How they loved him, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Eliza Bennett’s errand occupied more time than she had calculated upon, and she returned home but a few minutes before her mistress. She was still in her room, taking off her walking things, when Mrs Barrington entered the house. Fenella was on the landing, ready to greet her mother, the bouquet of flowers which Henry Wilson had given her held tightly in both hands behind her back.

‘Guess,’ she cried gleefully—‘guess, mamma, what I have for you?’

Mrs Barrington was even more amiable than she had been in the morning. The agent who had let her apartments had spoken in the highest terms of the probity of the incoming tenants, and had even handed her something on account; and she had met an old admirer, Sir Gilbert Conroy, who had expressed himself delighted at the encounter, and promised to call on her before she left town. So she was quite in the humour to enter into her young daughter’s gaiety.

‘How can I guess, you silly girl?’ she replied, smiling. ‘Besides, it’s only some trick or other. I know what you children think fun. But if it’s a mouse, Fenella, I warn you not to show it to me, or I shall go into convulsions. I never could endure mice, nor black-beetles; and I remember once when your father (who was always doing something stupid) put a cockchafer on my arm, I nearly had a fit.’

‘Oh, mamma dear! do you think I would be so silly as to frighten you, or give you anything nasty? Look at my present. That won’t make you go into a fit, will it?’ And as Fenella spoke, she thrust the bouquet of roses and stephanotis under her mother’s nose.

At first Mrs Barrington was simply surprised. She could not imagine whence the girl had procured such flowers.

‘I hope you haven’t been spending your money on me, Fenella,’ she said; ‘for I know how expensive hothouse bouquets are at this time of the year. And your purse cannot be too full, my dear; I am quite aware of that—’

Fenella laughed.

‘Mamma dear, I haven’t got a sou; though, if I had thousands and thousands of pounds, I could not find a greater happiness than spending them on you. No, I didn’t buy the flowers; and you must guess where they came from, though I suppose you never will.’

‘I am sure I shall not, my dear; so you had better tell me at once.’

‘But try, mamma—try,’ repeated the girl, as she followed Mrs Barrington and the bouquet to the drawing-room. ‘Think of where they would be most likely to come from.’

‘Were they left at the door for me?’ demanded her mother quickly.

Fenella shook her head, smiling, all unmindful of the storm which would gather and burst in a moment, and scatter all her gaiety to the winds.

‘No, no—nobody left them; but I see I must tell you, mamma. It was a gentleman who called to see you who gave me the flowers, and he said he had brought them expressly for me. Wasn’t it kind of him? But I told him I should give them to you; for I would much rather you had them than myself. And, indeed, I would.’

Mrs Barrington turned pale.

‘What gentleman?’ she gasped.

‘Mr Wilson. He said his mother’s name was Lady Wilson, and he made me sing to him, and he wants me to go and sing to her; but I said I must ask your leave first, as I was not sure if you considered me old enough yet to sing before company.’

Mrs Barrington dropped the bouquet on the table, and rang the bell violently.

‘Where is Bennett?’ she demanded, in a harsh voice. ‘What was she about to allow such a thing?’ and then, without waiting for an answer, she ran to the door and called, ‘Bennett! Bennett! Where are you? come here at once,’ at the top of her voice.

Fenella stood a little apart, frightened and amazed.

‘What is the matter? Have I done wrong?’ she said, in a timid voice. But her mother took no heed of her quiet supplication.

‘Where is Bennett?’ she demanded again, with a stamp of the foot, whilst the angry colour mounted to the very partings of her hair.

Eliza Bennett had heard the voice, and interpreted its meaning. She ran downstairs without her cap, and stood before her mistress.

‘Is anything wrong, ma’am?’ was her first interrogation.

‘What were my orders to you on leaving this house?’ exclaimed Mrs Barrington fiercely. ‘Didn’t I say that no one was to be admitted during my absence? What is the use of my giving orders if they are not obeyed—if there is no more attention paid to my wishes than if I was a cipher in my own house!’

‘But, indeed, ma’am, I don’t understand,’ replied Bennett, trembling. ‘I gave your orders most particular to Mrs Watson, the very last thing before I left home, and she promised to attend to them; and I left Miss Fenella busy dusting the drawing-room; and I’ve heard nothing of any one having been here whilst I was away!’

