A SURPRISE FOR MRS. TYNN.
In the commodious dressing-room at Verner's Pride, appropriated to its
new mistress, Mrs. Verner, stood the housekeeper, Tynn, lifting her
hands and her eyes. You once saw the chamber of John Massingbird, in
this same house, in a tolerable litter: but that was as nothing compared
with the litter in this dressing-room, piles and piles of it, one heap
by the side of another. Mary Tynn stood screwed against the wainscoting
of the wall: she had got in, but to get out was another matter: there
was not a free place where she could put her foot. Strictly speaking,
perhaps, it could not be called litter, and Mrs. Verner and her French
maid would have been alike indignant at hearing it so classed. Robes of
rich and rare texture; silks standing on end with magnificence; dinner
attire, than which nothing could be more exquisite; ball dresses in all
sorts of gossamer fabrics; under-skirts, glistening with their soft
lustre; morning costumes, pure and costly; shawls of Cashmere and other
_recherche_ stuffs, enough to stock a shop; mantles of every known make;
bonnets that would send an English milliner crazy; veils charming to
look upon; laces that might rival Lady Verner's embroideries, their
price fabulous; handkerchiefs that surely never were made for use;
dozens of delicately-tinted gloves, cased in ornamental boxes, costing
as much as they did; every description of expensive _chaussure_; and
trinkets, the drawn cheques for which must have caused Lionel Verner's
sober bankers to stare. Tynn might well heave her hands and eyes in
dismay. On the chairs, on the tables, on the drawers, on the floor, on
every conceivable place and space they lay; a goodly mass of vanity,
just unpacked from their cases.
Flitting about amidst them was a damsel of coquettish appearance, with a
fair skin, light hair, and her nose a turn-up. Her gray gown was
flounced to the waist, her small cap of lace, its pink strings flying,
was lodged on the back of her head. It was Mademoiselle Benoite, Mrs.
Verner's French maid, one she had picked up in Paris. Whatever other
qualities the damsel might lack, she had enough of confidence. Not many
hours yet in the house, and she was assuming more authority in it than
her mistress did.
Mr. and Mrs. Verner had returned the night before, Mademoiselle Benoite
and her packages making part of their train. A whole _fourgon_ could not
have been sufficient to convey these packages from the French capital to
the frontier. Phoeby, the simple country maid whom Sibylla had taken
to Paris with her, found her place a sinecure since the engagement of
Mademoiselle Benoite. She stood now on the opposite side of the room to
Tynn, humbly waiting Mademoiselle Benoite's imperious commands.
"Where on earth will you stow 'em away?" cried Tynn, in her wonder.
"You'll want a length of rooms to do it in."
"Where I stow 'em away!" retorted Mademoiselle Benoite, in her fluent
speech, but broken English. "I stow 'em where I please. Note you that,
Madame Teen. Par example! The chateau is grand enough."
"What has its grandeur got to do with it?" was Mary Tynn's answer. She
knew but little of French phrases.
"Now, then, what for you stand there, with your eyes staring and your
hands idle?" demanded Mademoiselle Benoite sharply, turning her attack
on Phoeby.
"If you'll tell me what to do, I'll do it," replied the girl. "I could
help to put the things up, if you'd show me where to begin."
"I like to see you dare to put a finger on one of these things!"
returned Mademoiselle Benoite. "You can confine your services to sewing,
and to waiting upon me; but not you dare to interfere with my lady's
toilette. Tiens, I am capable, I hope! I'd give up the best service
to-morrow where I had not sole power! Go you down to the office, and
order me a cup of chocolate, and wait you and bring it up to me. That
maudite drogue, that coffee, this morning, has made me as thirsty as a
panthere."
Phoeby, glancing across at Mrs. Tynn, turned somewhat hesitatingly to
pick her way out of the room. The housekeeper, though not half
understanding, contrived to make out that the morning coffee was not
approved of. The French mademoiselle had breakfasted with her, and, in
Mrs. Tynn's opinion, the coffee had been perfect, fit for the table of
her betters.
"Is it the coffee that you are abusing?" asked she. "What was the matter
with it?"
"Ciel! You ask what the matter with it!" returned Mademoiselle Benoite,
in her rapid tongue. "It was everything the matter with it. It was all
bad. It was drogue, I say; medicine. There!"
"Well, I'm sure!" resentfully returned the housekeeper. "Now, I happened
to make that coffee myself this morning--Tynn, he's particular in his
coffee, he is--and I put in--"
"I not care if you put in the whole canastre," vehemently interrupted
Mademoiselle Benoite. "You English know not to make coffee. All the two
years I lived in London with Madame la Duchesse, I never got one cup of
coffee that was not enough to choke me. And they used pounds of it in
the house, where they might have used ounces. Bah! You can make tea, I
not say no; but you cannot make coffee. Now, then! I want a great number
sheets of silk-paper."
"Silk-paper?" repeated Tynn, whom the item puzzled. "What's that?"
"You know not what silk-paper is!" angrily returned Mademoiselle
Benoite. "_Quelle ignorance!_" she apostrophised, not caring whether she
was understood or not. "_Elle ne connait pas ce que c'est,
papier-de-soie!_ I must have it, and a great deal of it, do you hear? It
is as common as anything--silk-paper."
"Things common in France mayn't be common with us," retorted Mrs. Tynn.
"What is it for?"
"It is for some of these articles. If I put them by without the
paper-silk round them in the cartons, they'll not keep their colour."
"Perhaps you mean silver-paper," said Mary Tynn. "Tissue-paper, I have
heard my Lady Verner call it. There's none in the house, Madmisel
Bennot."
"Madmisel Bennot" stamped her foot. "A house without silk-paper in it!
When you knew my lady was coming home!"
"I didn't know she'd bring--a host of things with her that she has
brought," was the answering shaft lanced by Mrs. Tynn.
"Don't you see that I am waiting? Will you send out for some?"
"It's not to be had in Deerham," said Mrs. Tynn. "If it must be had, one
of the men must go to Heartburg. Why won't the paper do that was over 'em
before?"
"There not enough of that. And I choose to have fresh, I do."
"Well, you had better give your own orders about it," said Mary Tynn.
"And then, if there's any mistake, it'll be nobody's fault, you know."
Mademoiselle Benoite did not on the instant reply. She had her hands
full just then. In reaching over for a particular bonnet, she managed to
turn a dozen or two on to the floor. Tynn watched the picking up
process, and listened to the various ejaculations that accompanied it,
in much grimness.
"What a sight of money those things must have cost!" cried she.
"What that matter?" returned the lady's-maid. "The purse of a milor
Anglais can stand anything."
"What did she buy them for?" went on Tynn. "For what purpose?"
"_Bon!_" ejaculated Mademoiselle. "She buy them to wear. What else you
suppose she buy them for?"
"Why! she would never wear out the half of them in all her whole life!"
uttered Tynn, speaking the true sentiments of her heart. "She could
not."
"Much you know of things, Madame Teen!" was the answer, delivered in
undisguised contempt for Tynn's primitive ignorance. "They'll not last
her six months."
"Six months!" shrieked Tynn. "She couldn't come to an end of them
dresses in six months, if she wore three a day, and never put on a dress
a second time!"
"She want to wear more than three different a day sometimes. And it not
the mode now to put on a robe more than once," returned Mademoiselle
Benoite carelessly.
Tynn could only open her mouth. "If they are to be put on but once, what
becomes of 'em afterwards?" questioned she, when she could find breath
to speak.
"Oh, they good for jupons--petticoats, you call it. Some may be worn a
second time; they can be changed by other trimmings to look like new.
And the rest will be good for me: Madame la Duchesse gave me a great
deal. '_Tenez, ma fille_,' she would say, '_regardez dans ma garde-robe,
et prenez autant que vous voudrez._' She always spoke to me in French."
Tynn wished there had been no French invented, so far as her
comprehension was concerned. While she stood, undecided what reply to
make, wishing very much to express her decided opinion upon the
extravagance she saw around her, yet deterred from it by remembering
that Mrs. Verner was now her mistress, Phoeby entered with the
chocolate. The girl put it down on the mantel-piece--there was no other
place--and then made a sign to Mrs. Tynn that she wished to speak with
her. They both left the room.
"Am I to be at the beck and call of that French madmizel?" she
resentfully asked. "I was not engaged for that, Mrs. Tynn."
"It seems we are all to be at her beck and call, to hear her go on," was
Mrs. Tynn's wrathful rejoinder. "Of course it can't be tolerated. We
shall see in a day or two. Phoeby, girl, what could possess Mrs.
Verner to buy all them cart-loads of finery? She must have spent the
money like water."
"So she did," acquiesced Phoeby. "She did nothing all day long but
drive about from one place to another and choose pretty things. You
should see the china that's coming over!"
"I wonder Mr. Lionel let her," was the thoughtlessly-spoken remark of
Tynn. And she tried, when too late, to cough it down.
"He helped her, I think," answered Phoeby. "I know he bought some of
that beautiful jewellery for her himself, and brought it home. I saw him
kiss her, through the doorway, as he clasped that pink necklace on her
neck."
"Oh, well, I don't want to hear about that rubbish," tartly rejoined
Tynn. "If you take to peep through doorways, girl, you won't suit
Verner's Pride."
Phoeby did not like the rebuff. She turned one way, and Mrs. Tynn went
off another.
In the breakfast-room below, in her charming French morning costume,
tasty and elegant, sat Sibylla Verner. With French dresses, she seemed
to be acquiring French habits. Late as the hour was, the breakfast
remained on the table. Sibylla might have sent the things away an hour
ago; but she kept a little chocolate in her cup, and toyed with it. She
had never tasted chocolate for breakfast in all her life, previous to
this visit to Paris: now she protested she could take nothing else.
Possibly she may have caught the taste for it from Mademoiselle Benoite.
Her husband sat opposite to her, his chair drawn from the table, and
turned to face the room. A perfectly satisfied, happy expression
pervaded his face; he appeared to be fully contented with his lot and
with his bride. Just now he was laughing immoderately.
Perched upon the arm of a sofa, having there come to an anchor, his legs
hanging down and swaying about in their favourite fashion, was Jan
Verner. Jan had come in to pay them a visit and congratulate them on
their return. That is speaking somewhat figuratively, however, for Jan
possessed no notion of congratulating anybody. As Lady Verner sometimes
resentfully said, Jan had no more social politeness in him than a bear.
Upon entering, Sibylla asked him to take some breakfast. Breakfast!
echoed Jan, did she call that breakfast? He thought it was their
lunch--it was getting on for his dinner-time. Jan was giving Lionel a
history of the moonlight flitting, and of Susan Peckaby's expected
expedition to New Jerusalem on a white donkey.
"It ought to have been stopped," said Lionel, when his laughter had
subsided. "They are going out to misery, and to nothing else, poor
deluded creatures!"
"Who was to stop it?" asked Jan.
"Some one might have told them the truth. If this Brother Jarrum
represented things in rose-coloured hues, could nobody open to their
view the other side of the picture? I should have endeavoured to do it,
had I been here. If they chose to risk the venture after that, it would
have been their own fault."
"You'd have done no good," said Jan. "Once let 'em get the Mormon fever
upon 'em, and it must run its course. It's like the gold fever; nothing
will convince folks they are mistaken as to that, except the going out
to Australia to the diggings. That will."
A faint tinge of brighter colour rose to Sibylla's cheeks at this
allusion, and Lionel knit his brow. He would have avoided for ever any
chain of thought that led his memory to Frederick Massingbird: he could
not bear to think that his young bride had been another's before she was
his. Jan, happily ignorant, continued.
"There's Susan Peckaby. She has got it in her head that she's going
straight off to Paradise, once she is in the Salt Lake City. Well, now,
Lionel, if you, and all the world to help you, set yourselves on to
convince her that she's mistaken, you couldn't do it. They must go out
and find the level of things for themselves--there's no help for it."
"Jan, it is not likely that Susan Peckaby really expects a white donkey
to be sent for her!" cried Sibylla.
"She as fully expects the white donkey, as I expect that I shall go from
here presently, and drop in on Poynton, on my way home," earnestly said
Jan. "He has had a kick from a horse on his shin, and a nasty place it
is," added Jan in a parenthesis. "Nothing on earth would convince Susan
Peckaby that the donkey's a myth, or will be a myth; and she wastes all
her time looking out for it. If you were opposite their place now, you'd
see her head somewhere; poked out at the door, or peeping from the
upstairs window."
"I wish I could get them all back again--those who have gone from here!"
warmly spoke Lionel.
"I wish sometimes I had got four legs, that I might get over double
ground, when patients are wanting me on all sides," returned Jan. "The
one wish is just as possible as the other, Lionel. The lot sailed from
Liverpool yesterday, in the ship _American Star_. And I'll be bound,
what with the sea-sickness, and the other discomforts, they are wishing
themselves out of it already! I say, Sibylla, what did you think of
Paris?"
"Oh, Jan, it's enchanting! And I have brought the most charming things
home. You can come upstairs and see them, if you like. Benoite is
unpacking them."
"Well, I don't know," mused Jan. "I don't suppose they are what I should
care to see. What are the things?"
"Dresses, and bonnets, and mantles, and lace, and coiffures," returned
Sibylla. "I can't tell you half the beautiful things. One of my
_cache-peignes_ is of filigrane silver-work, with drops falling from it,
real diamonds."
"What d'ye call a _cache-peigne?_" asked Jan.
"Don't you know? An ornament for the hair, that you put on to hide the
comb behind. Combs are coming into fashion. Will you come up and see the
things, Jan?"
"Not I! What do I care for lace and bonnets?" ungallantly answered Jan.
"I didn't know but Lionel might have brought me some anatomical studies
over. They'd be in my line."
Sibylla shrieked--a pretty little shriek of affectation. "Lionel, why do
you let him say such things to me? He means amputated arms and legs."
"I'm sure I didn't," said Jan. "I meant models. They'd not let the
other things pass the customs. Have you brought a dress a-piece for Deb
and Amilly?"
"No," said Sibylla, looking up in some consternation. "I never thought
about it."
"Won't they be disappointed, then! They have counted upon it, I can tell
you. They can't afford to buy themselves much, you know; the doctor
keeps them so short," added Jan.
"I _would_ have brought them something, if I had thought of it; I would,
indeed!" exclaimed Sibylla, in an accent of contrition. "Is it not a
pity, Lionel?"
"I wish you had," replied Lionel. "Can you give them nothing of what you
have brought?"
"Well--I--must--consider," hesitated Sibylla, who was essentially
selfish. "The things are so beautiful, so expensive; they are scarcely
suited to Deborah and Amilly."
"Why not?" questioned Jan.
"You have not a bit of sense, Jan," grumbled Sibylla. "Things chosen to
suit me, won't suit them."
"Why not?" repeated Jan obstinately.
"There never was any one like you, Jan, for stupidity," was Sibylla's
retort. "I am young and pretty, and a bride; and they are two faded old
maids."
"Dress 'em up young, and they'll look young," answered Jan, with
composure. "Give 'em a bit of pleasure for once, Sibylla."
"I'll see," impatiently answered Sibylla. "Jan, how came Nancy to go off
with the Mormons? Tynn says she packed up her things in secret, and
started."
"How came the rest to go?" was Jan's answer. "She caught the fever too,
I suppose."
"What Nancy are you talking of?" demanded Lionel. "Not Nancy from here!"
"Oh, Lionel, yes! I forgot to tell you," said Sibylla. "She is gone
indeed. Mrs. Tynn is so indignant. She says the girl must be a fool!"
"Little short of it," returned Lionel. "To give up a good home here for
the Salt Lake! She will repent it."
"Let 'em all alone for _that_," nodded Jan, "I'd like to pay an hour's
visit to 'em, when they have been a month in the place--if they ever get
to it."
"Tynn says she remembers, when that Brother Jarrum was here in the
spring, that Nancy made frequent excuses for going to Deerham in the
evening," resumed Sibylla.
"She thinks it must have been to frequent those meetings in Peckaby's
shop."
"I thought the man, Jarrum, had gone off, leaving the mischief to die
away," observed Lionel.
"So did everybody else," said Jan. "He came back the day that you were
married. Nancy's betters got lured into Peckaby's, as well as Nancy," he
added. "That sickly daughter at Chalk Cottage, she's gone."
Lionel looked very much astonished.
"No!" he uttered.
"Fact!" said Jan. "The mother came to me the morning after the flitting,
and said she had been seduced away. She wanted to telegraph to Dr.
West--"
Jan stopped dead, remembering that Sibylla was present, as well as
Lionel. He leaped off the sofa.
"Ah, we shall see them all back some day, if they can only contrive to
elude the vigilance of the Mormons. I'm off, Lionel; old Poynton will
think I am not coming to-day. Good-bye, Sibylla."
Jan hastened from the room. Lionel stood at the window, and watched him
away. Sibylla glided up to her husband, nestling against him.
"Lionel, tell me. Jan never would, though I nearly teased his life out;
and Deborah and Amilly persisted that they knew nothing. _You_ tell me."
"Tell you what, my dearest?"
"After I came home in the winter, there were strange whispers about papa
and that Chalk Cottage. People were mysterious over it, and I never
could get a word of explanation. Jan was the worst; he was coolly
tantalising, and it used to put me in a passion. What was the tale
told?"
An involuntary darkening of Lionel's brow. He cleared it instantly, and
looked down on his wife with a smile.
"I know of no tale worth telling you, Sibylla."
"But there _was_ a tale told?"
"Jan--who, being in closer proximity to Dr. West than any one, may be
supposed to know best of his private affairs--tells a tale of Dr. West's
having set a chimney on fire at Chalk Cottage, thereby arousing the ire
of its inmates."
"Don't you repeat such nonsense to me, Lionel; you are not Jan," she
returned, in a half peevish tone. "I fear papa may have borrowed money
from the ladies, and did not repay them," she added, her voice sinking
to a whisper. "But I would not say it to any one but you. What do you
think?"
"If my wife will allow me to tell her what I think, I should say that it
is her duty--and mine now--not to seek to penetrate into any affairs
belonging to Dr. West which he may wish to keep to himself. Is it not
so, Sibylla mine?"
Sibylla smiled, and held up her face to be kissed. "Yes, you are right,
Lionel."
Swayed by impulse, more than by anything else, she thought of her
treasures upstairs, in the process of dis-interment from their cases by
Benoite, and ran from him to inspect them. Lionel put on his hat, and
strolled out of doors.
A thought came over him that he would go and pay a visit to his mother.
He knew how exacting of attention from him she was, how jealous, so to
speak, of Sibylla's having taken him from her. Lionel hoped by degrees
to reduce the breach. Nothing should be wanting on his part to effect
it; he trusted that nothing would be wanting on Sibylla's. He really
wished to see his mother after his month's absence; and he knew she
would be pleased at his going there on this, the first morning of his
return. As he turned into the high road, he met the vicar of Deerham,
the Reverend James Bourne.
They shook hands, and the conversation turned, not unnaturally, on the
Mormon flight. As they were talking of it, Roy, the ex-bailiff, was
observed crossing the opposite field.
"My brother tells me the report runs that Mrs. Roy contemplated being of
the company, but was overtaken by her husband and brought back,"
remarked Lionel.
"How it may have been, about his bringing her back, or whether she
actually started, I don't know," replied Mr. Bourne, who was a man with
a large pale face and iron-gray hair. "That she intended to go, I have
reason to believe."
He spoke the last words significantly, lowering his voice. Lionel looked
at him.
"She paid me a mysterious visit at the vicarage the night before the
start," continued the clergyman. "A very mysterious visit, indeed, taken
in conjunction with her words. I was in my study, reading by
candle-light, when somebody came tapping at the glass door, and stole
in. It was Mrs. Roy. She was in a state of tremor, as I have heard it
said she appeared the night the inquiry was held at Verner's Pride,
touching the death of Rachel Frost. She spoke to me in ambiguous terms
of a journey she was about to take--that she should probably be away for
her whole life--and then she proceeded to speak of that night."
"The night of the inquiry?" echoed Lionel.
"The night of the inquiry--that is, the night of the accident," returned
Mr. Bourne. "She said she wished to confide a secret to me, which she
had not liked to touch upon before, but which she could not leave the
place without confiding to some one responsible, who might use it in
case of need. The secret she proceeded to tell me was--that it was
Frederick Massingbird who had been quarrelling with Rachel that night by
the Willow Pool. She could swear it to me, she said, if necessary."
"But--if that were true--why did she not proclaim it at the time?" asked
Lionel, after a pause.
"It was all she said. And she would not be questioned. 'In case o' need,
sir, in case anybody else should ever be brought up for it, tell 'em
that Dinah Roy asserted to you with her last breath in Deerham, that Mr.
Fred Massingbird was the one that was with Rachel.' Those were the words
she used to me; I dotted them down after she left. As I tell you, she
would not be questioned, and glided out again almost immediately."
"Was she wandering in her mind?"
"I think not. She spoke with an air of truth. When I heard of the flight
of the converts the next morning, I could only conclude that Mrs. Roy
had intended to be amongst them. But now, understand me, Mr. Verner,
although I have told you this, I have not mentioned it to another living
soul. Neither do I intend to do so. It can do no good to reap up the sad
tale; whether Frederick Massingbird was or was not with Rachel that
night; whether he was in any way guilty, or was purely innocent, it
boots not to inquire now."
"It does not," warmly replied Lionel. "You have done well. Let us bury
Mrs. Roy's story between us, and forget it, so far as we can."
They parted. Lionel took his way to Deerham Court, absorbed in thought.
His own strong impression had been, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the
black sheep with regard to Rachel.