Silverbeach Manor (13 page)

Martha shouts
the news into her mother's ear, and they ask with much excitement
if her "intended" is a lord or a duke. They seem disappointed to
hear he is untitled, but Mrs. Sotham cheers up as Pansy tells
eloquently of his good works and zeal in so many channels of
Christian helpfulness.

"Better marry
a Christian than a prince, my dear," she says. "Well, if only your
poor aunt could hear the news. I fancy I see her stitching away at
some of your clothes. I never saw anybody more at home with her
needle. Why, she made your frocks when you were quite a little
thing, Pansy. Many's the time I've seen her sewing away at the
tucks and frills, so as you could be cosy and smart, when she ought
to have been taking her rest. When you were gone, Pansy, she said
she perceived you had been her idol, and so God had taken you away
to afflict her soul."

"Don't
cry, dear," says Martha affectionately, for Pansy's tears are
falling fast. "I always
said
you had a
heart, though some declared you had forgotten all about the old
lady. Of course it is a long while now since she wandered away, and
Deb went after her. If we can hear anything at any time about her,
we should let you know directly. How nice it would be if she could
be traced in time for you to invite her to your
wedding!"

Pansy cannot
bring herself to tell these worthy people the conditions in which
she holds her inheritance, making it impossible for Aunt Temperance
to come near Silverbeach Manor. They are delighted with her
presents, and part from her most cordially, telling her she looks
most wonderfully genteel, and they would give anything to see how
she looks when she is wearing her wedding dress.

"The wedding
will not come off for some time yet," says Pansy. "Be sure I will
send you some cake." With that she drives off, feeling that she is
no nearer the end of her anxiety concerning Aunt Temperance than
when she sought the farm. As she drives slowly homeward, the
intensity of her longing to know what has become of her aunt
amounts to pain. Every scene recalls her childhood and early
girlhood, and the tenderness that wrapped her round and was
tireless for her sake. She wonders if perhaps it is even now too
late for earthly help to reach that wandering life.

"Oh, let it
not be too late!" prays Pansy in her heart. "Grant, O God, she is
living. Let me make her happy, even though our roads must lie
apart."

The last
evening of Pansy's stay in Firlands, she and Miss Ashburne are
invited to dine with the Summits at whose apartments Major
Grenville and Marlow Holme will also be present. Pansy sends her
maid to assist Miss Ashburne, who is losing her cold, but feels
that it has left her weak. Thinking Marlow may be waiting for her
at the foot of the staircase, Pansy sails down when she is ready in
the most becoming a costume of half-mourning that a West End
fashion retailer can provide. Her grey cloak, edged with fur, is
round her, and flowers are shining in her hair. One of the waiters,
talking to a young gardener whom she had seen working in the
grounds of the hotel, looks at her in some perplexity.

"Excuse me,
madam," he says, respectfully, "this young man has been waiting
some time to see Mr. Holme. Could you please tell him if you know
when Mr. Holme will be in? "

"I expect him
soon," says Pansy kindly, for the young gardener is all blushes and
bows, looking half-dazzled by the radiant vision that shines upon
him; "but he may be detained. He is very busy today, as he leaves
Firlands tomorrow."

"The gentleman
don't know me, your ladyship," says the young fellow hesitantly;
and Pansy thinks how honest and pleasant are his looks and tones.
"But folks say he is very kind and charitable, and I've heard as
how he has a great deal to do with some almshouses, called
Thanksgiving Cottages, up in London. There's an old lady as I'm
trying hard to get into an almshouse, or something of the sort. I
thought if so be as I could tell the gentleman all about it -- but
Jenks here tells me, begging your pardon, my lady, as how you're
a-going to be his good lady -- and if you'd only have the goodness
to put in a word for this here party with Mr. Holme, we'd all be
most uncommon grateful to your ladyship."

"
I will do what I can," says Pansy, "but I
believe the carriage is waiting. I am going out. Please tell me as
quickly as possible the facts of the case concerning which you are
applying to Mr. Holme."