‘You never hear anything, nor see anything—you’re no use to me at all,’ cried her mistress angrily, and then she turned on Fenella. ‘And what did you mean by asking the gentleman upstairs! Do you suppose a child like you is a proper person to receive my guests? It’s a piece of insufferable impertinence on your part, which may lead to all kinds of mischief.’

‘Indeed—indeed, mamma,’ said Fenella, in a faltering voice, ‘I did not ask him up. I was singing at the piano, when a woman opened the door and showed the gentleman in. I couldn’t turn him out, could I?—and when he had brought me those beautiful flowers.’

‘Don’t be rude to me, miss,’ returned her mother sharply, ‘for I won’t stand it. And I don’t believe Mr Wilson brought the flowers for you at all. He didn’t know you were in existence, and never should have except for this blundering piece of folly.’

As these words revealed one of the traits in her mother’s character, Fenella turned white, and shrunk farther from her. She was a child in her ignorance of the world and its ways, but she had been reared in a school that taught her to distinguish truth from falsehood, and a righteous anger from intemperance.

‘You don’t mean to say, ma’am,’ murmured Bennett confidentially, ‘as Mr Wilson have been here?’

‘Yes, I do! What’s the good of your whispering in that absurd manner? All the town will know it before long. He has been in this room sitting with that child, and making her sing to him—and receiving all her confidences, I suppose, in exchange. I’d bet anything she told him her age. Didn’t you, now?’ turning to Fenella.

‘Yes,’ replied the girl, in a low, sad voice; ‘he asked me. How could I help telling him?’

‘You hear what she says, Bennett? The very thing I wished to avoid has come to pass, and all through your idiotcy, or that of Watson. Send for that woman to come to me at once. If I’m not to have my orders obeyed, I shall give up her rooms as soon as the season’s over.’

‘Don’t you think it’s best to keep this to ourselves, ma’am?’ suggested Bennett, gravely.

‘Obey my orders, and don’t attempt to dictate to me!’ exclaimed her mistress, who, once in a rage, refused all counsel, and completely lost sight of policy.

In another minute Mrs Watson stood in the doorway.

‘Mrs Watson! didn’t you understand Bennett to say that no visitors were to be admitted during my absence this morning?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ replied the woman sullenly.

‘Don’t presume to answer me in that tone. Bennett says she gave you the order distinctly.’

‘She did nothing of the sort,’ replied Mrs Watson; ‘because, in the first place, I don’t take orders from servants, and in the second, what she said was that if anybody called I was to tell ’em you wouldn’t be home till three. And so I did.’

‘So it was your fault,’ said Mrs Barrington, turning upon Eliza Bennett.

‘Oh no, ma’am. I’m sure Mrs Watson must have mistaken my words, or forgot them, for I remember I told her most particularly.’

‘Look here, Mrs Bennett!’ interrupted the woman of the house. ‘I didn’t mistake your words nor your meaning; but if I had, it would have made no difference, and for this reason—that I refuses to be a party to any underhand dealings, and if a gentleman or lady asks civilly to walk upstairs and leave a message, why, I shall let ’em do it so long as this house belongs to me. And I take this opportunity to tell you, ma’am,’ she continued, turning to Mrs Barrington, ‘that I don’t care for your ways of going on, and you must tell your own lies in future, for I won’t tell no more for you—and so there!’

With which emphatic ending Mrs Watson unceremoniously left the room, and slammed the door after her.

‘Did you ever hear such insolence?’ cried Mrs Barrington, relapsing into tears of rage. ‘And this is what you have brought upon me, Fenella, with your abominable forwardness and stupidity.’

The girl left the corner where she had been listening with horror to the quarrel between the landlady and her mother, and coming forward, threw herself on her knees beside Mrs Barrington’s chair.

‘Oh, mother, mother!’ she said, with a ring of despair in her youthful voice, ‘tell me if I’ve been wrong, but don’t say I was forward or impertinent, for indeed I only acted as I thought you would wish me to do.’

‘Be good enough to get up,’ replied Mrs Barrington, in a cold, selfish tone. ‘I am not used to melodramatics, and do not understand them. If you think that, because you have come home, one of your duties will be to receive my visitors and worry them to death with your nonsensical talk, you are very much mistaken. However, it will not occur again; I shall take good care of that! Bennett, go and see if luncheon is on the table. This business has perfectly upset me.’

