CHAPTER VI.
QUEENIE'S WHIM.
"She knew not what was lacking, Knew not until it came; She gave it the name of friendship, But that was not its name. And the truth could not be hidden From her own clear-seeing eyes. When the name her own heart whispered, And whispered too, 'Be wise.'"--_Isa Craig-Knox._
The storm had wholly ceased, but a few snatches of summer lightning still played on the ragged edge of the clouds when Queenie at last bade her old friend good night, and went up to her little room, to think over the bewildering events of the day. The air was still oppressed and sultry. The white slabs of stone in the mason's yard shone dimly in the darkness; the wet ivy scattered a shower of drops on the girl's uncovered head as she leaned out, as though gasping for air. A faint perfume of saturated roses and drowned lavender pervaded everything. A blue-grey moth trailed his draggled wings feebly across the sill. The dark-scented air seemed full of mystery and silence.
Queenie leant her head upon her hands and tried to think, but in reality she was too numb and bewildered. "What has happened to me? why am I more sorry than glad about it all? how have I deserved it? and what am I to do with all this wealth that has come to me?" she kept saying to herself over and over again.
A few hundreds would have sent her back rejoicing and triumphant. A modest competency, an assured income, would have lightened the whole burthen of her responsibility, and made her young heart happy; but all this wealth! It would not be too much to say that for the time she was simply crushed by it.
"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient to me." Queenie, as well as Garth Clayton, had ever loved that prayer of the wise Agar. If she could have chosen her lot in life it would have been in some such words as these. To have sufficient, but not too much, was the very sum and substance of her wishes.
Now a strange sense of trouble and loss oppressed her. Her plans for the future were strangely disturbed; a moral earthquake had shattered her airy castles, and she was looking mournfully at their wrecks. Her cottage and her work, must she relinquish both? Was Emmie's childish notion of happiness to be frustrated also? "I would rather be the school-mistress at Hepshaw than the richest lady in Carlisle." How passionately she had said those words, and yet she had meant them from her very heart.
And then, with a sudden sharp pang, she remembered that it was one of Garth Clayton's peculiarities to dislike riches for women. A certain conversation that had passed between him and his brother occurred to her with painful vividness.
One of Garth's school friends had just married a wealthy widow.
"What a lucky fellow young Musgrave is," Ted had grumbled. "He was never a fellow for work, and now he need not do another stroke of business for the remainder of his life. See if I don't pick up a rich wife for myself one of these days."
"What! you would consent to live on your wife's money!" returned his brother, with a face of disgust. "You would help yourself out of her pocket, in order that you might eat the bread of idleness! a nice manly notion that."
"Why should a man be bound to work for both if he does not choose?" replied Ted, sulkily. "I thought this was an enlightened age, and that the rights of women would entitle them to the honor of helping to be bread-winner. Don't pull such a long face, Garth; I wouldn't marry any girl if she were weighted in gold unless I liked her, only I mean to invest my affections prudently."
"I don't think I could ever fall in love with a rich woman," was Garth's emphatic answer. "I believe I am peculiar on this point. If I ever marry, my wife must be dependent on me, not I on her. Why one of the chief pleasures of matrimony must be to bully your wife sometimes, just to see how nicely she takes it; but if she has all the pounds, shillings, and pence on her side, she might turn round and bully me."
"Garth, how can you be so absurd," broke in Cathy.
"You see, a husband ought to have all the power," he continued, in his droll, half-serious way. "The threat of withholding a new dress would reduce any woman to a state of abject submission. I should like my wife, provided I ever have one, which is not likely if you are going to be so extravagant, Cathy, I should like her to coax and wheedle me out of all her ribbons and fineries; but if she could demand a cheque for a new silk dress whenever she liked-'I should thank you to remember, Mr. Clayton, who it is who brought you all that money'--why what a fool I should feel."
"Langley, do hear him; when he pays all our bills without looking at a single item."
