CHAPTER X.
MRS. WILSON.
Mr. Lumley called on the following day, accompanied by a very small, slight lady, in the deep mourning of a widow. She was evidently of a nervous temperament, and the excitement of driving herself and the clergyman in a little pony carriage had flushed and agitated her so much that it took her a few minutes to recover breath and composure before she could go through the ceremony of introduction. Then she discovered that a small black bag, which contained her cardcase and handkerchief, was missing, and Mr. Lumley good-naturedly offered to relieve her distress by going and searching for it in the carriage.
When he had gone, Florence, who, in compassion to the lady’s tremors, had kept aloof from the armchair in which she sat sniffing hard at a vinaigrette, ventured to quietly approach.
“Will you let me take your bonnet for a few minutes? This room is so warm.”
“Thank you—thank you!” was the answer, spoken gratefully, though in the same hurried, faltering manner. “You are very kind! But my hair—I’m afraid my hair is scarcely——” And then she made an awkward pause, but went on again in another minute: “I think I’ll loosen my shawl while I stay.”
And her fluttering hands began to drag at the brooch that secured it, but with such evident obliviousness of where the fastening began and ended that Florence stooped down and took it off for her.
This simple action did much toward restoring the lady’s equanimity, and when Florence proceeded to put a stool under her feet and arrange the window curtains so that the sun should not shine too fully into the flushed face of her visitor, she was thanked quite warmly.
“My dear, I’m giving you a great deal of trouble. And at such a time as this, too!”
And the lady’s troubled, sympathetic look rested on Florence’s black dress.
“It does me good to forget myself a while,” she answered gently. “Will you have a little water, or a glass of wine?”
“No, thank you. Pray sit down; I cannot bear to see you stand. You are so different to what I expected to find you that I think I shall be able to talk quite freely to you.”
Florence smiled faintly at this frank confession.
“What did you expect me to be like?”
The lady fidgeted with the folds of her dress.
“Oh, pray forgive me for making such a foolish remark; but Mr. Lumley had impressed it upon me so much that you had been—been differently circumstanced, that I could not help getting worried and uneasy lest I should hurt your feelings. I hope,” she added anxiously, “that I am not doing so now.”
“Not at all, dear madam. I am sure you are here with the kindest intentions.”
The little lady looked inexpressibly relieved.
“Thank you—thank you! If ever a doubt of my meaning should arise, pray set it down to my foolish nervousness, and not to deliberate unkindness, for I had a daughter once.” Her voice quivered a little as she said this, and her thin white fingers clutched Florence’s arm. “I can very seldom trust myself to speak of her, but for her sake my heart yearns to the young and—and sorrowful.”
Moved by an irresistible impulse, Florence put her lips to the hand that had now slid into her own, and the little lady, warned by the tears gathering in the orphan’s eyes, began to talk more cheerfully.
“I quite hope we shall understand and like each other. My name is Wilson, and I have come to you——”
Mr. Lumley’s entrance interrupted her. He had found the missing bag, and nodded good-humoredly when he saw the confidential attitude the ladies had taken.
“Then you have introduced yourself, Mrs. Wilson! That’s right! And is Miss Heriton inclined to accept your proposals?”
“I don’t know yet. I have scarcely had time to ask her.”
Mr. Lumley looked at his watch; his leisure was limited, and he had purposely lingered outside to give Mrs. Wilson an opportunity of speaking openly. She saw his impatient glance, and rose directly.
“I am keeping you waiting. I am so sorry! Perhaps it would be better, as I am such a timid driver, for you to take the carriage back, and let me walk. I am sure I can manage it, and I would not waste your valuable time for the world!”
“I have still ten minutes to spare, and I could not think of letting you walk back such a distance,” Mr. Lumley decidedly replied. “If you will kindly say what you wish to Miss Heriton at once, I shall be glad.”
But she was in such a state of confusion between her uneasiness on his account and the difficulty of rearranging her shawl, that he had to make the necessary explanation of their errand himself.
“Mrs. Wilson wishes to know, Miss Heriton, if you are inclined to take upon yourself the charge of two children now on their way from India, to be placed in her motherly care? Their guardian offers a liberal salary, and I think I can promise you on his part all proper respect and consideration.”
“Should I be required to reside in the house?” asked Florence. “For I must confess that I should prefer a home of my own, even though it will be but a lonely one.”
