“I think,” said Maud, who was vexed profoundly at the delay, “that it is almost a pity. But of course, whatever you think best. They tell me it will take a little more than five hours to reach Lady Mardykes’s house; and it would be uncomfortable, I’m afraid, getting there very late.”
“Your arriving half an hour late, or an hour late, or two hours late, will cause Lady Mardykes no uneasiness,” said her mother; “nor any other person. Pray allow me to direct the manner in which my own servants, carriages, and horses shall be employed, and you will find that I am quite competent to carry out any arrangements which, while you remain in my charge, may appear desirable.”
Though Lady Vernon spoke, as usual, with a calm manner and in cold tones, her faint smile expressed something of positive antipathy, and there were, in her measured emphasis, evidences of strangely intense and bitter temper, to which Maud was not accustomed.
These signs irritated, but also awed Miss Vernon. There was something of the malignity of suffering in the gloom of her address, and Maud instinctively shrank from any betrayal of feeling which, in Lady Vernon’s mood, might possibly lead to a sudden countermand of the entire expedition.
“From me you don’t deserve confidence,” she said, suddenly. “You have given me none. I should not accept it now. But I know all I need know; from whom you receive letters among the rest. Don’t speak; don’t answer. I will have no altercation. What I allude to I know. You have been no child to me. I have been, you’ll say, no mother to you. It is false. I look into my heart and life, of which you know nothing, and I see that I have done, am doing, and, with Heaven’s help, will do, my duty. I am sacrificing myself, my feelings, for you and for others. Yes, for you — for you, at this moment. I don’t care, with that comfort, what may be said or fancied. What is it to me what the wicked and frivolous may say or think? I do my duty by you always, steadily, and I defy them. I and you, we are what we are. There; go. No goodbyes. Only remember, wherever you are, duty rules my life; my care shall follow you.”
With these odd words she turned away, and left the room by the side-door, and Maud was alone. Glad she was that the interview was over, and she at liberty.
The shadow of this cloud did not rest long upon her, black as its transit had been.
She and her maid were presently driving at a swift trot away from Roydon. She had not driven a mile away, when that unnatural parting began to recede in her mind, before the free and sunny prospect opening before her at Carsbrook.
“You never were at Carsbrook, Jones?” said Miss Vernon to her maid, for the tenth time during the last week. “No. I forgot I asked you that before. I should not wonder, Jones, if I were to leave you there. Miss Medwyn is a great matchmaker, and three of her own maids have been married from her house.”
“Marriages is made in heaven, miss, they say; but I don’t see many wives that would not be maids again if they could. I might ‘a been married a many a time if I would. And if I would change my mind there’s many a one would take me, if they thought I’d have them, without going all the way to Carsbrook.”
“Oh, yes; but I mean a very eligible match. No matter; my cousin Max will look about, and we’ll be satisfied with nothing less.”
“La, miss! do give over your nonsense!”
“We change horses five or six times on the way to Carsbrook. What o’clock is it now?” She looked at her watch. “About halfpast four. What a good pace he is driving at. We shall be there before ten, I think.”
The evening tints were over the landscape by the time they reached the Green Dragon — a lonely posting-house near Dorminbury Common.
“We’ll tell them to make us some tea. Here, Jones, what do you think? Should not you like it?”
“Thanks, miss, very much; I should like it very well, miss, please.”
By this time the horses came to a standstill before the pretty little inn; the ostlers shuffled out to take the horses off; and Maud ran into the house under a fragrant bower of jessamine and honey-suckle.
They look out upon the quiet slopes and rather hungry sheepwalks that surround the Green Dragon, and make it solitary, through a little window that makes a frame of dark leaves and roses round.
Here they take their tea in high spirits. And this little repast over, they walk out upon the platform before the porch.
The horses are, by this time, put to; and from this elevated point of view Maud looks towards Roydon Hall, now seventeen miles away, exactly in the direction where the sun is now sinking from view.
