The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent

CHAPTER XIII.

Mrs. Parke was really alarmed by this determination on the part of the man to whom her husband was heir. All those precautions, (which, if not positively sinful, were so little consistent with the desire to be at rest, which ought to be the prevailing sentiment of old people) were intended to keep John out of his inheritance—to prevent herself from becoming Lady Frogmore. If the old lord succeeded in his wicked plan of living on to an indefinite time, John and she might be old people before they came to their kingdom—nay, more horrible still, John (who took very little care of himself) might die first and leave Letitia only Mrs. Parke for ever, even though little Duke might come to the title. This was a contingency which filled her with horror. She felt that she would willingly have seized the old gentleman and shaken him—but then reflected again with dismay upon his trim, steady figure, his alert walk, his rosy countenance. He looked, when she came to think of it, stronger than John! He had Rogers to watch over him night and day. He had Valentine’s Meat Juice and Brand’s Essence (if these concentrated comforts were invited) administered to him whenever he felt a sinking—he had some sort of elixir of life put into his bath. What he intended was never to die. Mrs. John Parke became pale with the horror of this thought, and she felt that she could not endure the old egotist, the selfish, self-absorbed old man. “It is all I can do to be civil to him at dinner and ask after his cold in the morning. Do for goodness sake amuse him a little, Mary Hill. You don’t feel it as I do—you’ve no cares to distract your mind, and it’s far easier for you to put on a face and sympathize with people about nothing than for me. I’m too sincere for that sort of thing,” Letitia said.

“But don’t you think it might be better to pay him a little attention. Just to show that you are interested. If it were only for half-an-hour, Letitia.”

“Oh, what is the good of having you in the house with nothing to do if you can’t manage a little thing like that for me, Mary Hill!”

Mary was silenced, and had no reply to make. She had herself no objection whatever to read the papers and talk to Lord Frogmore. He was very kind. His nice old ways, which were very precise and regular, almost, she said to herself, like a lady’s ways, suited Mary, who was a little prim in her middle-aged decorum. She had no objection to the entrance of Rogers with his little cough mixture, or digestive pill, or cup of soup. On the whole, perhaps, she liked the little fuss of invalidism, the cares, which a little ailment or any amusing little illness which meant nothing demanded. To draw out the screen so as to shield the old gentleman from an imaginary draught, to change for him the arrangement of his cushion and his footstool, to put book and paper cutter ready upon the little table when she herself was called away, was really pleasant to her. And when he declared that a slight cold was quite an agreeable thing in pleasant company, and that it was delightful to have a right to so many little attentions, it gave Mary a serene pleasure to find herself so useful. Another part of her duty was not perhaps so justifiable, but she discharged it with devotion. She accounted for the absence of Letitia in an unvarying round of praiseworthy ways. She made a fancy portrait of Mrs. Parke, which was beautiful to behold. She was so devoted a wife, taking every trouble from John, leaving him free for his shooting and all his amusements. She was so excellent a housekeeper, making it possible by her good management to entertain a great deal, which was so good for her husband. She was the best of mothers, giving so much of her attention to her children.

“I am coming to believe that my sister-in-law is not a woman at all, but a bundle of virtues,” said Lord Frogmore.

“Oh not that!” cried Mary, with a blush, “not that at all. She has her faults, of course—but her whole heart is in her own family, to do everything for them——”

“At all events she has one great quality—she has the art of making a devoted friend,” said Lord Frogmore with a smile which made Mary blush again.

“Oh,” she cried, “I am of so little account. I can never do anything for her—except the smallest things.”

“Such as taking care of an old bore with a cold,” said the old gentleman. Mary felt that she had not been warm enough in Letitia’s praises, for he never shook off that cynical look, while certainly Letitia might have showed him a little more attention. Mary wondered sometimes if it was true that she herself found it easy to make up a face and sympathize with people, and if Letitia was, as she said, too sincere. She found herself sympathizing with Lord Frogmore in a way which perhaps was absurd, for he was not ill: he was really enjoying his cold and all the attentions it procured him. It was bad weather, and there was no temptation to go out. It was not as if he were really ill, and it was an act of devotion to nurse him. Was she making up a face? Mary said to herself. “No,” with a little indignation. She did not feel herself to be insincere. Still, perhaps, it was easier for her than for Letitia to show sympathy with other people’s troubles, whether they were small or great.

Lord Frogmore got better and went away, having considerably outstayed the original limits of his visit. And to tell the truth his going was a great relief to the household, except to Mary, who missed him very much. The Parkes by this time had got rid of their visitors, and were themselves setting out upon a little round of visits to taste other people’s dinners and shoot other people’s covers. On such occasions, which occurred periodically, Mary was left in charge of the house. She had to keep the servants in hand, which was not an easy task, for they all knew that she was a dependent without wages; and naturally held her authority very light; and she had to watch over the children, to send for the doctor when he was wanted, to superintend the nurses, to keep everything in the established routine. It was not a pleasant office, for nobody in the house chose to be subordinate to a poor lady who was not even the governess—who was only a friend and of no account personally, living on the kindness of the mistress of the house. This did not account, however, for the excitement with which she rushed into Letitia’s boudoir on the morning of their departure, looking alternately very red and very white, and scarcely able to speak for an agitation which took away her breath.

“Oh Letitia, can I speak to you?” she cried, bursting into the room in a manner quite unlike her usual soft movements. Letitia was at the moment superintending the shutting up of her box, in which all her best dresses were, and which was reluctant to close.

“Well, my dear, you can speak as much as you like; but as for expecting me to pay any attention just at this moment when I am in the agonies of packing! Kneel on the lid, Felicie, and I’ll try and turn the key.”

“Letitia, please, just a moment. There’s something which I want to tell you—to consult you about.”

“You are the oddest creature in the world, Mary Hill. Consult me! when the carriage is nearly at the door, and all my things to pack. C’est fini at last, Felicie—Fermez le bonnet-box, too, and give me my keys. Well, what is it, Mary? You don’t speak.”

“I can’t tell you before anybody,” said Mary in a low voice. “I’ve got a letter——”

“Oh, you’ve got a letter! I can’t send Felicie away, because there are so many little things to do—but she doesn’t count. I say all sorts of things before her. Is it from one of the boys?”

