LUCY TEMPEST.
The words of my lady, "as tall as a giantess," unconsciously influenced
the imagination of Lionel Verner. The train was steaming into the
station at one end as his carriage stopped at the other. Lionel leaped
from it, and mingled with the bustle of the platform.
Not very much bustle, either; and it would have been less, but that
Deerham Station was the nearest approach, as yet, by rail, to Heartburg,
a town of some note about four miles distant. Not a single tall lady got
out of the train. Not a lady at all that Lionel could see. There were
two fat women, tearing about after their luggage, both habited in men's
drab greatcoats, or what looked like them; and there was one very young
lady, who stood back in apparent perplexity, gazing at the scene of
confusion around her.
"_She_ cannot be Miss Tempest," deliberated Lionel. "If she is, my
mother must have mistaken her age; she looks but a child. No harm in
asking her, at any rate."
He went up to the young lady. A very pleasant-looking girl, fair, with a
peach bloom upon her cheeks, dark brown hair and eyes, soft and brown
and luminous. Those eyes were wandering to all parts of the platform,
some anxiety in their expression.
Lionel raised his hat.
"I beg your pardon. Have I the honour of addressing Miss Tempest?"
"Oh, yes, that is my name," she answered, looking up at him, the peach
bloom deepening to a glow of satisfaction, and the soft eyes lighting
with a glad smile. "Have you come to meet me?"
"I have. I come from my mother, Lady Verner."
"I am so glad," she rejoined, with a frank sincerity of manner perfectly
refreshing in these modern days of artificial young ladyism. "I was
beginning to think nobody had come; and then what could I have done?"
"My sister would have come with me to receive you, but for an accident
which occurred to her just before it was time to start. Have you any
luggage?"
"There's the great box I brought from India, and a hair-trunk, and my
school-box. It is all in the van."
"Allow me to take you out of this crowd, and it shall be seen to," said
Lionel, bending to offer his arm.
She took it, and turned with him; but stopped ere more than a step or
two had been taken.
"We are going wrong. The luggage is up that way."
"I am taking you to the carriage. The luggage will be all right."
He was placing her in it, when she suddenly drew back and surveyed it.
"What a pretty carriage!" she exclaimed.
Many said the same of the Verner's Pride equipages. The colour of the
panels was of that rich shade of blue called ultra-marine, with white
linings and hammer-cloths, while a good deal of silver shone on the
harness of the horses. The servants' livery was white and silver, their
small-clothes blue.
Lionel handed her in.
"Have we far to go?" she asked.
"Not five minutes' drive."
He closed the door, gave the footman directions about the luggage, took
his own seat by the coachman, and the carriage started. Lady Verner came
to the door of the Court to receive Miss Tempest.
In the old Indian days of Lady Verner, she and Sir Lionel had been close
and intimate friends of Colonel and Mrs. Tempest. Subsequently Mrs.
Tempest had died, and their only daughter had been sent to a clergyman's
family in England for her education--a very superior place, where six
pupils only were taken. But she was of an age to leave it now, and
Colonel Tempest, who contemplated soon being home, had craved of Lady
Verner to receive her in the interim.
"Lionel," said his mother to him, "you must stop here for the rest of
the day, and help to entertain her."
"Why, what can I do towards it?" responded Lionel.
"You can do something. You can talk. They have got Decima into her room,
and I must be up and down with her. I don't like leaving Lucy alone the
first day she is in the house; she will take a prejudice against it. One
blessed thing, she seams quite simple--not exacting."
"Anything but exacting, I should say," replied Lionel. "I will stay for
an hour or two, if you like, mother, but I must be home to dinner."
Lady Verner need not have troubled herself about "entertaining" Lucy
Tempest. She was accustomed to entertain herself; and as to any ceremony
or homage being paid to her, she would not have understood it, and might
have felt embarrassed had it been tendered. She had not been used to
anything of the sort. Could Lady Verner have seen her then, at the very
moment she was talking to Lionel, her fears might have been relieved.
Lucy Tempest had found her way to Decima's room, and had taken up her
position in a very undignified fashion at that young lady's feet, her
soft, candid brown eyes fixed upwards on Decima's face, and her tongue
busy with reminiscences of India. After some time spent in this manner,
she was scared away by the entrance of a gentleman whom Decima called
"Jan." Upon which she proceeded to the chamber she had been shown to as
hers, to dress; a process which did not appear to be very elaborate by
the time it took, and then she went downstairs to find Lady Verner.
