Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Lord Oakburn's daughters - Part 11
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “EAST LYNNE.”
CHAPTER XXI.
In the very heart of South Wennock, standing a little back from the street, nearly opposite the Red Lion Inn, was the old church of St. Mark; and on the morning after the return home of Mr. Carlton and his bride, this church was invaded by more people than could conveniently get into it, for a rumour had gone forth to the town that Mr. Carlton and Lady Laura were to be re-married.
It was even so. Possibly in deference to Laura’s scruples; possibly that he himself was not willing to trust to the impromptu ceremony in Scotland, which had been of the slightest, and that he would constitute her his own beyond the power of any future quibbles of law to dispute, Mr. Carlton had returned home provided with a license in all due form. The clergyman was apprised, and nine o’clock saw Mr. Carlton and Laura at the church.
If, by fixing that early hour, their motive was to avoid gaping spectators, the precaution had utterly failed. How the news got about was a puzzle to Mr. Carlton as long as he lived. He accused the incumbent of St. Mark’s, the reverend Mr. Jones, of spreading it; he accused the curate, Mr. Lycett, to whom was deputed the duty of marrying them; he accused the clerk, who was charged to have the church open. But these functionaries, one and all, protested it had not got about through them. However it might have been, when Mr. Carlton and Laura arrived at the door in a close carriage, precisely one minute before nine, they were horror-struck to find themselves in the midst of a dense crowd, extending from the street up to the very altar-rails, and through which they had to pick their way.
“Rather a strong expression that,” sneers some genial critic. “Horror-struck!” But it really did appear to apply to Mr. Carlton. Laura wore the handsome cashmere shawl which he had given her, the light silk dress sent by Jane, and a white bonnet and veil bought somewhere on her travels. She stood at the altar with downcast eyes and blushing cheeks, just as a young bride under the circumstance might be supposed to stand, never once looking at the throng, and apparently unheedful of them. Not so Mr. Carlton. He stood with a ghastly face, into which the colour would not come by any effort of will, glancing over his shoulder perpetually, not at the offending crowd, whom Mr. Carlton regarded simply with anger and would have liked to duck wholesale in the nearest pond, but as if impelled by some imaginary fear. Did he dread the intrusion of his wife’s father, Lord Oakburn? that he would, even at that useless and tardy hour, appear and forbid the ceremony? South Wennock, who prided itself upon its discernment, said so.
The superfluities of a groomsman and a bridesmaid had not been provided by Mr. Carlton. The clerk performed the office of the one, and Laura dispensed with that of the other, The wedding ring was firmly placed upon her finger, and they turned from the altar as securely married as though them had been no previous runaway escapade. The licence had described her as Laura Chesney, otherwise Carlton, and it was so that the signed the book.
But there occurred an unlucky contretemps. The carriage waited at the church door, and Laura and Mr. Carlton had taken their seats in it on the conclusion of the ceremony, when, just as it was moving off amidst the dense mob of the gaping spectators, an open fly came from the opposite direction. It contained Lord Oakburn and his stick. The earl was on his way back to Chesney Oaks, was now being conveyed to Great Wennock to catch one of the morning trains, Pompey on the box beside the driver, and a great portmanteau between Pompey’s knees.
Perhaps nearly the only household in South Wennock to which the report of the morning’s intended ceremony had not penetrated, was that of Cedar Lodge. Even such newsmongers as milkwomen and baker’s boys were chary of telling aught there that concerned its runaway daughter. When Lord Oakburn saw the crowd round the church, therefore, he looked out at it in surprise, wondering what was agate, and then he caught sight of the inmates of the close carriage about to be driven away from its doors. His daughter’s terrified gaze met his.
Lord Oakburn’s brow flushed red with passion. In his hot temper he raised his stick with a menacing gesture, as if he would have beaten one of them, bride or bridegroom, had he been near enough; or as if he meant to throw it at the carriage, as he sometimes threw it at Pompey. It did not go, however. He let it drop on the fly seat again, with a word that was certainly not a blessing; and the fly went on, and the meeting was over.
There was no fear on Mr. Carlton’s tenance. Triumph now. The unnaturally pale hue which had overspread it during the ceremony had given place to its usual aspect, and he felt more inclined to laugh in Lord Oakburn's face than to fear him. Even the earl could not part them now.