“No, Letitia. Oh, please, a moment—it’s very important.”

“It’s from Ralph, and he’s asked you to marry him? I never thought he was such a fool. And I hope you’re not going to be a fool to snap at him—with not a penny between you,” Letitia added, growing red. “That’s all the advice I am going to give. You’re old enough to judge for yourself—but neither you nor he must look for anything from us. Neither money nor influence—we shall do nothing for you—nothing! You may as well know that from the first.”

Mary had been white and trembling with agitation; now she turned red with one of those sudden fits of exasperation which attack even the mildest. To have this said to her before the waiting maid, who concealed a smile and a look of intelligence which had flashed into her eyes under a demure gravity, was enough to have upset the temper of a saint.

“It is not from Ralph,” she said very quietly.

“Oh, it’s not from Ralph. Well, that’s a very good thing. Felicie, attachez les straps—or leave them for Robert to do, if you like—and bring me my cloak. Well, so it is not from Ralph, Mary? Then who is it from? It’s a proposal one can see from your face. Take it whoever it comes from, Mary. You haven’t time, my dear, to pick and choose.”

“You will let me speak to you in your room, Letitia?”

“There’s no time,” said Mrs. Parke. “Felicie, mon chapeau, and my gloves. There’s the carriage. I’ve only one piece of advice, Mary—take it if it’s a decent offer. You can’t expect to get many more at your age.”

“It is more than a decent offer. Oh, Letitia, it is from an old gentleman, one much older, and far above me.”

“Did you expect a young one?” said Mrs. Parke. “I think you would be very, very silly to stand upon that. I know who it is. It is old Dr. Hilton; and just an excellent match—an admirable match—the very thing I should have wished for you. Old! I hope you are not such a fool as to think of that! Think of your father and mother, and the use you might be to them. And as for far above you, why you’re a clergyman’s daughter, you are in the same rank in life. Mary, mind what I say to you. Don’t be a fool.”

“But it’s not Dr. Hilton. Oh Letitia, only a moment! I must speak to you.”

“There is John calling,” said Mrs. Parke, composedly. “Good-bye, Mary, I can’t stop a moment longer. Take care of the boy, and mind you don’t let Saunders and the rest get the upper hand. Who can it be if it’s not Dr. Hilton? But whoever it is, mind what I say. What does age matter? If he can support you, and leave you something when he dies, take him, take him, Mary Hill—at your age what could you expect more.”

Mary followed her friend downstairs. It was of no use saying any more. Mrs. Parke had many directions to give as she went away. She had to say good-bye to the children who were in the hall to see the last of mamma. She had to silence John who was calling to her, to question Felicie, who lagged behind. “Mind you take care of the boy,” she said, looking back, waving her hand to Mary. “Mind you keep everything going: and you can write and tell me all about it. Nurse, if there is anything the matter call Miss Hill at once, and she will know what to do. Ta-ta, baby; good-bye, Duke. Mind you’re good till I come back: and good-bye, Letty and Johnny, be good children all of you. Felicie, what on earth keeps you always behind?”

Then the carriage rolled away, followed by the cab with Felicie and the boxes, and stillness fell upon the abandoned house; stillness at least so far as the sitting-rooms were concerned; but a louder note than usual from the nurseries, and a jovial hum in the servants’ hall, where everybody felt their holiday had begun.

Mary went back into the house from the doorsteps, on which she had been standing dazed, contemplating the carriage and Felicie’s cab as they rolled away. She came in like a ghost, her face very pale, her limbs trembling with an agitation which was only increased by the fact that Letitia was now permanently out of hearing, and that there was nobody left from whom she could ask any advice. She wandered up and down the different rooms for some time, seating herself here and there for a moment, then springing up again to try another chair and another position. At last she went into the library and sat down upon a low chair before the fireplace. There was no fire in that room, which was not a room ordinarily much frequented by the ladies of the house, and the first to fall into the neglect which characterizes a house from which the masters are absent. The fire had not been lighted though it was November and a dull cold day. Mary sat down upon this little chair by the cold hearth, and she covered her face with her hands and leaned her head against the arm of the great chair which stood close to her. Here for a moment she could rest and think. She sat quite still for a long time in the absolute solitude of the place, and covered her eyes from all external distractions—but it would scarcely be just to say that Mary was thinking, much less that she was wisely balancing the good against the evil, and making up her mind what she should do.

It would be more just to say that her mind went whirling round and round like the scientific toy which represents processions of moving figures flying past, steeple-chases, hunting fields, negro contortionists, Christy’s minstrels. Everything was going round and round with Mary. She herself seemed only to be looking on, seeing the whirl which was going through her brain. It settled down a little after a time and solidified into the neat little figure which for so many days had occupied the chair on which she was leaning. Her thoughts all paused, stopped short in the whirl of them, and standing aside like so many country attendants allowed Lord Frogmore to reveal himself in the silence. There he stood, active, small, alert—with his short white curling locks and ruddy color. There he sat with his precise little ways, his cup of soup, his cough mixtures, Rogers, his man, taking such care of him. Mary’s heart jumped up and began to throb in her ears and jump in her throat like the piston of a steam engine. Lord Frogmore! And she had his letter in her pocket, a nice letter, a letter full of respect and honor, setting her in so high a place, doing her justice and far more than justice, Mary thought. No sign in all he said of the old maid at whom Letitia had assured her, and she herself had found, men laugh. Lord Frogmore showed no consciousness that she was an old maid, that she was past her bloom, that she was poor and he was doing her a great honor—oh, not a sign of that! If she had been a duke’s daughter and a creature beautiful as the day, the old gentleman could not have written with more tender respect. Mary was not without pride, humble woman though she was, and she had received many a wound among Letitia’s careless friends and visitors, wounds of which she was too proud to say anything and too good to resent, but of which she had deeply felt the sting. But out of Lord Frogmore’s letter there seemed to have come a balm which soothed and healed her very soul. She felt herself put in her right place, respected, honored, approved. If it did no more than this for her, it had done what words could not express. She sat hiding her face and felt this balm steal over and heal her wounds.

