第58章

Miss Carlyle left the room to send the servant in, but came back first alone.

"Mind, Lady Isabel, don't you engage her. If she is likely to suit you, let her come again for the answer, and meanwhile I will go down to Mrs. Hare's and learn the ins and outs of her leaving. It is all very plausible for her to put upon Barbara, but that is only one side of the question. Before engaging her, it may be well to hear the other."

Of course this was but right. Isabel acquiesced, and the servant was introduced; a tall, pleasant-looking woman, with black eyes. Lady Isabel inquired why she was leaving Mrs. Hare's.

"My lady, it is through Miss Barbara's temper. Latterly--oh, for this year past, nothing has pleased her; she had grown nearly as imperious as the justice himself. I have threatened many times to leave, and last evening we came to another outbreak, and I left this morning."

"Left entirely?"

"Yes, my lady. Miss Barbara provoked me so, that I said last night I would leave as soon as breakfast was over. And I did so. I should be very glad to take your situation, my lady, if you would please to try me."

"You have been the upper maid at Mrs. Hare's?"

"Oh, yes, my lady."

"Then possibly this situation might not suit you so well as you imagine. Joyce is the upper servant here, and you would, in a manner, be under her. I have great confidence in Joyce; and in case of my illness or absence, Joyce would superintend the nursery."

"I should not mind that," was the applicant's answer. "We all like Joyce, my lady."

A few more questions, and then the girl was told to come again in the evening for her answer. Miss Carlyle went to the Grove for the "ins and outs" of the affair, where Mrs. Hare frankly stated that she had nothing to urge against Wilson, save her hasty manner of leaving, and believed the chief blame to be due to Barbara. Wilson, therefore, was engaged, and was to enter upon her new service the following morning.

In the afternoon succeeding to it, Isabel was lying on the sofa in her bedroom, asleep, as was supposed. In point of fact, she was in that state, half asleep, half wakeful delirium, which those who suffer from weakness and fever know only too well. Suddenly she was aroused from it by hearing her own name mentioned in the adjoining room, where sat Joyce and Wilson, the latter holding the sleeping infant on her knee, the former sewing, the door between the rooms being ajar.

"How ill she does look," observed Wilson.

"Who?" asked Joyce.

"Her ladyship. She looks just as if she'd never get over it."

"She is getting over it quickly, now," returned Joyce. "If you had seen her but a week ago, you would not say she was looking ill now, speaking in comparison."

"My goodness! Would not somebody's hopes be up again if anything should happen?"

"Nonsense!" crossly rejoined Joyce.

"You may cry out 'nonsense' forever, Joyce, but they would," went on Wilson. "And she would snap him up to a dead certainty; she'd never let him escape her a second time. She is as much in love with him as she ever was!"

"It was all talk and fancy," said Joyce. "West Lynne must be busy. Mr. Carlyle never cared for her."

"That's more than you know. I have seen a little, Joyce; I have seen him kiss her."

"A pack of rubbish!" remarked Joyce. "That tells nothing."

"I don't say it does. There's not a young man living but what's fond of a sly kiss in the dark, if he can get it. He gave her that locket and chain she wears."

"Who wears?" retorted Joyce, determined not graciously to countenance the subject. "I don't want to hear anything about it."

" 'Who,' now! Why, Miss Barbara. She has hardly had it off her neck since, my belief is she wears it in her sleep."

"More simpleton she," returned Joyce.

"The night before he left West Lynne to marry Lady Isabel--and didn't the news come upon us like a thunderclap!--Miss Barbara had been at Miss Carlyle's and he brought her home. A lovely night it was, the moon rising, and nearly as light as day. He somehow broke her parasol in coming home, and when they got to our gate there was a love scene."

"Were you a third in it?" sarcastically demanded Joyce.

"Yes--without meaning to be. It was a regular love scene; I could hear enough for that. If ever anybody thought to be Mrs. Carlyle, Barbara did that night."

"Why, you great baby! You have just said it was the night before he went to get married!"

"I don't care, she did. After he was gone, I saw her lift up her hands and her face in ecstacy, and say he would never know how much she loved him until she was his wife. Be you very sure, Joyce, many a love-passage had passed between them two; but I suppose when my lady was thrown in his way he couldn't resist her rank and her beauty, and the old love was cast over. It is in the nature of man to be fickle, specially those that can boast of their own good looks, like Mr. Carlyle."

"Mr. Carlyle's not fickle."

"I can tell you more yet. Two or three days after that, Miss Corny came up to our house with the news of his marriage. I was in mistress's bedroom, and they were in the room underneath, the windows open, and I heard Miss Corny tell the tale, for I was leaning out. Up came Miss Barbara upon an excuse and flew into her room, and I went into the corridor. A few moments and I heard a noise--it was a sort of wail, or groan--and I opened the door softly, fearing she might be fainting. Joyce, if my heart never ached for anybody before, it ached then. She was lying upon the floor, her hands writhed together, and her poor face all white, like one in mortal agony. I'd have given a quarter's wages to be able to say a word of comfort to her; but I didn't dare interfere with such sorrow as that. I came out again and shut the door without her seeing me."

"How thoroughly stupid she must have been!" uttered Joyce, "to go caring for one who did not care for her."