Mr. Carlton entered his home with his wife. He snatched a hasty breakfast, and then started on his visits to his patients, who were in a state of rebellion, deeming themselves greatly aggrieved by the past week's unaverted absence. In the course of the morning his way took him past the police-station. Standing at its door was a middle-aged man, with an intelligent face and small snub nose, who looked at Mr. Carlton as he passed with that quiet regard that keen men, curious as to their neighbour's movements, sometimes display. It was Medler, the new inspector. The surgeon had gone some yards beyond the building, when he, perhaps recollecting the previous night's interview, wheeled round and spoke.
"Can I see the inspector?"
"You see him now," was the answer, "I am he."
"I am told you want me," returned the surgeon. "Mr. Carlton," he added in explanation, finding he was not known.
"Oh, ah, yes, sir; I beg your pardon," said the inspector, intelligence replacing the questioning expression of his face. "Be so kind as to step inside."
He shut himself in a little bit of a room with Mr. Carlton, a room not much bigger than a short passage. The surgeon had been in it once before. It was when he had gone to give what information he could to the previous inspector, relative to the business for which he was now brought there again.
"I don't know any more than I did before," he observed, after alluding to the policeman's visit to him the previous night. "I gave the police at the time of the death all the information I possessed upon the matter—which was not much."
"Yes, sir, it's not that. I did not suppose you had come into possession of more facts. What I want of you is this—to relate to me quietly all that you know about it, as you did to my predecessor. I fear the affair has been mismanaged."
"Do you think so?"
"I am sure it has," continued Mr. Medler, improving upon his former assertion. "If the thing had been followed up properly, it might have been brought to light at the time. That's my opinion."
"It is not mine," dissented Mr. Carlton. "I do not see that anything more could be done than was done."
"Why, they never unearthed that Mrs. Smith who came down and took away the child; never found out anything about her at all!"
"True," said Mr. Carlton. "They went to a hundred Mrs. Smiths, or so, in London, without finding the right one. And the conclusion they arrived at was, that Smith was not her name at all, but one she had assumed for the purpose of the visit here."
"It was the name by which the sick lady wrote to her on the night of her arrival, at all events," remarked the officer, with a nod that seemed to say he had made himself master of the whole business.
"But that may have been only part of a concerted plan. One thing appears to be inindisputable—that the lady came down with the determination of remaining unknown. For my part, I am inclined to think that she did not come from London at all; that the woman Smith—if Smith was her name—did not come from London. I believe that all that was said and done here was done with one motive—to blind us."
Mr. Carlton was leaning with his elbow on the narrow table, or counter, that ran along the wall, as he said this, slightly stooping, and making marks with the point of his umbrella on the floor. The inspector, watchful by nature and by habit, became struck with a sudden change in his face. A shiver seemed to pass over it.
"It is the most miserable business I ever had to do with," he said, lifting his eyes to the officer's; "I heartily hope I shall never become personally cognisant of such another. People persisted in mixing me up in it, just because Mrs. Crane was thought to have said that some friends recommended her to me as her medical attendant."
"And you cannot find that anyone did so recommend you?"
"I cannot. I wrote to all the friends and acquaintances I possess in town, inquiring if they had recommended any lady to me; but could find out nothing. None of them so much as knew a Mrs. Crane."
"I think it is by no means sure that her name was Crane," remarked Mr. Medler.
"Just so. Any more than that the other's name was Smith. There's nothing sure about any part of the business, except the death. That, poor thing, is sure enough."
"What is your own opinion, Mr. Carlton?" inquired the inspector, his tone becoming confidential. "Your private one, you know."
"As to what?"
"The cause of death. Of course we all know it was caused by the sleeping draught," he rapidly continued; “but I mean as to the fatal drug introduced into that draught—who put it in?”
“My opinion is—but it is not a pleasant task to have to avow it, even to you—that it was so mixed, inadvertently, by Stephen Grey. It is impossible for me to come to any other conclusion. I cannot imagine how two opinions upon the point can have arisen.”
The inspector shook his head, as if he could not agree with Mr. Carlton; but he made no dissent in words. He did not believe the fault to lie with Stephen Grey.
“What I wished more particularly to ask you, sir, was about the man you saw on the stairs,” he presently resumed. "There’s the point that ought to have been followed up.”
“I saw no man on the stairs,” said Mr. Carlton. “I did fancy I saw a face there, it’s true; but I have come to the conclusion that it was only fancy, that my sight was deceived by the moonbeams.”
“Will you swear there was no man there?”
“Well, no; I should not like to do that. Nevertheless, my firm belief is that there was no man there, no face at all; I think my sight misled me.”