"Ah, but you are not my wife, my dear, that makes all the difference. The immaculate creature whom I honor with my regard must be made aware that she is marrying a man with a hobby. Why," finished Garth, with a sudden glow of strong feeling on his face, "it must destroy the very nature and meaning of things not to feel that your wife is dependent upon you for everything."
How well Queenie recalled this conversation. How truly it spoke of the nature of the man--his sturdy independence, his pride and love of authority, and also of the tenderness that loved to shield and protect.
Garth always cared most for what was dependent on him; feminine self-reliance seldom pleased him. Queenie's independence was simply owing to circumstances; she was strong-minded and yet not self-asserting; her force of will seldom came to the surface. In every-day life, amongst those who loved her, she was singularly submissive and yielding, and from the first she had placed implicit trust in Garth Clayton, in a way that had touched him to the heart.
A bitter reflection crossed her mind now--Garth was good to her; he had in a way taken her under his protection, and was showing her much brotherly kindness; would he not lose interest in her now she was rich? Queenie remembered how coldly he had talked of a certain school friend of Langley's, a young heiress, who had lately settled some miles from Hepshaw. Langley had once or twice proposed driving over to see her, but Garth had always negatived the notion.
"Caroline is such a good creature," Langley would say; "she is not pretty, but thoroughly nice, and so bright."
"Then go over, by all means, and see her, my dear; but I must ask you to excuse me from accompanying you." And when Cathy had pressed him, he had seemed put out, and had muttered, "that he had something better to do than to run after girls all day, especially when they were heiresses."
Queenie thought of all this with a certain dismay and sinking of heart. She was an heiress herself, and he disliked heiresses. Perhaps, when he knew that, his manner would change; it would become cooler and more distant. How could she ever bring herself to bear that?
The thought of the cottage became every moment dearer. He was furnishing it for her now. He and Langley had been up to the sale, but the whole business had been kept a secret from her.
"You know you are to leave all these details to me," he had remarked casually on his return. Queenie was quite aware how often Cathy and Langley were closeted with him in his study. Cathy would come out from these interviews very round-eyed and mysterious, and with an air of importance that amused Queenie. She had a notion once or twice that the pile of new towels and dusters in Langley's basket were not for the use of the inhabitants of Church-Stile House; but she dared not inquire the truth.
Was this pleasant surprise they were planning to be in vain? And then again, was she not bound by her work? The Vicar and church-wardens had elected her as mistress of the Hepshaw girls' school, was she not bound to fulfil her duties until the vacancy could be filled?
Queenie's young head and heart were in a whirl; regret, pride, pleasure, and yet pain, each in turn predominated. "What shall I do? what ought I to do?" she kept repeating; and then all at once a look of amusement, almost of glee, crossed her face. "I have it! but will it do? will it be right? Oh! what will Caleb say? And then if he, if Mr. Clayton, found out would he not think it childish and whimsical to the last degree; but I can't help it, I must have breathing time and a little happiness first."
When Queenie had reached this conclusion she laid her head on the pillow, but it was not easy to still her throbbing pulses; for almost the first time in her healthy young life sleep entirely forsook her. The morning sun was flooding the little chamber, the birds were twittering and pluming themselves amongst the ivy, before a brief forgetfulness sealed her senses; a confused dream followed. She thought she was standing on a lonely sand-bank, when suddenly it changed to shifting gold beneath her feet; she felt herself sinking, and cried out to some one to save her; and woke to find Molly's homely face bending over her, with a great bunch of roses in her hand.
"I have been out to the market, and I bought these of a poor decent-looking body. The master's been down nigh upon an hour, but he would not let me disturb you before this," cried Molly, dropping one of her old-fashioned curtseys.
Queenie laid her hot cheek against the cool crimson hearts of the roses. "Oh, Molly! you dear, kind creature, how delicious; and how thankful I am that you woke me. Do you know, you have saved me from a horrible death. I was drowning in gold, sinking in it; it was all hard and glittering, and seemed to strangle me. How sweet the roses and the sunshine are after it. Oh!" with a little whimsical shudder, "I wish I had not woke up such a very rich woman, Molly."
