Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Lord Oakburn's daughters - Part 14
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XXVII.A TEMPTING BAIT.
There was a crash of carriages at one of the houses in Portland Place; and as the doors were flung open ever and again to the visitors, the glare of many lights, the strains of music, the sweet perfume from the array of hot-house flowers on the staircase, struck dazzlingly to the charmed senses of the beautiful forms, gay as butterflies, fluttering in. The Earl of Oakburn and Lady Jane Chesney were holding an evening reception.
Their first that season, and their last. And yet, scarcely to be called “that season;” for the season was well-nigh over. In an ordinary year it would have been quite over, for August had come in, and numbers were already on the wing to cooler places, panting from the heat and dust of the close metropolis; but Parliament had sat late, and many lingered still.
Jane had urged on the earl the necessity (she had put it so) of their giving one of these receptions. She had accepted invitations to a few; the earl to a very few, and she thought they should make a return. But such a thing was very much out of Lord Oakburn’s line—for the matter of that, it was not in Jane’s—and he had held out against it. Quite at the last moment, when three parts of the world had quitted London, the earl surprised Jane one morning by telling her she might “send out and invite the folks,” and then it would be done with.
They were somewhat more at ease with regard to Clarice. Somewhat. Every possible inquiry that the earl could think of had been set on foot to find her, and the aid of the police called in. Day after day, hour after hour, had the old Countess of Oakburn come down to Portland Place, asking if she was found, and worrying the earl well-nigh out of his senses. She threw all the blame upon him; she told him any father but he would have confined her as a lunatic, rather that have suffered her to be out without knowing where; and Jane was grievously reproached for her share, in assuming that Clarice was in the situation in the vicinity of Hyde Park, when it turned out that she had been some twelve months gone away from it.
But still they were more at ease—or tried to feel so. In the course of their researches, which had extended to every likely quarter, they learnt the fact that one of the governess-agencies had procured a situation some ten months previously for a Miss Beauchamp. She had gone out to be governess in an English family of the name of Vaughan, who had settled in Lower Canada. The lady was described as young, nice-looking, and of pleasing manners; and she had told the agent that she had no relatives in England to consult, as to her movements: altogether there did seem a probability of its being really Clarice. The Earl of Oakburn, in his impetuous fashion, assumed it to be so without further doubt, and Jane hoped it.
Then there was a lull in the storm of suspense. Miss Beauchamp—the supposed Clarice—was written to; not only by Jane, but by those who were making official inquiries on Lord Oakburn’s part; they were tolerably at their case until answers should arrive, and were at liberty to think of other things. It was during this lull of ease that Lord Oakburn told Jane she might hold her reception.
And this was the night: and the rooms, considering how late was the mouth, August, were well filled, and Jane was doing her best, in her ever quiet way, to entertain her guests, wishing heartily at the same time that the thing was over.
In a pretty dress of white crape, a wreath of white flowers confining her flowing curls, sufficient mourning for a child, stood Lucy Chesney, her eyes beaming, her damask cheeks glowing with excitement. Perhaps Jane was not wise in suffering Lucy to appear: some of the people now around would have reproached her that it was not “the thing,” had they dared; but Jane, who knew little of fashionable customs, had never once thought of excluding her. One of the rooms had been appropriated to dancing, and Lucy, a remarkably graceful and pretty girl, had found partners hitherto, in spite of her youth. Not a single dance had she missed; and now, after a waltz that had whirled her giddy, she leaned against the wall to regain breath.
“Just look at that child! How can they let her dance like that?”
The words reached Jane’s ears, and she turned round to see what child could be meant. Lucy! But she might have divined it, for there was no other child present. Jane went up to her.
“You are dancing too much, Lucy. I wonder Miss Lethwait is not looking after you. Where is she?”
“Oh, thank you, Jane, but I don’t want looking after,” was the reply, the child’s whole face sparkling with pleasure. “I never was so happy in my life.”
“But you may dance too much. Where is Miss Lethwait?”
“Oh, I have not seen her for this long while. I think she is with papa in his smoking room.”
“With papa in his smoking-room!” echoed Jane.
“Well, I saw her there once: we have had three dances since that. She was filling papa’s pipe for him!”
“Lucy!”
“It is true, Jane. Papa was cross; saying that it was a shame that he could not smoke his pipe because the house was full, and Miss Lethwait said, ‘You shall smoke it, dear Lord Oakburn, and I’ll keep the door;” and she took off her gloves and began to fill it. I came away then.”
Jane’s brow darkened. “Had you gone into the room with Miss Lethwait?”
