"What is it then? You had better tell me at once. I hate concealment."
It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground.
"I beg your pardon, ma"am; but I don"t think missis would like any body to know, and therefore I"d rather not tell you."
Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing underhand, but she respected the right of every human being to maintain silence if necessary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth"s face, which apparently re-a.s.sured her, for she said, not unkindly,
"Very well, child, keep your mistress"s secrets by all means. Only tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch Miss Hilary at once?"
Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not do; it would be better just to send the note the first thing to-morrow morning, and then Miss Hilary would come home just as if nothing had happened, and Miss Leaf would not be frighted by her sudden appearance.
"You are a good, mindful girl," said Miss Balquidder. "How did you learn to be so sensible?"
At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she was very near it.
Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative voice--
"David, is your wife away to her bed yet?"
"No, ma"am."
"Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor la.s.sie?
She"s awfully tired, you see."
"Yes, ma"am."
And following David"s gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen, seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder"s goodness and generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed possible under the circ.u.mstances.
CHAPTER XVI.
Next morning, while with that cheerful, unanxious countenance which those about an invalid must learn continually to wear, Elizabeth was trying to persuade her mistress not to rise, she heard a knock, and made some excuse for escaping. She well knew what it was and who had come.
There, in the parlor, sat Miss Hilary, Mrs. Jones talking at her rather than to her, for she hardly seemed to hear. But that she had heard every thing was clear enough. Her drawn white face, the tight clasp of her hands, showed that the ill tidings had struck her hard.
"Go away, Mrs. Jones," cried Elizabeth, fiercely. "Miss Hilary will call when she wants you."
And with an ingenious movement that just fell short of a push, somehow the woman was got on the other side of the parlor door, which Elizabeth immediately shut. Then Miss Hilary stretched her hands across the table and looked up piteously in her servant"s face.
Only a servant; only that poor servant to whom she could look for any comfort in this sore trouble, this bitter humiliation. There was no attempt at disguise or concealment between mistress and maid.
"Mrs. Jones has told me every thing, Elizabeth. How is my sister? She does not know?"
"No; and I think she is a good deal better this morning. She has been very bad all week; only she would not let me send for you. She is really getting well now; I"m sure of that!"
"Thank G.o.d!" And then Miss Hilary began to weep.
Elizabeth also was thankful, even for those tears, for she had been perplexed by the hard, dry-eyed look of misery, deeper than anything she could comprehend, or than the circ.u.mstances seemed to warrant.
It was deeper. The misery was not only Ascott"s arrest; many a lad has got into debt and got out again--the first taste of the law proving a warning to him for life; but it was this ominous "beginning of the end." The fatal end--which seemed to overhang like a hereditary cloud, to taint as with hereditary disease, the Leaf family.
Another bitterness (and who shall blame it, for when love is really love, have not the lovers a right to be one another"s first thought?)--what would Robert Lyon say? To his honest Scotch nature poverty was nothing; honor every thing. She knew his horror of debt was even equal to her own. This, and her belief in his freedom from all false pride, had sustained her against many doubts lest he might think the less of her because of her present position--might feel ashamed could he see her sitting at her ledger in that high desk, or even occasionally serving in the shop.
Many a time things she would have pa.s.sed over lightly on her own account she had felt on his; felt how they would annoy and vex him.
The exquisitely natural thought which Tennyson has put into poetry--
"If I am dear to some one else, Then I should be to myself more dear"--
had often come, prosaically enough perhaps, into her head, and prevented her from spoiling her little hands with unnecessarily rough work, or carelessly pa.s.sing down ill streets and by-ways, where she knew Robert Lyon, had he been in London, would never have allowed her to go. Now what did such things signify? What need of taking care of herself? These were all superficial, external disgraces, the real disgrace was within. The plague-spot had burst out anew; it seemed as if this day were the recommencement of that bitter life of penury, misery, and humiliation, familiar through three generations to the women of the Leaf family.
It appeared like a fate. No use to try and struggle out of it, stretching her arms up to Robert Lyon"s tender, honest, steadfast heart, there to be sheltered, taken care of, and made happy. No happiness for her! Nothing but to go on enduring and enduring to the end.
Such was Hilary"s first emotion; morbid perhaps, yet excusable. It might have lasted longer--though in her healthy nature it could not have lasted very long--had not the reaction come, suddenly and completely, by the opening of the parlor door, and the appearance of Miss Leaf.
Miss Leaf--pale, indeed; but neither alarmed nor agitated, who hearing somehow that her child had arrived, had hastily dressed herself, and come down stairs, in order not to frighten Hilary. And as she took her in her arms, and kissed her with those mother-like kisses, which were the sweetest Hilary had as yet ever known--the sharp anguish went out of the poor girl"s heart.
"Oh, Johanna! I can bear any thing as long as I have you"
And so in this simple and natural way the miserable secret about Ascott came out.
Being once out, it did not seem half so dreadful; nor was its effect nearly so serious as Miss Hilary and Elizabeth had feared.--Miss Leaf bore it wonderfully; she might almost have known it beforehand; they would have thought she had, but that she said decidedly she had not.
"Still you need not have minded telling me; though it was very good and thoughtful of you Elizabeth. You have gone through a great deal for our sakes, my poor girl."
Elizabeth burst into one smothered sob the first and the last.
"Nay," said Miss Leaf, very kindly; for this unwonted emotion in their servant moved them both. "You shall tell me the rest another time. Go down now, and get Miss Hilary some breakfast."
When Elizabeth had departed the sisters turned to one another. They did not talk much; where was the use of it? They both knew the worst, both as to facts and fears.
"What must be done. Johanna?"
Johanna, after a long pause, said, "I see but one thing--to get him home."
Hilary started up, and walked to and fro along the room.
"No, not that. I will never agree to it.--We can not help him. He does not deserve helping. If the debts were for food now, or any necessaries; but for mere luxuries, mere fine clothes; it is his tailor who has arrested him, you know. I would rather have gone in rags! I would rather see us all in rags!--It"s mean, selfish, cowardly, and I despise him for it. Though he is my own flesh and blood, I despise him."
"Hilary!"
"No." and the tears burst from her angry eyes, "I don"t mean that I despise him. I"m sorry for him: there is good in him, poor dear lad; but I despise his weakness; I feel fierce to think how much it will cost us all, and especially you, Johanna. Only think what comforts of all sorts that thirty pounds would have brought to you!"
"G.o.d will provide," said Johanna, earnestly. "But I know, my dear, this is sharper to you than to me. Besides, I have been more used to it."
She closed her eyes, with a half shudder, as if living over again the old days--when Henry Leaf"s wife and eldest daughter used to have to give dinner parties upon food that stuck in their throats, as if every morsel had been stolen; which in truth it was, and yet they were helpless, innocent thieves; when they and the children had to wear clothes that seemed to poison them like the shirt of Dejanira; when they durst not walk along special streets, nor pa.s.s particular shops, for the feeling that the shop people must be staring, and pointing, and jibing at them, "Pay me what thou owest!"
"But things can not again be so bad as those days, Hilary. Ascott is young; he may mend. People can mend, my child; and he had such a different bringing up from what his father had, and his grandfather, too. We must not be hopeless yet. You see," and making Hilary kneel down before her, she took her by both hands, as if to impart something of her own quietness to this poor heart, struggling as young, honest, upright hearts do struggle with something which their whole nature revolts against, and loathes, and scorns--"you see, the boy is our boy; our own flesh and blood. We were very foolish to let him away from us for so long. We might have made him better if we had kept him at s...o...b..ry. But he is young; that is my hope of him; and he was always fond of his aunts, and is still, I think."