Early on the morning after his first night’s rest at Thorpe Ambrose,
Allan rose and surveyed the prospect from his bedroom window, lost in
the dense mental bewilderment of feeling himself to be a stranger in his
own house.
The bedroom looked out over the great front door, with its portico, its
terrace and flight of steps beyond, and, further still, the broad sweep
of the well-timbered park to close the view. The morning mist nestled
lightly about the distant trees; and the cows were feeding sociably,
close to the iron fence which railed off the park from the drive
in front of the house. “All mine!” thought Allan, staring in blank
amazement at the prospect of his own possessions. “Hang me if I can beat
it into my head yet. All mine!”
He dressed, left his room, and walked along the corridor which led to
the staircase and hall, opening the doors in succession as he passed
them.
The rooms in this part of the house were bedrooms and dressing-rooms,
light, spacious, perfectly furnished; and all empty, except the one
bed-chamber next to Allan’s, which had been appropriated to Midwinter.
He was still sleeping when his friend looked in on him, having sat late
into the night writing his letter to Mr. Brock. Allan went on to the end
of the first corridor, turned at right angles into a second, and, that
passed, gained the head of the great staircase. “No romance here,” he
said to himself, looking down the handsomely carpeted stone stairs into
the bright modern hall. “Nothing to startle Midwinter’s fidgety
nerves in this house.” There was nothing, indeed; Allan’s essentially
superficial observation had not misled him for once. The mansion of
Thorpe Ambrose (built after the pulling down of the dilapidated old
manor-house) was barely fifty years old. Nothing picturesque, nothing in
the slightest degree suggestive of mystery and romance, appeared in any
part of it. It was a purely conventional country house--the product of
the classical idea filtered judiciously through the commercial English
mind. Viewed on the outer side, it presented the spectacle of a modern
manufactory trying to look like an ancient temple. Viewed on the inner
side, it was a marvel of luxurious comfort in every part of it, from
basement to roof. “And quite right, too,” thought Allan, sauntering
contentedly down the broad, gently graduated stairs. “Deuce take all
mystery and romance! Let’s be clean and comfortable, that’s what I say.”
Arrived in the hall, the new master of Thorpe Ambrose hesitated, and
looked about him, uncertain which way to turn next.
The four reception-rooms on the ground-floor opened into the hall, two
on either side. Allan tried the nearest door on his right hand at a
venture, and found himself in the drawing-room. Here the first sign of
life appeared, under life’s most attractive form. A young girl was in
solitary possession of the drawing-room. The duster in her hand appeared
to associate her with the domestic duties of the house; but at that
particular moment she was occupied in asserting the rights of nature
over the obligations of service. In other words, she was attentively
contemplating her own face in the glass over the mantelpiece.
“There! there! don’t let me frighten you,” said Allan, as the girl
started away from the glass, and stared at him in unutterable confusion.
“I quite agree with you, my dear; your face is well worth looking at.
Who are you? Oh, the housemaid. And what’s your name? Susan, eh? Come!
I like your name, to begin with. Do you know who I am, Susan? I’m your
master, though you may not think it. Your character? Oh, yes! Mrs.
Blanchard gave you a capital character. You shall stop here; don’t be
afraid. And you’ll be a good girl, Susan, and wear smart little caps and
aprons and bright ribbons, and you’ll look nice and pretty, and dust the
furniture, won’t you?” With this summary of a housemaid’s duties, Allan
sauntered back into the hall, and found more signs of life in that
quarter. A man-servant appeared on this occasion, and bowed, as became a
vassal in a linen jacket, before his liege lord in a wide-awake hat.
“And who may you be?” asked Allan. “Not the man who let us in last
night? Ah, I thought not. The second footman, eh? Character? Oh, yes;
capital character. Stop here, of course. You can valet me, can you?
Bother valeting me! I like to put on my own clothes, and brush them,
too, when they _are_ on; and, if I only knew how to black my own boots,
by George, I should like to do it! What room’s this? Morning-room, eh?
And here’s the dining-room, of course. Good heavens, what a table! it’s
as long as my yacht, and longer. I say, by-the-by, what’s your name?
Richard, is it? Well, Richard, the vessel I sail in is a vessel of my
own building! What do you think of that? You look to me just the right
sort of man to be my steward on board. If you’re not sick at sea--oh,
you _are_ sick at sea? Well, then, we’ll say nothing more about it.
