by Ellen Wood
Janet gave us a sumptuous high-tea, pouring out unlimited cups of tea and pressing us to eat of all the good things. Except that she had filled out a little from the skeleton she was, and looked as joyous now as she had once looked sad, I saw little difference in her. Her boy, Arnold, was aged three and a half: the little girl, named Margaret, after Miss Deveen, could just walk.
“Never were such children in all the world before, if you listen to Janet,” cried old Tamlyn, looking at her fondly — for he had learnt to love Janet as he would a daughter — and she laughed shyly and blushed.
“You don’t ask after mine,” put in Mr. Shuttleworth, quaintly; “my one girl. She is four years old now. Such a wonder! such a paragon! other babies are nothing to it; so Bessy says. Bessy is silly over that child, Tamlyn.”
Old Tamlyn just shook his head. They suddenly remembered the one only child he had lost, and changed the subject.
“And what about everything!” asked Mr. Shuttleworth, lighting a cigar, as we sat round the fire after our repast, Janet having gone out to see to a room for Shuttleworth, or perhaps to contemplate her sleeping babies. “I am glad you have at last given up the parish work.”
“There’s enough to do without it; the practice increases daily,” cried Tamlyn. “Arnold is much liked.”
“How are all the old patients?”
“That is a comprehensive question,” smiled Tamlyn. “Some are flourishing, and some few are, of course, dead.”
“Is Dockett with you still?”
“No. Dockett is in London at St. Thomas’s. Sam Jenkins is with us in his place. A clever young fellow; worth two of Dockett.”
“Who is Sam Jenkins?”
“A nephew of Lady Jenkins — you remember her? At least, of her late husband’s.”
“I should think I do remember Lady Jenkins,” laughed Shuttleworth. “How is she? Flourishing about the streets as usual in that red-wheeled carriage of hers, dazzling as the rising sun?”
“Lady Jenkins is not well,” replied Tamlyn, gravely. “She gives me some concern.”
“In what way does she give you concern?”
“Chiefly because I can’t find out what it is that’s amiss with her?”
“Has she been ill long?”
“For some months now. She is not very ill: goes out in her carriage to dazzle the town, as you observe, and has her regular soirées at home. But I don’t like her symptoms: I don’t understand them, and they grow worse. She has never been well, really well, since that French journey.”
“What French journey?”
“At the end of last summer, my Lady Jenkins must needs get it into her head that she should like to see Paris. Stupid old thing, to go all the way to France for the first time in her life! She did go, taking Mina Knox with her — who is growing up as pretty a girl as you’d wish to see. And, by the way, Shuttleworth, Mina is in luck. She has had a fortune left her. An old gentleman, not related to them at all, except that he was Mina’s godfather, left her seven thousand pounds last year in his will. Arnold is trustee.”
“I am glad of it. Little Mina and I used to be great friends. Her mother is as disagreeable as ever, I suppose?”
“As if she’d ever change from being that!” returned Tamlyn. “I have no patience with her. She fritters away her own income, and then comes here and worries Arnold’s life out with her embarrassments. He does for her more than I should do. Educates young Dicky, for one thing.”
“No doubt. Knox always had a soft place in his heart. But about Lady Jenkins?”
“Lady Jenkins went over to Paris with her maid, taking Mina as her companion. It was in August. They stayed three weeks there, racketing about to all kinds of show-places, and overdoing it, of course. When they arrived at Boulogne on their way back, expecting to cross over at once, they found they had to wait. A gale was raging, and the boats could not get out. So they put up at an hotel there; and, that night, Lady Jenkins was taken alarmingly ill — the journey and the racketing and the French living had been too much for her. Young people can stand these things, Johnny Ludlow; old ones can’t,” added Tamlyn, looking at me across the hearth.
“Very true, sir. How old is Lady Jenkins?”
“Just seventy. But you wouldn’t have thought her so much before that French journey. Until then she was a lively, active, bustling woman, with a good-natured, pleasant word for every one. Now she is weary, dull, inanimate; seems to be, half her time, in a sort of lethargy.”
“What was the nature of the illness?” asked Shuttleworth. “A seizure?”
