Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 21

"None."

"Will you always remember, then, that you are very dear to me? Should you ever want a friend, Mildred--ever want any a.s.sistance in any way--do not forget where I am to be found. I am a married man now, and yet I tell you openly that Westerbury will have lost one of its greatest charms for me, when you have left it."

"Let me go!" was all she murmured; "I cannot bear the pain."

He clasped her for a moment to his heart, and kissed her fervently.

"Forgive me, Mildred--we are cousins still," he said, as he released her; "forgive me for all. May G.o.d bless and be with you, now and always!"

With her c.r.a.pe veil drawn before her face, with the cruel pain of desolation mocking at her heart, Mildred went forth; and in the court-yard she encountered Mrs. William Arkell, in a whole array of bridal feathers and furbelows, arriving to pay her first morning visit to her husband's former home. She held out her hand to Mildred, and threw back her white veil from her radiant face.

A confused greeting--she knew not of what--a murmured plea of being in haste--a light word of careless gossip, and Mildred pa.s.sed on.

So there was to be no hindrance, and poor Mildred was to leave her home, and go forth to find one with strangers! But from that day she seemed to change--to grow cold and pa.s.sionless; and people reproached her for it, and wondered what had come to her.

How many of these isolated women do we meet in the world, to whom the same reproach seems due! _I_ never see one of them but I mentally wonder whether her once warm, kindly feelings may not have been crushed; trampled on; just as was the case with those of Mildred Arkell.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. CARR'S OFFER.

Rare nuts for Westerbury to crack! So delightful a dish of gossip had not been served up to it since that affair of Robert Carr's. Miss Arkell was going out as lady's-maid!

Such was the report that spread, to the intense indignation of Mrs.

Arkell. In vain that lady protested that her obstinate and reprehensibly-independent niece was going out as companion, not as lady's-maid; Westerbury nodded its head and knew better. It must be confessed that Mildred herself favoured the popular view: she was to be lady's-maid, she honestly said, as well as companion.

The news, indeed, caused real commotion in the town; and Mildred was remonstrated with from all quarters. What could she mean by leaving incapable Peter to himself?--and if people said true, Mr. and Mrs.

Arkell would have been glad to adopt her. Mildred parried the comments, and shut herself up as far as she could.

But she could not shut herself up from all; she had to take the annoyances as they came. A very especial one arrived for her only the morning previous to her departure. It was not intended as an annoyance, though, but as an honour.

There came to visit her Mr. John Carr, the son and heir of the squire.

He came in state--a phaeton and pair, and his groom beside him. John Carr was a little man, with mean-looking features and thin lips; and there was the very slightest suspicion of a cross in his light eyes. Mildred was vexed at his visit; not because she was busy packing, but for a reason that she knew of. Some twelve months before, John Carr had privately made her an offer of his hand. She had refused it at once and positively, and she had never since liked to meet him. She could not escape now, for the servant said she was at home.

He had been shown upstairs to the drawing-room, an apartment they rarely used; and he stood there in top-boots and a rose in his black frock coat. Mildred saw at once what was coming--a second offer. She refused him before he had well made it.

"But you must have me, Miss Arkell, you must," he reiterated. "You know how much I have wished for you; and--is it true that you think of going out to service in London?"

"Quite true," said Mildred. "I am going as companion and maid to Lady Dewsbury."

"But surely that is not desirable. If there is no other resource left, you must come to me. I know you forbid me ever to renew the subject again; but----"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carr. Your premises are wrong. I am not going out because I have no other resource. I have my home here, if I chose to stay in it. I have one pressed urgently upon me with my aunt and uncle.

It is not that. I am going because I wish to go. I wish for a change. It is very kind of you to renew your offer to me; but you must pardon my saying that I should have found it kinder had you abided by my previous answer."

"What is the reason you will not have me, Miss Arkell? I know what it is, though: it is because I have had two wives already. But if I have, I made them both happy while they lived. They----"

"Oh, pray, Mr. Carr, don't talk so," she interrupted. "Pray take my answer, and let the subject be at an end."

But Mr. Carr was one who never liked any subject to be at an end, so long as he chose to pursue it; and he was fond of diving into reasons for himself.

"I shall be Squire Carr after the old man's gone; the owner of the property. I can make a settlement on you, Miss Arkell."

"I don't want it, thank you," she said in her vexation. All Mildred's life, even when she was a little girl, she had particularly disliked Mr.

John Carr.

"It's the children, I suppose," grumbled Mr. Carr. "But they need not annoy you. Valentine must stop at home; for it has not been the custom in our house to send the eldest son out. But Ben will go; I shall soon send him now. In fact, I did place him out; but he wouldn't stop, and came back again. Emma, I dare say, will be marrying; and then there's only the young children. You will be mistress of the house, and rule it as my late wife did. It is not an offer to be despised, Miss Arkell."

