CHAPTER II.

ARTHUR THRALE.

The sun was streaming down the narrow rocky street of St. Pucelle, in one long, unbroken line of light. I could hear the shrill voice of Madame Marmoret screaming to frighten away the pigeons, as they alighted on the line she had erected in the courtyard to hang her spotless caps and aprons on; and Tessie disturbed me in the midst of writing a long letter home—somehow, I found it difficult to get out of the habit of calling Mrs. Sandiland’s place of residence ‘home’—to ask if I would take my work and go with her to sit on the brow of the hill that overlooked the valley of Artois.

‘It is “pig-killing day” in St. Pucelle, Hilda, and you will find it so much pleasanter to be out of the town than in it.’

‘_Pig-killing day!_’ I repeated. ‘Tessie, what _do_ you mean?’

‘Only that each family here keeps a pig, and they kill them all on the same day. Also that they have an unpleasant custom of sacrificing the animals in front of their houses, and the poor things _do_ squeak so.’

I threw all my writing materials to one side in a moment.

‘Mercy on us! When do they begin? Let us get out of this as soon as possible, Tessie.’

She laughed heartily at my dismay.

‘You need not be in such a terrible hurry, Hilda. I think you may give yourself a few minutes’ grace. But it really does turn the street into such a slaughter-house, that everybody makes a point of going as far from home as possible.’

‘Where is Ange?’

‘She has gone up to see Mère Fromard, whose husband is worse this morning, and she promised to join us on the hill on her way back.’

‘And your papa?’

‘I left him in the _salle_. He is just going to start by the diligence for Artois. He has some business to transact at Rille to-day, with his friend Mr. Felton.’

‘Excuse me for a moment then, Tessie. I want to speak to him before he goes.’

I flew downstairs as I spoke, and came upon Mr. Lovett in the _salle_, carefully brushing his clerical hat before putting it on. I had a motive for my haste. As we postpone visiting the dentist day after day, and then, in a sudden fit of courage, rush off without deliberation, and have our tooth extracted before we have had time to repent, so had I delayed speaking to my trustee on a matter of importance, and knew that unless I took my dilemma, like a bull, by the horns, I should never be brave enough to extricate myself from it. This dilemma was the want of money. I had been in St. Pucelle now for a couple of months, and Mr. Lovett had never mentioned the subject to me. I had gone there on the understanding that fifty pounds of my little income was to be annually refunded me for pocket expenses, and I had arrived there almost penniless, for the necessary outlay connected with the breaking up of my home and travelling to Belgium had absorbed nearly all the ready-money at my disposal. I had thrown out more than one hint, in the presence of Mr. Lovett, that a few francs would be acceptable to me, but they had had no effect, and I was now really in need of some trifles for my toilet.

Moreover, Ange would complete her eighteenth year in a week from that time, and I greatly desired to make her a little present on the occasion.

So I felt as desperate as a young woman can do who has no clean tuckers to put into her dresses, and has just discovered an alarming hole in the finger of her best pair of kid gloves.

Mr. Lovett looked up as I entered the _salle_, and saluted me with his bland, beautiful smile.

‘Well, my dear Hilda, have you any commands for me in Rille? I am compelled to go there to-day, to transact some business with my good friend Mr. Felton; but I hope you will be able to make yourself very happy meanwhile, with your own occupations and the dear children’s society.’

‘Oh yes, Mr. Lovett; we shall be happy enough. We are just going to take our needlework to the brow of the hill, and stay there till all the pigs are killed.’

‘A very wise decision,’ he said, laughing softly, as he smoothed round the nap of his hat.

‘But I wanted to speak to you first,’ I stammered. ‘I should be sorry to inconvenience you; but—but—I want frilling and such a lot of little things, Mr. Lovett; and—Mr. Warrington mentioned to me, you know, the arrangement you made with him about it, and—_could you let me have a little money, just to go on with?_’

The murder was out at last! I had made as much fuss over it as if I had been asking a favour, instead of demanding a right; but it was over—the tooth was out, and I breathed again.

