ARTHUR THRALE.
The sun was streaming down the narrow rocky street of St. Pucelle, in
one long, unbroken line of light. I could hear the shrill voice of
Madame Marmoret screaming to frighten away the pigeons, as they alighted
on the line she had erected in the courtyard to hang her spotless caps
and aprons on; and Tessie disturbed me in the midst of writing a long
letter home—somehow, I found it difficult to get out of the habit of
calling Mrs. Sandiland’s place of residence ‘home’—to ask if I would
take my work and go with her to sit on the brow of the hill that
overlooked the valley of Artois.
‘It is “pig-killing day” in St. Pucelle, Hilda, and you will find it so
much pleasanter to be out of the town than in it.’
‘_Pig-killing day!_’ I repeated. ‘Tessie, what _do_ you mean?’
‘Only that each family here keeps a pig, and they kill them all on the
same day. Also that they have an unpleasant custom of sacrificing the
animals in front of their houses, and the poor things _do_ squeak so.’
I threw all my writing materials to one side in a moment.
‘Mercy on us! When do they begin? Let us get out of this as soon as
possible, Tessie.’
She laughed heartily at my dismay.
‘You need not be in such a terrible hurry, Hilda. I think you may give
yourself a few minutes’ grace. But it really does turn the street into
such a slaughter-house, that everybody makes a point of going as far
from home as possible.’
‘Where is Ange?’
‘She has gone up to see Mère Fromard, whose husband is worse this
morning, and she promised to join us on the hill on her way back.’
‘And your papa?’
‘I left him in the _salle_. He is just going to start by the diligence
for Artois. He has some business to transact at Rille to-day, with his
friend Mr. Felton.’
‘Excuse me for a moment then, Tessie. I want to speak to him before he
goes.’
I flew downstairs as I spoke, and came upon Mr. Lovett in the _salle_,
carefully brushing his clerical hat before putting it on. I had a motive
for my haste. As we postpone visiting the dentist day after day, and
then, in a sudden fit of courage, rush off without deliberation, and
have our tooth extracted before we have had time to repent, so had I
delayed speaking to my trustee on a matter of importance, and knew that
unless I took my dilemma, like a bull, by the horns, I should never be
brave enough to extricate myself from it. This dilemma was the want of
money. I had been in St. Pucelle now for a couple of months, and Mr.
Lovett had never mentioned the subject to me. I had gone there on the
understanding that fifty pounds of my little income was to be annually
refunded me for pocket expenses, and I had arrived there almost
penniless, for the necessary outlay connected with the breaking up of my
home and travelling to Belgium had absorbed nearly all the ready-money
at my disposal. I had thrown out more than one hint, in the presence of
Mr. Lovett, that a few francs would be acceptable to me, but they had
had no effect, and I was now really in need of some trifles for my
toilet.
Moreover, Ange would complete her eighteenth year in a week from that
time, and I greatly desired to make her a little present on the
occasion.
So I felt as desperate as a young woman can do who has no clean tuckers
to put into her dresses, and has just discovered an alarming hole in the
finger of her best pair of kid gloves.
Mr. Lovett looked up as I entered the _salle_, and saluted me with his
bland, beautiful smile.
‘Well, my dear Hilda, have you any commands for me in Rille? I am
compelled to go there to-day, to transact some business with my good
friend Mr. Felton; but I hope you will be able to make yourself very
happy meanwhile, with your own occupations and the dear children’s
society.’
‘Oh yes, Mr. Lovett; we shall be happy enough. We are just going to take
our needlework to the brow of the hill, and stay there till all the pigs
are killed.’
‘A very wise decision,’ he said, laughing softly, as he smoothed round
the nap of his hat.
‘But I wanted to speak to you first,’ I stammered. ‘I should be sorry to
inconvenience you; but—but—I want frilling and such a lot of little
things, Mr. Lovett; and—Mr. Warrington mentioned to me, you know, the
arrangement you made with him about it, and—_could you let me have a
little money, just to go on with?_’
The murder was out at last! I had made as much fuss over it as if I had
been asking a favour, instead of demanding a right; but it was over—the
tooth was out, and I breathed again.
