The World Before Them Volume I Part 20

Is it a character you require? If so I will give you a good one, with my whole heart."

"Oh, no, ma'am, I am not going to leave home again. I wanted to say a few words in private to my lord."

The old lady took off her spectacles, and looked sharply at Dorothy.

"What can a young girl like you have to say to my lord? Will not saying it to me do quite as well?"

"Perhaps it would. But indeed, Mrs. Brand, I would rather, if you think I am not too bold, say what I have to say to him myself."

The housekeeper shook her head doubtingly--

"Did you ever speak to Lord Wilton before?"

"Never. I don't even know him by sight."

Mrs. Brand looked relieved.

"Then what can you have to say to him, my dear?"

"It is a little private business of my own."

Mrs. Brand looked very serious.

"Have any of the servants here been making love to you, Dorothy?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," and Dorothy laughed merrily, "I know as little of them as I do of his lordship."

"Lord Wilton is a single man," said Mrs. Brand, gravely. "Do you think it quite prudent for a young girl to ask him questions?"

Dorothy looked puzzled. She certainly did not comprehend Mrs. Brand's prudery.

"You see, ma'am," she continued, with the same charming frankness, "our Gilbert is with the army in Spain, and serves in the same regiment with Captain Fitzmorris, my lord's son. A great battle has been fought at Corunna, and we don't know whether Gilbert has been killed or not. Mr.

Rushmere is fretting himself to death with anxiety about his son. I thought that Lord Wilton might be able to give us some information respecting him, and if I could but speak to himself, and tell him all the anguish we are suffering, I feel certain, by the character for benevolence that he bears, that he would either confirm or remove our apprehensions, by writing to his son, whose servant Gilbert is."

"Aye--now you talk sense, Dorothy. You should have told me this at first. I have no doubt that his lordship will do what he can for you.

Poor dear man, he has been in great trouble about Viscount"--Mrs. Brand placed a particular emphasis upon the t.i.tle, as if to reprove Dorothy for her omission of it--"Fitzmorris, ever since he saw in the papers that he was badly wounded. He has shut himself up, and scarcely tasted food since he got the news. It may be some relief to his mind to know that a neighbour is fretting about an only son too. Sit down, Dorothy, I will go to his study and see if my lord can speak with you."

In a few minutes the good woman returned, and told Dorothy to follow her to the library.

"His lordship," she said, "was engaged just then finishing a letter, and would see her presently."

As they were leaving the housekeeper's room, Mr. Frisk again presented himself, and with a low bow to Mrs. Brand, and a stare of intense admiration at Dorothy, informed the elder female that Mrs. Martin, the curate's wife, was waiting to speak to her.

"Tell her to step in here, Frisk, I will be back directly. Something about the Sunday-school, that my lord is about to establish," whispered Mrs. Brand to Dorothy. "They cannot get on without consulting me. This Mrs. Martin, our curate's wife, my lord wants to be superintendent of the school. My lord says, she is a clever, well-educated person, and he knows best; but between ourselves, I think her a poor, broken-spirited, yea and forsooth, young woman, with a large small family, and a nursing baby. She does not like the project at all.

"'Mrs. Brand,' says she, 'these Sunday-schools may answer very well in great cities, where the people are so wicked, but take my word for it, they will never do in a country-place, where the houses are so far apart, and the children have such a distance to come, and the winter days are so short. Besides, what's the use of my lord making such a fuss about teaching the poor. Does he want his servants to be as clever as himself--to read his books and papers instead of dusting his library.

Learning and wealth make the only distinction between him and his people. If he gives them the one, the other will soon follow. It's little the poor folks will care for the t.i.tle of my lord, when they find out that their t.i.tle of free men possesses more real dignity.'

"Yes, my dear, she had the impudence to speak of the n.o.bility in that disrespectful manner, as if there was nothing at all in _blood_, or superiority of race."

"I thought it was the fine clothes and the money made the difference,"

suggested Dorothy, whose feelings were not so decidedly aristocratic as those of the well-paid domestic. "That, at least, in the church, the rich and poor met together, and the Lord was the maker of them all."

"And so He is, Dorothy, for the Bible says so; but it is after a different fashion, as you will see, when you look at the pictures in the library of my lord's ancestors."

"Ancestors! what be they?"

"Why, Dorothy, are you so ignorant? Did you never hear father Rushmere talk of his ancestors? He comes of a good race. I have heard my lord say, that in the old times the Rushmeres owned this grand house, and nearly all the land in this and the neighbouring parish."

Dorothy opened wide her large black eyes, full of surprise and wonder, and she looked around the vast hall they had entered, with its marble pavement and magnificent staircase of polished oak, in whose broad steps she could see the reflection of her own sweet face, and the beautiful carved railings presented fine specimens of mediaeval art.

"The Rushmeres don't look different now," she said, "from other folk.

What brought about the change?"

"They fought against their lawful king. Traitors are always punished, and so it has happened to them."

"But could that change the _blood_?" asked Dorothy.

"My dear, you have heard of wine turning sour when exposed to the common air. A clear stream becomes impure when it flows into a muddy marsh."

Dorothy, with her shrewd common sense, could not comprehend Mrs. Brand's philosophy, and she thought it better not to contradict her, so reverting back to the Sunday-school, she inquired when it was to go into operation.

"Directly my lord can get teachers to suit him. Mrs. Martin says, that she can't attend to it after the service, on account of her baby, and having to see to the other children, and she begged me to make her excuses to my lord. I thought that he'd be terribly angry. But, G.o.d bless him, he only laughed, and, says he, 'Mrs. Brand, the poor woman is right. But I don't mean my school to be knocked on the head by Mrs.

Martin's baby. How many children have they?'

"'Lots, my lord,' says I. 'Parsons have always large families. The poorer they be, the more children.' Then he laughs again. 'Do they keep a nurse-maid, Mrs. Brand?'

"'Ah, my lord, they have barely enough to keep themselves. He has not more than eighty pounds a year.'

"Then he sighs, and says, 'Ah, that is sad. I must see to that. The poor soul might well begrudge the time to be spent in attending to the school. Her own children have the first claim upon a mother's heart.

When next Mrs. Martin calls, I must see her, Mrs. Brand.'

"Now, Dorothy, this is my lord's library," continued the voluble housekeeper, showing her young companion into a s.p.a.cious apartment fronting the park. "I must leave you here, while I go down to Mrs.

Martin. You can amuse yourself by looking at the pictures till my lord comes."

"And how am I to address him?" cried Dorothy, turning faint with fear.

"Curtsey to him, when he comes into the room, and ask his pardon for the liberty you take in venturing to speak to him, and then tell him your business, in as few words as you can."

"Am I to call him my lord every time I address him?"

"Of course. But don't seem afraid of him. He says that he hates people to worship him, as if he were an idol of flesh and blood. He likes a man to speak out his mind like a man, which you know is very condescending on his part. He will find very few men in the country that dare do it."

Dorothy thought she knew one, as the good woman closed the door, and left her alone in the magnificent apartment. Perhaps she was wrong in her estimate. Time will prove. And then she drew an involuntary sigh, when she recalled the housekeeper's words that the Rushmeres had, in the old times, been the owners of Heath Hall, and had lost it, because they could not bow down to idols of flesh and blood.

CHAPTER X.