What had Mr. Lovett to say in answer? At first, for the merest moment, I fancied that a flush of surprise or displeasure passed over his handsome features; but, if so, it vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving nothing behind but his own frank, benevolent expression.

‘Certainly, my dear girl, certainly. Why did you not mention it to me before? I shall be exceedingly annoyed if you delay asking for it one day after it is due. Let me see! When _was_ it due?’

‘I am not sure. It depends entirely upon how you intend to pay it to me. I have only been here two months, you know, Mr. Lovett.’

‘Ah! Just so. And I generally give my girls their allowance every quarter. Still, it makes no difference to me, my dear Hilda; and you can have your money just exactly when you like. How much do you require?’

‘I will take anything you choose to give me, sir.’

‘Tut, tut, tut!’ he said, as though annoyed by my want of confidence; ‘it must be as _you_ choose, my dear—it must be as you choose. What was the annual sum fixed on by Mr. Warrington for your private expenses? One hundred pounds?’

‘Oh no, sir. Fifty!’

‘That’s not enough,’ replied my guardian, decidedly. ‘No young lady can dress according to her station for fifty pounds a year. We must make it eighty.’

‘You are too kind to me, Mr. Lovett; but I should be very sorry to think my living here put you to any expense.’

‘Nonsense, my dear Hilda! I do not pretend to be a rich man; but I must become poorer than I am before I consent to take one _sou_ more than is absolutely necessary from the child of my dear old chum, Dick Marsh. So we will call the pin-money eighty pounds, my dear; and please to say no more about it. But I must not stay another minute, or I shall miss the diligence. Good-bye, and God bless you. How like you are to your father, to be sure! As you stand there, I could almost fancy it was dear old Dick come back and smiling at me.’

‘How soon shall you be home again, Mr. Lovett?’

‘Not till to-morrow morning, my child; but Tessie knows all about it. Good-bye, good-bye!’ And, waving his stick at me, the benevolent old gentleman descended the steps and made his way down the road as quickly as he could.

I was very glad that he had decided to fix my private allowance at eighty pounds, for it raised his feelings of justice in my estimation. To tell truth, since I had been in St. Pucelle, I had more than once thought that a hundred a year was too much money to pay for my board and lodging, for my bedroom possessed the barest necessaries, and we—that is, I and the girls—lived with the greatest frugality. The mystery which hung about the meals I had not yet fathomed, although I had begun sadly to suspect the cause of it. On some days the dinners provided continued to be luxurious in the extreme, though, as I have said before, I refused to partake of them; on others, we were all alike compelled to dine upon the most meagre fare. It was evident, therefore, that the means of provisioning the household were not always forthcoming, though that was no reason that I should pay for more than I consumed. I did not, therefore, consider that I laid myself under any special obligation to my guardian in consenting to his proposal, although I admired him for making it. Eighty pounds a year—twenty pounds every quarter—would be ample, not only to provide me with suitable clothing, but to leave a margin wherewith to indulge myself by making presents to my friends; and with the remainder of my income, Mr. Lovett would be fully indemnified for any extra expense I might prove in the household.

I returned to Tessie therefore quite satisfied with the result of my bravery. At the same time I wished that my guardian had given me a few francs in hand. But I felt certain he had only postponed it until he returned from Rille.

Under cover of this assurance, I talked openly to Tessie, as we walked together up the hill, of the interview that had taken place between her father and myself, and of the generous offer he had made me.

I was anxious to have her advice as to what would be the most suitable present I could purchase for Ange on her forthcoming birthday, for, in common with all her friends, I had learned to love the girl dearly, and was quite sure that nothing was to be found among the paltry little shops in St. Pucelle good enough for her acceptance.