It is a strange, wild, ominous sunset. Long floods of clear saffron flush into faint flame, and deep purple masses, like piles of battle-smoke, load the pale sea of green above. The sun dives into its abyss of fire. Black clouds, like girding rocks, with jagged edges heated dazzling as flame, encircle its descent with the yawn of a crater; and, high in air, scattered flecks of cloud, like the fragments of an explosion, hang splendouring the fading sky with tongues of fire. The sun is now quite down; all is gradually darkening. The smoke is slowly rolling and subsiding, and the crater stretches up its enormous mouth, and breathes out a blood-red vapour that overspreads the amber sky, and meets the sinking masses; and so the vaporous scenery fades and blackens, leaving on Maud’s mind a vague sense of the menacing and portentous.
When she takes her place in the carriage she is silent; she is thinking of her mother’s oracular and incoherent leavetaking, and she sees her pale, handsome face, and flitting smile, and does not know whether they indicate more suffering or dislike.
But is she not leaving Roydon and its troubles fast and far behind her, and is she not driving now with four good trotters, at an exhilarating pace, towards her dear old cousin Max, towards Carsbrook, and its pleasant excitements, towards her new and hospitable friend, its charming hostess, and towards a possible meeting still more interesting?
CHAPTER LVI.
THE PIG AND TINDER-BOX.
Soon the pleasant moon was shining, and silvered all the landscape.
In one of Swift’s picturesque illustrations he describes the hilarity with which a party of friends ride out on a journey; in the morning how spruce they look, how they talk and laugh, and admire all they see, and enjoy everything, and how bespattered, silent, and spiritless, after some hours in the saddle, the same party arrive at their journey’s end.
Something of this, in a modified way, our travellers experienced, as they approached the Pig and Tinder-box, the fourth posting-house, where they were to change horses.
It is a larger building than the Green Dragon, and older a great deal, with a porch of Charles the First’s time, and a portion of the building as old as Queen Elizabeth’s.
This inn, like the others along the posting line, depends in no sort upon its neighbourhood for support. A well-kept road across a melancholy moor, called Haxted Heath, passes its front. The Pig and Tinder-box is nine-and-twenty miles away from the chimneys of Roydon Hall, and about sixteen from Carsbrook.
Maud has ceased to enjoy the mere sense of locomotion, and has got into the state in which the end of a journey is looked forward to with satisfaction. She looks out of the carriage window, and sees the road stretching over the black moor, in the moonlight, like a strip of white tape.
Beside it show, at first dimly, the gables and chimneys of the Pig and Tinder-box, with the outlines of its stables and offices, and the poplars and chestnuts that grow near it.
Listlessly she looks on, and thinks she sees a carriage before its door.
“Look out, Jones, and tell me, is that a carriage before the door of the inn?”
Jones stretches her neck from the window twice as far as is necessary.
“A waggon, miss, I think,” said she, without interrupting her scrutiny to pull her head in. “No — is it? Well, I do believe it does look like a carriage, rayther.”
“Let me look, Jones,” said Miss Maud, tapping her shoulder. “I hope they are not taking our horses.”
Miss Vernon looked out, and now plainly saw a ca
rriage standing upon the road, with the horses’ heads turned towards them. A postboy in topboots was in front, at the horses’ bridles. The moonlight showed all this distinctly, and his comrade, partly hid in the black shadow of the old building, and partly revealed by the lamplight that shone from the porch, was talking to some one inside.
It was plain that these people now heard the clink and rumble of the approaching coach-wheels, for the man at the porch, pointing along the road in their direction, turned towards his companion, who forthwith led his horses toward them a little, drawing up at the side of the road.
The Roydon carriage passed this swiftly by, and drew up before the porch of the Pig and Tinder-box.
The landlady waddled out swiftly in front of the threshold, to receive her distinguished guests.
“You had a letter from Lady Vernon, hadn’t you?” inquired the young lady, eagerly, thinking what a mortification it would be to find no horses, and be obliged to put up till morning at this melancholy old roadside inn.