“No; I was running about from one room to another, and I ran in there and saw them talking. Jane! Jane! please don’t keep me! They are going to begin another dance, and I am engaged for it.”
The room called Lord Oakburn’s smoking-room was a small den at the end of a passage. Not of much account as to size or anything else, but Jane had deemed it might be found useful for the night, and it had been converted into a reception-room. In it stood the governess, Miss Lethwait. She looked magnificent. Of that remarkably pale complexion which lights up so well, her eyes sparkling, her beautiful hair shining with a gloss purple as the raven’s wing, the plainness of her features—and they were plain—was this night eclipsed. She wore a low white evening dress trimmed with scarlet, showing to the best advantage her white neck, her falling shoulders, her rounded arms. Never had she appeared to so great advantage: take her as a whole, there was not one form in the room could vie with hers: she looked made to adorn a coronet—and perhaps she was thinking so.
Perhaps some one else was thinking so. One who could think, so far as that opinion went, to more purpose than Miss Lethwait could—the Earl of Oakburn. The rough old tar stood near her, and his eyes ranged over her with much admiration. He had not lost his liking for a fine woman, although he was verging on his sixtieth year. The smoking interlude was over. Lord Oakburn had enjoyed his pipe, and Miss Lethwait had obligingly kept the door against intruders.
Was Miss Lethwait laying herself out to entrap the unwary? Had she been doing it all along, ever since her entrance into that house? It was a question that she never afterwards could come to any satisfactory conclusion upon. Certainly the tempting bait had been ever before her mind’s eye, constantly floating in her brain; but she was of sufficiently honourable nature, and to lay herself deliberately out to allure Lord Oakburn was what she had believed herself hitherto to be wholly incapable of doing. Had she seen another guilty of such conduct, her worst scorn would have been cast on the offender, And yet—was she not, on this night, working on for it? It is true she did not lure him on by will or look; but she did stand there knowing that the peer’s admiring eyes were bent upon her. She remained in that room with him, conscious that she had no business in it; feeling that it was not honourable to Lady Jane to be there, who naturally supposed her to be mixing with the company and giving an eye to Lucy; she had taken upon herself to indulge him in his longing for his pipe; had filled it for him; had stayed in the fumes of the smoke while he finished it. In after life Miss Lethwait never quite reconciled that night with her conscience.
“Do you admire all this hubbub and whirl?” suddenly asked the earl.
“No, Lord Oakburn. It dazzles my sight and takes my breath away. But then I am unused to it.”
“By Jove! I’d sooner be in a hurricane, rounding the North Pole. I told Jane it would take us out of our soundings to have this crowd here, but she kept bothering about the ‘claims of Society.’ I’m sure society may be smothered for all the claim it has upon me!”
“The best society is that of our own fireside—those of us who have firesides to enjoy,” returned Miss Lethwait.
“We have all got as much as that, I suppose,” said the earl.
“Ah, no, Lord Oakburn! Not all. It is not my fortune to have one; and perhaps never will be. But I must not be envious of those who have.”
She stood right under the gas chandelier, underneath its glittering drops; her head was raised to its own lofty height, but the eyelids drooped until the dark lashes rested on the cheeks, lashes that were moist with tears. She held a sprig of geranium in her white gloves, and her fingers were busy, slowly pulling it to pieces, leaf by leaf, petal from petal.
“And why should you not have a fireside?” bluntly asked Lord Oakburn, his sight not losing a single tear, a single movement of the fingers. Keen sight it was, peering from beneath its bushy brows.
She quite laughed in answer; a scornful laugh it was, telling of inward pain.
"You may as well ask, my lord, why one woman is Queen of England, and another the unhappy wretch who sits stitching her fifteen hours daily in a garret, wearing out her heart and her life. Our destinies are unequally marked out in this world, and we must take them as they are sent. Sometimes a feeling comes over me—I don't know whether it be a wrong one—that the harder the lot in this world, the brighter it will be in that which has to come."
"Favours and fortune are dealt out unequally, that's true enough," said the earl, thinking of his past life of poverty and struggle.
They are, they are," she answered bitterly. And the worst is, you are so chained down to your lot that you cannot escape from it. As a poor bird entrapped into a cage beats its wings against the wires unceasingly, seeking to free itself from its prison, and seeks in vain, so do we wear out our minds with our never-ending struggle to free ourselves from the thraldom that is forced by destiny upon us. I was not made to live out my life in dependence, in servitude: every hour of the day I feel that I was not. I feel that my mind, my heart, my intellect, were formed for a higher destiny: nevertheless it is the lot that is appointed me, and I must abide by it."
"Will you share my lot?" suddenly asked the earl.