The inspector lifted his finger and shook it, by way of adding impressiveness to his words. “Rely upon it, sir, there was a man there, and that man is the one who did the mischief. I know—I know what you would say—that the draught smelt of the stuff when it arrived, as you testified; but I don’t care for that. It seems a difficult enough point to get over at first; but I have picked the case to pieces in all its bearings, and I have got over it. I don’t attach an atom of importance to it.”
“Do you think I should testify to what was not true?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“Not a bit of it,” returned the inspector, with calm equanimity. “You’d be as anxious, naturally, to state the facts correctly, and throw as much light upon them, as we should. But I know how deceiving noses are. You fancied you smelt the poison in the draught, but you didn’t really smell it, for it wasn’t there. The nurse—what’s her name? a fat woman—declares she could not smell anything of the sort; for I have had her before me here. She had been drinking a modicum of strong waters, I know; but they don’t take all smell away in that fashion. Depend upon it her nose was truer than yours.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Carlton. “I am a medical man, remember, accustomed to the smell of drugs, and not likely to be deceived.”
“That’s just it,” said the inspector, with persistent obstinacy. “Those accustomed to the smell of drugs, living amongst them, as may be said, in their surgeries, are more liable to fancy they smell them when they don’t, than other folks are. There was no smell of poison in the draught when it was taken to the house,” he doggedly continued.
“But I tell you there was,” persisted Mr. Carlton.
“And I tell you, sir, there wasn’t. There. I feel as sure of it as I am that we are now talking together. That man you saw on the stairs was the one to drop the poison into the draught after you had gone.”
Mr. Carlton said no more. The inspector was evidently confirmed in his opinion, and it was of no use to try to shake it. There may have come over Mr. Carlton’s memory also a recollection of the second view he had obtained of the face, on the night previous to his flight with Laura Chesney. That, surely, could not have been fancy; for Laura testified to seeing it—and hearing it—as well as he. How then reconcile that with his persistent denial that no one had been on the stairs? Mr. Carlton could not tell; but he was quite sincere in hoping, nay, in half believing, that that ill-looking face had existed wholly in his imagination.
“Is that all you have to ask me?” he inquired of the inspector. “My time is not my own this morning.”
“No, sir, not all. I want you to be so kind as just to relate the facts as they occurred under your notice. I have heard them from Mr. Stephen Grey, and from others; but I must hear them from you. It’s surprising how u word from one witness and a word from another helps us on to a correct view of a case. You saw her for the first time, I believe, on the Sunday night. It’s a pity but you had kept the note she wrote you!”
“Who was to think the note would ever be wanted?” rejoined Mr. Carlton. “But if I had kept it, it would have told nothing.”
“Every word, every scrap of paper is evidence to those who have learnt to use it,” was the answer. “Go on, sir.”
Mr. Carlton complied. He related the facts, so far as they had come under his cognisance, not with the minuteness he had found himself obliged to use before the coroner, but with a clearness of detail that was quite satisfactory. The inspector listened attentively, and once or twice took something down in writing.
“That’s all you know?” came the question when he had finished.
“That is all I know.”
The inspector gently rubbed his nose with the feather end of his pen. He was in deep thought.
“The case would resolve itself into a very small compass but for two opposite points in it,” he presently said. The one, the exceeding improbability that it was Mr. Stephen Grey who made any mistake in the mixing-up; the other, that man’s face you saw on the stairs. I can’t get over those.”
“But I have assured you there was no man’s face on the stairs,” reiterated Mr. Carlton.
“I don’t doubt that you believe so now. But you didn’t believe so at the time, or you’d not have spoken about it to the widow Gould. Present impressions are worth everything, believe me, Mr. Carlton; and it is to that suspicious point I shall direct all my energies. I’d stake my place that somebody was there.”
“As you please,” said Mr. Carlton. “I suppose that is all you want with me?”
“That’s all, sir, and thank you. If we ferret out anything, you shall be one of the first to know it. Good morning.”
Mr. Carlton, who was indeed pressed for time, and had inwardly rebelled at having to give so much of it to the police-station on that busy morning, hastened away the moment he was released. Crossing the street at railroad speed in a slanting direction past the church—for the police-station and St. Mark’s Church were in pretty close contiguity—he sped round the corner near the Red Lion, in the direction that led to Great Wennock, and dexterously escaped being run over by a carriage that was turning into the principal street.
