|I SUPPOSE, Mary, that I shall be sure of getting a letter from Mr
Arthur today?” observed my Lady to her maid, as that confidential
domestic was proceeding with the duties--which were by no means
mysteries--of her toilet, upon the morning after the picnic at Belcomb.
He is certain to reply concerning a matter which was important enough
to cause the use of the telegraph.”
“I suppose so, my Lady: very like.”
Nothing could be more in contrast than the tones in which these two
persons had spoken; the question had been earnest, almost fervent, and
one which evidently was put in order to evoke an affirmative answer; the
reply was given carelessly enough, or rather as though the thoughts of
her who uttered it were absent from the matter altogether.
“'_Very likely_,' Mary! Why, how can it be otherwise? Just run down and
open the letter-bag; you know where to find the key.”
“Yes, my Lady.”
As Mary Forest left the room, she cast at her beloved mistress, whose
eyes were fixed thoughtfully upon the pattern of the carpet, and
observed her not, a look of unspeakable love and pity; and when the door
was shut between them, she burst into a passion of silent tears.
“It will kill her,” murmured she; “she can never survive this second
trouble. Sorrow and shame, sorrow and shame, are all that fall to my
dear mistress now. _How_ shall I tell her? May Heaven give her strength
to bear it; but I wish, for her sake, that she was dead, and already the
angel she deserves to be----Ah, you minx!” ejaculated Mary, interrupting
herself as she passed Miss Aynton's room, and shaking her plump fist at
its unconscious tenant; “you'll go to quite another place, and serve you
right too.” And seemingly comforted by this reflection, she wiped her
eyes with the hem of her apron, and hurried down the back-stairs upon
her errand.
“What will Arthur think?” mused my Lady, as she awaited her maid's
return with a beating heart. “He will certainly connect the request to
destroy that letter with what I said to him at the Watersmeet a while
ago, about”--she did not utter the concluding words at all, but only
formed them with her lips--“poor Ralph. If Arthur suspects, it will be
with him the first step to knowledge; and yet he would never use it to
my hurt. If there were anything amiss in the concealment of this matter,
then I should fear him, for he is the soul of honour. But my bastard
son--God help him, if he ever comes to know it--robs nobody even of this
barren title, and my children's money is due to no one else. They might
have been paupers as well as bastards; let their mother comfort herself
with that thought all she can.” My Lady's lips were crooked into a
bitter smile: hers was not a cynical face--far from it--and such an
expression misbecame it sadly; it looked more like a contortion of the
mouth induced by bodily pain.--“Well, Mary, is there no letter from Mr
Arthur?”
“No, ma'am; none.”
“Then there is one more cause for anxiety added to the rest of my
troubles, that is all. Ah me, how foolishly I used to fret myself in
days when there was no cause! Perhaps he never got the telegraph, and
not understanding why the letter came to him, has transmitted it back
to--to the person to whom it was addressed.--Mary, you had better
presently run over to the _Lisgard Arms_, and see to that. Steve will
give it up, if you explain to him that it is your handwriting. Tell him,
if necessary, that I promise him he shall not lose the inn. I must have
that letter. Mr Arthur could not possibly know the London address of--of
that person, could he?”
“Very likely, my Lady, yes--at least, I don't know.”
“Mary!”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” replied the waiting-maid, starting like one
aroused from a dream. “I was not thinking what I said; I was thinking of
something else.”
“I think you might give me your attention, Mary,” returned my Lady
sighing: “you cannot be thinking of anything so momentous as this
matter, which involves sorrow, shame, and perchance utter ruin.”
“Alas! but I can, my Lady,” answered the other gravely; “and I am doing
it. There has something happened worse than anything you can guess at.
Master Walter”----
“Great Heaven! has any accident happened to my boy? I saw him hut an
hour ago; he came into my room, dear fellow, to bid me good-bye before
he started for the station. The young horse was in the dog-cart----”
“Mary, Mary, do not--do not tell me that my Walter is killed!”
“He is quite well, my Lady, so far as I know--quite well in health.”
“Thank Heaven for that! Bless you for that, Mary! Why did you frighten
me so, if there is nothing the matter?”
“There is something the matter, my Lady. Pray, command yourself;
you will have need of all your fortitude. I would never tell it
you--burdened as you are already--only you must know it; _you_, above
all, and no one else, if we can help it.”
“More secrets! more deception, Mary! Spare me, if you can, dear friend;
I am sorely tried already.”
“I cannot spare you, my Lady, or I would do so, Heaven knows; nay, I
would almost take the shame upon my own shoulders, if that might shield
you from the sorrow it must needs bring with it. Miss Letty”----
“It is not fit that Shame and my daughter should be mentioned in the
same breath,” replied my Lady, rising, and speaking with dignity. “Do
not continue; I forbid you to speak. What you were going to say is
false, and I will not listen.”