The governess raised her eyes to his, a keen, searching glance darting from them, as if she suspected the words were but a jesting mockery. The peer moved nearer, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"I'm a blue jacket of nine-and-fifty years, Miss Lethwait, but I have got some wear in me yet. I never had an earthly ailment the matter with me, except the gout; and if you'll be Countess of Oakburn and make my fireside yours, I'll take care of you."
It was rather an odd fashion of making an offer, certainly; gout and marriage jumbled incongruously together. The earl, however, was not a courtier: he could only speak the genuine thoughts of his heart.
"What do you say?" he continued, having given her scarcely time to speak.
She gently removed his hand from her shoulder, and lifted her wet eyes to his. The tears were genuine as the earl's words: emotion—perhaps gratitude—had called them up.
"Thank you greatly, Lord Oakburn, but it could not be."
"Why not?" asked the earl.
"It—I—It would not be agreeable to your daughters, my lord. They would never tolerate me as your wife."
"What are you talking about now?" cried the offended earl, who never brooked opposition, no matter from whom. "My daughters! What have they got to do with it? I am not their husband: they'll be getting husbands of their own."
"I am young; younger than Lady Jane," she said, her lips growing pale with the conflict that was before her. Lord Oakburn, if you made me your wife it might sow dissension between you and all your daughters, especially between you and Lady Jane. I feel, I feel that it would do so."
"By Jupiter! but my girls shall not thwart me!" cried the peer in a heat. "I'd like to see them try at it. Laura has chosen for herself, Clarice has gone roaming nobody knows where, Lucy is a child; and as for Jane, do you think she possesses no common sense?"
The governess made no reply. She seemed to be endeavouring to steady her trembling lips.
"Look you, Miss Lethwait. The very day I came into the title, I made up my mind to marry: it is incumbent on me to do so. The next heir is a remote fellow, hardly a cousin at all, and he has lived in Nova Scotia or some such outlandish place since he was a boy. A pretty thing it would be to have that figurehead to succeed me! Anybody with a grain of gumption in his topsails would have known that I should marry; and, my dear, you've got a splendid figure, and I needn't look further; and I like you, and that's enough. Will you be Lady Oakburn?"
Miss Lethwait shook excessively; all of emotion that she possessed within her was called up. She had really good and amiable qualities, and she did not like to be the means of sowing ill feeling between the earl and his children. In that same moment the past grew clear to her, and she was conscious that the possibility of becoming Countess of Oakburn had been suspended before her dazzled vision as the one tempting bait of life. How few, how few have the strength to resist such baits! Do you remember the lines of Praed—where the Abbot of Glastonbury, walking out in the summer's noon, overtakes the "Red Fisherman" plying his trade, and halts to watch him?
As he drew forth a bait from his iron box.
It was a bundle of beautiful things;
A peacock's tail and a butterfly's wings,
A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,
An armlet of silk, and a bracelet of pearl;
And a packet of letters from whose sweet fold
Such a stream of delicate odours rolled,
That the abbot fell on his face, and fainted,
And deemed his spirit was half-way sainted.
For beautiful trifles such as these, woman has before now given up her soul: how much more, then, her hand and heart! Not one but bore charms for the eyes of Miss Lethwait; symbols, all of them—the scarlet slipper, the curl, the silk armlet, the bracelet—of that path of pleasure that must beset the future partner of Lord Oakburn's coronet. These things in prospective bear so plausible a magic! The packet of letters, sickly with their excess of perfume, would hold out to Miss Lethwait the least attraction; love-letters penned by the old peer could savour of little save the ridiculous.
Would the tempting bait win her? Hear what success followed that thrown by the "Red Fisherman."
A lady wondrous fair:
But the rose of her lip had all faded away,
And her cheek it was white and cold as clay,
And torn was her raven hair.
"Ha! ha!" said the fisher in merry guise,
"Her gallant was hooked before!"
And the abbot heaved some piteous sighs,
For oft had he blessed those deep-blue eyes;
The eyes of Mistress Shore.
The loving and the lovely, the pure and the sullied, the guilty and the innocent, all have succumbed to the golden visions held out to them: had Miss Lethwait withstood, she had been more than woman. Lord Oakburn waited for her answer patiently—patiently for him.
"If you wish to make me yours, my lord, so be it," she said, and her very lips quivered as she yielded to the temptation. "I will strive to be to you a good and faithful wife.
"Then that's settled," said the matter-of-fact earl, with more straightforwardness than gallantry. But he laid his hand upon her shoulder again, and bent to take a kiss from her lips.