Mr. Carlton, who was an observant man, looked at the inmate of the carriage—a stout lady, dressed in deep mourning. She bent her resolute face forward—for it was a resolute face, with its steady dark eyes, and its pointed chin—to look at him. She had seen the just-avoided accident, and her haughty eyebrows plainly asked why one, looking so entirely a gentleman, should have subjected himself to it through such ungentlemanly speed. How little did she suspect he was one whose name to her was a bitter pill—the surgeon Lewis Carlton!
Mr. Carlton sped on, thinking no more of the carriage and its occupant. He was on his way to a sick patient who lived in one of the few houses situate at this, the near end of the Great Wennock road,—houses which had the gratification of witnessing day by day the frequent passing and repassing of the noted railway omnibus.
The carriage meanwhile slackened its speed as soon as it was round the corner, and the postboy, after looking up and down the street in indecision, turned round on his horse and spoke to the servant on the box, a staid, respectable-looking man, wearing as deep mourning as his mistress.
“Which way must I turn?”
The servant did not know. He looked up and down the street—very uselessly, for that could tell him nothing—and caught sight of the swinging board of the Red Lion close at hand.
“There’s an inn. You had better inquire there.”
The postboy drew his horses up to the inn door. Mrs. Fitch, who happened to be standing at it, moved forward; but the old lady had let down the front window with a bang, and was speaking sharply to the servant.
“What’s the matter, Thoms? What are you stopping here for?”
Thoms turned his head back and touched his hat. The postboy does not know the way, my lady. I thought we had better inquire at this inn.”
But the old lady was evidently one of an active, restless temperament, who liked to do things herself better than to have them done for her. Before Thoms—deliberate and stately as his mistress was quick—could speak to Mrs. Fitch, she had shot up the front window, sent down the other, had her own head out, and was addressing the landlady.
“Whereabouts is Cedar Lodge?”
Mrs. Fitch dropped her habitual curtsy.
“It lies a little out of the town, on the Rise———”
“Be so good as direct the postboy to it,” interrupted the lady, with the air of one who is accustomed to command and be obeyed.
“You must turn your horses round, postboy,” said Mrs. Fitch, moving nearer to him on the pavement. “Keep straight on through the town, and you will come to a very long and gentle hill, where there’s a good deal of new building. That’s the Rise, and Cedar Lodge is about half-way up it on the right hand.”
“Thank you, ma'am,” said Thoms, civilly; and the postboy turned his horses as directed, and bore on through the town.
He had passed quite through it, when he saw the long ascent before him. That Rise was three-quarters of a mile in length; but all of it could not be seen from its base. On the left, standing alone, after the street was passed and before the gentle hill had begun, was a nice-looking white house. The lady inside the carriage bent forward and glanced at it. She had not heard Mrs. Fitch’s directions, and she thought it might be the one of which she was in quest, Cedar Lodge.
At that moment a lady threw up one of the windows on the first floor, and looked out. It was Laura Carlton; and her eyes met those other eyes gazing from the carriage. Laura gave a suppressed shriek of recognition; and the old lady, startled also, lifted her angry hand with a menacing gesture; just as the Earl of Oakburn had lifted his, in the encounter earlier in the morning before St. Mark’s Church.
CHAPTER XXII.A VISIT TO CEDAR LODGE.
The Earl of Oakburn’s sojourn at Cedar Lodge had been a short one. He had but gone home for a day or two to discuss future plans with Jane; or, rather, to inform Jane of his future plans, for he was one who discussed them only with his own will.
It would be necessary for him to let Chesney Oaks. He had succeeded to the British peerage, it is true; but he had not succeeded to the broad lauds, the proud rent-roll of an ordinary peer. A certain income he came into with the title as a matter of course; an income which, in comparison with the straitened one of later days, appeared like a mine of incalculable wealth, and which would no doubt prove as such to him and Jane, with their simple and inexpensive habits. The earl just dead had had a large private fortune, which did not go with the title; even with that, he had been reckoned a poor man for his rank. Yes, there would be nothing for it but to let Chesney Oaks, he observed to Jane. To keep up such a place as it ought to be kept up would absorb the whole of his income, for it could not be done under three or four thousand a year. He should therefore let Chesney Oaks, and reside in London.
Jane’s heart acquiesced in everything. But for the blow just dealt out by Laura, she would have felt supremely happy. There had existed a dark spot in their domestic history for some little time past, but she had every hope that this change in their fortunes would remove it, and bring things straight again. It could not—she argued with herself—it could not be otherwise.
