Read Ebook: Elsie at Home by Finley Martha

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Ebook has 1403 lines and 54977 words, and 29 pages

'But she died. I saw her lying dead. I thought she was asleep. She was very beautiful--I remember that, too. I don't want to see anyone dead again. Death,' says she with a shudder, 'is horrible!'

This, coming from one who had braved its terrors voluntarily so very lately, causes Wyndham to look at her in some surprise.

'Yes!' says he. 'And yet that night when the Professor gave you something that might have led to death, were you frightened then?'

'I think I have explained that,' says she, with a slight touch of dignity.

'True.' He continues the slow pacing to and fro upon the garden-path that he has taken up occasionally during this interview. 'There is nothing more, then, that you can tell me? The lady of whom you speak, who used to kiss you, was perhaps your mother?'

'I think so--I believe it,' says the girl. She turns to him a face flushed and gratified. 'Mr. Wyndham, it was kind of you to call her that--a lady! To me, too, she seems a lady, and, besides that, an angel.'

'About a companion,' says he. 'You told me you were anxious to continue your studies. I think I know a lady--elderly, refined, and gentle--who would be able to help you. You could go out with her.'

'I shall not go out of this house,' says the girl. She has begun to tremble again. 'Mr. Wyndham, do not ask me to do that. Even'--slowly, but steadily--'if you did ask me, I should refuse. I will not go where I can be found. This lady you speak of, if she will come and live with me, and teach me--I should like that; but--'

'You will require very little teaching, I think,' says Wyndham, who has been struck by the excellence of both her manners and her speech, considering her account of her former life.

'I know nothing,' says she calmly; 'but, as I told you, I had read a good deal, and for the past three years I used to go as nursery governess to a Mrs. Blaquiere, who lived in Westmoreland Road. I used to lunch with her and the children, and she was very kind to me; and she taught me a good deal in other ways--society ways.'

'You were an apt pupil,' says he gravely, a little doubtfully, perhaps.

'I liked the way she talked, and it seemed to come very easy to me after awhile,' says the girl indifferently, not noticing his keen glance at her. 'But this governess--this companion?' asks she. 'Will she want to go out--to be amused? If so, I could not have her. I shall never go out of this place until--'

'Until?' asks he.

'You tell me that man has no longer any power over me. I'--she looks at him, and again terror whitens her face--'I am sure you are wrong, and that he has the power to drag me away from this, if he finds me.'

'I should advise you not to dwell on that until I have found him,' says Wyndham, a little stiffly. The successful barrister is a little thrown back upon himself by being told that he will undoubtedly find himself in the wrong. 'But this Mrs. Blaquiere, who was so kind to you--why do you not apply to her for protection?'

'She and her husband and the children all went to Australia in the early part of last spring, and so I lost sight of them.'

'Lost your situation, too?'--regarding her carefully.

'Yes; and I had no time to look for another. Mrs. Moore grew ill then, and I had to attend her day and night until she died. The rest I have told you.'

'I see,' says Wyndham. 'Tell me again this man Moore's address.' He writes it now in his pocket-book, though it was written well into his brain before; but he wished to see if she would falter about it the second time.

He bids her good-bye presently, refusing her timid offer of tea.

At the gate he finds Mrs. Denis, presumably tying up a creeper, but most undoubtedly on the look-out for him.

'Good-evening, yer honour.'

'Good-evening'--shortly. Wyndham is deep in thought, and by no means in a good temper. He would have brushed by her; but, armed with a garden rake, a spade, and a huge clipper, Mrs. Denis is not lightly to be dealt with.

'Askin' yer pardon, sir, 'tis just a word I want wid ye. Miss Ella, the crathure--ye're going to let her stay here, aren't ye?'

'Yes,' says Wyndham gruffly.

'The saints be praised!' says Mrs. Denis piously. 'Fegs! 'tis a good heart ye have, sir, in spite of it all.' What the 'all' is she leaves beautifully indefinite. 'An', sure, 'twas meself tould Denis--that ould raprobate of a fool o' mine--that ye'd niver turn her out. "For where would she go," says I, "if he did--a born lady like her?" An' there's plenty o' room for her here, sir.'

