"It"s a dreadful day," said Mrs. Melrose sharply. "Does it always rain like this?"
"Well, it _do_ rain," was Thyrza"s cautious reply. "But there that"s better than snowin"--for t" shepherds."
Mrs. Melrose found the girl"s voice pleasant, and could not deny that she was pretty, in her rustic way.
"Has your father many sheep?"
"Aye, but they"re all gone up to t" fells for t" winter. We had a grand time here in September--at t" dippin". Yo"d never ha" thowt there was so mony folk about"--the girl went on, civilly, making talk.
"I never saw a single house, or a single light, on the drive from the station last night," said Mrs. Melrose, in her fretful voice. "Where are all the people?"
"Well, there ain"t many!" laughed Thyrza. "It"s a lonesome place this is.
But when it"s a shearin", or a dippin", yo" unnerstand, farmin" folk"ll coom a long way to help yan anuther."
"Are they all farmers about here?"
"Mostly. Well, there"s Duddon Castle!" Thyrza"s voice, a little m.u.f.fled by the tin-tacks in the mouth, came from somewhere near the top of a tall window--"Oh--an" I forgot!--"
In a great hurry the speaker jumped down from her perch, and to Netta"s astonishment ran out of the room.
"What is she about?" thought Mrs. Melrose irritably. But the question was hardly framed before Thyrza reappeared, holding out her hand, in which lay some visiting-cards.
"I should ha" given them yo" before."
Mrs. Melrose took them with surprise, and read the name.
"Countess Tatham--who is she?"
"Why it"s she that lives at Duddon Castle." Then the girl looked uncertainly at her companion--"Mr. Tyson did tell me she was a relation of Mr. Melrose."
"A relation? I don"t know anything about her," said Netta decidedly. "Did she come to call upon me?"
The girl nodded--"She come over--it was last Tuesday--from Duddon, wi"
two lovely horses--my, they were beauties! She said she"d come again."
Netta asked questions. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was the great lady of the neighbourhood, and Duddon Castle was a splendid old place, that all the visitors went to see. And there were her cards. Netta"s thoughts began to hurry thither and thither, and possibilities began to rise. A relation of Edmund"s? She made Thyrza tell her all she knew about Duddon and the Tathams. Visions of being received there, of meeting rich and aristocratic people, of taking her place at last in society, the place that belonged to her as Edmund"s wife, in spite of his queer miserly ways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreams before--in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains, and sit down to gossip with her. And Thyrza, though perfectly conscious, as the daughter of a hard-working race, that to sit gossiping at midday was a sinful thing, was none the less willing to sin; and she chattered on in a Westmoreland dialect that grew steadily broader as she felt herself more at ease, till Mrs. Melrose could scarcely follow her.
But she managed to seize on the facts that concerned her. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was a widow, with an only boy, a lad of seven, who was the heir to Duddon Castle, and its great estates. The Castle was ten miles from the Tower.
"How shall I ever get there?" thought Mrs. Melrose, despairingly.
As to other neighbours, they seemed to consist entirely of an old bachelor doctor, about three miles away, and the clergyman of Gimmers Wick and his wife. _She_ was sure to come. But most people were "glad to see the back on her." She had such a poor spirit, and was always complaining.
In the midst of this conversation, the door of the room, which was ajar, slowly opened. Thyrza looked round and saw in the aperture a tiny white figure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look was still thunderous, explained that she was unpacking and could not do with it. The child toddled in to its mother, and Thyrza exclaimed in admiration:
"Oh, you _are_ a little beauty!"
And she caught up one of the bra.s.s curtain rings lying on the table, and tried to attract the baby with it. But the little thing took not the smallest notice of the lure. She went straight to her mother, and, leaning against Netta"s knee, she turned to stare at Thyrza with an intensity of expression, rare in a child so young. Thyrza, kneeling on the floor, stared back--fascinated. She thought she had never seen anything so lovely. The child had her father"s features, etherealized; and great eyes, like her mother, but far more subtly beautiful. Her skin was pale, but of such a texture that Thyrza"s roses-and-milk looked rough and common beside it. Every inch of the proud little head was covered with close short curls leaving the white neck free, and the hand lifted to her mouth was of a waxen delicacy.
Netta opened a picture-book that Anastasia had brought down with her.
Felicia pushed it away. Netta opened it again. Then the child, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from her, sat down on the floor, and, before Netta could prevent her, tore one of the pages across with a quick, vindictive movement--her eyes sparkling.
"Naughty--! naughty!" said Netta in a scolding voice.
But Thyrza dropped her hand hastily into a gray calico pocket tied round her waist, and again held out something.
"It is only a pear-drop," she said apologetically to Netta. "It won"t hurt her."
Felicia s.n.a.t.c.hed at it at once, and sucked it, still flushed with pa.s.sion. Her mother smiled faintly.
