"If you considered yourself properly reproved for not minding your own business," said the plain-spoken Miss Garth, "you would be a trifle nearer the truth. Ah! you are like all the rest of the girls in the present day. Not one in a hundred of you knows which end of her"s uppermost."
The three ladies entered the morning-room; and Magdalen acknowledged Miss Garth"s reproof by banging the door.
Half an hour pa.s.sed, and neither Mr. Vanstone nor his wife left the breakfast-room. The servant, ignorant of what had happened, went in to clear the table--found his master and mistress seated close together in deep consultation--and immediately went out again. Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the breakfast-room door was opened, and the private conference of the husband and wife came to an end.
"I hear mamma in the hall," said Norah. "Perhaps she is coming to tell us something."
Mrs. Vanstone entered the morning-room as her daughter spoke. The color was deeper on her cheeks, and the brightness of half-dried tears glistened in her eyes; her step was more hasty, all her movements were quicker than usual.
"I bring news, my dears, which will surprise you," she said, addressing her daughters. "Your father and I are going to London to-morrow."
Magdalen caught her mother by the arm in speechless astonishment. Miss Garth dropped her work on her lap; even the sedate Norah started to her feet, and amazedly repeated the words, "Going to London!"
"Without us?" added Magdalen.
"Your father and I are going alone," said Mrs. Vanstone. "Perhaps, for as long as three weeks--but not longer. We are going"--she hesitated--"we are going on important family business. Don"t hold me, Magdalen. This is a sudden necessity--I have a great deal to do to-day--many things to set in order before tomorrow. There, there, my love, let me go."
She drew her arm away; hastily kissed her youngest daughter on the forehead; and at once left the room again. Even Magdalen saw that her mother was not to be coaxed into hearing or answering any more questions.
The morning wore on, and nothing was seen of Mr. Vanstone. With the reckless curiosity of her age and character, Magdalen, in defiance of Miss Garth"s prohibition and her sister"s remonstrances, determined to go to the study and look for her father there. When she tried the door, it was locked on the inside. She said, "It"s only me, papa;" and waited for the answer. "I"m busy now, my dear," was the answer. "Don"t disturb me."
Mrs. Vanstone was, in another way, equally inaccessible. She remained in her own room, with the female servants about her, immersed in endless preparations for the approaching departure. The servants, little used in that family to sudden resolutions and unexpected orders, were awkward and confused in obeying directions. They ran from room to room unnecessarily, and lost time and patience in jostling each other on the stairs. If a stranger had entered the house that day, he might have imagined that an unexpected disaster had happened in it, instead of an unexpected necessity for a journey to London. Nothing proceeded in its ordinary routine. Magdalen, who was accustomed to pa.s.s the morning at the piano, wandered restlessly about the staircases and pa.s.sages, and in and out of doors when there were glimpses of fine weather. Norah, whose fondness for reading had pa.s.sed into a family proverb, took up book after book from table and shelf, and laid them down again, in despair of fixing her attention. Even Miss Garth felt the all-pervading influence of the household disorganization, and sat alone by the morning-room fire, with her head shaking ominously, and her work laid aside.
"Family affairs?" thought Miss Garth, pondering over Mrs. Vanstone"s vague explanatory words. "I have lived twelve years at Combe-Raven; and these are the first family affairs which have got between the parents and the children, in all my experience. What does it mean? Change? I suppose I"m getting old. I don"t like change."
CHAPTER II.
AT ten o"clock the next morning Norah and Magdalen stood alone in the hall at Combe-Raven watching the departure of the carriage which took their father and mother to the London train.
Up to the last moment, both the sisters had hoped for some explanation of that mysterious "family business" to which Mrs. Vanstone had so briefly alluded on the previous day. No such explanation had been offered. Even the agitation of the leave-taking, under circ.u.mstances entirely new in the home experience of the parents and children, had not shaken the resolute discretion of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone. They had gone--with the warmest testimonies of affection, with farewell embraces fervently reiterated again and again--but without dropping one word, from first to last, of the nature of their errand.