‘I should like to give her something _really_ nice, Tessie; something that she wants very much. Do you know of anything? Never mind the price! I shall have much more money than I shall want for myself, and my greatest pleasure is in giving presents to those I care for. If you will decide what it shall be, I will ask Mrs. Carolus or Miss Markham to get it in Rille. I know they are going over there next week expressly to shop; and they will choose it probably quite as well as I should do myself.’

But Tessie, considering her love for her sister, was singularly indifferent on the subject. She coloured when I proposed it, as I thought with pleasure, but she gave me no help whatever.

‘Ange’s wants are so few,’ she said, ‘that I think it would be a pity to take much trouble about it, Hilda! She will be just as well pleased with a bunch of flowers from your hand as anything else. I, myself, intend to give her my new muslin apron, and I know she will say it is twice too good for her and refuse it half a dozen times before she accepts it.’

‘Now, Tessie! you are provoking,’ I replied. ‘One does not always ask before making a present if the reception of it is necessary to the happiness of one’s friend; but surely we can think of some trifle that Ange would like me to get for her, whether she can do without it or not. Shall I buy a pair of earrings to match her silver cross?’

‘Oh no, Hilda; pray don’t!’ cried Tessie in a voice of such feminine alarm that I burst out laughing.

‘Why not? They would look very pretty in her little ears.’

‘They would be far too expensive a present to make her! She would not like it, and neither would papa. We have never worn ornaments of any kind; and Ange would not have that silver cross, excepting that it was given to Madame Marmoret at her own confirmation, and she gave it to Ange when she was quite a little baby.’

‘And so that old vixen Madame Marmoret may make the child a handsome present, and I am forbidden to do so,’ I replied, half offended. ‘I shall not consult you any more, Tessie, but buy her just what I please.’

Tessie looked grave, but she said nothing more, and we walked on for a few minutes in silence. Then she began again:

‘I am sure Ange would rather have a ribbon that you have already worn than the finest piece of jewellery that Rille could produce.’

But I clapped my hand over her mouth, and raced her up the hill till she was out of breath.

‘And now if you dare to open your lips once more on that subject, I will push you all the way down again,’ I said, laughing, and she was fain to laugh with me; for I was determined to indulge myself by buying something both good and handsome, for my pretty Ange.

The conversation, however, simple as it was, seemed to have affected Tessie in no common degree. She was unusually silent as we sat side by side, diligently plying our needles, and she sighed more than once as she looked over the broad valley of Artois. Her mood was infectious. She made me thoughtful, too, and I began to muse over that grave in Norwood Cemetery, and the dear, dear face that lay beneath it.

‘Tessie,’ I said suddenly, ‘can you remember your mother?’

‘No, Hilda! She died when I was only a few years old, and Ange an infant in long-clothes.’

‘You are happy not to be able to remember her. You must miss her so much the less.’

‘Do you think so? Sometimes I fancy I must miss her more. I have never had the benefit of her guidance or counsel, you know, Hilda!’

‘That is true; but your father has supplied her place. A man’s advice is better than that of a woman, however good and clever she may be.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is, in most things; and papa has been the best and kindest of parents to us. Yet, if mamma had lived, Hilda, she might—I have always heard she was so fond of him—she might——’

But here the supposition of what her mother might have done was lost, in consequence of Tessie bursting into a flood of tears.

Her sudden emotion both surprised and shocked me. I had never dreamt that the death of a mother whom she had lost so early could have dwelt upon her mind to such a degree as this, neither had I ever seen her give vent to such violent grief before. Had it been Ange I should not have been so much astonished, for the ‘little maid’ was romantic and easily moved to tears; but that Tessie, who had so calm and equable a disposition, should be so overcome was quite another thing.

I soothed her to the best of my ability, but the storm was as genuine as it was unaccountable to me, and some minutes elapsed before she was restored to anything like composure. I was just congratulating myself that it was over, and thanking Heaven that no one else had witnessed her weakness, when I perceived, to my annoyance, the gaunt figure of Mrs. Carolus climbing, by means of a stick, the steep and stony ascent in front of us.