“Yes, miss, sure, everything is ready, as her ladyship ordered; and will your ladyship, miss, please take a cup of tea? I made it when we saw your ladyship’s carriage acoming, jest two minutes ago.”
Tea is always tempting on a journey, and although they had taken some scarcely two hours before, Maud agreed, and their hostess showed them into a comfortable panelled room, where teathings were on the table.
The fat landlady of the Pig and Tinder-box stood with her apron against the table, on which her knuckles leaned, and said:
“I hope, miss, you may find the carriage comfortable.”
“Thanks, we are travelling in mamma’s.”
“But Lady Vernon said in her note, please, miss, that her own was not to go further than this, and I was to furnish a carriage, on — — “
“Oh, I did not know; I’m sure it is very nice; I have no doubt we shall find it very comfortable. Jones, you had better go and see that they make no mistake about our boxes and the things in the carriage that are coming on with us.”
Jones went off in a fuss. The room in which she left her young mistress is at the end of a passage, which runs to the left from the hall, with some doors opening from it toward the front of the building.
When Jones, in obedience to her young mistress’s orders, had got to the foot of the stairs in front of the open hall-door, she saw standing in the entrance of the corresponding passage, at the other side of the hall, a man, with a dark, determined face and fine forehead, about the sternest and gravest-looking man she had ever seen. Judging by his dress you would have supposed him a person in the rank of an upper servant, and he wore a black outside coat buttoned up to his throat. His hat was in his hand. But judging by his air and countenance you would have taken him for a Jesuit, on a secret service of danger. There was in his face the severity of habitual responsibility, and in the brown eye, that glanced from corner to corner, the penetration and cold courage of a man of action.
He stepped forward as gravely as an undertaker, and speaking low but rapidly, said: “Are you Miss Jones, please?”
“Yes, my name is Jones,” said that young lady, with ears erect.
“Miss Vernon’s maid?” continued the inquirer.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, with dignity and some disdain, for she was not accustomed to be questioned by strangers.
“You have just come, Miss Jones, with the young lady from Roydon?” he added, politely.
“Yes, sir,” she again answered, dryly.
“Then, Miss Jones, if you’ll be good enough to come this way for a moment, I’ll give you a message and a note from Lady Vernon,” he continued.
“Certainly, sir,’’ answered Miss Jones, with a little start, and her eyes very wide open. A slight sinking at her heart acknowledged the ominous character of the occurrence.
The dark stranger had a candle in his hand, and led Miss Jones down the passage, at the opposite side of the hall from which he had just emerged.
As she followed him into the room, the door of which stood open, she thought she saw a fat, unpleasant face, which she little expected to see there, smiling from the further end at her.
She stepped back from the door, and looked steadily down the passage; but, if it had really been there, it was gone.
There was a pair of candles in the small room to which he had conducted her, one upon the chimneypiece, the other he had himself placed on the table; and he now snuffed it.
“Lady Vernon desired me, Miss Jones, by letter received this morning, to look after Miss Vernon’s luggage here, and to see it transferred all right to the carriage she is going on in. That is done, except your two boxes, which are not to go on.”
“But I can’t get on at Carsbrook without my two boxes, sir,” exclaimed Miss Jones, alarmed for her get-up and decorations. “I shall want every single individial thing I took with me from Roydon!”
“Perhaps, Miss Jones, you would prefer sitting,” said the imperturbable stranger, placing a chair, and sliding the candle along the table towards her. “This is the letter which Lady Vernon desires me to give you with my own hand.”
At the same time he placed a note in the alarmed young lady’s fingers.
She opened it, and read these words:
Roydon Hall, Monday.
Rebecca Jones, — I require your presence here. Therefore, immediately on receiving this note, you will return to Roydon Hall in the carriage in which you left it. Miss Vernon will continue her journey with, for the present, another maid.
Barbara Vernon.
