes, and that, I take it,' added the
schoolmistress, with an insolent laugh, 'will not be a lengthy operation.
You are expelled, Miss Palliser--expelled from this establishment for
grossly improper conduct; and I am only sorry for your poor father's sake
that you will have to begin your career as a governess with disgrace
attached to your name.'
'There is no disgrace, except in your own foul mind,' said Ida. 'I can
imagine that as nobody ever admired you or made love to you when you
were young, you may have mistaken ideas as to the nature of lovers and
love-making'--despite the universal awe, this provoked a faint,
irrepressible titter--'but it is hard that you should revenge your
ignorance upon me. Mr. Wendover has never said a word to me which a
gentleman should not say. Fräulein Wolf, who has heard his every word,
knows that this is true.'
'Fräulein will leave this house to-morrow, if she is not careful,' said
Miss Pew, who had, however, no intention of parting with so useful and
cheap a teacher.
She could afford to revenge herself upon Ida, whose period of tutelage
was nearly over.
'Fräulein knows that Mr. Wendover speaks of our future as the future of
man and wife.'
'Ja wohl,' murmured the Fräulein, 'that is true; ganz und gan.'
'I will not hear another word!' cried Miss Pew, swelling with rage, while
every thorn and berry on her autumnal cap quivered. 'Ungrateful, impudent
young woman! Leave my house instantly. I will not have these innocent
girls perverted by your vile example. In speech and in conduct you are
alike detestable.'
'Good-bye, girls,' cried Ida, lightly: 'you all know how much harm my
speech and my example have done you. Good-bye, Fräulein; don't you be
afraid of dismissal,--you are too well worth your salt.'
Polly Cobb, the brewer's daughter, sat near the door by which Ida had to
make her exit. She was quite the richest, and perhaps the best-natured
girl in the school. She caught hold of Ida's gown and thrust a little
Russia-leather purse into her hand, with a tender squeeze.
'Take it, dear,' she whispered; 'I don't want it, I can get plenty more.
Yes, yes, you must; you shall. I'll make a row, and get myself into
disgrace, if you refuse. You can't go to France without money.'
'God bless you, dear. I'll send it you back,' answered Ida.
'Don't; I shall hate you if you do.'
'Is that young woman gone?' demanded Miss Pew's awful voice.
'Going, going, gone!' cried Miss Cobb, forgetting herself in her
excitement, as the door closed behind Ida.
'Who was that?' roared Miss Pew.
Half a dozen informants pronounced Miss Cobb's name.
Now Miss Cobb's people were wealthy, and Miss Cobb had younger sisters,
all coming on under a homely governess to that critical stage in which
they would require the polishing processes of Mauleverer Manor: so Sarah
Pew bridled her wrath, and said quietly--
'Kindly reserve your jocosity for a more appropriate season, Miss Cobb.
Young ladies, you may proceed with your matutinal duties.'