At that moment one stood in the doorway, her haughty eyelids raised in astonishment, her blood bubbling up in fiery indignation. It was Lady Jane Chesney. She had come in search of the governess in consequence of the communication made by Lucy. That any serious intention accompanied that kiss, Jane suspected not. Never for a moment had it glanced across the mind of Jane that her father would marry again. In her devotion, her all-absorbing love, there had existed not a crevice for any such idea to insinuate itself. She gazed; but she only believed him to have been betrayed into a ridiculous bit of folly, not excusable even in a young man, considering Miss Lethwait's position in the family; worse than inexcusable in Lord Oakburn. And the governess lingering in the room with him, standing passively to receive the kiss! No pen could express the amount of scornful condemnation cast on her from that moment by Jane Chesney.
Too pure-minded, too lofty-natured, too much the gentlewoman to surprise them, Jane drew back, noiselessly, but some movement in the velvet curtain had attracted the notice of the earl. The door to this room was nothing but a sliding panel—and which Miss Lethwait had unslided (if there be such a word) when the pipe was finished—with looped-back inner curtains of crimson.
The curtain stirred, and Lord Oakburn, probably thinking he had been hidden long enough away from his guests, and that it might be as well to show himself again if he wished to observe a decent hospitality, went forth. Jane waited an instant, and entered. The governess was sitting then, her hands clasped before her, as one who is in deep thought or pain, her eyes strained on vacancy, and a burning spot of scarlet on her cheeks, scarlet as the geraninm wreath in her black hair.
"Are you here, Miss Lethwait! I have been searching for you everywhere. Allow me to request that you pay proper attention to Lady Lucy."
She spoke in a ringing tone of command, one never yet heard by the governess from the quiet Jane Chesney. Miss Lethwait bowed her head as she quitted the room in obedience to see after Lucy, and the scarlet of emotion was turning to pallor on her cheeks.
Jane watched her out. She was not one to make a scene, but she had to compress her lips together, lest they should open in defiance of her will. Her mind was outraged by what she had witnessed; the very house was outraged; and she determined that on the morrow Miss Lethwait should quit. In her fond prejudice she cast little blame on her father; it all went to the share of the unlucky governess. Jane believed—and it cannot be denied that circumstances appeared to justify the belief—that Miss Lethwait had sought Lord Oakburn in that room, and hidden herself there with him, on purpose to play off upon him her wiles and fascinations.
"Never more shall she have the opportunity," murmured Jane, "never more, never more. Ere midday to-morrow the house shall be rid of her."
Jane mixed again with the crowd, but so completely vexed was she by what had occurred that she remained silent and passive, not paying the smallest fraction of attention to her guests. As she stood near one of the windows of the drawing-room, certain words, spoken in her vicinity, at length forced themselves on her notice: words that awoke her with a start to the reality of the present.
“Her name’s Beauchamp. My mother wrote to one of the governess-agencies over here, I believe, and they sent her out to us in Canada.”
Jane turned to look at the speaker. He was a stranger, a very young man, brought that evening to the house by some friends, and introduced. His name, Vaughan, had not struck upon any chord of Jane’s memory at the time; but it did now, in connection with the name of Beauchamp. Could he indeed be a member of that family in Canada to whom the Miss Beauchamp had gone out?
“And she is an efficient governess?” went on one of the voices. It was a lady speaking now.
“Very much so, indeed,” replied Mr. Vaughan. “I have heard my mother say she does not know what she should do without Miss Beauchamp.”
All her pulses throbbing with expectant hope, Jane moved up and laid her finger on Mr. Vaughan’s arm.
“Are you from Canada?”
“From Lower Canada,” he replied, struck with something of suppressed eagerness in her tone. “My father, Colonel Vaughan, was ordered there some years ago with his regiment, and he took his family with him. Liking the place, we have remained there, and———”
“You live near to Montreal?” interrupted Jane, too anxious to allow him to continue.
“We live at Montreal.”
“I heard you speak of a Miss Beauchamp: a governess, if I understood you arightly?”
“Yes, I was speaking of Miss Beauchamp. She is my sisters’ governess. She came out to us from England.”
“How long ago?”
“How long ago?—let me see,” he deliberated. “I don’t think she has been with us much more than a twelvemonth yet.”
It was surely the same. Jane without ceremony placed her arm within the young man’s, and led him to a less-crowded room.
“I am interested in a Miss Beauchamp, Mr. Vaughan,” she said, as they paced it together.
“A lady of that name, whom I know, went abroad as governess about a year ago. At least, we suppose she went abroad, though we don’t know with certainty where. I am very anxious to find her. I think the Miss Beauchamp you speak of may be the same.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” returned the young gentleman. “This one’s uncommonly nice-looking, Lady Jane.”
