Kitabı oku: «The New Mistress: A Tale», sayfa 7

Chapter Fourteen.
“Henry!”

That same day the Reverend Henry Lambent walked straight down to the girls’ school, telling himself that he was quite disenchanted now, and that he could talk to Miss Thorne as calmly as if she were a perfect stranger. The feverish fit had passed away, and he could laugh at the little bit of folly; and hence it was that he kept on thinking of modest violets and sweet perfume, and the face of Hazel Thorne was always before him, gazing at him with her sweet pensive eyes that always seemed so full of trouble and care. And as he walked he began thinking of what joy it would be to try and soothe the trouble away from those eyes, and make them look love and tenderness; and then he started, and felt what an American would call “mighty bad,” for George Canninge rode by him on horseback, looking very frank, and manly, and handsome. He did not rein in, but cantered on with a cheery “good morning,” and as soon as he had passed a pang of jealousy shot through the vicar’s breast, worse far than that which he had felt upon the previous day.

“He has been to call at the school,” he thought; and he determined on his own part not to go; but his legs appeared to take him on against his will, and he found himself making excuses for Hazel Thorne.

“She could not help it, perhaps,” he thought. “At any rate it is my duty to go, and I ought to check her if she is receiving such a visitor as this.”

Then, with heavily beating heart, he reached the entrance to the girls’ school, passing through the gate slowly, and listening to the bleating noise from the boys’ side, with the occasional short, sharp barks that Mr Chute was uttering like a sheepdog driving his flock along the dry and dusty roads of education towards the green and pleasant pastures of Academia.

The Reverend Henry Lambent paused for a few moments to compose himself, and then, wondering at his want of confidence, he entered the schools as we have seen.

The change that came over him instantly was startling. A moment before he had expected to be alone with Hazel Thorne, the girls counting for nothing – he could speak in their presence, and say all he wished – and he had felt a curious feeling of diffidence and pleasure pervade his breast. Now all was altered. He was not to be alone with Hazel Thorne, for his sisters were there, and he needed no showing that there had been a scene, while his heart told him that his sisters had been taking Miss Thorne to task for receiving a visit from George Canninge; perhaps they had come and found him there.

He glanced at Hazel, who stood looking pale and indignant with the little book in her hand, and from her to his sisters, who both seemed nervous and excited, consequent upon the encounter that had taken place.

“You here?” he said wonderingly.

There was nothing to wonder at, for it was a matter of course that the sisters should visit the school, and there was no need for explanations; but both brother and sisters were agitated, and Rebecca broke out with:

“Yes; we came down to have a little conversation with Miss Thorne upon the subject of – ”

“Speak lower, Rebecca,” said the vicar; “we do not wish the children to hear.”

“Exactly, dear Henry,” continued Rebecca. “We came down to advise Miss Thorne, and to – ”

“Tell her it was not seemly for her to receive so many gentlemen visitors,” said Beatrice.

“Then Mr Canninge has been here!” said the vicar involuntarily.

“Indeed no, I hope not,” cried Rebecca, while Beatrice turned paler than usual. “Why did you say that?”

The vicar felt that he had made a false move, and he regretted it.

“I met him just now. I thought he might have had a message from Mrs Canninge.”

“We have been speaking seriously to Miss Thorne,” continued Rebecca: “and after a little show of indignation I think she has seen the folly of her ways, and is ready to take our good counsel home to her heart. I am glad that you came, for you can endorse our words. Miss Thorne, after our preparation of the soil, will be ready to hear.”

The Reverend Henry Lambent had turned to Hazel as these words were spoken, and their eyes met. He was not a clever reader of the human hearty but he saw the shame and humiliation which the poor girl suffered, for there was an indignant protest in her look – a look that seemed to say: “I am a helpless woman and have done no wrong. You are a gentleman; protect me from these cruel insults, or I must go.”

“We have also given her a book to read and study,” continued Miss Lambent, “and that and our words – ”

“I am afraid that you have chosen a very bad time for making an appeal to Miss Thorne, Rebecca,” said the vicar, interrupting, in low, grave, measured tones; “and I am not sure but that the interference was uncalled for.”

“Henry!” ejaculated Beatrice, as Hazel cast a grateful look at her brother.

“Miss Thorne, will you allow me to look at that book?” continued the Reverend Henry, taking it from her hand. “Yes, as I thought. It is most unsuitable to a young” – he was going to say “person,” but he changed it to “lady of Miss Thorne’s education. It is such a book as I should have given to some very young girl just come into our service.”