'I dare say,' says Wyndham, feeling furious. 'But for all that, I can't have all the young women in Ireland staying in my house just because there is room for them.'

'God forbid, yer honour! All thim young women would play the very divil wid the Cottage, an''--thoughtfully--'aitch other too. Wan at a time, sir, is a good plan, an' I'm glad it's Miss Ella has had the first of it.'

This remarkable speech is met by Wyndham with a stony glare that goes lightly over the head of Mrs. Denis. That worthy woman is too much elated with the news she has dragged out of him to care for glares of any sort. Childless, though always longing for a child--and especially for a daughter--Mrs. Denis's heart had gone out at once to the pretty waif that had been cast into her life in so strange a fashion. And now she hastens back to the house to get 'her Miss Ella a cup o' tay, the crathure!' and wheedle out of her all the news about the 'masther.'

'Tell me how to bear so blandly the assuming ways of wild young people!

'Truly they would be unbearable if I had not also been unbearable myself as well.'--GOETHE.

When Mr. Crosby had told the Barrys that he would come down next day for a game of tennis, they had not altogether believed in his coming, so that when they see him from afar off, through the many holes in the hedge, walking towards them down the village street, surprise is their greatest sentiment.

'Susan,' says Dominick solemnly, pausing racket in hand, 'it must be you. I always told you your face was your fortune, and a very small one at that. You'll have to marry him, and then we'll all go and live with you for ever. That'll be a treat for you, and will doubtless make up for the fact that he is emulating the Great Methuselah. If I can say a good word for you, I--Oh, how d'ye do, Mr. Crosby? Brought your racket, too, I see. Carew, now we'll make up a set: Mr. Crosby and--'

'Certainly you may,' says Susan genially; 'but I'm not so good a player as Betty. She can play like anything. But to-day she has got a bad cold in her head. Well'--laughing--'come on; we can try, and, after all, we can only be beaten.'

They are, as it happens, and very badly, too, Mr. Crosby, though no doubt good at big game, being rather a tyro at tennis.

'I apologize,' says he, when the game is at an end, and they have all seated themselves upon the ground to rest and gather breath; 'I'm afraid Su--Miss Susan--you will hardly care to play with me again.'

'I told you you could call me Susan,' says she calmly. 'Somehow, I dislike the Miss before it. Betty told you Miss Barry sounded like Aunt Jemima, but I think Miss Susan sounds like Jane.'

'Poor old Jane! And she's got such an awful nose!' says Betty. 'I think I'd rather be like Aunt Jemima than her.'

'Susan hasn't got an awful nose,' says Bonnie, stroking Susan's dainty little Grecian appendage fondly. 'It's a nice one.'

'Susan is a beauty,' says Betty; 'we all know that. Even James went down before her. Poor James! I wonder what he is doing now.'

'Stewing in the Soudan,' says Carew.

'He was always in one sort of stew or another,' says Dominick, 'so it will come kindly to him. And after Susan's heartless behaviour--'

'Dom!' says Susan, in an awful tone. But Mr. Fitzgerald is beyond the reach of tones.

'Oh, it's all very well your taking it like that now,' says he; 'but when poor old James was here it was a different thing.'

'It was not,' says Susan indignantly.

'Are you going to deny that he was your abject slave--that he sat in your pocket from morning till night--well, very nearly night? That he followed you from place to place like a baa-lamb? That you did not encourage him in the basest fashion?'

'I never encouraged him. Encourage him! That boy!'

'Don't call him names, Susan, behind his back,' says Betty, whose mischievous nature is now all afire, and who is as keen about the baiting of Susan as either Carew or Dom. 'Besides, what a boy he is! He must be twenty-two, at all events.' This seems quite old to Betty.

'What did you do with the keepsake he gave you when he was going away?' asks Carew. He is lying flat upon the warm grass, his chin upon his palms, and looks up at Susan with judicial eyes. 'What was it? I forget now. A lock of his lovely hair?'

'No,' says Betty; 'a little silver brooch--an anchor.'

'That means hope,' says Dominick solemnly. 'Susan, he is coming back next year. What are you going to say to him?'

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