|MARY,” said Lady Lisgard gravely, when her attendant had closed
the door behind her, “I want to have a little serious talk with you
to-night.”
“As you please, my Lady,” returned Mistress Forest, in a tone which
the other, did not fail to mark: it was a very respectful tone--a more
humble one even than she was ordinarily wont to use--but there was a
certain deliberation and set resolve about it too, which expressed as
decidedly, as though she had used the words: “I am ready to listen,
madam; but I know very well what you are going to ask me, and I have
made up my mind already to answer 'No.'”
“Mary,” continued my Lady earnestly, but not without a tremor in her
kind soft voice, “come and sit here on the sofa beside me, and let us
not be mistress and maid tonight, but only friends.”
“Yes, madam;” and Mary's voice trembled too, for this unlooked-for
arrangement would place her, she knew, at a disadvantage in the argument
which was certainly at hand. “We have known one another many, many
years, Mary--more than half our lives--and I don't think we have had a
single quarrel yet.”
“Not one, ma'am, not one,” assented the waiting-maid; already, after the
manner of her susceptible kind, beginning to cry.
“I can remember you when quite a child, Mary; not fifteen years old; as
willing and kind-hearted a girl as the sun ever shone upon; and when I
had not a friend in the world, nor even so much as a coin that I could
call my own, and when I was weak and sick at heart, having lost all that
was dear to me, I remember who it was that tended and caressed me as
though I was her own sister.”
“Don't ye, don't ye, my Lady; hush, hush!” cried the weeping Mary. “It
was only natural that I should take to a sweet innocent creature cast at
our very door by the raging sea. I often dream of that storm o' nights,
madam, even now; of the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain; and of
the flashes that were not lightning, but signals for help--that, alas!
we could not give--from the poor doomed ship. And how father and the
other fishermen, and many of the visitors themselves--and among them
poor Sir Robert--all crowded down to the Cove, for they could not
get nearer to the shore because of the waves; and I was with them,
sheltering myself in the brushwood as well as I could, and peering
through the branches to see the great white waves lit up for an instant,
and then the darkness shutting all things out except the roaring of the
storm. I mind it just as though it were but yesterday; and ah! my Lady,
shall I ever forget when that one great wave dashed up into the very
Cove itself, wetting us all to the skin, and knocking down young Jack
West, whom it almost carried back with it in its return, and then
the Great Black Spar, which it did carry back, with something white
a-clinging to it; when my father cried out: 'O my God, a woman!' and
all our hearts seemed stricken with a sudden shoot of pain. Lord! how I
cried, for my part, to think that a poor creature should he tossing in
that dreadful foam; and when I heard good Sir Robert's voice, clear and
loud as a bugle: 'One hundred pounds to the man who brings her ashore,
dead or alive!' I do believe I could have run out and kissed him. Ah,
my Lady, what a noble gentleman he was; for though he could not have
known how dear you were to be to him--you might have been an old woman,
for all he could see--how he worked and strove to save you; not by his
money alone, for no mère gain would have tempted men to do what was
done that night, but by risking life and limb. They made a double chain,
holding one another's hands, for there was no time to spare for ropes,
and went down almost among the breakers, where you were: my father and
Sir Robert were the two first men, God bless them!”
Here Mistress Forest paused, interrupted by incipient hysterics, and
my Lady herself cried like a child, but not in agony; her tears were
tribute to the memory of a gallant deed.
“I mind my father had a black shoulder--a place you could not cover with
both your hands--all along of the spar being driven up against him, but
they carried it up with you upon it safe into the Cove, and then there
was a great cry for us women to come down and help. Ah, how beautiful
you looked, my Lady, though we thought you dead, white, and cold, and
wet, with your long black hair dripping like sea-weed, and your tender
limbs all bruised and bleeding. It must have been a kind band as tied
you to the plank, for between your dainty waist and the rough rope there
was bound a sailor's jacket.”
My Lady moaned, and held her bands up as though she would say,
“Forbear!” but Mistress Forest could not be stayed.
“There was little enough clothes upon you, poor Lady, just a bodice
and a petticoat, but round your neck there was hung a charm or two, and
perhaps that had some hand in saying you from drowning.”
My Lady looked quickly up; how strange it seemed that the comment passed
by Mary Forest upon the locket (and the bundle of letters in their
little waterproof case) should have been so exactly what Derrick had
pointed out it would be. The coincidence reminded her of the task that
lay before her, and of the danger of delaying it.
