“You hear what I say to you, Martha,” said Miss Susan, seeing that her maid turned gaping to the other speaker. “The East room, directly; and there is a child’s bed, isn’t there, somewhere in the house?”
“Yes, sure, Miss Susan; Master Herbert’s, as he had when he come first, and Miss Reine’s, but that’s bigger, as it’s the one she slept in at ten years old, afore you give her the little dressing-room; and then there’s an old cradle—”
“I don’t want a list of all the old furniture in the house,” cried Miss Susan, cutting Martha short, “and get a bath ready and some food for the child. Everything is to be done to make—this lady—comfortable—for the night.”
“Ah! I knew Madame would be a mother to me,” cried the stranger, suddenly rising up, and folding her unwilling hostess in an unexpected and unwelcome embrace. Miss Susan, half-resisting, felt her cheek touch the new-comer’s damp and somewhat rough black woollen gown with sensations which I cannot describe. Utter dismay took possession of her soul. The punishment of her sin had taken form and shape; it was no longer to be escaped from. What should she do, what could she do? She withdrew herself almost roughly from the hold of her captor, which was powerful enough to require an effort to get free, and shook her collar straight, and her hair, which had been deranged by this unexpected sign of affection. “Let everything be got ready at once,” she said, turning with peremptory tones to Martha, who had witnessed, with much dismay and surprise, her mistress’s discomfiture. The wind sighed and groaned in the great chimney, as if it sympathized with her trouble, and blew noisy blasts of rain against the windows. Miss Susan suppressed the thrill of hot impatience and longing to turn this new-comer to the door which moved her. It could not be done to-night. Nothing could warrant her in turning out her worst enemy to the mercy of the elements to-night.
That was the strangest night that had been passed in Whiteladies for years. The stranger dined with the ladies in the old hall, which astonished her, but which she thought ugly and cold. “It is a church; it is not a room,” she said, with a shiver. “I do not like to eat in a church.” Afterward, however, when she saw Augustine sit down, whom she watched wonderingly, she sat down also. “If ma sœur does it, I may do it,” she said. But she did a great many things at table which disgusted Miss Susan, who could think of nothing else but this strange intruder. She ate up her gravy with a piece of bread, pursuing the savory liquid round her plate. She declined to allow her knife and fork to be changed, to the great horror of Stevens. She addressed that correct and high-class servant familiarly as “my friend”—translating faithfully from her natural tongue—and drawing him into the conversation; a liberty which Stevens on his own account was not indisposed to take, but which he scorned to be led into by a stranger. Miss Susan breathed at last when her visitor was taken upstairs to bed. She went with her solemnly, and ushered her into the bright, luxurious English room, with its blazing fire, and warm curtains and soft carpet. The young woman’s eyes opened wide with wonder. “I lofe this,” she said, basking before the fire, and kissed Miss Susan again, notwithstanding her resistance. There was no one in the house so tall, not even Stevens, and to resist her effectually was not in anybody’s power at Whiteladies. The child had been carried upstairs, and lay, still dressed, fast asleep upon the bed.
“Shall I stay, ma’am, and help the—lady—with the chyild?” said Martha, in a whisper.
“No, no; she will know how to manage it herself,” said Miss Susan, not caring that any of the household should see too much of the stranger.
A curious, foreign-looking box, with many iron clamps and bands, had been brought from the railway in the interval. The candles were lighted, the fire burning, the kettle boiling on the hob, and a plentiful supply of bread and milk for the baby when it woke. What more could be required? Miss Susan left her undesired guests with a sense of relief, which, alas, was very short-lived. She had escaped, indeed, for the moment; but the prospect before her was so terrible, that her very heart sickened at it. What was she to do? She was in this woman’s power; in the power of a reckless creature, who could by a word hold her up to shame and bitter disgrace; who could take away from her all the honor she had earned in her long, honorable life, and leave a stigma upon her very grave. What could she do to get rid of her, to send her back again to her relations, to get her out of the desecrated house? Miss Susan’s state of mind, on this dreadful night, was one chaos of fear, doubt, misery, remorse, and pain. Her sin had found her out. Was she to be condemned to live hereafter all her life in presence of this constant reminder of it? If she had suffered but little before, she suffered enough to make up for it now.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The night was terrible for this peaceful household in a more extended sense than that deep misery which the arrival of the stranger cost Miss Susan. Those quiet people, mistresses and servants, had but just gone to bed when the yells of the child rang through the silence, waking and disturbing every one, from Jane, who slept with the intense sleep of youth, unawakable by all ordinary commotions, to Augustine, who spent the early night in prayer, and Miss Susan, who neither prayed nor slept, and felt as if she should be, henceforth, incapable of either. These yells continued for about an hour, during which time the household, driven distracted, made repeated visits in all manner of costumes to the door of the East room, which was locked, and from which the stranger shrilly repelled them.