“So was she. I should tell you that we have been making inquiries, and had learnt that a Miss Beauchamp went to Montreal in Canada about twelvemonths ago. That lady no doubt is the one in your house: it may be the one we are wishing to find. We have already sent out letters to ascertain, and are expecting their answers every day. How long have you been in England?”
“Not a fortnight yet. I asked Miss Beauchamp if I could call on any of her friends in England with news of her; but she said she had none that she cared to send to.”
“It can be no other than Clarice!” murmured Jane in her inmost heart. “I am sure it must be the same,” she said aloud. “Can you describe her to me Mr. Vaughan?”
“I can almost show her to you if I can catch sight of a young lady I was dancing with just now,” he replied. “I kept thinking how like she was to Miss Beauchamp.”
“A pretty little girl in a white crape frock and a white wreath in her hair,” said Jane, eagerly, remembering how great a resemblance Lucy bore to Clarice.
“I—no, I don’t think she wore a wreath,” returned Mr. Vaughan. “And she was not little. She—there she is! there she is!” he broke off in quick excitement. “That’s the one; the lady in the blue dress, with some gold stuff in her hair. You can’t think how much she is like Miss Beauchamp.”
Jane’s spirit turned faint. It was another disappointment. The young lady he pointed to was a Miss Munro, a very tall girl, with a remarkably light complexion and light-blue eyes. No imagination, however suggestive, could have traced the slightest resemblance between that young lady and Clarice Chesney.
"She!" exclaimed Jane. Has Miss Beauchamp—your Miss Beauchamp—a complexion light as that? Has she blue eyes?”
“Yes. Miss Beauchamp is one of the fairest girls I ever saw. Her hair is light flaxen, very silky-looking, and she wears it in curls. It’s just like the hair you see upon fair-complexioned dolls.”
“It is not the same,” said Jane, battling with her disappointment as she best might. “The Miss Beauchamp I speak of has large soft brown eyes and brown hair. She is about as tall as I am.”
“Then that sets the question at rest, Lady Jane,” returned the young man, alluding to the eyes and hair. “And our Miss Beauchamp is very tall. As tall as that lady standing there.”
He pointed to Miss Lethwait. Jane withdrew her eyes in aversion, and they fell on Lucy. She made a sign to the child, and Lucy ran up, her brown eyes sparkling, her dark hair flowing, the bright rose shining in her damask cheeks.
“There is a resemblance in this young lady’s face to the one I have been speaking of, Mr. Vaughan. The eyes and hair and complexion are just alike.”
“Is there? Why that’s—somebody told me that was little Lady Lucy Chesney—your sister, of course, Lady Jane. She’s very pretty, but she’s not a bit like Miss Beauchamp.”
Was it to be ever so? Should they come seemingly on the very track of Clarice, only to find their hopes mocked? Things seemed to be going all the wrong way to-night with Jane Chesney.
CHAPTER XXVIII.TURNED AWAY!
Lady Jane Chesney sat in the small drawing-room. It was nearly the only room that the servants had put into habitable order since the revelry of the previous night. Possibly Miss Lethwait may have deemed that to be the reason why her breakfast was that morning served apart. In the simple-mannered household, the governess had hitherto taken her meals with the family; but Jane would not again sit down to the same board with one who had so forgotten herself. Lucy, by Jane’s orders, was allowed to remain later in bed.
Lord Oakburn had taken his breakfast with Jane in this same small drawing-room. Every thing in the house seemed at sixes and sevens, and he made no remark upon the absence of the governess and Lucy. He had risen somewhat later than usual, and it may be that he supposed they had already breakfasted. His lordship was expending all his superfluous breath in a tirade against party-giving.
“Where’s the use of it, after all?” he asked of Jane. “What end does it answer? Here we have got the house turned topsy-turvy just for the sake of two or three hours’ crush! Two or three hours! All that trouble for just two or three hours! There’s no sense in it, Jane. What good does it do? Who benefits by it? The folks have the trouble of dressing themselves, and they come out for an hour, and then go back and undress!—wishing themselves quiet at home all the while. We shall be two days getting straight. The thing’s just this, Jane: it may be all very well for those people who keep a full set of servants in each department to enter on the folly, but it’s an awful bother to those who don’t. Catch me giving one next year! If you must give it on your own score, my Lady Jane, I shall go out the while.”
Did the thought cross the earl’s mind as he spoke, that ere the next year should dawn, Lady Jane would no longer be his house’s mistress? Most probably: for he suddenly ceased in his grumbling, drank down his tea at a gulp, and quitted the room, Jane vainly reminding him that he had made less breakfast than usual.
