"Are you a native of London?"
"No, my lady, of Berkshire."
"And you have been a widow, how long?"
What ailed Mrs. Weymore? She was all white and trembling--even her hands, folded and pressed together in her lap, shook in spite of her.
"Eight years and more."
She said it with a sort of sob, hysterically choked. Lady Thetford looked on surprised, and a trifle displeased. She was a very proud woman, and certainly wished for no scene with her hired dependents.
"Eight years is a tolerable time," she said, coolly. "You have lost children?"
"One, my lady."
Again that choked, hysterical sob. My lady vent on pitilessly.
"Is it long ago?"
"When--when I lost its father?"
"Ah! both together? That was rather hard. Well, I hope you understand the management of children--spoiled ones particularly. Here are the two you are to take charge of. Rupert--May come here."
The children came over from their corner. Mrs. Weymore drew May toward her, but Sir Rupert held aloof.
"This is my ward--this is my son. I presume Mr. Knight has told you. If you can subdue the temper of that child, you will prove yourself, indeed, a treasure. The east parlor has been fitted up for your use; the children will take their meals there with you; the room adjoining is to be the school-room. I have appointed one of the maids to wait on you. I trust you will find your chamber comfortable."
"Exceedingly so, my lady."
"And the terms proposed by Mr. Knight suit you?"
Mrs. Weymore bowed. Lady Thetford rose to close the interview.
"You must need refreshment and rest after your journey. I will not detain you longer. To-morrow your duties will commence."
She rang the bell--directed the servant who came to show the governess to the east parlor and see to her wants, and then to send nurse for the children. Fifteen minutes after she drove away in the pony-phaeton, whilst the new governess stood by the window of the east parlor and watched her vanish in the amber haze of the August sunset.
Lady Thetford"s business in St. Gosport detained her a couple of hours.
The big, white, August moon was rising as she drove slowly homeward, and the nightingales sang its vesper lay in the scented hedge-rows. As she pa.s.sed the rectory she saw Mr. Knight leaning over his own gate enjoying the placid beauty of the summer evening, and Lady Thetford reined in her ponies to speak to him.
"So happy to see your ladyship! Won"t you alight and come in? Mrs.
Knight will be delighted."
"Not this evening, I think. Had you much trouble about my business?"
"I had applicants enough, certainly," laughed the rector. "I had reason to remember Mr. Weller"s immortal advice, "Beware of widders." How do you like your governess?"
"I have hardly had time to form an opinion. She is younger than I could desire."
"She looks much younger than the age she gives, I know; but that is a common case. I trust my choice will prove satisfactory--her references are excellent. Your ladyship has had an interview with her?"
"A very brief one. Her manner struck me unpleasantly--so odd, and shy, and nervous. I hardly know how to characterize it; but she may be a paragon of governesses, for all that. Good evening; best regards to Mrs.
Knight. Call soon and see how your _protege_ gets on."
Lady Thetford drove away. As she alighted from the pony-carriage and ascended the great front steps of the house, she saw the pale governess still seated at the window of the east parlor, gazing dejectedly out at the silvery moonlight.
"A most woeful countenance," thought my lady. "There is some deeper grief than the loss of a husband and child eight years ago, the matter with that woman. I don"t like her."
No, Lady Thetford did not like the meek and submissive looking governess, but the children and the rest of the household did. Sir Rupert and little May took to her at once--her gentle voice, her tender smile seemed to win its way to their capricious favor; and before the end of the first week she had more influence over them than mother and nurse together. The subdued and gentle governess soon had the love of all at Thetford Towers, except its mistress, from Mrs. Hilliard, the stately housekeeper, down. She was courteous and considerate, so anxious to avoid giving trouble. Above all, that fixed expression of hopeless trouble on her sad, pale face, made its way to every heart. She had full charge of the children now; they took their meals with her, and she had them in her keeping the best part of the day--an office that was no sinecure. When they were with their nurse, or my lady, the governess sat alone in the east parlor, looking out dreamily at the summer landscape, with her own brooding thoughts.
One evening when she had been at Thetford Towers over a fortnight, Mrs.
Hilliard, coming in, found her sitting dreamily by herself neither reading nor working. The children were in the drawing-room, and her duties were over for the day.
"I am afraid you don"t make yourself at home here," said the good-natured housekeeper; "you stay too much alone, and it isn"t good for young people like you."
"I am used to solitude," replied the governess with a smile, that ended in a sigh, "and I have grown to like it. Will you take a seat?"
"No," said Mrs. Hilliard. "I heard you say the other day you would like to go over the house; so, as I have a couple of hours leisure, I will show it to you now."
The governess rose eagerly.
"I have been wanting to see it so much," she said, "but I feared to give trouble by asking. It is very good of you to think of me, dear Mrs.
Hilliard."
"She isn"t much used to people thinking of her," reflected the housekeeper, "or she wouldn"t be so grateful for trifles. Let me see,"
aloud, "you have seen the drawing-room and library, and that is all, except your own apartments. Well, come this way, I"ll show you the old south wing."
Through the long corridors, up wide, black, slippery stair-cases, into vast, unused rooms, where ghostly echoes and darkness had it all to themselves, Mrs. Hilliard led the governess.
"These apartments have been unused since before the late Sir Noel"s time," said Mrs. Hilliard; "his father kept them full in the hunting season, and at Christmas time. Since Sir Noel"s death, my lady has shut herself up and received no company, and gone nowhere. She is beginning to go out more of late than she has done ever since his death."
Mrs. Hilliard was not looking at the governess, or she might have been surprised at the nervous restlessness and agitation of her manner, as she listened to these very commonplace remarks.
"Lady Thetford was very much attached to her husband, then?" Mrs.
Weymore said, her voice tremulous.
"Ah! that she was! She must have been, for his death nearly killed her.
It was sudden enough, and shocking enough, goodness knows! I shall never forget that dreadful night. This is the old banqueting-hall, Mrs.
Weymore, the largest and dreariest room in the house."
Mrs. Weymore, trembling very much, either with cold or that unaccountable nervousness of hers, hardly looked round at the vast wilderness of a room.
"You were with the late Sir Noel, then, when he died?"
"Yes, until my lady came. Ah! it was a dreadful thing! He had taken her to a ball, and riding home his horse threw him. We sent for the doctor and my lady at once; and when she came, all white and scared like, he sent us out of the room. He was as calm and sensible as you or me, but he seemed to have something on his mind. My lady was shut up with him for about three hours, and then we went in--Dr. Gale and me. I shall never forget that sad sight. Poor Sir Noel was dead, and she was kneeling beside him in her ball dress, like somebody turned to stone. I spoke to her, and she looked up at me, and then fell back in my arms in a fainting fit. Are you cold, Mrs. Weymore, that you shake so?"
"No--yes--it is this desolate room, I think," the governess answered, hardly able to speak.
"It _is_ desolate. Come, I"ll show you the billiard-room, and then we"ll go up-stairs to the room Sir Noel died in. Everything remains just as it was--no one has ever slept there since. If you only knew, Mrs. Weymore, what a sad time it was; but you do know, poor dear! you have lost a husband yourself!"