Jenks has left
the hall by this time, and the young man stands with uncovered
head, talking earnestly and eagerly to the gracious young lady who
waits among the plants and statues to hear his tale.

"The
person as I wants to get into Thanksgiving Cottages, miss -- seeing
as our minister told me once he had visited them, and nice cosy
homelike places they were -- is an old lady that has seen better
days. She talks of going into the workhouse, but that we
will
never
let her do. She's
a poor broken-down body, my lady, as ever you see, though there's
one belonging to her, I'm told, as is rolling in money, but that's
neither here nor there, seeing as how she don't take no notice of
the old lady, and she have made my Deb promise she'll never ask no
favours nor no money for her from them as washes their hands of her
-- more shame to them, begging your ladyship's pardon."

His
speech is so eager as to become involved, and Pansy shivers, though
her cloak is cosily lined and the evening is warm. She fixes her
eyes on his face, and says in a voice that scarcely seems
her
own, "Tell
me more. Who is she? Where
is she? You want to get her in the
almshouse?
"

"That's
better, at any rate, than the workhouse, my lady, thanking you for
your kind interest in the poor old party. She isn't so to speak
altogether right in her head at times. Deb says it's the trouble
have broken her down, but then again at other times she'll seem to
come to herself, and when she do she frets at being a burden on
Deb, and nothing will content her but that we promise to put her
somewhere where she'll be no expense to Deb."

"Who is Deb?"
asks Pansy, putting her hand to her head. She thinks she hears Miss
Ashburne's voice in the corridor above, but she must comprehend who
it is this young man is trying to get into the almshouse.

"Deb is
my wife, your ladyship," he says, a little proudly. "We've been
married five weeks next Tuesday. I were engaged for a thorough good
place -- a lodge and all -- and directly I knows my good fortune I
says, 'We'll get married, Deb, my girl, right off', for we'd been
engaged nigh a year. Says I, 'We're young and strong, and we'll
work hard, and fare hard, and pray hard, Deb, as I heard a good
minister advise a young pair once, and the old lady shall live
along with us and want for nothing.' So we got married, my lady,
and come to Firlands a month ago, and we hadn't got into the lodge
before my master that was to be had some property left him in
Scotland, and he let his place here right off to a gentleman as
brought his own servants. There was gardeners already on his
Scottish estate, and he said as how he wanted to keep on the old
hands if he could. He
give
me a
sovereign, and I looked here and there for a job. I've got work
here for a bit, but it won't last long. Deb, she takes in washing,
and she's hard at it day and night, so to speak, and the old lady
sews a bit; but that's all she can do. Do you think you could speak
a word for the poor body to the good gentleman, my lady?
"

"Come in
here," says Pansy, opening the door of a little sitting room, for
she can hear Miss Ashburne coming down the stairs. "I can listen
better here."

"This is where
Jenks put her to wait, my lady. I brought the old lady along with
me. Miss Piper, ma'am, rouse yourself a bit. The good gentleman
isn't in yet, but here's a kind lady as is going to do her best to
get you a real happy home."

For an instant
their eyes meet. A light comes into the changed, sunken face, aged
by illness and sorrow. The shabby old woman in the thin black dress
lays a trembling hand on Pansy's silvery fur with a gasp of
delight. But Pansy hears Miss Ashburne's voice and Major
Grenville's step in the hall -- another moment and the story will
be public. She turns hastily away, tells the young man she will see
what she can do, but she can spare him no more time. He thanks her
humbly and gratefully, and the aged figure in the corner of the
little room sinks back listlessly into her usual state of
quietude.

Pansy does not
know how she gets through that evening, or how she converses with
her host to whose care she is entrusted for dinner. Everyone
notices how unwell she looks, and Lady Grace tells her, smilingly,
that she is evidently pining for her lost liberty.

"I fear I made
a mistake, darling," says Marlow Holme during the evening, "in
pressing you to come to Firlands. Some say the air is relaxing
here, but it does not suit you at all. Your head aches, does it
not, sweetheart?"

