"I"m afraid I"m making you laugh at me," she apologised, "but that story always gives me such a romantic feeling. I like her so."
"Oh! not at all, not all," said Osborn. "I was not laughing really; oh no!"
But he had been, and had been secretly calling her a sentimental, ramping idiot.
It was a great day for Jane Cupp when her mother arrived at Palstrey Manor. It was a great day for Mrs. Cupp also. When she descended from the train at the little country station, warm and somewhat flushed by her emotions and the bugled splendours of her best bonnet and black silk mantle, the sight of Jane standing neatly upon the platform almost overcame her. Being led to his lordship"s own private bus, and seeing her trunk surrounded by the attentions of an obsequious station-master and a liveried young man, she was conscious of concealing a flutter with dignified reserve.
"My word, Jane!" she exclaimed after they had taken their seats in the vehicle. "My word, you look as accustomed to it as if you had been born in the family."
But it was when, after she had been introduced to the society in the servants" hall, she was settled in her comfortable room next to Jane"s own that she realised to the full that there were features of her position which marked it with importance almost startling. As Jane talked to her, the heat of the genteel bonnet and beaded mantle had nothing whatever to do with the warmth which moistened her brow.
"I thought I"d keep it till I saw you, mother," said the girl decorously. "I know what her ladyship feels about being talked over. If I was a lady myself, I shouldn"t like it. And I know how deep you"ll feel it, that when the doctor advised her to get an experienced married person to be at hand, she said in that dear way of hers, "Jane, if your uncle could spare your mother, how I should like to have her. I"ve never forgot her kindness in Mortimer Street.""
Mrs. Cupp fanned her face with a handkerchief of notable freshness.
"If she was Her Majesty," she said, "she couldn"t be more sacred to me, nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege."
Jane had begun to put her mother"s belongings away. She was folding and patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then lifted a rather embarra.s.sed face.
"I"m glad you _are_ here, mother," she said. "I"m thankful to _have_ you!"
Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression.
She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half whisper.
"Why, Jane, what is it?"
Jane came nearer.
"I don"t know," she answered, and her voice also was low. "Perhaps I"m silly and overanxious, because I _am_ so fond of her. But that Ameerah, I actually dream about her."
"What! The black woman?"
"If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we feel? I"ve kept my nerves to myself till I"ve nearly screamed sometimes.
And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But--well," in a hurried outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns wasn"t. I do wish it, I tell you that."
"Good Lord!" cried Mrs. Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip.
She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic view of any case offering her an opening in that direction.
"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they"d try to take her life?"
"Goodness, no!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jane, with even a trifle of impatience.
"People like them daren"t. But suppose they was to try to, well, to upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be."
After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers, Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother"s. They sat knee to knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness. She was so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady.
"At all events," was Mrs. Cupp"s weighty observation when their conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there"s things to be looked out for."
Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah"s, and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native woman knew that she was being remarked, she gave no sign of her knowledge. She performed her duties faithfully and silently, she gave no trouble, and showed a gentle subservience and humbleness towards the white servants which won immense approbation. Her manner towards Mrs.
Cupp"s self was marked indeed by something like a tinge of awed deference, which, it must be confessed, mollified the good woman, and awakened in her a desire to be just and lenient even to the dark of skin and alien of birth.
"She knows her betters when she sees them, and has pretty enough manners for a black," the object of her respectful obeisances remarked. "I wonder if she"s ever heard of her Maker, and if a little brown Testament with good print wouldn"t be a good thing to give her?"
This boon was, in fact, bestowed upon her as a gift. Mrs. Cupp bought it for a shilling at a small shop in the village. Ameerah, in whose dusky being was incorporated the occult faith of lost centuries, and whose G.o.ds had been G.o.ds through mystic ages, received the fat, little brown book with down-dropped lids and grateful obeisance. These were her words to her mistress:
"The fat old woman with protruding eyes bestowed it upon me. She says it is the book of her G.o.d. She has but one. She wishes me to worship him.
Am I a babe to worship such a G.o.d as would please her. She is old, and has lost her mind."
Lady Walderhurst"s health continued all that could be desired. She arose smiling in the morning, and bore her smile about with her all day. She walked much in the gardens, and spent long, happy hours sewing in her favourite sitting-room. Work which she might have paid other women to do, she did with her own hands for the mere sentimental bliss of it.
Sometimes she sat with Hester and sewed, and Hester lay on a sofa and stared at her moving hands.
"You know how to do it, don"t you?" she once said.
"I was obliged to sew for myself when I was so poor, and this is delightful," was Emily"s answer.
"But you could buy it all and save yourself the trouble."
Emily stroked her bit of cambric and looked awkward.
"I"d rather not," she said.
Well as she was, she began to think she did not sleep quite so soundly as had been habitual with her. She started up in bed now and again as if she had been disturbed by some noise, but when she waited and listened she heard nothing. At least this happened on two or three occasions. And then one night, having been lying folded in profound, sweet sleep, she sprang up in the black darkness, wakened by an actual, physical reality of sensation, the soft laying of a hand upon her naked side,--that, and nothing else.
"What is that? Who is there?" she cried. "Someone is in the room!"
Yes, someone was there. A few feet from her bed she heard a sobbing sigh, then a rustle, then followed silence. She struck a match and, getting up, lighted candles. Her hand shook, but she remembered that she must be firm with herself.
"I must not be nervous," she said, and looked the room over from end to end.
But it contained no living creature, nor any sign that living creature had entered it since she had lain down to rest. Gradually the fast beating of her heart had slackened, and she pa.s.sed her hand over her face in bewilderment.
"It wasn"t like a dream at all," she murmured; "it really wasn"t. I _felt_ it."
Still as absolutely nothing was to be found, the sense of reality diminished somewhat, and being so healthy a creature, she regained her composure, and on going back to bed slept well until Jane brought her early tea.
Under the influence of fresh morning air and sunlight, of ordinary breakfast and breakfast talk with the Osborns, her first convictions receded so far that she laughed a little as she related the incident.
"I never had such a real dream in my life," she said; "but it must have been a dream."
"One"s dreams are very real sometimes," said Hester.
"Perhaps it was the Palstrey ghost," Osborn laughed. "It came to you because you ignore it." He broke off with a slight sudden start and stared at her a second questioningly. "Did you say it put its hand on your side?" he asked.
"Don"t tell her silly things that will frighten her. How ridiculous of you," exclaimed Hester sharply. "It"s not proper."
Emily looked at both of them wonderingly.
"What do you mean?" she said. "I don"t believe in ghosts. It won"t frighten me, Hester. I never even heard of a Palstrey ghost."