Part 30 (1/2)
”I thought you would be--I came to surprise you. My dear Miss Vanbrugh, have you really forgotten me? Then allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Christal Manners.”
Miss Meliora looked as if she could have sunk into the earth! Year after year, from the sum left in the bank, she had paid the school-bill of her self-a.s.sumed charge; but that was all. After-thoughts, and a few prudish hints given by good-natured friends, had made her feel both ashamed and frightened at having taken such a doubtful _protegee_. Whenever she chanced to think of Christal's growing up, and coming back a woman, she drove the subject from her mind in absolute alarm. Now the very thing she dreaded had come upon her. Here was the desolate child returned, a stylish young woman, with no home in the world but that of her sole friend and protectress.
Poor Miss Vanbrugh was quite overwhelmed. She sank on a chair, ”Dear me!
I am so frightened--that is, so startled. Oh, Miss Rothesay, what shall I do?” and she looked appealingly to Olive.
But between her and Miss Rothesay glided the young stranger. The bright colour paled from Christa's face--her smile pa.s.sed into a frown.
”Then you are not glad to see me--you, the sole friend I have in the world, whom I have travelled a thousand miles to meet--travelled alone and unprotected--you are not glad to see me? I will turn and go back again--I will leave the house--I will--I”----
Her rapid speech ended in a burst of tears. Poor Meliora felt like a guilty thing. ”Miss Manners--Christal--my poor child! I didn't mean that! Don't cry--don't cry! I am very glad to see you--so are we all--are we not, Olive?”
Olive was almost as much puzzled as herself. She had a pa.s.sing recollection of the death of Mrs. Manners, and of the child's being sent to school; but since then she had heard no more of her. She could hardly believe that the elegant creature before her was the little ragged imp of a child whom she had once seen staring idly down the river. However, she asked no questions, but helped to soothe the girl, and to restore, as far as possible, peace and composure to the household.
They all spent the evening together without any reference to the past.
Only once, Christal--in relating how, as soon as ever her term of education expired, she had almost compelled her governess to let her come to England, and to Miss Vanbrugh,--said, in her proud way,
”It was not to ask a maintenance--for you know my parents left me independent; but I wanted to see you because I believed that, besides taking charge of my fortune, you had been kind to me when a child. How, or in what way, I cannot clearly remember; for I think,” she added, laughing, ”that I must have been a very stupid little girl: all seems so dim to me until I went to school. Can you enlighten me, Miss Vanbrugh?”
”Another time, another time, my dear,” said the painter's sister, growing very much confused.
”Well! I thank you all the same,'and you shall not find me ungrateful,”
said the young lady, kissing Miss Meliora's hand, and speaking in a tone of real feeling, which would have moved any woman. It quite overpowered Miss Van-brugh--the softest-hearted little woman in the world. She embraced her _protegee_, declaring that she would never part with her.
”But,” she added, with a sudden thought, a thought of intense alarm, ”what will Michael say?”
”Do not think of that to-night,” interposed Olive. ”Miss Manners is tired; let us get her to bed quickly, and we will see what morning brings.”
The advice was followed, and Christal disappeared; not, however, without lavis.h.i.+ng on Mrs. and Miss Rothesay a thousand gracious thanks and apologies, with an air and deportment that did infinite honour to the polite instruction of her _pension_.
Mrs. Rothesay, confused with all that had happened, did not ask many questions, but only said as she retired,
”I don't quite like her, Olive--I don't like the tone of her voice; and yet there was something that struck me in the touch of her hand--which is so different in different people.”
”Hers is a very pretty hand, mamma. It is quite cla.s.sic in shape--like poor papa's--which I remember so well!”
”There never was such a beautiful hand as your papa's. He said it descended in the Rothesay family. You have it, you know, my child,”
observed Mrs. Rothesay. She sighed, but softly; for, after all these years, the widow and the fatherless had learned to speak of their loss without pain, though with tender remembrance.
Thinking of him and of her mother, Olive thought, likewise, how much happier was her own lot than that of the orphan-girl, who, by her own confession, had never known what it was to remember the love of the dead, or to rejoice in the love of the living. And her heart was moved with the pity--nay, even tenderness, for Christal Manners.
When she had a.s.sisted her mother to bed--as she always did--Olive, in pa.s.sing down stairs, moved by some feeling of interest, listened at the door of the young stranger. She was apparently walking up and down her room with a quick, hurried step. Olive knocked.
”Are you quite comfortable?--do you want anything?”
”Who's there? Oh! come in, Miss Rothesay.”
Olive entered, and found, to her surprise, that the candle was extinguished.