MRS. WEYMORE.
Lady Thetford had settled her business satisfactorily with the rector of
St Gosport.
"Nothing could be more opportune," he said. "I am going to London next
week on business which will detain me upward of a fortnight. I will
immediately advertise for such a person as you want."
"You must understand," said her ladyship, "I do not require a young
girl. I wish a middle-aged person--a widow, for instance, who has had
children of her own. Both Rupert and May are spoiled--May particularly
is perfectly unmanageable. A young girl as governess for her would never
do."
Mr. Knight departed with these instructions and the following week
started for the great metropolis. An advertisement was at once inserted
in the _Times_ newspaper, stating all Lady Thetford's requirements, and
desiring immediate application. Another week later, and Lady Thetford
received the following communication:
"DEAR LADY THETFORD--I have been fairly besieged with
applications for the past week--all widows, and all professing
to be thoroughly competent. Clergyman's widows, doctors'
widows, officers' widows--all sorts of widows. I never before
thought so many could apply for one situation. I have chosen
one in sheer desperation--the widow of a country gentleman in
distressed circumstances, who, I think, will suit. She is
eminently respectable in appearance, quiet and lady-like in
manner, with five years' experience in the nursery-governess
line, and the highest recommendation from her late employers.
She has lost a child, she tells me, and from her looks and
manner altogether, I should judge she was a person conversant
with misfortune. She will return with me early next week--her
name is Mrs. Weymore."
Lady Thetford read this letter with a little sigh of relief--some one
else would have the temper and outbreaks of little May to contend with
now. She wrote to Captain Everard that same day, to announce his
daughter's well-being, and inform him that she had found a suitable
governess to take charge of her.
The second day of the ensuing week the rector and the new governess
arrived. A fly from the railway brought her and her luggage to Thetford
Towers late in the afternoon, and she was taken at once to the room that
had been prepared for her, whilst the servant went to inform Lady
Thetford of her arrival.
"Fetch her here at once," said her ladyship, who was alone, as usual, in
the long drawing-room with the children, "I wish to see her."
Ten minutes after the drawing-room door was flung open, and "Mrs.
Weymore, my lady," announced the footman.
Lady Thetford arose to receive her new dependent, who bowed and stood
before her with a somewhat fluttered and embarrassed air. She was quite
young, not older than my lady herself, and eminently good-looking. The
tall, slender figure, clad in widow's weeds, was as symmetrical as Lady
Thetford's own, and the full black dress set off the pearly fairness of
the blonde skin, and the rich abundance of fair hair. Lady Thetford's
brows contracted a little; her fair, subdued, gentle-looking, girlish
young woman, was hardly the strong-minded, middle-aged matron she had
expected to take the nonsense out of obstreperous May Everard.
"Mrs. Weymore, I believe," said Lady Thetford, resuming her
_fauteuil_, "pray be seated. I wished to see you at once, because
I am going out this evening. You have had five years' experience as a
nursery-governess, Mr. Knight tells me."
"Yes, my lady."
There was a little tremor in Mrs. Weymore's low voice, and her blue eyes
shifted and fell under Lady Thetford's steady and somewhat haughty gaze.
"Yet you look young--much younger than I imagined, or wished."
"I am twenty-seven years old, my lady."
That was my lady's own age precisely, but she looked half a dozen years
the elder of the two.
"Are you a native of London?"
"No, my lady, of Berkshire."
"And you have been a widow, how long?"
What ailed Mrs. Weymore? She was all white and trembling--even her
hands, folded and pressed together in her lap, shook in spite of her.
"Eight years and more."
She said it with a sort of sob, hysterically choked. Lady Thetford
looked on surprised, and a trifle displeased. She was a very proud
woman, and certainly wished for no scene with her hired dependents.
"Eight years is a tolerable time," she said, coolly. "You have lost
children?"
"One, my lady."
Again that choked, hysterical sob. My lady vent on pitilessly.
"Is it long ago?"
"When--when I lost its father?"
"Ah! both together? That was rather hard. Well, I hope you understand
the management of children--spoiled ones particularly. Here are the two
you are to take charge of. Rupert--May come here."
The children came over from their corner. Mrs. Weymore drew May toward
her, but Sir Rupert held aloof.
"This is my ward--this is my son. I presume Mr. Knight has told you. If
you can subdue the temper of that child, you will prove yourself,
indeed, a treasure. The east parlor has been fitted up for your use; the
children will take their meals there with you; the room adjoining is to
be the school-room. I have appointed one of the maids to wait on you. I
trust you will find your chamber comfortable."
"Exceedingly so, my lady."
"And the terms proposed by Mr. Knight suit you?"
Mrs. Weymore bowed. Lady Thetford rose to close the interview.
"You must need refreshment and rest after your journey. I will not
detain you longer. To-morrow your duties will commence."