Queenie was in a curious mood all breakfast-time; she would not talk sensibly, and she would persist in turning a deaf ear to all Caleb's scraps of advice and wisdom. When their frugal meal was finished she dragged Caleb's great elbow-chair to the open window, and placed herself on the low window-seat beside it. "Now, Caleb, I want to talk to you," she said coaxingly.
"But, Miss Queenie dear, it is getting late, and you have over-slept yourself, you know; and there is the office, and Mr. Duncan; he will be expecting us."
"What is the good of being an heiress if one cannot do as one likes, and keep lawyers and those sort of people waiting?" returned Queenie, coolly. "I am a different person to what I was yesterday; so different that I have to pinch myself now and then to be sure that I am really Queenie Marriott, and not some one else. I feel like that man in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' only I forget his name."
"But, my dear young lady," pleaded Caleb, helplessly.
"Now, Caleb, you are to be good, and listen to me. I am quite serious, quite in earnest; and if you give me any trouble I shall just take the next train back to Hepshaw, and leave you and Mr. Duncan to do as you like with all this dreadful money."
Caleb held up his hands in amazement. "Dreadful money!" he gasped.
"It is very rude to repeat people's words," replied the girl, with a little stamp of her foot. "It is dreadful to me; it has been suffocating and strangling me all night. I can't be rich all at once like this, it takes my breath away. Do you hear me, Caleb? I don't mean to be rich for another twelvemonth."
"Aye, what? I am not as young as I was, and maybe I am a little hard of hearing, my dearie;" and Caleb looked at her rather vacantly.
"Listen to me, dear," she repeated, more gently, laying her hand on his sleeve to enforce attention. "I have been awake all night; the thought of all this money coming to me unearned and undeserved oppressed and made me quite unhappy. I do not want it," hesitating, and reddening slightly over her words; "it has interfered with my plans, and turned everything in my life topsy-turvy. It is not that I am ungrateful, or that I may not want it some day, but I must be free, free to do my own work, free to live my own humble life, free as a gipsy or Bohemian, for one twelvemonth longer."
"Miss Queenie, dear, I call this tempting Providence," began the old man, solemnly. "These riches are yours, and you must use them. Why bless your dear heart, they are earned and deserved over and over again, and every one who knows you will say so."
"These riches are mine, and I suppose I ought to say thank God for them, and I think I do in my heart, for Emmie's sake," she replied, solemnly; "but, Caleb, I am determined for another year I will not use them. I will take a little, perhaps; you and Mr. Duncan shall give me enough for present use; but for a year I will be the school-mistress at Hepshaw, and nothing else."
"The school-mistress at Hepshaw!--five thousand a-year! Heaven bless us and save us! I am getting dazed, Miss Queenie. The school-mistress at Hepshaw!"
"Yes; I am bound to my work, and I do not mean to shrink from it. I mean to hide up my riches, to keep them a grand secret even from Emmie; to live in my little cottage among my kind friends, and work and be free and happy for a whole year. Only one year, Caleb," caressing him, for tears of disappointment stood in his eyes; "only one little year out of my whole life."
"And what then, Miss Queenie?"
"Then I must be brave, and buckle on my golden harness. Don't be afraid, dear old friend, I do not mean to shrink from my responsibilities; I would not if they were really and truly to crush me," with a smile, followed by a sigh. "I only want to have time to get used to the thought. I must teach and fit myself to be a rich woman before I am one. Now you must promise to keep my secret, you and Molly, and Mr. Duncan. No one knows me; no one need concern themselves about my business. I was Miss Titheridge's under-teacher, and now I am the school-mistress at Hepshaw."
"But, Miss Queenie--"
"Caleb, you must promise me. Hush," kneeling down before him, and bringing her bright face on a level with his; "I will not hear another word. It is a whim, dear; just Queenie's whim, and that is all."