"I don't despise it," returned Mildred, wishing he would be said, and take himself away. "But I cannot accept it."

"Well, what is it, then? Do you intend never to marry?"

The question called up bitter remembrances, and a burning red suffused her cheeks.

"I shall never marry, Mr. Carr. At least, such is my belief now.

Certainly I shall not marry until I have tried whether I cannot be happy in my life of dependence at Lady Dewsbury's."

Mr. John Carr's lucky star appeared not to be in the ascendant that day, and he went out considerably crest-fallen. Whipping his horses, he proceeded up the town to pay a visit to his uncle, Mr. Marmaduke Carr.

None, save himself, knew how covetous were the eyes he cast to the good fortune his uncle had to bequeath to somebody; or that he would cast so long as the bequeathal remained in abeyance.

Lady Dewsbury lived in the heart of the fashionable part of London.

Mildred went up alone. Mrs. Arkell had made a hundred words over it; but Mildred stood out for her independence: if she were not fit to take care of herself on a journey to London by day, she urged, how should she be fit to enter on the life she had carved out for herself? She found no trouble. Mr. Arkell had given instructions to the guard, and he called a coach for her at the journey's end. One of Mildred's great surprises on entering Lady Dewsbury's house was, to find that lady young. As the widow of the colonel's eldest brother--and the colonel himself was past middle age--Mildred had pictured in her mind a woman of at least fifty.

Lady Dewsbury, however, did not look more than thirty, and Mildred was puzzled, for she knew there was a grown-up son, Sir Edward. Lady Dewsbury was a plain woman, with a sickly look, and teeth that projected very much; but the expression of her face was homely and kindly, and Mildred liked her at the first glance. She was leaning back in an invalid chair; a peculiar sort of chair, the like of which Mildred had never seen, and a maid stood before her holding a cup of tea. Mildred found afterwards that Lady Dewsbury suffered from an internal complaint; nothing dangerous in itself, but tedious, and often painful. It caused her to live completely the life of an invalid; going out very little, and receiving few visitors. The medical men said if she could live over the next ten years or so, she might recover, and be afterwards a strong woman.

Nothing could be more kind and cordial than her reception of Mildred.

She received her more as an equal than an attendant. It relieved Mildred excessively. Reared in her simple country home, a Lady Dewsbury, or Lady anybody else, was a formidable personage to Mildred; one of the high-born and unapproachable of the land. It must be confessed that Mildred was at first as timid as ever poor humble Betsey Travice could have been; and nearly broke down as she ventured on a word of hope that "My lady," "her ladyship," would find her equal to her duties.

"Stay, my dear," said Lady Dewsbury, detecting the embarra.s.sment--and smiling at it--"let us begin as we are to go on. I am neither my lady nor your ladyship to you, remember. When you have occasion to address me by name, I am Lady Dewsbury; but that need not be often. Mrs. Dewsbury said you were coming to be my maid, I think?"

"Yes," replied Mildred.

"I told her to say it, because I shall require many little services performed for me on my worst days that properly belong to a maid to perform; and I did not like to deceive you in any way. But can you understand me when I say that I do not wish you to do these things for me as a servant, but as a friend?"

"I shall be so happy to do them," murmured Mildred.

"I do not wish to keep two persons near me, a companion and a maid. I have tried it, and it does not answer. Until my sister married, she lived with me, my companion; and I had my maid. After my sister left, I engaged a lady to replace her, but she and the maid did not get on together; the one grew jealous of the other, and things became so unpleasant, that I gave both of them notice to leave. It then occurred to me that I might unite the two in one, if by good luck I could find a well-educated and yet domesticated lady, who would not be above waiting on an invalid. And I happened to mention this to Mrs. Dewsbury."

"I hope you will like me; I hope I shall suit," was Mildred's only answering comment.

"I like you already," returned Lady Dewsbury. "I am apt to take fancies to faces, and the contrary, and I have taken a fancy to yours. But I will go on with my explanation. You will not be regarded in the light of a servant, or ever treated as one. You will generally sit with me, and take your meals with me when I am alone. If I have visitors, you will take them in the little sitting-room appropriated for yourself. The servants will wait upon you, and observe to you proper respect. I have not told them you are coming here as my maid, but as my friend and companion."

Mildred felt overpowered at the kindness.

"In reality you will, as I have said, in many respects be my maid; that is, you will have to do for me a maid's duties," proceeded Lady Dewsbury. "You will dress me and undress me. You will sleep in the next room to mine, with the door open between, so as to hear me when I call; for I am sorry to say, my sufferings occasionally require sudden attendance in the night. As my companion, you will read to me, write letters for me, go with me in the carriage when I travel, help me with my worsted work, of which I am very fond, do my personal errands for me out of doors, give orders to the servants when I am not well enough, keep the housekeeping accounts, and always be--patient, willing, and good-tempered."