One word from Lord Oakburn would remove the cloud, would bring the wanderer home from an exile, voluntary at first, enforced now. And yet, Jane hesitated to beg that that word should be spoken. The subject had been a very bitter one; it had thrown the shadow of a constraint between Jane and her father, where until then all had been so open; and he had long ago interdicted all mention of the subject on Jane’s part; but this rise in their fortunes rendered it necessary, as her plain good sense told her, that the interdict should no longer exist—that the matter should be opened again.
Not in that hour’s visit to Chesney Oaks would Jane allude to it; when she went to impart to him the ill doings of one daughter, it was scarcely the time to beg grace for another. But when Lord Oakburn came home on the Tuesday, the day following the funeral of the late peer, then Jane resolved to speak to him. How she shrank from it, none save herself could tell. His bitterness against Laura was so demonstrative that Jane was willing to let a day or two go on ere she entered upon the other bitter subject, “I will leave it until tomorrow,” she thought; but when the morrow came (Wednesday), it brought Laura’s letter about her clothes, and the earl went into so great an access of wrath, that Jane did not dare to speak. Still she could not let him go away again without speaking; and on the Thursday morning she took courage, as they were alone after breakfast, and the earl was giving her hurried orders about this and that for the fly was already at the door to carry him away—she took courage and spoke quietly and pleadingly, though her heart was beating.
“Papa, forgive my speaking upon a forbidden subject. You will let me see after Clarice now?”
“What?” thundered the earl.
The tone was so stern, the countenance bent on Jane so dark in its anger, that all Jane’s forced courage left her. Her manner grew hesitating; timid; imparting a notion of which she was painfully conscious—that she was asking something it was not right to ask.
“Clarice,” she faltered. “May we not send to her?”
“No,” emphatically spoke the earl. “Hold your tongue, Jane! Send to her! Let Clarice come to her senses.”
And that was all it brought forth. Lord Oakburn stepped into the fly, attended by Pompey, to be driven to Great Wennock railway station, and on his way to it enjoyed the pleasure of that encounter with his rebellious daughter and her husband as they quitted St. Mark’s Church after their second marriage.
To make things clear to you, my reader, it may be necessary to revert for an instant to the past. Captain Chesney—we will speak of him by his old name, as it relates to the time he bore it—had four daughters, although you have only heard of three. He never had a son. Jane, Laura, Clarice, and Lucy were the names, Clarice being next to Laura. They were the two who seemed to stand together. Jane was considerably older, Lucy considerably younger, but Laura and Clarice were nearly of an age, there being only a year between them. When they were growing up, promising both of them to be of unusual beauty, though they were not much alike, the dowager Countess of Oakburn, who, in her patronising, domineering way, took a good deal of interest in her nephew Captain Chesney’s family, came forward with an offer to place them in France at her own cost for the completion of their education. Captain Chesney and Jane were too sensible of the advantages of such an offer to decline it, and Laura and Clarice were sent to France. When Lady Oakburn chose to do a thing, she did it well and liberally, and the small select Protestant school chosen, situate in the vicinity of Neuilly, was one eligible in all respects. The young ladies were well treated, well instructed, well cared for; and Laura and Clarice remained there for three years—Laura being nineteen, Clarice eighteen, when they returned.
They returned to a less comfortable home than the one they had quitted in France; for the embarrassments of Captain Chesney’s house—then situated, as you may remember, in the neighbourhood of Plymouth—were at that time reaching their acme. The petty debts perpetually being pressed for, the straitened comforts of the ménage, the almost entire deprivation, through poverty, of the society and amusement so longed for at their age, tried their patience and tried their tempers. Jane bore all meekly for the sake of her father; Lucy was too young to feel it; but on Laura and Clarice it fell heavily.
Clarice was the first to break through the yoke. For two years she made the best of it; was in fact obliged to make the best of it, for what else could she do?—but shortly after her twentieth birthday had passed, she suddenly announced her intention of going out as governess. And had she announced her intention of going round the country in a caravan to dance at fairs, it could not have been received with more indignant displeasure by her family.
Not by one of them only, but by all. Captain Chesney did not condescend to reason with her, he raved at her and forbade her. Jane reasoned; Laura ridiculed; but Clarice held to her own will. That she had a strong will of her own, that contention proved; a will as strong and obstinate as Captain Chesney’s. It was in complete opposition to the high notions, the long-cherished pride of the well-born family, that one of its daughters should lower herself to the position of a dependent—a governess—a servant, it might be said, to the caprices of strangers less well born than she was. Clarice declared that she would be doing, as she believed, a right thing; her only motive was to help her family: first, by relieving them of her cost and maintenance; secondly, by applying part of her salary, if she should prove fortunate in getting a good one, to assist in the financial department at home.