Mrs. Wilson now interposed.
“My dear, you are too young to do this. I am afraid you think I am fidgety, and might be too interfering; but you would have your own sitting room, and I am very much taken up with my housekeeping duties. I should never think of coming into your apartments unless you were ill or low-spirited. And anything you can propose—any stipulations you like to make—shall certainly be adhered to.”
“You speak as if you would be the obliged party, dear madam, instead of me,” Florence answered, after a few moments given to consideration. “You are very good, and if you and Mr. Lumley think me fitted for the situation you offer, I shall be pleased to accept it.”
She did not say this without an effort. To enter a family as resident governess was renouncing the little remnant of independence she had been cherishing, but in her isolated position it would have been both rash and ungrateful to refuse.
“Then it is settled?” asked Mrs. Wilson. “I am very glad. And when will you come to me, my dear Miss Heriton? I am very busy getting the house into order—Orwell Court, you know. And your advice and suggestions in the arrangement of the books and pictures will be such an assistance to me. Could you come to-morrow?”
“Orwell Court!” Florence repeated. “I thought—that is, I understood——” And then, ashamed to repeat Mrs. Bick’s gossiping and apparently mistaken details, she hastily said: “Not to-morrow, but the following day, if you like. Mrs. Bick’s sister will be here by that time; I should not care to leave her alone.”
“Very well. Then a carriage shall be sent for you and your trunks at whatever hour will suit you,” Mrs. Wilson answered. When this point was settled she turned to Mr. Lumley, who was waiting to hand her into their vehicle, and said, with a little air of triumph: “You can’t think how glad I am that we have arranged this business so nicely. I was quite worried about it, and have wished over and over again that Mr. Aylwinne had not delegated it to me.”
Florence, who was fastening her brooch, looked up so inquiringly that the lady saw it and kindly asked:
“What is it, my dear? Is there anything I have forgotten to say?”
“Only that I do not know who Mr. Aylwinne is, or what he has to do with our arrangements.”
Mrs. Wilson looked dreadfully perplexed, and arrested Mr. Lumley’s movements as he was leading her to the door.
“Haven’t you told Miss Heriton? Haven’t you explained to her?”
“My dear madam,” answered the clergyman, whose patience was fast waning, “I have had no opportunity for explanation. I left all that sort of thing to you.”
“And she does not even know who Mr. Aylwinne is!” cried Mrs. Wilson, in dismay.
“That I can soon tell her. Miss Heriton, Mr. Aylwinne is an old college friend of mine, who has lately purchased Orwell Court. And I have such certain knowledge of his goodness of heart that I think I can fairly promise you a happy home beneath his roof. Now, my dear Mrs. Wilson, we really must go, for I have visits to pay to some sick persons that cannot be put off.”
With another apology for her tardiness, Mrs. Wilson made such a hurried exit that she forgot to bid Florence adieu; but remembered the omission as she was stepping into the carriage, and ran back to rectify it.
“Good-by, my dear—good-by! How rude you must think me! I will send for you punctually to the hour, so mind and be ready.”
The next minute she was gone, and Florence, a little bewildered by her visit and its consequences, sat down to think. Then Mrs. Bick was right, after all, and the dark, bearded stranger of the Albany was the Mr. Aylwinne who had taken Orwell Court. If she had known this sooner, nothing would have induced her to accept the situation which she had just agreed to fill; and even as it was she was very much disposed to write and decline it. She felt an invincible repugnance to encounter again a person in some degree connected with her painful visits to Lieutenant Mason’s chambers. Yet on what plea could she now draw back? Mrs. Wilson might be easily put off with some plausible excuse, but to the more keen and penetrating Mr. Lumley she must give the actual reason for her change of mind. And how paltry it would appear to confess that she disliked meeting a person from whom she had received nothing but the most considerate kindness.
“I am afraid,” mused Florence, “that this is a remnant of the foolish pride of birth I have often promised myself to subdue. I wish I had Susan Denham here to advise me.”
Ignorant of her friend’s absence from London, she had been looking daily for an answer to the letter she had written announcing her father’s decease, and the changes which had consequently arisen in her plans. Florence had been secretly expecting that Susan would write and press her to share her apartments; and with a lingering hope that this long-looked-for missive would come by the morning’s post, and afford her a plausible pretext for declining the situation at Orwell Court, she went to rest, still undecided and dissatisfied.