And it was only after this, after a long interval, after the first whirl of agitation and the hush of gratified and soothed sensation, the charm and sweetness of being at length appreciated and understood, that Mary began to think what answer was she to make?—what was she to do?

CHAPTER XIV.

Such an accident had now happened to Mary Hill. Such a thing as marriage had long passed out of her thoughts. She had gone through the ordinary process in such matters, having had her youthful dreams, her maidenly fancies, her conviction that some time, some day, the hero would come round the turn of the road, and life would change into enchantment. For a certain period in life that is to a girl the one certainty. Perhaps not to-day or to-morrow, yet possibly at any moment—a thing as sure as the rising of the sun, yet veiled in delightful mysteries and unknowableness—a vague anticipation, the poem of existence. After a time, if Prince Charming does not appear, the expectation begins to flag—a curious question, the strangest discouraging doubt creeps into the mind. Is she perhaps to be the one left out? the one to whom the enchanter is not to come. To trace the process from that first doubt, which is so startling, which gives a sudden check to life, to the calm certainty that no such thing would ever happen to her, which had long filled the gentle bosom of Mary Hill, would take too much time and space. It need only be said that Mary had accepted the position years ago. Her sister Agnes and she had long given up any thoughts of the kind. Their hearts fluttered no longer when they gazed along the blank road by which no hero had ever come. They had settled down as middle-aged women. No doubt they had both known what it was to struggle and rebel in their hearts against the strait bondage of life that confined them, the situation of girls in their father’s house which was so sweet at twenty, so little adapted to the maiden mind at forty. They had gone through all that, but had never said anything about it even to each other. Most probably they would have thought it sinful, horribly unwomanly to rebel thus against their lot. All that they permitted themselves to say was, with a sigh, that they had no education, and could not be governesses, nor do anything. Sometimes it would come over them with a shiver that their father was old, growing older every day, and that the time must come when that dear old bare house at the vicarage would be theirs no more; but so helpless were they that it was tacitly understood between them nothing should be said of this. It would be dreadful even between themselves to put it into words that the vicar must die, to seem to calculate on the end of his existence. It lay between them, a dark point in the future at which their human life seemed to stop, but that was all. As for any piece of good fortune that might happen—above all, any proposals of marriage, that was a thing as far over and passed away as the frocks of their childhood. They had both accepted the rôle of old maid without rebellion, if, at the beginning, with a faint sigh.

And now here had fallen at Mary’s feet not that thunderbolt out of a clear sky, of which people speak as the most startling image of a sudden catastrophe, but a sudden blaze of impossible light through the afternoon dullness. It was no catastrophe; and yet it gave a shock almost as great. To be suddenly made rich beyond the brightest dreams, though indeed Mary had never dreamt of being rich at all; to be introduced into what seemed to the vicar’s daughter the loftiest society in the world; to be able to help everybody belonging to her; to shed a glory upon the vicarage; to cause a thrill of pride to all the most distant of her kin; to impress the distant sisters-in-law whom Mary suspected of not being very respectful of the unmarried sisters, and of entertaining fears lest some time those unprovided women should expect something from John and George, all these suggestions played upon her, shining in her eyes like the afternoon sunshine, blinding her with unexpected light. Her heart jumped up to think of these things, then dropped down again with a sinking fall when her mind turned to the other side, and she thought of Letitia. Oh, it was needless to try to persuade herself that when Letitia said, “Don’t be a fool, Mary Hill,” and bade her certainly to accept the old gentleman who had proposed to her, Mrs. Parke had any perception of the real state of the case. Had Letitia guessed that it was Lord Frogmore; had she for an instant suspected that her humble friend was to be elevated over her own head, no doubt she would have given a very different verdict. Mary remembered all she had said. Her warning that nothing must be expected from Frogmore, that all he had must come to the children, her resentment with his care of his own health as keeping her out of her kingdom. Her heart sank lower and lower as she thought of this. What would Letitia say if she knew? Mary immediately realized that Letitia would not only say, but do anything a desperate woman could to stop it. She would be mad with fury and passion. She would publish her wrong, her version of the story, her account of how Mary Hill had “made up” to the old lord. And yet in her heedlessness she had bidden her dependent to accept the old gentleman, of course, whoever he was, so long as he could provide for her. Mary sat and thought over all these things till her head ached and her brain grew dizzy. She was stiff with cold and agitation and excitement when she got up at last and crept away to the dying fire in the morning-room, which was the only room where any comfort was. She knew already that to be left in charge of the house when the Parkes were away was no pleasant office. The fire in the morning-room was the only fire in that part of the house inhabited by its masters. All the rest had fallen into gloom and emptiness. Mary met the housemaids with their pails as she went upstairs—a thing, it need scarcely be said, never visible when Mrs. Parke was at home. She saw Saunders as she crossed the hall lounging in his shirt sleeves, and smelt the footman’s tobacco. Nobody cared to keep up the decorum of the household for Miss Hill. Who was Miss Hill? Less, a great deal, than an upper servant, who was well paid and knew his place. Nobody had the least intention of putting himself or herself to any restraint or inconvenience to please Miss Hill. Mary knew this very well, and knew it would be necessary to ask as little as possible in order to avoid impertinence. She knew that she was not wanted, that she was considered a spy, left to report upon their doings and limit their freedom. She mended the fire with economy, hoping to be able to keep herself warm all day with the contents of the coal scuttle, not to have to appeal to Saunders for more. And if they only knew! To think that she had so much in her power lying at her feet, waiting her compliance. She laughed unconsciously as she thought of it, and how those impudent servants would abase themselves, and people of far more importance bow before her and put on their best smiles, and all for no virtue of hers, for no change in her, for nothing, but because she had it in her power to become Lady Frogmore.