As the grating sound of the carriage-wheels ceased suddenly at a turn in the road, the sisters looked one another in the face; each feeling, and each betraying in her own way, the dreary sense that she was openly excluded, for the first time, from the confidence of her parents.
Norah"s customary reserve strengthened into sullen silence--she sat down in one of the hall chairs and looked out frowningly through the open house door. Magdalen, as usual when her temper was ruffled, expressed her dissatisfaction in the plainest terms. "I don"t care who knows it--I think we are both of us shamefully ill-used!" With those words, the young lady followed her sister"s example by seating herself on a hall chair and looking aimlessly out through the open house door.
Almost at the same moment Miss Garth entered the hall from the morning-room. Her quick observation showed her the necessity for interfering to some practical purpose; and her ready good sense at once pointed the way.
"Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me," said Miss Garth. "If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now we are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our regular way. There is the state of things in plain words. Accept the situation--as the French say. Here am I to set you the example. I have just ordered an excellent dinner at the customary hour. I am going to the medicine-chest next, to physic the kitchen-maid--an unwholesome girl, whose face-ache is all stomach. In the meantime, Norah, my dear, you will find your work and your books, as usual, in the library.
Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into knots and use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead? We"ll lunch at one, and take the dogs out afterward. Be as brisk and cheerful both of you as I am. Come, rouse up directly. If I see those gloomy faces any longer, as sure as my name"s Garth, I"ll give your mother written warning and go back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty."
Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led Norah to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and went on her own way sternly to the regions of the medicine-chest.
In this half-jesting, half-earnest manner she was accustomed to maintain a sort of friendly authority over Mr. Vanstone"s daughters, after her proper functions as governess had necessarily come to an end. Norah, it is needless to say, had long since ceased to be her pupil; and Magdalen had, by this time, completed her education. But Miss Garth had lived too long and too intimately under Mr. Vanstone"s roof to be parted with for any purely formal considerations; and the first hint at going away which she had thought it her duty to drop was dismissed with such affectionate warmth of protest that she never repeated it again, except in jest. The entire management of the household was, from that time forth, left in her hands; and to those duties she was free to add what companionable a.s.sistance she could render to Norah"s reading, and what friendly superintendence she could still exercise over Magdalen"s music. Such were the terms on which Miss Garth was now a resident in Mr. Vanstone"s family.
Toward the afternoon the weather improved. At half-past one the sun was shining brightly; and the ladies left the house, accompanied by the dogs, to set forth on their walk.
They crossed the stream, and ascended by the little rocky pa.s.s to the hills beyond; then diverged to the left, and returned by a cross-road which led through the village of Combe-Raven.
As they came in sight of the first cottages, they pa.s.sed a man, hanging about the road, who looked attentively, first at Magdalen, then at Norah. They merely observed that he was short, that he was dressed in black, and that he was a total stranger to them--and continued their homeward walk, without thinking more about the loitering foot-pa.s.senger whom they had met on their way back.
After they had left the village, and had entered the road which led straight to the house, Magdalen surprised Miss Garth by announcing that the stranger in black had turned, after they had pa.s.sed him, and was now following them. "He keeps on Norah"s side of the road," she said, mischievously. "I"m not the attraction--don"t blame _me_."
Whether the man was really following them, or not, made little difference, for they were now close to the house. As they pa.s.sed through the lodge-gates, Miss Garth looked round, and saw that the stranger was quickening his pace, apparently with the purpose of entering into conversation. Seeing this, she at once directed the young ladies to go on to the house with the dogs, while she herself waited for events at the gate.
There was just time to complete this discreet arrangement, before the stranger reached the lodge. He took off his hat to Miss Garth politely, as she turned round. What did he look like, on the face of him? He looked like a clergyman in difficulties.
