JILL

BY
E. A. DILLWYN

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1884

All rights reserved.

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
JILL INTRODUCES HERSELF.

I have heard people say that men are more apt to be of an adventurous disposition than women, but that is an opinion from which I differ. I suppose it has arisen because timidity and sensitiveness are hostile to the spirit of enterprise, checking its growth and development, and not unfrequently proving altogether fatal to it; and as these qualities are especially characteristic of the weaker sex, it follows naturally that noted female adventurers are less common than male ones. But that seems only to show that an unfavourable soil has caused the plant to become blighted or smothered, and is no conclusive proof that the seed was never sown. It is my belief that the aforesaid spirit is distributed by nature impartially throughout the human race, and that she implants it as freely in the breast of the female as in that of the male. Once let it be implanted, and let it have fair play, untrammelled by nervous, hesitating, shrinking, home-clinging tendencies, and it will infallibly lead its possessor to some bold departure from the everyday routine of existence that satisfies mortals of a more hum-drum temperament. A craving for continual change and excitement is a thing that is sure to assert itself vigorously and insist on being gratified, provided its possessor has also plenty of health and courage, and is unrestrained by the fetters formed from strong domestic attachments or other affection. Of people thus positively and negatively endowed it may be confidently predicted—whether their gender be masculine or feminine—that adventures will bestrew their road plentifully, meeting them at every turn, and seeming to seek them out and be attracted to them even as flies unto honey. I am myself an instance of this, as I can see plainly enough in reviewing my past career. At an earlier period I was less clear-sighted, and failed to perceive the restless spirit that had taken possession of me and become the constraining power of my life; but the lapse of a few years is a wonderful aid to discerning the true motives of former actions, and reminds me in this way of the dark blue spectacles which the man in charge of a smelting furnace puts on when he wants to see what is going on in his furnace. Without them he can distinguish nothing in the fiery interior; but the spectacles have the effect of softening the fierce, blinding glare, rendering visible what was before invisible, and enabling him to watch the progress of the red-hot seething masses of ore and metal undergoing fusion and transmutation under his care. And in like manner does intervening time clear the vision towards events, so that it is possible to estimate them far more justly some while after they have taken place, than it was at the moment of their occurrence. A retrospect, therefore, gives me a more correct notion of myself than I had before. I see how often, when I imagined myself to be solely impelled by some purely external circumstance, I was, in reality, also obeying the dictates of a longing for adventure and impatience of sameness, which have always had a very strong influence in determining my conduct. I detect how love of variety manifested itself as the principal cause of my actions, and made my course deviate widely from that of other ladies in my rank of life, and furnishes a reasonable explanation for behaviour which would else seem unaccountable. To a person of this disposition, monotony, dullness, and boredom in every shape are of course absolutely intolerable; consequently I do not believe that any position involving these drawbacks will ever content me for long, even though it may, in other respects, afford every advantage that the heart of man (or woman) can desire. And having supplied the reader with this much clue to a comprehension of the character of the individual whose story lies before him, I leave all further judgment upon me to be pronounced according to what is found in the pages of this veracious history, wherein I purpose faithfully to depict myself exactly as I appear in my own eyes, and as my life shows me to be.

A person's identity is materially affected (as regards both himself and others) by that of the immediate ancestors without whom he or she would not have existed at all; so the first step towards my self-introduction must obviously be to state my parentage.

My father, Sir Anthony Trecastle, a gentleman of small fortune serving in the Life Guards, was employed in London discharging the not very onerous duties expected from an officer of Heavies in time of peace, when he became acquainted and enamoured with a daughter of Lord Gilbert's. Sir Anthony's means were not sufficiently large for him to be reckoned anything of a matrimonial catch in that set of society to which both he and the young lady he admired belonged. He had enough to live upon, however, besides being a tenth baronet, rather good-looking, and the representative of a family whose name was to be found in the Domesday Book; therefore her relations and friends considered him to be a respectable though not brilliant match, made no attempt to interfere either for or against his suit, and left her perfectly free to please herself as to the answer it should receive. It was long before she could make up her mind in the matter; but, after considering it for more than a year, she at last determined to accept him. What may have moved her to do this of course I cannot say; but all I know of her character makes me think it more likely for the decision to have resulted from a reasonable and deliberate consideration of matrimonial pros and cons than from any love for her husband. Those who knew her well believed her to be so singularly cold and indifferent as never to have warmed into real love for any living creature during her whole life. And not only do my own recollections of her corroborate this opinion, but also I may say that I myself am a living argument to prove it true, inasmuch as I, too, am unusually exempt from the affectionate, tender emotions to which most men and women are liable; and it seems reasonable to suppose that this extraordinary cold-heartedness of mine must have been inherited from her.

I am sure it is an inheritance for which I have had much reason to be thankful; for I have no doubt it has saved me from many a folly that I should otherwise have committed. A warm-hearted, soft, affectionate disposition is a possession which I have never coveted. It has generally seemed to me to be a cause of weakness rather than of strength to its owner; and besides, it is very apt to hinder and stunt the development of that source of delight—the spirit of enterprise.

This, however, is somewhat of a digression, as the extent to which my mother may have cared for my father does not much concern this narrative; at any rate she liked him sufficiently well to marry him, and that is all with which we need trouble ourselves here. He sold out of the army soon afterwards, and took his bride to reside at Castle Manor, as his country place was called; there I, their only child, was born. Had I been a boy it was intended to call me Gilbert, in honour of my maternal grandfather's title; as, however, I was a girl, and as my parents still wished to adhere as far as possible to their original intention of naming their first-born after the Gilbert peerage, the name was adapted to my sex by the addition of three letters, and thus I received at my christening the somewhat uncouth appellation of Gilbertina. As this was obviously too much of a mouthful to be convenient for common domestic use, an abbreviation was inevitable, and the first one bestowed upon me was Jill. But this did not find favour with my mother. She declared it was ugly, and objectionably suggestive of low, republican ideas, such as carrying pails of water, rough tumbles, and cracked crowns; therefore Jill was condemned and Ina substituted, as a more graceful and aristocratic manner of shortening my name.