"I saw it was a bit of girl's nonsense, but I couldn't gainsay her coaxing ways," as Caleb said to Mr. Duncan afterwards. "She always had a will of her own, had Miss Queenie; but in the main she is right and sensible, and has an old head on young shoulders. It is just a sort of play-acting. She has set her heart on this school and cottage of hers, and nothing will do for her but to go back to it."
"Marie Antoinette at Trianon! I have a notion that there is more in this than meets the eye," argued the lawyer shrewdly, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Well, well, Mr. Runciman, it is none of our business; the girl is absolute mistress of her own fortune. Morton and I are only joint executors, and bound to see things are right and fair; she might spend it all on that charity school of hers, and we should have no right to interfere."
"But, all the same, it is a bit of pure nonsense," returned Caleb, distrustful for the first time of his favorite's good sense.
"Don't trouble your head about it, Runciman," was the good-humored reply; "the best of women have their crazy fits sometimes. Mark my words, before six months are over she will have changed her tune. Either the truth will have leaked out, or she will be impatient to try her heiress-ship; there's no knowing what will happen. She has asked me for fifty pounds; in another month it will be a hundred. Bless you, when her fingers have got used to the feel of bank-notes they will slip through them pretty readily."
Queenie had got her way, but she found it somewhat difficult to pacify her old friend. She had just been out to buy some simple unexpensive mourning for herself and Emmie, and was standing by the table fingering the stuffs as he entered.
"Silk and crape, that is what you ought to have worn, Miss Queenie," grumbled Caleb, with a dissatisfied face; but the girl only shook her head.
"Crape is such dusty, inconvenient wear in the country, and Emmie is such a child," she returned; "these simple stuffs will be far more suitable. Fancy my wearing silk dresses in that little old barn of a school-room, or in our tiny cottage!"
"This is all of a piece with your fantastical scheme. Cambric! why Molly could wear that," continued Caleb, with the same rueful visage. "Dear, dear, what a tempting of Providence, hoarding and hiding in this miserly way, Miss Queenie. Why, as I said to Molly, our young lady can take one of those big new houses they are building near us, and have her carriage and her riding-horse; and no doubt she will visit at the Deanery, and at Rose Castle, and be an out-and-out fine lady; but I never thought it would come to this," dropping his hands on his knees in a low-spirited way.
Queenie laughed, but she could not help an involuntary shudder at Caleb's picture of her future greatness. A house at Carlisle, a carriage, even prospective visits at the Deanery would be poor compensation if she must resign her friends at Hepshaw. Would not her fortune be productive of greater happiness, of more enduring pleasures than those Caleb offered her? "If I must be rich I will be rich in my own way," thought the girl, a little rebelliously; and all through that day and the next a thousand schemes and fancies flitted before her, as unsubstantial and impracticable as such airy castles generally prove themselves.
A new and perfectly strange feeling of timidity came over her as the time drew near for her return to Hepshaw. Some complicated business arrangements had compelled her to lengthen her three days' visit into a week. Cathy had written to scold her for her delay; and Queenie had to ransack her brain to discover plausible excuses.
"Garth has just come in from the works, and he bids me tell you that you must positively return on Saturday evening, as the school is to re-open on Monday," wrote Cathy. "They are getting on so nicely at the cottage that it will be quite ready for occupation in another ten days; and Langley has discovered a little jewel of a maid, who will just exactly suit you. Do you remember her--Patience Atkinson, the rosy-faced girl who lived next door to the wheelwright's?"
Cathy's letter, with its girlish overflow of spirits and affectionate nonsense, caused Queenie a few moments' uneasiness. "I shall seem to be what I am not. I wonder if I am doing wrong to deceive them," she thought, with a sudden throb of startled honesty. "No; after all, it is my own business. I may spend, or hoard, or fling it all to the winds, and no one would have a right to complain of me."
