by Ellen Wood
“Lucy would have been just as well at school,” said the earl.
“Oh, papa, no!” and Jane’s tone was one of pain. “I should not like her to be moved from under my supervision. You know I have been as her mother ever since mamma died. Neither do I think you would like to part with her.”
“Have it as you will,” said the earl, his voice somewhat more conciliatory. “If you think the woman will do, let her sign articles.”
Jane smiled. But before she could answer, a servant entered the room and said a lady was waiting to see her.
“Who is it?” asked Jane.
“I thought she said Miss Lethwait, my lady, but I am not sure that I caught the name rightly, though I asked twice,” was the man’s answer.
Jane left the room to receive her visitor. “Lethwait?” she repeated to herself. “Lethwait? — surely that was the name of the governess mentioned by Mrs. Marden! I suppose she must have sent her here.”
A tall and very elegant woman of seven or eight and twenty rose from her chair as Jane entered. In features she was plain, but there was something really magnificent about her dark eyes and hair, about her manner altogether. Jane bowed; and concluded she had been mistaken in supposing it to be the governess.
But the governess it was, Miss Lethwait. Mrs. Marden had informed her that she had spoken to Lady Jane Chesney on her behalf, and Miss Lethwait had deemed it best to call at once, lest some other applicant should supersede her. She was a clergyman’s daughter she informed Jane, and had been trained for a governess. Her father had judged it better to give his children an education by which they might make their way in the world, she said, than to put by the money it would cost, to be divided amongst them at his death. It would be only a few hundreds at best, not sufficient to be of real use to them. Jane inquired why she was leaving her present situation, and was told that the amount of work was driving her away. She had five pupils, and taught them everything.
“You will require a large salary, probably?” Jane said, after a few minutes’ pause, during which she had been thinking how much she should like to engage Miss Lethwait.
Miss Lethwait hesitated in her reply. She had been told by Mrs. Marden that Lady Jane had intimated she should not be able to pay a very high one.
“I receive eighty guineas where I am, madam,” she at length answered. “But in consideration of there being only one pupil, I would willingly accept less. Were I to continue to work as I am doing now, I am sure that my health would seriously suffer. I am frequently up until past twelve, correcting exercises which I have not time to do during the day, and I am obliged to rise at six to superintend the practising.”
Jane could with truth assure her that there would be no overworking in her home — if she came into it; and when Miss Lethwait quitted the house, she was engaged, subject to references.
She had barely gone when Mrs. Marden called, a pretty little woman with a profusion of auburn hair. Jane saw her with surprise. An appointment had been made for them to meet at half-past one, but it was yet only half-past twelve. Mrs. Marden had come to tell Jane she would probably receive a visit from Miss Lethwait. Jane replied that she had already been; and grew eloquent in her praise.
“I like her very much indeed,” she said. “She appears to me to be well qualified in every way; an unusually desirable person to fill such a post. Mrs. Marden, I wonder you were not anxious to secure her for your own children!” she added, the idea striking her.
Mrs. Marden laughed. “The governess I have suits me very well,” she answered. “She is not perfection; I don’t know who is; you may not find Miss Lethwait to be so.”
“No, indeed,” said Jane.
“Miss Jones is patient and efficient,” continued Mrs. Marden. “At least she is efficient while my children are at their present ages — scarcely out of the nursery; but she is not a finished linguist and musician, as is Miss Lethwait.”
“I wonder,” cried Jane, the thought striking her, “whether she is a daughter of the Reverend Mr. Jones, of South Wennock?”
“No, I am sure she is not. She observes a complete silence as to her relatives: never will speak of them. I once told her I did not believe Jones was her real name,” continued Mrs. Marden, laughing. “She said it was; but I declare I would not answer for it. She acknowledged that there were circumstances connected with her family which rendered her unwilling to speak of them: and she has never done so. However, the lady who recommended her to me, a schoolmistress of position, answered for her thorough respectability, and so I am content to let Miss Jones keep her mystery.”