She rang the bell--directed the servant who came to show the governess
to the east parlor and see to her wants, and then to send nurse for the
children. Fifteen minutes after she drove away in the pony-phaeton,
whilst the new governess stood by the window of the east parlor and
watched her vanish in the amber haze of the August sunset.
Lady Thetford's business in St. Gosport detained her a couple of hours.
The big, white, August moon was rising as she drove slowly homeward, and
the nightingales sang its vesper lay in the scented hedge-rows. As she
passed the rectory she saw Mr. Knight leaning over his own gate enjoying
the placid beauty of the summer evening, and Lady Thetford reined in her
ponies to speak to him.
"So happy to see your ladyship! Won't you alight and come in? Mrs.
Knight will be delighted."
"Not this evening, I think. Had you much trouble about my business?"
"I had applicants enough, certainly," laughed the rector. "I had reason
to remember Mr. Weller's immortal advice, 'Beware of widders.' How do
you like your governess?"
"I have hardly had time to form an opinion. She is younger than I could
desire."
"She looks much younger than the age she gives, I know; but that is a
common case. I trust my choice will prove satisfactory--her references
are excellent. Your ladyship has had an interview with her?"
"A very brief one. Her manner struck me unpleasantly--so odd, and shy,
and nervous. I hardly know how to characterize it; but she may be a
paragon of governesses, for all that. Good evening; best regards to Mrs.
Knight. Call soon and see how your _protégé_ gets on."
Lady Thetford drove away. As she alighted from the pony-carriage and
ascended the great front steps of the house, she saw the pale governess
still seated at the window of the east parlor, gazing dejectedly out at
the silvery moonlight.
"A most woeful countenance," thought my lady. "There is some deeper
grief than the loss of a husband and child eight years ago, the matter
with that woman. I don't like her."
No, Lady Thetford did not like the meek and submissive looking
governess, but the children and the rest of the household did. Sir
Rupert and little May took to her at once--her gentle voice, her tender
smile seemed to win its way to their capricious favor; and before the
end of the first week she had more influence over them than mother and
nurse together. The subdued and gentle governess soon had the love of
all at Thetford Towers, except its mistress, from Mrs. Hilliard, the
stately housekeeper, down. She was courteous and considerate, so anxious
to avoid giving trouble. Above all, that fixed expression of hopeless
trouble on her sad, pale face, made its way to every heart. She had full
charge of the children now; they took their meals with her, and she had
them in her keeping the best part of the day--an office that was no
sinecure. When they were with their nurse, or my lady, the governess sat
alone in the east parlor, looking out dreamily at the summer landscape,
with her own brooding thoughts.
One evening when she had been at Thetford Towers over a fortnight, Mrs.
Hilliard, coming in, found her sitting dreamily by herself neither
reading nor working. The children were in the drawing-room, and her
duties were over for the day.
"I am afraid you don't make yourself at home here," said the
good-natured housekeeper; "you stay too much alone, and it isn't good
for young people like you."
"I am used to solitude," replied the governess with a smile, that ended
in a sigh, "and I have grown to like it. Will you take a seat?"
"No," said Mrs. Hilliard. "I heard you say the other day you would like
to go over the house; so, as I have a couple of hours leisure, I will
show it to you now."
The governess rose eagerly.
"I have been wanting to see it so much," she said, "but I feared to give
trouble by asking. It is very good of you to think of me, dear Mrs.
Hilliard."
"She isn't much used to people thinking of her," reflected the
housekeeper, "or she wouldn't be so grateful for trifles. Let me see,"
aloud, "you have seen the drawing-room and library, and that is all,
except your own apartments. Well, come this way, I'll show you the old
south wing."
Through the long corridors, up wide, black, slippery staircases, into
vast, unused rooms, where ghostly echoes and darkness had it all to
themselves, Mrs. Hilliard led the governess.
"These apartments have been unused since before the late Sir Noel's
time," said Mrs. Hilliard; "his father kept them full in the hunting
season, and at Christmas time. Since Sir Noel's death, my lady has shut
herself up and received no company, and gone nowhere. She is beginning
to go out more of late than she has done ever since his death."
Mrs. Hilliard was not looking at the governess, or she might have been
surprised at the nervous restlessness and agitation of her manner, as
she listened to these very commonplace remarks.
"Lady Thetford was very much attached to her husband, then?" Mrs.
Weymore said, her voice tremulous.
"Ah! that she was! She must have been, for his death nearly killed her.
It was sudden enough, and shocking enough, goodness knows! I shall never
forget that dreadful night. This is the old banqueting-hall, Mrs.
Weymore, the largest and dreariest room in the house."
Mrs. Weymore, trembling very much, either with cold or that
unaccountable nervousness of hers, hardly looked round at the vast
wilderness of a room.
"You were with the late Sir Noel, then, when he died?"
