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Volume Two – Chapter Ten.
Mrs Brandon’s Receptions: Third Visitor

Mrs Brandon’s was a genuine feeling of affection for the gentle motherless girl who strove so hard and not unsuccessfully to gain the love of her pupils. She had called herself a poor judge of human nature, and had doubtless erred with regard to Charley Vining; but her estimation of Ella Bedford’s worth, quickly as it was arrived at, was correct; and many an hour were her thoughts devoted to the best means of serving her protégée.

It need hardly be stated that Charley Vining too occupied no slight share of her thoughts – thoughts that now inclined in one, now in the other direction. They loved; that was evident. Both were young, true-hearted, handsome. They would make an admirable couple. Why should there not be an engagement? Then the balance was on the other side – of difference of position, the slighting treatment that might be met with from wealthy relations; and all at last ended with a sigh, as she told herself that the only way in which she could act was to be a watchful friend to her protégée, and to let matters shape themselves as they would, hoping always that the course they would take would be the best.

Meanwhile, during one of her walks with the children, Ella had a narrow escape from an encounter with Max Bray; and after staying within doors for a couple of days, she again had to hurry back; but this time not without his company for a part of the distance – a fact which Ella was not slow in announcing to her protectress, who bit her lip with annoyance, and tried to form some plan for putting a stop to these importunities; but, strangely enough, all Mrs Brandon’s plans ended with thoughts of Charley Vining – when she gave up.

The day at last came when, in accordance with the given consent, Charley was to call; and Mrs Brandon sat turning matters over in her mind as to what she should do – what plan she should adopt. The week had slipped away, and, in spite of her cogitation, she was still undecided. “What should she do?” she asked herself for the hundredth time. She had not even acquainted Ella with the fact that he was coming again; and in a few hours he would certainly be there, beseeching her to stand his friend.

“What should she do?” she asked herself again; and she was just about to send to request Ella to come to the drawing-room when a carriage drove up to the door, there was a peal at the bell, and directly after Mrs Brandon felt that matters had indeed now come to a crisis; for the footman came in and announced Sir Philip Vining.

“To see Miss Bedford, Edward?” she asked eagerly.

“No, ma’am; to see you.”

And this time, with no slight feeling of trepidation, Mrs Brandon requested that the visitor might be shown in there, and prepared herself for what she conceived would be an anxious scene.

The old baronet bowed with all a courtier’s grace, and then, taking the indicated seat, immediately opened the business upon which he had come.

“You are doubtless surprised at this call, Mrs Brandon,” he said, “for we are not acquaintances, and our homes are far removed; but I will be frank with you. You have a young lady here as governess – a Miss Bedford?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Brandon quietly, as she waited to see what course she ought to pursue.

“I come to ask your permission for an interview with that young lady,” said Sir Philip.

“It was unnecessary, Sir Philip Vining,” said Mrs Brandon, rising. “I will at once send Miss Bedford to you.”

“Stay, stay a little, I beg of you,” said Sir Philip; and Mrs Brandon resumed her seat. “I must tell you, in the first place, that my son – my only son – has formed a most unfortunate attachment in that quarter – an attachment which it seems to me will blight his prospects in life. Mind, madam,” he added hastily, “I make no attack upon the lady, who may be one of the most estimable of women; but it would grieve me sorely if such an alliance were to be formed. It may seem to be weak, but I have a certain pride in our old pedigree, and it is the earnest wish of my heart that my son should marry well.”

He paused for a moment.

“I was aware of this,” said Mrs Brandon quietly.

“Indeed!” said Sir Philip. “But I need not be surprised: Miss Bedford has, perhaps, confided to you my son’s offer.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Brandon, “and so did your son.”

“He was here a week ago,” said Sir Philip. “Has he been since?”

“I expect him this afternoon to ask my cooperation; and I confess I am much troubled thereby.”

“Your cooperation,” said Sir Philip; “but I see, the lady is perhaps coy. Mrs Brandon, I must ask your aid on my side. This marriage is impossible – it would be an insane act, and can never take place. Will you ask that Miss Bedford may be sent here?”

“Will you see her alone?”

“No, no! I would rather you were present, Mrs Brandon. You know all; and perhaps, as a mother, you may be able to sympathise with another parent.”

“Sir Philip Vining, you are placing me in a most difficult position. How am I to divide sympathies that are with all of you? But I will ring. Let us have Ella here; and I tell you candidly that I am glad to be free from a responsibility that threatened to fix itself upon my shoulders.”

“Ask Miss Bedford to step this way,” said Mrs Brandon as the man appeared.

And five minutes after, very pale, but quite collected, Ella was ushered into the room.