“No, nothing of that sort. I’m sure I don’t know what it was,” added old Tamlyn, rubbing back his scanty grey hair in perplexity. “Any way, they feared she was going to die. The French doctor said her getting well was a miracle. She lay ill ten days, keeping her bed, and was still ill and very weak when she reached home. Mina believes that a lady who was detained at the same hotel by the weather, and who came forward and offered her services as nurse, saved Lady Jenkins’s life. She was so kind and attentive; never going to her bed afterwards until Lady Jenkins was up from hers. She came home with them.”
“Who did? This lady?”
“Yes; and has since remained with Lady Jenkins as companion. She is a Madame St. Vincent; a young widow — —”
“A Frenchwoman!” exclaimed Mr. Shuttleworth.
“Yes; but you wouldn’t think it. She speaks English just as we do, and looks English. A very nice, pleasant young woman; as kind and loving to Lady Jenkins as though she were her daughter. I am glad they fell in with her. She —— Oh, is it you, Sam?”
A tall smiling young fellow of eighteen, or so, had come in. It was Sam Jenkins: and, somehow, I took to him at once. Mr. Shuttleworth shook hands and said he was glad to hear he promised to be a second Abernethy. Upon which Sam’s wide mouth opened in laughter, showing a set of nice teeth.
“I thought Dr. Knox was here, sir,” he said to Mr. Tamlyn, as if he would apologize for entering.
“Dr. Knox is gone over to the Brook, but I should think he’d be back soon now. Why? Is he wanted?”
“Only a message, sir, from old Willoughby’s. They’d like him to call there as soon as convenient in the morning.”
“Now, Sam, don’t be irreverent,” reproved his master. “Old Willoughby! I should say Mr. Willoughby if I were you. He is no older than I am. You young men of the present day are becoming very disrespectful; it was different in my time.”
Sam laughed pleasantly. Close upon that, Dr. Knox came in. He was more altered than Janet, looking graver and older, his light hair as wild as ever. He was just thirty now.
Mr. Shuttleworth left in the morning, and afterwards Dr. Knox took me to see his step-mother. Her house (but it was his house, not hers), Rose Villa, was in a suburb of the town, called the London Road. Mrs. Knox was a dark, unpleasing-looking woman; her voice harsh, her crinkled black hair untidy — it was never anything else in a morning. The two eldest girls were in the room. Mina was seventeen, Charlotte twelve months younger. Mina was the prettiest; a fair girl with a mild face and pleasant blue eyes, her manner and voice as quiet as her face. Charlotte seemed rather strong-minded.
“Are you going to the soirée next door to-night, Arnold?” cried Mrs. Knox, as we were leaving.
“I think not,” he answered. “Janet wrote to decline.”
“You wished her to decline, I dare say!” retorted Mrs. Knox. “You always did despise the soirées, Arnold.”
Dr. Knox laughed pleasantly. “I have never had much time for soirées,” he said; “and Janet does not care for them. Besides, we think it unkind to leave Mr. Tamlyn alone.” At which latter remark Mrs. Knox tossed her head.
“I must call on Lady Jenkins, as I am up here,” observed Dr. Knox to me, when we were leaving. “You don’t mind, do you, Johnny?”
“I shall like it. They were talking about her last night.”
It was only a few yards higher up. A handsome dwelling, double the size of Rose Villa,
with two large iron gates flanked by imposing pillars, on which was written in gold letters, as large as life, “Jenkins House.”
Dr. Knox laughed. “Sir Daniel Jenkins re-christened it that,” he said, dropping his voice, lest any ears should be behind the open windows: “it used to be called ‘Rose Bank.’ They moved up here four years ago; he was taken ill soon afterwards and died, leaving nearly all his money to his wife unconditionally: it is over four thousand a-year. He was in business as a drysalter, and was knighted during the time he was mayor.”
“Who will come in for the money?”
“That is as Lady Jenkins pleases. There are lots of relations, Jenkinses. Sir Daniel partly brought up two orphan nephews — at least, he paid for their schooling and left each a little money to place them out in life. You have seen the younger of them, Sam, who is with us; the other, Dan, is articled to a solicitor in the town, old Belford. Two other cousins are in the drysalting business; and the ironmonger, Sir Daniel’s youngest brother, left several sons and daughters. The old drysalter had no end of nephews and nieces, and might have provided for them all. Perhaps his widow will do so.”