‘Oh, mamma! won’t you say a kind word to me? I feel as if my heart was breaking,’ sobbed Fenella, as she rose from the position she had assumed.

‘I really don’t know what I have to say,’ replied Mrs Barrington, in the same hard tone. ‘If, as you declare, you committed this folly ignorantly, you have no need of my forgiveness; but your conduct has put me to the greatest inconvenience, and done yourself no good, as you will find out by-and-by.’

The selfish woman perceived already that the incident would pave the way to her getting rid of her daughter, with a more plausible excuse than she had yet been able to devise. At the same time, she did not know what harm might not have been done to her cause with Mr Henry Wilson, and was proportionately anxious and harassed.

Bennett, who felt herself to be in disgrace, and was about as low-spirited as Fenella, here announced, in a subdued voice, that the luncheon was on the table, and the mother and daughter walked into the dining-room.

It was a miserable meal. Fenella, who hardly knew now wherein she had offended, ate nothing; and Mrs Barrington, although her temper had not destroyed her appetite, consumed her cutlets and sherry in distressing silence. Before the luncheon-table was cleared, a letter was handed to her by Eliza Bennett, who had recognised the writing in fear and trembling.

‘From Lady Wilson!’ exclaimed Mrs Barrington, with an ominous frown. ‘I thought as much. Be good enough to remain and hear what she says, Bennett. I wish both you and Fenella to know what you have brought upon me by your disobedience and ingratitude.’

She broke the seal as she spoke, and having first perused the note to herself, commenced to read it aloud, with interpolations of her own rendering.

‘“My dear Mrs Barrington,—My son tells me that he has just seen your daughter, who informed him that she was about to accompany our party to Mentone—”

‘There now! Didn’t I say, Bennett, that that child’s coming home would be my ruin? Going to Mentone indeed! Who ever told you such a thing, and how dare you invent falsehoods on your own account! Is that the training you’ve received at the convent—to tell lies?’ cried Mrs Barrington coarsely, as she turned upon her shrinking daughter.

‘I never mentioned Mentone, mamma. I said I was going somewhere abroad with you for the sake of my health, as you told me this morning.’

‘I never told you any such thing, miss; don’t attempt to foist your inventions upon me. Now, what does the woman say more?’

‘“I shall be sorry to upset any plans you may have made for yourself and Miss Barrington, but I am afraid I cannot possibly make room for any further addition to our household. You know how limited the accommodation of the Villa Abracci is. Of course, we can hardly expect you to separate from your daughter, especially as you have not seen her for so many years. Therefore, if you wish to give up your engagement with me, do not hesitate to do so, as Miss Russell will be only too happy to take your place. Had Miss Barrington been a child, we might have managed to squeeze her in; but my son tells me she is quite a grown-up young lady, so that I feel compelled to let you know my dilemma at once. I will call to-morrow morning and receive your answer.—Yours sincerely,

Margaret Wilson.”’

‘You see!’ exclaimed Mrs Barrington emphatically, as she finished her friend’s note, and brought down her closed fist upon the luncheon-table,—‘You see, perhaps now, both of you, what you have done. Lady Wilson tries at once to get rid of me—wants to put that red-haired Miss Russell in my place—just because the girl’s got two thousand a-year, and on the score of Miss Barrington being “quite a grown-up young lady”—(the one thing on earth I wanted to keep from the woman!)—she thinks I shall wish to resign my engagement with her! But Lady Wilson will find that I am rather too sharp for that. And she is coming here to-morrow morning to receive my answer—which means that she is coming to look at that gawky girl, and then run round to tell everybody she knows that Miss Barrington is twenty if she is a day. But I will circumvent her good intentions. She shall have her answer from me at once!’

Mrs Barrington rose from the table as she spoke, and going to her desk, hastily scribbled the following words,—

‘Dear Lady Wilson,—Your son must have entirely mistaken what my little girl said to him this morning. How do you suppose that anything would make me wish to break through my engagement with you? Besides, I couldn’t take Fenella abroad with me if I wished it, as Dr Melville says it is imperative she should go to the sea-side this summer, and she starts for Wales under the charge of her old nurse to-morrow afternoon. She has grown too fast for her age, poor child, and requires a more bracing air than Mentone. With my kindest regards to your circle,—believe me, dear Lady Wilson, yours very truly,

‘Rosina Barrington.’

