Part 35 (2/2)

”Should you, Miss Hilary?” and with a visible brightening up Elizabeth betrayed Tom's whereabouts, and her little conspiracy to bring him here, and her hesitation lest it might be ”intruding.”

”Not at all. Tell him to come at once. I am not like my sister; we always allow 'followers.' I think a mistress stands in the relation of a parent, for the time being; and that can not be a right or good love which is concealed from her, as if it were a thing to be ashamed of.”

”I think so too. And I'm not a bit ashamed of Tom, nor he of me,”

said Elizabeth, so energetically that Miss Hilary smiled.

”Very well; take him to have his tea in the kitchen, and then bring him up stairs to speak to my sister and me.”

At that interview, which of course was rather trying, Tom acquitted himself to every body's satisfaction. He was manly, modest, self-possessed; did not say much--his usual talkativeness being restrained by the circ.u.mstances of the case, and the great impression made upon him by Miss Hilary, who, he afterward admitted to Elizabeth, ”was a real angel, and he should write a poem upon her.”

But the little he did say gave the ladies a very good impression of the intelligence and even refinement of Elizabeth's sweet-heart. And though they were sorry to see him look so delicate, still there was a something better than handsomeness in his handsome face, which made them not altogether surprised at Elizabeth's being so fond of him. As she watched the young couple down Richmond Street, in the soft summer twilight--Elizabeth taking Tom's arm, and Tom drawing up his stooping figure to its utmost extent, both a little ill-matched in height as they were in some other things, but walking with that air of perfect confidence and perfect contentedness in each other which always betrays, to a quick eye, those who have agreed to walk through the world together--Miss Hilary turned from the window and sighed.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Following Miss Hilary's earnest advice that every thing should be fair and open, Elizabeth, on the very next day after that happy Whit-Monday, mustered up her courage, asked permission to speak to her mistress, and told her she was going to be married to Tom Cliffe: not immediately, but in a year's time or so, if all went well.

Mrs. Ascott replied sharply that it was no affair of hers, and she could not be troubled about it. For her part she thought, if servants knew their own advantages, they would keep a good place when they had it, and never get married at all. And then, saying she had heard a good character of her from the housekeeper, she offered Elizabeth the place of upper house-maid, a young girl, a protegee of the housekeeper's, being subst.i.tuted in hers.

”And when you have sixteen pounds a year, and somebody to do all your hard work for you, I dare say you'll think better of it, and not be so foolish as to go and get married.”

But Elizabeth had her own private opinion on that matter. She was but a woman, poor thing! and two tiny rooms of her own, with Tom to care for and look after, seemed a far happier home than that great house, where she had not only her own work to do, but the responsibility of teaching and taking charge of that careless, stupid, pretty Esther, who had all the forwardness, untidiness, and unconscientiousness of a regular London maid-servant, and was a sore trial to the staid, steady Elizabeth.

Tom consoled her, in his careless but affectionate way; and another silent consolation was the ”little bits of things,” bought out of her additional wages, which she began to put by in her box--sticks and straws for the new sweet nest that was a-building: a metal teapot, two neat gla.s.s salt-cellars, and, awful extravagance!--two real second-hand silver spoons--Tom did so like having things nice about him! These purchases, picked up at stray times, were solid, substantial and useful; domestic rather than personal; and all with a view to Tom rather than herself. She hid them with a magpie-like closeness, for Esther and she shared the same room; but sometimes when Esther was asleep she would peep at them with an anxious, lingering tenderness, as if they made more of an a.s.sured reality what even now seemed so very like a dream.

--Except, indeed, on those Sunday nights when Tom and she went to church together and afterward took a walk, but always parted at the corner of the square. She never brought him in to the house, nor spoke of him to her fellow servants. How much they guessed of her engagement she neither knew nor cared.

Mrs. Ascott, too, had apparently quite forgotten it. She seemed to take as little interest in her servants' affairs as they in hers.

Nevertheless, ignorant as the lower regions were in general of what was pa.s.sing in the upper, occasionally rumors began to reach the kitchen that ”Master had been a-blowing up Missis, rather!” And once, after the solemn dinner, with three footmen to wait on two people, was over, Elizabeth, pa.s.sing through the hall, caught the said domestics laughing together, and saying it was ”as good as a play; cat and dog was nothing to it.” After which ”the rows up stairs”

became a favorite joke in the servants' hall.

But still Mr. Ascott went out daily after breakfast, and came home to dinner; and Mrs. Ascott spent the morning in her private sitting room, or ”boudoir,” as she called it; lunched, and drove out in her handsome carriage, with her footman behind; dressed elegantly for dinner, and presided at her own table with an air of magnificent satisfaction in all things. She had perfectly accommodated herself to her new position; and if under her satins and laces beat a solitary, dissatisfied, or aching heart, it was n.o.body's business but her own.

At least, she kept up the splendid sham with a most creditable persistency.

But all shams are dangerous things. Be the surface ever so smooth and green, it will crack sometimes, and a faint wreath of smoke betray the inward volcano. The like had happened once or twice, as on the day when the men-servants were so intensely amused. Also Elizabeth, when putting in order her mistress's bedroom, which was about the hour Mr. Ascott left for the city, had several times seen Mrs. Ascott come in there suddenly, white and trembling. Once, so agitated was she, that Elizabeth had brought her a gla.s.s of water; and instead of being angry or treating her with the distant dignity which she had always kept up her mistress had said, almost in the old s...o...b..ry tone, ”Thank you, Elizabeth.”

However, Elizabeth had the wisdom to take no notice, but to slip from the room, and keep her own counsel.

At last one day the smouldering domestic earthquake broke out. There was ”a precious good row,” the footman suspected, at the breakfast-table; and after breakfast, Master, without waiting for the usual attendance of that functionary, with his hat and gloves and a Hansom cab had flung himself out at the hall door, slamming it after him with a noise that startled the whole house. Shortly afterward ”Missis's” bell had rung violently, and she had been found lying on the floor of her bedroom in a dead faint, her maid, a foolish little Frenchwoman, screaming over her.

The frightened servants gathered round in a cl.u.s.ter, but n.o.body attempted to touch the poor lady, who lay rigid and helpless, hearing none of the comments that were freely made upon her, or the conjectures as to what Master had done or said that produced this state of things. Mistress she was, and these four or five woman, her servants, had lived in her house for months, but n.o.body loved her; n.o.body knew any thing about her; n.o.body thought of doing aught for her, till a kitchen-maid, probably out of former experience in some domestic emergency, suggested, ”Fetch Elizabeth.”

The advice was eagerly caught at, every body being so thankful to have the responsibility s.h.i.+fted to some other body's shoulders; so in five minutes Elizabeth had the room cleared, and her mistress laid upon the bed, with n.o.body near except herself and the French maid.

By-and-by Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes.

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