Mrs Brandon advanced to meet her, and led her to Sir Philip, who saluted her gravely, and then placed for her a chair.

Then for a few minutes there was an embarrassed silence, broken at last by Sir Philip Vining.

“Miss Bedford,” he said, “I am an old and prejudiced man; proud of my wealth, proud of my estate, proud of my position in the county. I have, too, an only son, whose life and future are dearer to me than my own. For many years past my sole hope has been that he would form some attachment to a lady of his own rank in society; one who should be to him a loving wife – to me a daughter in whom I could feel pride.”

“Hear me out,” he continued, rising and standing before Ella, in almost a piteous and pleading attitude, while Mrs Brandon sank upon her knees by the fair girl’s side, and placing one hand around her, took Ella’s with the other.

“Hear me out,” said Sir Philip; “and forgive me if my words sound harsh and cruel. On an unfortunate day he beheld you – fair, beautiful, as was his sainted mother – a woman to be seen but to be loved; and though I came here hot and angered against you, I tell you frankly that I am weak and disarmed. Had it been some proud scheming woman, I could have acted; but I find you sweet, gentle, pure-hearted, and one who gains the good word and love of all with whom you come in contact. He tells me boldly that he loves you. I do not ask you if you love him. No one could know his frank honest heart without giving him their love. But I ask you, hoping that any affection you may bear him may be slight, to make some sacrifice for his sake – for my sake – the sake of an old man who will give you his blessing. You must esteem him, even if you do not love. Think, then, of his prospects – think of his position. You see I humble myself, for his sake, to plead to you – to implore that this may go no farther. I came as a last hope; for I find that he has sought you out – that he will be here again to-day.”

“He here to-day!” exclaimed Ella, starting, her wounds reopened by the cruel ordeal she was called upon to suffer. Then calmly rising, she stood before the old man, looking down at his feet, as, clearly and distinctly, she said, “Sir Philip Vining – his father! – I love him too well – with too pure a love – a love that I dare here avow to you – to wrong him either in thought or deed! I have told him it is impossible; I have avoided – I have fled from him. I have done all that woman can do to prove to him that we are separated by a gulf that cannot be crossed. I came here seeking rest and peace; but it was not to be: and in a few days I will go – go somewhere where he shall see me no more! You need not fear for me. I would not listen to him – I will not listen to him; and I thought that all that was at an end. It is nothing!” she said with a gasp, turning with a smile to Mrs Brandon. “I think I am weak. I wish to be alone. Sir Philip Vining will excuse me perhaps; but I have had much trouble lately. Thanks; I am better now!”

She tried to withdraw her hand; but Sir Philip took it, and raised it to his lips.

“Heaven bless you, my child!” he said, his voice trembling as he spoke. “I have wronged you bitterly in thought; but you must pardon me. I came, thinking to meet an ambitious aspiring woman; but I find an angel. Would to heaven that it could have been otherwise – or,” he muttered, “that this pride was humbled! I feel,” he continued aloud, “that I am playing a hard part; but you will forgive me.”

Ella turned her face towards him with a sad and weary smile, and then one arm was thrown over Mrs Brandon’s shoulder, the little head drooped down as droops some storm-beaten flower, and, as it touched Mrs Brandon’s breast, there was a faint gasping sigh, and Sir Philip started forward.

“You had better leave us, Sir Philip Vining,” said Mrs Brandon gravely; “the poor child has fainted.”

And pale, trembling, and looking years older, Sir Philip walked with tottering steps to the door, paused, looked round, came back, and then kneeling, pressed his lips twice upon Ella’s glossy hair, before, with a sigh, he tore himself away, and was rapidly driven off.

At that self-same hour, light-hearted and hopeful, Charley Vining mounted his favourite mare to ride over to Laneton.

Volume Two – Chapter Eleven.
Kitchen Canvassing

“Now do tell us, there’s a dear man,” said cook, alias Sarah Stock, to Edward, the hard-faced footman, as he sat in front of the kitchen fire at Copse Hall, gently rubbing his shins and ruminating; while the housemaid, with her workbox on the table, was pretending to be busy over some piece of useful needlework, though she was watching Edward the hard-faced with all her might.