She had the things taken away, and she got her housekeeping book—for Jane was an exact account-keeper still—and made out what was due to Miss Lethwait. She had not been with them three months yet, but Jane would pay her as though she had. Ringing the bell, Pompey came in answer to it.
“Desire Miss Lethwait to step here,” said Jane.
Miss Lethwait came in at once. It was an idle hour with her, Lucy being yet in her room. She was dressed rather more than usual, in a handsome gown that she generally wore to church on a Sunday: a sort of fancy material with rich colours in it. Had she put it on in consequence of her new position in relation to Lord Oakburn?—to look well in his eye? There was little doubt of it. All night long she had lain awake: her brain, her mind, her thoughts in a tumult; the hot blood coursing fiercely through her veins at the glories that awaited her. One moment these glories seemed very near; real, tangible, sure: the next, they faded away to darkness, and she said to herself that probably Lord Oakburn had only spoken in the passing moment’s delusion: a delusion which would fade away with the morning light.
The torment, the uncertainty did not cease with the day, and it brought a rich colour to her pale face, rarely seen there; never save in moments of deep emotion. As she entered Lady Jane’s presence with this bloom on her cheeks and the purple light shining from her magnificent hair, her handsome gown rustling behind her and her fine figure drawn to its full height, even Jane, with all her prejudice, was struck with her real grandeur.
It did not soften Jane one bit; nay, it had the opposite effect. How haughty Jane could be when she chose, this moment proved. She was sitting herself, but she did not invite the governess to sit: she pointed imperiously with her hand for her to stand, there, on the other side the table, as she might have pointed to a servant. In her condemnation of wrong-doing, Jane Chesney did not deem the governess fit to sit in her presence.
“Miss Lethwait, I find it inexpedient to retain you in my household,” began Jane, in a coldly civil tone. “It will not inconvenience you, I hope, to leave to-day.”
To say that Miss Lethwait gazed at Lady Jane in consternation, would be saying little. Never for a moment had she feared her to have been in any way cognisant of the previous night’s little episode in the smoking-room; she had but supposed this present summons had reference to some matter or other connected with Lucy. The words fell upon her like a shock, and she could only stand in astonishment.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Jane,” she said, when she found her tongue. "Leave, did you say? Leave to-day!”
“You will oblige me by so doing,” calmly replied Jane.
Miss Lethwait stood before Lady Jane in silence. That calmness is so difficult to contend against! She might have met it better had her ladyship only been in a passion.
“May I ask the reason of this sudden dismissal?” she at length murmured, with a rush of fear that Lady Jane must have been in some obscure corner of the smoking-room and seen the kiss.
“I would prefer that you did not ask me the reason,” replied Jane.
“Possibly you might find it in your own conscience if you searched. There are things which to the refined mind are derogatory even to think of, utterly obnoxious to speak upon. I had deemed you a gentlewoman, Miss Lethwait. I am grieved that I was mistaken and I bitterly regret having placed you in charge of Lady Lucy Chesney.”
All that Miss Lethwait possessed of fiery anger rose up to boiling heat. Lady Jane’s tone was so stinging, so quietly contemptuous: as if she, the governess, were no longer worthy of any other. The taunt as to the gentlewoman told home.
Retorting words rose to her tongue; but ere the lips gave utterance to them, prudence came to her, and they were choked down. A scene now with Lady Jane, and she might never be the Countess of Oakburn. The scarlet hue of emotion tinged her cheek, deep and glowing, as it had on the previous night; but she compelled herself to endure, and stood in silence.
“There is due to you a balance of six pounds,” resumed Jane; “and five pounds in lieu of the customary month’s warning will make it eleven. In justice I believe I ought also to advance to you money for the month’s board if you will name any sum you may deem suitable, I———”
“I beg your pardon, that is not customary,” passionately interrupted Miss Lethwait. “I could not accept anything of the kind.”
“Then I believe you will find this correct,” said Jane, placing a ten-pound note and a sovereign on the table. And Miss Lethwait after a moment’s hesitation took them up.
“I am sorry to have incurred your displeasure, Lady Jane,” she said, her anger subsiding. “Perhaps you will think better of me sometime.”
The tone in spite of herself was one of deprecation. It grated on Jane Chesney’s ear. She raised her haughty eyelids and bent on the governess one long look of condemnation.
“Never,” she answered, with more temper than she had hitherto shown. “Your duties in this house are finished, Miss Lethwait. Any assistance that you may require in packing, I beg you will ring for. And I would prefer—I would very much prefer that you should not see Lady Lucy previous to your departure.”