Lady Verner had not quitted Lionel. She had been grumbling and
complaining all that time. It was half the pastime of Lady Verner's life
to grumble in the ears of Lionel and Decima. Bitterly mortified had Lady
Verner been when she found, upon her arrival from India, that Stephen
Verner, her late husband's younger brother, had succeeded to Verner's
Pride, to the exclusion of herself and of Lionel; and bitterly mortified
she remained. Whether it had been by some strange oversight on the part
of old Mr. Verner, or whether it had been intentional, no provision
whatever had been left by him to Lady Verner and to her children.
Stephen Verner would have remedied this. On the arrival of Lady Verner,
he had proposed to pay over to her yearly a certain sum out of the
estate; but Lady Verner, smarting under disappointment, under the sense
of injustice, had flung his proposal back to him. Never, so long as he
lived, she told Stephen Verner, passionately, would she be obliged to
him for the worth of a sixpence in money or in kind. And she had kept
her word.
Her income was sadly limited. It was very little besides her pay as a
colonel's widow; and to Lady Verner it seemed less than it really was,
for her habits were somewhat expensive. She took this house, Deerham
Court, then to be let without the land, had it embellished inside and
out--which cost her more than she could afford, and had since resided in
it. She would not have rented under Mr. Verner had he paid her to do it.
She declined all intercourse with Verner's Pride; had never put her foot
over its threshold. Decima went once in a way; but she, never. If she
and Stephen Verner met abroad, she was coldly civil to him; she was
indifferently haughty to Mrs. Verner, whom she despised in her heart for
not being a lady. With all her deficiencies, Lady Verner was essentially
a gentlewoman--not to be one amounted in her eyes to little less than a
sin. No wonder that she, with her delicate beauty of person, her quiet
refinements of dress, shrank within herself as she swept past poor Mrs.
Verner, with her great person, her crimson face, and her flaunting
colours! No wonder that Lady Verner, smarting under her wrongs, passed
half her time giving utterance to them; or that her smooth face was
acquiring premature wrinkles of discontent. Lionel had a somewhat
difficult course to steer between Verner's Pride and Deerham Court, so
as to keep friends with both.
Lucy Tempest appeared at the door. She stood there hesitating, after the
manner of a timid school-girl. They turned round and saw her.
"If you please, may I come in?"
Lady Verner could have sighed over the deficiency of "style," or
confidence, whichever you may like to term it. Lionel laughed, as he
crossed the room to throw the door wider by way of welcome.
She wore a light shot pink dress of peculiar material, a sort of
cashmere, very fine and soft. Looking at it one way it was pink, the
other, mauve; the general shade of it was beautiful. Lady Verner could
have sighed again: if the wearer was deficient in style, so also was the
dress. A low body and short sleeves, perfectly simple, a narrow bit of
white lace alone edging them: nothing on her neck, nothing on her arms,
no gloves. A child of seven might have been so dressed. Lady Verner
looked at her, her brow knit, and various thoughts running through her
brain. She began to fear that Miss Tempest would require so much
training as would give her trouble.
Lucy saw the look, and deemed that her attire was wrong.
"Ought I to have put on my best things--my new silk?" she asked.
My new silk! My best things! Lady Verner was almost at a loss for an
answer. "You have not an extensive wardrobe, possibly, my dear?"
"Not very," replied Lucy. "This was my best dress, until I had my new
silk. Mrs. Cust told me to put this one on for dinner to-day, and she
said if Lady--if you and Miss Verner dressed very much, I could change
it for the silk to-morrow. It is a _beautiful_ dress," Lucy added,
looking ingenuously at Lady Verner, "a pearl gray. Then I have my
morning dresses, and then my white for dancing. Mrs. Cust said that
anything you found deficient in my wardrobe it would be better for you
to supply, than for her, as you would be the best judge of what I should
require."
"Mrs. Cust does not pay much attention to dress, probably," observed
Lady Verner coldly. "She is a clergyman's wife. It is sad taste when
people neglect themselves, whatever may be the duties of their station."
"But Mrs. Cust does not neglect herself," spoke up Lucy, a surprised
look upon her face. "She is always dressed nicely--not fine, you know.