Though I allude to this small matter, because Jill was the name to which I afterwards returned, yet I do not purpose to dwell long upon the history of my life up to the age of eighteen, at which period I launched out boldly upon an independent career. Still, however, the earlier stages cannot be left altogether unnoticed, as the events which took place then naturally have a bearing upon subsequent ones, and also may be thought interesting for the part they probably played in the moulding of my character.

Was I born destitute of the ordinary instincts of filial affection—in which case, be it observed, that it would be most unjust to blame me for what was simply a natural deficiency? Or is the fault of my defect in that way to be charged to my parents for having done nothing to develop the above-mentioned instinct? Anyhow, whatever the cause may have been, certain it is that they and I were mutually indifferent, and never saw more of one another than we could possibly help. They went their way, and I went mine, and the less we came in contact the better was I pleased. I regarded my mother as a sort of stranger whom the accident of inhabiting the same house caused me to see oftener than any other stranger, and who had an authority over me and my affairs which was decidedly irksome, because our opinions as to what it was right and fitting that I should do or not do were always at variance with one another. She disliked untidiness, whereas I revelled in being in a mess. Consequently she aggravated me continually by insisting on my going off to wash my face and hands or have my clothes put tidy, when I thought they did very well as they were, and would have preferred staying where I was. Again, mud-larking, and many other of my favourite occupations which brought about a torn and dirty state of garments, were strictly forbidden by her, to my great annoyance. Imagining the restriction to be imposed solely in the interests of my clothes, I well remember how rejoiced I was one day when I thought I had hit upon a plan for enjoying myself after my own fashion without offending against her code, and how disappointed I was when my scheme proved a failure. I was about ten years old at the time, and was standing at the edge of a small stream, longing with my whole heart to go and paddle about in it, when it suddenly struck me that, as the edict against mud-larking and similar amusements was grounded upon the harm they did to my apparel, there could certainly be no objection to them provided nothing suffered except my own skin—that being an article which was surely of no consequence to any one but myself. Inspired by this brilliant idea, I immediately took off my shoes, stockings, gloves, and drawers, turned my sleeves back to the shoulder, wound my petticoats round my waist, and plunged into the stream; there I waded about with the utmost satisfaction, constructing mud-docks and sailing bark-boats without in the least minding the cuts and bruises inflicted on my bare feet by stones, or the numerous scratches which my unprotected arms and legs received from overhanging bushes and brambles. What did that matter when I was having such a glorious mud-lark? And I enjoyed the fun all the more because I believed fondly that I had a prospect of plenty more of the same kind in the future, now that I had so cleverly discovered the way to get over the objection that had hitherto interfered with it. It must be clearly impossible for any one to find fault with a proceeding which exposed nothing but my own flesh to risks of rents and dirt.

Alas! however, I was destined speedily to be undeceived. My mother, hearing how I had been engaged, gave me a tremendous scolding, declaring that she was quite shocked at me, and that if ever I did such a thing again I should be punished. For my part, I was perfectly amazed at this indignation, which seemed to me totally unreasonable, as I could not imagine what harm I had done. And the incident, like all others connected with her, strengthened the sulky injured feeling I had of being always wrong in her eyes. No matter what I might wish to do, she would forbid it, I thought.

I do not know that she was wilfully unkind to me, perhaps; but she certainly never was actively kind; and she stands out in my memory as a cold hard figure with which I could not come in contact without finding myself thwarted in some way or other, and being deprived of some pleasure. "Don't do that!" is a sentence odious in childish ears; and as that was the sentence that I heard oftener than any other from her lips, I naturally got into the habit of avoiding her company as much as possible—which was all the easier to manage because she had as little wish for my society as I had for hers, and only endured me with her at all, I think, out of regard to the convenances of English life. Never once do I remember her to have taken the trouble to supply me with any pleasures which she approved of to replace those which she prohibited; nor did she ever bestow upon me presents, indulgences, or marks of affection. Though she never attempted to teach me anything herself, yet she had me do lessons, and insisted on my learning needlework, which was my especial aversion; and I knew she was the source for the tasks I hated, even though she did not personally impose them on me.

Such being the terms on which she and I stood to one another, is it to be wondered at that I should have feared and disliked her?

I was about twelve years old when she died. As I had by that time read with great interest a large number of juvenile story-books of the exaggerated sentimental and goody kind, I was thoroughly well up in the behaviour to be expected from any girl-heroine on the occurrence of such an event. I knew that her father would at once become the great object of her life, and that she would devote herself utterly to the task of comforting him and endeavouring to replace Her (with a capital H) who was gone. Though the girl would of course be herself well-nigh crushed with grief, and indulge in paroxysms of sobs and tears whenever she was alone, yet she would heroically repress any public manifestation of distress, lest the knowledge and sight of it should increase that of her surviving parent. Her zeal on his behalf would know no bounds, and lead her to neglect the most ordinary precautions against illness for herself. This would appear in some absurd and wholly uncalled for act of self-devotion—such as sitting motionless for hours in a thorough draught and wet through, lest the sound of her moving might awake him as he slept in the next room, or something equally ridiculous; and by a few insane performances of the same kind the way would easily be paved for the invariably thrilling climax. A pillow bedewed nightly with tears; knife-like stabs of pain returning with increasing frequency; blood-spitting neglected and kept secret; pangs mental and bodily, concealed under a cheerful exterior; there could be but one conclusion to such symptoms as these. The overtaxed strength would collapse suddenly; consumption, decline, heart disease, or some other alarming illness, would ensue; and then there would be either a few harrowing deathbed scenes, or else a miraculous recovery and happy marriage of the heroine; in this last case her spouse would of course be some paragon young man, who should be in every respect ideally perfect, and thoroughly able to appreciate and do justice to the treasure whom he had been so fortunate as to win for a wife.