And what room is this? Ah, yes; the library, of course--more in Mr.
Midwinter’s way than mine. Mr. Midwinter is the gentleman who came here
with me last night; and mind this, Richard, you’re all to show him as
much attention as you show me. Where are we now? What’s this door at the
back? Billiard-room and smoking-room, eh? Jolly. Another door! and more
stairs! Where do they go to? and who’s this coming up? Take your time,
ma’am; you’re not quite so young as you were once--take your time.”
The object of Allan’s humane caution was a corpulent elderly woman of
the type called “motherly.” Fourteen stairs were all that separated her
from the master of the house; she ascended them with fourteen stoppages
and fourteen sighs. Nature, various in all things, is infinitely various
in the female sex. There are some women whose personal qualities reveal
the Loves and the Graces; and there are other women whose personal
qualities suggest the Perquisites and the Grease Pot. This was one of
the other women.
“Glad to see you looking so well, ma’am,” said Allan, when the cook, in
the majesty of her office, stood proclaimed before him. “Your name is
Gripper, is it? I consider you, Mrs. Gripper, the most valuable person
in the house. For this reason, that nobody in the house eats a heartier
dinner every day than I do. Directions? Oh, no; I’ve no directions to
give. I leave all that to you. Lots of strong soup, and joints done
with the gravy in them--there’s my notion of good feeding, in two
words. Steady! Here’s somebody else. Oh, to be sure--the butler! Another
valuable person. We’ll go right through all the wine in the cellar,
Mr. Butler; and if I can’t give you a sound opinion after that,
we’ll persevere boldly, and go right through it again. Talking of
wine--halloo! here are more of them coming up stairs. There! there!
don’t trouble yourselves. You’ve all got capital characters, and you
shall all stop here along with me. What was I saying just now? Something
about wine; so it was. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Butler, it isn’t every
day that a new master comes to Thorpe Ambrose; and it’s my wish that we
should all start together on the best possible terms. Let the servants
have a grand jollification downstairs to celebrate my arrival, and
give them what they like to drink my health in. It’s a poor heart, Mrs.
Gripper, that never rejoices, isn’t it? No; I won’t look at the cellar
now: I want to go out, and get a breath of fresh air before breakfast.
Where’s Richard? I say, have I got a garden here? Which side of the
house is it! That side, eh? You needn’t show me round. I’ll go alone,
Richard, and lose myself, if I can, in my own property.”
With those words Allan descended the terrace steps in front of the
house, whistling cheerfully. He had met the serious responsibility of
settling his domestic establishment to his own entire satisfaction.
“People talk of the difficulty of managing their servants,” thought
Allan. “What on earth do they mean? I don’t see any difficulty at all.”
He opened an ornamental gate leading out of the drive at the side of the
house, and, following the footman’s directions, entered the shrubbery
that sheltered the Thorpe Ambrose gardens. “Nice shady sort of place
for a cigar,” said Allan, as he sauntered along with his hands in his
pockets “I wish I could beat it into my head that it really belongs to
_me_.”
The shrubbery opened on the broad expanse of a flower garden, flooded
bright in its summer glory by the light of the morning sun.
On one side, an archway, broken through, a wall, led into the fruit
garden. On the other, a terrace of turf led to ground on a lower level,
laid out as an Italian garden. Wandering past the fountains and statues,
Allan reached another shrubbery, winding its way apparently to some
remote part of the grounds. Thus far, not a human creature had been
visible or audible anywhere; but, as he approached the end of the second
shrubbery, it struck him that he heard something on the other side of
the foliage. He stopped and listened. There were two voices speaking
distinctly--an old voice that sounded very obstinate, and a young voice
that sounded very angry.
“It’s no use, miss,” said the old voice. “I mustn’t allow it, and I
won’t allow it. What would Mr. Armadale say?”
“If Mr. Armadale is the gentleman I take him for, you old brute!”
replied the young voice, “he would say, ‘Come into my garden, Miss
Milroy, as often as you like, and take as many nosegays as you please.’”
Allan’s bright blue eyes twinkled mischievously. Inspired by a sudden
idea, he stole softly to the end of the shrubbery, darted round the
corner of it, and, vaulting over a low ring fence, found himself in a
trim little paddock, crossed by a gravel walk. At a short distance down
the wall stood a young lady, with her back toward him, trying to force
her way past an impenetrable old man, with a rake in his hand, who stood
obstinately in front of her, shaking his head.
