Miss Manning, a tall, thin, rather nervous-looking lady of very decided age, steps inside the gate, and glances from Wyndham to Mrs. Denis and back again interrogatively.
‘This is Miss Moore’s housekeeper, cook, and general factotum,’ says Wyndham, making a hasty introduction, and with a warning glance towards Mrs. Denis, who has dropped a rather stiff curtsy. ‘Yours too. She will remove all troubles from your shoulders, and will take excellent care of you, I don’t doubt.’ He pauses to give Mrs. Denis—who is looking glum, to say the least of it—room for one of her always only too ready speeches, but nothing comes. ‘Eh?’ says he, in a sharp metallic voice that brings Mrs. Denis to her senses with a jump.
‘Yes, sir,’ says she, and no more—no promises of obedience.
Wyndham hurries Miss Manning past her.
‘The other maid you can manage,’ says he, in a low tone, ‘and no doubt Mrs. Denis after awhile. She is a highly respectable woman, if a little unreasonable, and a little too devoted to your pupil. About the latter’—hastily—‘you know everything—her whole history—that is, so far as I know it—even to her peculiarities. You quite understand that she refuses to leave these grounds, and you know, too, her reasons for refusing—reasons not to be combated. They seem absurd to me, as I don’t believe that fellow has the slightest claim upon her; but she thinks otherwise. And—well, they are her reasons’—he pauses—‘and therefore to be respected.’
‘Certainly,’ says Miss Manning, in a low, very gentle voice, ‘and I shall respect them.’ Her voice is charming. Wyndham tells himself that he could hardly have made a better choice of a companion for this strange girl who has been so inconveniently flung into his life. Miss Manning’s face, too, is one to inspire instant confidence. Her eyes are earnest and thoughtful; her mouth kind, if sad. That she has endured much sorrow is written on every feature; but troubles have failed to embitter a spirit made up of Nature’s sweetest graces. And now, indeed, joy is lighting up her gentle eyes, and happy expectancy is making warm her heart. A month ago she had been in almost abject poverty—scarce knowing where to find the next day’s bread—when a most merciful God had sent her Paul Wyndham to lift her from her Slough of Despond to such a state of prosperity as she had never dared to dream of since as a child she ran gaily in her father’s meadows.
‘I am sure of that,’ says Wyndham heartily. ‘I am certain I can give her into your hands in all safety. I know very little of her, but she seems a good girl, not altogether tractable, perhaps, but I hope you will be able to get on with her. If, however, the dulness, the enforced solitude, becomes too much for you, you must let me know.’
‘I shall never have to let you know that,’ says Miss Manning, in a low, tremulous tone. ‘A home in the country, a young companion, a garden to tend—for long and very sad years I have dreamt of such things, but never with a hope of seeing them. And now, if I have seemed poor in my thanks, Paul—’
She breaks off, turning her head aside.
‘Yes, yes; I understand,’ says Wyndham hurriedly, dreading, yet feeling very tenderly towards her emotion. Once again he congratulates himself on having thought of this sweet woman in his difficulty.