was a long journey, and she meant to come back the same day, but the trouble and fatigue to herself were nothing, if she could but spare ever so little trouble to her father. There was the jolting omnibus to Great Wennock, and there was the railway afterwards—thirty miles of it; it may be questioned whether Jane, in her distress of mind, so much as knew that the omnibus made any jolts at all.
Arrived at Pembury, Jane felt undecided what to do. She did not much like to go on to Chesney Oaks; it would seem almost as though they wished to seize upon their new possession by storm ere the poor young earl was cold on his bed. Neither did she know whether the imperious old Dowager Countess of Oakburn might not be there; and Jane felt that to tell her this disgrace of Laura’s, would be a worse task than the telling it to her father.
She inquired for an hotel, and was directed to the “Oakburn Arms.” Then she despatched Pompey to Chesney Oaks.
“You will tell papa, Pompey, that I have come here, and am waiting to see him,” she said. “You must say that I have come all this way on purpose to impart to him something of the utmost moment; something that he must hear without delay—that I could not trust to anyone else to bring to him, for it is unpleasant news. And Pompey, you must not tell him: take care of that.”
Pompey looked aghast at the bare suggestion. He tell such news to his choleric master! “I no dare, missee,” was the characteristic answer.
Chesney Oaks, a fine old place, whose park stretched down to the very gates of Pembury, was less than a mile distant. Jane, ever thoughtful, despatched Pompey in a fly, that it might be at hand to bring back her father. She then sat down in the room to which she had been shown, and waited.
The room was on the ground floor, and she watched eagerly the way leading from Chesney Oaks. They appeared to have had as much rain at Pembury as they had had at South Wennock, to judge by the state of the roads, but it was a balmy spring day, this, and the sun shone out by fits and snatches: it shone on Jane’s face at the open window.
At length she saw the fly coming back again, and the sick feeling at her heart increased, now the moment was at hand when she must meet her father with the dreadful news. But the fly, instead of drawing up to the door of the inn, continued its way past it, and Jane saw that it was empty. It seemed like a welcome respite. She supposed her father had preferred to walk, and she stood looking out for him.
But she looked in vain. There appeared no sign of him, and Jane was beginning seriously to wonder what she should do in the emergency, when a handsome chariot, bearing about it, although in mourning, all the badges of rank and state—the flowing hammer cloth, the earl’s coronet on the panels, the powdered servants, the sparkling silver ornaments on the fine horses—came bowling up to the door. Another moment and the waiter appeared, showing in the powdered footman, who handed a small bit of twisted paper to Jane.
“For me?” she involuntarily exclaimed.
“Yes, my lady.”
Jane quite started. My lady! Why, yes, she was my lady. But the salutation sounded strange to her ears, and a deep blush arose to her fair face. Opening the paper, she read the following characteristic lines written in pencil.
“I cannot imagine whatever you have come for, Jane, but you can come on to Chesney Oaks and explain. Pompey’s a fool.”
By which last sentence Jane gathered that poor Pompey must have managed to plunge into hot water with his master, in his efforts not to tell the secret. She also divined that the carriage had been sent for her use.
“You have brought the carriage for me?” she asked.
“Yes, my lady. My lord requested you would go on without delay.”
But Jane hesitated. She thought of the fever. Not for herself did she fear it—at least it was not her own danger that struck her, but she was about to return home to Lucy and might carry it to her.
“There may be danger in my entering Chesney Oaks,” she said. “I am going home to a young sister, a little girl, and children take disorders so easily.”
“I don’t think there will be much danger, my lady,” returned the man. “My lord is in the left wing of the house, and the—the body of the late earl is lying in the wing at the other extremity, where he died. No one else has taken the fever.”
How strange it was, too, to hear her father called my lord; how strange to spring suddenly into all this pomp and state. Jane did not see that she could hold out longer, and passed out of the room.
Gathered in the entrance passage were the landlord of the inn, his wife, the waiter, and a chambermaid, ready to make obeisance to her as she passed. Jane felt rather little as she received the honours; she had an old black silk dress on, a shabby warm grey shawl, and a straw bonnet trimmed with black, the worse for wear. But Jane need not have feared: she was a lady always, and looked like one, dress as she would.