For it was that cosy half-hour after supper when all was at peace in the mansion; when the late dinner things had all been washed up, the kitchen tidied, and cook had performed the operation which she called setting herself straight – a manifest impossibility, for she was a circular woman of at least sixteen stone weight. All the same, though, she had changed her dress, polished her face till it shone, and then crowned herself with a gorgeous corona of lace and bright-hued ribbons and net-work, an edifice which she called her cap. The cat sat and purred upon the round smooth centre of the bright steel fender, winked at the fire, twitched its ears, and purred and ruminated at intervals; for it was fast nearing the hour when it would be shown the door for the night; so that it was getting itself thoroughly warmed through. The firelight danced in the bright tin dish-covers hung upon the wall, and then gleamed off, and dodged about from bright stewpan to brass candlestick, and back again to the clean crockery and the dresser; the old Dutch clock swung its pendulum busily to and fro, as if labouring under the mistake that it had nearly done work for the day; and altogether the place looked bright and snug, and spoke of the approaching hour of rest, when cook, having tapped the fire playfully here and there, to the destruction of several golden caverns in the centre, and taking up an apparently interrupted conversation, said, as above:

“Now, do tell us, there’s a dear man;” when the housemaid gave her head a toss, as much as to say, “What indelicacy! – don’t think I endorse that expression!”

Then she smiled with a kind of pitying contempt, for, according to her notions, cook and Edward were courting; and of course, if he chose to prefer a great fat coarse woman like that, he had a right to. An the slim maiden of thirty-eight bridled and looked almost as hard-faced as Edward himself. For though cook called him a dear man, it almost seemed at first as if she were bantering him, till it was taken into consideration that every eye forms its own beauty. In fact, just then Edward looked more hard-faced and grim than ever.

“You will tell us all about it, now won’t you?” said cook, for Edward remained silent.

“’Tain’t likely,” said Edward at last.

“Why not?” said cook.

“There was two buttons off my shirt in the very worst places on Sunday morning.”

“I am sorry!” exclaimed cook.

“Don’t believe it!” said Edward; “and it’s mean and unfair. Didn’t you say, if I’d always get your coals in, you’d always see to my buttons and darn my stockings? And at this present moment there’s a hole as big as a shilling in them as I’ve got on.”

“But it shan’t never occur again, Eddard, if you’ll only tell us; for Mary and me is as interested as can be.”

“O, I don’t care about knowing, if Mr Edward don’t choose to tell,” said the housemaid, with a toss of her head.

“Who’s trying to pick a quarrel now?” retorted Edward; “when missus said we was always to be peaceful and orderly in the kitchen.”

“Not me, I’m sure,” said the housemaid. “I wouldn’t bemean myself to quarrel.”

“Now don’t, dear,” said cook; “Mr Eddard’s agoin’ to tell us all about it, and really, you know, if it ain’t for all the world like chapters out o’ that book as missus had from Mugie’s libery – the one you brought up out of the drawin’-room, and read of a night when we was in bed.”

“Stuff!” said the housemaid tartly.

“Now, don’t say so, dear,” said the cook, who was particularly suave for once in her life. “There she is, just like a herrowine, and a nice-looking one too.”

“Get out! call her good-looking?” said the housemaid.

“Well, ’taint to be denied as she has what some folks would call good looks. Then you see she’s pussycuted by one lover, and another loves her to distraction, and his father won’t hear of it; and first one comes and then another, and then the father, and frightens the poor dear into fits, and goes away fainting – no, I mean goes away leaving her fainting away, and wanting salts and burnt feathers, and all sorts. Why, it’s for all the world like a real story in a book, that it is; and I declare the way Mr Eddard has told us all about it has been beautiful.”

“There’s soft soap,” growled the hard-faced footman, smiling grimly.

“That it ain’t now, I’m sure,” said cook. “It really was beautiful, and almost as good as seeing or reading it all. I’m sure I never lived in a house before where there was such goings on. I declare that bit where you told us about how you took the dandy by the scruff of his neck, and says to him, ‘Now, out you go, or I’ll stuff you up the chimney!’ was as exciting as could be. And so it was where you dragged him across the hall, and pitched him neck and crop down the front steps. I could a’most see it; and we both of us did hear the door slam.”

“Mr Eddard,” who had been slightly adding to the history of Ella’s visitors, smiled a little here, and his face relaxed somewhat from its stern expression.

“Lor’, what a nice clear fire!” said cook, who had detected the melting sign. “Let me hot you a sup of beer in a little stoopan, with a bit of nuckmeg and ginger, and a spoonful of sugar. Don’t say no, Eddard.”

“Yes, I shall,” said Edward, who was tightening up again. “I sha’n’t have none unless you two join with me.”

“Well, if it comes to that,” said cook, “sooner than you should go without, I’ll have the least taste in the world.”

The housemaid shook her head as if despising such excuses; but ten minutes after, when a mug of the hot sweet-scented compound was placed before her by cook, who winked at Edward as she did so, the lady of the dustpan and brush condescended to simper, and say, “O, the very idee!” Then she smiled, and at the end of another ten minutes the trio were all smiling as they sat with their feet on the fender, Edward regaling himself and his fellow-servants with an account of what had taken place during the afternoon.