Mrs. Cust says that the lower classes have become so fine nowadays, that
nearly the only way you may know a lady, until she speaks, is by her
quiet simplicity."
"My dear, Mrs. Cust should say elegant simplicity," corrected Lady
Verner. "She ought to know. She is of good family."
Lucy humbly acquiesced. She feared she herself must be too "quiet" to
satisfy Lady Verner. "Will you be so kind, then, as to get me what you
please?" she asked.
"My daughter will see to all these things, Lucy," replied Lady Verner.
"She is not young like you, and she is remarkably steady, and
experienced."
"She does not look old," said Lucy, in her open candour. "She is very
pretty."
"She is turned five-and-twenty. Have you seen her?"
"I have been with her ever so long. We were talking about India. She
remembers my dear mamma; and, do you know"--her bright expression fading
to sadness--"I can scarcely remember her! I should have stayed with
Decima--may I call her Decima?" broke off Lucy, with a faltering tongue,
as if she had done wrong.
"Certainly you may."
"I should have stayed with Decima until now, talking about mamma, but a
gentleman came in."
"A gentleman?" echoed Lady Verner.
"Yes. Some one tall and very thin. Decima called him Jan. After that, I
went to my room again. I could not find it at first," she added, with a
pleasant little laugh. "I looked into two; but neither was mine, for I
could not see the boxes. Then I changed my dress, and came down."
"I hope you had my maid to assist you," quickly remarked Lady Verner.
"Some one assisted me. When I had my dress on, ready to be fastened, I
looked out to see if I could find any one to do it, and I did. A servant
was at the end of the corridor, by the window."
"But, my dear Miss Tempest, you should have rung," exclaimed Lady
Verner, half petrified at the young lady's unformed manners, and
privately speculating upon the sins Mrs. Cust must have to answer for.
"Was it Therese?"
"I don't know," replied Lucy. "She was rather old, and had a broom in
her hand."
"Old Catherine, I declare! Sweeping and dusting as usual! She might have
soiled your dress."
"She wiped her hands on her apron," said Lucy simply. "She had a nice
face: I liked it."
"I _beg_, my dear, that in future you will ring for Therese,"
emphatically returned Lady Verner, in her discomposure. "She understands
that she is to wait upon you. Therese is my maid, and her time is not
half occupied. Decima exacts very little of her. But take care that you
do not allow her to lapse into English when with you. It is what she is
apt to do unless checked. You speak French, of course?" added Lady
Verner, the thought crossing her that Mrs. Cust's educational training
might have been as deficient on that point, as she deemed it had been on
that of "style."
"I speak it quite well," replied Lucy; "as well, or nearly as well, as a
French girl. But I do not require anybody to wait on me," she continued.
"There is never anything to do for me, but just to fasten these evening
dresses that close behind. I am much obliged to you, all the same, for
thinking of it, Lady Verner."
Lady Verner turned from the subject: it seemed to grow more and more
unprofitable. "I shall go and hear what Jan says, if he is there," she
remarked to Lionel.
"I wonder we did not see or hear him come in," was Lionel's answer.
"As if Jan could come into the house like a gentleman!" returned Lady
Verner, with intense acrimony. "The back way is a step or two nearer,
and therefore he patronises it."
She quitted the room as she spoke, and Lionel turned to Miss Tempest. He
had been exceedingly amused and edified at the conversation between her
and his mother; but while Lady Verner had been inclined to groan over
it, he had rejoiced. That Lucy Tempest was thoroughly and genuinely
unsophisticated; that she was of a nature too sincere and honest for her
manners to be otherwise than of truthful simplicity, he was certain. A
delightful child, he thought; one he could have taken to his heart and
loved as a sister. Not with any other love: _that_ was already given
elsewhere by Lionel Verner.
The winter evening was drawing on, and little light was in the room,
save that cast by the blaze of the fire. It flickered upon Lucy's face,
as she stood near it. Lionel drew a chair towards her. "Will you not sit
down, Miss Tempest?"
A formidable-looking chair, large and stately, as Lucy turned to look at
it. Her eyes fell upon the low one which, earlier in the afternoon, had
been occupied by Lady Verner. "May I sit in this one instead? I like it
best."
"You 'may' sit in any chair that the room contains, or on an ottoman, or
anywhere that you like," answered Lionel, considerably amused. "Perhaps
you would prefer this?"