So invariably did this style of thing take place whenever the heroine lost her mother in the books which I had devoured greedily without perceiving how morbid and exaggerated they were, and without doubting their being faithful representations of human nature, that I had a sort of hazy impression of its being the inevitable accompaniment of that loss, whatever might have been the terms hitherto existing between the parties concerned. The folly of supposing that I could feel deep regret for a person whom I had always avoided as much as possible never occurred to me, and I was disposed to believe that what was described in the stories was an indispensable sequence of events that came after one another as naturally as spring follows winter, and summer follows spring. In that case, I too, must expect to undergo the regular course of emotions like every one else. It would be a decidedly novel and mysterious experience, and one that I was by no means sure would be pleasant, and I looked out anxiously for the first indications of its approach as though it had been some kind of sickness with which I was threatened. A gush of poignant grief for my mother, an intense yearning over and pity for my father, sleepless nights and untasted meals, were, I knew, the correct preliminaries to the state of affairs that I was anticipating. Two or three days passed, however, and I found to my surprise that I had still no inability to sleep and eat as usual; no alteration in my former feelings about my parents, either living or deceased; nor any other reason to think I was about to behave in the same manner as those sentimental young ladies about whom I had read. Then I became perplexed as to the cause of this difference between me and them. I had taken it for granted that the stories showed exactly how human beings in general thought, felt, and acted; but how came it then that I, who was unquestionably a human being, should find my own experience of a great occasion of this kind so different from what the books depicted? The only way of accounting for it was by supposing either that they were not as true to nature as I had believed, or else that I must be unlike the rest of my fellow-creatures; and as it did not at all please me to consider myself an abnormal variety of the human species, I adopted the former theory as the probable explanation of what puzzled me. No one, thought I, ever dreams of judging fairy-tales by the standard of real life; and no doubt those stories that I fancied were true are in reality only fairy-tales in disguise. The characters are not real men and women, but only make-believe ones; and they are really just as impossible as if they were called ogres, gnomes, elves, magicians, or something of that kind.

It was a relief to me to arrive at this conclusion, and realise that there was no likelihood of my following in the steps of the afore-mentioned fictitious damsels, for, however attractive their experiences might be to read about, I had had very considerable misgivings as to whether I should find them equally pleasant to undergo in my own person. I may add that I am sure my incapacity for imitating them was a most fortunate circumstance for my father; he would, I am convinced, have been at his wits ends to know what to do with a daughter of the story-book stamp, and would have been unutterably taken aback and annoyed at any hysterical demonstrations of devotion or attachment on my part.

CHAPTER II.
FOREIGN TRAVEL.

It is time to say a few words as to what my father was like. Intensely selfish, and hating trouble, he was also extremely sociable, jovially disposed, easily amused, and endowed with an enviable facility for shaking off whatever was disagreeable. He seemed to consider everything unpleasant, dull, sad, or gloomy, as a sort of poisonous external application which must be got rid of promptly, lest it should get absorbed into the system. Consequently he never allowed anything to make a deeper impression on him than he could help. And in order to escape at once from the depressing influences of his wife's death he resolved to go abroad immediately after the funeral, and stay away for a good long time, wandering from place to place where his fancy took him, so as to distract his mind from all possibility of melancholy by a complete change of scene and life.

As he did not see the use of keeping up an establishment in England during his absence, he determined to let Castle Manor. Then came the question of what was to be done with me under these circumstances? His relations assured him that the best plan would be to send me to school somewhere till he should again be settled in his own home. After reflecting for a day on this suggestion, he considerably astonished those who had made it by announcing that he meant to take me abroad with him. Such a determination was certainly surprising on the part of one who could not endure trouble, and had no affection for me. But the fact was that since his marriage he had got so much accustomed to the feeling that there was some one belonging to him always within reach, that he did not now like to live quite alone again; and therefore he thought he might as well have me handy as a last resource to fall back upon for company when none other should be attainable. Wherever he went, therefore, there I went also; and for that reason we were supposed by many people to be wholly wrapped up in one another, and a touching example of parental and filial attachment. I accidentally overheard some remarks to that effect made one day by a couple of compatriots staying at the same hotel as ourselves at Naples; and, child as I was, I remember that I laughed cynically to think how wide of the truth they were, and what fools people were to be so ready to judge from appearances. For though he chose to have me living under the same roof as himself, yet he never had any wish for my society if he could pick up any one else to talk to, and walk, ride, drive, or make expeditions with; and as his sociability and geniality made it easy to him to make acquaintance and fraternise with strangers, he was not often dependent upon me for companionship; so that I was left very much to myself, and spent the greater part of the time in solitude, or with my attendant who was a sort of cross between nursery-governess and maid.

We moved about from place to place for two or three years, rarely staying long anywhere, and not once returning to England. This roving existence had a great charm for me, notwithstanding its frequent loneliness, and was infinitely more to my taste than would have been the orthodox schoolroom routine that falls to the lot of most girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Doubtless, too, it had a good deal of influence on the formation of my character; for the perpetual motion and change of scene in which I delighted could hardly fail to foster my inborn restlessness and love of adventure, as well as to develop whatever natural tendencies I possessed towards self-reliance, independence, and intolerance of restraint.

Meanwhile my education, as may be supposed, pursued a somewhat erratic course, and my standard of attainments would, I fear, have by no means been considered satisfactory by Mrs. Grundy. A life passed in hotels, pensions, and lodgings is unfavourable to regular studies; and, besides that, there was no one, after my mother's death, who cared sufficiently about my intellectual or moral progress to take the trouble of insisting on lessons being persevered with, whether I liked them or not. Consequently I learnt anything that took my fancy, and left alone everything else. On some out-of-the-way subjects I was better informed than the majority of my contemporaries; but then, on the other hand, I was ignorant of much that every schoolgirl is expected to know. My ideas, for instance, as to religious matters were extremely vague. I was but slightly acquainted with the contents of either the Bible or Prayer Book; never thought of religion as a thing with which I, personally, had to do; had not a notion of what constituted the differences between one form of religious belief and another; and never attended any place of worship except when some grand function was to come off. All I cared for in such a place was to listen to the music, and stare at the lights, vestments, decorations, ceremonial, and crowd; therefore I only went on great festivals, or when some especially prized relic was to be exhibited, or other unusual attraction offered; and, of course, I became more familiar with the interior of Roman Catholic churches and chapels than any other.