“I should say it was as near as could be three o’clock,” said Edward punctiliously; “it might have been a little after, though I hadn’t heard it strike, or it might have been a little before: I ain’t certain. Anyhow, it was as near as could be to three o’clock when the front-door bell rings.

“‘Visitor for Miss Bedford,’ I says to myself, laughing like, and meaning it as a joke; for as we’d had one that day, I didn’t of course expect no more.”

“What time was it as Sir Philip Vining went away?” said cook, who was deeply interested.

“O, that was before lunch,” said Edward.

“To be sure, so it was,” said the housemaid.

“Well, I slips on my coat – for I was dusting the glasses over before going to lay the dinner-cloth – and up I goes.”

“And up you goes,” said cook; for Edward had paused to soften his hard face with a little more of the stewpan decoction.

“Yes, up I goes, to find it was Mr Charles Vining, looking as bright and happy as could be – quite another man to what he was when he come last week.

“‘Ah,’ I says to myself, ‘you don’t know about your governor being here afore lunch, young man, or you’d be laughing the other side of your mouth.’ But I says aloud:

“‘To see Miss Bedford, sir?’

“‘No, my man,’ he says; and he looked at me very curious and hesitating, as if he’d like to have said ‘yes.’

“‘Show me in to your mistress,’ he says.”

“Now it’s a-coming!” said cook, rocking herself to and fro with excitement, and rubbing her hands softly together.

“Now what’s a-coming, stoopid?” said Edward gruffly. “What d’ye mean?”

“I – I only meant that the interesting bit was now coming – the denowment, you know,” said cook humbly, and seeking to mollify the insulted narrator by emptying the little stewpan, cloves, bits of ginger, and all into his mug.

“If you’re so precious clever, you’d better tell it yourself,” growled Edward fiercely, “instead of keeping on interrupting like that. Who’s to go on, I should like to know?”

“O, I’m sure cook didn’t mean nothing, Mr Eddard,” said the interested housemaid. “Do go on!”

“What’s she want to say anything for, if she don’t mean anything then, eh?” grumbled Edward. “I hate such ways.”

Cook looked at housemaid, and slightly raised her hands, while the offended dignitary sipped and muttered, and muttered and sipped, and his audience waited, not daring to speak, lest they should miss the rest of the expected treat.

“I wouldn’t say another word if I hadn’t begun, that I wouldn’t!” growled the hard-faced one. “Now, then, where’d I got to?”

“‘Show me in to your mistress,’” exclaimed cook; when “Mr Eddard,” turning round upon her very sharply, she shrunk as it were into her shell, and nipped together her lips.

“I tell you what it is,” said Edward viciously; “if I’m to tell this here, I tells it, but I ain’t going to be driven wild with vexatious interruptions. Do you both want to know it, or don’t you?”

“O yes, please, Mr Eddard, we do indeed,” exclaimed the two domestics; “so please go on!”

Thus adjured, and apparently mollified by the respect paid to him, as much as by the stewpan essence, “Mr Eddard” continued: “Well, I shows him into the breakfast-room, and then goes in to missus, who had just come down from Miss Bedford’s room; and looking all white and troubled, she goes across the hall, and I opens the door for her, and up comes my gentleman with a rush, catches her hand in his, and kisses it.

“‘That’s making yourself at home anyhow, young man,’ I says to myself, backing-out of the room; and I can’t say how it happened, but the corner of the carpet got rucked up, so that I was ever so long before I could get the door shut, and they would keep talking, so that I couldn’t help hearing what they said.”

“And what did they say?” said cook.

“Ain’t I a-coming to it as fast as I can?” said Edward angrily. “What an outrageous hurry you always are in with everything, except getting the dinner ready in time!”

“Now don’t be cruel, Mr Eddard,” said the housemaid, tittering, when “Mr Eddard” himself condescended to laugh at what our Scotch brethren would call his own “wut,” to the great discomfiture of cook, who wanted to fire-up and give them a bit of her mind, but did not dare, for fear of losing the end of the coveted history. The consequence of her reticence, though, was that “Mr Eddard” grew exceedingly amiable, and went on with his account.

“That door being shut,” he said, with a grim smile, which was meant to be pleasant, but was the very reverse, “I didn’t want to go; for I put it to you now, under the circumstances, was it likely as he’d stay long?”

“Of course not!” said cook.

“Not likely!” said the housemaid.