But, nevertheless, there was a guilty consciousness that made her for the first time shrink from meeting Garth Clayton's eye.
It was evening when she arrived at Church-Stile House. Ted had met her at the station; Cathy and Emmie had come flying down the lane to meet them, and had greeted her rapturously. As she came across the moat, with the girls hanging on either arm, she saw Garth at the hall-door watching them.
"Why, what a truant you have been," he said, in his pleasant way. "We thought our new school-mistress had given us the slip. Cathy had got all sorts of notions in her head. One was that Mr. Calcott had left you a legacy. She narrated wonderful dreams to us one morning, of how you had a great fortune, and were going to marry a marquis."
"Cathy is an inveterate dreamer," returned Queenie, avoiding Mr. Clayton's eyes as she spoke. How constrained her voice was; she was hot and cold in a moment. How strange that he should address her in this manner. Was it a presentiment or something?
"You are pale and tired; your visit to Carlisle has not agreed with you," he returned, following her into the drawing-room, where Langley was waiting for them. "It has brought back unpleasant memories, eh?" with an abruptness, not unkindly, but which made Queenie still more nervous.
"Yes; and I believe I am tired," she stammered. "Mr. Runciman was very good to me, but he found it hard to let me go; that worried me rather; that and other things,"--the truth reluctantly drawn from her by those clear grey eyes.
"I saw that at once," was the prompt reply, and then he left her to his sister's care. But later on in the evening, when she was rested and refreshed, he returned again to the charge.
"I suppose Mr. Calcott has left a great deal of money? I did not read in the paper at what amount his property was valued, but I suppose it was pretty considerable."
"Yes; I believe so," returned Queenie faintly. They were sitting round the open window; the lamp on the centre table cast only a dim light on their faces. Langley had been playing to them, and just now the music had ceased.
"Have you any idea how he has disposed of it? Every one thought there would be a new wing added to the hospital. He had not a relative in the world belonging to him, except your little sister Emmie."
"No; and he has left nothing to Emmie," she returned, thankful that in this she could speak the whole truth. "Nearly all of it has gone to a stranger, a mere connection. Caleb has an annuity; and I--he has not forgotten me," shielding her face still more in the darkness. "Emmie and I will have enough to live on now. I shall not need to give French lessons, or to add in any way to my salary," blurting out the lesson she had prepared herself to say.
"Will you have enough without the school?" persisted Garth curiously. His keen ear had detected a certain trembling in Queenie's voice. Her agitation had not escaped him, and he was trying in his straightforward way to find out why she was not like herself to-night. "Do you mean that your salary is no longer of importance to you?"
"It is not all that we shall have to live on, that is what I meant to say," she returned hurriedly. "I shall not have to stint, or be afraid of how we shall make ends meet; there will be enough. Emmie will have little comforts; that is all I care for."
"I am very glad," returned Garth, gravely; but he questioned her no more. Possibly he expected her further confidence, and was a little disappointed when she withheld it. Neither on that evening nor on any further occasion did he revert to the subject; and Queenie, who began to feel her position an embarrassing one, was glad that the whole matter should be consigned to oblivion.
Cathy's curiosity was much more easily satisfied.
"There, my dream has come true," she said, embracing her ecstatically when they had retired to their own rooms. "Why did you not write and tell me about it? Will you have much, Queen--a whole hundred a-year?"
"Yes; I shall have a hundred a-year," returned Queenie, trying not to laugh. When she was away from those keen grey eyes she felt something like a renewal of courage. Her spirits returned; the whole thing appeared to her in the light of a good joke. "When it comes out, and he asks me the reason of this mystery, I know what I shall tell him," she thought, when Cathy had withdrawn, well pleased, and she was left alone for the night. "I shall tell him that I wanted to remain poor a little longer, and to be liked for myself; that I feared losing the school and the cottage; that it was an innocent whim that could do no one harm, and that would give me a great deal of pleasure," and when she had settled this point comfortably with herself she composed herself to sleep.