The words had struck a chord in Jane Chesney’s heart never wholly dormant. Was it possible that this governess could be her sister Clarice? She, as Jane had every reason to suppose, had changed her name when she left home, and she had repeated to Jane in her letters the assurance — reiterating it, half in anger, half in excuse, but wholly in earnest — that never through her should the name of that family be known.
“What sort of a lady is Miss Jones?” asked Jane, all too eagerly. “Is she young?”
“She is young, and very pretty. So pretty that were my sons grown up I might think her a dangerous inmate. Why?”
“And how long has she been with you?”
“How long? — nearly two years, I think,” said Mrs. Marden, struck with Lady Jane’s sudden interest, and wondering what could be its cause. “Why do you ask?”
Every word seemed to add to the probability. In a month’s time it would be two years since Clarice quitted her home.
“Can you tell me her Christian name?” Jane asked, paying no attention to Mrs. Marden’s question.
“Her Christian name?” repeated Mrs. Marden. “Well, now, it never struck me until this minute that I do not remember ever to have heard it. Stay! she signs her receipts for salary! C. Jones I remember that. Possibly it may be Caroline.”
“Do you suppose it is Clarice?” asked Jane, her lips parted with emotion.
“Clarice? It may be. But that is an uncommon name. May I again inquire, Lady Jane, why you ask? You appear to have some interest in the subject.”
“Yes,” said Jane, recalled to a sense of the present. “I — I knew a young lady who went out as governess nearly two years ago, and I am wishing much to find her. I think — I think it may be the same.”
“Was her name Jones?”
“No, it was not. But I believe that the young lady I mention assumed another name in deference to the prejudices of her family, who did not care that she, bearing theirs, should be known as a governess. Excuse my giving further particulars, Mrs. Marden; should Miss Jones prove to be the same, you shall hear them without reserve. Can you let me see her?”
“Whenever you please,” was Mrs. Marden’s answer. “Now, if you like. My carriage is at the door, and if you will come home with me and take luncheon, she will be at the table with the two eldest girls, for they make it their dinner. After that, we will go straight to the concert.”
Jane needed no second invitation, but attired herself without delay. A thought crossed her as to whether this would not be incurring the displeasure of her father, who had so positively forbidden her to see after Clarice; but for once in her life Jane risked it. Though she would not disobey him so far as to commence a search in defiance of his expressed command that Clarice should be “left alone until she came to her senses,” Jane was beginning to grow seriously uneasy respecting her wandering sister. It seemed very improbable that Clarice should have remained in ignorance of their change of position; why, then, did she not communicate with them?
Colonel Marden’s residence in London, a house he had taken for the season, was in one of the terraces near Hyde Park; and Mrs. Marden and Jane were soon driven to it. A few minutes of suspense for Jane, and Mrs. Marden, accompanied by a young lady, came into the drawing-room.
“This is Miss Jones, Lady Jane.”
With a beating heart — with lips that were turning to whiteness in the agitation of expectancy, Ja
ne turned. Turned to behold — disappointment.
It was a very pretty, lady-like young woman, but it was not Clarice Chesney. A few moments elapsed before Jane recovered her calmness.
“I beg your pardon for troubling you, Mrs. Marden,” she then said; “but this is not my friend. I have lost sight of a young lady who went out as governess,” she added, by way of explanation to Miss Jones, in the innate good-breeding that never left her, “and I was wondering whether I might find her in you. I wish it had been so.”
The subject was at an end. Poor Jane could not recover herself. She remained as one whose senses are lost.
“You are disappointed, Lady Jane!” exclaimed Mrs. Marden as they took their places in the carriage to be driven to the concert.
“I acknowledge that I am so,” was the low-breathed answer.
“You will forget it in the treat that is in store for you,” said Mrs. Marden.
And in truth, if musical strains in their greatest perfection, their sweetest harmony, can lure a heart from its care, it was the music they were about to hear that day.