“Put out of the house like a dog!” murmured the unlucky governess to her own rebellious spirit. “But the tables may be turned; yes, they may be turned ere many months shall have gone by!”
Jane moved her hand and bowed her from her presence, coldly civil, grandly courteous. She vouchsafed no other leave-taking, and the governess went forth from her presence, her cheeks hot with their scarlet tinge. Not many times in her life had that scarlet dyed the face of Eliza Lethwait.
Outside the door she paused in indecision. In spite of all that had passed, she was not deficient in maidenly reticence, and to search out Lord Oakburn went against her. But it was necessary he should know of this dismissal, if the past night’s offer were to be regarded as an earnest one.
She went swiftly down the stairs and found the earl in the small apartment that Lucy had called his smoking-room. He would go there sometimes in a morning if he had letters to write. The earl was seated leaning over an open letter, his stick lying on the table beside it. He looked up when she entered.
“Lady Jane has dismissed me, Lord Oakburn.”
She spoke in no complaining tone, in no voice of anger. Rather in sadness, as if she had merited the dismissal. The earl did not take in the sense of the words; he had been buried in a reverie, and it seemed that he could not at once awake from it.
“What?” cried he.
“I am sorry to say that Lady Jane has dismissed me,” she repeated.
“What’s that for?” he demanded, awaking fully to the words now, and his voice and his stick were alike raised.
“Lady Jane did not explain. She called me in, told me I could not remain, and that she wished me to depart at once. I could not quit the house without telling you, Lord Oakburn, and—and—if you please—giving you my address. I shall go to my father’s.”
“Shiver my timbers if you shall go out of my house in this way!” stormed the earl, striking his stick on the table. “My Lady Jane’s a cool hand when she chooses, I know; but you have a right to proper warning.”
Miss Lethwait extended her hand, and exhibited the money in its palm.
“Lady Jane has not forgotten to give me the warning’s substitute,” she said, with a proud, bitter smile.
“Then hark you, my dear! I am the house’s master, and I’ll let my lady know that I am. You shall not———”
“Stay, Lord Oakburn—I beg your pardon,” she interrupted. I could not remain in the house in defiance of Lady Jane. You have not thought, perhaps, how impossible it would be for one in my subordinate capacity to enter the lists of opposition against her. Indeed it could not be.”
Lord Oakburn growled. But he made no answer. Possibly the good sense of the argument was forcing itself upon him.
“You belong to me now,” he presently said. “I won’t have you turned out like this.”
“I shall be happier at home,” she resumed. “In any case, I must have left shortly, if—if—I mean,” she broke off, stammering and hesitating, for she did not like openly to allude to her new prospects until they were more assured “I must have left your roof before———”
“Before you’re-enter it as my wife,” interposed the earl, calming down. “Be it so. I don’t know but you are right. And when you do enter it, it will be your turn, you know, to cock-pit it over my Lady Jane.”
Miss Lethwait felt that Lady Jane was not one to allow her or anybody else to “cock-pit” it over her; and a dark shade seemed to rise up in her mind and shadow forth a troubled future. A question from Lord Oakburn interrupted its gloom.
“When shall you be ready?”
“In an hour’s time,” she answered. “I have not much luggage to put up.”
“Not for leaving here,” cried the earl, correcting her mistake somewhat hotly. “When shall you be ready for the splicing?”
“For the splicing?” she faltered.
“For the marriage. Don’t you understand? In a week?”
“Oh, Lord Oakham! Putting other and weightier considerations aside, I could not be ready in a week.”
“What are the weighty considerations?”
The—the seemliness—the fitness of things,” she answered, growing rather nervous. “My preparations would take me some weeks, Lord Oakburn.”
“Preparations take some weeks!” echoed the earl, opening his eyes in astonishment. “What, for a wedding? I never heard of such a thing. Why, I could fit out my sea-chest in a day for a three-years’ cruise! What d’ye mean, Miss Lethwait?”
Miss Lethwait did not feel equal to disputing the outfitting point with him. All that could be settled later. She gave him her father’s address at his country vicarage, Twifford; and Lord Oakburn told her he should be at it almost as soon as she was.
“Then, now that I have told you, will hasten my departure,” she said, turning to put aside the velvet curtain for her exit. “Lady Jane will not be pleased if I linger. Fare you well, Lord Oakburn.”
“Yes, I suppose it’s better that you should go,” acquiesced the earl. “I don’t mean to tell her, you see, until it’s done and over. Just come close, my dear.”
She went up to him. She supposed he had something particular to say to her; some direction to tender.