They are
together in the fernery at the back of the drawing room, and he
draws her tenderly into his arms. Pansy longs to lean her head on
his shoulder and tell him her troubles and the shock she has
received this day. But he would never think the same of her again
if he knew she had deceived him in concealing her former obscurity.
Marlow is so different in his notions to other people that he might
even advise her to become Aunt Piper's child once more and give up
her splendid inheritance.

"Yes,
Marlow," she says, half sobbing, "my head aches badly, and the
music confuses it. I do not think Firlands
can
suit me. I feel so depressed and out of sorts
altogether."

"I know
the mood you mean, Pansy," he says.
"
I
have had many a grey, clouded day of my own. The only comfort is
that no mood, no depression, can shut us from the Master's love. He
loves us and remembers us and cares for us, whether we be cast down
or in sunlight."

Mobs's Text Card.

NEXT morning
Pansy and Miss Ashburne are breakfasting together at the hotel,
prior to their journey by train to London, and the older lady is
admonishing the younger concerning her lack of appetite, when a
bustle is heard in the corridor and Martha Sotham rushes in,
exclaiming excitedly, "I would not let them announce me -- I know
the London train goes soon -- but you will delay your return to
town, will you not, Pansy? I told you I would try and get news of
Miss Temperance Piper. Whatever do you think? She is in Firlands,
poor soul. And Deb is married, and----"

"Miss
Ashburne, Miss Sotham," says Pansy, somewhat nervously, "I do not
think you have met before. Martha, your visit is an early one. You
will be glad, no doubt, of a cup of coffee."

"I have
finished," says Miss Ashburne. "I must just see how the maid is
getting on with the packing. Pray take my seat, Miss Sotham."

Greatly to
Pansy's relief her companion glides away, aware that she would be
one too many in the conversation. But Miss Ashburne has already
made up her mind to try and unearth this mystery that concerns the
lady of Silverbeach. The knowledge might give her a hold over
Pansy, which would be personally advantageous.

"Quite
the lady, isn't she?" observes Martha, watching Miss Ashburne's
retreating figure. "No, thank you, Pansy, no coffee. I breakfasted
at seven, because it's father's day to drive to Firlands and call
at the Wilberforce, and I thought I could just catch you before you
left. But when you hear my news you'll be for staying here awhile
longer,
I
know. Some of our Polesheaton
folks have seen Miss Piper in Firlands, and I know now where she
lives. Oh, Pansy, they do say she looks so very poor. She'll be as
proud as a queen to find you've been fretting about her and to have
a sight of you again. Deb has married a gardener, but they have a
struggle to get along, I fancy."

"
I cannot give you long, Martha," says Pansy,
looking confused, and taking out her watch, which causes Martha to
say, "Set with diamonds -- what a beauty!"

"I never like
to hurry for a train, and all our arrangements are complete to
return to London this morning. I was aware of what you told me
already. I knew it yesterday."

"Oh,
then, you have seen your Aunt Temperance," cries Martha excitedly.
"Mother
will
be pleased. The poor old
lady must have been half wild with delight to see you again. Do
tell me all about it, Pansy. Is Miss Piper changed very much? And
whatever did Deb say when you went there, looking so
genteel?
"

"Martha,"
comes the constrained reply, "there are family circumstances to
which I can only allude in confidence. I do not wish my affairs to
be the talk of Polesheaton, but I may as well tell you at once,
quite between ourselves, that I have not conversed with Aunt
Temperance. Nor shall I be able to do so. Our lives must lie apart.
I was naturally anxious to know something of her fate when I called
upon you, and I shall entrust your father with a sum of money for
her use. But I cannot visit her, or in any other way acknowledge
our relationship."

"But why
not?"
asks Martha, with wondering eyes. "I don't see
why you should not get her some good clothes, and have her to live
with you at Silverbeach. I know
I'll
look
after
my
mother as long as I can, and
folks say Miss Piper was every bit like a mother to you, Pansy. I
think it will be a shame if you don't see a good deal of her, poor
soul, now that you are quite your own mistress.