The reader may think that in all this there was but little question of the chief matter involved, of Lord Frogmore himself, the old gentleman who had it in his power to do so much for Mary. But this did not involve the injury to him that might be supposed, for, as a matter of fact, the idea of accepting Lord Frogmore, and living with him and taking care of him was in no way disagreeable to Mary. She liked the old lord. He had never been anything but kind, respectful, sympathetic to her; he had greatly comforted her amour propre, which was often touched in Letitia’s house and by Letitia’s friends. He had even raised her own opinion of herself which had been sadly broken down by continual snubbing. In every way his society, his friendship, his kindness had been good for Mary. Love was not a thing to be thought of, it was out of date, it was scarcely modest even to suggest it: but that she could and did feel affectionately towards Lord Frogmore, Mary had no doubt, and he asked for no more. There was no drawback on that side. She could have married him had he been the clergyman in the next parish. The difficulties in fact rose chiefly from those tremendous advantages which it was impossible to over-calculate, which seem on the face of them too good to be true. And yet who could be injured by it? Mary asked herself. She would not have anyone despoiled for her. The children could not lose much, and what they lost would only be till she died. She was forty and Duke was five. Perhaps she might not live long enough to see Duke come of age. She would not keep the children long out of their money, and it would be very little. That was the only harm that could happen to them if she married Lord Frogmore.

It is needless to say that Mary thought of nothing else all day. She did not answer the letter, but put it carefully into her desk after having read it over three or four times, and if she hesitated as to what reply she should make, it was not because of any objection she had to Lord Frogmore.

In the afternoon she went to the nursery, where the nurse, a very fine person who considered herself much above supervision even from the mother, received her with scant courtesy. She stood over the children while Mary talked to them, and when little Letty pulled off a bit of old glove to show Mary a little sore finger, nurse made a step forward and pushed the little girl away. “I must ask you, Miss Hill, not to interfere with Miss Letty’s finger. I am treating it in the proper way, and I won’t have any meddling.”

“But I have no desire to meddle,” said Mary, surprised.

“Oh, we all know what it means when a lady is left to spy about,” said the woman, turning little Letty, who began to cry, out of the room.

This was a very unpromising beginning, and nurse would not allow that the children should go downstairs in the evening to hear Mary play, and to sing their little songs about the piano.

“When their mamma is here she can do as she pleases—but I don’t hold with such things,” said the nurse.

Mary was all the more lonely in consequence in the twilight hour, which she was used to employ in amusing the children, and when she went downstairs later to see whether it was the design of the authorities downstairs to give her any dinner, she found Saunders in the dining-room with his elbows on the table and a bottle of wine before him reading the paper. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and by instinct started up, but recollecting himself fell back in his chair and confronted her.

“I consider,” said Saunders, “as this room is not in the ladies part of the ’ouse—but was you wanting anything, Miss ’Ill?”

“You surprise me very much, Saunders,” said Mary, with a little quickening of the breath.

“Mister Saunders, if you please—I don’t think would be out o’ place, miss. I am the head man when master is away.”

“I think you are very much out of place where you are, Saunders—and that Mr. Parke would not be at all pleased——”

“If he knew,” said Saunders. “I don’t say as ’e would. I’m a consulting of my own convenience, not thinking of him; and he’ll never know.”

“How can you tell that? It will be my duty to tell him at once.”

“It’s a duty as you’ll never do. We know you well, all of us, in this ’ouse. And if you’re sensible you’ll take my advice. You’ll be seen to, and kept comfortable, if you don’t give no trouble. Cook is a-sending you up a bit of dinner. You’ll be waited on as good, or better, as you were ever used to—but, Lord bless you, what’s the good of pretending. You was never used to a man like me waiting upon you—and why should you now? John, he says the same thing. We’re very hard worked when they’re at ’ome, and we’re going to have a ’oliday. It won’t make no difference what you say.”

“I don’t care at all,” cried Mary, “whether you wait upon me or not—but you will be so good as to retire from here.”

“And what if I don’t, miss?”

If this was a romantic tale I should recount how the man was subdued, how he hesitated and finally withdrew in obedience to the influence of her presence and the dignity of her look. But I am obliged to say that no such result followed. Saunders, who had been drinking and was just at the point when audacity is paramount, sat leaning with both his elbows on the table, staring across it at the poor lady for whom he would have had no respect whatever had she looked like a queen, and it was Mary who was frightened. She repeated, “I must ask you to retire from this room,” but with a faltering voice, for she knew that she had no authority to enforce her request, and so did he.

“Sorry to disoblige you, miss, if you think it ain’t becoming. But I’m very comfortable, thank ye, here.”

She stood a moment irresolute, not knowing what to do, and then it was she who retired. She said, “I will write to Mr. Parke,” but Saunders replied only with an insolent laugh. And Mary hurried upstairs again with something like terror. She found the footman without his coat on the stairs, carrying down the hunting clothes which John Parke had worn on the previous day, and accompanied by one of the housemaids, who was by way of helping him with jocular snatchings and droppings of the burden. They scarcely paused in their flirtation when Mary appeared. She said, in her mildest tones, “You forget, John, that your mistress likes you to use the backstairs.”

“My missis ain’t here,” said the man; “it’s all one the front stairs or the back stairs when they’re away.”

“I do not think Mrs. Parke would be pleased to hear you say so,” said Mary.

“Well, she don’t hear me say so,” replied the man, with an insolent air.

“Oh, John!” said the housemaid, “don’t answer Miss ’Ill like that. Don’t you know as she’s set over us to see as we does our duties, and tell everything as goes wrong?”

“I don’t hold with no spies, I don’t,” said John, “whether they’s ladies, or whether they’s Irish fellows. I don’t say things behind folks’ backs as I wouldn’t say to their faces; and I says, Miss ’Ill——”

“Be so good as not to speak at all,” said Mary, quickly hurrying past. They burst into a great noise of laughter when she was gone—a shrill celebration of triumph. She got back to the morning room with a sensation of dismay, for which she had no words. She was all alone, with the household in mutiny behind her. She was startled, however, to see that someone was before her arranging neatly enough, and with quiet care, the tray with Mary’s dinner, which, according to Saunders’ instruction, had been sent up there. The maid was an under housemaid—a quiet and good girl, whom they had been kind to. But even she had her part in the revolt. When she had arranged everything, she came up to Mary, who had thrown herself into a chair by the fire.

“I think everything’s here, miss,” she said. “Perhaps you will just look and see if there’s anything more you will want.”

“It will do very well, I am sure, Jane.”

