Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings. Marsh Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ was a trifle obvious. What a Frazer she must have been! And how devoted to the Frazer plaid!

      I could have beaten myself. I was wild with everyone-with Madame Doumer, with Miss Frazer, and, last but not least, with Hetty Travers, that I should have allowed her to delude me into believing that unrequited love was driving Miss Frazer mad, and that it would be playing a chivalrous part to take that deceitful Frenchman to task. When, as soon as she had swallowed her dinner, Hetty stole up to learn what had become of me, I stormed at her like some wild thing. When she understood what I had been doing, instead of exhibiting penitence, or the least scrap of sympathy, she burst into peal after peal of laughter. I could have shaken her. But she had such a way about her, and could be so lovely when she chose, that, by degrees, I forgave her, though I never meant to. That tale was told. Everybody in the place had it off by heart within four-and-twenty hours. I believe that Miss Frazer blurted it out to one or two of them; it seemed that she could talk when she was not wanted to. And, of course, they told everybody else. I never heard the last of it while I was at Lingfield House. Mrs Sawyer merely remarked, with that dry smile which was peculiar to her, that she had always found young ladies difficult creatures to manage, but that I certainly did seem to be a curiosity even among girls.

      And when I look back, and go hot all over-as I do when I recall that adventure to this hour-I really am disposed to think I must have been.

      III

      THE OGRE

      Mother died while sitting in her chair writing to me. It was tea-time, and she did not come, so Con went to see what she was doing. She was leaning over her writing-table, and as she did not seem to have noticed his coming in-though I am sure that he made noise enough, because he always did-he called out to her.

      "Mother! tea's on the table!"

      Then, as she neither moved nor answered, he ran forward and put his hand upon her shoulder.

      "Mother!"

      When he found how still she was, and how unresponsive to his touch, he rushed off, frightened half out of his wits.

      Then they all trooped into the room and found that she was dead. She had a pen in her hand, and a sheet of paper in front of her, and had begun the first line of a letter to me-"My dear Molly." Death must have come upon her as she was writing my name, for there is a blot at the end of it, as if her pen had jabbed into the paper. No one knew what she was going to say to me, or ever will. It was just her weekly letter-she wrote to me each Monday. And I expect she was just going to tell me the home news: what Nora had been doing, and what mischief the boys had been in, and beg me to be a good girl and think before I did things sometimes, and keep my stockings darned; those stockings were almost as great a trouble to her as they were to me. Not a creature had a notion that she was ailing. Indeed she was not. She was in good spirits-mother always was in good spirits! – and in perfect health half-an-hour before. It seemed that something extraordinary must have happened to her heart, which no one could have expected. Death must have come upon her in an instant. She must have gone before she had the least idea of what was going to happen. When she got to heaven how grieved she must have been to think that she had been compelled to leave us all without a word.

      Never shall I forget receiving the telegram at Mrs Sawyer's. We were just going to bed, and the last train was nearly due to start. But I rushed off to catch it; and Mrs Sawyer went with me. She bought my ticket and sent a telegram to let them know that I was coming. At the other end I had a drive of nearly six miles. It seemed the middle of the night when I got home.

      The state the house was in! And the children! They were in much more need of help than mother was. She was calm enough. When I first saw her I could not believe that she was dead. I thought that she was sleeping, and dreaming one of those happy dreams which, she used to tell us, she liked to dream. On her face was the smile with which she always greeted me. She always did look happy, mother did; but I never saw her look happier than when she was lying dead.

      But the children! They were half beside themselves. It was dreadful; the boys especially. We could not get Con away from the bed on which mother lay. And Dick, great fellow though he was, was almost as bad. The whole house was topsy-turvy. Nobody knew what to do; everybody seemed to have lost their wits.

      That is how it was the Ogre came on the scene. Of course his name was not the Ogre. It was Miller-Stephen Miller. But it was not very long before we only knew him as the Ogre among ourselves. He was not very tall, but he was big; at least, he seemed big to us. He had a loud voice, and a loud way about him generally. We liked neither his looks nor his manners-nor had mother liked them either. But at the beginning I do not know what we should have done without him. That is, I did not know then what we should have done. Though I am inclined to think now that if we had been left to ourselves, and been forced to act, we should have done as well, if not better. Yet one must confess that at the very beginning he was a help, though a comfort one never could have called him.

      He was our nearest neighbour. His house was about half a mile down the lane. It was only a cottage. He inhabited it with a dreadful drunken old woman as his only servant. It was said that he could get no one else to stop in the house. He himself was not a teetotaller, and his general character was pretty bad. He seemed to have enough money to live on, because he did nothing except go about with a lot of dogs at his heels. In the charitable way which children have of talking we used to say that he was hiding from the law, and would speculate as to the nature of the crime of which he had been guilty. When he first came he tried to cultivate mamma's acquaintance, but she would have nothing to do with him, and would scarcely recognise him when she met him in the lane. I once heard Dick speak of him as an "unmannerly ruffian"; but I never knew why. And as Dick, like his sister Molly, sometimes said stronger things than the occasion warranted, I did not pay much heed.

      The morning after mother's death he came marching into the house to ask if he could be of any assistance. No one, so far as I could ever gather, said either yes or no, which shows the condition we were in. He seems to have taken our consent for granted-to such an extent that he at once took into his hands the entire management of everything. He managed the inquest-for that I was grateful. Oh, that dreadful inquest! He also managed the funeral; for his services in that direction my gratitude assumed a mitigated form. Although the world was still upside down, and everything seemed happening in a land of topsy-turvydom, I yet was conscious that a good deal took place at mother's funeral which I would rather had not have taken place. For one thing I felt sure that a great quantity of money was being spent on it, much more than need have been. A number of people were invited who had not the slightest right to be present, so that we children were almost lost amid a crowd of strangers. In spite of the dreadful trouble I was in it made me burn when I saw them. Many of them were people whom mother would never have allowed to enter the house. Then there was an excessive amount of eating and drinking, especially drinking. Some time after we had returned from the grave I went into the hall and there were rows of bottles stacked against the wall. A lot of people seemed to be in the drawing and dining-rooms, who were talking at the top of their voices. I could not go in to see what it meant then-but I could guess.

      But the trouble really began after the funeral was over.

      We children were in such a strange position. So far as we knew, except mother we had not a relation in the world. There certainly were none with whom we were in communication. I had always fancied, from what mother said, that she and father were married without the approval of their relatives. I did not know if it was father's or mother's side which objected, but I felt sure it was one or the other. And I thought it was just possible that it was both. I believe that, when father died, mother was not nicely treated. This hurt her pride, because, though she was such a darling, and so sweet, and beautiful, and clever, and true, and tender, she was proud, as she had every right to be. And I think, because they were so unkind, she took us straight off to that Sussex village, miles and miles away from everyone, and bought The Chase. Con was a baby when father died, and now he was nearly eleven, СКАЧАТЬ