What accomplishments I possessed were such as would have qualified me well enough for a courier, and I think that I could have earned my livelihood in that line of business without much difficulty after I had been abroad for a while. I could speak several languages fluently, besides having a smattering of a few more, and of two or three patois; I was well up in the relative values of foreign coins, and capable of making a bargain even with such slippery individuals as drivers, jobmasters, laquais-de-place, or boatmen. Besides that, I was so thoroughly at home in railway stations that I could find my way about in any hitherto-unvisited one almost by instinct; I could usually tell, to within a few minutes, the exact time when any rapide or grande-vitesse was due to start from Paris for Spain, Germany, Italy, or the Mediterranean; when it ought to reach its destination; and at about what hour it would be at the more important towns on its route; and I had quite mastered the intricacies of the English and Foreign Bradshaw, Livret-Chaix, and works of a similarly perplexing kind, so as to be able to discover easily whatever information they could afford. My expertness in this way was chiefly owing to a happy thought that came into my head at Bayonne one day when I happened to be left alone for the afternoon with nothing to do, and no book whatever available except a railway guide. The prospect till night was not an exhilarating one, and I was disconsolately wondering how to get through the time, when it suddenly occurred to me that I would play at being about to start for St. Petersburg, or some other remote place, and obliged to look out the best and fastest way of getting there. I set to work accordingly with the railway guide, and became so engrossed in the game I had invented that I forgot all about the passage of time, and was quite astonished to find how quickly the afternoon slipped away whilst I was settling various journeys to my satisfaction. Such an easily-attainable means of amusement was a glorious discovery to me, and one which I commend to the notice of other travellers as a resource for wet weather and dull moments. Henceforth I had no dread of lacking amusement, provided I had a time-table; and many a long hour have I beguiled in planning skeleton tours to all kinds of places—poring over the times of arrival and departure of trains, diligences, steamers, and other public conveyances, and weighing in my own mind the prices and comparative merits of various routes with every bit as much care and attention as though the imaginary journey under consideration were a reality, and I were the sole person responsible to make arrangements for it. This employment had for me something of the same sort of fascination that working out a problem in algebra has for some people—indeed I do not think the two things are greatly unlike each other in their natures.

Besides the accomplishments I have mentioned, I had also some ideas as to foreign cookery, which I picked up here and there on our travels—chiefly on the rare occasions when we were in lodgings anywhere. I do not think I ever met any mistress of a lodging-house abroad who did not pride herself particularly upon her cooking of some one dish (sometimes more than that, but at least one), and who was not willing to initiate into its mysteries any lodger who evinced a proper appreciation of its excellence. There was an old woman at Genoa, I remember, at whose house we stayed for some weeks, who knew several delicious ways of dressing macaroni and vegetables, and who not only allowed me to watch her whilst she cooked, and gave me her favourite recipes, but even stretched her good nature so far as to let me try my own hand in the kitchen till I could join practice to theory, and produce a tolerably successful result for my labours. She was a kindly, motherly old soul, who was impressed with the notion that there was something peculiarly forlorn and provocative of pity in my condition; she generally called me poverina (to my amusement), and took me under her protection from an early stage of our acquaintance.

"See, Signorina," she said to me on the second morning of our occupying her apartments, "you will no doubt wish to buy velvet here—as all the English do—and many other things also. But be guided by me, and go not to buy alone, or you will most certainly be cheated. No! when you see the thing that you desire, come to me—take me to where it is—point it out to me quietly. Then will I go forward as though to buy it for myself, and so shall you procure it at a reasonable price. You who understand not the modes of our merchants, would pay nearly, or perhaps even altogether—for there is no saying how far the folly of an English person may go!—the amount that they demand for their goods. But as for me!—ah! I know how to arrange these people, and you shall see what I will do! I dare to flatter myself that there is not a man or woman in the whole of Genoa who can get the better of me in a bargain!"

Experience soon showed me that this was no idle vaunt. Though—to her great disappointment—I declined to buy any velvet, yet I gladly availed myself of her services for other purchases, and never in my life, either before or since, have I met with any one who was her match in bargaining. She never bought anything at a shop or stall without having taken a final farewell and departed from it at least twice, and then suffered herself to be brought back by the persuasions of the owner; I think she regarded this going away and returning as quite a necessary part of the negotiation, without which it could not possibly come to a proper conclusion. At all events her efforts were invariably successful, and she forced shopkeepers, market-people, and sellers of every sort with whom she had dealings, to accept reductions of price which seemed to me almost incredible. Meanwhile I, in whose behalf she was exerting herself, used merely to assist as a passive spectator, feeling that my knowledge of mankind was being enlarged, and that I was gaining a valuable insight into the amount of dishonesty and cunning that was latent in human beings in general, and Italians in particular. This was especially my feeling when, as more than once happened, I perceived that my friend herself was not altogether exempt from the failings of her country-people; and that, relying on my knowledge of Italian being less than it really was, she was making a little profit at my expense out of the transaction she was conducting for me. This was a fresh revelation of the depravity of human nature, and impressed upon my youthful mind the folly of trusting absolutely to any professions of friendship, however genuine they might appear. But, after all, it was not to be expected that she would take a great deal of trouble for a stranger gratuitously and out of pure love; besides that, she allowed no one except herself to cheat me, so that in the end my pocket was saved, notwithstanding the commissions that she managed adroitly to retain for her own benefit; and as, furthermore, I derived much instruction from her in the art of bargaining, I saw that on the whole I was a gainer by her help, and had nothing to complain of. So I let her act for me as before, chuckling inwardly at her vehement denunciations of the roguery that surrounded us, and not telling her of what I had discovered regarding her own.

I remember but little of most of the innumerable people with whom my father was continually making acquaintance; they seemed to me to come and go in endless succession, having to do with us only for a few days or hours, and then vanishing into space, with about as much likelihood of our ever seeing them again as though we had all been so many dead leaves whirled away by gales from opposite directions. But there was one of these stray acquaintances who made more impression on me than the rest, and whom I mention here because of the relations which she and I were destined to have together in the future—little as we then suspected it.