“I want to know, if you please,” said Jane, “whether you will want anything more to-night: for we’re going to have a party in the servants’ hall; and I’d rather get it now than be called after, if you please.”

“You are going to have a party in the servants’ hall?”

“Yes, miss. Mr. Saunders and John is going to do some acting, and there’s going to be a dance. If you’ll excuse me, I shouldn’t like to be called away.”

“I shall not want you any more,” said Mary.

She tried to smile at the festivity which had turned all their heads. But when, a little later, the sounds of the downstairs merriment came peeling up the great staircase, Mary felt like a prisoner abandoned among enemies. She had never felt so much alone as in the dreary silence of the house, with the distant revels going on. A genteel dependent scoffed at by all the conspirators downstairs—and all the while Lord Frogmore’s letter in her desk.

CHAPTER XV.

This strange state of things continued for some days. Mary found herself living as in a state of siege. She was permitted to visit the children in the nursery, and nurse was quite polite. She was also supplied with what she required, her little meals sent to her, the morning-room prepared for her inhabitation, and the housemaid who attended to her civil—but otherwise she was made to understand that her position was one of sufferance, and her presence exceedingly undesirable. This was all the more strange that she had already been left alone in the house on more than one occasion with no such result, the servants, if not very anxious to please her, being always at least observant of civility, and making no stand against her. She reflected, however, that her previous experience had been only of a few days, and that a fortnight was a long time for such a community to be put under the sway of a stranger like herself, whom they had no right to obey, and whom with the spirit of their class they despised as at once better and not so good as themselves—an inferior with the appearance of a superior—far below themselves in independence, while apparently placed over them. Mary being obliged to think upon the subject by the strange circumstances in which she found herself, made all these excuses and explanations of the conduct of the conspirators, and ended by thinking that on the whole it was natural though very uncomfortable, and that she could quite understand their way of thinking. But there was no doubt that it was very unpleasant. Sounds of revelry reached her from the servants’ hall every night; the men lounged about all day and smoked where they pleased; the rooms were locked up and nothing done. Jane, the housemaid, informed her that they all thought they had a right to a rest. “There’s a deal to do in this house. Them hunting and fishing things, if it was nothing else, puts Mr. Saunders and John in a continual worrit, special when there’s gentlemen coming that don’t bring a vally—and half the gentlemen here don’t. We’ve all made up our minds as we’ll have a good rest.”

“They might have done that, Jane, without behaving as they have done, in other ways.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jane, tossing her head. “Men don’t stand being put upon.”

“You do it,” said Mary. “I know that you are not doing any work, and perhaps it is not necessary; but you are civil to me.”

“You was always civil to me, miss,” said Jane. “I don’t like to see you put upon no more than the rest. But you’ll allow as it’s hard upon the men, with their spirits, to have somebody left behind to spy upon them, and that not one of the family. Not quite a—one as isn’t no better, perhaps—oh, I’m sure I beg your pardon, miss!”

“Well,” said Mary, doing what she could to suppress her indignation, “supposing all that was true: how are they to meet Mrs. Parke when she comes home.”

“Oh, miss,” said Jane, “they say you’ll never tell her. Mr. Saunders says as you’ll never throw us all out of our places, and put the family to such inconvenience. It would be dreadful troublesome to get new servants just in the middle of winter. If we all got our month’s warning it would throw it just before Christmas as we left. Mr. Saunders says if you did do it, Mrs. Parke would just pay no attention. It would be inconvenient. And he says he’s sure you’d have more consideration than to make us all lose our places. And Mrs. Cook she says——”

“I don’t want to hear what they say. I think they have neither hearts nor consciences,” said Mary indignantly.

“Oh, as for that, miss,” said Jane, “we’re just the same as other folks, I suppose. We think what’s pleasing to ourselves first.”

And Mary had to admit that if they had neither hearts nor consciences they had heads, and judged the position fairly enough. For though she was very indignant and might have denounced the conspirators on the spur of the moment had she had the opportunity, she knew that her courage would have failed her when it came to the point, and that to deprive the servants of their living was what she never could have done. Saunders had a wife and family. John had a mother whom he was supposed to help. The saucy housemaid was a widow with a child. And it was also true that Letitia would think twice before she dismissed all her servants so near Christmas. The calculation was very close all round. And then the nurse, whose verbal impertinence vexed Mary most, was all the time exceedingly careful of the children. There was nothing to find fault with in that respect. Mary thus felt herself caught in the meshes of the conspiracy, and did not know what to do.

And all the time Lord Frogmore’s letter was locked up in her desk; and she had as yet made no reply to it. It was the thing, perhaps, on the whole which made the persecution in the house less important to her. What did it matter what Saunders and his kind might do? The humiliation which they inflicted made her smart for the moment, but it was not so bad even now as the careless civility which she had borne from their masters, or the no-account which was generally made of such a person as herself in the world. She was well used to all that. And to think that by a word at any moment she would put a stop to it all and change everything! She did not answer the letter she could scarcely tell why. Not that it did not occupy her day and night. She thought of it in all ways, turning it over and over. It was a sort of occupation to her which obliterated everything else to think what she should say. What should she say? And then the long round of questioning, of balancing one side against the other would begin.

There was this advance, however, that Mary had come to a perfect conviction that were she unhampered by others, she herself could be happy with Lord Frogmore. To marry at all and enter upon a mode of life so entirely new is a shock to a middle-aged woman. The old maid has hindrances in her way in this particular which do not affect the girl. She has formed all her habits often with a certain rigidity, and to be brought into relations so close as those of matrimonial life, to give up her seclusion, her privacy, to share everything with another, has a sort of horror in it. Mary too had something of the primness which in some natures accompanies that modest withdrawal from the mysteries of life. To a girl it is all romance, to a woman other reflections come in. She had moments of panic in which she asked herself how she could bear such a revolution of existence. It is, however, so deeply impressed upon the feminine mind that to be married is the better and higher state, a doctrine largely emphasized by the contempt of the foolish, that she was half ashamed of her own shrinking, and knew that everybody would consider it fantastical even if for sheer modesty she had ever breathed to anyone the confession that she felt this panic and shrinking—which was very unlikely. That was a sentiment never to be disclosed, to be got over as best she could, to be ignored altogether. But putting aside that shock to all her habits, both of mind and life, there was nothing in her which objected to Lord Frogmore. He was kind, he was old, he would need her care, her help, her services. He was the least alarming companion that could be thought of: he was sympathetic and understood her—and she thought she understood him.

