The one desire left to her at present was to become an absolutely independent woman. This meant that she should work hard for her living in her own way, and that she should do what seemed good and pleasant to her, because it seemed good and pleasant, not because it was the way of the world, or the way of a house, or the routine of a relative or an employer. It meant that she should keep her mother under her own eye, in comfort and decency, not lodged with strangers to mope out her life in dreary solitude. It meant also that she should not be a burden on Sydney--or, in plain terms, that she should not take Sydney"s money, either for herself or her mother.
Indeed, the consciousness that she had to work for another, and to be her protection and support, was not only bracing but cheering in its effects, and Lettice now turned towards her writing-table with an energy which had been wanting when her efforts were for herself alone.
The Rectory household had been reduced as much as possible during the last few months, and only two servants remained at the time of the rector"s death: one, an elderly cook, who was content for the love of "Miss Lettice" to do the work of a general servant; and a young girl of eighteen, who had lived at the Rectory and been trained for domestic service under Mrs. Campion"s eye ever since her parents" death, which had occurred when she was fifteen years of age. Emily, or Milly Harrington, as she was generally called, was a quick, clever girl, very neat-handed and fairly industrious; and it seemed to Lettice, when she decided upon going to London, that she could not do better than ask Milly to go too. The girl"s great blue eyes opened with a flash of positive rapture. "Go with you to London? Oh, Miss Lettice!"
"You would like it, Milly?" said Lettice, wondering at her excitement, and thinking that she had never before noticed how pretty Millie Harrington had grown of late.
"Oh, of all things in the world, miss, I"ve wanted to go to London!"
said Milly, flushing all over her face through the clear white skin which was one of her especial beauties. There was very little trace of commonness in Milly"s good looks. Three years of life at the Rectory had refined her appearance, as also her manners and ways of speech; and Lettice thought that it would be far pleasanter to keep Milly about her than to go through the agonies of a succession of pert London girls. Yet something in Milly"s eagerness to go, as well as the girl"s fresh, innocent, country air, troubled her with a vague sense of anxiety. Was not London said to be a place of temptation for inexperienced country girls? Could she keep Milly safe and innocent if she took her away from Angleford?
"You would have all the work of the house to do, and to look after Mrs.
Campion a little as well," she said seeking to put her vague anxiety into the form of a warning or an objection. But Milly only smiled.
"I"m very strong, Miss Lettice. I am sure I can do all that you want.
And I should like to go to London with you. One hears such fine tales of London--and I don"t want to leave mistress and you." Though this was evidently an afterthought.
"You will see very little of London, Milly; I shall live in a very quiet part," said Lettice. "And I shall want you to be very good and steady, and take care of my mother when I am busy. I shall have to work hard now, you know; quite as hard as you."
Milly looked up quickly; there was inquiry in her eyes. But she answered only by protestations of good behavior and repeated desires to go with her young mistress; and Lettice gave her a promise, subject to the consent of Milly"s grandmother, who lived at Birchmead, that she would take the girl with her when she went away.
Old Mrs. Harrington had no objection at all to Milly"s going to London.
"Indeed, Miss Lettice," she said, "I"m only too glad to think of your looking after her, for Milly"s not got much sense, I"m afraid, although she"s a woman grown."
"I always thought her unusually clever and sensible," said Lettice, in some surprise.
"Clever, miss, she always was, but sensible"s a different affair. Her head"s filled with foolishness, all along of her reading story books, I tell her; and she"s got an idea that her pretty face will bring her a rich husband, and I don"t know what beside. I shall be obliged to you, miss, if you"ll kindly keep a sharp eye and a tight hand over Milly. Not but what she"s a good kind-hearted girl," said the old woman, relenting a little, as she saw a rather startled expression on Miss Campion"s face, "and I don"t think there"s any harm in her, but girls are always better for being looked after, that is all."
"I"ll try to take care of Milly," said Lettice, as she rose to go. "But my care will be of very little use if she does not take care of herself."
She was fated on the same day to hear a remonstrance from the doctor"s wife, Mrs. Budworth, on the subject of her choice of a servant. Mrs.
Budworth was a noted busybody, who knew everybody"s business better than the rest of the world.
"Oh, Lettice, dear," she said, "I do hope it"s not true that you are going to take that silly girl, Milly Harrington, up to London with you."
