CHAPTER V
THE CRACKSMAN'S CHECKMATE
Puckers, or Miss Puckers, as she liked to be called below-stairs, was a little puzzled by her young mistress's abstraction, while she brushed out Maud's wealth of raven hair for the night. Stealing glances at herself in the glass opposite, she could not help observing the expression on Miss Bruce's face. The light was in it once more that had been so quenched by her father's death. Puckers, who, in the housekeeper's room, had discussed the affairs of the family almost hourly ever since that sorrowful event, considered that it must have left his daughter in the possession of untold wealth, and that "the young man from town," as she designated Tom Ryfe, was sent down expressly to afford the heiress an estimate of her possessions. A true lady's-maid, she determined to hazard the inquiry.
"I suppose, miss," said she, brushing viciously, "we sha'n't be going to your aunt's now quite so soon. I'm sure I've been that hurried and put about, I don't scarce know which way to turn."
"Why?" asked Maud quietly. "Not so hard, please."
"Well, miss, a lady is not like a servant, you know; she can do as she chooses, of course. But if I was you, miss, I'd remain on the spot. There's the new furniture to get; there's the linen to see to; there's the bailiff given warning; and that there young man from town, I suppose he wouldn't come if we could do without him, charging goodness knows what, as if his very words was gold. But I give you joy, miss, of your fortune, I do. I was a-sayin', only last night, was it? to Mrs. Plummer, says I, 'Whatever my young lady will do,' says I, 'in a house where she isn't mistress, she that's been used to rule in her poor ma's time, and her pa's, ah! ever since she cut her teeth almost;' and Mrs. Plummer says, says she----"
"That'll do, Puckers," observed Miss Bruce, "I shall not want you any more. Good-night."
She took as little notice of her handmaid's volubility as if the latter had been a grey parrot, and dismissed her with a certain cold, imperial manner that none of the household ever dreamt it possible to dispute or disobey; but after Puckers, with a quantity of white draperies over her arm, had departed to return no more, she sat down at the dressing-table, and began to think with all her might.
Her maid was a fool, no doubt: all maids were; but the shaft of folly, shot at random, went home to the quick. "A house where she wasn't mistress!" Had she ever considered the future shelter offered her by Aunt Agatha in that light? Here at the Manor, for as long as she could remember, had she not reigned supreme? All the little arrangements of dinner-parties, picnics, archery-meetings, and such gatherings as make up country society, had fallen into her hands. Mamma didn't care--mamma never cared how anything was settled so long as papa was pleased; and papa thought Maud could not possibly do wrong. So by degrees--and this at an age when young ladies are ordinarily in the schoolroom--Miss Bruce had grown, on all social questions, to be the virtual head of the family. It was a position of which, till the time came to abdicate, she had not sufficiently appreciated the value. It seemed so natural to order carriages and horses at her own hours, to return visits, to receive guests, to do the honours of a comfortable country-house with an adequate establishment, and now, could she bear to live with Aunt Agatha, on sufferance?--Aunt Agatha, whom she had never liked, and whom she only refrained from snubbing and setting down, because they so seldom met, but when the elder lady had been invited by the younger as a guest! "To be dependent," thought Maud, mentally addressing the beautiful face in the glass, "How should you like that? you with your haughty head, and your scornful eyes, and your hard, unbending heart? I know you! Nobody knows you but me! And I know how bad you are--how capricious, and how cruel! When you want anything, do you ever spare anybody to get it? Did you ever love any one on earth as well as your own way? Even mamma? O, mamma, dear, dear mamma, if you had lived I might have got better--I was better, I know I was better while I was with you. But now--now I must be myself. I can't help it. After all, it is not my fault. What is it I most covet and desire in the world? It is power. Rank, wealth, luxury--these are all very well as accessories of life; but how should I loathe and hate them if they were conditional on my thinking as other people thought, or doing what I was told! I ought to have been a man. Women are such weak, vapid, idiotic characters, in general--at least, all I meet down here. Engrossed with their children, their parishes, their miserable household cares and perplexities. While in London, I believe there are women who actually lead a party and turn out a minister. But they are beautiful, of course. Well--and me? I don't think I am so much amiss. With my looks and the position I ought to have, surely I might hold my own with the best of them. But what good will my looks do me if I am to be a dependent on Aunt Agatha? No. Without the estate I am nothing. With it I might be anything. This lawyer thinks he can win it for me. I wonder if he knows. How clever he seems! and how thoughtful! Nothing escapes him, and nothing seems to take him by surprise. And yet what a fool I could make of him if I chose. I saw it before he had been five minutes in the room. I wonder now what he thinks of me!--whether he has the presumption to suppose I could ever allow him to betray what he cared for me. I believe I should rather admire his impudence! It is pleasant to be cared for, even by an inferior; and, after all, this Mr. Ryfe is not without his good points. He has plenty of talent and energy, and I should think audacity. By his own account he sticks at nothing, when he means winning, and he certainly means to win for me if he can. I never saw anybody so eager, so much in earnest. Perhaps he thinks that if he could come to me and say, 'There, Miss Bruce, I have saved your birthright for you, and I ask nothing but one kind word in return,' I might be disposed to give it, and something more. Well, I don't know. Perhaps it would be as good a way as any other of getting into favour. One thing is certain. The inheritance I must preserve at every sacrifice. Dear me, how late it is! I ought to have been in bed hours ago. Puckers, is that you?"