CHAPTER IX.—SIR SYKES’S WARD.
There may be pleasanter positions in life than that of a dependant, especially when the claim to make one of the household rests on conditions which it is impossible to define. The governess, who is so often held up by moralists as an object for our conventional pity, needs not, surely, to forfeit her self-respect, inasmuch as she earns her salary and its contingent benefits by honest labour. The companion too gives valuable consideration in the shape of a perpetual offering up of her own time, tastes, and wishes, for her pay and maintenance. There are others sometimes however, kindred strangers within the rich man’s gates, who have no ostensible tasks to perform, who cannot give monthly or quarterly notice and go away, and yet whose bread is sometimes made very bitter to them—white slaves who get no compassion from the world at large.
Miss Willis at Carbery Chase was oddly situated. An orphan, she found herself domiciled amongst those who were allied to her neither by blood nor by the still more tenacious tie of common and early associations. She was exempt of course under that roof from many of the annoyances which fall to the lot of the motherless elsewhere. There was no domineering mistress of the house to resent every attention shewn to the interloper as something deducted from the rightful due of her own matchless girls; no niggard to grudge her every meal of which she partook at the stinted family table; or tyrant to pile upon her submissive shoulders the never-ending load of petty cares, which some genteel drudges perform unthanked.
At Carbery there was plenty and to spare. Sir Sykes was a gentleman bland and courteous; the girls as kind good girls as could easily be met with; and the servants sufficiently well trained to take their cue from their employers, and to be civil to one who was smiled on by the higher powers. Yet a sensitive young lady in the position which Sir Sykes’s ward now occupied, might well have been excused if her heart at times was somewhat heavy. All her old habits of life had been in a moment uprooted. She had been suddenly transferred from familiar scenes and people whose ways she understood, to a country every feature of which must have been strange and new to her. Under the circumstances and in spite of the good-nature of those around her, it is not surprising if Ruth Willis at times looked sad and pensive.
‘You cannot think how wonderful it seemed to me at first,’ she said one day to the younger Miss Denzil, ‘not to hear the drums beat tattoo at sundown, or how often I have started from my pillow in the early morning, fancying that I heard again the bugles sounding for the parade. Then the trumpeting of the elephants beside the tank, and the shrill voices of the dusky children at play beneath the peepul trees, and all the sights and sounds about my old home in India—I can’t forget them yet.’
Blanche was sympathetic; but she felt rather than reasoned that the grief for a father’s loss, the regrets for friends abruptly quitted and a mode of life abandoned, could not be assuaged merely by a kiss and a kind word. Yet it was evident that Ruth was by no means disposed to play the part of a kill-joy in the house beneath whose roof she was now established, or to enact the martyr. Her manner was very soft and gentle, not obtrusively sad or unduly deferential, but that of one who sincerely wishes to please. She had a way of bending her will as it were to that of those with whom she now associated, which was really very pretty and graceful, and harmonised well with the modest drooping of her eyelids when she spoke. There were times (so her ill-wishers said, the latter being some of those vigilant critics who take our wage and wear our livery, or it may be caps and aprons and cotton prints such as we sanction, but who are not always too lenient censors of our conduct) when her whole face seemed to change its expression by the mere opening of the fine dark eyes fraught with a singular look, which the same critics averred to be that of ill-temper. But if Miss Willis had not, as Lucy and Blanche Denzil believed her to have, the temper of a lamb, it must be admitted that she was capable of very great self-restraint, since in general conversation she was only too ready to acquiesce with the opinions of others. Jasper had observed the singular brightening of Ruth’s eyes sometimes, when she turned them on Sir Sykes, but never towards himself; while his unsuspecting sisters saw no peculiarity in the bearing of the stranger whom they had learned to like.
‘I could really believe,’ said Jasper to himself more than once, ‘that my father is afraid of that girl—and no wonder after all!’ he added, after a moment’s reflection. Certainly Sir Sykes did appear somewhat over-anxious that his ward should be happy and comfortable at Carbery, that her tastes should be studied, and her inclinations consulted. Yet he never seemed at ease in her company, and always escaped from her presence as early as politeness permitted; so that his own daughters set down his behaviour as merely prompted by an over-strained sense of hospitality.