And Jane was beguiled out of her trouble. Amongst the performers was that master of the harp, Frederick Chatterton, and as Jane listened to the brilliant playing, the finished touch, the sweet tones elicited from the instrument, she forgot even Clarice.
“Lucy must learn the harp!” were the first words she ejaculated when the concert was over.
“What did you say?” asked Mrs. Marden.
“I — I believe that I unconsciously spoke aloud. I should like my little sister to learn to play the harp.”
“The most graceful instrument there is, and I think the sweetest,” said Mrs. Marden warmly. “I told you you would have a treat.”
As they were going out, moving with the throng, they encountered Miss Lethwait, who was there with her pupils. Jane addressed her, speaking more impulsively than was her wont.
“Do you teach the harp, Miss Lethwait?”
“I could teach it, madam,” replied Miss Lethwait, after a momentary pause. “I learnt it, but have been out of practice for some years.”
“Take my advice, Lady Jane,” whispered Mrs. Marden, when Miss Lethwait was beyond hearing. “If you are thinking of your sister, as I conclude you are, have her taught by the master you have just heard. It will be money well laid out.”
“I believe you are right,” answered Jane.’
She shook hands with Mrs. Marden outside, and proceeded home, alone and on foot. It was not far, when the crossing at the Oxford Circus was once accomplished. Those crossings were the worst interludes as yet in Jane’s London life. As she went on, her brain was busy with many thoughts and themes. Miss Lethwait, the coveted governess for Lucy; the disappointment she had met with in Miss Jones; the doubt whether she should not venture to urge on her father the necessity there seemed for seeking out Clarice; all were floating together in her mind, presenting a thousand phases, as thoughts will do when the brain is troubled. And mixed up with them in the most incongruous manner were the enchanting music she had just heard, the strains of which lingered on Jane Chesney’s ears.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MISSING SLEEVES.
MR. CARLTON stood before the mantel-piece of his handsome drawingroom. He had come in from his round of afternoon visits, and ran upstairs in the expectation of finding his wife. She was not there, and he rang the bell. It was answered by Sarah, a damsel with rather an insolent face and a very fine cap worn behind instead of before.
“Is your lady not in?”
“Not yet, sir. She went out at three o’clock to pay visits.”
“On foot?”
“Oh no, sir. The carriage was ordered round from Green’s.”
The girl, finding she was not further questioned, retired, and Mr. Carlton walked to the window, and stood looking from it, probably for his wife. His hands were in his pockets, and he was softly whistling. A certain sign with Mr. Carlton — this whistling — that he was deep in thought. Possibly the unpleasant idea that had crossed his mind once or twice lately, was crossing it again now — namely, that if he and his wife did not take care they should be outrunning their income. In good truth, Laura possessed innately little more notion of the value of money than did her father, and she was extravagant in many ways in her new home from sheer thoughtlessness, where there was not the slightest necessity that she should be so at all. This very fact of ordering round one of Green’s carriages two or three times a week when she went out to pay visits, was a superfluous expense, for Laura could just as well have gone on foot, her visits being generally to friends in the vicinity of home. When she paid them in the country it was with Mr. Carlton. Two, three, four hours, as the case might be, would Laura be out in that carriage, keeping it waiting at different doors for her whilst she gossiped.
“Circumstances alter cases.” The trite old saying could not have received a more apt exemplification than in the instance of Mr. Carlton and his wife. They had not done the most reputable thing in running away to be married without leave or licence. More especially so on the part of the young lady; and South Wennock would no doubt have turned the cold shoulder on her for a time, to show its sense of the irregularity, and vouchsafed her no visits, had she remained the obscure daughter of the poor post-captain. But Miss Laura Chesney was one person; the Lady Laura was another. That poor post-captain had become one on the proud list of British peers, and his daughter, in right of her rank, was the highest dame in all South Wennock. In fact there was no other lady whose social position in any degree approached to it. And South Wennock went only the common way of the world, when it obligingly shut its eyes to the past escapade, and hastened to pay court to the earl’s daughter. The Widow Gould had given it as her opinion at the inquest, you may remember, that Mr. Carlton’s “cabrioily” was an element in his success; but the probabilities were that Mr. Carlton’s bride would prove a greater one.