“Just give me a kiss.”
The gallant peer had not risen, and she would have to stoop to his up-turned face. It was certainly reversing the general order of such things. For a single moment her whole spirit rose up in rebellion; the next, she had bent her face passively to his.
With his single kiss upon her lips, with the red blood dyeing her brow, with a choking sob of emotion, she went from his presence and ascended to her chamber. Lucy ran out from the adjoining one ere she could enter it. The child, who had grown fond of her governess in spite of the dreadful German exercises, threw her arms round her.
“Oh, was it not a charming party! I wish we could have one every night! And how good you are, Miss Lethwait, to give me holiday to-day. What are you going to do?”
“Lucy, dear, the holiday is not of my giving. I am going from you. I am not to teach you any longer. I shall have departed in an hour’s time.”
“What’s that for?” exclaimed Lucy, in very astonishment.
And then, and not until then, did it recur to Miss Lethwait’s remembrance that Lady Jane had desired her not to see Lucy before she left. The request had brought its sting to Miss Lethwait: had her ladyship feared she would contaminate the child?—but she had never meant to disobey it; but there was no help for it now.
“Are you not going to be my governess any longer?” questioned Lucy.
“I am sorry to have mentioned this, Lucy,” she murmured in contrition. “I ought not to have spoken to you. Will you kindly tell Lady Jane that I spoke in inadvertence, not intentionally; and that I am sorry to have done so?”
“But, Miss Lethwait———”
“But I cannot tell you anything,” was the interruption of the governess. “It may chance, my dear, that we shall meet again at some future time. I am not sure. What seems certain one day vanishes the next. But you may believe one thing, Lucy—that I shall always love you.”
She pushed the pretty arms away from her, and bolted herself in her chamber. Lucy flew to the breakfast-room, It was in the hands of the servants: it had been the supper-room of the previous night.
“Where’s Lady Jane?” asked the child, surveying the débris before her with interest.
The servants did not know, unless her ladyship was in the small drawing-room. And Lucy went to the small drawing-room in search of her.
Jane was there. She had been shut up there quietly with her housekeeping book since the dismissal of the governess; but she had risen now to go to Lord Oakburn.
“O Jane! Is Miss Lethwait really going?”
“Yes,” calmly replied Jane.
“Why? I am so sorry.”
“Hush, Lucy.”
“But you’ll tell me why, Jane? What has she done?”
“You must not ask, my dear. These things do not concern you. I will take your lessons myself until I can find some one in Miss Lethwait’s place, more suitable than she is.”
“But Jane———”
“I cannot tell you anything more, Lucy,” was the peremptory answer.
“It is enough for you to know that Miss Lethwait is discharged, and that she quits the house to-day. I am very sorry that she ever entered it.”
Leaving the little girl standing there, Jane went down to Lord Oakburn. He was seated in just the same position as when interrupted by Miss Lethwait: himself in a reverie, and the open letter before him.
Jane drew the velvet curtain close, and told him she had been discharging the governess. She found that she was unsuitable for her charge, was all the explanation she gave. Jane had taken her knitting in her hand, and she sat with her eyes bent upon it while she spoke; never raising them; saying as little as she possibly could say. It was terribly unpleasant to Jane to mention that name to her father, after what she had seen in that very room on the previous night.
The earl made no interruption. It may be, that Jane had feared she knew not what of question and objection; but he heard her in silence. He never said a word until she had finished, and then not much.
“It was rather cool of you to dismiss her without warning, my lady. A harsh measure.”
A rosy flush tinged Jane’s delicate features. “I think not, papa.”
“As you please,” returned the earl. “And now what’s to be done about Clarice?”
The question took her by surprise. Lord Oakburn pointed to the open letter.
“I got this letter this morning, Jane. We have been mistaken in supposing that it was Clarice who went to Canada. It was another Miss Beauchamp.”
“Oh yes, papa, I know it,” returned Jane, in much distress, as she reverted to the disappointment imparted by Mr. Vaughan. “I begin—I begin to despair of finding her.”
“Then you are a simpleton for your pains,” retorted the earl. “Despair of finding her! What next? She has gone on the Continent with some family, and is put down in their passport as ‘the governess:’ that’s what it is. Despair of finding her, indeed! I shall go off to that governess-agency place, and ask what they meant by leading us to believe that it was the same Miss Beauchamp.”
In his hot haste, his impulsive temper, the earl rose and departed there and then, hurling no end of anathemas at the unlucky Pompey, who could not at the first moment, in the general disarrangement, lay his hands on his master’s hat. And ere the sun was high at noon, the governess had quitted the house, as governess, for ever.