"Why not? You cannot know anything against her," said Lettice, who was becoming a little angry.
"Well, perhaps not--only she is so very pretty, and London is so full of temptations for a pretty girl of that cla.s.s!"
"We shall live so quietly that she will have no more temptations there than here, Mrs. Budworth."
"You can"t tell that, my dear--once you get a girl away from her friends and relations. However, she has only her old grandmother to fall back on, and she seems a well-meaning girl enough, and perhaps she won"t be considered so pretty in London as she has the name of being here. I hope she will keep straight, I"m sure; it would be such a worry to you, Lettice, if anything went wrong."
"Poor Milly!" said Lettice to herself, as she walked home in a state of blazing indignation; "how easily that woman would undermine your reputation--or that of anybody else! Milly is a dear, good little girl; and as for her being so pretty--well, it is not her fault, and I don"t see why it should be her misfortune! I will look well after her when we are in London, and it will be for her good, I believe, to stay with us.
What an absurd fuss to make about such a trifle!"
So she dismissed the matter from her mind, remembering it only from time to time when she was making her new household arrangements, and carefully planning to keep Milly out of every possible danger.
But dangers are oftener from within than from without. While Lettice walked homeward after her talk with Mrs. Budworth, Milly Harrington had locked herself into her own room, and was experimenting with her pretty curling hair before the looking-gla.s.s. She wanted to see herself with a "fringe"--a thing that was strictly forbidden at the Rectory, and she had brushed the soft little curls that were generally hidden beneath her cap well over her forehead. Then she stood and gazed at the reflection of the fair locks, the large blue eyes, the graceful neck and shoulders.
"I suppose I look pretty," she was saying to herself. "I"ve been told so often enough. Mr. Sydney thought so when he was here at Christmas, I"m sure of that. This time, of course, he was so taken up with his father"s death, and other things, that he never noticed me. But I shall see him again."
A faint color mantled in her cheeks, and her eyes began to sparkle.
"Beauty"s a great power, I"ve heard," she said to herself, still looking at that fair image in the gla.s.s. "There"s no knowing what I mayn"t do if I meet the right person. And one meets n.o.body in Angleford. In London--things may be different."
Different, indeed, but not as poor Milly fancied the difference.
And then she brushed back her curls, and fastened up her black dress, and tied a clean muslin ap.r.o.n round her trim little figure before going downstairs; and when she brought in the tea-tray that afternoon, Lettice looked at her with pleasure and admiration, and thought how sweet and good a girl she was, and how she had won the Prayer-Book prize at the Diocesan Inspector"s examination, and of the praise that the rector had given her for her well-written papers at the Confirmation Cla.s.s, and of her own kindly and earnest teaching of all things that were good in Lettice"s eyes; and she decided that Mrs. Harrington and Mrs. Budworth were mere croakers, and that poor Milly would never come to harm.
BOOK II.
CHANGE.
"Yet the twin habit of that early time Lingered for long about the heart and tongue; We had been natives of one happy clime, And its dear accent to our utterance clung.
"Till the dire years whose awful name is Change Had grasped our souls, still yearning in divorce, And pitiless shaped them in two forms that range-- Two elements which sever their life"s course."
George Eliot.
CHAPTER VI.
NEW BEGINNINGS.
"Poor dear Lettice! how she must have suffered!" said Clara Graham.
"Less than you suppose," rejoined her husband.
"Jim, what do you mean? You are very hard-hearted."
"No, I"m not! I"m only practical. Your friend, Miss Campion, has been a source of lamentation and woe to you ever since I made your acquaintance. According to you, she was always being sacrificed to that intolerable prig of a brother of hers. _Then_ she was immolated on the altar of her father"s money difficulties and her mother"s ill-health.
Now she has got a fair field, and can live where she likes and exercise her talents as she pleases; and as I can be as unfeeling as I like in the bosom of my family, I will at once acknowledge that I am very glad the old man"s gone."
"I do hope and trust, Jim----"
"That I am not a born fool, my dear?"
"--That you won"t say these things to Lettice herself."
"Exactly. That is what I knew you were going to say."
"If it weren"t that I am certain you do not mean half you say----"
"I mean all that I say: every word of it. But I"ll tell you what, Clara: I believe that Lettice Campion is a woman of great talent--possibly even of genius--and that she has never yet been able to give her talents full play. She has the chance now, and I hope she"ll use it."