“It is true, my Lady--true as that the sun is shining now. Of course,
Miss Letty has nothing to do with it; but it was through her I learned
it.”
“Does she _know_ it, then?” asked my Lady sternly.
“Certainly not, madam; and Heaven grant she never may. She's as
pure-minded as any seraph, and, like Charity, thinketh no evil. But she
told me this afternoon--seeing that you were troubled, and not liking
to pain you, perhaps without reason, and speaking to me as her old nurse
and friend, who loves all the Lisgards, good and bad (for they are not
all good, alas, alas!), and who will love them to the end--she told
me that something which she had overheard between Miss Rose and Master
Walter”----
“You mean Sir Richard,” interposed my Lady.
“No, madam--his brother. It was Master Walter that I was speaking of the
other day in the carriage, and whom I understood your Ladyship to
say that Miss Aynton had refused. I knew very well that they were
love-making, flirting and such like upon the sly; but I did not know--I
could not suspect----- O mistress dear, a terrible disgrace has befallen
you, through that infamous young hussy, Miss Rose Aynton--though
what Master Walter could have seen in the Jade, I am sure passes my
comprehension altogether.”
“Disgrace! Walter! Rose Aynton! What do you mean, woman?” asked my Lady
angrily. “You must be mad, to say such things. I heard Sir Richard ask
the girl to be his wife with my own ears, and she refused him.”
“Did she, my Lady? Well, I'm surprised at that, for I should have
thought she would have stuck at _nothing_.--But let me tell the whole
story. What Miss Letty heard at the picnic was this: she heard Master
Walter cursing Miss Rose. That was an odd thing for a young gentleman
to do to a young lady--although, for that matter, I have no doubt she
_deserved_ it--was it not? Well, that was what Miss Letty thought. She
had never heard such words before, and could scarcely force her innocent
lips to repeat them; but I made her do it. And certainly Master Walter
expressed himself pretty strong. It seems he was angered about the young
woman's behaviour to his brother yesterday”----
“Ay,” interrupted my Lady quietly, and still thinking that the prejudice
of her waiting-maid had much exaggerated matters, “that was partly my
fault; I begged Miss Aynton to be more complaisant in her manner to Sir
Richard.”
“Well, Master Walter might have been annoyed, madam, but what right had
he to be _jealous!_ and especially what relation could exist between him
and Miss Rose, which justified him in using such dreadful words? Fancy
_swearing_ at her, my Lady!”
“Yes, that is shocking indeed, Mary. Miss Letty, however, must certainly
have misunderstood him.”
“That's what I told her, my Lady, in hopes to quiet her a bit; but I did
not believe it myself, no more than you do. We don't suppose that Miss
Letty invented the oaths, do we?”
“That is true,” sighed Lady Lisgard. “It makes me very wretched to think
that my boy Walter should have so far forgotten himself as to use such
language to a young girl--a guest, too, in his mother's house. I shall
certainly demand an explanation of it from his own lips.”
“Alas, there is no need, madam,” returned the waiting-maid. “I can tell
you all--if you can bear to listen to it.”
“I am listening,” said my Lady wearily; but she sat with her back
towards Mistress Forest, and once, in the course of her recital, she
uttered a piteous moan, and covered her face with her hands.
“When Miss Letty told me what I have just said, my Lady, and had parted
from me a little comforted, trying to persuade herself that she really
might have been mistaken in what she had overheard, I instantly sought
out Anne Rees, and bade her come with me to my room. You wouldn't have
believed it in a girl as you yourself chose out of the village school,
and who has been at the Abbey under my own eye for four years; but she
refused point-blank: very respectful, I must say, but also very firm. 'I
durstn't do it,' said she, all of a twitter--'not till Miss Rose is abed
and asleep; or if I do, you may be certain sure as she will come to know
it, and get out of me every word that may pass between us two.'
“The girl looked as scared as though she had seen a ghost, and yet my
request did not seem to come on her at all unexpected; and, in point of
fact, she knew what she was wanted for well enough. However, I thought
it best to let her have her way; and so it was arranged that she was to
come to my room as soon as she had done with the young ladies--although
'tis little enough, indeed, she has done for Miss Letty of late weeks,
but all for that spiteful little hussy, Miss Rose.
“'Now,' said I when I got her alone, 'Anne Rees, there is nobody to
listen to what we say, and you may speak to me as to your own mother.'
“'Ah, Mistress Forest,' answered she, beginning to whimper,' I only wish
I dared.'
“'This young lady has got you under her thumb, I see, Annie. Now, if
you'll tell me the whole truth of what is going on between her and
Master Walter, I promise you that I'll turn her thumb _back_. It will
hurt her a little--and that you won't be sorry for, perhaps--and it will
set you _free_.'