“Well, then,” continued Edward, “where was the use of me going back to my pantry only to be called directly? So I took his hat and brushed it, and when I’d brushed it and set it down, I set to and brushed it again, and so on half a dozen times, while – it was very foolish of them if they didn’t want other people to hear – they kept on talking louder and louder.

“‘Mr Vining,’ says missus, ‘I must ask you as a gentleman to come no more.’

“‘But, in ’evin’s name,’ he says, ‘what have I done that you should turn upon me like this?’

“‘Nothing,’ says missus; ‘nothing at all. I pity you from the bottom of my heart, as much as I pity that sweet girl; but it cannot be. You must come here no more.’

“‘Are you a woman?’ he says. ‘Have you feeling? Can you form any idea of the pain your words are giving me?’

“‘Yes, yes, yes,’ says missus. ‘Mr Vining, why do you force me to speak? I do not wish to cause trouble, but you drive me to do so.’

“‘Speak, then,’ he says, quite in another voice, ‘unless you wish to drive me mad, or to something worse – ’ There, I’m blessed,” continued Edward, breaking short off in his narrative, and pointing to the cook, “did you ever see such a woman? Why, what are you snivelling about?”

“I – I – I c-c-c-can’t help it, Eddard, when I think of what those poor things must be suffering,” sobbed cook, with a liberal application of her apron to her eyes.

“Suffer, indeed – such stuff!” said Edward.

“Ah, Eddard,” said cook, turning upon him a languishing look, “if I have saved up forty-seven pound ten in the savings bank, I’ve a heart still, and know what it is for it to bleed when some one says a hard word to me.”

The housemaid sniffed.

“I’m a going on,” said Edward, who was evidently moved by the culinary lady’s remarks.

“‘Drive you,’ says Mr Vining, ‘to speak! Why, stay!’ he says excitedly, as if a thought had struck him. ‘Why, yes; I’m sure of it. My father has been here to-day.’

“‘He has,’ says missus solemnly.

“‘It was cowardly and cruel!’ cries Mr Vining, quite shouting now, for his monkey was evidently up. ‘And pray, madam, what is the result of his visit? There, I can answer it myself: Miss Bedford refuses to see me; you decline to receive me into your house.’

“‘Mr Vining,’ says missus softly, and I could fancy that she took his hand, ‘I grieve for you, as I do for that suffering girl.’

“‘What!’ cries Mr Vining, ‘is she ill? Let me – let me see her – only once – for a minute, dear Mrs Brandon! Pray – on my knees I beg it of you! You cannot be so cruel, so hardhearted, as to refuse!’ And then I heard a loud sobbing wail as of a woman crying, and – There, I’m blest if I go on, if you will keep on snivelling. Why, blame the women, you’re both on you at it!”

“We – we – we – we – we’re – only a-blowin’ our noses,” sobbed the housemaid.

“Never see such noses!” growled Edward, who then continued:

“Well, directly after, as if in a passion, Mr Vining says:

“‘Mrs Brandon, this is cruel and harsh. I left you last week with my hopes raised; to-day you dash them to the ground.’

“‘Mr Vining – Mr Vining!’ she says softly.

“‘I tell you this,’ he says, shouting again; and hearing his words, you could almost see him stamping up and down the breakfast-room – ‘I tell you this. Mrs Brandon: the ties of duty are strong, but the ties formed by the heart of a man newly-awakened to love are stronger. To win Ella Bedford, my own love, I will give all – time, hope, everything; I will leave no stone unturned – I will stop at nothing! I see that she has been coerced – that she has been, as it were, cruelly stolen from me by external pressure; and it shall be my task to win her back. I had hoped to have had you on my side; as it is, I must begin my battle by myself. I thank you for your patient hearing of my words; but before I go I tell you this – that till I learn that, by her own act, she gives herself to another, I will never cease from my pursuit.’

“The next minute he was in the hall, and I handed him his hat, brushed as he never had it brushed before; when, even then, upset as he was, he puts his hand in his pocket, and pushed something into my fist.

“‘Sixpence,’ I says to myself, as I shut the door after him, and him a-walking away like mad.”

“Sixpence!” echoed the cook.

“Sixpence!” squeaked the housemaid.

“Well, it did feel like it, sutternly,” said Edward; “but it was arf a suffrin’.”

“But what did he mean by never ceasing from the pursuit till she gave herself to another? Would she give herself to another?” said cook, who was very moist of eye.

“No, I should say not – never!” said the housemaid.

And so said, mentally, Charley Vining as, disappointed and half maddened, he galloped homeward that afternoon; but the day came when, bitterly laughing to himself, he said otherwise, and hummed with aching heart the words of the old song: