IT is a great wonder in morals that the chances of matrimonial changes which may occur in the life of an unmarried woman, absolutely at any moment, should not exercise a more demoralizing effect than they do upon the feminine mind. It is always possible, not only for a girl, but even for a woman who has reached the middle of life, to have her position and prospects changed in a moment as by the waving of a magician’s hand—and that probably not by any virtue or by any exertion of her own, fortuitously, accidentally, by what seems mere chance and good fortune. A poor girl, the daughter of a fallen family, with very little natural prospect of advancement in any direction, will suddenly wake to find herself a duchess, placed on the very highest pinnacle of fortune; a poor woman who has passed half of her life in a struggle with poverty will be lifted into sudden enjoyment of wealth and all that it brings. Why? By the merest chance. By pleasing someone, possibly unawares, without any intention—possibly, it is true, by the exercise of all her gifts for the purpose. And it by no means follows that these extraordinary chances involved any revolting bargains, any sale or barter of an odious kind. The girl may love her duke and the woman her millionaire just as much as if the duke was a lieutenant in a marching regiment or the millionaire a banker’s clerk. It is astonishing that women should be so little demoralized by the possibility of such an accident. It may be said that it happens rarely. Still it does happen, and everybody knows one instance at least.
Such an accident had now happened to Mary Hill. Such a thing as marriage had long passed out of her thoughts. She had gone through the ordinary process in such matters, having had her youthful dreams, her maidenly fancies, her conviction that some time, some day, the hero would come round the turn of the road, and life would change into enchantment. For a certain period in life that is to a girl the one certainty. Perhaps not to-day or to-morrow, yet possibly at any moment—a thing as sure as the rising of the sun, yet veiled in delightful mysteries and unknowableness—a vague anticipation, the poem of existence. After a time, if Prince Charming does not appear, the expectation begins to flag—a curious question, the strangest discouraging doubt creeps into the mind. Is she perhaps to be the one left out? the one to whom the enchanter is not to come. To trace the process from that first doubt, which is so startling, which gives a sudden check to life, to the calm certainty that no such thing would ever happen to her, which had long filled the gentle bosom of Mary Hill, would take too much time and space. It need only be said that Mary had accepted the position years ago. Her sister Agnes and she had long given up any thoughts of the kind. Their hearts fluttered no longer when they gazed along the blank road by which no hero had ever come. They had settled down as middle-aged women. No doubt they had both known what it was to struggle and rebel in their hearts against the strait bondage of life that confined them, the situation of girls in their father’s house which was so sweet at twenty, so little adapted to the maiden mind at forty. They had gone through all that, but had never said anything about it even to each other. Most probably they would have thought it sinful, horribly unwomanly to rebel thus against their lot. All that they permitted themselves to say was, with a sigh, that they had no education, and could not be governesses, nor do anything. Sometimes it would come over them with a shiver that their father was old, growing older every day, and that the time must come when that dear old bare house at the vicarage would be theirs no more; but so helpless were they that it was tacitly understood between them nothing should be said of this. It would be dreadful even between themselves to put it into words that the vicar must die, to seem to calculate on the end of his existence. It lay between them, a dark point in the future at which their human life seemed to stop, but that was all. As for any piece of good fortune that might happen—above all, any proposals of marriage, that was a thing as far over and passed away as the frocks of their childhood. They had both accepted the rôle of old maid without rebellion, if, at the beginning, with a faint sigh.
And now here had fallen at Mary’s feet not that thunderbolt out of a clear sky, of which people speak as the most startling image of a sudden catastrophe, but a sudden blaze of impossible light through the afternoon dullness. It was no catastrophe; and yet it gave a shock almost as great. To be suddenly made rich beyond the brightest dreams, though indeed Mary had never dreamt of being rich at all; to be introduced into what seemed to the vicar’s daughter the loftiest society in the world; to be able to help everybody belonging to her; to shed a glory upon the vicarage; to cause a thrill of pride to all the most distant of her kin; to impress the distant sisters-in-law whom Mary suspected of not being very respectful of the unmarried sisters, and of entertaining fears lest some time those unprovided women should expect something from John and George, all these suggestions played upon her, shining in her eyes like the afternoon sunshine, blinding her with unexpected light. Her heart jumped up to think of these things, then dropped down again with a sinking fall when her mind turned to the other side, and she thought of Letitia. Oh, it was needless to try to persuade herself that when Letitia said, “Don’t be a fool, Mary Hill,” and bade her certainly to accept the old gentleman who had proposed to her, Mrs. Parke had any perception of the real state of the case. Had Letitia guessed that it was Lord Frogmore; had she for an instant suspected that her humble friend was to be elevated over her own head, no doubt she would have given a very different verdict. Mary remembered all she had said. Her warning that nothing must be expected from Frogmore, that all he had must come to the children, her resentment with his care of his own health as keeping her out of her kingdom. Her heart sank lower and lower as she thought of this. What would Letitia say if she knew? Mary immediately realized that Letitia would not only say, but do anything a desperate woman could to stop it. She would be mad with fury and passion. She would publish her wrong, her version of the story, her account of how Mary Hill had “made up” to the old lord. And yet in her heedlessness she had bidden her dependent to accept the old gentleman, of course, whoever he was, so long as he could provide for her. Mary sat and thought over all these things till her head ached and her brain grew dizzy. She was stiff with cold and agitation and excitement when she got up at last and crept away to the dying fire in the morning-room, which was the only room where any comfort was. She knew already that to be left in charge of the house when the Parkes were away was no pleasant office. The fire in the morning-room was the only fire in that part of the house inhabited by its masters. All the rest had fallen into gloom and emptiness. Mary met the housemaids with their pails as she went upstairs—a thing, it need scarcely be said, never visible when Mrs. Parke was at home. She saw Saunders as she crossed the hall lounging in his shirt sleeves, and smelt the footman’s tobacco. Nobody cared to keep up the decorum of the household for Miss Hill. Who was Miss Hill? Less, a great deal, than an upper servant, who was well paid and knew his place. Nobody had the least intention of putting himself or herself to any restraint or inconvenience to please Miss Hill. Mary knew this very well, and knew it would be necessary to ask as little as possible in order to avoid impertinence. She knew that she was not wanted, that she was considered a spy, left to report upon their doings and limit their freedom. She mended the fire with economy, hoping to be able to keep herself warm all day with the contents of the coal scuttle, not to have to appeal to Saunders for more. And if they only knew! To think that she had so much in her power lying at her feet, waiting her compliance. She laughed unconsciously as she thought of it, and how those impudent servants would abase themselves, and people of far more importance bow before her and put on their best smiles, and all for no virtue of hers, for no change in her, for nothing, but because she had it in her power to become Lady Frogmore.
The reader may think that in all this there was but little question of the chief matter involved, of Lord Frogmore himself, the old gentleman who had it in his power to do so much for Mary. But this did not involve the injury to him that might be supposed, for, as a matter of fact, the idea of accepting Lord Frogmore, and living with him and taking care of him was in no way disagreeable to Mary. She liked the old lord. He had never been anything but kind, respectful, sympathetic to her; he had greatly comforted her amour propre, which was often touched in Letitia’s house and by Letitia’s friends. He had even raised her own opinion of herself which had been sadly broken down by continual snubbing. In every way his society, his friendship, his kindness had been good for Mary. Love was not a thing to be thought of, it was out of date, it was scarcely modest even to suggest it: but that she could and did feel affectionately towards Lord Frogmore, Mary had no doubt, and he asked for no more. There was no drawback on that side. She could have married him had he been the clergyman in the next parish. The difficulties in fact rose chiefly from those tremendous advantages which it was impossible to over-calculate, which seem on the face of them too good to be true. And yet who could be injured by it? Mary asked herself. She would not have anyone despoiled for her. The children could not lose much, and what they lost would only be till she died. She was forty and Duke was five. Perhaps she might not live long enough to see Duke come of age. She would not keep the children long out of their money, and it would be very little. That was the only harm that could happen to them if she married Lord Frogmore.
It is needless to say that Mary thought of nothing else all day. She did not answer the letter, but put it carefully into her desk after having read it over three or four times, and if she hesitated as to what reply she should make, it was not because of any objection she had to Lord Frogmore.
In the afternoon she went to the nursery, where the nurse, a very fine person who considered herself much above supervision even from the mother, received her with scant courtesy. She stood over the children while Mary talked to them, and when little Letty pulled off a bit of old glove to show Mary a little sore finger, nurse made a step forward and pushed the little girl away. “I must ask you, Miss Hill, not to interfere with Miss Letty’s finger. I am treating it in the proper way, and I won’t have any meddling.”
“But I have no desire to meddle,” said Mary, surprised.
“Oh, we all know what it means when a lady is left to spy about,” said the woman, turning little Letty, who began to cry, out of the room.
This was a very unpromising beginning, and nurse would not allow that the children should go downstairs in the evening to hear Mary play, and to sing their little songs about the piano.
“When their mamma is here she can do as she pleases—but I don’t hold with such things,” said the nurse.
Mary was all the more lonely in consequence in the twilight hour, which she was used to employ in amusing the children, and when she went downstairs later to see whether it was the design of the authorities downstairs to give her any dinner, she found Saunders in the dining-room with his elbows on the table and a bottle of wine before him reading the paper. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and by instinct started up, but recollecting himself fell back in his chair and confronted her.