Kitty Mervyn, the individual in question, was a girl of about a year older than myself, clever, vivacious, and agreeable, and promising to be very good-looking by the time she should be seventeen. She and I were cousins in some far-off degree, because her father, Lord Mervyn, was a cousin many times removed of my grandfather, Lord Gilbert. The cousinship, however, was so remote that we did not know of each other's existence; and my father and the Mervyns had never happened to meet until they arrived one evening at the hotel at which we were staying at Lugano. Then the distant connection served as an introduction between us; and as the next day was a dreary wet Sunday, the feeling of ennui and desire to kill time that was common to us all, led to our seeing more of one another than we should probably have done otherwise. Kitty and I paired off together naturally, as being nearly of the same age. As far as I can recollect, we spent most of the day in watching and laughing at the performances of some embryo bicyclists, who were too enthusiastic to be deterred by either rain or frequent tumbles, and who went on grinding perseveringly on their bicycles up and down a bit of road in sight of our windows which was their practice-ground. We did not find it very lively, certainly; but then there was nothing else to do, unless we had struck up a romantic friendship and exchanged sentimental confidences—as some girls thus situated would have done—and neither she nor I were at all disposed for that sort of thing. Our intercourse lasted only for that one day, as next morning the Mervyns departed south, whilst we went to Como. But in the short time I had been with Kitty she had somehow made a stronger impression than usual on my unimpressionable mind, and the recollection of her lingered in my memory longer than that of any one else whom we met. Her good looks attracted me; her cleverness and liveliness made her very good company. Notwithstanding an incipient haughtiness about her, which might develop as she grew older, perhaps, she seemed at present to have a decided capacity for being what I called jolly; and, altogether, she had given me the idea of being remarkably likeable. I was sorry that the chances of travel made us separate so soon, and wondered if she was at all inclined to return the liking which I had taken to her. But she passed out of my head after a while; and it was only now and then that I recollected her existence, and thought how pleasant it would be if we happened to meet again some day.

CHAPTER III.
A WIDOW'S MANŒUVRES.

The life of travelling companion to my father being very much to my taste, I was naturally disgusted at its coming to a conclusion. This happened when I was about fifteen, and was caused by an event to which I objected strongly, and which was destined to have a most important effect on my subsequent existence.

We were making a tour through Holland and Friesland, and, when at Amsterdam, happened to make acquaintance with a Mrs. Grove, a widow, accompanied by two daughters, who were respectively two and three years older than me. I did not take to her at all, and thought she seemed a flattering, lying, pushing, cringing, vulgar individual; but having carelessly thought that much of her, I dismissed her from my mind as a person with whom I had nothing to do, and whose character was quite immaterial to me—little thinking what a bête noire she was to prove to me afterwards!

She was on the look-out for a successor for the deceased Mr. Grove; and as my father appeared to her to be a very suitable person for the vacancy, she began at once to lay siege to his affections. She did not, however, wish to show her hand too plainly at first, by attaching herself to us so openly as to make it obvious that she meant to pursue us from place to place. Therefore, the plan she adopted was, to discover, by apparently careless questioning, whither Sir Anthony's wayward fancy was likely to take him next; having done this, she would direct her own course to the same district, go to some principal town in it which we should be pretty sure to visit sooner or later, wait for us there, and then pretend to be greatly surprised when we arrived, and to consider the meeting a purely accidental one. For instance, my father intended to go from Friesland to Münster, which he considered would be good headquarters whence to go to the neighbouring town of Soest, where he wanted to see the Wiesen Kirche, and other specimens of Gothic architecture. He had spoken of this in Mrs. Grove's presence, so that she was quite aware of his intentions in the matter. Consequently there occurred what she called a curious coincidence, as she also was moved by the self-same thirst for archaeological studies at that particular time; and thus when we reached Münster from Winschoten, we found her already installed in the former city before us. At Cassel and at Frankfort did we again fall in with her; and on the very first night of our being at Heidelberg she and her daughters joined us under the walls of the old castle, as we sauntered about in the dark and admired the brilliant fireflies.

Sir Anthony was too much a man of the world to ascribe these perpetually recurring meetings entirely to chance, and soon began to have a shrewd suspicion of the widow's intentions. Then he took to amusing himself with her, withholding information as to his movements when she cross-questioned him about them, putting her on a wrong scent, and otherwise baffling her curiosity. Once or twice he joked about the matter with me (towards whom she affected extreme friendliness), and asked me whether I thought she wanted him as a match for herself or for one of the daughters? This behaviour of his calmed the state of perturbation into which I had been previously thrown; for I was most indignant at the notion of her wanting to marry him, and was in a terrible fright lest she should succeed. For one thing the mere idea of a stepmother was repugnant to me—be she who she might; and besides that, I had not the slightest confidence in the sincerity of Mrs. Grove's demonstrations of affection for me, which were, I felt sure, only assumed in order to ingratiate herself with my father; for I saw that she—like every one else—was misled by appearances, and took it for granted that a man who insisted on taking his daughter with him wherever he went, must be so devoted to her as to be certain to entertain kindly feelings towards any one who should appear fond of her. But my anxiety was relieved when I found that he was by no means blind to her designs, and was quite ready to laugh at them openly, and to take a mischievous pleasure in teasing her. That reassured me, and made me feel satisfied that her labours were in vain, and that I had nothing to apprehend from them.

This easy tranquillisation of my fears just showed my youth and inexperience. Had I been somewhat older I should have known what irresistible power over men almost all widows possess—which is the natural result of the insight into man's nature that they have acquired already, during their first matrimonial experiences. Mrs. Grove was no exception to the rule, and was as dangerous a widow as need be—having a thorough knowledge of the weaknesses of the male character and of the way to humour them, and understanding perfectly how to make herself agreeable to any lord of creation whom fortune might throw in her way.

