Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 22

Lady Dewsbury said the last words with a laugh.

Mildred gave one of her sweet smiles in answer.

"I really mean it though, Miss Arkell," continued Lady Dewsbury.

"Patience is absolutely essential for one who has to be with a sufferer like myself; and I could not bear one about me for a day who showed unwillingness or ill-temper. The trouble that I am obliged to give, is sufficiently present always to my own mind; but I could not bear to have the expression of it thrown back to me. The last and worst thing I must now mention; and that is, the confinement. When I am pretty well, as I am now, it is not so much; but it sometimes happens that I am very ill for weeks together; never out of my room, scarcely out of my bed: and not once perhaps during all that time will you be able to go out of doors."

"I shall not mind it indeed, Lady Dewsbury," Mildred said, heartily. "I am used to confinement. I told Mrs. Dewsbury so. Oh, if I can but suit you, I shall not mind what I do. I think it seems a very, very nice place. I did not expect to meet with one half so good."

"How old do you think I am?" suddenly asked Lady Dewsbury. "Perhaps Mrs.

Dewsbury mentioned it to you?"

"It is puzzling me," said Mildred, candidly, quite overlooking the last question. "I could not take you to be more than thirty; but I--I had fancied--I beg your pardon, Lady Dewsbury--that you must be quite fifty. I thought Sir Edward was some years past twenty."

"Sir Edward?--what has that to do with--oh, I see! You are taking Sir Edward to be my son. Why, he is nearly as old as I am, and I am thirty-five. I was Sir John Dewsbury's second wife. I never had any children. Sir Edward comes here sometimes. We are very good friends."

Mildred's puzzle was explained, and Lady Dewsbury sent her away, happy, to see her room. It had been a gracious reception, a cordial welcome; and it seemed to whisper an earnest of future comfort, of length of service.

Lady Dewsbury was tolerably well at that period, and Mildred found that she might take advantage of it to pay an afternoon visit to Betsey Travice. She sent word that she was coming, and Betsey was in readiness to receive her; and Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, a stout lady in faded black silk, had a sumptuous meal ready: m.u.f.fins, bread and b.u.t.ter, shrimps, and water-cress.

The parlour, on a level with the kitchen, was a very shabby one, and the bells of the house kept clanging incessantly, and Mrs. Dund.y.k.e went in and out to urge the servant to alacrity in answering them, and two troublesome fractious children, of eighteen months, and three years old, insisted on monopolizing the cares of Betsey; and altogether Mildred _wondered_ that Betsey could or would stop there.

"But I like it," whispered Betsey, "I do indeed. Mrs. Dund.y.k.e is not handsome, but she's very kind-hearted, and the children are fond of me; and I feel at home here, and there's a great deal in that. And besides----"

"Besides--what?" asked Mildred, for the words had come to a sudden stand-still.

"There's David," came forth the faint and shame-faced answer.

"David?"

"Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's son. We are to be married sometime."

Mildred had the honour of an introduction to the gentleman before she left--for Mr. David came in--a young man above the middle height, somewhat free and confident in his address and manners. He was not bad-looking, and he was attired sufficiently well; for the house he was in, in Fenchurch-street, was one of the first houses of its cla.s.s, and would not have tolerated shabbiness in any of its clerks. The shirt-sleeve episodes, the blacking-boot and carrying-up coal attire, so vivid in the remembrance of Charlotte Travice, were kept for home, for late at night and early morning. Of this, Mildred saw nothing, heard nothing.

"He has eighty pounds a year now," whispered Betsey to Mildred; "his next rise will be a hundred and fifty. And then, when it has got to that----," the blush on the cheeks, the downcast eyes, told the rest.

"Them there shrimps ain't bad; take some more of 'em."

Mildred positively started--not at the invitation so abruptly given to her, but at the wording of it. It was the first sentence she had heard him speak. Had he framed it in joke?

No; it was his habitual manner of speaking. She cast her compa.s.sionate eyes on Betsey Travice, just as Charlotte would have cast her indignant ones. But Betsey was used to him, and did not _feel_ the degradation.

"Now, mother, don't you worry your inside out after that girl," he said, as Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, for the fiftieth time, plunged into the kitchen, groaning over the shortcomings of the servant. "You won't live no longer for it. Betsey, just put them two squalling chickens down, and pour me out a drop more tea; make yourself useful if you can till mother comes back. Won't you take no more, Miss Arkell?"