‘Here is Mrs. Carolus,’ I said hastily. ‘Do dry your eyes, Tessie, or the whole of St. Pucelle will be informed before to-morrow morning, that I brought you out here and beat you.’

She laughed hysterically at the idea, and rose to her feet.

‘Let me go back a little way and meet Ange, Hilda! I shall recover myself in five minutes, if I am left alone; but Mrs. Carolus’s intrusive curiosity would be sure to set me off again.’

‘Go, by all manner of means,’ I replied, ‘and leave me, like a second St. George, to face the dragon! Only come back as soon as your eyes have regained their normal condition, or the saint will be found to have turned tail as usual, leaving his stockings, darning-thread and needle behind him.’

This I said because I had suffered many things at the hands of Mrs. Carolus and Miss Markham during the last two months, and was noted for running away as soon as I saw them coming. Tessie smiled sadly and nodded acquiescence as she turned to ascend the hill.

‘Oh, Miss Marsh!’ cried Mrs. Carolus, now within a few yards of me; ‘what an awfully steep hill this is! I really thought at one time that I could neither go backward nor forward. And the loose stones cut one’s boots to ribbons. If I hadn’t brought Willie’s stick with me, I should never have had the courage to mount it. Why has Miss Lovett walked off just as I arrived?’

‘She has gone back a little way to meet her sister. Why do you attempt to ascend the hill where there is no path, Mrs. Carolus? Boys and girls can do it, perhaps, and goats, but not——’

‘Not older people, like you and me,’ said Mrs. Carolus, as she cast herself jauntily on the sward beside me. ‘Ah! that’s just what I told Sophy Markham the other day. She will pretend to be so _very_ young, you know—ridiculous it is in a woman of her age—and came skipping down the stairs two or three at a time, and the consequence was she sprained her ankle. I said it served her right, and she was angry with me, of course; but I am used to that. Mr. Lovett has gone to Rille to-day, I find.’

‘He has—but how did you hear it?’

‘By a very natural means, my dear or perhaps you will say, an unnatural one. Sophia Markham has gone with him.’

‘_With him!_ In the same diligence, you mean.’

‘Well, she could hardly do other than that, considering there is but one. No, I do not mean in the same diligence, only: I mean what I said, she has gone with Mr. Lovett. She had no intention of it till she saw him on the steps of the hotel, and then she suddenly discovered she had something to do in Rille that could not possibly be delayed. Dear, dear! I am quite sick and tired of her devices.’

‘She wanted to get out of St. Pucelle on “pig-killing day,” I suppose, Mrs. Carolus. Tessie tells me all decent people leave the town to-day if they can. Do you not hear the far-off squeaks of the poor porkers as we sit here? It must be horrible to be in the midst of them.’

Mrs. Carolus grew quite testy over my frivolity.

‘Nonsense, Miss Marsh! You must be trying to take advantage of my credulity. But if you think it delicate or proper that an unmarried lady should ask for, and accept, the chaperonage of one gentleman in order to run off and see another, I cannot view it in the same light.’

‘Oh, there is another gentleman in the wind, is there! That is lucky for Miss Markham, for I really do not think it is of any use trying her chances with Mr. Lovett.’

‘Of course there is another! That is the indelicate part of it. The young man I once mentioned to you, Miss Marsh, as having been rather taken with the pretty Miss Lovett, is staying in Rille just now, and the way in which that woman goes on with him is disgusting—positively disgusting. If you saw them together you’d really say she was ready to jump down his throat. And she is constantly writing to him, too.’

‘Perhaps there is a mutual understanding between them,’ I suggested.

‘Dear me, no! she goes on in the same way with everybody. I am sure, the scenes that have taken place between her and that young Thrale are a perfect scandal, and enough to ruin the reputation of any house. I have blushed scarlet, and so has my Willie, only to hear the things she says to him.’