What had Mr. Lovett to say in answer? At first, for the merest moment, I
fancied that a flush of surprise or displeasure passed over his handsome
features; but, if so, it vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving
nothing behind but his own frank, benevolent expression.
‘Certainly, my dear girl, certainly. Why did you not mention it to me
before? I shall be exceedingly annoyed if you delay asking for it one
day after it is due. Let me see! When _was_ it due?’
‘I am not sure. It depends entirely upon how you intend to pay it to me.
I have only been here two months, you know, Mr. Lovett.’
‘Ah! Just so. And I generally give my girls their allowance every
quarter. Still, it makes no difference to me, my dear Hilda; and you can
have your money just exactly when you like. How much do you require?’
‘I will take anything you choose to give me, sir.’
‘Tut, tut, tut!’ he said, as though annoyed by my want of confidence;
‘it must be as _you_ choose, my dear—it must be as you choose. What was
the annual sum fixed on by Mr. Warrington for your private expenses? One
hundred pounds?’
‘Oh no, sir. Fifty!’
‘That’s not enough,’ replied my guardian, decidedly. ‘No young lady can
dress according to her station for fifty pounds a year. We must make it
eighty.’
‘You are too kind to me, Mr. Lovett; but I should be very sorry to think
my living here put you to any expense.’
‘Nonsense, my dear Hilda! I do not pretend to be a rich man; but I must
become poorer than I am before I consent to take one _sou_ more than is
absolutely necessary from the child of my dear old chum, Dick Marsh. So
we will call the pin-money eighty pounds, my dear; and please to say no
more about it. But I must not stay another minute, or I shall miss the
diligence. Good-bye, and God bless you. How like you are to your father,
to be sure! As you stand there, I could almost fancy it was dear old
Dick come back and smiling at me.’
‘How soon shall you be home again, Mr. Lovett?’
‘Not till to-morrow morning, my child; but Tessie knows all about it.
Good-bye, good-bye!’ And, waving his stick at me, the benevolent old
gentleman descended the steps and made his way down the road as quickly
as he could.
I was very glad that he had decided to fix my private allowance at
eighty pounds, for it raised his feelings of justice in my estimation.
To tell truth, since I had been in St. Pucelle, I had more than once
thought that a hundred a year was too much money to pay for my board and
lodging, for my bedroom possessed the barest necessaries, and we—that
is, I and the girls—lived with the greatest frugality. The mystery which
hung about the meals I had not yet fathomed, although I had begun sadly
to suspect the cause of it. On some days the dinners provided continued
to be luxurious in the extreme, though, as I have said before, I refused
to partake of them; on others, we were all alike compelled to dine upon
the most meagre fare. It was evident, therefore, that the means of
provisioning the household were not always forthcoming, though that was
no reason that I should pay for more than I consumed. I did not,
therefore, consider that I laid myself under any special obligation to
my guardian in consenting to his proposal, although I admired him for
making it. Eighty pounds a year—twenty pounds every quarter—would be
ample, not only to provide me with suitable clothing, but to leave a
margin wherewith to indulge myself by making presents to my friends; and
with the remainder of my income, Mr. Lovett would be fully indemnified
for any extra expense I might prove in the household.
I returned to Tessie therefore quite satisfied with the result of my
bravery. At the same time I wished that my guardian had given me a few
francs in hand. But I felt certain he had only postponed it until he
returned from Rille.
Under cover of this assurance, I talked openly to Tessie, as we walked
together up the hill, of the interview that had taken place between her
father and myself, and of the generous offer he had made me.
I was anxious to have her advice as to what would be the most suitable
present I could purchase for Ange on her forthcoming birthday, for, in
common with all her friends, I had learned to love the girl dearly, and
was quite sure that nothing was to be found among the paltry little
shops in St. Pucelle good enough for her acceptance.
‘I should like to give her something _really_ nice, Tessie; something
that she wants very much. Do you know of anything? Never mind the price!