That Clarice was sufficiently sincere in avowing this to be her motive, there was no reason to doubt, for she believed it to be the chief one. But had she been capable of strictly analysing her own mind and feelings, it would perhaps have been found that she was also swayed at least in an equal degree by the desire of getting into a home where there would be less of discomfort. Be this as it might, Clarice quitted her home in quite as much disobedience and defiance as Laura was destined subsequently to quit it. There had been a few weeks spent in disputes and useless opposition, Clarice on one side, the whole family on the other; it ended in one violent bitter quarrel, and then Clarice left.
It might have been better had Lady Oakburn not interfered in it. She only added fuel to the flame. Kindness might have availed with Clarice; anger did not. And Lady Oakburn did not spare her anger, or her reproaches. It is true, that when she found these reproaches useless—that they only rendered Clarice more bent upon her plan, she changed her tactics and offered the young lady a home with her, rather than she should persist in what, according to their notions, reflected so much disgrace on the family. But it was then too late. Perhaps at no time would any one of the girls have been willing to accept a home with their domineering old aunt, and Clarice, in her high spirit, resented her present anger and interference too greatly to do aught save send back the offer with something that to the indignant countess looked like scorn. In the last angry scene, the one that occurred just before Clarice left, she affirmed that no disgrace, through her, should ever be cast upon the family of Chesney; for she would change her name at once, and never betray her family to strangers. In her mad imprudence she took a vow so to act. In this mood she quitted her home; and Lady Oakburn immediately turned her anger upon Captain Chesney: he ought to have kept her in with cords, had it been necessary, she said, and not have suffered her to go away from home. It was next to impossible for Lady Oakburn not to vent her anger upon somebody; but in this case the captain was undeserving of it, for Clarice quitted the house in secret, and none knew of her departure until she had gone.
Opposition was over then. Lady Oakburn retreated into her pride, taking no further heed of the matter or of Clarice; Captain Chesnoy virtually did the same, and forbade the name of his offending daughter ever to be mentioned. In vain Jane pleaded that Clarice might be sought out; might at least be seen after, and one more effort made to induce her to hear reason, and return to her home. Captain Chesney would not listen, and quarrelled with Jane for her persistency. It was the first coolness, the first unpleasantness, that had ever occurred between Jane and her father.
But, if they could only have put away the useless old family pride, there appeared to be not so great cause for uneasiness on the score of Clarice and the step she had taken. A very short time after Clarice left home, Jane received a letter from her, telling of her movements. She had obtained, she wrote, through a governess-agency house, a situation as governess, and had entered upon it. It was in a good family residing at the west end of London, where she should certainly be safe, and, she hoped, comfortable. She had changed her name, she added, though she should decline to say for what other; and if Jane wanted to write to her, she might send a letter directed to Miss Chesney, care of a certain library in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park. “Tell papa, with my love,” ran the conclusion of the letter, “that he may thoroughly trust me in all ways; I will not disgrace myself or his name. What I have done I have done from good and loving motives, and I hope that the time may come when he will think of me less harshly.”
Jane showed the letter to her father. He flew into a paroxysm of anger, and sent a harsh message to Clarice, to the effect that she should never come home again, and he would never forgive her; which message he compelled Jane to write. It would have the effect of hardening Clarice, as Jane knew; but she could only obey. And from that hour Captain Chesney had interdicted all mention of Clarice by Jane.
But surely Jane had now a right to expect that the change in their position would cause her father to recal Clarice. She was Lady Clarice Chesney now, and the incongruity of a young lady of title being out as a governess must surely strike Lord Oakburn. To hear him thunder out “No,” in answer to her appeal, with the added words, “let Clarice come to her senses,” fell like a leaden weight on Jane’s heart. Her private conviction was, that Clarice, obstinate in spirit and in temper, would not come to her senses of her own accord; unless they made the first move to bring her to them.
