Strange — after the interminable night of thought and memory, the horror of unknown pavements and aching feet, and gruff policemen who would not let her sit in a corner and sleep — strange when the new sun lit up the sober comfort of her spacious bedroom, and the trim housemaid with the morning tea, strange to realize that she had done with poverty and shame, and that the master of this stately house was something more than her employer, that he was her generous and considerate friend, kinder to her than ever her father had been, the employer who told her that he could not do without her. She had made herself necessary to his comfort. “She had got the length of his foot,” as Mrs. Tredgold told Mr. Drayson, with a form of speech unworthy of so dignified a person.
VIII
AUSTIN SEDGWICK’S only personal indulgence, the only expensive pleasure he permitted himself, was Alpine climbing. He had enjoyed that luxury every summer since he left Oxford, and his cousin George Bertram was the chosen companion in this amusement. George had no office under government to dictate times and seasons. For several years he had been able to climb when he liked, and where he liked, run any risks he liked, and spend as much money as he liked. Of late he had ceased to be one of the unemployed, though not forced to work, being an only child, with a father whose success at the Bar had begun early, and had been increasing with his years, and an adoring mother, whose fortune was treated as pin-money to spend or waste as she pleased. George had been in far-off regions, as mountaineer and wild-beast slayer, and dearly as he loved Switzerland and the first hills that he had known, he was sometimes slightly disgusted with the Matterhorn because it was not Chimborazo, and inclined to find fault with Monte Rosa for its marked inferiority to Cotopaxi.
Austin did not sigh for fresh worlds to conquer, and was content with the Matterhorn, regretting only the march of progress which made that stern peak accessible to the ruck of mountaineers. The month or six weeks that he was able to spend in the high Alps with his cousin was the glory of his year, and the affection which these two young men had for each other, cultivated summer after summer in snowy solitudes, was almost romantic, and afforded material for scornful laughter in Austin’s sisters, who did not like George.
In this particular September Austin found the maternal welcome less warm than usual, when he presented himself, sunburnt and joyous, in the Eaton Square drawing-room.
His two sisters brought him tea and buns with an openly vindictive air.
“Is there anything the matter, mother?” he asked. “You all look glum.”
“I’m afraid we all feel glum,” Mrs. Sedgwick answered, with more than usual alertness and decision. “Yes, Austin, there is a good deal the matter. Your protégée is the matter.”
“My protégée?”
“Oh, you know whom I mean. You can’t have many of them — certainly not many as clever as Mary Smith.”
“Oh, is that the grievance? What has Mary Smith done in the last six weeks? She had been behaving very well when I last saw my uncle.”
“Oh, her behaviour has been perfect,” Clementina burst in excitedly. “She is a paragon; and I suppose if you don’t mind, nobody else need complain. We never expected much. But for you to bring such a creature into that foolish old man’s house was suicidal. You and George Bertram were neck and neck in the running, and now you may both consider yourselves scratched.”
“You are talking rank nonsense, Tiny. Because my uncle is kind to this girl, and likes her better than any of his former readers — and you and my mother know what your protégées were — do you suppose that he will be cajoled into leaving her his fortune?”
“Yes, I do suppose! I do more, I foresee the thing as inevitable.”
“You are a fool.”
“I have been out five years, and I know something of the world. I knew more than you do before I left the schoolroom.”
“Mother, I beg you to drop this absurd idea,” Austin said seriously, ignoring Clementina. “Your brother is no weakling.”
“He has never been weak about me or my daughters.
But I thought he was fond of you, and that you would come in for half his fortune, if not the larger part. He was fonder of you than even of George.”
“And as for all the rest of us, we are dirt!” snapped Julia, who thought she ought to be heard, or might as well be in the schoolroom. Julia was not out yet, but she was in a kind of middle-state, having done with her governess and being allowed to appear at insignificant tea-parties.
“Neither George nor I have ever counted on being rich that way,” Austin said indignantly.
He had always hated the talk of his uncle’s money, which had been ding-donged into his ears ever since he could remember. And now he had to sit and hear backstairs gossip about Mary Smith. Mrs. Tredgold had called one afternoon and had been given tea in his mother’s boudoir, a tête-à-tête tea, in which the talk had been mostly about Miss Smith, things being related that Mrs. Sedgwick ought to know concerning this young person’s artfulness, and Mr. Field’s infatuation. The case was getting worse every day. His last whim was to have her walk beside his bath-chair — a thing no other reading girl had ever done. He could hardly bear her out of his sight. She had her tea with him, she sat with him at his luncheon, she was with him in the afternoon, and in the evening. And more than once when he was ailing and sleepless she had sat up with him all night.
“It isn’t as if she were a trained nurse!” Mrs. Sedgwick moaned. “If she were a trained nurse there’d be no danger in it.”
“Why not?” Austin asked. “Trained nurses are human, and rich men have left money to them before now.”
“No trained nurse would be as dangerous as this girl. She is the counterpart of Becky Sharp — and if she hasn’t green eyes, they look green in the firelight.”
“She is no beauty,” said Julia.