I shall have much more money than I shall want for myself, and my
greatest pleasure is in giving presents to those I care for. If you will
decide what it shall be, I will ask Mrs. Carolus or Miss Markham to get
it in Rille. I know they are going over there next week expressly to
shop; and they will choose it probably quite as well as I should do
myself.’
But Tessie, considering her love for her sister, was singularly
indifferent on the subject. She coloured when I proposed it, as I
thought with pleasure, but she gave me no help whatever.
‘Ange’s wants are so few,’ she said, ‘that I think it would be a pity to
take much trouble about it, Hilda! She will be just as well pleased with
a bunch of flowers from your hand as anything else. I, myself, intend to
give her my new muslin apron, and I know she will say it is twice too
good for her and refuse it half a dozen times before she accepts it.’
‘Now, Tessie! you are provoking,’ I replied. ‘One does not always ask
before making a present if the reception of it is necessary to the
happiness of one’s friend; but surely we can think of some trifle that
Ange would like me to get for her, whether she can do without it or not.
Shall I buy a pair of earrings to match her silver cross?’
‘Oh no, Hilda; pray don’t!’ cried Tessie in a voice of such feminine
alarm that I burst out laughing.
‘Why not? They would look very pretty in her little ears.’
‘They would be far too expensive a present to make her! She would not
like it, and neither would papa. We have never worn ornaments of any
kind; and Ange would not have that silver cross, excepting that it was
given to Madame Marmoret at her own confirmation, and she gave it to
Ange when she was quite a little baby.’
‘And so that old vixen Madame Marmoret may make the child a handsome
present, and I am forbidden to do so,’ I replied, half offended. ‘I
shall not consult you any more, Tessie, but buy her just what I please.’
Tessie looked grave, but she said nothing more, and we walked on for a
few minutes in silence. Then she began again:
‘I am sure Ange would rather have a ribbon that you have already worn
than the finest piece of jewellery that Rille could produce.’
But I clapped my hand over her mouth, and raced her up the hill till she
was out of breath.
‘And now if you dare to open your lips once more on that subject, I will
push you all the way down again,’ I said, laughing, and she was fain to
laugh with me; for I was determined to indulge myself by buying
something both good and handsome, for my pretty Ange.
The conversation, however, simple as it was, seemed to have affected
Tessie in no common degree. She was unusually silent as we sat side by
side, diligently plying our needles, and she sighed more than once as
she looked over the broad valley of Artois. Her mood was infectious. She
made me thoughtful, too, and I began to muse over that grave in Norwood
Cemetery, and the dear, dear face that lay beneath it.
‘Tessie,’ I said suddenly, ‘can you remember your mother?’
‘No, Hilda! She died when I was only a few years old, and Ange an infant
in long-clothes.’
‘You are happy not to be able to remember her. You must miss her so much
the less.’
‘Do you think so? Sometimes I fancy I must miss her more. I have never
had the benefit of her guidance or counsel, you know, Hilda!’
‘That is true; but your father has supplied her place. A man’s advice is
better than that of a woman, however good and clever she may be.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is, in most things; and papa has been the best and
kindest of parents to us. Yet, if mamma had lived, Hilda, she might—I
have always heard she was so fond of him—she might——’
But here the supposition of what her mother might have done was lost, in
consequence of Tessie bursting into a flood of tears.
Her sudden emotion both surprised and shocked me. I had never dreamt
that the death of a mother whom she had lost so early could have dwelt
upon her mind to such a degree as this, neither had I ever seen her give
vent to such violent grief before. Had it been Ange I should not have
been so much astonished, for the ‘little maid’ was romantic and easily
moved to tears; but that Tessie, who had so calm and equable a
disposition, should be so overcome was quite another thing.
I soothed her to the best of my ability, but the storm was as genuine as
it was unaccountable to me, and some minutes elapsed before she was
restored to anything like composure. I was just congratulating myself
that it was over, and thanking Heaven that no one else had witnessed her
weakness, when I perceived, to my annoyance, the gaunt figure of Mrs.