“Henry!” ejaculated Beatrice again, for it was all she could say in her astonishment.

“I think this interview must be rather painful to Miss Thorne,” he continued quietly, “and we will not prolong it. I was going to question some of the girls, Miss Thorne, but – another time. Good-day.”

He bowed and walked to the door, waiting there for his sisters to pass, which they did with heads erect and a severe, injured expression, quite ignorant of the fact that they were being imitated by Miss Feelier Potts, for the benefit of her class. Then he looked once at Hazel, and saw that there were tears in her eyes as she gazed after him.

He went out then, ready to do battle with fifty sisters, for Hazel’s look had clothed him with moral armour cap-à-pie.

Chapter Fifteen.
“She’s Mine!”

“Mr Lambent treats me with respect,” reasoned Hazel one afternoon when the soreness had somewhat worn off, leaving a feeling that perhaps after all it would be possible to stay on at Plumton All Saints.

She had been very low-spirited for some time, but as she recalled the quiet, gentlemanly manner of the vicar, she felt relieved, and wished she had said a few words of thanks, making up her mind to atone for the omission at the first opportunity, and then setting so busily to work that her troubles were temporarily forgotten.

While she was very busy, a lad arrived with a note from Miss Burge, asking her to come up to the house to tea and talk over a proposal Mr William Forth Burge had made about the schools, and ending with a promise to drive her back in the pony-chaise. Hazel hesitated for a few moments, but she did not like to slight Miss Burge’s invitation, so she wrote back saying that she would come.

Then the girls had to be dismissed, and the pence counted up and placed in a canvas-bag along with the money received for the month’s coal and blanket club, neither of the amounts being heavy as a sum total, but, being all in copper, of a goodly weight avoirdupois.

Just as the bag was tied up and the amounts noted down, there was a light tap at the door, and Mr Chute stepped in, glancing quickly up at the slit made by the half-closed partition shutters to see if it was observable from this side.

“I just came in to say, Miss Thorne – well, that is odd now, really.”

Hazel looked her wonder, and he went on:

“It’s really quite funny. I said to myself, ‘the pence will mount up so that they will be quite a nuisance to Miss Thorne, and I’ll go and offer to get them off her hands.’”

“Thank you, Mr Chute, I won’t trouble you,” replied Hazel.

“Trouble? Oh, it’s no trouble,” he said, laughing in a peculiar way. “I get rid of mine at the shops, and I can just as easily put yours with them, and of course it’s much easier to keep shillings than pence; and then when you’ve got enough you can change your silver for gold.”

“By-the-way,” said Hazel, “when do we have to give up the school pence and club money?”

“Only once a year,” said Mr Chute, who was in high glee at this approach to intimacy. “You’ll have to keep it till Christmas.”

“Keep it – till Christmas! What! all that money!”

“To be sure! Oh, it isn’t much. May I – send your – coppers with mine?”

Hazel paused for a moment, and then accepted the offer, the schoolmaster noting in his pocket-book the exact amount, and waiting while Hazel went into the cottage to fetch the other sums she had received, the whole of which Mr Chute bore off in triumph, smiling ecstatically, and exclaiming to himself as soon as he was alone:

“She’s mine! – she’s mine! – she’s mine!”

After which he performed a kind of triumphal dance around the bags of copper, rubbing his hands with satisfaction at this step towards making himself useful to Hazel Thorne, until Mrs Chute came into the room, and asked him what he meant by making such a fool of himself.

Mrs Chute was a hard-looking little woman, with fair hair and a brownish skin, and one who had probably never looked pleasant in her life. She was very proud of her son, “My Samoowel,” as she always persisted in calling him, in despite of large efforts upon the part of that son to correct her pronunciation; and she showed her affection by never hardly speaking to him without finding fault, snapping him up, and making herself generally unpleasant; though, if anybody had dared to insinuate that Samuel Chute was not the most handsome, the most clever, and the best son in the world, it would have been exceedingly unpleasant for that body, for Mrs Chute, relict of Mr Samuel Chute, senior, of “The Docks,” possessed a tongue.

