Probation

When Myles began his work at the Committee Office, one conspicuous member of the Ladies’ Committee was temporarily absent. Adrienne Blisset was then occupied in learning the condition of her own affairs, and found herself soon in a totally different position from any she had ever expected to fill—very rich, as it seemed to her, and a person of great importance; and, what was strangest of all, with Sebastian Mallory coming and going and fulfilling his duties as executor, and explaining everything to her. She repeatedly told him that she could not believe it; it was impossible—there must be a mistake. All that money hers to do as she liked with, and she had not earned it, nor worked for it!

‘What an idea you have of working for everything you get!’ he exclaimed suddenly one day. ‘Do you carry it so far as to demand a service from every one to whom you accord a sign of favour?’

‘Really I don’t know what you mean,’ replied she. ‘I only know that I have got, you tell me, between six and seven hundred a year, and I have done nothing to deserve it.’

‘No. I suppose you have to deserve it now, by using it properly,’ said he sedately.

That was in fact the amount of Adrienne’s means, and it was natural that it should appear to her as wealth unbounded. She had also Stonegate on a lease, which had yet somewhat over two years to run. And when she had learnt all this, and that she really was the mistress of such means, with the only drawback that there was no one to share them with, no one to consult with—herself alone, and her own pleasure and convenience to study; when she had grasped these facts, and had begun to feel rather sad and lonely, she returned to her work one morning in a black dress, looking rather thinner and paler than she had done before. The people with whom she had become acquainted in her work, and who had heard the reason of her absence, came round her, and, though not openly, congratulated her, hoped she would now take a recognised place amongst them, asked if they might call, and so on. And as she somewhat vaguely and sadly answered these efforts at friendship, she looked up, and saw some one pass the window. It was Myles Heywood going to his work.

Adrienne’s name had become well known in Thanshope during the last three months. It was but a provincial town, and every one seemed thoroughly acquainted with every one else’s affairs. Mrs. Mallory had been much annoyed at finding Sebastian ‘mixed up,’ as she called it, with Mr. Blisset’s affairs, and above all, with those of Miss Blisset. She had had to explain it as well as she could to certain friends who had asked her who this Miss Blisset was, and what it all meant.

Sebastian, she said, was so very good-natured; she feared he would be imposed on some time. Did she know Miss Blisset? Certainly she did, in a way; but as for being a friend of hers, certainly not! Sebastian had consented to act as Mr. Blisset’s executor out of pure goodwill and kindness, because the man was so much to be pitied, and seemed to have absolutely no friends. That was all.

But despite all Mrs. Mallory’s efforts, it got known that her son and the young lady, who had lately come into a fortune, and who was reported to be both charming and accomplished, were very great friends. Helena Spenceley took rather a malicious pleasure in upholding this theory in Mrs. Mallory’s very presence, so that that lady would have boxed her ears with pleasure, if one could box the ears of a person who would have one hundred thousand pounds some day.

Thus Miss Blisset and Mr. Mallory were already talked about in a certain set, and Adrienne’s duties had made her name and herself familiar to another and a less distinguished public—to the working-people of Thanshope. She had been a notability amongst them before her sudden accession to wealth and friends; she was doubly well known to them now. She was busy and preoccupied, thought Myles, as he sat at his desk in the second office, and saw her almost daily pass the windows on her way to the Ladies’ Committee-room. She was a lady of property, sought after and busy, and he was a clerk on a high stool, to whom she scarce spoke a word from one week’s end to the other.

Those years of distress brought about some strange acquaintances, and led to some unusual events. Though everything appeared on the outside to work so smoothly, there were active emotions stirring amongst the members of that Thanshope Relief Committee—emotions, quite unconnected with the wants of those for whose benefit they had assembled themselves. The circumstances were exceptional, and it was only under exceptional circumstances that those particular people could have not only met, but continued almost daily to meet and come in contact with one another. Gradually circumstances drew them together—gradually as they met, the half-forgotten, smouldering feelings of love and hate, contempt and pity, sprang into life and activity again, and emotion stepped to the front, and all these things acted and reacted one upon the other, till every story was modified, every life received a bend this way or that, a change in the even tenor of its way.