Part 43 (1/2)
”She whisked about this way”--here Mr. Rickards made a bold pirouette--”and said something in high Dutch that I feel sure wasn't a blessing.”
”Tell me one thing, Rickards,” said the lawyer, in a lower tone, and with the air of a complete confidant. ”What's this little game she's playing about that Irish girl, writing to my lady that she's a genius, that she can do this, that, and t'other, and that you've only to show her a book, and she knows it from cover to cover?”
”And don't you see what it is, Sir?” said Rickards, with one eye knowingly closed; ”don't you see it, Sir?”
”No, Rickards, I do not.”
”It's all the way that little sarpent has of comin' round her. Of all the creatures ever I seen, I never knew her equal for cunning. It ain't any use knowing she's a fox--not a bit of it, Sir--she'll get round you all the same. It's not an easy thing to get to the blind side of Mrs.
Byles, I promise you. She's a very knowledgeable woman, lived eleven years under a man-cook at Lord Wandsford's, and knows jellies, and made French dishes as well as Monsieur Honore himself. Well, Sir, that imp there winds her round her finger like a piece of packthread. She goes and says, 'Byles'--she doesn't as much as Mrs. Byles her, the way my lady would--but 'Byles,' says she, 'if ever I come to be a great lady and very rich, I'll have you to keep my house, and you shall have your own nice sittin'-room, and your own maid to wait on you, and a hundred a year settled on you for your life.' I vow it's a fact, Sir, wherever she heard of such a thing, but she said 'settled on you for life;' and then, Sir, she'll sit down and help her with the strawberry-jam, or the brandy-peaches, or whatever it is, and Mrs. Byles says there wouldn't be her equal in all England, if she only took to be a still-room maid.”
”And can she humbug Mr. Rickards? Tell me that,” asked the lawyer, with the leer of an old cross-examiner.
”Well, I do think, Sir, she can't do that. It's not every one as could.”
”No, Rickards; you and I know how to sleep with one eye open. But what does she mean by all this cunning--what does she intend by it?”
”There's what I can't come at, nohow, Sir; for, as I say, what's the good of plotting when you have everything at your hand? She hasn't no need for it, Mr. M'Kinlay. She has the same treatment here as Miss Ada herself--it was the master's orders.”
”It puzzles me, Rickards: I own it puzzles me,” said the lawyer, as, with his hands deep! in his pockets, he took a turn or two in the room.
”They say, Sir, it's the way of them Irish,” said Rickards, with the air of a man enunciating a profound sentiment; but M'Kinlay either did not hear, or did not value the remark, for, after a pause, he said, ”Its just possible, after all, Rickards, that it's only a way she has. Don't you think so?”
”I do not, Sir,” replied he, stoutly. ”If there wasn't more than that in it, she wouldn't go on as I have seen her do, when she thought she was all alone.”
”How so? What do you mean?”
”Well, you see, Sir, there's a laurel hedge in the garden, that goes along by the wall where the peach-trees are, and that's her favourite walk, and I've watched her when she was there by herself, and it was as good as any play to see her.”
”In what respect?”
”She'd be making believe all sorts of things to herself--how that she was a fine lady showing the grounds to a party of visitors, telling them how she intended to build something here and throw down something there, what trees she'd plant in one place, and what an opening for a view she'd made in another. You'd not believe your ears if you heard how glibly she'd run on about plants and shrubs and flowers. And then suddenly she'd change, and pretend to call her maid, and tell her to fetch her another shawl or her gloves; or she'd say, 'Tell George I shall not ride to-day, perhaps I'll drive out in the evening.' And that's the way she'd go on till she heard the governess coming, and then, just as quick as lightning, you'd hear her in her own voice again, as artless as any young creature you ever listened to.”
”I see--I see,” said M'Kinlay, with a sententious air and look, as though he read the whole case, and saw her entire disposition revealed before him like a plan. ”A shrewd minx in her own way, but a very small way it is. Now, Rickards, perhaps you'd tell Miss Heinzleman that I'm here--of course, not a word about what we've been talking over.”
”You couldn't think it, Sir.”
”Not for a moment, Rickards. I could trust to your discretion like my own.”
When Mr. M'Kinlay was left alone, he drew forth some letters from his pocket, and sought out one in a small envelope, the address of which was in a lady's writing. It was a yery brief note from Miss Courtenay to himself, expressing her wish that he could find it convenient to run down, if only for a day, to Wales, and counsel Mademoiselle Heinzleman on a point of some difficulty respecting one of her pupils. The letter was evidently written in terms to be shown to a third party, and implied a case in which the writer's interest was deep and strong, but wherein she implicitly trusted to the good judgment of her friend, Mr. M'Kinlay, for the result.
”You will hear,” wrote she, ”from Mademoiselle Heinzleman the scruples she has communicated to myself and learn from her that all the advantages derivable from my brother-in-law's project have been already realised, but that henceforth difficulties alone may be apprehended, so that your consideration will be drawn at once to the question whether this companions.h.i.+p is further necessary, or indeed advisable.” She went on to state that if Sir Gervais had not told her Mr. M'Kinlay would be obliged to go down to the cottage for certain law papers he required, she would have scarcely ventured on imposing the present charge upon him, but that she felt a.s.sured, in the great regard he had always expressed for the family, of his ready forgiveness.
A small loose slip, marked ”Strictly private and confidential,” was enclosed within the note, the words of which ran thus: ”You will see that you must imply to Mademoiselle H. that she has written to me, in the terms and the spirit of _my_ letter to _her_, and in this way pledge her to whatever course you mean to adopt. This will be easy, for she is a fool.
”I cannot believe that all the interest she a.s.sumes to take in K.
is prompted by the girl's qualities, or her apt.i.tude to learn, and I gravely suspect she has my brother-in-law's instructions on this head.
This plot, for plot it is, I am determined to thwart, and at any cost.
The girl must be got rid of, sent to a school, or if no better way offer, sent home again. See that you manage this in such a way as will not compromise yourself, nor endanger you in the esteem of