“Come into my garden, Miss Milroy, as often as you like, and take as
many nosegays as you please,” cried Allan, remorselessly repeating her
own words.
The young lady turned round, with a scream; her muslin dress, which she
was holding up in front, dropped from her hand, and a prodigious lapful
of flowers rolled out on the gravel walk.
Before another word could be said, the impenetrable old man stepped
forward, with the utmost composure, and entered on the question of his
own personal interests, as if nothing whatever had happened, and nobody
was present but his new master and himself.
“I bid you humbly welcome to Thorpe Ambrose, sir,” said this ancient of
the gardens. “My name is Abraham Sage. I’ve been employed in the grounds
for more than forty years; and I hope you’ll be pleased to continue me
in my place.”
So, with vision inexorably limited to the horizon of his own prospects,
spoke the gardener, and spoke in vain. Allan was down on his knees on
the gravel walk, collecting the fallen flowers, and forming his first
impressions of Miss Milroy from the feet upward.
She was pretty; she was not pretty; she charmed, she disappointed, she
charmed again. Tried by recognized line and rule, she was too short and
too well developed for her age. And yet few men’s eyes would have wished
her figure other than it was. Her hands were so prettily plump and
dimpled that it was hard to see how red they were with the blessed
exuberance of youth and health. Her feet apologized gracefully for her
old and ill fitting shoes; and her shoulders made ample amends for the
misdemeanor in muslin which covered them in the shape of a dress. Her
dark-gray eyes were lovely in their clear softness of color, in their
spirit, tenderness, and sweet good humor of expression; and her hair
(where a shabby old garden hat allowed it to be seen) was of just that
lighter shade of brown which gave value by contrast to the darker
beauty of her eyes. But these attractions passed, the little attendant
blemishes and imperfections of this self-contradictory girl began again.
Her nose was too short, her mouth was too large, her face was too round
and too rosy. The dreadful justice of photography would have had no
mercy on her; and the sculptors of classical Greece would have bowed
her regretfully out of their studios. Admitting all this, and more, the
girdle round Miss Milroy’s waist was the girdle of Venus nevertheless;
and the passkey that opens the general heart was the key she carried,
if ever a girl possessed it yet. Before Allan had picked up his second
handful of flowers, Allan was in love with her.
“Don’t! pray don’t, Mr. Armadale!” she said, receiving the flowers under
protest, as Allan vigorously showered them back into the lap of her
dress. “I am so ashamed! I didn’t mean to invite myself in that bold way
into your garden; my tongue ran away with me--it did, indeed! What can I
say to excuse myself? Oh, Mr. Armadale, what must you think of me?”
Allan suddenly saw his way to a compliment, and tossed it up to her
forthwith, with the third handful of flowers.
“I’ll tell you what I think, Miss Milroy,” he said, in his blunt, boyish
way. “I think the luckiest walk I ever took in my life was the walk this
morning that brought me here.”
He looked eager and handsome. He was not addressing a woman worn out
with admiration, but a girl just beginning a woman’s life; and it did
him no harm, at any rate, to speak in the character of master of Thorpe
Ambrose. The penitential expression on Miss Milroy’s face gently melted
away; she looked down, demure and smiling, at the flowers in her lap.
“I deserve a good scolding,” she said. “I don’t deserve compliments, Mr.
Armadale--least of all from _you_.”
“Oh, yes, you do!” cried the headlong Allan, getting briskly on
his legs. “Besides, it isn’t a compliment; it’s true. You are the
prettiest--I beg your pardon, Miss Milroy! _my_ tongue ran away with me
that time.”
Among the heavy burdens that are laid on female human nature, perhaps
the heaviest, at the age of sixteen, is the burden of gravity. Miss
Milroy struggled, tittered, struggled again, and composed herself for
the time being.
The gardener, who still stood where he had stood from the first,
immovably waiting for his next opportunity, saw it now, and gently
pushed his personal interests into the first gap of silence that had
opened within his reach since Allan’s appearance on the scene.