What Mr Samuel Chute, senior, had been in “The Docks,” no one ever knew, and it had not been to any one’s interest to find out. Suffice it that, after a long course of education somewhere at a national school in East London, Mr Samuel Chute, junior, had risen to be a pupil-teacher, and thence to a scholarship, resulting in a regular training; then after a minor appointment or two, he had obtained the mastership at Plumton School, where he had proved himself to be a good son by taking his mother home to keep house for him, and she had made him miserable ever since.

“Why, what are you thinking about, Samoowel, dancing round the money like a mad miser?”

“Oh, nonsense, mother! I was only – only – ”

“Only, only making a great noodle of yourself. Money’s right enough, but I’d be ashamed of myself if I cared so much for it that I was bound to dance about that how.”

Mr Chute did not answer, so she went on:

“I don’t think much of these Thornes, Samoowel.”

“Not think much of them, mother?”

“There, bless the boy, didn’t I speak plain? Don’t keep repeating every word I say. I don’t think much of them. That Mrs Thorne’s the stuck-uppest body I ever met.”

“Oh no, she’s an invalid.”

“I daresay she is! But I’d have every complaint under the sun, from tic to teething, without being so proud and stuck-up as she is. I went in this afternoon quite neighbourly like, but, oh dear me! and lor’ bless you! she almost as good as ast me what I wanted.”

“But – but I hope you didn’t say anything unpleasant mother?”

“Now, am I a woman as ever did say anything unpleasant, Samoowel? The most unpleasant thing I said was that I hoped she was as proud of her daughter as I was of my son.”

“And did you say that mother?”

“Of course I did, and then she began to talk about her girl, and grew a little more civil; but I don’t like her, Samoowel. She smells of pride, ’orrid; and as for her girl – there – ”

Mr Samuel Chute did not stop to hear the latter part of the lady’s speech, for just then he caught sight of the top of a bonnet passing the window, and he ran into the next room, so as to be able to see its wearer going along the road towards the market-place.

“What is the matter, Samoowel? Is it an acciden’?” cried Mrs Chute, running after him.

“No, no, nothing, mother,” he replied, turning away from the window to meet the lady. “Nothing at all!”

“Why, Samoowel,” she cried, looking at him with an aspect full of disgust, “don’t tell me that – you were staring after that girl!”

“I wasn’t going to tell you I was looking after her, mother,” said the young man sulkily.

“No, but I can see for myself,” cried Mrs Chute angrily. “The idea of a boy of mine having no more pride than to be running after a stuck-up, dressy body like that, who looks at his poor mother as if she wasn’t fit to be used to wipe her shoes on, and I dessey they ain’t paid for.”

“Mother,” cried the young man, “if you speak to me like that you’ll drive me mad!”

“And now he abuses his poor mother, who has been a slave to him all her life!” cried the lady. “Oh, Samoowel, Samoowel, when I’m dead and cold and in my grave, these words of yours’ll stand out like fires of reproach, and make you repent and – There, if he hasn’t gone after her,” she cried furiously; for, finding that her son did not speak, she lowered the apron that she had thrown over her face, slowly and softly, till she found that she was alone, when she jumped up from the chair into which she had thrown herself, ran to the window, and was just in time to see Mr Samuel Chute walking quickly towards the town.

“He don’t have her if I can prevent it!” cried Mrs Chute viciously, and the expression of her face was not pleasant just then.

But Samuel Chute neither heard her words nor saw her looks, as a matter of course, for he was walking steadily after Hazel, wondering whither she was bound.

It was the last thing in the world that he would do – watch her, but all the same he wanted to know where she went, and if it was for a walk, why he might turn up by accident just as she was coming back; and then, of course, he could walk with her, and somehow, now that he had so far been taken into her confidence in being trusted to change the school and club money for her, it would be easy to win another step in advance.

“I lay twopence she walks out with me arm-in-arm before another month’s out,” he said triumphantly; “and mother must get over it best way she can.”

All this while Hazel was some two hundred yards ahead, for the schoolmaster did not attempt to overtake her, but merely noted where she went, and followed.

“She’s turned off by the low road,” said Samuel Chute to himself. “She’s going by old Burge’s. Well, that is the prettiest walk, and – of course, I could go across by the footpath, and come out in the road this side of Burge’s, and meet her, and that would be better than seeming to have followed her.”

Acting upon this idea, Samuel Chute struck out of the main street and went swiftly along a narrow lane, and then by the footpath over the meadows to the road, a walk of a good mile and a half before he was out into the winding road that led by Mr Burge’s.