Taking his portrait, from top to toe, the picture of him began with a tall hat, broadly encircled by a mourning band of crumpled c.r.a.pe. Below the hat was a lean, long, sallow face, deeply pitted with the smallpox, and characterized, very remarkably, by eyes of two different colors--one bilious green, one bilious brown, both sharply intelligent. His hair was iron-gray, carefully brushed round at the temples. His cheeks and chin were in the bluest bloom of smooth shaving; his nose was short Roman; his lips long, thin, and supple, curled up at the corners with a mildly-humorous smile. His white cravat was high, stiff, and dingy; the collar, higher, stiffer, and dingier, projected its rigid points on either side beyond his chin. Lower down, the lithe little figure of the man was arrayed throughout in sober-shabby black. His frock-coat was b.u.t.toned tight round the waist, and left to bulge open majestically at the chest. His hands were covered with black cotton gloves neatly darned at the fingers; his umbrella, worn down at the ferule to the last quarter of an inch, was carefully preserved, nevertheless, in an oilskin case. The front view of him was the view in which he looked oldest; meeting him face to face, he might have been estimated at fifty or more.
Walking behind him, his back and shoulders were almost young enough to have pa.s.sed for five-and-thirty. His manners were distinguished by a grave serenity. When he opened his lips, he spoke in a rich ba.s.s voice, with an easy flow of language, and a strict attention to the elocutionary claims of words in more than one syllable. Persuasion distilled from his mildly-curling lips; and, shabby as he was, perennial flowers of courtesy bloomed all over him from head to foot.
"This is the residence of Mr. Vanstone, I believe?" he began, with a circular wave of his hand in the direction of the house. "Have I the honor of addressing a member of Mr. Vanstone"s family?"
"Yes," said the plain-spoken Miss Garth. "You are addressing Mr.
Vanstone"s governess."
The persuasive man fell back a step--admired Mr. Vanstone"s governess--advanced a step again--and continued the conversation.
"And the two young ladies," he went on, "the two young ladies who were walking with you are doubtless Mr. Vanstone"s daughters? I recognized the darker of the two, and the elder as I apprehend, by her likeness to her handsome mother. The younger lady--"
"You are acquainted with Mrs. Vanstone, I suppose?" said Miss Garth, interrupting the stranger"s flow of language, which, all things considered, was beginning, in her opinion, to flow rather freely. The stranger acknowledged the interruption by one of his polite bows, and submerged Miss Garth in his next sentence as if nothing had happened.
"The younger lady," he proceeded, "takes after her father, I presume? I a.s.sure you, her face struck me. Looking at it with my friendly interest in the family, I thought it very remarkable. I said to myself--Charming, Characteristic, Memorable. Not like her sister, not like her mother. No doubt, the image of her father?"
Once more Miss Garth attempted to stem the man"s flow of words. It was plain that he did not know Mr. Vanstone, even by sight--otherwise he would never have committed the error of supposing that Magdalen took after her father. Did he know Mrs. Vanstone any better? He had left Miss Garth"s question on that point unanswered. In the name of wonder, who was he? Powers of impudence! what did he want?
"You may be a friend of the family, though I don"t remember your face,"
said Miss Garth. "What may your commands be, if you please? Did you come here to pay Mrs. Vanstone a visit?"
"I had antic.i.p.ated the pleasure of communicating with Mrs. Vanstone,"
answered this inveterately evasive and inveterately civil man. "How is she?"
"Much as usual," said Miss Garth, feeling her resources of politeness fast failing her.
"Is she at home?"
"No."
"Out for long?"
"Gone to London with Mr. Vanstone."
The man"s long face suddenly grew longer. His bilious brown eye looked disconcerted, and his bilious green eye followed its example. His manner became palpably anxious; and his choice of words was more carefully selected than ever.
"Is Mrs. Vanstone"s absence likely to extend over any very lengthened period?" he inquired.
"It will extend over three weeks," replied Miss Garth. "I think you have now asked me questions enough," she went on, beginning to let her temper get the better of her at last. "Be so good, if you please, as to mention your business and your name. If you have any message to leave for Mrs.
Vanstone, I shall be writing to her by to-night"s post, and I can take charge of it."