There was a fascination in the guest’s bearing and conversation, to which even Jasper, with all his predisposition to dislike her, could not but succumb. No great talker, Miss Willis had the power, somehow, of making what she did say more effective than what fell from other lips than hers. What this art or this gift might be, Jasper Denzil, who was no stranger to women and their ways, could not divine. The girl’s voice was rich though low, and admirably modulated, although of music, as she frankly confessed, she knew nothing whatever. And her eyes—the one redeeming feature of a plain pale face—could flash and glitter with wondrously changing play of light; eyes and voice and words all blending together to convey the expression which their owner desired that they should impart.
There was one person to whom the baronet’s ward appeared in the light of an enigma, and this was Lord Harrogate, himself a frequent visitor at the home of the Denzils, between whose family and his own there was indeed some kind of connection. He had given up as preposterous the idea that he had ever seen Miss Willis before. That was of course erroneous, and he must have been the dupe of a fancied resemblance. But he was sufficiently quick-sighted to perceive, what was apparent neither to his sisters nor to Jasper, nor to the Earl or Countess, that a strong sharply marked character was concealed behind the gentle half-bashful demeanour which it pleased Miss Willis to assume.
‘I never saw the iron hand,’ he thought to himself, ‘so well hidden before by the velvet glove; but it’s there for all that. Yonder girl looks capable of turning the whole family round her finger.’
Meanwhile Jasper at anyrate had other subjects for contemplation than were presented by a psychological study of the orphaned daughter of the late Major Willis, of the Honourable East India Company’s Service. Gentlemen who own and gentlemen who are going to ride horses intended to win a race which had so suddenly swelled into importance as the forthcoming one at Pebworth, have need of frequent communication with one another. Jasper during the next ten days was often in his principal’s company, sometimes at Pebworth, now and then at Exeter, when the routine of military duty held the other captain to his post.
In the interim, Captain Denzil could tell by the language of the newspapers which were the accredited organs of the turf, how considerable was the excitement evoked by the selection of Pebworth as a place where might be matched against one another some of the finest weight-carriers chronicled in the Stud Book. The wildest rumours were afloat, and an April sky was not more changeable than were the odds, as reported from the headquarters of gambling, London and Liverpool. Sometimes the bookmakers were reported to be assured of triumph; sometimes it was hinted that the great betting firms would be severely hit, so unexpected would be the finish of the race.
‘Why,’ indignantly demanded one influential paper, ‘should Pebworth be dragged into the daylight?’ Nor were the other organs of the sporting press slow to swell the chorus of complaint that a cramped and hitherto unheard-of course, situated in an obscure nook of the far west, should be the arena for a struggle such as was anticipated. And then followed dark innuendos and vague suggestions as to the motives of the noble lord who owned The Smasher, and the scarcely less illustrious commoner to whom Brother to Highflyer appertained. During the period preceding the race, the most contradictory rumours were incessantly published with reference to the rival favourites. They were ill; they were well; they had met with all the accidents slight or serious to which the equine genus is liable. One of these important animals had a cough. The other was not quite sound of limb. Both had been overtrained. No. Their training was insufficient, and any nameless outsider could reach the winning-post before them. Once again both horses were in the very perfection of bloom and beauty, and would compete fairly for the prize.
Strange faces, some of which were not calculated to inspire confidence in those who had silver spoons in the pantry or linen drying on garden-hedge, began to appear at Pebworth and the parts adjacent. Lodgings were in such request that the meanest rooms were eagerly disputed at fancy prices, while inn and beershop drove a brisker trade than had been known since Pebworth had been disfranchised.
‘Sad business, Denzil, this!’ exclaimed Jack Podgers as he dashed into the private parlour of the De Vere Arms. ‘Here’s a private telegram, and here a special edition of a sporting paper. Both agree as to the facts.’
Jasper glanced at the telegram and at the paragraph. Yes. A most unfortunate accident, due to the carelessness of a porter, had occurred to Brother to Highflyer, just as that noble horse was being led from his box to the platform. Mr Splint, the eminent veterinary surgeon, summoned in hot haste, had examined the off fore-leg, and had expressed a positive opinion; in deference to which Mr John Knavesmire the trainer and Mr Wylie the owner had reluctantly decided to withdraw the name of Brother to Highflyer from the list.
‘The race naturally must be won by the other favourite, The Smasher,’ said Captain Prodgers with a grim smile.