Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  ‘Then I’m afraid you have never read the Gospel; for that would teach you that it is our duty to help the poor and friendless.’

  ‘I’m not much of a hand at reading, lady,’ the girl answered meekly. ‘I’ve forgot most what I was taught at the ragged school when I was a little ‘un. There was ladies sometimes come down the alley where I lived, and they give me tracks, and says I must read ’em if I wanted to save my soul alive; but when I came in of a night, after tramping half over London with a basket of violets or moss-rose buds, I hadn’t the strength left in me to tackle one of them there tracks, which allus led off by tellin’ me I was goin’ to hell.’

  ‘There is better teaching in the Gospel than in those tracts, Bess. The Gospel shows us the way to heaven. Would you like me to come and read to you a little before you compose yourself for the night?’

  ‘Yes, lady, I should like you to come and sit by me a bit. I like to look at you, and to hear you talk; it ain’t like anything as I’ve been used to. It’s like waking up out of a bad dream and finding oneself in a new world. But you’ll be for packing me off to-morrow, I dessay, sending me back to my parish, won’t yer, lady?’

  ‘No, no, you poor soul. You shall not leave the Castle till you are strong and well; and when you do go, I shall try to find you a comfortable home where you can get an honest living. We won’t talk about it now. You are to think of nothing except getting well.’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ answered the girl, with a plaintive look in the dark liquid eyes. ‘It might be better for me just to lie here till I die, and never know nothing more of life and its troubles.’

  ‘You shall find by-and-by that life is not all trouble; that there are a great many things in this world worth living for.’

  An hour later Lady Lucille came back and read some chapters from St. John’s Gospel, but not before she had gently sounded the wanderer’s religious knowledge. She found her wofully ignorant, her only ideas of Gospel truth consisting of vague and patchy recollections of the New Testament as it had been expounded to her by a series of unsympathetic district visitors, so various in their views as to be eminently confusing in their teaching. Gently and briefly Lucille tried to bring before the girl’s mind the grand and gracious image of a Redeemer, before she read those chapters in which Christ reveals Himself and the fair hope of a blessed immortality to His disciples.

  Bess listened intently, understanding not very much perhaps — the light as yet was but a faint glimmer — but deeply interested, soothed by the sweet voice of the reader, dazzled by that idea of a spiritual world which had never before been adequately presented to her imagination. She fell asleep with faint echoes of the Saviour’s words floating in her half-awakened mind.

  Lucille went to see her protégée early next morning. Bess was refreshed and strengthened by nourishing food and rest, and was eager to get up.

  ‘ If there was anything I could do for you, lady—’ she began.

  ‘ Call me Lady Lucille; that is my name.’

  ‘ Lady Lucille — that’s a pretty name! — if there was anything I could do — but, Lord ha’ mercy upon me! I’m such a hignorant creature, except to tramp about with a basket of flowers in spring and summer time, and to sell bootlaces or fusees in winter, I ain’t good for nothink!’

  ‘ We will soon make you good for ever so many things. I am sure you are not stupid.’

  ‘ Well, no, Lady Lu — Lucille, folks mostly says I’m sharp. I could turn my hand to pretty nigh anything, if I had the chance. I’ve sung ballads in front o’ the publics sometimes of a Saturday night: “ She wore a Wreath o’ Roses,” and “ We met,” and “ The Last Rose o’ Summer,” and suchlike.’

  ‘My maid shall teach you plain needlework. Are you clever with your needle?’

  ‘ Lord no, Lady Lucille! I never could lay hold on a needle proper. It allus slips through my fingers.’

  ‘You will very soon learn. Every woman ought to be clever at needlework. The taste is born with us, I think.

  But the first thing I want to teach you is to pray. Perhaps, though you know so little of the Gospel, you have been taught to say your prayers?’

  ‘No, Lady Lucille; them I lived among didn’t hold with praying. “ What should we be the better for craw-thumping and squalling hymns? “ I’ve heard ’em say. “ That wouldn’t get us a meal o’ victuals.”’

  ‘Pour souls! they did not know how Christ taught us to ask our Father for all good things. Our prayers may not always be answered just as we wish, or as soon as we want; but we know they are always heard, and that God gives us what is best for us.’

