"Yes, it does matter," persisted the other. "If it is really true, this is no place for us; and if it be untrue, some one ought to put an end to it. I have nothing but my character, and if that goes, all goes. Now, I ask you to tell me, Emma, ought I to go or stay?"
My nurse was silent for some few minutes, then she said:
"You had better go. While missie and my lady stop here, I shall stay, and when they go, I go. My duty is to them."
Then I raised my white, miserable face from the pillow.
"Do not say any more," I cried. "I am not asleep, and I understand it all."
"Law, bless the dear young lady!" cried Alice, aghast. "I would not have spoken for the world if I had known"--
But I interrupted her.
"It does not matter, Alice," I said. "You meant no harm, and I am old in misery, though young in years."
The girl went away, and Emma flung herself on her knees before me.
"I am so sorry, Miss Laura," she began, "but I had not patience to listen--my heart was full of one thing."
"Emma," I said, "tell me, do you think mamma really knows or suspects any of these things?"
"No," was the quiet reply, "I do not. I will tell you why, Miss Laura.
If my lady even thought so, she would not allow Miss Reinhart to remain in the house another hour with you."
"I am going to papa now, and I shall ask him to send my governess away,"
I said. "She shall not stop here."
CHAPTER XI.
My father had always been kind to me--he had never used a harsh word to me. My heart was full--it was almost bursting--when I went to him. The shame, the degradation, the horror, were full upon me. Surely he would hear reason. I dared not stop to think. I hastened to him. I flung my arms round his neck and hid my face upon his breast. My pa.s.sionate sobs frightened him at first.
"My dearest Laura, what is the matter?" he asked.
"Papa, send Miss Reinhart away," I cried; "do send her away. We were so happy before she came, and mamma was happy. Can you not see there is a black shadow hanging over the house? Send it away--be as you were before she came. Oh, papa, she has taken you from us."
When I told him what I had heard he looked shocked and horrified.
"My poor child! I had no idea of this."
He laid me on the couch while he walked up and down the room.
"Horrible!" I heard him say. "Frightful! Poor child! Alice shall go at once!"
He rang the bell when he had compelled me to repeat every word I had overheard, and sent for the housekeeper. I heard the whispering, but not the words--there was a long, angry conversation. I heard Sir Roland say "that Alice and every one else who had shared in those kind of conversations should leave." Then he kissed me.
"Papa," I cried to him, "will you send Miss Reinhart away? No other change is of any use."
"My dear Laura, you are prejudiced. You must not listen to those stupid servants and their vile exaggerations. Miss Reinhart is very good and very useful to me. I cannot send her away as I would dismiss a servant--nor do I intend."
"Let her go, that we may be happy as we were before. Oh, papa! she does not love mamma. She is not good; every one dislikes her. No one will speak to her. What shall we do? Send her away!"
"This is all a mistake, Laura," he said; "a cruel--I might say wicked--mistake. You must not talk to me in this way again."
Perhaps more might have been said; it might even have been that the tragedy had been averted but for the sudden rap at the door and the announcement that the rector wished to see Sir Roland.
"Ask him to step in here," said my father, with a great mark of discomposure. "Laura, run away, child, and remember what I have said. Do not speak to me in this fashion again."
I learned afterward that the rector had called to remonstrate with him--to tell him what a scandal and shame was spreading all over the country side, and to beg of him to end it.
Many hours elapsed before I saw my father again. I saw him ride out of the courtyard and did not see him return. When I had gone to his room in the morning I had taken with me one of my books, and I wanted it for my studies in the morning.
It was neither light nor dark. I went quietly along the broad corridors to my father"s study. I never gave one thought to the fact that my father might be there. I had not seen him return. I went in. The study was a very long room with deep windows. Quite at the other end, with the firelight shining on his face, stood my father, and by his side Miss Reinhart, just as I had seen him stand with my beautiful mother a hundred times; one arm was thrown round her, and he was looking earnestly in her face.
"It must be so," he said; "there is no alternative now."
She clung to him, whispering, and he kissed her.
I stole away. Oh! my injured, innocent mother. I do not remember exactly what I did. I rushed from the house out into the great fir wood and wept out my hot, rebellious anger and despair there. At breakfast time the next morning just a gleam of hope came to me. Miss Reinhart said that, above everything else, she should like a drive.
Whether it was my pleading and tears or the rector"s visit which had made my father think, I cannot tell, but for the first time he seemed quite unwilling to drive her out. The tears came into her eyes and he went over to her and whispered something which made her smile. He talked to her in a mysterious kind of fashion that I could neither understand nor make out at all--of some time in the future.
An uneasy sense of something about to happen came over me. I could feel the approach of some dark shadow; all day the same sensation rested with me, yet I saw nothing to justify it. At night my mother called me to her side.
"Laura, you do not look so cheerful this evening. What makes my daughter so sad?"
I could not tell her of that scene I had witnessed; I could not tell her of what was wrong.
On the morning following this, to me, horrible day, I could not help seeing that there was quite a new understanding between my father and Miss Reinhart. I overheard him say to her:
"It would have been quite impossible to have gone on; the whole country would have been in an uproar."
All that day there seemed to me something mysterious going on in the house; the servants went about with puzzled faces; there were whisperings and consultations. I heard Patience say to Emma:
"It is not true. I would not believe it. It is some foolish exaggeration of the servants. I am sure it is not true."
"Even if it should be I do not know what we could do," said Emma. "We cannot prevent it. If he has a mind to do such a bad action, he will do it, if not at one time, surely at another."
What was it? I never asked questions now.
One thing I remember. When I went into his room that evening to say good-night, my father"s traveling flask lay there--a pretty silver flask that my mother had given him for a birthday present. He bade me "good-night," and I little thought when or how we should meet again.