"Yes, until my lady came. Ah! it was a dreadful thing! He had taken her
to a ball, and riding home his horse threw him. We sent for the doctor
and my lady at once; and when she came, all white and scared like, he
sent us out of the room. He was as calm and sensible as you or me, but
he seemed to have something on his mind. My lady was shut up with him
for about three hours, and then we went in--Dr. Gale and me. I shall
never forget that sad sight. Poor Sir Noel was dead, and she was
kneeling beside him in her ball dress, like somebody turned to stone. I
spoke to her, and she looked up at me, and then fell back in my arms in
a fainting fit. Are you cold, Mrs. Weymore, that you shake so?"
"No--yes--it is this desolate room, I think," the governess answered,
hardly able to speak.
"It _is_ desolate. Come, I'll show you the billiard-room, and then we'll
go up-stairs to the room Sir Noel died in. Everything remains just as it
was--no one has ever slept there since. If you only knew, Mrs. Weymore,
what a sad time it was; but you do know, poor dear! you have lost a
husband yourself!"
The governess flung up her hands before her face with a suppressed cry
so full of anguish that the housekeeper stared at her aghast. Almost as
quickly she recovered herself again.
"Don't mind me," she said, in a choking voice, "I can't help it. You
don't know what I suffered--what I still suffer. Oh, pray, don't mind
me!"
"Certainly not my dear," said Mrs. Hilliard, thinking inwardly the
governess was a very odd person, indeed.
They looked at the billiard-room, where the tables stood, dusty and
disused, and the balls lay idly by.
"I don't know when it will be used again," said Mrs. Hilliard; "perhaps
not until Sir Rupert grows up. There was a time," lowering her voice,
"that I thought he would never live to be as old and strong as he is
now. He was the puniest baby, Mrs. Weymore, you ever looked at--nobody
thought he would live. And that would have been a pity, you know; for
then the Thetford estate would have gone to a distant branch of the
family, as it would, too, if Sir Rupert had been a little girl."
She went on up-stairs to the inhabited part of the building, followed by
Mrs. Weymore, who seemed to grow more and more agitated with every word
the housekeeper said.
"This is Sir Noel's room," said Mrs. Hilliard, in an awe-struck whisper,
as if the dead man still lay there; "no one ever enters here but me."
She unlocked it as she spoke, and went in. Mrs. Weymore followed, with a
face of frightened pallor that struck even the housekeeper.
"Good gracious me! Mrs. Weymore, what is the matter? You are as pale as
a ghost. Are you afraid to enter a room where a person has died?"
Mrs. Weymore's reply was almost inaudible; she stood on the threshold,
pallid, trembling, unaccountably moved. The housekeeper glanced at her
suspiciously.
"Very odd," she thought, "very! The new governess is either the most
nervous person I ever met, or else--no, she can't have known Sir Noel in
his lifetime. Of course not."
They left the chamber after a cursory glance around--Mrs. Weymore never
advancing beyond the threshold. She had not spoken, and that white
pallor made her face ghastly still.
"I'll show you the picture-gallery," said Mrs. Hilliard; "and then, I
believe, you will have seen all that is worth seeing at Thetford
Towers."
She led the way to a long, high-lighted room, wainscoted and antique,
like all the rest, where long rows of dead and gone Thetfords looked
down from the carved walls. There were knights in armor, countesses in
ruffles and powder and lace, bishops in mitre on head and crozier in
hand, and judges in gown and wig. There were ladies in pointed
stomachers and jeweled fans, with the waists of their dresses under
their arms, but all fair and handsome, and unmistakably alike. Last of
all the long array, there was Sir Noel, a fair-haired, handsome youth of
twenty, with a smile on his face and a happy radiance in his blue eyes.
And by his side, dark and haughty and beautiful, was my lady in her
bridal-robes.
"There is not a handsomer face amongst them all than my lady's," said
Mrs. Hilliard, with pride. "You ought to have seen her when Sir Noel
first brought her home; she was the most beautiful creature I ever
looked at. Ah! it was such a pity he was killed. I suppose they'll be
having Sir Rupert's taken next and hung beside her. He don't look much
like the Thetfords; he's his mother over again--a Vandeleur, dark and
still."
If Mrs. Weymore made any reply the housekeeper did not catch it; she was
standing with her face averted, hardly looking at the portraits, and was
the first to leave the picture-gallery.
There were a few more rooms to be seen--a drawing-room suite, now closed
and disused; an ancient library, with a wonderful stained window, and a
vast echoing reception-room. But it was all over at last, and Mrs.
Hilliard, with her keys, trotted cheerfully off; and Mrs. Weymore was
left to solitude and her own thoughts once more.
A strange person, certainly. She locked the door and fell down on her
knees by the bedside, sobbing until her whole form was convulsed.
"Oh! why did I come here? Why did I come here?" came passionately with
the wild storm of sobs. "I might have known how it would be! Nearly nine
years--nine lone, long years, and not to have forgotten yet!"