“'Oh, Mistress Forest, if you could only do _that_, I would be a good
girl all my life, and never try on other people's clothes again, nor be
a spy upon my Lady, and'---- Here she stopped quite short, and looked as
though she would have bitten her tongue off.
“'Now, Anne,' said I, 'you _must_ tell me, whether you will or not:
for you have gone too far to turn back. How did Miss Rose Aynton make a
slave of a well-conducted girl like you--with nothing but vanity, that
I know of, to be said against you--and compel you to do all this dirty
work for her?'
“Well, Mistress Forest, as you truly say, I was always a vain child;
and Heaven has punished me pretty sharp for it. One day, when the young
ladies were out, and I was in Miss Aynton's room a-setting it to rights,
what should I come upon--where, perhaps, I had no right to look for it,
for it was evidently-meant to be hidden--but a queer-shaped leather box
with trinkets in it.'
“'A jewel-case, I suppose you mean, Anne.'
“'Yes, ma'am; but they were none of those as Miss Aynton was in the
habit of wearing--nor had she that box when she first came: she must
have brought it down with her after she went back to London for a week
in the early part of the year. However, all as struck me then was the
beauty of the jewels; and I thought there was no harm in my just trying
them on in the front of the swing mirror. My ears not being pierced, I
couldn't fix the earrings, although I wouldn't a-minded a little pain,
and they sparkled like morning-dew; but I clasped on the pearl necklace
and the bracelets, and stood admiring myself in the looking-glass a
good long time. Then all of a sudden I saw an angry face looking over my
shoulder, and heard a cruel voice whisper: “Thief, thief!” just like the
hiss of a wood-snake. I scarcely recognised Miss Rose, who had always
looked so pleasant, and been such a smooth-spoken young lady.
“I could send you to prison, Anne Eees for this,” continued she, very
grave and slow; “and I _will_, too, if you don't do everything I tell
you. I hate a thief.”
“Lor, miss,” cried I, “have mercy, for Heaven's sake! I never meant to
thieve nothing.”
“And I hate a liar,” added she, looking so cold and cruel that she made
me shudder. “You break open my drawer--not a word, you had girl, or I'll
send to Dalwynch for a policeman--and I actually find my property on
your very person! You ought to go to jail for this; and perhaps I am
wrong not to send you there. However, remember; from this moment, you
are _my_ servant--only mine; and whatever I tell you to do, whether it
is against your late mistress or not, see that you do it; and dare not
to breathe one word of anything that I do, or speak, or possess--such as
these jewels, for instance--or you will rue it bitterly, Amie Rees.”
“'Of course I promised, Mistress Forest, for I was in such a state of
terror that I would have promised anything; but you cannot imagine to
what a slavery I bound myself!'
“'I know all about that, Anne.' said I: 'everybody knows you're become
a spy and a sneak. But there is no occasion for you to follow such
vocations any longer. My Lady would never believe a word of your
intending to steal those things: I can promise you her protection; so
make your mind quite easy upon that point.--But now, what about Master
Walter?'
“'Well, Mistress Forest, the jewels were his present, to begin with.
There have been very wicked goings on. It was quite dreadful to see her
kiss dear good Miss Letty at night, and return her “God bless you!” so
pious like, when she was not blessing her--I mean Miss Rose--at all. Oh,
Mistress Forest, I have known all this for weeks and weeks, and dared
not speak one word; and now the truth is almost too terrible to tell.'
“And then, my Lady,” pursued Mistress Forest, “she told me things which
it is not necessary to repeat to you. 'I knew she was telling truth; but
in order to assure myself that it was so, I crept out with naked feet,
and listened at Miss Aynton's door, and I heard _two_ voices”----
“Did you _recognise_ them, woman; are you sure of that?” asked my Lady
sternly.
“Ah, yes, madam--there is no doubt.”
“Heaven help us, and forgive us!” murmured my Lady, with bowed head.
“Ah, Walter, Walter, I had expected Shame, but not from deed of yours!
Where is this--Miss Aynton, Mary?”
“At her breakfast, my Lady; and doubtless making an exceedingly good
one. _She_ is not one to let her conscience interfere with her appetite,
bless you! Like the murderer under sentence in Dalwynch jail, as I read
of in the paper yesterday, she 'takes her meals with regularity,'
I warrant; and does not in any way physically deteriorate under the
distressing circumstances of her situation.”
“Send her to me, Mary--in the boudoir yonder,” said my Lady gravely.
“Tell her I desire to speak with her very particularly. Breakfast? No,
alas! I feel as though a morsel of food would choke me. Send her hither
at once.”