When Mrs Barrington had finished this note, she read it aloud for the benefit of her daughter and servant, and then ordered Bennett to despatch it by a messenger at once.

‘And bring me the railway guide from the drawing-room table,’ she added. ‘If there is a train to Ines-cedwyn this afternoon, you will have to start by it.’

Fenella had listened to her mother’s note in silent amazement. That she was to be separated again from her, and sent away in charge of Eliza Bennett, had never entered her head before. As the railway guide made its appearance, and Mrs Barrington began to search through its pages, she watched her proceedings through a mist of tears, but she said nothing.

‘Ines-cedwyn—Ines-cedwyn—let me see,’ mused Mrs Barrington, as though the matter were one of no concern to her listeners. ‘Yes, there is a train starts from Paddington at four o’clock, and reaches Lynwern (that’s the nearest town, isn’t it, Bennett?) at ten. You must bundle your things and Fenella’s into your boxes as quick as you can, and be off to Paddington in time to catch it.’

‘But—two hours—ma’am; it’s no time to get ready in,’ stammered the servant. ‘Besides, Martha won’t be prepared for our coming. I only wrote to her this morning; and Lynwern is a good three miles from our part of the country. Hadn’t we better wait till to-morrow?’

‘Certainly not! If I had thought you had better wait till to-morrow, I shouldn’t have told you to go to-day. Do you take me for a fool, Bennett? I think both you and Fenella must, from the way in which you treated me this morning; but it will be the last time, you may depend upon that.’

‘Oh, mother!’ cried Fenella, finding her voice in her extremity, ‘pray don’t send me away all alone with Bennett. Let me go back to Ansprach instead. I am no trouble to them there. The nuns love me, and Honorée was very unhappy when I had to leave her; and if I had thought it was for any one but you, I don’t think I could have borne it. Please send me back to the convent. I shall never get strong away from everybody who cares for me—’ and here Fenella’s courage broke down, and she wept piteously.

Bennett came round to her side of the table, and patted the girl’s hand, whilst her mother looked on in cool indifference.

‘Don’t talk of impossibilities,’ she said presently; ‘and pray don’t make such a horrid noise, Fenella. You positively deafen me. As for Ansprach, you are not likely to see that again. I consider that the reverend mother has behaved most impertinently in sending you home when I said I wished you to remain there; and I shall certainly not trouble her any more in the matter. And there is nothing to make a fuss about. You are going to a beautiful place by the sea-side, under the charge of Bennett, who will take every care of you; and as the medical opinion is that you must have sea air, you ought to be very grateful to have so much trouble taken on your account. But I must say I don’t think gratitude is one of your prominent qualities. You must take after your poor papa in that respect. Instead of remembering the sacrifice I am obliged to make in giving up Bennett’s services to you, and having to wait on myself, and the expense I shall be put to in paying for you at Ines-cedwyn, you cry and howl as if I were doing myself a benefit in sending you there. But I am used to ingratitude in this world,’ concluded Mrs Barrington, with the air of a martyr, ‘and am no longer surprised at it.’

‘Come, my dear,’ whispered Bennett, soothingly, to Fenella; ‘if you wish to please your mamma, you’ll just take things quietly, for no crying will alter them. And if we are to start by four o’clock, why, I shall want every bit of your help to get the things into the boxes in time.’

At these words the girl rose, and brushing her hand across her eyes, followed Bennett silently from the room. She did not give another glance to the place where her mother sat. Her last selfish speech had revealed more to her daughter than she had ever wished to know; and some great hope in her life which she had cherished for years past, seemed suddenly to have been overthrown and crumbled into dust.

As Bennett and Fenella disappeared, Mrs Barrington felt rather mean and small. It was an ignoble way by which to have gained a victory, and she experienced more of the feelings of the conquered than the conqueror. But she consoled herself with the idea that it was absolutely necessary that she should take some stringent measures in order to secure her own success in life.