All the town — at least as much of it as possessed the right, or fancied they possessed it — flocked to pay court to the Lady Laura Carlton. Many of the county families, really of standing, drove in to call upon her and Mr. Carlton; people who would never have dreamt of according him the honour, had not his new wife been a peer’s daughter. Had she been marshalled to church by her father and duly married, converted into a wife with the most orthodox adjuncts — three clergymen and twelve bridesmaids — her new friends could not have treated her with more deferential respect. Such is the world, you know. The Lady Laura Carlton was just now the fashion, and the Lady Laura was nothing loth to be so.
But, to be the fashion usually entails certain consequences in the shape of expense. Dress and carriages cost something. Laura, with her innate carelessness, ordered both whenever inclination prompted her, and Mr. Carlton was beginning to remember that they must be paid for. Passionately attached to his wife, he could not yet bear to give her a word of warning to be more careful, but he wrote to his father, and solicited money from him. Not a sum of money down: he asked for something to be allowed him annually — a certain fixed sum that he named: hinting that the wife he had married, being an earl’s daughter, would cost him more to maintain suitably than a wife taken from an ordinary rank of life.
To this letter Mr. Carlton was daily expecting an answer. He had duly forwarded an account of his marriage to Mr. Carlton the elder; had written to him once since; but the senior gentleman had been remiss in the laws of good breeding, and had sent not so much as a single congratulation in return. In point of fact, he had not written at all. But Mr. Carlton was confidently expecting a reply to his third letter.
He had not long to wait. As he stood there at the drawing-room window, he saw the postman come up and turn in at the gate, selecting a letter from his bundle. There were two deliveries a-day from London — morning and evening; South Wennock, after a fight with the post-office powers, had succeeded in obtaining the concession at the beginning of the year. Mr. Carlton went down with a step so fleet that he opened the front door
as the postman was about to ring at it.
The letter was from his father; he saw that by the handwriting; and the postman had turned back and was going out at the gate again when Mr. Carlton remembered something he wished to ask him, called, and followed him to the gate.
“Rodney, have you made any inquiry about that overcharge in the books sent to me the other morning?”
“We have had to write up about it, sir; it wasn’t the fault of the office here,” was the man’s answer. “The reply will be down most likely to-morrow.”
“I shan’t pay it, you know.”
“Very good, sir. If it’s a wrong charge they’ll take it off.”
The surgeon had turned his attention to the letter, when a sound of carriage-wheels was heard, and he stepped outside the gate, thinking it might be his wife, driving up. It was not. The carriage, however, contained two ladies whom Mr. Carlton knew, and he saluted them as they passed. The next moment there came in view the inspector, Medler, walking with rapid strides. Had he been in pursuit of some runaway forger, he could scarcely have been advancing more eagerly. Catching Mr. Carlton’s eye, he made a sign to him, and increased his pace.
“What now, I wonder?” muttered the surgeon to himself aloud: and his voice betrayed unconscious irritation. “Haven’t they had enough of the matter yet?”
Mr. Carlton alluded to the very unsatisfactory matter of the death in Palace Street. Mr. Medler had not proved more clever in pursuing it than the inspector he had superseded, and he had been fain to give it up for the present as unfathomable. It was a warm day, for summer was in, and the inspector, a stout man, took off his hat to wipe his brows as he reached Mr. Carlton.
“We want you to be so good as to make the examination, sir, of a poor woman who’s gone off her head, so as to give the necessary certificate, and Mr. John Grey will sign it with you,” began the inspector, rather incoherent in his haste and heat. “We can’t move her until we have it. It’s the blacksmith’s wife down Great Wennock Road.”