But Jane had not time just now to indulge her thoughts or her disappointment. In one week from that day, she and Lucy were to depart from their present home for Chesney Oaks, and there were innumerable things to see about, arrangements to make. Lord Oakburn had brought with him more than sufficient money to satisfy all outstanding claims, and this he left in Jane’s lands, desiring her to pay them. With what satisfaction Jane gazed at this money, let those who have been unwilling debtors only picture. Ah, the rise in the position was little—the rank they had stepped into, the high-sounding titles that must be theirs now for life—they were but little to Jane Chesney, as compared with this blessed power to pay the creditors—to be free from care!
With that delicacy of feeling which I think does in a large measure characterise the greater portion of people, not one creditor had presented himself at the door of Cedar Lodge since the change in Captain Chesney’s fortunes. Of course there was a great deal in knowing now that they were secure. Jane was busy after breakfast giving directions in the house to Judith and the new woman-servant who had been temporarily engaged. Later she called Judith into the room that had been Laura’s, to help to collect that young lady’s things together.
“It is surely not worth while putting in these old shoes and boots,” remarked Jane, in the midst of the packing. “She will never wear them again.”
The words were spoken to Judith. Judith, however, did not reply. She was standing at the window, looking out on the road.
“Judith.”
Judith turned. “I beg your pardon, my lady. I was looking at a carriage that has stopped at the gate. There appears to be an old lady in it.”
Lady Jane went to the window. It was the same carriage that so nearly ran over Mr. Carlton; the same that pulled up at the Red Lion to inquire its way to Cedar Lodge. One glimpse was enough for Jane, and something like dismay mixed with the surprise that fell over her features.
“O Judith, run! Run down to receive her. It is my aunt, the dowager Lady Oakburn.”
Judith did as she was bid. Jane hastily washed her hands, shook out the flounces of the new mourning worn for the late earl, glanced at the glass and smoothed down the braids of her fair hair—which never looked anything but smooth—and was below ere Lady Oakburn had entered the hall door.
She came in with short, quick steps, her high heels clattering on the flags of the hall. Although very stout, she imparted the idea of being a remarkably active woman—and in truth she was such: active in body, active in mind, active in tongue. And those active women wear well. Lady Oakburn, with her seventy years, did not look more than sixty.
“And now where’s your father?” she began, before she had time to receive Jane’s salute; and the sharp tone of her voice caused Jane to know that something had displeased her.
“Papa’s gone to Chesney Oaks, Aunt Oakburn,” answered Jane, meekly waiting to receive the kiss of greeting. “He left us this morning.”
“Yes. Your servant has just told me so,” was Lady Oakburn’s answer. “And I should like to know what business he has to be darting about the country in this uncertain fashion? What took him off again so soon, pray?”
“Papa only came home to tell me of his plans and direct me what I was to do, aunt,” replied Jane, in the deprecatory manner that habit, from early childhood, had rendered a matter of course. “He stayed here two nights.”
The countess walked straight to an armchair in the drawing-room, drew it in front of the fire, sat down in it, kissed Lucy, who came running up, took off her bonnet, and handed it to Jane to put down. She was looking very cross.
“I reached Great Wennock last night on my way to Chesney Oaks, halted there, and slept. This morning, the first thing, I telegraphed to Chesney Oaks, asking whether the earl was there—your father. An hour ago the answer came back: “The earl is at Cedar Lodge, South Wennock;” and I ordered a post-carriage at once. And now that I am come here, I find him gone!”
“I am very sorry,” said Jane. “Had it been yesterday, aunt, you would have found him.”
“It is quite necessary that I should see him, Jane. Changes will have to be made at Chesney Oaks, and I intend to have a voice in them. Thoms! Where Thoms?”
She suddenly jumped from her seat, flung open the room door, and her servant came forward. “What have you done with the carriage?” she asked.
“It is at the gate, my lady.”
“Good. Let it wait. And now, Jane, if you have a biscuit and a glass of wine to give me, I’ll take it, for I shall go on to Chesney Oaks as quickly as I can. A piece of bread-and-butter will do, if you have no biscuits.”
Jane hastily got her the refreshment. “We were so grieved, Aunt Oakburn, to hear of the earl’s death,” she said; “as we had been to hear of the young countess’s. Her we did not know; but Lord Oakburn———”
“Stay, Jane”—and the interruption was made in a tone strangely subdued, as contrasted with what had gone before it. “He was my grandson; I loved him for his dead father’s sake; but he is gone, and I don’t care to talk of him yet. He’s gone, he’s gone.”
Jane did not break the silence. But Lady Oakburn was not one to give any time to superfluous emotion. She rapidly ate her biscuit, drank the wine, and called to Lucy to put down the glass.