Carolus climbing, by means of a stick, the steep and stony ascent in
front of us.
‘Here is Mrs. Carolus,’ I said hastily. ‘Do dry your eyes, Tessie, or
the whole of St. Pucelle will be informed before to-morrow morning, that
I brought you out here and beat you.’
She laughed hysterically at the idea, and rose to her feet.
‘Let me go back a little way and meet Ange, Hilda! I shall recover
myself in five minutes, if I am left alone; but Mrs. Carolus’s intrusive
curiosity would be sure to set me off again.’
‘Go, by all manner of means,’ I replied, ‘and leave me, like a second
St. George, to face the dragon! Only come back as soon as your eyes have
regained their normal condition, or the saint will be found to have
turned tail as usual, leaving his stockings, darning-thread and needle
behind him.’
This I said because I had suffered many things at the hands of Mrs.
Carolus and Miss Markham during the last two months, and was noted for
running away as soon as I saw them coming. Tessie smiled sadly and
nodded acquiescence as she turned to ascend the hill.
‘Oh, Miss Marsh!’ cried Mrs. Carolus, now within a few yards of me;
‘what an awfully steep hill this is! I really thought at one time that I
could neither go backward nor forward. And the loose stones cut one’s
boots to ribbons. If I hadn’t brought Willie’s stick with me, I should
never have had the courage to mount it. Why has Miss Lovett walked off
just as I arrived?’
‘She has gone back a little way to meet her sister. Why do you attempt
to ascend the hill where there is no path, Mrs. Carolus? Boys and girls
can do it, perhaps, and goats, but not——’
‘Not older people, like you and me,’ said Mrs. Carolus, as she cast
herself jauntily on the sward beside me. ‘Ah! that’s just what I told
Sophy Markham the other day. She will pretend to be so _very_ young, you
know—ridiculous it is in a woman of her age—and came skipping down the
stairs two or three at a time, and the consequence was she sprained her
ankle. I said it served her right, and she was angry with me, of course;
but I am used to that. Mr. Lovett has gone to Rille to-day, I find.’
‘He has—but how did you hear it?’
‘By a very natural means, my dear or perhaps you will say, an unnatural
one. Sophia Markham has gone with him.’
‘_With him!_ In the same diligence, you mean.’
‘Well, she could hardly do other than that, considering there is but
one. No, I do not mean in the same diligence, only: I mean what I said,
she has gone with Mr. Lovett. She had no intention of it till she saw
him on the steps of the hotel, and then she suddenly discovered she had
something to do in Rille that could not possibly be delayed. Dear, dear!
I am quite sick and tired of her devices.’
‘She wanted to get out of St. Pucelle on “pig-killing day,” I suppose,
Mrs. Carolus. Tessie tells me all decent people leave the town to-day if
they can. Do you not hear the far-off squeaks of the poor porkers as we
sit here? It must be horrible to be in the midst of them.’
Mrs. Carolus grew quite testy over my frivolity.
‘Nonsense, Miss Marsh! You must be trying to take advantage of my
credulity. But if you think it delicate or proper that an unmarried lady
should ask for, and accept, the chaperonage of one gentleman in order to
run off and see another, I cannot view it in the same light.’
‘Oh, there is another gentleman in the wind, is there! That is lucky for
Miss Markham, for I really do not think it is of any use trying her
chances with Mr. Lovett.’
‘Of course there is another! That is the indelicate part of it. The
young man I once mentioned to you, Miss Marsh, as having been rather
taken with the pretty Miss Lovett, is staying in Rille just now, and the
way in which that woman goes on with him is disgusting—positively
disgusting. If you saw them together you’d really say she was ready to
jump down his throat. And she is constantly writing to him, too.’
‘Perhaps there is a mutual understanding between them,’ I suggested.
‘Dear me, no! she goes on in the same way with everybody. I am sure, the
scenes that have taken place between her and that young Thrale are a
perfect scandal, and enough to ruin the reputation of any house. I have
blushed scarlet, and so has my Willie, only to hear the things she says
to him.’
