The Shuttle & The Making of a Marchioness. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ instructed her mistress. “And take her a nice walk occasionally. I daresay she feels very homesick here.”

      What Ameerah said to her mistress was that these English servant women were pigs and devils, and could conceal nothing from those who chose to find out things from them. If Jane had known that the Ayah could have told her of every movement she made during the day or night, of her up-gettings and down-lyings, of the hour and moment of every service done for the big Mem Sahib, of why and how and when and where each thing was done, she would have been frightened indeed.

      One day, it is true, she came into Lady Walderhurst’s sleeping apartment to find Ameerah standing in the middle of it looking round its contents with restless, timid, bewildered eyes. She wore, indeed, the manner of an alarmed creature who did not know how she had got there.

      “What are you doing here?” demanded Jane. “You have no right in this part of the house. You’re taking a great liberty, and your mistress will be angry.”

      “My Mem Sahib asked for a book,” the Ayah quite shivered in her alarmed confusion. “Your Mem Sahib said it was here. They did not order me, but I thought I would come to you. I did not know it was forbidden.”

      “What was the book?” inquired Jane severely. “I will take it to her ladyship.”

      But Ameerah was so frightened that she had forgotten the name, and when Jane knocked at the door of Mrs. Osborn’s boudoir, it was empty, both the ladies having gone into the garden.

      But Ameerah’s story was quite true, Lady Walderhurst said in the evening when Jane spoke of the matter as she dressed her for dinner. They had been speaking of a book containing records of certain historical Walderhursts. It was one Emily had taken from the library to read in her bedroom.

      “We did not ask her to go for it. In fact I did not know the woman was within hearing. She moves about so noiselessly one frequently does not know when she is near. Of course she meant very well, but she does not know our English ways.”

      “No, my lady, she does not,” said Jane, respectfully but firmly. “I took the liberty of telling her she must keep to her own part of the house unless required by your ladyship.”

      “You mustn’t frighten the poor creature,” laughed her mistress. She was rather touched indeed by the slavish desire to please and do service swiftly which the Ayah’s blunder seemed to indicate. She had wished to save her mistress even the trouble of giving the order. That was her Oriental way, Emily thought, and it was very affectionate and childlike.

      Being reminded of the book again, she carried it down herself into the drawing-room. It was a volume she was fond of because it recorded romantic stories of certain noble dames of Walderhurst lineage.

      Her special predilection was a Dame Ellena, who, being left with but few servitors in attendance during her lord’s absence from his castle on a foraging journey into an enemy’s country, had defended the stronghold boldly against the attack of a second enemy who had adroitly seized the opportunity to forage for himself. In the cellars had been hidden treasure recently acquired by the usual means, and knowing this, Dame Ellena had done splendid deeds, marshalling her small forces in such way as deceived the attacking party and showing herself in scorn upon the battlements, a fierce, beauteous woman about to give her lord an heir, yet fearing naught, and only made more fierce and full of courage by this fact. The son, born but three weeks later, had been the most splendid and savage fighter of his name, and a giant in build and strength.

      “I suppose,” Emily said when they discussed the legend after dinner, “I suppose she felt that she could do anything,” with her italics. “I daresay nothing could make her afraid, but the thought that something might go wrong while her husband was away. And strength was given her.”

      She was so thrilled that she got up and walked across the room with quite a fine sweep of heroic movement in her momentary excitement. She held her head up and smiled with widening eyes.

      But she saw Captain Osborn drag at his black moustache to hide an unattractive grin, and she was at once abashed into feeling silly and shy. She sat down again with awkward selfconsciousness.

      “I’m afraid I’m making you laugh at me,” she apologised, “but that story always gives me such a romantic feeling. I like her so.”

      “Oh! not at all, not all,” said Osborn. “I was not laughing really; oh no!”

      But he had been, and had been secretly calling her a sentimental, ramping idiot.

      It was a great day for Jane Cupp when her mother arrived at Palstrey Manor. It was a great day for Mrs. Cupp also. When she descended from the train at the little country station, warm and somewhat flushed by her emotions and the bugled splendours of her best bonnet and black silk mantle, the sight of Jane standing neatly upon the platform almost overcame her. Being led to his lordship’s own private bus, and seeing her trunk surrounded by the attentions of an obsequious stationmaster and a liveried young man, she was conscious of concealing a flutter with dignified reserve.

      “My word, Jane!” she exclaimed after they had taken their seats in the vehicle. “My word, you look as accustomed to it as if you had been born in the family.”

      But it was when, after she had been introduced to the society in the servants’ hall, she was settled in her comfortable room next to Jane’s own that she realised to the full that there were features of her position which marked it with importance almost startling. As Jane talked to her, the heat of the genteel bonnet and beaded mantle had nothing whatever to do with the warmth which moistened her brow.

      “I thought I’d keep it till I saw you, mother,” said the girl decorously. “I know what her ladyship feels about being talked over. If I was a lady myself, I shouldn’t like it. And I know how deep you’ll feel it, that when the doctor advised her to get an experienced married person to be at hand, she said in that dear way of hers, ‘Jane, if your uncle could spare your mother, how I should like to have her. I’ve never forgot her kindness in Mortimer Street.’”

      Mrs. Cupp fanned her face with a handkerchief of notable freshness.

      “If she was Her Majesty,” she said, “she couldn’t be more sacred to me, nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege.”

      Jane had begun to put her mother’s belongings away. She was folding and patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then lifted a rather embarrassed face.

      “I’m glad you are here, mother,” she said. “I’m thankful to have you!”

      Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression. She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half whisper.

      “Why, Jane, what is it?”

      Jane came nearer.

      “I don’t know,” she answered, and her voice also was low. “Perhaps I’m silly and overanxious, because I am so fond of her. But that Ameerah, I actually dream about her.”

      “What! The black woman?”,

      “If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we feel? I’ve kept my nerves to myself till I’ve nearly screamed sometimes. And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But—well,” in a hurried outburst, “I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns wasn’t. I do wish it, I tell you that.”

      “Good СКАЧАТЬ