‘She has never struck me as being particularly refined or reticent, either in her manners or conversation.’

‘Oh, my dear! you have not heard half of it! She tells such stories, sometimes, as would make your hair stand on end. And doubtless a good deal more has reached Mrs. Thrale’s ears than she chooses to acknowledge, and that is the reason of her letter to me.’

‘Mrs. Thrale! What, Arthur Thrale’s mother? Has she written to you?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Why, that’s the real reason Sophy has gone off to Rille. She is so afraid of the inquiries that may ensue. This morning, my dear, I received a letter from Mrs. Thrale, whom I’ve never seen in the course of my life, begging me to look after her son, whom she has heard is very intimate with my friends and myself, and whom she avers has lost any amount of money since he has been in St. Pucelle.’

‘_How_ has he lost it?’ I demanded eagerly.

‘Ah, that’s the question! How has it gone? The lad is staying at the same hotel as we are, at the instigation of Miss Markham, who persuaded him to follow us here, but, excepting out of doors, Willie and I see very little of him. However, Sophy and he have been _always_ together—morning, noon and night, uphill and downhill; and I, of course, have had no right to interfere. But one thing I _know_, and that is, that young Thrale has given her the most beautiful presents; and presents, Miss Marsh, are not bought for nothing.’

‘No, indeed! But he must have been very extravagant to make his mother write of him as she has done.’

‘She says he has lost or parted with hundreds of pounds since he has been in St. Pucelle, and entreats me to reason with him on his folly, and to persuade him, if possible, to return home to his parents. But I have no control over the young man’s actions. And how can he have parted with his money except by spending it on that woman? He knows no one here but ourselves and Mr. Lovett, and, I think, that elegant-looking foreign baron who lives up in the forest. Sophia Markham would have tried to get up a flirtation with _him_ also, if she could have managed to speak French well enough, but, notwithstanding her boasting, she is a poor hand at it if she has to say anything out of the common way.’

‘It would have been of little use to her if she had been successful,’ I said, smiling, ‘for the Baron de Nesselrode is too poor to make presents to any one.’

‘Her face, when I taxed her with ruining Arthur Thrale, was a perfect study, and I feel almost sure she has done more than take presents from him. She ran upstairs and put on her hat at once, and not a minute afterwards I heard she was going to Rille. To see the other one, of course, and try what she can do now with him. For it is only an excuse, saying she wants to buy something, my dear, for we had already planned to go over in a party to Rille, to-morrow morning.’

‘Do you still intend to go, Mrs. Carolus? and if so, will you execute a commission for me?’ I asked.

‘Certainly, Miss Marsh! Anything that I can do for you. What is it that you require?’

‘Next Tuesday will be Ange’s birthday, and I wish to give her a pair of silver earrings to match the cross she usually wears. I don’t want to spare any expense, Mrs. Carolus. I should like them to be as good and pretty as herself.’

But there I stopped, remembering that Mr. Lovett would not be home before the morning, and doubtful whether I should have mentioned the earrings to Mrs. Carolus before I had the money to give her to pay for them.

‘I will buy you, then, the handsomest and strongest that I can procure in Rille, Miss Marsh.’

‘No, Mrs. Carolus! Please do not. I forgot, when I spoke just now, that I shall not have my allowance till after Mr. Lovett returns to-morrow.’

‘Oh, indeed! He stays over the night, then. But that is no obstacle, Miss Marsh. I will purchase the earrings, and you can repay me at any time.’

‘Thank you so much! You are very kind,’ I answered; but as the Caroluses were rich people, and I felt certain of paying the money in a day or two, I did not feel the obligation to be a weighty one. But it entailed my having to listen for another half-hour, at least, to the scandal Mrs. Carolus chose to retail me, until, to my infinite relief, I spied Tessie and Ange coming over the hill to put an end to the conversation.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]