“I consider,” said Saunders, “as this room is not in the ladies part of the ’ouse—but was you wanting anything, Miss ’Ill?”
“You surprise me very much, Saunders,” said Mary, with a little quickening of the breath.
“Mister Saunders, if you please—I don’t think would be out o’ place, miss. I am the head man when master is away.”
“I think you are very much out of place where you are, Saunders—and that Mr. Parke would not be at all pleased——”
“If he knew,” said Saunders. “I don’t say as ’e would. I’m a consulting of my own convenience, not thinking of him; and he’ll never know.”
“How can you tell that? It will be my duty to tell him at once.”
“It’s a duty as you’ll never do. We know you well, all of us, in this ’ouse. And if you’re sensible you’ll take my advice. You’ll be seen to, and kept comfortable, if you don’t give no trouble. Cook is a-sending you up a bit of dinner. You’ll be waited on as good, or better, as you were ever used to—but, Lord bless you, what’s the good of pretending. You was never used to a man like me waiting upon you—and why should you now? John, he says the same thing. We’re very hard worked when they’re at ’ome, and we’re going to have a ’oliday. It won’t make no difference what you say.”
“I don’t care at all,” cried Mary, “whether you wait upon me or not—but you will be so good as to retire from here.”
“And what if I don’t, miss?”
If this was a romantic tale I should recount how the man was subdued, how he hesitated and finally withdrew in obedience to the influence of her presence and the dignity of her look. But I am obliged to say that no such result followed. Saunders, who had been drinking and was just at the point when audacity is paramount, sat leaning with both his elbows on the table, staring across it at the poor lady for whom he would have had no respect whatever had she looked like a queen, and it was Mary who was frightened. She repeated, “I must ask you to retire from this room,” but with a faltering voice, for she knew that she had no authority to enforce her request, and so did he.
“Sorry to disoblige you, miss, if you think it ain’t becoming. But I’m very comfortable, thank ye, here.”
She stood a moment irresolute, not knowing what to do, and then it was she who retired. She said, “I will write to Mr. Parke,” but Saunders replied only with an insolent laugh. And Mary hurried upstairs again with something like terror. She found the footman without his coat on the stairs, carrying down the hunting clothes which John Parke had worn on the previous day, and accompanied by one of the housemaids, who was by way of helping him with jocular snatchings and droppings of the burden. They scarcely paused in their flirtation when Mary appeared. She said, in her mildest tones, “You forget, John, that your mistress likes you to use the backstairs.”
“My missis ain’t here,” said the man; “it’s all one the front stairs or the back stairs when they’re away.”
“I do not think Mrs. Parke would be pleased to hear you say so,” said Mary.
“Well, she don’t hear me say so,” replied the man, with an insolent air.
“Oh, John!” said the housemaid, “don’t answer Miss ’Ill like that. Don’t you know as she’s set over us to see as we does our duties, and tell everything as goes wrong?”
“I don’t hold with no spies, I don’t,” said John, “whether they’s ladies, or whether they’s Irish fellows. I don’t say things behind folks’ backs as I wouldn’t say to their faces; and I says, Miss ’Ill——”
“Be so good as not to speak at all,” said Mary, quickly hurrying past. They burst into a great noise of laughter when she was gone—a shrill celebration of triumph. She got back to the morning room with a sensation of dismay, for which she had no words. She was all alone, with the household in mutiny behind her. She was startled, however, to see that someone was before her arranging neatly enough, and with quiet care, the tray with Mary’s dinner, which, according to Saunders’ instruction, had been sent up there. The maid was an under housemaid—a quiet and good girl, whom they had been kind to. But even she had her part in the revolt. When she had arranged everything, she came up to Mary, who had thrown herself into a chair by the fire.
“I think everything’s here, miss,” she said. “Perhaps you will just look and see if there’s anything more you will want.”
“It will do very well, I am sure, Jane.”
“I want to know, if you please,” said Jane, “whether you will want anything more to-night: for we’re going to have a party in the servants’ hall; and I’d rather get it now than be called after, if you please.”
“You are going to have a party in the servants’ hall?”
“Yes, miss. Mr. Saunders and John is going to do some acting, and there’s going to be a dance. If you’ll excuse me, I shouldn’t like to be called away.”
“I shall not want you any more,” said Mary.
She tried to smile at the festivity which had turned all their heads. But when, a little later, the sounds of the downstairs merriment came peeling up the great staircase, Mary felt like a prisoner abandoned among enemies. She had never felt so much alone as in the dreary silence of the house, with the distant revels going on. A genteel dependent scoffed at by all the conspirators downstairs—and all the while Lord Frogmore’s letter in her desk.