“I humbly bid you welcome to Thorpe Ambrose, sir,” said Abraham Sage,
beginning obstinately with his little introductory speech for the second
time. “My name--”
Before he could deliver himself of his name, Miss Milroy looked
accidentally in the horticulturist’s pertinacious face, and instantly
lost her hold on her gravity beyond recall. Allan, never backward in
following a boisterous example of any sort, joined in her laughter with
right goodwill. The wise man of the gardens showed no surprise, and took
no offense. He waited for another gap of silence, and walked in again
gently with his personal interests the moment the two young people
stopped to take breath.
“I have been employed in the grounds,” proceeded Abraham Sage,
irrepressibly, “for more than forty years--”
“You shall be employed in the grounds for forty more, if you’ll only
hold your tongue and take yourself off!” cried Allan, as soon as he
could speak.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the gardener, with the utmost politeness,
but with no present signs either of holding his tongue or of taking
himself off.
“Well?” said Allan.
Abraham Sage carefully cleared his throat, and shifted his rake from
one hand to the other. He looked down the length of his own invaluable
implement, with a grave interest and attention, seeing, apparently, not
the long handle of a rake, but the long perspective of a vista, with a
supplementary personal interest established at the end of it. “When
more convenient, sir,” resumed this immovable man, “I should wish
respectfully to speak to you about my son. Perhaps it may be more
convenient in the course of the day? My humble duty, sir, and my best
thanks. My son is strictly sober. He is accustomed to the stables, and
he belongs to the Church of England--without incumbrances.” Having thus
planted his offspring provisionally in his master’s estimation, Abraham
Sage shouldered his invaluable rake, and hobbled slowly out of view.
“If that’s a specimen of a trustworthy old servant,” said Allan, “I
think I’d rather take my chance of being cheated by a new one. _You_
shall not be troubled with him again, Miss Milroy, at any rate. All the
flower-beds in the garden are at your disposal, and all the fruit in the
fruit season, if you’ll only come here and eat it.”
“Oh, Mr. Armadale, how very, very kind you are. How can I thank you?”
Allan saw his way to another compliment--an elaborate compliment, in the
shape of a trap, this time.
“You can do me the greatest possible favor,” he said. “You can assist me
in forming an agreeable impression of my own grounds.”
“Dear me! how?” asked Miss Milroy, innocently.
Allan judiciously closed the trap on the spot in these words: “By taking
me with you, Miss Milroy, on your morning walk.” He spoke, smiled, and
offered his arm.
She saw the way, on her side, to a little flirtation. She rested her
hand on his arm, blushed, hesitated, and suddenly took it away again.
“I don’t think it’s quite right, Mr. Armadale,” she said, devoting
herself with the deepest attention to her collection of flowers.
“Oughtn’t we to have some old lady here? Isn’t it improper to take your
arm until I know you a little better than I do now? I am obliged to ask;
I have had so little instruction; I have seen so little of society, and
one of papa’s friends once said my manners were too bold for my age.
What do _you_ think?”
“I think it’s a very good thing your papa’s friend is not here now,”
answered the outspoken Allan; “I should quarrel with him to a dead
certainty. As for society, Miss Milroy, nobody knows less about it than
I do; but if we _had_ an old lady here, I must say myself I think she
would be uncommonly in the way. Won’t you?” concluded Allan, imploringly
offering his arm for the second time. “Do!”
Miss Milroy looked up at him sidelong from her flowers “You are as bad
as the gardener, Mr. Armadale!” She looked down again in a flutter
of indecision. “I’m sure it’s wrong,” she said, and took his arm the
instant afterward without the slightest hesitation.
They moved away together over the daisied turf of the paddock, young
and bright and happy, with the sunlight of the summer morning shining
cloudless over their flowery path.
“And where are we going to, now?” asked Allan. “Into another garden?”
She laughed gayly. “How very odd of you, Mr. Armadale, not to know, when
it all belongs to you! Are you really seeing Thorpe Ambrose this morning
for the first time? How indescribably strange it must feel! No, no;
don’t say any more complimentary things to me just yet. You may turn my
head if you do. We haven’t got the old lady with us; and I really must
take care of myself. Let me be useful; let me tell you all about your
own grounds. We are going out at that little gate, across one of the
drives in the park, and then over the rustic bridge, and then round
the corner of the plantation--where do you think? To where I live, Mr.
Armadale; to the lovely little cottage that you have let to papa. Oh, if
you only knew how lucky we thought ourselves to get it!”
