"How have you been, Jemima? Taking care of yourself, I hope?"
"Quite well, thank you, Miss Deveen; and very glad to see you at home again," returned Cattledon. "This is my niece, Janet Carey."
A slight, small girl, with smooth brown hair and a quiet face that looked as if it had just come out of some wasting illness, was hiding herself behind Cattledon. Miss Deveen said a few pleasant words of welcome, and took her hand. The girl looked as shy and frightened as though we had all been a pack of gorillas.
"Thank you, ma"am; you are very kind," she said in a tremble; and her voice, I noticed, was low and pleasant. I like nice voices, whether in man or woman.
"It wants but half-an-hour to dinner-time," said Miss Deveen, untying the strings of her bonnet. "Miss Cattledon, will you show these young friends of ours the rooms you have appropriated to them."
My room and Tod"s--two beds in it--was on the second floor; Helen and Anna had the best company room below, near Miss Deveen"s; Bill had a little one lower still, half-way up the first flight of stairs. Miss Cattledon"s room, we found out, was next to ours, and her niece slept with her.
Tod threw himself full length on his counterpane--tired out, he said.
Certain matters had not gone very smoothly for him at Oxford, and the smart remained.
"You"ll be late, Tod," I said when I was ready.
"Plenty of time, Johnny. I don"t suppose I shall keep dinner waiting."
Miss Deveen stood at the door of the blue room when I went down: that pretty sitting-room, exclusively hers, that I remembered so well. She had on a purple silk gown, with studs of pale yellow topaz in its white lace front, studs every whit as beautiful as the emeralds made free with by Sophie Chalk.
"Come in here, Johnny."
She was beginning to talk to me as we stood by the fire, when some one was heard to enter the inner room; Miss Deveen"s bed-chamber, which opened from this room as well as from the landing. She crossed over into it, and I heard Cattledon"s voice.
"It is so very kind of you, Miss Deveen, to have allowed me to bring my niece here! Under the circ.u.mstances--with such a cloud upon her----"
"She is quite welcome," interrupted Miss Deveen"s voice.
"Yes, I know that; I know it: and I could not go down without thanking you. I have told Lettice to take some tea up to her while we dine. She can come to the drawing-room afterwards if you have no objection."
"Why can"t she dine with us?" asked Miss Deveen.
"Better not," said Cattledon. "She does not expect it; and with so many at table----"
"Nonsense!" came Miss Deveen"s quick, decisive interruption. "Many at table! There are sufficient servants to wait on us, and I suppose you have sufficient dinner. Go and bring her down."
Miss Deveen came back, holding out her hand to me as she crossed the room. The gong sounded as we went down to the drawing-room. They all came crowding in, Tod last; and we went in to dinner.
Miss Deveen, with her fresh, handsome face and her snow-white hair, took the head of the table. Cattledon, at the foot, a green velvet ribbon round her genteel throat, helped the soup. William Whitney sat on Miss Deveen"s right, I on her left. Janet Carey sat next to him--and this brought her nearly opposite me.
She had an old black silk on, with a white frill at the throat--very poor and plain as contrasted with the light gleaming silks of Helen and Anna. But she had nice eyes; their colour a light hazel, their expression honest and sweet. It was a pity she could not get some colour into her wan face, and a little courage into her manner.
After coffee we sat down in the drawing-room to a round game at cards, and then had some music; Helen playing first. Janet Carey was at the table, looking at a view in an alb.u.m. I went up to her.
Had I caught her staring at some native Indians tarred and feathered, she could not have given a worse jump. It might have been fancy, but I thought her face turned white.
"Did I startle you, Miss Carey? I am very sorry."
"Oh, thank you--no. Every one is very kind. The truth is"--pausing a moment and looking at the view--"I knew the place in early life, and was lost in old memories. Past times and events connected with it came back to me. I recognized the place at once, though I was only ten years old when I left it."
"Places do linger on the memory in a singularly vivid manner sometimes.
Especially those we have known when young."
"I can recognize every spot in this," she said, gazing still at the alb.u.m. "And I have not seen it for fifteen years."
"Fifteen. I--I understood you to say you were ten years old when you left it."
"So I was. I am twenty-five now."
So much as that! So much older than any of us! I could hardly believe it.
"I should not have taken you for more than seventeen, Miss Carey."
"At seventeen I went out to earn my own living," she said, in a sad tone, but with a candour that I liked. "That is eight years ago."
Helen"s music ceased with a crash. Miss Deveen came up to Janet Carey.
"My dear, I hear you can sing: your aunt tells me so. Will you sing a song, to please me?"
She was like a startled fawn: looking here, looking there, and turning white and red. But she rose at once.
"I will sing if you wish it, madam. But my singing is only plain singing: just a few old songs. I have never learnt to sing."
"The old songs are the best," said Miss Deveen. "Can you sing that sweet song of all songs--"Blow, blow, thou wintry wind"?"
She went to the piano, struck the chords quietly, without any flourish or prelude, and began the first note.
Oh the soft, sweet, musical voice that broke upon us! Not a powerful voice, that astounds the nerves like an electric machine; but one of that intense, thrilling, plaintive harmony which brings a mist to the eye and a throb to the heart. Tod backed against the wall to look at her; Bill, who had taken up the cat, let it drop through his knees.
You might have heard a pin drop when the last words died away: "As friends remembering not." Miss Deveen broke the silence: praising her and telling her to go on again. The girl did not seem to have the least notion of refusing: she appeared to have lived under submission. I think Miss Deveen would have liked her to go on for ever.
"The wonder to me is that you can remember the accompaniment to so many songs without your notes," cried Helen Whitney.
"I do not know my notes. I cannot play."
"Not know your notes!"
"I never learnt them. I never learnt music. I just play some few chords by ear that will harmonize with the songs. That is why my singing is so poor, so different from other people"s. Where I have been living they say it is not worth listening to."
She spoke in a meek, deprecating manner. I had heard of self-depreciation: this was an instance of it. Janet Carey was one of the humble ones.
The next day was Good Friday. We went to church under lowering clouds, and came home again to luncheon. Cattledon"s face was all vinegar when we sat down to it.
"There"s that woman downstairs again!--that Ness!" she exclaimed with acrimony. "Making herself at home with the servants!"
"I"m glad to hear it," smiled Miss Deveen. "She"ll get some dinner, poor thing."
Cattledon sniffed. "It"s not a month since she was here before."