Mistress and Maid Part 31

"I wonder you can jest about our misfortunes," said Selina, in her most querulous voice.

"I'm not jesting. But where is the use of sitting down to moan! I mean what I say. The thing must be done."

Her eyes glittered--her small, red lips were set tightly together.

"If it is not done, sisters--if his public disgrace is not prevented, don't you see the result? Not as regards your marriage, Selina--the man must be a coward who would refuse to marry a woman he cared for, even though her nearest kinsman had been hanged at the Old Bailey--but Ascott himself. The boy is not a bad boy, though he has done wickedly; but there is a difference between a wicked act and a wicked nature. I mean to save him if I can."

"How?"

"By saving his good name; by paying the debt."

"And where on earth shall you get the money?"

"I will go to Miss Balquidder and--"

"Borrow it?"

"No, never! I would as soon think of stealing it."

Then controlling herself, Hilary explained that she meant to ask Miss Balquidder to arrange for her with the creditor to pay the eighty pounds by certain weekly or monthly installments, to be deducted from her salary at Kensington.

"It is not a very great favor to ask of her: merely that she should say, 'This young woman is employed by me: I believe her to be honest, respectable, and so forth; also, that when she makes a promise to pay, she will to the best of her power perform it.' A character which is at present rather a novelty in the Leaf family."

"Hilary!"

"I am growing bitter, Johanna; I know I am. Why should we suffer so much! Why should we be always dragged down--down--in this way? Why should we never have had any one to cherish and take care of us, like other women! Why--"

Miss Leaf laid her finger on her child's lips--

"Because it is the will of G.o.d."

Hilary flung herself on her dear old sister's neck and burst into tears.

Selina too cried a little, and said that she should like to help in paying the debt, if Mr. Ascott had no objection. And then she turned back to her white splendors, and became absorbed in the annoyance of there being far too much clematis and far too little orange blossom in the bridal bonnet--which it was now too late to change. A little, also, she vexed herself about the risk of confiding in Miss Balquidder, lest by any chance the story might get round to Russell Square; and was urgent that at least nothing should be said or done until after to-morrow. She was determined to be married, and dreaded any slip between the cup and lip.

But Hilary was resolute. "I said that in two days the matter should be arranged, and so it must be, or the man will think we too break our promises."

"You can a.s.sure him to the contrary," said Selina, with dignity. "In fact, why can't you arrange with him without going at all to Miss Balquidder?"

Again the fierce, bitter expression returned to Hilary's face.

"You forget, Miss Balquidder's honest name is his only guarantee against the dishonesty of ours."

"Hilary, you disgrace us--disgrace me--speaking in such a way. Are we not gentle women?"

"I don't know, Selina. I don't seem to know or to feel any thing, except that I would live on bread and water in order to live peaceably and honestly. Oh, will it ever, ever be?"

She walked up and down the parlor, disarranging the white draperies which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for them and for her sister. Angry and miserable, with every nerve quivering, she was at war with the whole world.

This feeling lasted even when, after some discussion, she gained her point and was on her way to call on Miss Balquidder. She went round and round the Square many times, trying to fix in her mind word for word what she meant to say; revealing no more of the family history than was absolutely necessary, and stating her business in the briefest, hardest, most matter-of-fact way--putting it as a transaction between employer and employed, in which there was no more favor asked or bestowed than could possibly be avoided. And as the sharp east wind blew across her at every corner, minute by minute she felt herself growing more fierce, and hard, and cold.

"This will never do. I shall be wicked by-and-by. I must go in and get it over."

Perhaps it was as well. Well for her, morally as physically, that there should have been that sudden change from the blighting weather outside to the warm, well-lighted room where the good rich woman sat at her early and solitary tea.

Very solitary it looked--the little table in the centre of that large handsome parlor, with the one cup and saucer, the one easy-chair. And as Hilary entered she noticed, amidst all this comfort and luxury, the still, grave, almost sad expression which solitary people always get to wear.

But the next minute Miss Balquidder had turned round, and risen, smiling.