‘She has never struck me as being particularly refined or reticent,
either in her manners or conversation.’
‘Oh, my dear! you have not heard half of it! She tells such stories,
sometimes, as would make your hair stand on end. And doubtless a good
deal more has reached Mrs. Thrale’s ears than she chooses to
acknowledge, and that is the reason of her letter to me.’
‘Mrs. Thrale! What, Arthur Thrale’s mother? Has she written to you?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? Why, that’s the real reason Sophy has gone off to
Rille. She is so afraid of the inquiries that may ensue. This morning,
my dear, I received a letter from Mrs. Thrale, whom I’ve never seen in
the course of my life, begging me to look after her son, whom she has
heard is very intimate with my friends and myself, and whom she avers
has lost any amount of money since he has been in St. Pucelle.’
‘_How_ has he lost it?’ I demanded eagerly.
‘Ah, that’s the question! How has it gone? The lad is staying at the
same hotel as we are, at the instigation of Miss Markham, who persuaded
him to follow us here, but, excepting out of doors, Willie and I see
very little of him. However, Sophy and he have been _always_
together—morning, noon and night, uphill and downhill; and I, of course,
have had no right to interfere. But one thing I _know_, and that is,
that young Thrale has given her the most beautiful presents; and
presents, Miss Marsh, are not bought for nothing.’
‘No, indeed! But he must have been very extravagant to make his mother
write of him as she has done.’
‘She says he has lost or parted with hundreds of pounds since he has
been in St. Pucelle, and entreats me to reason with him on his folly,
and to persuade him, if possible, to return home to his parents. But I
have no control over the young man’s actions. And how can he have parted
with his money except by spending it on that woman? He knows no one here
but ourselves and Mr. Lovett, and, I think, that elegant-looking foreign
baron who lives up in the forest. Sophia Markham would have tried to get
up a flirtation with _him_ also, if she could have managed to speak
French well enough, but, notwithstanding her boasting, she is a poor
hand at it if she has to say anything out of the common way.’
‘It would have been of little use to her if she had been successful,’ I
said, smiling, ‘for the Baron de Nesselrode is too poor to make presents
to any one.’
‘Her face, when I taxed her with ruining Arthur Thrale, was a perfect
study, and I feel almost sure she has done more than take presents from
him. She ran upstairs and put on her hat at once, and not a minute
afterwards I heard she was going to Rille. To see the other one, of
course, and try what she can do now with him. For it is only an excuse,
saying she wants to buy something, my dear, for we had already planned
to go over in a party to Rille, to-morrow morning.’
‘Do you still intend to go, Mrs. Carolus? and if so, will you execute a
commission for me?’ I asked.
‘Certainly, Miss Marsh! Anything that I can do for you. What is it that
you require?’
‘Next Tuesday will be Ange’s birthday, and I wish to give her a pair of
silver earrings to match the cross she usually wears. I don’t want to
spare any expense, Mrs. Carolus. I should like them to be as good and
pretty as herself.’
But there I stopped, remembering that Mr. Lovett would not be home
before the morning, and doubtful whether I should have mentioned the
earrings to Mrs. Carolus before I had the money to give her to pay for
them.
‘I will buy you, then, the handsomest and strongest that I can procure
in Rille, Miss Marsh.’
‘No, Mrs. Carolus! Please do not. I forgot, when I spoke just now, that
I shall not have my allowance till after Mr. Lovett returns to-morrow.’
‘Oh, indeed! He stays over the night, then. But that is no obstacle,
Miss Marsh. I will purchase the earrings, and you can repay me at any
time.’
‘Thank you so much! You are very kind,’ I answered; but as the Caroluses
were rich people, and I felt certain of paying the money in a day or
two, I did not feel the obligation to be a weighty one. But it entailed
my having to listen for another half-hour, at least, to the scandal Mrs.
Carolus chose to retail me, until, to my infinite relief, I spied Tessie
and Ange coming over the hill to put an end to the conversation.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]