Lady Anna Part 38

When one executes the office of gaoler without fee or reward, giving up to one's prisoner one's best bedroom, and having a company dinner, more or less, cooked for one's prisoner every day, one does not like to be told too plainly of the antic.i.p.ated joys of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

Mrs. Bluestone, who had done her best both for the mother and the girl, and had done it all from pure motherly sympathy, was a little hurt. "I am sure, Lady Anna, we shall not wish you to return," she said.

"Oh, Mrs. Bluestone, you don't understand me. I don't think you know how unhappy I am because of mamma."

Mrs. Bluestone relented at once. "If you will only do as your mamma wishes, everything will be made happy for you."

"Mr. Thwaite will be in Keppel Street at eleven o'clock on Monday,"

continued the Serjeant, "and an opportunity will then be given you of obtaining from him a release from that unfortunate promise which I believe you once made him. I may tell you that he has expressed himself willing to give you that release. The debt due to him, or rather to his late father, has now been paid by the estate, and I think you will find that he will make no difficulty. After that anything that he may require shall be done to forward his views."

"Am I to take my things?" she asked.

"Sarah shall pack them up, and they shall be sent after you if it be decided that you are to stay with Lady Lovel." They then went to bed.

In all this neither the Serjeant nor his wife had been "on the square." Neither of them had spoken truly to the girl. Mrs. Bluestone had let the Countess know that with all her desire to a.s.sist her ladys.h.i.+p, and her ladys.h.i.+p's daughter, she could not receive Lady Anna back in Bedford Square. As for that sending of her things upon certain conditions,--it was a simple falsehood. The things would certainly be sent. And the Serjeant, without uttering an actual lie, had endeavoured to make the girl think that the tailor was in pursuit of money,--and of money only, though he must have known that it was not so. The Serjeant no doubt hated a lie,--as most of us do hate lies; and had a strong conviction that the devil is the father of them. But then the lies which he hated, and as to the parentage of which he was quite certain, were lies told to him. Who yet ever met a man who did not in his heart of hearts despise an attempt made by others to deceive--himself? They whom we have found to be gentler in their judgment towards attempts made in another direction have been more than one or two. The object which the Serjeant had in view was so good that it seemed to him to warrant some slight deviation from parallelogrammatic squareness;--though he held it as one of his first rules of life that the end cannot justify the means.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

IT IS STILL TRUE.

On Sunday they all went to church, and not a word was said about the tailor. Alice Bluestone was tender and valedictory; Mrs. Bluestone was courteous and careful; the Serjeant was solemn and civil. Before the day was over Lady Anna was quite sure that it was not intended that she should come back to Bedford Square. Words were said by the two girls, and by Sarah the waiting-maid, which made it certain that the packing up was to be a real packing up. No hindrance was offered to her when she busied herself about her own dresses and folded up her stock of gloves and ribbons. On Monday morning after breakfast, Mrs. Bluestone nearly broke down. "I am sure, my dear," she said, "we have liked you very much, and if there has been anything uncomfortable it has been from unfortunate circ.u.mstances." The Serjeant bade G.o.d bless her when he walked off half an hour before the carriage came to take her, and she knew that she was to sit no longer as a guest at the Serjeant's table. She kissed the girls, was kissed by Mrs. Bluestone, got into the carriage with the maid, and in her heart said good-bye to Bedford Square for ever.

It was but three minutes' drive from the Serjeant's house to that in which her mother lived, and in that moment of time she was hardly able to realise the fact that within half an hour she would be once more in the presence of Daniel Thwaite. She did not at present at all understand why this thing was to be done. When last she had seen her mother, the Countess had solemnly declared, had almost sworn, that they two should never see each other again. And now the meeting was so close at hand that the man must already be near her. She put up her face to the carriage window as though she almost expected to see him on the pavement. And how would the meeting be arranged?

Would her mother be present? She took it for granted that her mother would be present. She certainly antic.i.p.ated no pleasure from the meeting,--though she would be glad, very glad, to see Daniel Thwaite once again. Before she had time to answer herself a question the carriage had stopped, and she could see her mother at the drawing-room window. She trembled as she went up-stairs, and hardly could speak when she found herself in her mother's presence. If her mother had worn the old brown gown it would have been better, but there she was, arrayed in black silk,--in silk that was new and stiff and broad and solemn,--a parent rather than a mother, and every inch a Countess. "I am so glad to be with you again, mamma."

"I shall not be less glad to have you with me, Anna,--if you will behave yourself with propriety."

"Give me a kiss, mamma." Then the Countess bent her head and allowed her daughter's lips to touch her cheeks. In old days,--days that were not so very old,--she would kiss her child as though such embraces were the only food that nourished her.

"Come up-stairs, and I will show you your room." Then the daughter followed the mother in solemn silence. "You have heard that Mr.

Daniel Thwaite is coming here, to see you, at your own request. It will not be many minutes before he is here. Take off your bonnet."

Again Lady Anna silently did as she was bid. "It would have been better,--very much better,--that you should have done as you were desired without subjecting me to this indignity. But as you have taken into your head an idea that you cannot be absolved from an impossible engagement without his permission, I have submitted. Do not let it be long, and let me hear then that all this nonsense is over. He has got what he desires, as a very large sum of money has been paid to him." Then there came a knock at the door from Sarah, who just showed her face to say that Mr. Thwaite was in the room below. "Now go down. In ten minutes I shall expect to see you here again;--or, after that, I shall come down to you." Lady Anna took her mother by the hand, looking up with beseeching eyes into her mother's face. "Go, my dear, and let this be done as quickly as possible. I believe that you have too great a sense of propriety to let him do more than speak to you. Remember,--you are the daughter of an earl; and remember also all that I have done to establish your right for you."