She paused, looked up at her companion, and stopped another compliment
on the incorrigible Allan’s lips.
“I’ll drop your arm,” she said coquettishly, “if you do! We _were_ lucky
to get the cottage, Mr. Armadale. Papa said he felt under an obligation
to you for letting it, the day we got in. And _I_ said I felt under an
obligation, no longer ago than last week.”
“You, Miss Milroy!” exclaimed Allan.
“Yes. It may surprise you to hear it; but if you hadn’t let the cottage
to papa, I believe I should have suffered the indignity and misery of
being sent to school.”
Allan’s memory reverted to the half-crown that he had spun on the
cabin-table of the yacht, at Castletown. “If she only knew that I had
tossed up for it!” he thought, guiltily.
“I dare say you don’t understand why I should feel such a horror of
going to school,” pursued Miss Milroy, misinterpreting the momentary
silence on her companion’s side. “If I had gone to school in early
life--I mean at the age when other girls go--I shouldn’t have minded it
now. But I had no such chance at the time. It was the time of mamma’s
illness and of papa’s unfortunate speculation; and as papa had nobody to
comfort him but me, of course I stayed at home. You needn’t laugh; I was
of some use, I can tell you. I helped papa over his trouble, by sitting
on his knee after dinner, and asking him to tell me stories of all the
remarkable people he had known when he was about in the great world, at
home and abroad. Without me to amuse him in the evening, and his clock
to occupy him in the daytime--”
“His clock?” repeated Allan.
“Oh, yes! I ought to have told you. Papa is an extraordinary mechanical
genius. You will say so, too, when you see his clock. It’s nothing
like so large, of course, but it’s on the model of the famous clock
at Strasbourg. Only think, he began it when I was eight years old; and
(though I was sixteen last birthday) it isn’t finished yet! Some of our
friends were quite surprised he should take to such a thing when his
troubles began. But papa himself set that right in no time; he reminded
them that Louis the Sixteenth took to lock-making when _his_ troubles
began, and then everybody was perfectly satisfied.” She stopped, and
changed color confusedly. “Oh, Mr. Armadale,” she said, in genuine
embarrassment this time, “here is my unlucky tongue running away with me
again! I am talking to you already as if I had known you for years! This
is what papa’s friend meant when he said my manners were too bold. It’s
quite true; I have a dreadful way of getting familiar with people, if--”
She checked herself suddenly, on the brink of ending the sentence by
saying, “if I like them.”
“No, no; do go on!” pleaded Allan. “It’s a fault of mine to be familiar,
too. Besides, we _must_ be familiar; we are such near neighbors. I’m
rather an uncultivated sort of fellow, and I don’t know quite how to say
it; but I want your cottage to be jolly and friendly with my house, and
my house to be jolly and friendly with your cottage. There’s my meaning,
all in the wrong words. Do go on, Miss Milroy; pray go on!”
She smiled and hesitated. “I don’t exactly remember where I was,” she
replied, “I only remember I had something I wanted to tell you. This
comes, Mr. Armadale, of my taking your arm. I should get on so much
better, if you would only consent to walk separately. You won’t? Well,
then, will you tell me what it was I wanted to say? Where was I before I
went wandering off to papa’s troubles and papa’s clock?”
“At school!” replied Allan, with a prodigious effort of memory.
“_Not_ at school, you mean,” said Miss Milroy; “and all through _you_.
Now I can go on again, which is a great comfort. I am quite serious, Mr.
Armadale, in saying that I should have been sent to school, if you had
said No when papa proposed for the cottage. This is how it happened.
When we began moving in, Mrs. Blanchard sent us a most kind message from
the great house to say that her servants were at our disposal, if we
wanted any assistance. The least papa and I could do, after that, was to
call and thank her. We saw Mrs. Blanchard and Miss Blanchard. Mistress
was charming, and miss looked perfectly lovely in her mourning. I’m sure
you admire her? She’s tall and pale and graceful--quite your idea of
beauty, I should think?”
“Nothing like it,” began Allan. “My idea of beauty at the present
moment--”
Miss Milroy felt it coming, and instantly took her hand off his arm.
“I mean I have never seen either Mrs. Blanchard or her niece,” added
Allan, precipitately correcting himself.
Miss Milroy tempered justice with mercy, and put her hand back again.