Not possessing the faintest idea of what “drysalting” might be, unless it had to do with curing hams, I was about to inquire, when the house-door was thrown open by a pompous-looking gentleman in black — the butler — who showed us into the dining-room, where Lady Jenkins was sitting. I liked her at first sight. She was short and stout, and had pink cheeks and a pink turned-up nose, and wore a “front” of flaxen curls, surmounted by a big smart cap with red roses and blue ribbons in it; but there was not an atom of pretence about her, and her blue eyes were kindly. She took the hands of Dr. Knox in hers, and she shook mine warmly, saying she had heard of Johnny Ludlow.
Turning from her, I caught the eyes of a younger lady fixed upon me. She looked about seven-and-twenty, and wore a fashionable black-and-white muslin gown. Her hair was dark, her eyes were a reddish brown, her cheeks had a fixed bloom upon them. The face was plain, and it struck me that I had seen it somewhere before. Dr. Knox greeted her as Madame St. Vincent.
When we first went in, Lady Jenkins seemed to wake up from a doze. In two minutes she had fallen into a doze again, or as good as one. Her eyelids drooped, she sat perfectly quiet, never speaking unless spoken to, and her face wore a sort of dazed, or stupid look. Madame St. Vincent talked enough for both of them; she appealed frequently to Lady Jenkins— “Was it not so, dear Lady Jenkins?” — or “Don’t you remember that, dear Lady Jenkins?” and Lady Jenkins docilely answered “Yes, dear,” or “Yes, Patty.”
That Madame St. Vincent was a pleasant woman, as Mr. Tamlyn had said, and that she spoke English as we did, as he had also said, there could not be a doubt. Her tongue could not be taken for any but a native tongue; moreover, unless my ears deceived me, it was native Worcestershire. Ever and anon, too, a homely word would be dropped by her in the heat of conversation that belonged to Worcestershire proper, and to no other county.
“You will come to my soirée this evening, Mr. Ludlow,” Lady Jenkins woke up to say to me as we were leaving.
“Johnny can come; I dare say he would like to,” put in Dr. Knox; “although I and Janet cannot — —”
“Which is very churlish of you,” interposed Madame St. Vincent.
“Well, you know what impediments lie in our way,” he said, smiling. “Sam can come up with Johnny, if you like, Lady Jenkins.”
“To be sure; let Sam come,” she answered, readily. “How is Sam? and how does he get on?”
“He is very well, and gets on well.”
Dr. Knox walked down the road in silence, looking grave. “Every time I see her she seems to me more altered,” he observed presently, and I found he was speaking of Lady Jenkins. “Something is amiss with her, and I cannot tell what. I wish Tamlyn would let me take the case in hand!”
Two peculiarities obtained at Lefford. The one was that the universal dinner hour, no-matter how much you might go in for fashion, was in the middle of the day; the other was that every evening gathering, no matter how unpretentious, was invariably called a “soirée.” They were the customs of the town.
The soirée was in full swing when I reached Jenkins House that night — at six o’clock. Madame St. Vincent and Charlotte Knox sat behind the tea-table in a cloud of steam, filling the cups as fast as the company emptied them; a footman, displaying large white calves, carried round a tray of bread-and-butter and cake. Lady Jenkins sat near the fire in an easy-chair, wearing a red velvet gown and lofty turban. She nodded to the people as they came in, and smiled at them with quite a silly expression. Mina and Charlotte Knox were in white muslin and pink roses. Mina looked very pretty indeed, and as mild as milk; Charlotte was downright and strong-minded. Every five minutes or so, Madame St. Vincent — the white streamers on her rich black silk dress floating behind her — would leave the tea-table to run up to Lady Jenkins and ask if she wanted anything. Sam had not come with me: he had to go out unexpectedly with Dr. Knox.
“Mr. Jenkins,” announced the pompous butler, showing in a tall young fellow of twenty. He had just the same sort of honest, good-natured face that had taken my fancy in Sam, and I guessed that this was his brother, the solicitor. He came up to Lady Jenkins.