But Letitia. There the struggle began. Letitia would not like it! Mary could not salve her conscience by the hasty advice given with such frankness by Mrs. Parke. To marry any old gentleman who might present himself with money enough to support her, and provide for her when he died, was one thing. To marry Lord Frogmore was another. The mere idea that Mary might be Lady Anything while Letitia was Mrs. Parke would be an offence—but Lady Frogmore! What would Letitia say? How would she like it. She would never forgive that promotion. The thought of Mary walking out of a room before her, placed at table before her, would drive her frantic. If that were all how gladly would Mary give up to her any such distinction! But that was not all. There were the children who would, as Letitia thought, be defrauded by their uncle’s marriage. That was a matter which it was not so easy to get over. She tried to represent to herself that Lord Frogmore was rich, that it was not certain he would leave all he had to the children, that in any case he would be just; and that whatever he appropriated to himself would at least go back to the children on his death. She had taken out her paper, seated herself at the table, prepared her pen (with little anxious cares that it should be a good one) to write half a dozen times at least—and had been stopped by that thought of the children. That was a thought that could not be got over. To take this away from the children, how could she do it? If she were to endeavor to make the condition that no money should be given to her (which crossed her mind for a moment), Mary had too much good sense not to see that this would be impossible, and also foolish and unjust. And then she had laid down her pen again, and put by her paper, and returned to herself to think out that problem—with equal failure. Defraud the children—take from them their inheritance—how could she do it? she who had been like their aunt, like a second mother. She retired before that thought with continued affright. It was a barrier she could not get over. And so the letter was put off day after day.

She had met the children in their walk one morning, and gone on with them, glad of the companionship, pleased that little Letty should abandon the group to cling to her hand and rub against her with a way the child had, like an affectionate dog, and that Duke in his little imperious way should place himself exactly before her, walking a step in advance, so that Mary had to restrain her own movements not to tread on him, one of these little inconveniences which, to people who love children, are pleasant, as signs of the liking of the little tyrant. She had begun in her usual way to tell them a story when the nurse who walked majestically in the rear of the party interfered.

“If you don’t mind me saying it, miss,” said nurse, who was too well bred herself not to know that this mode of address was particularly offensive to a person of Mary’s age, “I’d much rather you did not tell them stories.”

“But!” cried Mary, with astonishment, “I have always told them stories—it’s what they expect whenever they see me.”

“That may be,” said the nurse, “but I don’t myself hold with working up their little brains like that. When their mamma is here she can judge for herself; but I can’t have them put off their sleep, and excited, and not able to get their proper rest——”

“But that has never happened,” cried Mary.

“It’s quite soon enough then if it happens now.”

“Well, no doubt that is unanswerable,” said Mary, with a laugh, and she added half playfully, half vexed, “I think you want to keep me from saying anything to the children at all.”

“I don’t want to be any way disagreeable, miss,” said nurse, “but so long as my mistress is away and I’ve all the responsibility, that is just what I’d like best.”

“Why,” cried Mary, inadvertently. “I stayed here on purpose.”

“To spy upon us and watch all we did,” said the woman red and angry. “We all know that; and that is just what I will never put up with if there wasn’t another situation in the world.”

Mary had for the moment forgotten the humiliation of her present position which made this sudden assault almost more than she could bear. She disengaged herself with a little difficulty from the children and hurried in, feeling that she must take some immediate resolution and free herself from these insults. Saunders and the footman were playing a game of billiards in the hall when she entered hastily, the great door being open. In the extreme freedom of this new regime, Saunders, so proper and correct in the presence of his master, had fallen into habits of self-indulgence, and was, indeed, most generally under an exhilarating influence, which made him very ready to exhibit his wit at the expense of any butt that might present itself, secure of the admiration and applause of his subordinates in the house. Mary had become rather afraid of an encounter with the butler in these circumstances, and started a little as she came suddenly upon him in her hurried passage indoors. He came forward to meet her with his cue in his hand.

“Well, Miss ’Ill,” he said, “I hope I see you well this fine mornin’. Been to the post to send off your report, eh; and tell how the servants is going on?”

“Let me pass,” Mary said.

“We hope you’ve given us a good report, miss. We’re nothing but poor servants astrivin’ to do our dooties,” said Saunders, with an air of mock humility, which sent the footman into such screams of obsequious laughter that he had to throw down his cue and hold his sides with exclamations of “Oh, Lord, don’t, Mr. Saunders! You’ll kill me with laughing afore you’ve done.”

“And if you was to give us a bad report what ’ud become of us?” said Saunders. “But we hopes you won’t say nothing more than you can prove, Miss ’Ill. And what are you?” he added, changing his tone, “but a servant yourself, and worse off than any of us—currying favor with bringing other folks into trouble, or tryin’ to bring folks into trouble; but you’ll not succeed this time, miss, I’ll promise you. We knows what to expect, and we’re on our guard. Hi, old man! what are you wanting? The bosses ain’t at home; can’t you see that with half an eye? Stop a bit, miss, I ain’t done with you yet.”

“Oh, good Lord, Mr. Saunders!” cried the footman, in a tone of alarm.

“Let me pass, please,” said Mary, trembling, and quite unaware what strong succours had arrived behind.

The next sound was a firm foot upon the floor coming in—the next a voice which made Mary’s heart jump up to her throat.

“Where is my brother, sir—where is your master? and how dare you speak to a lady like that?” said Lord Frogmore.

Lord Frogmore! Saunders himself—whose countenance was a wonder to behold as he dropped the cue and backed against the table limp and helpless, his mouth open, his eyes bursting from their sockets with wonder and fright—was scarcely more discomposed than Mary, who felt herself in a moment vindicated, restored to her proper place, protected and avenged—yet at the same time more agitated and shaken than she had ever been in her life. She turned round and saw him before her, his eyes sparkling with anger, his neat small person towering, as it seemed, over the discomfited servants driven back by the first glance of him into servile humiliation. Lord Frogmore’s voice, which generally was a mild and rather small voice, thundered through the hall. “You disrespectful rascal! How dare you speak to a lady in that tone?”