  ‘I dessay if I lived in this house I should believe that,’ said Bess, to whom the plainest bedchamber in Ingleshaw Castle was like an arbour in the Garden of Eden.

  Lucille taught her to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, and one of those ejaculatory verses in the Psalms, which, after that one sublime supplication, are of all prayers the simplest and the best. It was slow work to teach one who had never been taught anything, since those dim half-forgotten days when the ragamuffin child had been one among a herd of other ragamuffins in a ragged school; but Lucille was accustomed to the density of the agricultural mind, and she found an acuteness of intellect in this child of London slams and alleys which promised rapid progress in the future.

  To her maid Tompion Lady Lucille intrusted the task of teaching this city waif the art of plain needlework, and the simplest household duties.

  ‘ If she really feels strong enough to get up by-and-by, you can show her how to arrange her room; and then, after she has had her dinner in the servants’ hall’ — Tompion’s jaw fell, doubtful how even the lower house in the servants’ hall would brook the introduction of this vagrant damsel—’you can teach her a little plain sewing.’

  Tompion followed her mistress into the corridor.

  ‘You don’t mean to keep her at the Castle, do you. Lady Lucille,’ she inquired, ‘ a young person without a character?’

  ‘We shall find out what her character is in a few days.’

  ‘Just consider, Lady Lucille, she may be mixed up with burglars! What will his lordship say?’

  ‘That is my business, Tompion. You may be sure I shall not keep her here without his lordship’s permission. I may get her a place in the neighbourhood. What you have to do is to teach her to be a handy little maid.’

  ‘It ain’t so easy to teach a tramp that has never been used to decent ways,’ muttered the reluctant Tompion.

  ‘You will find her very clever and teachable. Her wits have been sharpened in the school of adversity. This is the first time I have ever asked you to do anything out of the beaten track, Tompion. I hope you are not going to be disagreeable about it.’

  Tompion vowed that she would not shrink from going through fire and water for her mistress; much less would she refuse to teach a characterless young female, whose habits no doubt were dirty, and whose language must needs be improper.

  Lucille and Miss Marjorum spent a studious morning, deep in Dante’s Inferno, the girl’s eager mind leaping all grammatical fences, and seizing the spirit of the poet, the vivid dramatic power of the scene; the patient governess arresting her at every line to expatiate upon tenses and particles, relatives and predicates, with that affection for dry detail which is the favourite virtue of all mediocre teachers. The weather to-day was less distractingly lovely. The sky wore its sober English gray; and Lucille was content to stay indoors till the afternoon constitutional walk or drive which she was in the habit of taking with her governess.

  Would Bruno come to-day? No, that was hardly possible. His rooms were ready; Lucille had herself been to look at them; a charming suite of rooms in the north wing, near the Earl’s own quarters. Lucille had arranged the hot-house flowers on tables and mantelshelf; and her own hands had composed those still lovelier groups of field and woodland blossoms in low vases of dark dull green Venetian glass. She wanted him to be struck with the beauty of Ingleshaw, even after Italy.


  After luncheon she went to see what progress Bess was making in Tompion’s care. She found the damsel sitting by an open window, clothed in one of Tompion’s neat cotton gowns, with her brown hair bound up in a classic knot, and set off by one of Tompion’s somewhat coquettish muslin caps. Her attire was neatness itself; and the beauty, which had been striking even in dusty rags, had been made all the more brilliant by soap-and-water and clean raiment. Lucille felt proud of having picked up such a gem by the wayside.

  Bess rose at the young lady’s entrance, blushing and sparkling at sight of her benefactress. Tompion had been discoursing largely on her mistress’s importance, on the lofty height from which she had stooped to raise a fallen fellow-creature from the dust. The good Samaritan was an estimable person, no doubt; but he belonged to a despised race, and was perhaps a nobody. Here, on the contrary, was the daughter and heiress of an English nobleman, whose earldom dated from the Tudors, a damsel born in the purple and ermine of life, and in whose person charity must be a virtue of surpassing beauty. Bess, holding her needle clumsily, cobbled her seam industriously, and listened meekly to Tompion’s holding forth. Slight as was her knowledge of any world above the wilderness of courts and back slums in which she had been bred, Bess was quite shrewd enough to know that a young lady living in such a house as Ingleshaw Castle must needs belong to the elect of this earth.