"You like sweets?" she said, childishly, to her companion; "give me one?"
Thyrza eagerly brought out a paper bag from her pocket and Netta put out a pair of thin fingers. She and her sisters had been great consumers of sweet stuff in the small dark Florentine shops. The shared greediness promoted friendship; and by the time Mrs. Dixon put in a reproachful face with a loud--"Thyrza, what _be_ you a doin"?"--Mrs. Melrose knew as much of the Tower, the estate, the farm, and the persons connected with them, as Thyrza"s chattering tongue could tell her in the time.
There was nothing, however, very consoling in the information. When Thyrza departed, Mrs. Melrose was left to fret and sigh much as before.
The place was odious; she could never endure it. But yet the possible advent of "Countess Tatham" cast a faint ray on the future.
A few days later Lady Tatham appeared. Melrose had been particularly perverse and uncommunicative on the subject. "Like her audacity!"--so Netta had understood his muttered comment, when she took him the cards.
He admitted that the lady and he were cousins--the children of first cousins; and that he had once seen a good deal of her. He called her "an audacious woman"; but Mrs. Melrose noticed that he did not forbid her the house; nay, rather that he listened with some attention to Thyrza"s report that the lady had promised to call again.
On the afternoon of the call, the skies were clear of rain, though not of cloud. The great gashed mountain to the north which Dixon called Saddleback, while a little c.u.mbria "guide," produced by Tyson, called it Blencathra, showed sombrely in a gray light; and a November wind was busy stripping what leaves still remained from the woods by the stream and in the hollows of the mountain. Landscape and heavens were of an iron bracingness and bareness; and the beauty in them was not for eyes like Netta"s. She had wandered out forlornly on the dank paths descending to the stream. Edmund as usual was interminably busy fitting up one of the lower rooms for some of his minor bric-a-brac--ironwork, small bronzes, watches, and clocks. Anastasia and the baby were out.
Would Anastasia stay? Already she looked ill; she complained of her chest. She had made up her mind to come with the Melroses for the sake of her mother and sister in Rome, who were so miserably poor. Netta felt that she--the mistress--had some security against losing her, in the mere length and cost of the journey. To go home now, before the end of her three months, would swallow up all the nurse had earned; for Edmund would never contribute a farthing. Poor Anastasia! And yet Netta felt angrily toward her for wishing to desert them.
"For of course I shall take her home--in March. We shall all be going then," she said to herself with an emphasis, almost a pa.s.sion, which yet was full of misgiving.
Suddenly, just as she had returned by a steep path to the dilapidated terrace on the north side of the house--a sound of horses" feet and wheels. Evidently a carriage--a caller. Netta"s pulse fluttered. She ran into the house by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothed her hair anxiously, and lightly powdered her face. There was no time to change her dress, but she took out a feather boa which she kept for great occasions, and prepared to descend with dignity. Oh the stairs she met Mrs. Dixon, who announced "Lady Tatham."
"Find Mr. Melrose, please."
"Oh, he"s there, Ma"am, awready."
Netta entered the drawing-room to see her husband pacing up and-down before a strange lady, who sat in one of the crimson armchairs, entirely at her ease.
"So this is your wife, Edmund," said Lady Tatham, as she rose.
"It is. You"ll make mock of her no doubt--as you do of me."
"Nonsense! I never make mock of anybody," said a musical voice, rich however through all its music in a rather formidable significance. The owner of it turned toward Netta.
"I hope, Mrs. Melrose, that you will like c.u.mbria?"
Netta, accustomed to Edmund"s "queerness," and determined to hold her own, settled herself deliberately opposite her visitor, and was soon complaining in her shrill voice of the loneliness of the place and the damp of the climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He was paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta. He seemed for once to be unsure of his ground--both to expect attack, even to provoke it--and to shrink from it. His eyes were fixed upon Lady Tatham, and followed her every movement.
Attention was certainly that lady"s due; and it failed her rarely. She had beauty--great beauty; and a personality that refused to be overlooked. Her dress showed in equal measure contempt for mere fashion, and a close study of effect. The lines of her long cloak of dull blue cloth, with its garnishings of sable, matched her stately slenderness well; and the close-fitting cap over the coiled hair conveyed the same impression of something perfectly contrived and wholly successful.
Netta thought at first that she was "made up," so dazzling was the white and pink, and then doubted. The beauty of the face reminded one, perhaps, of the beauty of a boy--of some clear-eyed, long-chinned athlete--masterfully simple--a careless conqueror.
How well she and Edmund seemed to know each other! That was the strange, strange thing in Netta"s eyes. Presently she sat altogether silent while they talked. Melrose still walking up and down--casting quick glances at his guest. Lady Tatham gave what seemed to be family news--how "John"