“How do you do, aunt?” he said, bending to kiss her. “Hearing of your soirée to-night, I thought I might come.”
“Why, my dear, you know you may come; you are always welcome. Which is it?” she added, looking up at him stupidly, “Dan, or Sam?”
“It is Dan,” he answered; and if ever I heard pain in a tone, I heard it in his.
“You are Johnny Ludlow, I know!” he said, holding out his hand to me in the warmest manner, as he turned from his aunt. “Sam told me about you this morning.” And we were friends from that moment.
Dan brought himself to an anchor by Mina Knox. He was no beauty certainly, but he had a good face. Leaning over Mina’s chair, he began whispering to her — and she whispered back again. Was there anything between them? It looked like it — at any rate, on his side — judging by his earnest expression and the loving looks that shot from his honest grey eyes.
“Are you really French?” I asked of Madame St. Vincent, while standing by her side to drink some tea.
“Really,” she answered, smiling. “Why?”
“Because you speak English exactly like ourselves.”
“I speak it better than I do French,” she candidly said. “My mother was English, and her old maid-servant was English, and they educated me between them. It was my father who was French — and he died early.”
“Was your mother a native of Worcestershire?”
“Oh dear, no: she came from Wales. What made you think of such a thing?”
“Your accent is just like our Worcestershire accent. I am Worcestershire myself: and I could have thought you were.”
She shook her head. “Never was there in my life, Mr. Ludlow. Is that why you looked at me so much when you were here with Dr. Knox this morning?”
“No: I looked at you because your face struck me as being familiar,” I frankly said: “I thought I must have seen you somewhere before. Have I, I wonder?”
“Very likely — if you have been much in the South of France,” she answered: “at a place called Brétage.”
“But I have never been at Brétage.”
“Then I don’t see how we can have met. I have lived there all my life. My father and mother died there: my poor husband died there. I only came away from it last year.”
“It must be my fancy, I suppose. One does see likenesses — —”
“Captain Collinson,” shouted the butler again.
A military-looking man, got up in the pink of fashion, loomed in with a lordly air; you’d have said the room belonged to him. At first he seemed all hair: bushy curls, bushy whiskers, a moustache, and a fine flowing beard, all purple black. Quite a flutter stirred the room: Captain Collinson was evidently somebody.
After
making his bow to Lady Jenkins, he distributed his favours generally, shaking hands with this person, talking with that. At last he turned our way.
“Ah, how do you do, madame?” he said to Madame St. Vincent, his tone ceremonious. “I fear I am late.”
It was not a minute that he stood before her, only while he said this: but, strange to say, something in his face or voice struck upon my memory. The face, as much as could be seen of it for hair, seemed familiar to me — just as madame’s had seemed.
“Who is he?” I whispered to her, following him with my eyes.
“Captain Collinson.”
“Yes, I heard the name. But — do you know anything of him? — who he is?”
She shook her head. “Not much; nothing of my own knowledge. He is in an Indian regiment, and is home on sick leave.”
“I wonder which regiment it is? One of our fellows at Dr. Frost’s got appointed to one in Madras, I remember.”
“The 30th Bengal Cavalry, is Captain Collinson’s. By his conversation, he appears to have spent nearly the whole of his life in India. It is said he is of good family, and has a snug private fortune. I don’t know any more about him than that,” concluded Madame St. Vincent, as she once more rose to go to Lady Jenkins.
“He may have a snug private fortune, and he may have family, but I do not like him,” put in Charlotte Knox, in her decisive manner.
“Neither do I, Lotty,” added Dan — who was then at the tea-table: and his tone was just as emphatic as Charlotte’s.
He had come up for a cup of tea for Mina. Before he could carry it to her, Captain Collinson had taken up the place he had occupied at Mina’s elbow, and was whispering to her in a most impressive manner. Mina seemed all in a flutter — and there was certainly no further room for Dan.
“Don’t you want it now, Mina?” asked Dan, holding the cup towards her, and holding it in vain, for she was too much occupied to see it.
“Oh, thank you — no — I don’t think I do want it now. Sorry you should have had the trouble.”
Her words were just as fluttered as her manner. Dan brought the tea back and put it on the tray.