Miss Jones sniffed once or twice, and felt an odd chill, as she laid this note on the table; and looking with flushed cheeks and undisguised scorn at the courier, she asked, with a little toss of her head:
“And who are you, sir, if I may make bold to inquire?”
“As regards you, Miss Jones, in this present matter, I am Lady Vernon’s messenger, and nothing more,” he answered, phlegmatically, and smiled, after a pause, showing a row of even, white teeth.
“I think it’s a very odd way I’m treated,” said Miss Jones, whisking the note, with a little jerk, by the corner. “I don’t know no reason why I should be sent to and fro, between Roydon and this, and this and Roydon, back and forward, as if I was good for nothing but to be tossed here and there like a shuttlecock!”
“Very likely, miss,” acquiesced the serene messenger.
“And I’ll acquaint my young lady, and see what she will say to it,” continued Jones, in her indignation, preparing to go direct to her young mistress.
“But we are forbidden to do that, Miss Jones,” said this grave person, calmly. “You know Lady Vernon’s handwriting?”
“I rayther suppose I ought to,” answered Miss Jones, scornfully, with her head very high, and dismay at her heart.
“My directions are strictly to prevent any such thing. Will you be good enough to read this.”
He doubled back a piece of the letter, and permitted her to read the following lines:
“I have ordered Rebecca Jones to return immediately to Roydon. She will, therefore, without speaking to Miss Vernon, take her place again in my carriage, into which you will be so good as to put her, and my servant will immediately drive the carriage back to Roydon, as you advise.”
“I have given them their directions,” said the man, putting up his letter, “and the carriage, with your two boxes, Miss Jones, waits at the door, to which I will, if you permit me, conduct you now.”
“Well, as for me, I’m but a lady’s-maid, and I suppose I ought to be thankful to stand anything. Having been Miss Maud’s own maid, which no one can deny what I have been to her through many a troubled day and night, ever since she was old enough to have a maid, anything is good enough, and too good for me.”
“I think, Miss Jones, Lady Vernon won’t like it if you delay here any longer,” remarked the quiet man, approaching the door.
“And who’s to go with Miss Maud? I’d like to know that, if it’s no treason; ‘tain’t every
one that can dress a young lady like she is, and I don’t suppose her ladyship could ‘a meant I was to leave my young lady without knowing who was to take care of her, and be in charge of her things; and so I should like to know better, before I leave here, who’s to go on with her to Carsbrook?”
“Lady Vernon is a very particular lady, I’m told, and she has arranged all that herself, and I have no directions to give you, Miss Jones, except what I have told you.”
“Well, it is a queer way, I am sure! I suppose I must do as her ladyship desires. I hope Miss Maud mayn’t be the sufferer; and it does seem a bit queer I mayn’t so much as say goodbye to her.”
There was here a little interrogative pause, as she looked in his face in the hope that he might relent.
“Lady Vernon’s directions are plain upon that point,” observed the dark-featured man; “and we have delayed too long, I’m afraid, Miss Jones.”
“It ain’t me, then,” said Miss Jones, quickly. “I’m making no delays; I’m ready to go. I said so when I saw her ladyship’s note, that instant minute.”
“Be so good as to follow me, miss,” said the stranger.
And he led the way down the passage, through the kitchen, into the stableyard, and through the gate, forth upon the road, where the Roydon carriage, with the tired horses, which had just brought them there, were waiting to take crestfallen Miss Jones back to the Green Dragon.
That young lady was quickly shut up, left to her angry reflections, and the prompt man in black said a word to the coachman, who was again on the box, and another to the footman, who handed his pewter pot, just drained, with some flakes of foam still on its side, to the ostler.
The footman took his seat, and Lady Vernon’s carriage and servants, including Jones, much disgusted at her unexpected reverse, began to roll away toward Dorminbury Common and distant Roydon.
CHAPTER LVII.
A SURPRISE.
Miss Vernon rang her bell, and the landlady looked in.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 598