“My lord!” Saunders cried, faltering. At first he could not even think of a word to say for himself. The footman discreetly stole away.

“My brother is absent, I suppose, and Mrs. Parke; and you cowardly scamp, you wretched snob, you take this opportunity——”

“Oh, Lord Frogmore, don’t be severe upon the man. He thought I had written about him to his mistress. Please don’t say any more.”

“I shall write about him to his mistress,” said Lord Frogmore, “or to his master, which will be more effectual. John Parke is no brother of mine if he does not turn such a fellow neck and crop out of the house. Get out of my sight, you brute, if you don’t want to be kicked out.” Saunders was twice Lord Frogmore’s size and half his age, but the old gentleman made him cower like a whipped dog. He made a faint effort to bluster.

“I’m responsible to my own master, my lord: I’ll answer to him.”

“By Jove,” said the old lord. “You shall answer to a sound thrashing if you stay here a moment longer. Out of my sight! Miss Hill,” he said, turning round and offering Mary his arm, “I suppose there is some room where I can say a word to you. It is clear that you cannot remain an hour longer in this house.”

CHAPTER XVI.

These thoughts surged through her mind as she went upstairs with him through the empty house, in which all at once instinctively, without anything said, she had become as a queen. There was no longer any question in her mind as to what she should say. All was said it seemed to Mary. Could the lady who had been delivered from the dragon think what she should say to her Redcross Knight? It was ridiculous to be so highflown—and yet it was the only simile she could think of. Dragons are different in different cases—sometimes they mean only poverty, humiliation, the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes, and not any great heroic danger, which the champion can make an end of: her champion had ended for her in a moment the fear of all these things. He had made her see what would be her fate henceforward if she trusted herself to him. He was a little gentleman, of short stature, of appearance rather neat than fine, resembling anything in the world rather than St. George. He was old—was he old? surely not so old as was thought—surely not as Letitia made him out, an antediluvian, a person out of date, whom only his own egotism and the care of Rogers kept alive to keep other people out of their rights. To look at him with his active step, his eyes that grew quite bright and blue in his anger, the color as of a winter apple in his cheek, his neat well cared for person—it was almost absurd, Mary thought, to call him an old man at all.

Lord Frogmore put her in a chair when they reached the morning-room, and bade her rest a little. “I came to see if there was not an answer to my letter,” he said, “but there are other things more important to be thought of first. How long have you been here alone exposed to these impertinences? You can’t be left to run such a risk again.”

“Oh, it doesn’t really matter now—it is all over now,” said Mary, with a faint smile.

“You are trembling still,” said the old lord. “I have a thousand minds to go and thrash the fellow still.”

“Oh, no,” she said, putting out her hand as if to detain him. “I am not afraid of anything now.”

The old gentleman took the hand which she held out. “Do you mean to give me this, Mary?” he said.

Upon this she roused herself, and with a changing color made her last stand, “Oh, Lord Frogmore, I could do nothing that would be injurious to the children,” she said.

“The children—what children? There are no children,” said the old lord, thinking of himself only and his own concerns. Then he perceived her meaning with a sudden, quick start, letting her hand drop in his impatience. “What,” he said, “is it John’s children you are bringing up in this ridiculous way? My dear, when John succeeds me he will be quite rich enough to provide for his own children. I have nothing to do with them. If you put the children in my way and in the way of my happiness in my old age, they shall never get a penny from me. I shall leave everything I can away from them. Be sure you will do them harm, and not good by bringing them up between you and me.”

“Lord Frogmore—I would not do them harm for anything in the world.”

“Well,” he said, with a smile, “you will do them a great deal of harm if you bring them in between us. I remember now what Mrs. John told you. That all I had belonged to them. She is an odious woman.”

“Lord Frogmore.”

“Don’t say anything more, my dear. She is an odious woman. You have not found it out, because you think everybody as good as yourself. She it is who is the cause of the impudence of her servants as well as of any other wrong things. No, my dear, let Mrs. John and her brats go by. I am an old man, Mary, that is the worst of it. I can’t hope to stand by you very long. Do you think you can like me well enough to give me the best chance of living to be a Methuselah? I’ll live as long as ever I can if you’ll share my life with me, Mary, my dear.”

“Oh, Lord Frogmore!” she said.

And, as a matter of fact, Mary said very little more. They came to understand each other very thoroughly without many words on her part. When the hour of luncheon arrived it produced no tray carried by the under-housemaid, as was usual, but John, the footman, in his best livery to announce that my lord was served in the dining-room. “You mean Miss Hill is served,” said the old gentleman, sternly. And John humbly begged his lordship’s pardon. Saunders kept out of sight, not trusting himself in Lord Frogmore’s presence. And the way in which Lord Frogmore talked at lunch was soon reported all over the house, and carried an universal shudder. “I shall lose no time in letting my brother know what has been going on,” he said. “And I don’t think you should stay here any longer. Mrs. John would be unhappy if she knew to what you are exposed.”

“Oh,” said Mary; “they will be kinder now.”

“Kinder! I could not let any lady run such a risk. I suppose they know that you would not say anything as long as you could help it. That is the penalty of being too good.”

“They did not think at all,” said Mary. “They supposed I was to be a spy and tell everything. But don’t please take much notice, Lord Frogmore. In another month Mr. Parke and Letitia will be back again.”

“You must not remain another night,” said the old gentleman. “Allow me to have the pleasure of taking you home. I cannot consent to your remaining here.”

John went downstairs much and deeply impressed. He told the assembled company in the servants’ hall that his lordship had said nothing to him personally. “But the rest of you may just get ready to go. Mr. Saunders won’t get even his month’s warning. That much I can tell you, and you’ll have to clear out—but there’s nothing against me.”

“Nobody can say,” said cook, “as I’ve shown any incivility to Miss ’Ill. I’m one as likes Miss ’Ill. I always did say as you was going too far.”

“I’ve never said a word good, bad, or indifferent,” said the housemaid, “since the first day: and then it was John as sauced her, and I only looked on.”