“How extraordinary that you should never have seen them!” she went on.
“Why, you are a perfect stranger to everything and everybody at Thorpe
Ambrose! Well, after Miss Blanchard and I had sat and talked a little
while, I heard my name on Mrs. Blanchard’s lips and instantly held my
breath. She was asking papa if I had finished my education. Out came
papa’s great grievance directly. My old governess, you must know, left
us to be married just before we came here, and none of our friends
could produce a new one whose terms were reasonable. ‘I’m told, Mrs.
Blanchard, by people who understand it better than I do,’ says papa,
‘that advertising is a risk. It all falls on me, in Mrs. Milroy’s state
of health, and I suppose I must end in sending my little girl to school.
Do you happen to know of a school within the means of a poor man?’ Mrs.
Blanchard shook her head; I could have kissed her on the spot for doing
it. ‘All my experience, Major Milroy,’ says this perfect angel of a
woman, ‘is in favor of advertising. My niece’s governess was originally
obtained by an advertisement, and you may imagine her value to us when I
tell you she lived in our family for more than ten years.’ I could have
gone down on both my knees and worshipped Mrs. Blanchard then and there;
and I only wonder I didn’t! Papa was struck at the time--I could see
that--and he referred to it again on the way home. ‘Though I have been
long out of the world, my dear,’ says papa, ‘I know a highly-bred woman
and a sensible woman when I see her. Mrs. Blanchard’s experience puts
advertising in a new light; I must think about it.’ He has thought about
it, and (though he hasn’t openly confessed it to me) I know that he
decided to advertise, no later than last night. So, if papa thanks you
for letting the cottage, Mr. Armadale, I thank you, too. But for you, we
should never have known darling Mrs. Blanchard; and but for darling Mrs.
Blanchard, I should have been sent to school.”
Before Allan could reply, they turned the corner of the plantation,
and came in sight of the cottage. Description of it is needless; the
civilized universe knows it already. It was the typical cottage of the
drawing-master’s early lessons in neat shading and the broad pencil
touch--with the trim thatch, the luxuriant creepers, the modest
lattice-windows, the rustic porch, and the wicker bird-cage, all
complete.
“Isn’t it lovely?” said Miss Milroy. “Do come in!”
“May I?” asked Allan. “Won’t the major think it too early?”
“Early or late, I am sure papa will be only too glad to see you.”
She led the way briskly up the garden path, and opened the parlor door.
As Allan followed her into the little room, he saw, at the further end
of it, a gentleman sitting alone at an old-fashioned writing-table, with
his back turned to his visitor.
“Papa! a surprise for you!” said Miss Milroy, rousing him from his
occupation. “Mr. Armadale has come to Thorpe Ambrose; and I have brought
him here to see you.”
The major started; rose, bewildered for the moment; recovered
himself immediately, and advanced to welcome his young landlord, with
hospitable, outstretched hand.
A man with a larger experience of the world and a finer observation
of humanity than Allan possessed would have seen the story of Major
Milroy’s life written in Major Milroy’s face. The home troubles that
had struck him were plainly betrayed in his stooping figure and his wan,
deeply wrinkled cheeks, when he first showed himself on rising from
his chair. The changeless influence of one monotonous pursuit and one
monotonous habit of thought was next expressed in the dull, dreamy
self-absorption of his manner and his look while his daughter was
speaking to him. The moment after, when he had roused himself to welcome
his guest, was the moment which made the self-revelation complete. Then
there flickered in the major’s weary eyes a faint reflection of the
spirit of his happier youth. Then there passed over the major’s dull
and dreamy manner a change which told unmistakably of social graces and
accomplishments, learned at some past time in no ignoble social school;
a man who had long since taken his patient refuge from trouble in his
own mechanical pursuit; a man only roused at intervals to know himself
again for what he once had been. So revealed to all eyes that could read
him aright, Major Milroy now stood before Allan, on the first morning of
an acquaintance which was destined to be an event in Allan’s life.
“I am heartily glad to see you, Mr. Armadale,” he said, speaking in the
changeless quiet, subdued tone peculiar to most men whose occupations
are of the solitary and monotonous kind. “You have done me one favor
already by taking me as your tenant, and you now do me another by paying
this friendly visit. If you have not breakfasted already, let me waive
all ceremony on my side, and ask you to take your place at our little
table.”
“With the greatest pleasure, Major Milroy, if I am not in the way,”
replied Allan, delighted at his reception. “I was sorry to hear from
Miss Milroy that Mrs. Milroy is an invalid. Perhaps my being here
unexpectedly; perhaps the sight of a strange face--”
“I understand your hesitation, Mr. Armadale,” said the major; “but it is
quite unnecessary. Mrs. Milroy’s illness keeps her entirely confined to
her own room. Have we got everything we want on the table, my love?” he
went on, changing the subject so abruptly that a closer observer than
Allan might have suspected it was distasteful to him. “Will you come and
make tea?”
Miss Milroy’s attention appeared to be already pre-engaged; she made no
reply. While her father and Allan had been exchanging civilities, she
had been putting the writing-table in order, and examining the various
objects scattered on it with the unrestrained curiosity of a spoiled
child. The moment after the major had spoken to her, she discovered a
morsel of paper hidden between the leaves of the blotting-book, snatched
it up, looked at it, and turned round instantly, with an exclamation of
surprise.
“Do my eyes deceive me, papa?” she asked. “Or were you really and truly
writing the advertisement when I came in?”
“I had just finished it,” replied her father. “But, my dear, Mr.
Armadale is here--we are waiting for breakfast.”
“Mr. Armadale knows all about it,” rejoined Miss Milroy. “I told him in
the garden.”
“Oh, yes!” said Allan. “Pray, don’t make a stranger of me, major! If
it’s about the governess, I’ve got something (in an indirect sort of
way) to do with it too.”
Major Milroy smiled. Before he could answer, his daughter, who had been
reading the advertisement, appealed to him eagerly, for the second time.
“Oh, papa,” she said, “there’s one thing here I don’t like at all! Why
do you put grandmamma’s initials at the end? Why do you tell them to
write to grandmamma’s house in London?”
“My dear! your mother can do nothing in this matter, as you know. And
as for me (even if I went to London), questioning strange ladies about
their characters and accomplishments is the last thing in the world that
I am fit to do. Your grandmamma is on the spot; and your grandmamma is
the proper person to receive the letters, and to make all the necessary
inquires.”
“But I want to see the letters myself,” persisted the spoiled child.
“Some of them are sure to be amusing--”
“I don’t apologize for this very unceremonious reception of you, Mr.
Armadale,” said the major, turning to Allan, with a quaint and quiet
humor. “It may be useful as a warning, if you ever chance to marry and
have a daughter, not to begin, as I have done, by letting her have her
own way.”
Allan laughed, and Miss Milroy persisted.
“Besides,” she went on, “I should like to help in choosing which letters
we answer, and which we don’t. I think I ought to have some voice in the
selection of my own governess. Why not tell them, papa, to send their
letters down here--to the post-office or the stationer’s, or anywhere
you like? When you and I have read them, we can send up the letters we
prefer to grandmamma; and she can ask all the questions, and pick out
the best governess, just as you have arranged already, without leaving
ME entirely in the dark, which I consider (don’t you, Mr. Armadale?)
to be quite inhuman. Let me alter the address, papa; do, there’s a
darling!”
“We shall get no breakfast, Mr. Armadale, if I don’t say Yes,” said the
major good-humoredly. “Do as you like, my dear,” he added, turning to
his daughter. “As long as it ends in your grandmamma’s managing the
matter for us, the rest is of very little consequence.”
Miss Milroy took up her father’s pen, drew it through the last line of
the advertisement, and wrote the altered address with her own hand as
follows:
“_Apply, by letter, to M., Post-office, Thorpe Ambrose, Norfolk_.”
“There!” she said, bustling to her place at the breakfast-table. “The
advertisement may go to London now; and, if a governess _does_ come of
it, oh, papa, who in the name of wonder will she be? Tea or coffee, Mr.
Armadale? I’m really ashamed of having kept you waiting. But it is such
a comfort,” she added, saucily, “to get all one’s business off one’s
mind before breakfast!”
Father, daughter, and guest sat down together sociably at the little
round table, the best of good neighbors and good friends already.
Three days later, one of the London newsboys got _his_ business off his
mind before breakfast. His district was Diana Street, Pimlico; and the
last of the morning’s newspapers which he disposed of was the newspaper
he left at Mrs. Oldershaw’s door.