  Tompion, who loved to talk, had told the waif all that could be told about Ingleshaw and its inhabitants. She told her how Mr. Challoner, her young lady’s kinsman and old playfellow, was expected on a visit, after his tour in the south of Europe. The south of Europe was only a sound to Bess, whose geographical knowledge was nil; but she was keenly interested in the idea of a young man who, if he had not exactly ‘ kept company’ with her benefactress in the past, was very likely to keep company with her in the future.

  ‘ It’s pretty well known that his lordship would like them to marry,’ said Tompion, with authority. ‘ It would keep the estates together, don’t you see; for there’s a good deal of property that doesn’t go with the title, and that will belong to Lady Lucille by-and-by. And his lordship is very fond of Mr. Challoner.’

  ‘Is he a good-looking young chap? ‘ inquired Bess.

  ‘He’s a handsome fine-grown young gentleman. You mustn’t call him a chap. It’s a very vulgar word.’

  ‘I knows a many that’s a deal vulgarer,’ said Bess. ‘Lor’s, if you thinks chap vulgar, I could say words as would make your hair stand on end!’

  ‘But you must forget those horrid words. If you want Lady Lucille to be kind to you, and to take an interest in you, you must try to be genteel, like me.’

  ‘O, you’re genteel, are you? ‘ asked the homeless one, with a mocking tone, which Miss Tompion disliked exceedingly. ‘ You’re the pattern I’m to cut myself out upon? I’d rather look higher, and imitate Lady Lucille,’

  ‘You’re an ungrateful impertinent young woman!’ exclaimed Tompion indignantly; ‘and if I hadn’t promised my lady, I’d wash my hands of you this instant. But Lady Lucille begged of me as a favour to teach you proper behaviour and plain sewing, and I’ll do my best to oblige her.’

  ‘I ax your pardon,’ said Bess, the mischievous light in her splendid eyes softening to meekness as she spoke; ‘ I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ll do anything, or learn anything, Lady Lucille wishes; but I thought if I was to copy any one I might as well copy her.’

  ‘That’s too absurd! ‘exclaimed Tompion, just as Lucille entered. ‘Copy her, indeed!’

  Her presence seemed to fill the room with sunshine, Bess thought; and when she spoke kindly and praised her protégée’s neat appearance, the dark eyes filled with grateful tears.

  ‘You are ever so much better, are you not?’ asked Lucille.

  ‘Pretty nigh well, my lady; only a little weak and tottery like. I shall be all right to-morrow; and if you want me to go on to Dover, why, I can do it.’

  ‘That depends upon what your Dover friends could do for you.’

  ‘It won’t be much, my lady,’ answered the girl, with a despondent look. ‘The friend I’ve got there is — only — a kind of a cousin, a young man as lived in the same alley. He talked of ‘listing for a soldier, and I heard tell as he’d gone to Dover; but I don’t know for certain as he’s there.’

  ‘You must not think of going after him,’ said Lucille. ‘What could he do for you, poor fellow — a soldier, without a friend in the place? You shall stop in this house till I get you a situation of some kind. And now come with me, and I’ll show you the pictures. That will cheer you and amuse you, for you don’t look strong enough to do much work yet. Can you walk a little?’

  ‘Anywheres with you, Lady Lucille.’

  Lucille took her through those pretty quaint old rooms, showed her the pictures and cabinets of china, which so many strangers came to see, and was infinitely amused by her curious exclamations and remarks, her utter ignorance, as of a child of three or four years old. There was much that might be taught her while she was looking at the pictures; passages of sacred history, the names of historic personages, great events in the past. Her mind was a blank; but she was eager to receive information, and showed a keen interest in those pictured scenes, and all that Lucille could tell her about them.

  Then Lucille took her in hand, and began the laborious work of revising a form of the English language which had been acquired in Whitechapel, and enriched with the copious slang of London low life — the varieties of provincial dialect picked up in that cosmopolitan city where Bess had been reared. The girl lent herself readily to this work of reformation. She had an intuitive knowledge of her own lowness, and a perfect willingness to have her speech refined and purified by her benefactress.