“She’ll come upon me here, plump,” he said with a laugh. “I wonder what she’ll say, and whether she’ll look at me again in that pretty, shy way, same as she did when I took the school pence! Hah, things are going on right for you, my boy; and what could be better?”

There was no answer to his question, so Samuel Chute went on making arrangements, like the Eastern man with his basket of crockery ware.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do; we’ll put both the old ladies together in one house, while we live in the other. Nothing could be easier. I say, isn’t it time she was here?”

He glanced at his watch, and it certainly seemed to be time for Hazel to have reached as far. She was not long, however, in appearing now round the bend of the road, looking brighter and more attractive than Samuel Chute had seen her yet, for there was a warm flush in her cheek, and her eyes were sparkling and full of vivacity. But in spite of this the schoolmaster drew his breath through his teeth with a spiteful hiss, and as he leaned a little forward and stared at Hazel Thorne, his countenance assumed the same ugly look, full of dislike and spite, that had been seen in his mother’s face only a short time before.

Chapter Sixteen.
A Match-Making Mamma

“Don’t you think, George, that dear Beatrice looks rather pale and thin?” said Mrs Canninge.

“Who – Beatrice Lambent?” said the young man, raising his eyes from his paper at breakfast.

“Yes, dear; very thin and pale indeed.”

“Now you mention it yes, of course; but so she always did.”

“Slightly, George; and there was a delicacy in the tinting of her skin – liliaceous, I might say, but she was not pale.”

“Bravo, dear! That’s a capital word. Do for a Tennysonian poem – ‘the Lay of the Liliaceous Lady.’”

“I was speaking seriously, my dear,” said Mrs Canninge stiffly. “I beg that you will not make those absurd remarks.”

“Certainly not, dear; but liliaceous is not a serious way of speaking of a lady.”

“Then I will not use it, George, for I wish to speak to you very seriously about Beatrice Lambent.”

The young man winced a little, but said nothing. He merely rustled his newspaper and assumed an air of attention.

“I don’t think that dear Beatrice is well, George.”

“Tell Lambent to send her off to the seaside for a good blow.”

“To pine away and grow worse, George.”

“To the interior, then, mother.”

“To still pine away, George.”

“Try homeopathy, then. Like cures like. Send her into Surrey amongst the fir-trees – pine to cure pine.”

Mrs Canninge sipped her coffee.

“Or get Miss Penstemon to give her a few pilules out of one of her bottles – the one she selected when I came down on the Czar last year at that big hedge.”

“When you have ended your badinage, my dear son, I shall be ready to go on.”

“Done. Finis!” said George Canninge promptly.

“I have been noting the change in dear Beatrice for some time past.”

“I have not,” said the young man. “She always was very thin and genteel-looking.”

“Extremely, George; but of late there has been a subdued sadness – a pained look in her pensive eyes, that troubles me a good deal, for it is bad.”

“Perhaps she has some trouble on her mind, dear. You should try and comfort her.”

“I could not comfort her, my dear. The comfort must come from other lips than mine. Hers is a mental grief.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say that she is in love?” said George Canninge, laughing.

“I mean to say that the poor girl is suffering cruelly from a feeling of neglect, and it grieves me very, very much.”

“Send the swain for whom she sighs to comfort her, my dear mamma.”

“That is what I am seeking to do, George,” said the lady, looking at him meaningly. “Don’t you think it is time you threw off this indifference, and ceased to trifle? You are giving pain to a true, sweet woman.”

“I! I giving pain to a true, sweet woman? Absurd! My dearest mother, do you for a moment suppose that I ever thought seriously about Beatrice Lambent?”

“It has been one of my cherished hopes that you did, George, and I know that she feels your cool indifference most keenly.”

“Nonsense, dear!” he cried, laughing; “why, what crotchet is this that you have got into your head?”

“Crotchet?”

“Yes, dear – crotchet.”

“I am speaking in all seriousness to you, my son. George, your behaviour to Beatrice Lambent is not correct.”

“My dear mother,” said the young man firmly, “do you mean to tell me that you honestly believe Beatrice Lambent cares for me?”

“Most assuredly, George.”

“Poor lass, then! That’s all I can say.”

“Why, George, have you not led her on by your attentions for these many months past?”

“Certainly not! I have been as civil and attentive to her as I have been to other ladies – that is all. What nonsense! Really, mother, it is absurd.”

