"Nay, sweet one, I would not do that;" he answered as he drew her to him and kissed her. "I am in a strange humour to-night. I hardly know myself. I could laugh and I could sing, and yet--and yet--poor Von Rosenberg!" He turned away with a sigh.
At this moment in came Mr. Bunce again. "If you please, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Brooke, "here's a strange young pusson come running to the Towers all in a hurry, who says she must see you without a minute's delay."
The "strange young pusson" had followed close on his heels. "Yes, mum, without a minute's delay," she contrived to gasp out, and then she stood panting, unable to articulate another word. She was breathless with running.
"Well, if ever!" exclaimed the scandalised Bunce, turning sharply on her. "Why, you ain't even wiped your shoes."
"That will do, Bunce, thank you," said Mrs. Brooke with quiet dignity.
Bunce sniffed and tried to screw up his nose further than nature had done already. "Sich muck!" was his comment to himself as he left the room.
The person to whom this depreciatory epithet was applied was a girl of some sixteen or seventeen summers, Margery Shook by name, who was dressed in a coarse but clean bib and apron, a short cotton frock considerably the worse for wear, gray worsted stockings, thick shoes, and a quilted sun-bonnet, from under the flap of which her nut-brown hair made its escape in tangled elf-like locks. Her bright hazel eyes had in them more of the expression of some half-tamed animal than that of an ordinary human being. Her features, though by no means uncomely, were somewhat heavily moulded and did not respond readily to emotional expression. For the rest, she was a well-grown strongly-built girl, and when she laughed her teeth flashed upon you like a surprise.
Margery's laugh, if laugh it could be called, was perhaps the most singular thing about her. It was witch-like, weird, uncanny; it never extended to her eyes; it broke out at the most inopportune moments; to have been awoke by it in the dead of night, and not to have known whence it emanated, might have shaken the nerves of the strongest man.
Margery was an orphan, and until she was sixteen years old, had been brought up on a canal barge. It was her boast that she could drive a horse or steer a barge as well as any man between London and the Midlands. But there came a day when the girl could no longer either drive or handle the rudder. Ague had got her in its merciless grip. The barge-man for whom she worked landed her at King's Harold with instructions to a relative of his to pass her on to the workhouse. But before this could be done Mrs. Brooke had found out the sick girl. She was placed in a decent lodging, and the mistress of Beechley Towers paid all expenses till she was thoroughly restored to health. But not only did she do that: she went to see Margery three or four times a week, and eat with her, and talked with her, and read to her, and tried in various ways to let a few rays of light into the girl's darkened mind. Sometimes it happened that Mr. Brooke would call for his wife when she was on these expeditions, on which occasions he would always stay for a few minutes to have a chat with Margery, so that in a little while there was no such gentleman in existence as 'Muster Geril.' But towards Mrs. Brooke her feeling was one of boundless gratitude and devotion; it was like the devotion of a dumb animal rather than that of a rational being. Willingly, gladly would she have laid down her life for her benefactress, had such a sacrifice been required at her hands.
When the girl was thoroughly convalescent it became a question what should be done with her. Clara had extracted a promise from her never to go back to her old life on the canal. About this time it was that the Baron von Rosenberg set up his establishment at Beaulieu. An assistant was required in the laundry; Margery thought she should like the situation, so it was obtained for her.