  Finally, Lucille showed the girl her own rooms; and these seemed to Bess even more exquisite than those stately panelled and pictured apartments which were shown to tourists.

  All the minute elegances of a girl’s surroundings — the books and flowers, statuettes and water-coloured drawings, the piano, the high-art glass and pottery, Japanese lacquer, South Kensington tapestries — formed one brilliant whole, which dazzled and enchanted the eyes that had only seen art and luxury through the shop-windows, while standing weary and sick at heart on the muddy pavement outside. Miss Marjoram, sitting at her crewel-work frame in the recess of a window, acknowledged Bess’s curtsy with the most formal bend of which her back, long trained to formality, was capable. She. did not approve of this girl’s introduction into the Castle; and she was longing for the Earl’s return, which she anticipated would put a speedy end to Lucille’s folly. She most strongly disapproved of the girl’s appearance in these rooms, where her trained eyes were no doubt taking in every detail of windows and shutters, bolts and locks, for the future use of those burglars with whom Miss Marjorum, like Tompion; believed the damsel to be in association. All such wandering damsels were doubtless more or less the companions and accomplices of thieves. And then, again, the prettiness of the creature, in which even Miss Marjoram’s coldly critical eye could see no flaw, was one of those objectionable features in the case which could not be reasoned away. Such a being, born and cradled in the gutter, bore in her own breast the star of an inevitable destiny.

  Lucille spent an hour in displaying the glories of Ingleshaw to her protégée, charmed with the girl’s intense appreciation of every beautiful thing which she saw; an appreciation which was not the less real because it was expressed in a language common to costermongers and their families. To teach, her a new and more refined mode of speech was the first task which Lucille set herself, and, in order to bring about this result, Bess must first learn to read; so Lucille appointed the next morning for a reading-lesson, Tompion, in the meanwhile, being charged to carry on the refining process by all means in her power.

  Lucille devoted two hours after breakfast to this first reading-lesson. She found that Bess knew her letters, and had a vague glimmering of acquaintance with the easier monosyllables in the English
language; but it was very much like beginning at the beginning. Lucille’s patience was inexhaustible, and the pupil’s intellect as keen as a razor; so a great deal was done in those two hours, more being effected by oral instruction, by the refining process of intercourse with a cultivated mind, than by the mere spelling out words upon the page of a primer.

  Miss Marjoram held herself altogether aloof from this initiatory lesson. She would gladly have taken all the trouble of Bess’s education on her hands had she approved Lucille’s scheme; but she would not have any part in an affair which she considered to the last degree imprudent and hazardous.

  ‘ My dear, I think you know I am not one to spare my own trouble,’ she said, when Lucille came to the schoolroom, having left Bess to learn the mystery of an under housemaid’s work from Tompion; ‘ but I cannot go with you in this matter. I feel that harm will come of it.’

  Lucille knew her old governess too well to attempt an argument. She stopped her dear Marjoram’s mouth with Dante; and they went down to the third circle, and floundered there till luncheon.

  After luncheon came rainy weather, so Marjorum retired to her room to read a dry as dust biography of a New Zealand missionary, just received from Mudie. Lucille strongly suspected that Marjorum’s readings in retirement were only another name for sleep. Pleased to be alone, the girl sat down to her beloved Mozart, and lost herself in a maze of melody, in which, somehow or other, it seemed to her fancy as if Bruno was also entangled.

  She had been thinking of him so much that it was hardly a surprise when the door opened softly just as she was singing ‘Batti, batti,’ and he came into the room.

  ‘ Don’t stop!’ he cried, as she rose from the piano; ‘ go on, Lucie. It is like hearing you talk to me. How are you, dear?’ he asked, coming over to her and seating himself at her side; and then in a rich baritone he took up the pleading tender melody. ‘O Lucie, if you knew how glad I am to be home again!’ he said at the end of the phrase.

  ‘Glad to come back from Italy, the country every one sighs to visit!’ she exclaimed, her face radiant with delight. ‘ I was afraid you would despise Ingleshaw, after all the lovely places you have seen.’