"Miss Leaf, how very kind of you to come and see me! Just the day before the wedding, too, when you must be so busy! Sit down and tell me all about it. But first, my dear, how wet your boots are! Let me take them off at once."

Which she did, sending for her own big slippers, and putting them on the tiny feet with her own hands.

Hilary submitted--in truth she was too much surprised to resist.

Miss Balquidder had, like most folk, her opinions or "crotchets"--as they might be--and one of them was, to keep her business and friendly relations entirely distinct and apart. Whenever she went to Kensington or her other establishments she was always emphatically "the mistress"--a kindly and even motherly mistress, certainly, but still authoritative, decided. Moreover, it was her invariable rule to treat all her employees alike--"making no step-bairns" among them.

Thus for some time it had happened that Hilary had been, and felt herself to be, just Miss Leaf, the book keeper, doing her duty to Miss Balquidder, her employer, and neither expecting nor attaining any closer relation.

But in her own house, or it might be from the sudden apparition of that young face at her lonely fireside, Miss Balquidder appeared quite different.

A small thing touches a heart that is sore with trouble. When the good woman rose up--after patting the little feet, and approving loudly of the woolen stockings--she saw that Hilary's whole face was quivering with the effort to keep back her tears.

There are some woman of whom one feels by instinct that they were, as Miss Balquidder had once jokingly said of herself, specially meant to be mothers. And though, in its strange providence, Heaven often denies the maternity, it can not and does not mean to shut up the well-spring of that maternal pa.s.sion--truly a pa.s.sion to such women as these, almost as strong as the pa.s.sion of love--but lets the stream, which might otherwise have blessed one child or one family, flow out wide and far, blessing wherever it goes.

In a tone that somehow touched every fibre of Hilary's heart, Miss Balquidder said, placing her on a low chair beside her own.

"My dear, you are in trouble. I saw it a week or two ago, but did not like to speak. Couldn't you say it out, and let me help you? You need not be afraid. I never tell any thing, and every body tells every thing to me."

That was true. Added to this said mother-liness of hers, Miss Balquidder, possessed that faculty, which some people have in a remarkable degree, and some--very good people too--are totally deficient in, of attracting confidence. The secrets she had been trusted with, the romances she had been mixed up in, the Quixotic acts she had been called upon to perform during her long life, would have made a novel--or several novels--such as no novelist could dare to write, for the public would condemn them as impossible and unnatural. But all this experience--though happily it could never be put into a book--had given to the woman herself a view of human nature at once so large, lenient, and just, that she was the best person possible to hear the strange and pitiful story of young Ascott Leaf.

How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have told very little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it all. It did not appear to surprise or shock her. She neither began to question nor preach; she only laid her hand, her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the bowed head, saying.

"How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn!"

The soft Scotch tone and word--the grave, quiet Scotch manner, implying more than it even expressed--was it wonderful if underlying as well as outside influences made Hilary completely give way?

Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was seventeen, but of whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, often saying that of all the ladies he had met with in the world there was none equal to her--the strong, tender, womanly peasant woman--refined in mind and word and ways--though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and did the work of her cottage with her own hands. It seems as if that mother--toward whom Hilary's fancy had clung, lovingly as a woman ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the man she loves--were speaking to her now, comforting her and helping her--comfort and help that it would have been sweeter to receive from her than from any woman living.

A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excitement it took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her knees and hid her face in Miss Balquidder's lap, sobbing aloud.

The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way to yield to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman she asked no questions, merely held the quivering hands and smoothed the throbbing head, till composure returned. Some people have a magical, mesmeric power of soothing and controlling; it was hers. When she took the poor face between her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, "There, you are better now," Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, nay, smilingly, and rose.

"Now, may I tell you my business?"

"Certainly, my dear. When one's friends are in trouble, the last thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and moan. Did you come to ask my advice, or had you any definite plan of your own?"

"I had." And Hilary told it.

"A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it. But I see two strong objections: first, whether it can be carried out; secondly, whether it ought."