“Yes, Mary, I indeed owe my life to you and yours, and I am not
forgetful of the debt. Your welfare is, and ever will be only second in
importance to that of my own children, and it is concerning it that I
now wish to speak with you. Your future”----
“You owe me nothing, my dear Lady, that you have not paid again and
again, I am sure,” interrupted the waiting-maid hurriedly. “When you
rose to that high station, for which it seems to everybody you were
born, your hand was always held out to me; through good report and evil
report, you have ever stood my friend: it will be a great wrench of my
heart, dearest mistress, when I leave your service--as I shall have to
do, I fear, very soon.”
“Mary!”
“Yes, my Lady. You see I'm not a young girl now; and it is not everybody
who has so good a chance as I have now of--of--settling in life. Service
is not inheritance, you know, my Lady, although I am well aware I should
never want for nothing”----
“Whether I live or die, Mary,” broke in her mistress eagerly, “I have
taken care of that, good friend; and if I should die tomorrow---- But
you shall see my will itself, for it lies here.”
She laid her hand upon the desk before her, but Mary checked her with a
determined “No, my Lady; no. I was never greedy--with all my faults,
you will grant that much, I know--and if I had been like Mrs Welsh,
and others of this household I could name--but that I never was a
mischief-maker--I might long since have put myself beyond all need of
legacies, and you never would have missed it. But Mr Derrick is himself
a person of property; a very rich man indeed for one in my condition of
life--not that I need be a burden upon any man, thank Heaven, for I have
money saved out of my wages--and very handsome they always were--and
that great present of good Sir Robert's still untouched: the most
generous of gentlemen he was. I am sure, my Lady, nobody felt for you as
I did when Sir Robert died; and you have often said how terrible it
was to lose a husband; therefore”--here for a moment her excessive
volubility flagged for the first time; she paused, and reddened,
then added, with the air of a mathematician stating an indisputable
corollary--“therefore, you must allow, dear mistress, that to _find_
one--particularly when one comes to my time of life--is not unpleasant,
nor a chance to be lightly thrown aside.”
“That depends entirely upon the sort of husband he may be, Mary,”
observed my Lady gravely.
“Really, dear madam, with all respect, I think I am the best judge of
that,” rejoined the waiting-maid tartly; “although, indeed, I never
thought to say such words to you. Sir Richard may have his likes and
dislikes, but I am not his slave; nor yet his servant, for the matter of
that. While Master Walter, who, saving your presence, everybody knows to
be worth a hundred of him, likes Ralph very much.”
A pang shot across my Lady's face, and left it crimson, as though she
had received a blow; but the waiting-maid little knew what had brought
the colour there, although she felt that she had pained her mistress
deeply.
“God forgive me,” cried she penitently, “if my foolish tongue has hurt
your feelings, my Lady! I did not mean to say aught against Sir Richard,
I am sure. I scarcely knew what I said, for when those are dear to
us--as Ralph has grown to be with me, and I don't deny it--are misjudged
and wronged, why, then, we are apt to say bitter things. This talk was
none of my seeking, my Lady; and although Ralph thinks that you are to
blame because of his being forbidden the Hall, and all the rest of it,
I have always told him you have never said a word to set me against him;
and oh, I am sorry you are doing it now, because what is done cannot be
undone, and”----
“Great Heaven! you are not married to this man?” cried my Lady, rising
from her seat with agitation.
“O no, my Lady--certainly not, my Lady,” rejoined the waiting-maid with
a certain demure dignity. “There has been nothing underhand between us
in the matter at all, except, that is, so far as meeting Mr Derrick at
the back gate”----
“Did you go out to meet him _to-night?_” inquired Lady Lisgard sharply,
and keeping her eyes fixed steadily upon her attendant's face. “No,
madam, I did not.”
“She is speaking truth,” murmured my Lady to herself. “Who, then, could
it be whom I saw upon the churchyard path just now?”
“Although,” continued Mrs Forest quietly, “I don't deny that I have
often met him after dusk, no other time being permitted to us; but
to-day he has gone to town.”
“And you are to write to him thither to give him your final decision as
to whether you will become his wife or not.”
“How on earth do you know that, my Lady?” inquired the waiting-maid with
a curiosity even beyond her indignation.
“I _do_ know it, dear old friend,” answered Lady Lisgard tenderly, “and
it is because of that knowledge that I have sent for you to-night, to
strive to persuade you to write 'No,' while there is yet time.”