“No,” assented Clementina. “Nobody would ever call her that. But it is just those pale, insignificant creatures who get round old men. Of course, from the hour she entered that house she meant him to leave her his fortune. She couldn’t see such a house and not mean it, being what she is.”
“And you talk of her like this, knowing absolutely nothing about her,” exclaimed her brother. “It is abominable!”
“No doubt you know a great deal more. But that you, with your expectations, could have been such a fool as to introduce that creature into Warburton House is enough to drive your mother and sisters distracted.”
“If you had been living at home, the thing could never have happened,” wailed his parent, who was sunk in the depth of despair, with her cup of tea in front of her, cold and untasted.
“Aunt G. was here yesterday, and you’ll soon hear what she thinks of it.”
“I am absolutely indifferent to my Aunt G.’s opinion. I happened to find this girl — a good girl, and absolutely friendless — educated and refined, and in want of employment — just the kind of girl to suit my uncle’s whims and fancies. And I seized the opportunity. You and my aunts had all had your chance of finding the right person, and you had all found the wrong person, having tried to provide a berth for one of your own hangers-on. You had sent my uncle the younger sister of Julia’s governess — a hopeless failure. Aunt G. had tried to plant her pet parson’s daughter. You had all your axe to grind, and now you are angry with me because having no ulterior motive I have succeeded where you failed.”
“You are simply impossible!” said Clementina, with grave displeasure. “Altruism may be a virtue, but it is a poor substitute for family affection. If you had any regard for your mother and sisters, you would consider it your duty to keep your footing as Uncle Field’s favourite nephew and natural heir.”
“I have never thought of myself as his heir.”
“You must have known till this adventuress came on the scene that you and George stood to win. I don’t know what George will think when he finds your protégée installed.”
“Oh, drop it!” cried Austin, in what, from so courteous a person, seemed a
burst of fury. “Protégée, protégée! I begin to hate the word.”
“You’ll hate it worse before you’ve done, unless you are in love with the girl, and mean to marry her.”
Austin had taken up his hat and moved towards the door. He, who never left that room without a loving adieu to his mother, was going away in silence.
“Austin!” she screamed, before he readied the threshold.
He turned and looked at her gravely.
“You and my sisters have insulted me,” he said. “You must give me time to forget this afternoon’s conversation before I come here again.”
They stared at each other in consternation when they heard him shut the street door.
“The worm has turned!” said Julia.
IX
MRS. TREDGOLD was on friendly terms with all her employer’s family. Being often reminded of her late husband’s holy office, they affected to treat her as their equal, but it was equality tempered with patronage; and she knew that they did not forget that she took wages from the head of their house. The sisters might receive her with urbanity, and hob-and-nob with her over a silver tea-tray in their mother’s boudoir; but they would no more have thought of asking her to one of their tea-parties than of inviting the baker’s wife or the cook’s aunt.
They condescended, because they wanted backstairs information, and Mrs. Tredgold was too fond of talking about her grievances to withhold any information about the extraordinary goings-on at Warburton House.
There was one recurrent phrase which served as her excuse for every failure in loyalty to her employer.
“If you were not that dear gentleman’s sister, I should never think of talking so freely about him, but these are things you ought to know, ‘my dear Miss Field,’” or “my dear Mrs. Sedgwick,” or “my dear Mrs. Bertram,” as the case might be.
It was after a friendly cup of tea with “that excellent Tredgold” that Miss Field bore down upon her brother, in the clear light of a late September afternoon, and discovered him stretched upon his sofa, with a black poodle lying at his feet, and Mary Smith sitting a little way off reading Carlyle’s “French Revolution.”
Miss Field was best described by her brother as a portentous person. She had been handsome in youth, and was handsome still in her aquiline way, with strongly marked eyebrows, and heavy bands of dark-brown hair parted in the middle of her spacious forehead. She reminded her acquaintance of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine — with a faint suggestion of dagger or bowl. She bought her clothes from a fashionable dress-maker, and paid high prices for silks that rustled more than other people’s. But she had a mid-Victorian stamp that no Parisian talent could mitigate.
She deposited a tepid kiss upon her brother’s forehead, and seated herself in the largest armchair with the air of a guest who has come to stay.
“It is ages since we have seen each other,” she said, “and I’m glad I find you alone, as I have worlds to say.” Her fine eyes swept round the room, and swept over the spot where Mary Smith sat, as if she saw nothing there.
“I am not alone, but I am ready to hear your worlds of talk. I suppose that means all you can tell me about the unspeakable bores you met at Buxton, or Matlock. Which was it, by the way?”
“Neither. I was at Harrogate, and the place was full of charming people.”
“With footmen and motor-cars? Yes, I know.”
“The Duchess of Dumfries was there, and you know she and I have always been fond of each other — and there was Lady Camplehay, and dear old Lord Ludgershall.”
“And a commoner or two to give a flavour of humanity to the atmosphere?”
“Do you suppose my particular friends are not human?”
“No, my dear — they are superhuman — you talk of them with bated breath. You could not be more respectful if they were family ghosts.”