"This" was a very low seat indeed--in point of fact, Lady Verner's
footstool. He had spoke in jest, but she waited for no second
permission, drew it close to the fire, and sat down upon it. Lionel
looked at her, his lips and eyes dancing.
"Possibly you would have preferred the rug?"
"Yes, I should," answered she frankly, "It is what we did at the
rectory. Between the lights, on a winter's evening, we were allowed to
do what we pleased for twenty minutes, and we used to sit down on the
rug before the fire, and talk."
"Mrs. Cust, also?" asked Lionel.
"Not Mrs. Cust; you are laughing at me. If she came in, and saw us, she
would say we were too old to sit there, and should be better on chairs.
But we liked the rug best."
"What had you used to talk of?"
"Of everything, I think. About the poor; Mr. Cust's poor, you know; and
the village, and our studies, and--But I don't think I must tell you
that," broke off Lucy, laughing merrily at her own thoughts.
"Yes, you may," said Lionel.
"It was about that poor old German teacher of ours. We used to play her
such tricks, and it was round the fire that we planned them. But she is
very good," added Lucy, becoming serious, and lifting her eyes to
Lionel, as if to bespeak his sympathy for the German teacher.
"Is she?"
"She was always patient and kind. The first time Lady Verner lets me go
to a shop, I mean to buy her a warm winter cloak. Hers is so thin. Do
you think I could get her one for two pounds?"
"I don't know at all," smiled Lionel. "A greatcoat for me would cost
more than two pounds."
"I have two sovereigns left of my pocket-money, besides some silver. I
hope it will buy a cloak. It is Lady Verner who will have the management
of my money, is it not, now that I have left Mrs. Cust's?"
"I believe so."
"I wonder how much she will allow me for myself?" continued Lucy, gazing
up at Lionel with a serious expression of inquiry, as if the question
were a momentous one.
"I think cloaks for old teachers ought to be apart," cried Lionel. "They
should not come out of your pocket-money."
"Oh, but I like them to do so. I wish I had a home of my own!--as I
shall have when papa returns to Europe. I should invite her to me for
the holidays, and give her nice dinners always, and buy her some nice
clothes, and send her back with her poor old heart happy."
"Invite whom?"
"Fraulein Mueller. Her father was a gentleman of good position, and he
somehow lost his inheritance. When he died she found it out--there was
not a shilling for her, instead of a fortune, as she had always thought.
She was over forty then, and she had to come to England and begin
teaching for a living. She is fifty now, and nearly all she gets she
sends to Heidelberg to her poor sick sister. I wonder how much good warm
cloaks do cost?"
Lucy Tempest spoke the last sentence dreamily. She was evidently
debating the question in her own mind. Her small white hands rested
inertly upon her pink dress, her clear face with its delicate bloom was
still, her eyes were bent on the fire. But that Lionel's heart was
elsewhere, it might have gone out, there and then, to that young girl
and her attractive simplicity.
"What a pretty child you are!" involuntarily broke from him.
Up came those eyes to him, soft and luminous, their only expression
being surprise, not a shade of vanity.
"I am not a child; why do you call me one? But Mrs. Cust said you would
all be taking me for a child, until you knew me."
"How old are you?" asked Lionel.
"I was eighteen last September."
"Eighteen!" involuntarily repeated Lionel.
"Yes; eighteen. We had a party on my birthday. Mr. Cust gave me a most
beautifully bound copy of Thomas a Kempis; he had had it bound on
purpose. I will show it to you when my books are unpacked. You would
like Mr. Cust, if you knew him. He is an old man now, and he has white
hair. He is twenty years older than Mrs. Cust; but he is so good!"
"How is it," almost vehemently broke forth Lionel, "that you are so
different from others?"
"I don't know. Am I different?"
"So different--so different--that--that--"
"What is the matter with me?" she asked timidly, almost humbly, the
delicate colour in her cheeks deepening to crimson.
"There is nothing the matter with you," he answered, smiling; "a good
thing if there were as little the matter with everybody else. Do you
know that I never saw any one whom I liked so much at first sight as I
like you, although you appear to me only as a child? If I call here
often I shall grow to love you almost as much as I love my sister
Decima."
"Is not this your home?"
"No. My home is at Verner's Pride."