It was very seldom--not once in a year, perhaps--that Mary Forest was
ever out of temper with my Lady; but then such a supreme occasion as
the present had never occurred before. Underneath their mère superficial
relation of mistress and servant, they were more like elder and
younger sister; but then even sisters quarrel when the one wants
the other--generally under some pretence of mère prudence, not to be
listened to by a woman of spirit--to give up the man of her choice.
The ample countenance of Mistress Forest expressed something more than
Decision in the negative; there was an unpleasant smile upon her pale
lips, which seemed to say: “If you knew what I know, you would know that
you are wasting your breath.” She sat with her plump hands folded before
her, like a naughty boy that has been put in the corner, but who
does not care--nay, more, who knows that he has got a cracker to put
presently under his master's chair, the results of which will make full
amends for the inconvenience he at present experiences.
“I will say nothing more, Mary, of the mutual esteem and affection
between us two, and of the pain that an eternal parting--such as your
marriage with this Mr Derrick would most undoubtedly entail--needs must
cost us both. I presume that you have weighed that matter in your
mind, and found it--however weighty--insufficient to alter your
determination?”
Mary nodded, sharply enough, but it was doubtful if she could have
spoken. Already her features had lost their rigidity, as though melted
by my Lady's touching tones.
“You have known this person--that is to say, you have met him some
dozen times--during a period of less than four months; yet such is his
influence over you, that you are prepared to sacrifice for him a friend
of thirty years' standing, a comfortable home, and a position in which
you are respected by all who know you. If I was speaking to a young
girl, Mary, I should not advance these arguments; but you are a--a
wise and sensible woman, and yet not of such a mature age that you need
despair of finding a suitable partner for the rest of your life.”
Mistress Forest heaved a little sigh of relief, and her cheeks began
to tone down to something like their natural crimson; they _had_ been
purple with the apprehension of what my Lady might have said upon the
subject of age.
“Now, what is it,” pursued my Lady, “which has produced this confidence
in an almost entire stranger? Do you know anything of his former life,
which may be a guarantee to you for the stability of your future? Have
you ever met a single individual who is acquainted with it in any way?
For all you know, this man may have been a”----
“My Lady!”
For a moment, the relative position of Mentor and pupil were exchanged;
there was a quiet power about the waiting-maid's rebuke, for which an
archbishop would have given more than his blessing, if he could only
have incorporated it into a “charge.”
“You are right, Mary,” said my Lady frankly; “let us only speak of what
is within our own knowledge. Does this man's own conduct, then, give any
promise of lasting happiness to the woman who may become his wife? Is he
sober?”
“I believe he is fond of a glass, my Lady, as most men are who have no
home, or people to look after them. If he had a wife, he would never go
to the public-house at all, perhaps--he tells me so himself.”
My Lady smiled faintly.
“Is he industrious and provident, Mary?”
“He has earned his money hardly enough, my Lady, and it seems only
natural that he should now spend a little in enjoying himself.”
“But not fling his money to left and right--I use your own words, dear
Mary--and treat every chance-companion he comes across to liquor. Do you
suppose that at his age he is likely to change habits of this sort?”
“I am not aware, my Lady, that his age is anything against him,” replied
the waiting-maid coldly. “He is not so like to run through his money as
if he were younger, and particularly when he has got some one to provide
for beside himself. And indeed, so far as money goes, he has thousands
of pounds; and if all goes well with him--and something has occurred
to-day about which he has sent me a line by hand, dear fellow, by which
it has been made almost certain that things _will_ go well--he will be
a very rich man indeed after a week or two. There is some great race on
Epsom Downs”----
“O Mary, how can you talk so cheerfully of money acquired in that way.
If it is won to-day, it is lost to-morrow; and even if it were not so,
do you know that it is gained from those who can ill afford to lose it,
and who, having lost it, often turn to wicked ways?”
“I don't know about that, my Lady, I'm sure,” responded the waiting-maid
demurely; “I leave all these things to my betters. But, I suppose,
if racing was a crime, Mr Chifney would not be let to have the Abbey
Barn--Sir Richard being so very particular--and Master Walter would not
for ever be up at the stables. Why, he and Mr Derrick are both together,
hand and glove, in this very business--something about a French racer,
it is; although, when you and I were at Dijon, my Lady, we never heard
of there being such a thing in all France, did we?--so my poor Ralph
cannot be so very wicked after all. And please, ma'am, it is no use
saying anything more about it, for I have written him that letter
already which he was to find in London, and put it in the post.”
“And did you answer 'Yes,' or 'No,' Mary?”
“I answered 'Yes,' my Lady--that I would marry him--and begging your
pardon, madam, but I mean to stand to it.”