“I own to a peculiar regard for poor dear Ludgershall. The seventeenth Baron, and the last of that historical line.”
“‘The tenth transmitter of a foolish face.’ Poor Lud has failed in his duty, and has not transmitted the family chin — or want of chin!”
“You always show the cloven foot when I talk of my friends. I don’t know where you got your radical opinions.”
“In a general spirit of revolt against existing things.”
“No wonder, if you let yourself listen to Carlyle’s raving against everything aristocratic and lovely.”
“I rather like his raving. We were at a thrilling page when you came in — waiting for Philip Égalité’s vote.” Guinevere remained in a stately silence until the poodle jumped off the sofa, and came to investigate her silken skirt, perhaps to discover if she was a poodle-owner.
“I see you have a dog,” she said. “Is not that a new departure?”
“Yes. The first since Bran died. He is rather a superior thing in poodles, and has won prizes at half a dozen dog shows, but I have not begun to love him yet. I bought him to amuse Mary.”
This time Miss Field was startled into looking at the reading girl, and looked long and searchingly.
The slender figure, the pale refined face, the grave grey eyes with dark lashes and arched brows, the soft silk gown, and delicate lace guimpe, the tout-ensemble, took her breath away.
The aspect of things realized the worst that Mrs. Tredgold had hinted at.
“As we have not seen each other for nearly two months, and may be supposed to have a good deal to talk about, perhaps Miss — Miss—”
Mr. Field’s eldest sister stopped suddenly, with a withering glance at the reader, who had risen and moved towards the door.
“You can amuse yourself with Zamiel in the next room, Mary, for a quarter of an hour, while my sister and I talk of family affairs.”
Mary called the dog, who rushed after her to the library. She shut the door quietly.
“Is that your last new reader?”
“My last, but in a manner my first, for she is the first that I could bear to hear.”
“I think it was Austin who discovered her for you.”
“Yes, Austin found her — a service for which I can never be too grateful.”
“You were not very kind to the young lady I found for you — although she really deserved to be better appreciated — a girl of good birth and refined surroundings — in one word, a gentlewoman.”
“An over-educated prig, who looked down upon her father, your High Church parson, and boasted of her own unbelief.”
“I know she is a shade too modern, but she is steeped in the best literature, and I thought you would find her simpatica.”
“That was exactly what I didn’t find her. She made a parade of her consideration for my infirmities and kept my limitations perpetually en évidence. She got on my nerves worse than the red-haired girl Selina tried to plant upon me.”
“Gladys Rotherham came from cultured people, and her manners were absolutely perfect. But since she couldn’t please you, there’s an end of it. You seem to be making a favourite of Austin’s young person. I suppose you know all about her antecedents.”
“As much as I want to know. I know that she is a lady — sensitive and sympathetic. I get no pin-pricks from Mary.”
“Mary. Mary Smith? It sounds like an assumed name.”
“Possibly. It is unpretentious, and suits my humour.”
“But, as a man of the world, do you think it wise to make a favourite of your hired reader?”
“As a man whose world lies within the four walls of a library, I think wisdom consists in doing whatever pleases me. From the time my reading girl pleased me, I ceased to think of her as a hireling.”
“And you treat her as if she were your adopted daughter.”
“Why not?”
“Have you ever thought of the scandal that might arise from such favouritism?”
Conway gave her a withering look. But Guinevere knew she had undertaken a tough job, and she meant to go through with it.
“Scandal!” he echoed, in his strong deep voice,
the voice that was not often heard. “Scandal about a man of whom there is nothing left but a mind! Nobody but a fool could make such a suggestion.”
“It is not the first time you have called me a fool.”
“And it may not be the last.”
“I did not expect courtesy when I came here.”
“If you don’t like the other thing, you should stop away.”
“I have a duty to my only brother — a special duty to you, Conway, although you have obstinately refused the sisterly affection that ought to have made a difference in your life.”
“What difference? Could your affection have given me back the use of my limbs — could it have set me on a horse — flying through the freshness of spring, with the music of the hounds in my ears — could it have given me the world I knew and loved? Could it have made me something better than a body that cannot move, and a brain that cannot rest? Sisterly affection is no salve for wounds like mine.”
“I hope you will find more consolation from Miss Smith.”
“At any rate, she does not pretend to console me. She never hints at my limitations — to her I am a creature with an active mind, not a wreck of humanity to be soothed and pitied.”
“Oh, I have no doubt she has plenty of tact — just as Becky Sharp had. Personally, she rather reminds me of Becky Sharp.”
“I wish she were half as clever. I should adore a Becky Sharp. But such perfection is only possible in fiction,” added Conway, with a sudden gaiety.
He knew that nothing so exasperated Guinevere as not to be taken seriously.
“I will say no more upon the situation as it may affect yourself, since I know you don’t care what people think about you.”
“Not a jot.”
“But if you were not an egotist, you would have some consideration for the effect of such a false position on the young woman’s future — her chance of marrying, or of another reputable situation after she leaves you.”
“She will not leave me while I live.”
“You will get tired of her — as you have done in other cases.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 1011