“What are your father’s plans, Jane? What does he mean to do with Chesney Oaks? He will not be rich enough to live at it.”
“I believe he intends to let it, aunt.”
“Let it! Let Chesney Oaks? That he never shall.”
“What else can he do with it? As you say, aunt, he is not rich enough to live at it, and it would not do to let it be empty, falling to decay through not being occupied.”
Lady Oakburn lifted her hand. “To think that he should have succeeded, after all! Sailor Frank! I never—Jane, I declare to you that I never so much as gave a thought to it, all through my long life.”
“And I can most truthfully say that we did not, aunt,” was Jane’s answer.
“What are you going to do? You will not stop here for long, I suppose?”
“We quit this for good in a week, and join papa at Chesney Oaks. After that, I believe, we shall go to London and settle there,”
“Best plan,” said Lady Oakburn, nodding her head. “London’s the best, if you can’t live at Chesney Oaks. But Frank shall never let it. What shall you do with this furniture?” she added, looking round at the very plain chairs and tables. “It won’t do for you now.”
“We have the house on our hands for some time longer: it was taken on a lease for three years. Papa says he shall let it furnished.”
“And what of Laura?
Jane’s heart palpitated, and her eyelids drooped as the abrupt question was put. It was worse to talk of Laura to Lady Oakburn than to her father.
“It has been a terrible blow to us all,” she breathed.
“Was she mad?”
“She was very foolish,” answered Jane.
“Foolish!” returned the countess, in exasperation, “you call an act such as that only foolish! Where did you learn morals and manners, Lady Jane?”
Jane did not answer.
“What sort of a man is he, that Carlton? A monster?”
“He is not one in appearance, certainly,” replied Jane, and had the subject been a less sad one she would have smiled. “I did not like him; apart from this unhappy business, I did not like him. They returned last night, and were remarried here this morning, I understand,” she added, dropping her voice. “I fear—I do fear, that Laura will live to regret it.”
“It’s to be hoped she will,” said the countess, in just the same tone that Lord Oakburn might have wished it. “I saw my young lady just now.”
“You saw her, aunt?”
“I did,” said Lady Oakburn, nodding her head, “and she saw me. She was at the window of a house as I passed it: Mr. Carlton’s, I suppose. Mark me, Jane! she will live to repent it; these runaway matches don’t bring luck with them. Where’s Clarice?”
The concluding question was put quite as abruptly as the one had been regarding Laura. Jane lifted her eyes, and the flush of excitement stole into her cheek.
“She is where she was, I conclude, Aunt Oakburn.”
“And where’s that? You may tell me all you know of her proceedings since she left home.”
It was certainly condescending of the dowager to allow this, considering that since the departure of Clarice from her home, she had never permitted Jane to mention her in any one of her letters.
“The all is not much, aunt,” said Jane. “You know that she sent us word she had entered on a situation in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park———”
“And that she had assumed a false name,” interrupted the countess, with acrimony. “Yes, I know so much. Go on.”
“That she had changed her name,” said Jane, wincing at the plain statement of the case. “But she desired her letters to be addressed Miss Chesney; therefore I cannot see how she can have wholly dropped it.”
“Who would write to her, pray?”
“I did,” said Jane. “I thought it well that we should not all abandon her———”
“Abandon her!” again interposed the countess. “I think it was she who abandoned us.”
“Well—yes, of course it was—but you know what I mean, aunt. I wrote to her occasionally, and I had a few letters from her. Papa never forbade that.”
“And what did she say in her letters?”
“Not much: they were generally short ones. I expect they were written just to tell me that she was well and safe. She gave scarcely any particulars of the family she was with, but she said she was as comfortable there on the whole, she supposed, as she could expect to be. But I have not heard from her since the beginning of the year, and I am getting uneasy about it. My two last letters have brought forth no reply: and they were letters that required one.”
“She’s coming home,” said the countess. “You’ll see.”
“I wish I could think so,” returned Jane. “But when I remember her proud spirit, a conviction comes over me that she will not make the first move. She will expect papa to do it.”
“Then she should expect, for me, were I her father,” tartly returned the dowager, as she rose and put on her bonnet. “If she has no more sense of what is due to the Earl of Oakburn, and to herself as Lady Clarice Chesney, than to be out teaching children, I’d let her stop until her senses came to her.”
Almost the same words as those used by the earl not many hours before. And the old Countess of Oakburn reiterated them again, as she said adieu to her grandnieces, and departed as abruptly as she had arrived.