“I never sauced her,” cried John.

Saunders alone was silent. His confederates had all given him up as is inevitable in such circumstances, and it was very evident that there was no help possible for him. There was dismay also in the nursery, but in those regions the authorities held apart and did not compromise themselves in the servants’ hall.

Mary, however, felt herself taken hold of as by a little beneficent providence when she was taken in hand by Lord Frogmore. He arranged at once a little programme for her. It was too late now to go up so far as Yorkshire that afternoon, so he permitted her to remain for the night at Greenpark, to pack and arrange for her journey. He himself in the meanwhile would remain at the railway hotel near the station, and in the morning he would come for her and take her home. It was very startling to Mary to be thus swept away. She had herself strongly developed the instinct of putting up with what was disagreeable—with the certainty that there were many things in life which it was impossible to mend, and which had to be borne as cheerfully as possible. But Lord Frogmore had no mind to put up with anything. The idea of enduring a moment’s annoyance which could be prevented seemed folly to the imperative old gentleman. The difference was that he had always had it in his power to prevent the greater part at least of the annoyances of life, whereas Mary never had possessed that power. He whirled her away next day in a reserved carriage with all the luxury with which it was possible to surround a railway journey—she who had been accustomed to a humble corner in the second class! and deposited her that evening in the vicarage in a tumult of joy and excitement which it would be impossible to describe. The old people, the vicar and his wife, were indeed full of alarm, terrified by the telegram that announced Mary’s immediate return, and troubled to think that something must have happened to account for so sudden and important a journey. They had comforted each other by the reflection that it could not be Mary’s fault. Mary who was always so good and patient. But an event so sudden is always alarming, and it took them a long time to understand the rights of the matter, and what Lord Frogmore had to do with it and what they had to do with him. Old Mr. Hill was not very much older than Lord Frogmore, but he was not nearly so lively either in intelligence or in physique, and it required a great deal of explanation to make him understand the real state of the case. Mary going to marry—that old gentleman! This was the first thought of the unsophisticated household. The thought that Mary was to become Lady Frogmore did not penetrate their minds till some time after. As for Mary herself the process was quite different. She had actually forgotten that Lord Frogmore was an old gentleman nearly as old as her father, and the idea of being Lady Frogmore had become quite familiar, and caused her no excitement. She was still troubled about Letitia, and the possible money to the children, but otherwise she had begun to regard her own prospects with a satisfied calm. It is astonishing how quickly the mind accustoms itself to a new resolution even when it entails a revolution in life. Mary was surprised, and even a little offended, that her family should have so much difficulty in understanding her position. “My dear,” her mother said, “I hope you have well considered what you are going to do. Lord Frogmore is a very nice gentleman, but he is only five years younger than your father. I looked him up in the peerage. Mary, he is sixty-six.”

“Is that all?” said Mary. “Letitia speaks as if he were a hundred: but, mother, for a woman, forty is almost as old.”

“Oh, what nonsense,” said Mrs. Hill, “more than a quarter of a century of difference. It is a great temptation in a worldly point of view, my dear, but Mary——!”

Mr. Hill was a venerable person of large bulk, whose voice came out of the depths of his throat, and who was, Mary said to herself with energy, a hundred years older than Lord Frogmore. He had a large head, with heavy white hair, and always a solemn aspect. This big white head he shook slowly at his daughter and said, mumbling, “You must think it well over. My child, you must think it well over—we mustn’t do anything rashly.” As if it were possible to deliberate further when everything was settled, when Mary had brought her old lover home and accepted his escort and allowed him to disentangle her from her troubles. She felt vexed and angry with the objections, which proved what excellent people, how unworldly, and how simple-minded her parents were.

“What I think of is Tisch—and what a fuss she will be in,” said Agnes, Mary’s sister, in whose voice there was perhaps a note of exultation over the discomfiture of Letitia. This it was that made Mary falter and grow pale. Her just duty was to write to Letitia, and how, oh, how, was this to be done! The other remarks of her family only made her impatient with their futility—as if she did not like Lord Frogmore as well, nay better, for being old and having need of her! But Letitia! She put it off for three days pleading to herself that she was tired; that she must have a rest; that until Lord Frogmore went away she could do nothing. To tell the truth it was a relief when Lord Frogmore went away. The shabby little vicarage on the edge of the moors was not congenial to him. He did not know what to say to the mumbling old vicar, who was so very conscious of being only five years older than his intending son-in-law, but who was a-hundred years older as Mary truly felt. And there was but one spare room at the vicarage, the chimney of which, being very little used, smoked when a fire was lit (the Hills themselves had no fires in their bedrooms on the theory that it was a piece of self-indulgence and extravagance, though coal was cheap enough), and there was not a corner for Rogers, without whom Lord Frogmore was not at his ease, nor taken care of as he required to be. These drawbacks a bridegroom of twenty-six or thirty-six might have made a jest of, but at sixty-six it is another matter. And Mary was very glad when he went away. He was to return in a fortnight for the marriage with a special licence, though there was just time for the banns to be proclaimed in Grocombe church three Sundays, a formula which the vicar would not dispense with. Mary saw the old lord away with a sense of satisfaction. But she went back to the vicarage with a cold trembling all over her. The letter to Letitia could be put off no longer.

Truth compels us to say that it was a most specious letter—a letter in which innocence was made to look like guilt, a letter full of excuses, of explanations, of deprecations, trying to show how she could have done nothing else, how no harm could follow, and yet that the culprit was conscious of a thousand dreadful consequences. The effort of writing it made Mary ill. She kept her bed in a fever of anxiety and excitement, counting the hours till Letitia should receive it, thinking, with her heart in her mouth, “Now she has got it, what will she say? What will she do?”

It did not take a very long time to show what Letitia meant to say and do. Mary thought the world had come to an end when she heard by return of post, as it were, a carriage, that is a cab from the nearest station rattle up to the door with every crazy spring and buckle jingling as if in fury, and heard a whirlwind in the passage, and, rising up, tremblingly beheld her mother’s little parlor fill, as by an excited crowd, with two impetuous figures—Letitia, pale with passion, and behind her the imposing form of the Dowager Lady Frogmore.