It was no part of her tactics to leave Sir Anthony long in doubt that it was for herself, and not for either of her daughters, that she desired to captivate his affections. She was certainly vulgar; but as, also, she was a comely, well-preserved woman of little more than forty, who looked rather less than her age, it tickled his vanity pleasantly to find himself attractive to her; and notwithstanding his having ridiculed her for setting her cap at him, he did not, nevertheless, altogether dislike it in the bottom of his heart. It was true that he had not previously contemplated marrying again; but then that was only because he had not yet met any particular person to suggest the thought to him since my mother's death; and he had been sufficiently occupied and amused with his travels for the notion not to have occurred to him of itself. Now, however, that the idea was thus put into his head, he began to reflect upon the matter seriously; the more he considered it—being all the while insensibly influenced in its favour by the flattering attentions and blandishments of the widow—the more favourably did he regard it, and presently came to the conclusion that a wife was really almost indispensable to his comfort. He could forgive a little vulgarity provided she had money to gild it; and, feeling that Mrs. Grove's pecuniary circumstances had become suddenly interesting to him, he began putting out feelers on the subject when talking to her. He imagined himself to be going to work most diplomatically, and to have artfully concealed the true motive of his questions and remarks; but the widow was more than a match for him. She at once detected his curiosity, and guessed the reason for it; and managed cleverly to impress him with the idea that her jointure and settlements were considerably larger than was the actual case. Whether or not she would have accomplished her purpose without this stratagem, it is impossible to say; but, at any rate, it did what she intended it to do, and brought matters to a climax. The belief that a rich wife was to be had, and that it would be foolish of him to miss such an opportunity, put an end to his irresolution. He proposed, and was accepted; and within two months from the time that they were introduced to each other at Amsterdam, she succeeded in attaining what she desired, and became Lady Trecastle.

Her ladyship, being a thorough John Bull at heart, had no great fondness for foreign places and people. She had come to the continent because she believed it to be a likely hunting-ground whereon to find a husband; and as soon as she had secured her prey she did not care about staying abroad any longer. Another thing that made her wish to return to her native land was, that she was extremely proud of the newly-acquired handle to her name, and was burning to air it amongst those who would properly appreciate it; for what country is there in Europe, Asia, or Africa (about America I say nothing), where a title produces so much effect, and is so bowed down to and worshipped as in that abode of snobs—England? Therefore, as soon as she was engaged to Sir Anthony, she determined to endeavour to make him give up his nomadic existence, return home, and settle there. By way of paving the way in this direction she would reproach him, half in jest and half in earnest, for being an absentee, and having no proper patriotic spirit; or else she would deliver a harangue upon the roguery of most agents, and the folly of leaving property to be managed by them instead of looking after it in person; and with these and similar observations, she sought to bring him to wish himself to do the thing that she desired should be done. Finding him more inclined to listen to her than she had expected, she grew bolder, and passed from hints to a more direct expression of her desires. He was evidently not greatly averse to discontinue his foreign rambles, as I perceived with sorrow. The fact was that he had only gone abroad because my mother's death gave him gloomy and disagreeable associations with his house, and on that account he had taken a temporary dislike to it; but his facility for getting rid of whatever was unpleasant had made him quite shake off that feeling of dislike by now. Before long Mrs. Grove had worked upon him so far that he began even to feel eager to return home, and to look forward with pleasurable anticipation to the idea of showing the place to its new mistress, and introducing her to the society of the neighbourhood.

I said what I could to oppose going back to England whenever I had an opportunity; but alas! what chance had I against the influence of the widow? Of course she carried her point without difficulty; and, to my great grief, notice to quit was sent to the tenants of Castle Manor. It so happened that there were accidental circumstances which made it convenient to the tenants to leave at once, without waiting for the expiration of the term of the notice, and thus the house was vacated at an unexpectedly early date. No sooner was this the case than Sir Anthony and Lady Trecastle returned home and established themselves there, accompanied by their joint families, which consisted of Margaret Grove, aged eighteen; Jane Grove, aged seventeen; and myself, aged rather more than fifteen.

CHAPTER IV.
A TIGHT CURB.

When an indolent, easy-going, trouble-hating man, such as my father, marries an energetic, bustling, authority-loving woman, such as Mrs. Grove, it is not hard to foresee which of the two will bear rule in the establishment. A very brief acquaintance with Sir Anthony sufficed to show the widow that, with a little management on her part, she would be able to govern the household as she liked; that as long as he was kept amused he would not bother himself to interfere with her arrangements; and that all she need do in order to keep the reins entirely in her own hands, was to take care that her way and his were identical in whatever affected his personal comfort—she would then be free to please herself as far as all other things were concerned. She was not, at first, altogether easy in her mind as to how he would bear the discovery of what the real state of her money matters was; which discovery, as she knew, he must inevitably make soon, and might possibly cause him to be seriously angry with her. But she need not have feared this with a man of his disposition, who never worried himself about anything that could not be helped. Though he was, undoubtedly, much annoyed to find how much poorer she was than he had supposed, yet he reflected, with his usual philosophy, that it was no use making a fuss about it, now that he had married her, and that what could not be altered had better be made the best of. So he gulped down the disappointment with a wry face or two, and did not attempt to make her suffer for her deceitfulness as she deserved.

As soon as she was satisfied on this head, and felt that she was established in her seat securely, she turned her attention to me—who would infinitely have preferred being let alone. I had never trusted to the sincerity of the professions of affection she had lavished on me in the early stages of our acquaintance, when she had imagined me to be my father's especial pet; and it speedily became evident that this distrust of mine had been well founded. She thought it quite worth while taking trouble to keep the master of the house in good humour, and would study and humour his likes and dislikes in the most amiable manner possible. But she saw no reason for extending the same consideration to a mere insignificant nobody; and when she had discovered how little he cared for me, and that she might do as she pleased regarding me and my affairs without danger of interference from him, she proceeded to take my education in hand, and conduct it according to her own notions. As her ideas on the subject and mine were entirely different, and as the more she and I saw of one another the more we disliked each other, the result of this meddling of hers was fatal to my comfort. And the two or three years following my father's second marriage were so horribly dull and tedious to me that I cannot recall them without a shudder.

Everything seemed to go against me from the time of that wedding. In the first place, I resented having a stepmother, and finding myself forced suddenly into terms of intimacy with the three strangers (her and her two daughters) who had all at once become part of my family. Then came the termination of the foreign wanderings that I had found so pleasant. And now came the culminating misery of being under the commands of a selfish, vulgar, lying, bullying, stingy, pretentious, plausible, tyrannical woman, whom I could not endure, and who fully returned my dislike.