“It is not absurd, George, but a very serious matter.”

“Well, serious enough, of course, for I should be sorry if Miss Lambent suffered under a misunderstanding.”

“Why let it be a misunderstanding, George? Beatrice is handsome.”

“Ye-es,” said the young man, gazing down at his paper.

“Well born.”

“I suppose so.”

“Thoroughly intellectual.”

“Let’s see: it’s Byron, isn’t it, who makes ‘hen-pecked-you-all’ rhyme to ‘intellectual’?”

“George!”

“My dear mother.”

“Beatrice is amiable; has a good portion from her late uncle – in fact, taken altogether, a most eligible partie, and I like her very much.”

“But, my dear mother,” said the young squire, “it is a question of my marriage, is it not?”

“Of course, my son.”

“Then it would be necessary for me to like her as well – from my commonplace point of view, to love her.”

“Certainly, my dear; and that I believe at heart you do.”

“Then, your dear, affectionate, motherly heart is slightly in error, for I may as well frankly tell you that I do not like Beatrice Lambent, and what is far more, I am sure that I should never love her enough to make her my wife.”

“My dear George, you give me very great pain.”

“I am very sorry, my dear mother, but you must allow me to think for myself in a matter of this sort. There: suppose we change the subject.”

He resumed, or rather seemed to resume, the reading of his paper, while the lady continued her breakfast, rather angry at what she called her son’s obstinacy, but too good a diplomatist to push him home, preferring to wait till he had had time to reflect upon her words. She glanced at him now and then, and saw that he seemed intent upon his newspaper, but she did not know that he could not keep his attention to the page, for all the while his thoughts were wandering back to the tent in Mr William Forth Burge’s grounds, then to the church, and again to the various occasions when he had seen Hazel Thorne’s quiet, grave face, as she bent over one or other of her scholars.

He thought, too, of her conversation when he chatted with her after he had taken her in to tea, and then of every turn of expression in her countenance, comparing it with that of Beatrice Lambent, but only to cease with an ejaculation full of angry contempt, “I shall not marry a woman for her pretty face.”

“Did you speak, my dear!” said Mrs Canninge.

“I uttered a thought half aloud,” he replied quietly.

“Is it a secret, dear?” she said playfully.

“No, mother; I have no secrets from you.”

“That is spoken like my own dear son,” said Mrs Canninge, rising, and going behind his chair to place her hands upon his shoulders, and then raise them to his face, drawing him back, so that she could kiss his forehead. “Why, there are lines in your brow, George – lines of care. What are you thinking about!”

“Beatrice Lambent.”

“About dear Beatrice, George? Why, that ought to bring smiles, and not such deep thought-marks as these.”

“Indeed, mother! Well, for my part, I should expect much of Beatrice Lambent would eat lines very deeply into a fellow’s brow.”

“For shame, my dear! But come,” cried Mrs Canninge cheerfully, “tell me what were your thoughts, or what it was you said that was no secret.”

“I said to myself, mother, that I should never marry a woman for the sake of a pretty face.”

Mrs Canninge’s mind was full of Hazel Thorne, and, associating her son’s remark with the countenance that had rather troubled her thoughts since the day of the school feast, her heart gave a throb of satisfaction.

“I know that, George,” she exclaimed, smiling. “I know my son to be too full of sound common-sense, and too ready to bear honourably his father’s name, to be led away by any temporary fancy for a pleasant-looking piece of vulgar prettiness.”

Mrs Canninge stopped, for she knew at heart without the warning of the colour coming into her son’s face, that she had gone too far; and she felt cold and bitter as she listened to her son’s next words.

“I do not consider Beatrice Lambent’s features to be vulgarly pretty,” he said.

“Oh no, of course not, George; she is very refined.”

“I misunderstood you, then,” said George Canninge coldly. “But let us understand one another, my dear mother. I find you have been thinking it probable that I should propose to Beatrice Lambent.”

“Yes, dear; and I am sure that she would accept you.”

“I daresay she would,” he replied coldly; “but such an event is not likely to be brought about for Beatrice Lambent is not the style of woman I should choose for my wife.”

He rose and quitted the room, leaving Mrs Canninge standing by the window, looking proud and angry, with her eyes fixed upon the door.

“I knew it,” she cried; “I knew it. But you shall not trifle with me, George. I am neither old nor helpless yet.”