The rumour of sir Wilton's marriage was, as rumour seldom is, correct.
Before the year was out, lady Ann Hardy, sister to the earl of Torpavy,
representing an old family with a drop or two of very bad blood in
it, became lady Ann Lestrange How much love there may have been in the
affair, it is unnecessary to inquire, seeing the baronet was what he
was, and the lady understood the _what_ pretty well. She might have
preferred a husband not so much what sir Wilton was, but she was
nine-and-twenty, and her brother was poor. She said to herself, I
suppose, that she might as well as another undertake his reform: some
one must! and married him. She had not much of a trousseau, but was
gorgeously attired for the wedding. It is true she had to return to the
earl three-fourths of the jewels she wore; but they were family jewels,
and why should she not have some good of them? She started with fifty
pounds of her own in her pocket, and a demeanour in her person equal
to fifty millions. When they arrived at Mortgrange, the moon was indeed
still in the sky, but the honey-pot, to judge by the appearance of the
twain, was empty: twain they were, and twain would be. The man wore a
look of careless all-rightness, tinged with an expression of indifferent
triumph: he had what he wanted; what his lady might think of her side
of the bargain, he neither thought nor cared. As to the woman, let her
reflections be what they might, not a soul would come to the knowledge
of them. Whatever it was to others, her pale, handsome face was never
false to herself, never betrayed what she was thinking, never broke
the shallow surface of its frozen dignity. Will any man ever know how a
woman of ordinary decency feels after selling herself? I find the thing
hardly safe to ponder. No trace, no shadow of disappointment clouded the
countenance of lady Ann that sultry summer afternoon as she drove up the
treeless avenue. The education she had received--and education in
the worst sense it was! for it had brought out the worst in her--had
rendered her less than human. The form of her earthly presence had
been trained to a fashionable perfection; her nature had not been left
unaided in its reversion toward the vague animal type from which it was
developed: in the curve of her thin lips as they prepared to smile,
one could discern the veiled snarl and bite. Her eyes were grey, her
eyebrows dark; her complexion was a clear fair, her nose perfect, except
for a sharp pinch at the end of the bone; her nostrils were thin but
motionless; her chin was defective, and her throat as slender as
her horrible waist; her hands and feet were large even for “her tall
personage.”
After his lady had had a cup of tea, sir Wilton, for something to
do, proposed taking her over the house, which was old, and worthy of
inspection. In their progress they came to a door at the end of a long
and rather tortuous passage. Sir Wilton did not know how the room was
occupied, or he would doubtless have passed it by; but as its windows
gave a fine view of the park, he opened the door, and lady Ann entered.
Sudden displeasure shortened her first step; pride or something worse
lengthened the next, as she bore down on a woman too much occupied with
a child on her knee to look up at the sound of her entrance. When,
a moment after, she did look up, the dreaded stepmother was looking
straight down on her baby. Their eyes encountered. Jane met an icy
stare, and lady Ann a gaze of defiance--an expression by this time
almost fixed on the face of the nurse, for in her spirit she heard every
unspoken remark on her child. Not a word did the lady utter, but to
Jane, her eyes, her very breath seemed to say with scorn, “Is _that_ the
heir?” Sir Wilton did not venture a single look: he was ashamed of his
son, and already a little afraid of his wife, whom he had once seen
close her rather large teeth in a notable way. As she turned toward the
window, however, he stole a glance at his offspring: the creature was
not quite so ugly as before--not quite so repulsive as he had pictured
him! But, good heavens! he was on the lap of the same woman whose
fierceness had upset him almost as much as his child's ugliness! He
walked to the window after his wife. She gazed for a moment, turned with
indifference, and left the room. Her husband followed her. A glance of
fear, dislike, and defiance, went after them from Jane.
Stronger contrast than those two women it would be hard to find. Jane's
countenance was almost coarse, but its rugged outline was almost grand.
Her hair grew low down on her forehead, and she had deep-set eyes. Her
complexion was rough, her nose large and thick. Her mouth was large
also, but, when unaffected by her now almost habitual antagonism, the
curve of her lip was sweet, and occasionally humorous. Her chin was
strong, and the total of her face what we call masculine; but when
she silently regarded her child, it grew beautiful with the radiant
tenderness of protection.
Her visitors left the door open behind them; Jane rose and shut it,
sat down again, and gazed motionless at the infant. Perhaps he vaguely
understood the sorrow and dread of her countenance, for he pulled a long
face of his own, and was about to cry. Jane clasped him to her bosom in
an agony: she felt certain she would not long be permitted to hold him
there. In the silent speech of my lady's mouth, her jealous love saw the
doom of her darling. What precise doom she dared not ask herself; it
was more than enough that she, indubitably his guardian as if sent from
heaven to shield him, must abandon him to his natural enemy, one who
looked upon him as the adversary of her own children. It was a thought
not to be thought, an idea for which there should be no place in her
bosom! Unfathomable as the love between man and woman is the love of
woman to child.
She spent a wakeful night. From the decree of banishment sure to go
forth against her, there was no appeal! Go she must! Yet her heart cried
out that he was her own. In the same lap his mother had lain before him!
She had carried her by day, and at night folded her in the same arms,
herself but six years old--old enough to remember yet the richness
unspeakable of her new possession. Never had come difference betwixt
them until Robina began to give ear to sir Wilton, whom Jane could not
endure. When she responded, as she did at once, to her sister's cry for
her help, she made her promise that no one should understand who she
was, but that she should in the house be taken for and treated as a
hired nurse. Why Jane stipulated thus, it were hard to say, but so
careful were they both, that no one at Mortgrange suspected the nurse
as personally interested in the ugly heir left in her charge! No one
dreamed that the child's aunt had forsaken her husband to nurse him, and
was living _for_ him day and night. She, in her turn, had promised her
sister never to leave him, and this pledge strengthened the bond of
her passion. The only question was _how_ she was to be faithful to her
pledge, _how_ to carry matters when she was turned away. With those
thin, close-pressed lips in her mind's eye, she could not count on
remaining where she was beyond a few days.
She was not only a woman capable of making up her mind, but a woman of
resource, with the advantage of having foreseen and often pondered the
possibility of that which was now imminent. The same night, silent above
the sleep of her darling, she sat at work with needle and scissors far
into the morning, remodelling an old print dress. For nights after, she
was similarly occupied, though not a scrap or sign of the labour was
visible in the morning.
The crisis anticipated came within a fortnight. Lady Ann did not show
herself a second time in the nursery, but sending for Jane, informed her
that an experienced nurse was on her way from London to take charge
of the child, and her services would not be required after the next
morning.
“For, of course,” concluded her ladyship, “I could not expect a woman of
your years to take an under-nurse's place!”
“Please your ladyship, I will gladly,” said Jane, eager to avoid or at
least postpone the necessity forcing itself upon her.
“I intend you to go--and _at once_,” replied her ladyship; “--that is,
the moment Mrs. Thornycroft arrives. The housekeeper will take care that
you have your month's wages in lieu of warning.”
“Very well, my lady!--Please, your ladyship, when may I come and see the
child?”
“Not at all. There is no necessity.”
“Never, my lady?”
“Decidedly.”
“Then at least I may ask why you send me away so suddenly!”
“I told you that I want a properly qualified nurse to take your place.
My wish is to have the child more immediately under my own eye than
would be agreeable if you kept your place. I hope I speak plainly!”
“Quite, my lady.”
“And let me, for your own sake, recommend you to behave more
respectfully when you find another place.”
What she was doing lady Ann was incapable of knowing. A woman
love-brooding over a child is at the gate of heaven; to take her child
from her is to turn her away from more than paradise.
Jane went in silence, seeming to accept the inevitable, too proud to
wipe away the tear whose rising she could not help--a tear not for
herself, nor yet for the child, but for the dead mother in whose place
she left such a woman. She walked slowly back to the nursery, where her
charge was asleep, closed the door, sat down by the cot, and sat for a
while without moving. Then her countenance began to change, and slowly
went on changing, until at last, as through a mist of troubled emotion,
out upon the strong, rugged face broke, with strange suggestion of a
sunset, the glow of resolve and justified desire. A maid more friendly
than the rest brought her some tea, but Jane said nothing of what had
occurred. When the child awoke, she fed him, and played with him a long
time--till he was thoroughly tired, when she undressed him, and laying
him down, set about preparing his evening meal. No one could have
perceived in her any difference, except indeed it were a subdued
excitement in her glowing eyes. When it was ready, she went to her box,
took from it a small bottle, and poured a few dark-coloured drops into
the food.
“God forgive me! it's but this once!” she murmured.
The child seemed not quite to relish his supper, but did not refuse it,
and was presently asleep in her arms. She laid him down, took a book,
and began to read.