I had an unlucky knack of perpetually irritating her, and was always sure to be in the wrong in her eyes. Either I said or did something that was contrary to her notions of what I ought to have said or done; or I scandalised her by displaying grievous ignorance of some subject which she deemed an essential branch of knowledge; or else I shocked her prejudices in some other way. She was not the woman to put up quietly with offences of this kind in her own household, and proceeded without delay to attempt to remedy my deficiencies. Accordingly she informed my father that she considered my mental condition to have been neglected terribly; that I had been allowed to run wild till I was very nearly ruined; and that she saw no chance of my ever becoming a properly behaved young lady and decent member of society unless a governess were procured for me immediately, and I were kept strictly to the schoolroom until such time as I should come out. Should she, therefore, engage a governess? My father, as usual, made no objection to a proposal which would in no way interfere with his own comfort. All he said was that she could do just as she thought best about it; that he did not himself see much to complain of in me, and had thought I was not at all bad company, considering my youth; but that he had no doubt she understood better than him what was necessary for girls, and that whatever she did was sure to be right.

Armed with this permission, she at once took steps to carry out her intention, and a few days afterwards announced to me the contemplated innovation.

"Your father and I have agreed, Ina," she said, "that it is high time to make a change in your present mode of life—you need to be put into harness for a bit and broken in. Therefore, I have engaged a governess for you, and she will be here next week. What I wish to impress upon you now is, that when she comes you must do what she tells you, and that I shall expect you to pass your time with her. I do not approve of your fondness for sitting in your own room; nor yet of your habit of appearing continually amongst us elders when there are visitors here, just as if you were grown up and already introduced into society! The drawing-room is not the proper place for a girl of your age. Remember that in future you are to remain always in the schoolroom when indoors, and that, when not at lessons, you must employ yourself there in some quiet and ladylike pursuit—needlework perhaps, or something of that kind. And when you go out you will walk with your governess, and not go climbing trees, or digging out rabbits, or racing all over the place like a wild thing, as you generally do."

The idea of being thus hampered and restrained filled me with dismay; and in my despair I appealed to my father, in hopes that he would protect my cherished liberty of action.

"Why should I have a governess at all?" I exclaimed to him; "I'm sure I've got on very well without, for ever so long! But even if I am to have one, surely I may be free of the hateful thing out of lesson-time, mayn't I? Just think how horrid it would be to be obliged to be always with her—sitting in the room with her all day, and only going for stupid, straight-on-end grinds along the hard high road with her when I go out! Do say that I'm not to be condemned to that, at all events!"

No doubt I was a fool for my pains, and ought to have known better than to suppose that I could move him to oppose his wife on my behalf. So the event proved, for he declined to interfere in the matter, and the only effect produced by my appeal was to strengthen Lady Trecastle's hands by increasing her conviction of the extreme unlikelihood of my father's ever paying attention to any complaint that I might make to him. From that time forth, therefore, she felt more secure than ever in her authority over me, and her tyranny increased accordingly. When the governess arrived I was kept immured in the schoolroom the greater part of each day, and was surrounded by a variety of petty restraints and restrictions which were enough to have worried any girl, and were especially vexatious and irksome to one who had had the unusual amount of independence which I had been enjoying of recent years. I found myself deprived of freedom; always under surveillance; obliged to learn uninteresting lessons; bored; and constantly tacked on to the petticoats of an individual whose office of governess made her necessarily hateful in my eyes, however charming—even angelic—she might really be. Of course such an existence was perfectly odious to me, and I do not think that I could have anyhow managed to endure it as long as I did, if I had not fortunately hit upon a means whereby I could to some extent relieve its dreary monotony. This resource consisted in victimising, to the extent of my power, any rash female who had undertaken to instruct me, playing off upon her ill-natured pranks of all kinds, and leaving no stone unturned to make her life a burden to her till I had fairly driven her out of the house.

What a dreadful confession of unamiability! some reader may, perhaps, here exclaim. Well—I do not deny it. Be it remembered that the purpose of this narrative is, not to set forth an imaginary picture of virtue and excellence, but simply an accurate likeness of myself; and I should evidently fail of accomplishing that purpose if I were to conceal or gloss over those sentiments which I really entertained and acted upon. But even if my behaviour does lay me open to the charge of unamiability, I do not think that that need be wondered at, when the peculiarities of my natural disposition, of my bringing-up, and of my whole circumstances, are taken into consideration.

The occupation of bullying and annoying my governesses to the utmost possible extent had a double recommendation in my eyes. Not only did it supply an ample field for my ingenuity, and give me something amusing to think about in the dreary walks and long hours spent in the schoolroom, but also it afforded me the satisfaction of retaliation. I had a savage joy in knowing that I was able to pay off my companion for some of the vexations that she was the means of inflicting on me; and I relished the thought that even if I did have a rough time myself, yet at all events I did not suffer alone. Endless, therefore, were the tricks and practical jokes which I used to devise and execute for the aggravation of whatever unlucky individual happened to have taken charge of my education; and so skilful was I in my operations that it was but seldom any piece of mischief could be traced home to me, however greatly I might be suspected of its authorship. I was an adept, too, at the art of being extremely insulting and provoking without saying anything that would seem a just cause of irritation if repeated to a third person. I knew how to speak with an offensiveness of voice and manner which gave an injurious significance to words that were in themselves innocent; and by this method I have often succeeded in making a governess wildly angry, although I had given her nothing tangible that could be taken hold of and brought against me to substantiate a charge of rudeness. If she complained that I had been impertinent, I assumed an air of injured innocence, repeated exactly what I had said, asked what harm there was in that? and declared that it was very unfair to blame me because Miss so-and-so had chosen to fly into a passion about nothing. In fact I was aggravating enough to have provoked the patient Grizzel herself; and as governesses are not much apt to be patient Grizzels in their relations to their pupils (however gentle and long-suffering they may make themselves appear to the heads of the establishment), our schoolroom was in a constant state of turmoil and ferment, and there was a remarkable difficulty in getting governesses to stay at Castle Manor. About a month or six weeks was generally enough to disgust them with the situation, and they rarely failed to give notice at the end of that time. This was an event that always gave me a sensation of unmixed satisfaction; as, for one thing, I then felt that I had scored a fresh victory and routed another enemy, and also, I knew that the arrival of her successor could not fail to bring some small amount of variety into the monotonous routine of existence of which I was so deadly tired.