"Mamma, I do not know what to do. I am afraid."

"Shall I go with you, Anna?"

"No, mamma;--it will be better without you. You do not know how good he is."

"If he will abandon this madness he shall be my friend of friends."

"Oh, mamma, I am afraid. But I had better go." Then, trembling she left the room and slowly descended the stairs. She had certainly spoken the truth in saying that she was afraid. Up to this moment she had not positively made up her mind whether she would or would not yield to the entreaties of her friends. She had decided upon nothing,--leaving in fact the arbitrament of her faith in the hands of the man who had now come to see her. Throughout all that had been said and done her sympathies had been with him, and had become the stronger the more her friends had reviled him. She knew that they had spoken evil of him, not because he was evil,--but with the unholy view of making her believe what was false. She had seen through all this, and had been aroused by it to a degree of firmness of which her mother had not imagined her to be capable. Had they confined themselves to the argument of present fitness, admitting the truth and honesty of the man,--and admitting also that his love for her and hers for him had been the natural growth of the familiar friends.h.i.+p of their childhood and youth, their chance of moulding her to their purposes would have been better. As it was they had never argued with her on the subject without putting forward some statement which she found herself bound to combat. She was told continually that she had degraded herself; and she could understand that another Lady Anna might degrade herself most thoroughly by listening to the suit of a tailor. But she had not disgraced herself. Of that she was sure, though she could not well explain to them her reasons when they accused her. Circ.u.mstances, and her mother's mode of living, had thrown her into intimacy with this man. For all practical purposes of life he had been her equal,--and being so had become her dearest friend. To take his hand, to lean on his arm, to ask his a.s.sistance, to go to him in her troubles, to listen to his words and to believe them, to think of him as one who might always be trusted, had become a second nature to her. Of course she loved him. And now the martyrdom through which she had pa.s.sed in Bedford Square had changed,--unconsciously as regarded her own thoughts,--but still had changed her feelings in regard to her cousin. He was not to her now the bright and s.h.i.+ning thing, the G.o.dlike Phoebus, which he had been in Wyndham Street and at Yoxham. In all their lectures to her about her t.i.tle and grandeur they had succeeded in inculcating an idea of the solemnity of rank, but had robbed it in her eyes of all its grace. She had only been the more tormented because the fact of her being Lady Anna Lovel had been fully established. The feeling in her bosom which was most hostile to the tailor's claim upon her was her pity for her mother.

She entered the room very gently, and found him standing by the table, with his hands clasped together. "Sweetheart!" he said, as soon as he saw her, calling her by a name which he used to use when they were out in the fields together in c.u.mberland.

"Daniel!" Then he came to her and took her hand. "If you have anything to say, Daniel, you must be very quick, because mamma will come in ten minutes."

"Have you anything to say, sweetheart?" She had much to say if she only knew how to say it; but she was silent. "Do you love me, Anna?"

Still she was silent. "If you have ceased to love me, pray tell me so,--in all honesty." But yet she was silent. "If you are true to me,--as I am to you, with all my heart,--will you not tell me so?"

"Yes," she murmured.

He heard her, though no other could have done so.

"A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound When the suspicious head of theft is stopped."

"If so," said he, again taking her hand, "this story they have told me is untrue."

"What story, Daniel?" But she withdrew her hand quickly as she asked him.

"Nay;--it is mine; it shall be mine if you love me, dear. I will tell you what story. They have said that you love your cousin, Earl Lovel."

"No;" said she scornfully, "I have never said so. It is not true."

"You cannot love us both." His eye was fixed upon hers, that eye to which in past years she had been accustomed to look for guidance, sometimes in joy and sometimes in fear, and which she had always obeyed. "Is not that true?"

"Oh yes;--that is true of course."

"You have never told him that you loved him."

"Oh, never."

"But you have told me so,--more than once; eh, sweetheart?"

"Yes."

"And it was true?"

She paused a moment, and then gave him the same answer, "Yes."

"And it is still true?"

She repeated the word a third time. "Yes." But she again so spoke that none but a lover's ear could have heard it.

"If it be so, nothing but the hand of G.o.d shall separate us. You know that they sent for me to come here." She nodded her head. "Do you know why? In order that I might abandon my claim to your hand.

I will never give it up. But I made them a promise, and I will keep it. I told them that if you preferred Lord Lovel to me, I would at once make you free of your promise,--that I would offer to you such freedom, if it would be freedom. I do offer it to you;--or rather, Anna, I would have offered it, had you not already answered the question. How can I offer it now?" Then he paused, and stood regarding her with fixed eyes. "But there,--there; take back your word if you will. If you think that it is better to be the wife of a lord, because he is a lord, though you do not love him, than to lie upon the breast of the man you do love,--you are free from me." Now was the moment in which she must obey her mother, and satisfy her friends, and support her rank, and decide that she would be one of the n.o.ble ladies of England, if such decision were to be made at all. She looked up into his face, and thought that after all it was handsomer than that of the young Earl. He stood thus with dilated nostrils, and fire in his eyes, and his lips just parted, and his head erect,--a very man. Had she been so minded she would not have dared to take his offer. They surely had not known the man when they allowed him to have this interview. He repeated his words. "You are free if you will say so;--but you must answer me."

"I did answer you, Daniel."

"My n.o.ble girl! And now, my heart's only treasure, I may speak out and tell you what I think. It cannot be good that a woman should purchase rank and wealth by giving herself to a man she does not love. It must be bad,--monstrously bad. I never believed it when they told it me of you. And yet when I did not hear of you or see you for months--"

"It was not my fault."

"No, sweetheart;--and I tried to find comfort by so saying to myself.