LADY VERNER.
AT the extremity of the village, lying a little back from it, was a
moderate-sized, red brick house, standing in the midst of lands, and
called Deerham Court. It had once been an extensive farm; but the
present tenant, Lionel's mother, rented the house, but only very little
of the land. The land was let to a neighbouring farmer. Nearly a mile
beyond--you could see its towers and its chimneys from the Court--rose
the stately old mansion, called Deerham Hall, Deerham Court, and a great
deal of the land and property on that side of the village, belonged to
Sir Rufus Hautley, a proud, unsociable man. He lived at the Hall; and
his only son, between whom and himself it was conjectured there existed
some estrangement, had purchased into an Indian regiment, where he was
now serving.
Lionel Verner passed the village, branched off to the right, and entered
the great iron gates which enclosed the courtyard of Deerham Court. A
very unpretending entrance admitted him into a spacious hall, the hall
being the largest and best part of the house. Those great iron gates and
the hall would have done honour to a large mansion; and they gave an
appearance of pretension to Deerham Court which it did not deserve.
Lionel opened a door on the left, and entered a small ante-room. This
led him into the only really good room the house contained. It was
elegantly furnished and fitted up, and its two large windows looked
towards the open country, and to Deerham Hall. Seated by the fire, in a
rich violet dress, a costly white lace cap shading her delicate face,
that must have been so beautiful, indeed, that was beautiful still, was
a lady of middle age. Her seat was low--one of those chairs we are
pleased to call, commonly and irreverently, a prie-dieu. Its back was
carved in arabesque foliage, and its seat was of rich violet velvet. On
a small inlaid table, whose carvings were as beautiful, and its top
inlaid with mosaic-work, lay a dainty handkerchief of lace, a bottle of
smelling-salts, and a book turned with its face downwards, all close at
the lady's elbow. She was sitting in idleness just then--she always did
sit in idleness--her face bent on the fire, her small hands, cased in
white gloves, lying motionless on her lap--ay, a beautiful face once,
though it had grown habitually peevish and discontented now. She turned
her head when the door opened, and a flush of bloom rose to her cheeks
when she saw Lionel.
He went up and kissed her. He loved her much. She loved him, too, better
than she loved anything in life; and she drew a chair close to her, and
he sat down, bending towards her. There was not much likeness between
them, the mother and the son; both were very good-looking, but not
alike.
"You see, mother mine, I am not late, as you prophesied I should be,"
said he, with one of his sweetest smiles.
"You would have been, Lionel, but for my warning. I'm sure I wish--I
_wish_ she was not coming! She must remember the old days in India, and
will perceive the difference."
"She will scarcely remember India, when you were there. She is only a
child yet, isn't she?"
"You know nothing about it, Lionel," was the querulous answer. "Whether
she remembers or not, will she expect to see _me_ in such a house, in
such a position as this? It is at these seasons, when people are coming
here, who know what I have been and ought to be, that I feel all the
humiliation of my poverty. Lucy Tempest is nineteen."
Lionel Verner knew that it was of no use to argue with his mother, when
she began upon that most unsatisfactory topic, her position; which
included what she called her "poverty" and her "wrongs." Though, in
truth, not a day passed but she broke out upon it.
"Lionel," she suddenly said.
He had been glancing over the pages of the book--a new work on India. He
laid it down as he had found it, and turned to her.
"What shall you allow me when you come into Verner's Pride?"
"Whatever you shall wish, mother. You shall name the sum, not I. And if
you name too modest a one," he added laughingly, "I shall double it. But
Verner's Pride must be your home then, as well as mine."
"Never!" was the emphatic answer. "What! to be turned out of it again by
the advent of a young wife? No, never, Lionel."
Lionel laughed--constrainedly this time.
"I may not be bringing home a young wife for this many and many a year
to come."
"If you never brought one, I would not make my home at Verner's Pride,"
she resumed, in the same impulsive voice. "Live in the house by favour,
that ought to have been mine by right? You would not be my true son to
ask me, Lionel. Catherine, is that you?" she called out, as the
movements of some one were heard in the ante-room.
A woman-servant put in her head.
"My lady?"
"Tell Miss Verner that Mr. Lionel is here?"
"Miss Verner knows it, my lady," was the woman's reply. "She bade me ask
you, sir," addressing Lionel, "if you'd please to step out to her."
"Is she getting ready, Catherine?" asked Lady Verner.
"I think not, my lady."
"Go to her, Lionel, and ask her if she knows the time. A pretty thing if
you arrive at the station after the train is in!"
Lionel quitted the room. Outside in the hall stood Catherine, waiting
for him.
"Miss Verner has met with a little accident and hurt her foot, sir," she
whispered. "She can't walk."
"Not walk!" exclaimed Lionel. "Where is she?"
"She is in the store-room, sir; where it happened."
Lionel went to the store-room, a small boarded room at the back of the
hall. A young lady sat there; a very pretty white foot in a wash-hand
basin of warm water, and a shoe and stocking lying; near, as if hastily
thrown off.
"Why, Decima! what is this?"
[Illustration: "Why, Decima! what is this?"]
She lifted her face. A face whose features were of the highest order of
beauty, regular as if chiselled from marble, and little less colourless.
But for the large, earnest, dark-blue eyes, so full of expression, it
might have been accused of coldness. In sleep, or in perfect repose,
when the eyelids were bent, it looked strangely cold and pure. Her dark
hair was braided; and she wore a dress something the same in colour as
Lady Verner's.
"Lionel, what shall I do? And to-day of all days! I shall be obliged to
tell mamma; I cannot walk a step."
"What is the injury? How did you meet with it?"
"I got on a chair. I was looking for some old Indian ornaments that I
know are in that high cupboard, wishing to put them in Miss Tempest's
room, and somehow the chair tilted with me, and I fell upon my foot. It
is only a sprain; but I cannot walk."
"How do you know it is only a sprain, Decima? I shall send West to you."
"Thank you all the same, Lionel, but, if you please, I don't like Dr.
West well enough to have him," was Miss Verner's answer. "See! I don't
think I can walk."
She took her foot out of the basin, and attempted to try. But for Lionel
she would have fallen; and her naturally pale face became paler from the
pain.
"And you say you will not have Dr. West!" he cried, gently putting her
into the chair again. "You must allow me to judge for you, Decima."
"Then, Lionel, I'll have Jan--if I must have any one. I have more faith
in him," she added, lifting her large blue eyes, "than in Dr. West."
"Let it be Jan, then, Decima. Send one of the servants for him at once.
What is to be done about Miss Tempest?"
"You must go alone. Unless you can persuade mamma out. Lionel, you will
tell mamma about this. She must be told."
As Lionel crossed the hall on his return, the door was being opened; the
Verner's Pride carriage had just driven up. Lady Verner had seen it from
the window of the ante-room, and her eyes spoke her displeasure.
"Lionel, what brings _that_ here?"
"I told them to bring it for Decima. I thought you would prefer that
Miss Tempest should be met with that rather than with a hired one."
"Miss Tempest will know soon enough that I am too poor to keep a
carriage," said Lady Verner. "Decima may use it if she pleases. I would
not."
"My dear mother, Decima will not be able to use it. She cannot go to the
station. She has hurt her foot."
"How did she do that?"
"She was on a chair in the store-room, looking in the cupboard. She----"
"Of course; that's just like Decima!" crossly responded Lady Verner.
"She is everlastingly at something or other, doing half the work of a
servant about the house."
Lionel made no reply. He knew that, but for Decima, the house would be
less comfortable than it was for Lady Verner; and that what Decima did,
she did in love.
"Will you go to the station?" he inquired.
"I! In this cold wind! How can you ask me, Lionel? I should get my face
chapped irretrievably. If Decima cannot go, you must go alone."
"But how shall I know Miss Tempest?"
"You must find her out," said Lady Verner. "Her mother was as tall as a
giantess; perhaps she is the same. Is Decima much hurt?"
"She thinks it is only a sprain. We have sent for Jan."
"For Jan! Much good he will do!" returned Lady Verner, in so
contemptuous a tone as to prove she had no very exalted opinion of Mr.
"Jan's" abilities.
Lionel went out to the carriage, and stepped in. The footman did not
shut the door. "And Miss Verner, sir?"
"Miss Verner is not coming. The railway station. Tell Wigham to drive
fast, or I shall be late."
"My lady wouldn't let Miss Decima come out in it," thought Wigham to
himself, as he drove on.