But this constant change of governesses over which I rejoiced, and which was chiefly my doing, was by no means equally agreeable to Lady Trecastle. When an instructress went, it was she who had to procure a successor, and she did not find it at all amusing to be incessantly answering advertisements, writing for characters, and that sort of thing. And as, notwithstanding the difficulty of ever actually proving a misdemeanour against me, she had strong doubts of my innocence, therefore she considered me responsible for the bother she continually had about governesses, and regarded me with increased disfavour on that account. She had the sense to suspect that there would not be such endless storms in the schoolroom if the pupil were not unusually unmanageable and turbulent; and, acting on that opinion, she made several efforts to induce me to be more tractable, in order that thereby she might be saved the trouble that my conduct entailed upon her.

At one time she tried the effect of addressing serious rebukes and admonitions to me; but I cared not one straw for them. Then she increased the strictness of my confinement, and ordained that every disturbance should always be followed by the loss of the next half-holiday or other pleasure of which I might have a chance; but still I remained unsubdued. Then a third method of overcoming me suddenly struck her, and she one day wound up a lengthy scolding by declaring that her patience was at an end, that she would not stand the perpetual commotions I caused any longer, and that the very next time one occurred I should be packed off to some school at once.

Now it was all very well for her to talk big of sending me to school; but in point of fact I felt pretty sure that she would do nothing of the kind, because it was very convenient to her to have a governess in the house on account of her own two daughters, for whom she did not want to go to the expense of masters, and who often needed assistance in the various accomplishments she wished them to acquire. This assistance they were in the habit of receiving from whoever happened to be in charge of me, though they were too old to be regularly in the schoolroom, and as my going to school would remove the ostensible reason for having a governess at Castle Manor, it was not at all likely that she meant to do what she said.

But though she knew the threat to be an empty one, that did not at all hinder her from uttering it. Being at her wits' end for something to hold over me in terrorem, it suddenly occurred to her that a girl who had always lived with her own belongings, as I had done, would probably dread the notion of being sent away alone amongst strangers, and that therefore the school project stood a very good chance of awing me into submission.

Instead of that, however, I evinced such delight at the prospect as took the wind out of her sails completely. I had not in reality the slightest objection to school, because it would be a change, and anything in the shape of a change would be welcome. And of course my manifestations of delight were all the more exaggerated as I perceived her annoyance at finding me look forward joyfully to the thing she hoped I should have feared. Thus she was thoroughly discomfited; and never again did I hear her say I was to go to school, though I several times returned to the subject of myself, asking to know when I was going, saying I hoped it would be soon, etc. etc. I must say that I greatly enjoyed having triumphed over her so completely; and I reflected with malicious pleasure on the vexation and humiliation it must be to her to know that I had detected the emptiness of her threat, and could henceforth look down upon her with all the contempt which an utterer of such threats is sure to inspire.

But though I did what I could to procure a little change and excitement by making myself disagreeable, and plaguing my stepmother and teachers, yet the tedium of my life was so great as to be almost unendurable; and again and again did I consider the expediency of putting an end to it by running away from home, and trusting to my own resources for getting a livelihood. I used to meditate seriously on how the thing was to be done, arranging every detail, foreseeing and meeting probable obstacles, providing for possible contingencies, and working the whole scheme out from beginning to end in my own mind. It seemed to me quite feasible; and as I was not a bit afraid of failure, or of what might happen to me when cast upon the world by myself, I should certainly have put my idea into practice if there had not been one consideration which deterred me and kept me where I was. This was the thought that I was very nearly seventeen. At that age I was convinced that girls invariably came out, and therefore took it for granted that I should do so also. And as the yoke under which I groaned would be broken before long in the natural course of events, it seemed better to resign myself for the short space during which I should still be subject to it, rather than to anticipate the day of emancipation by so desperate a measure as running away from home.

But in my calculations as to the time of my being brought out, I had quite omitted one most important factor, viz. what might be my stepmother's wishes in regard to that matter. These, as it happened, were diametrically opposed to mine. She had no fancy to go about with three young ladies in tow, nor did she feel inclined to risk spoiling the matrimonial chances of Margaret or Jane by leaving either of them at home, and taking me out with her instead. Therefore she intended to keep me back in a state of pupilage as long as possible, and to endeavour to get one or both of her own daughters married out of the way before I should make my appearance in society. In consequence of this private scheme of hers, the attainment of the age of seventeen, from which I had hoped such great things, produced no amelioration in my condition. I was astonished and disgusted to find that the days and weeks dragged heavily on at lessons as before, and brought no indications of the approach of that liberty to which I had looked forward confidently. Of course, I was not going to stand this without complaining, so I remonstrated with Lady Trecastle, declaring that I was being treated very unfairly, that every girl came out at seventeen, and that I ought now to be let to share equally with my step-sisters in whatever invitations for balls, dinners, or other gaieties might arrive at Castle Manor. My complaints were unheeded, however, and my grievance remained unredressed. I was not fit to go into society, she said; I was so untrained, stupid, disagreeable, and bad-tempered, that she would be ashamed to take me out, and I must positively remain in the schoolroom till my manners and temper should be improved. Chafing and fretting under repeated disappointments, I managed to get through another dreary year of monotony, but when my eighteenth birthday arrived and found me still a prisoner in the schoolroom, I resolved not to stand this treatment any longer. It became evident to me that her ladyship destined me to play the part of Cinderella. As I had no fancy for that rôle, and as I had not a fairy godmother to come to my assistance, I must take the matter into my own hands and act fairy godmother for myself. Therefore I determined to execute the plan which I had already reflected upon so often, and to run away from home and take my chance of what might afterwards befall me.