‘Of course the poor child thinks I am hard,’ she pondered, ‘for it is impossible I can explain my motives to her; but it is for her sake as well as my own, and she will thank me for it by-and-by.’

Yet though she argued thus, Mrs Barrington did not follow her daughter upstairs to offer any consolation in the shape of soothing words or caresses. Truth to say, she was afraid of Fenella. The girl looked her so steadily in the face, she could not tell falsehoods easily in her presence, and was continually on thorns lest her remarks should evoke so straightforward a question that she should find great difficulty in replying to it. But had Mrs Barrington known it, she need not have been afraid of Fenella’s frankness now. The girl was too unhappy and too subdued to have questioned anything her mother might have said to her. She helped Eliza Bennett to pack their boxes and arrayed herself in her travelling costume in complete silence, and Mrs Barrington did not see her again until she stood before her, ready for departure, and uttered in a low voice,—

‘Good-bye, mamma.’

Her mother started from her seat.

‘Dear me! is it really time for you to go? Has Bennett sent for a cab?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied the servant; ‘and the boxes are on, and we have only half-an-hour to catch the train, so the sooner we are off the better.’

With the cab waiting at the door, and the luggage actually on the top of it, Mrs Barrington could afford to become sentimental.

‘Good-bye, my sweet child,’ she said, as she kissed Fenella’s face. ‘It is sad to have to part again so soon; but it is for your health, you know, and we must submit for that reason. And I am sorry that anything disagreeable should have occurred in the short time we have been together, but it was all the fault of that stupid Mrs Watson, and I shall take good care to let her know it. Good-bye, dear Bennett,’ she continued, as she shook the servant by the hand; ‘mind you look well after my child, and bring her back to me quite strong again. I shall write to you as soon as I have any settled address, but we are likely to be moving about for the first few weeks. You have sufficient money, have you not, to last you a month?—and I will send you a remittance as soon as the tenants pay their first instalment.’

Eliza Bennett was visibly affected at parting from her mistress.

‘Oh, my dear lady!’ she exclaimed, as she kissed the hand extended to her; ‘it is sorrowful work to think I shall not see you again for so long a time. But you will write to me, madam, will you not, and let me know how you are, and how you manage without me?’

‘Of course I shall, you silly creature,’ rejoined Mrs Barrington, with real tears in her eyes. ‘Come, give me a kiss. That is right; and don’t set my little girl a bad example. One more good-bye, Fenella. And now run away, both of you, for I cannot bear the strain much longer.’

She sank into a chair as they obeyed her orders, and put her cambric handkerchief to her eyes, whilst Eliza Bennett was compelled to lift the corner of her shawl to wipe away the tears that were running down her cheeks. As the cab set off, she considered it necessary to apologise to Fenella for her emotion.

‘I can’t help it, miss,’ she said, ‘though I daresay you will think I am very foolish, but I’ve waited on your dear mamma, as I may say, day and night for the last twenty years, and she’s so used to turn to me for dressing and everything that I don’t know what she’ll do now I’m gone,—and I’m sure I sha’n’t rest at night for worrying myself about her. But I’m afraid you must think I’m a poor creature to give way after this fashion, but I shall be all right again in a minute or two.’

For Fenella was sitting by Bennett’s side, with the same dry eyes with which she had witnessed her mother’s affected farewell. Her heart had received a shock from which it would not easily recover; and her short sojourn in South Audley Street already began to assume the appearance of some ugly dream. She said nothing in answer to the servant’s appeal, but the tightened grasp she laid upon her hand proved she was not without feeling. Bennett felt for her young mistress’s disappointment, and thought it only natural at first that she should be unable to speak of it. But when they were in the train for Ines-cedwyn, and had performed half the journey, and Fenella had neither made a remark upon what had happened in London nor asked a question concerning their destination, the servant began to think her reticence was unnatural and alarming.

‘Miss Fenella,’ she said suddenly, ‘aren’t you going to speak a word to me all day? Do you know where we are going, miss?—to my brother Benjamin’s farm in Ines-cedwyn. It will look a poor place to you, I’m afraid, after that big convent; but we’ll manage to make you comfortable, and you’ll get plenty of fresh sea air, which is what your mamma says you want most. Do try and cheer up a bit, my dear, and take an interest in what’s going on around you. It’s sad work for both of us, I know, but we must try and make the best of it.’

‘Bennett,’ said Fenella, raising her solemn eyes to the servant’s face, ‘you must explain one thing to me. Why has mamma sent me away? I want to know the real truth about it.’

They were the only occupants of the carriage they travelled in, so Bennett had no hesitation in answering,—

‘Well, miss, I think you ought to know, for you are not a child any longer, whatever the mistress may choose to say, and I am sure I can trust you not to tell your mamma that I said anything about it.’

‘I am not likely to have the opportunity of repeating it,’ replied Fenella in a sad voice.

‘Well, miss, the long and the short of it is, you are too much in your mamma’s way.’

‘In mamma’s way?’ echoed the girl, with open eyes.

‘Yes, Miss Fenella. You see your mamma is quite young looking still, and has her own pleasures and occupations, and a grown-up young lady like you would be apt to interfere with them. I saw that from the beginning—indeed, you would have spoiled all her plans if she had kept you by her. So I really don’t blame her for sending you away, though I wish she had shown a little more heart in the matter.’

‘But how could I spoil her plans—my own mother’s plans? Does she think I would have been so wicked or mischievous as that?’

‘My dear, you’re so innocent I hardly know how to talk to you. But has it never struck you that the mistress might marry again?’

Fenella looked aghast.

‘What! Have another husband, nurse? But my father was her husband.’

‘Of course he was—whilst he lived; but now he’s dead, the mistress is at liberty to do as she pleases, and most people’s surprise is that she hasn’t married again long before this.’

‘Does mamma want to be married again?’ cried Fenella in horror.

‘I don’t suppose she’d marry if she didn’t wish it, miss; and of course it’s uncertain even now. But perhaps it will help you to understand why she felt you to be in her way. Few gentlemen would care to marry a lady with such a tall daughter as you are.’

‘But she must tell them; they must know some day,’ said Fenella.

‘Ah! so they will, perhaps, when it’s too late to mend matters,’ quoth Bennett oracularly. ‘But then it won’t signify what they think. I shouldn’t wonder if you had another papa, miss, before ever you see your mamma again.’

‘Another papa!’ echoed Fenella. ‘Oh no, nurse, that is impossible! Mamma may have another husband, but I can never have another father, and—and—if she has, we shall be further apart than ever,’ she added in a choking voice.

‘No, miss, you mustn’t think that. I’m sure the mistress would have been very fond and proud of you, if there hadn’t been none of these bothering gentlemen to come between you. It’s a great pity, but it was just the very awkwardest time of any that you could have been sent home. I told the reverend mother so, over and over again, but she was determined to have her own way, and you see what trouble she’s given us.’

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ said Fenella, ‘if chère mère had thought—I am sure if she had known how my presence would worry mamma, she would have kept me at Ansprach sooner than let me come home only to be sent away again. I feel like an orphan, Bennett—as if there was no one in all the world who ever cared for me, except my father, and he is gone. Oh, how I wish that I could go to him!’

‘Don’t speak like that, my dear,’ said Bennett soothingly. ‘I shouldn’t like even your papa to hear you; I feel as if it would vex him so. And I’m sure, after a bit, that you’ll be very happy at Ines-cedwyn. There is no beach there, not to speak of, Miss Fenella, but such a beautiful strip of sand—fine yellow sand, that shines in the sun like gold. And the trees, they grow almost down to the water’s edge. It’s very quiet, is Ines-cedwyn, but a fine place for fish. I suppose there’s as much fish taken there as ever goes to the London market from one place; and it’s so plentiful, they manure the land with it. And the people there all ride donkeys. Do you like riding donkey-back, Miss Fenella? I shall get my brother to borrow a side-saddle for you; and then you will be able to go long jaunts by yourself, for Ines-cedwyn’s such a lovely place. You can do as you please there; and, as you may fancy, I’m a bit past donkey-riding. Oh, don’t look so scared and white, my dear! You’ll make yourself ill—indeed you will; and if you take to fretting for what can’t be helped, all the sea air in the world won’t do you a bit of good.’

But the only answer Eliza Bennett’s eloquence produced was the stifled cry,—

‘Oh, nurse! if she had only loved me a little—the least little bit—I would have died for her; indeed, indeed, I would!’