"Betsey," asked Mildred, in a low tone, as they were alone for a few minutes when Mildred was about to leave, "do you _like_ Mr. David Dund.y.k.e?"

Betsey's face was sufficient answer.

"I think you ought not to be too precipitate to say you will do this or do the other. You are young, Mr. Dund.y.k.e is young, and--and--if you had had more experience in the world, you might not have engaged yourself to _him_."

"Thank you kindly; that is just as Charlotte says. But we are not going to marry yet."

"Betsey--you will excuse me for saying it: if I speak, it is for your own sake--do you consider Mr. Dund.y.k.e, with his--his apparently imperfect education, is suitable for you?"

"Indeed," answered Betsey, "his education is better than it appears. He has fallen into this odd way of speaking from habit, from a.s.sociation with his mother. _She_ speaks so, you must perceive. He rather prides himself upon keeping it up, upon not being what he calls fine. And he is so clever in his business!"

Mildred could not at all understand that sort of "pride." Betsey Travice noticed the gravity of her eye.

"What education have _I_ had, Miss Arkell? None. I learnt to read, and write, and spell, and I learnt nothing more. If I speak as a lady, it is because I was born to it, because papa and mamma and Charlotte so spoke, not from any advantages they gave me. I have been kept down all my life. Charlotte was made a lady of, and I was made to work. When I was only six years old I had to wait on mamma and Charlotte. I am not complaining of this; I like work; but I mention it, to ask you in what way, remembering these things, I am better than David Dund.y.k.e?"

In truth, Mildred could not say.

"What am I now but a burden on his mother?" continued Betsey. "In one sense I repay my cost; for, if I were not here, she would have to take a servant for the two little children. I have no prospects at all; I have n.o.body in the world to help me; indeed, Miss Arkell, it is _generous_ of David to ask me to be his wife."

"You might find a home with your sister, now she has one. You ought to have it with her."

Betsey shook her head. "You don't know Charlotte," was all she answered.

Mildred dropped the subject. She took a ring from her purse, an emerald set round with pearls, and put it into Betsey's hand.

"It was my mother's," she said, "and I brought it for you. She had two of these rings just alike; one of them had belonged to a sister of hers who died. I wear the other--see! My mother was very poor, Betsey, or she might have left something worth the acceptance of you, her G.o.ddaughter."

Betsey Travice burst into tears, partly at the kind words, partly at the munificence of the gift, for she had never possessed so much as a bra.s.s ring in all her life.

"It is too good for me," she said; "I ought not to take it from you. I would not, but for your having one like it. What have I done that you should all be so kind to me? But I will never part with the ring."

And, indeed, the contrast between the kindness to her of the Arkells generally and the unfeeling behaviour of her sister Charlotte, could but mark its indelible trace on even the humble mind of Betsey Travice.

"Has Charlotte come home?" she asked.

"Have you heard from her?" exclaimed Mildred in astonishment. "She came home before I left Westerbury."

Betsey shook her head. "We are not to keep up any correspondence; Charlotte said it would not do; that our paths in life lay apart; hers up in the world, mine down; and she did not care to own me for a sister.

Of course I know I _am_ inferior to Charlotte, and always have been; but still----"

Betsey broke down. The grieved heart was full.

CHAPTER XII.

MARRIAGES IN UNFASHIONABLE LIFE.

The next twelvemonth brought little of event, if we except the birth of a boy to William Arkell and his wife. In the month of March, nearly a year after their marriage, the child was born; and its mother was so ill, so very near, as was believed, unto death, that Mrs. Arkell sent a despatch to bring down her sister, Betsey Travice. Had Charlotte been able to have a voice in the affair, rely upon it Betsey had never come.

But Charlotte was not, and Betsey arrived; the same meek Betsey as of yore. William liked the young girl excessively, and welcomed her with a warm heart and open arms. His wife was better then, could be spoken to, and did not feel in the least obliged to them for having summoned Betsey.

"I am glad to see you, Betsey," William whispered, "and so would Charlotte be, poor girl, if she were a little less ill. You shall stand to the baby, Betsey; he is but a sickly little fellow, it seems, and they are talking of christening him at once. If it were a girl, we would name it after you; we'll call it--can't we call it Travice? That will be after you, all the same, and it's a very pretty name."